THE ship was approaching a planet, and Lyra was watching with wide eyes. On her left, Peter wrapped his fingers around hers, and on her right, Tony's. Lyra gulped, wondering how the hell they were going to defeat Thanos when none of them even knew what they were fighting. If he sent the Chitauri, he was powerful. If he had two stones like Bruce said, he was going to slaughter them.
Lyra was not very optimistic. She missed Steve at times like these where his speeches would come to play.
Letting her hands go from theirs, she narrowed her eyes at the fast-approaching planet. The ship began to shake. "Hey, what's going on?" Peter asked.
"I think we're here," Strange said.
"I don't think this rig has a self-park function," Tony said before he ran over to a large steering area. He looked at Lyra. "Get your hand into this steering gimbal. Close those around it. You understand?"
"Yep, got it," Lyra said, clicking her bracelet to have her suit form. She quickly placed her hand in it.
"This was meant for one big guy, so we gotta to move at the same time," Tony said as he hurriedly pressed his suit to form.
"Okay. Okay. Ready."
"We might wanna turn. Turn! Turn! Turn!!" Peter yelled as they realized this landing was going to be rough. Lyra and Tony looked at each other, trying to turn to save their lives. Strange created a shield around the four of them as they landed on the planet horribly. The ship did not stop as it went through the dirt causing Peter to yell out in fear. Suddenly, the ship was leaning on its side as it stopped.
Lyra saw the screen on the control panel. "Titan," she breathed as Tony was helped up by Strange. Peter fell next to Lyra to help her up.
Lyra's helmet flipped up to see Tony staring at her worriedly. "You okay, honey?"
"Fine," she breathed, keeping a hand on the metal rail next to her.
Tony glanced up at Strange. "You all right?" They were all panting. "That was close. I owe you one."
Behind them, Lyra smirked as Peter was hanging upside down using his webs. He looked like a spider. "Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something, and I eat one of you, I'm sorry."
Tony pointed at Peter. "I don't wanna hear another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?"
"I'm trying to say that... something is coming."
Suddenly, a grenade rolled into view as Tony threw himself in front Lyra as both of their helmets flipped down. When the energy from the grenade blasted them back, Lyra's eyes widened as three people appeared in the doorway.
"THANOS!" the shirtless man screamed as he flung a blade at Strange, who deflected it with a mystical shield, and in return sent the cloak at the man's face. He was sent to the floor.
Lyra and Tony both went after the other man, sending blasts simultaneously at him as they flew out of the ship. Tony was magnetically pinned to a structure when the man sent something at him.
Peter was crawling backward frantically from the woman. "AH! Whoawhoawhoawhoa! PLEASE DON'T PUT YOUR EGGS IN ME!"
Lyra sent another blast at the man, causing him to fly backward as she turned to help Peter. Peter sent webs at the woman, but the man quickly went feet first into Peter.
"Stay down, clown!"
"Don't touch my kid!" Lyra screamed, landing on top of him as she straddled him and fired up her blasters at the man.
The man sent a punch at her, and she grinned just before getting cocky. He threw her off of him when Lyra was about to sent a final blast. She hit the rock behind her with a loud grunt.
"Die, blanket of death!" was shouted next to her.
Tony broke free of the magnet just as Lyra stood up and went after the other man again. Before she could, the man grabbed her by the neck and held a gun to her head. She had no idea what kind of weapons they had, but Strange placed a shield in front of Peter as the woman was cowering behind them. Tony stood over the man fighting with the cloak with his blasters out.
"All right, everybody, stay where you are... chill the F out," the man holding Lyra said, turning off his helmet. He looked normal enough. Human. "I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where's Gamora?"
Tony took off his helmet. "Yeah, I'll do you one better. Who's Gamora?"
The man under Tony's armor-covered foot called out, "I'll do you one better. Why is Gamora?"
"Tell me where the girl is, or I swear to you, I'm gonna French-fry this little freak," he screamed.
Lyra took off her helmet with a glare. "Say it again, ass wipe!"
"Oh, shit, you're a girl?" he asked.
"Let's do it! You shoot my girl, I blast him. Let's go!" Tony yelled as he extended a gun that looked like a shark. Lyra furrowed her brows.
"Do it, Quill! I can take it."
"No, he can't take it!" the woman screamed.
Strange looked bored. "She's right. You can't."
Quill laughed. "Oh yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is? That's fine. I'll kill all four of you and beat it out of Thanos myself." He looked down at Lyra. "Starting with you."
Lyra lifted her hand as she let the fire flare up. She could easily break away from him, but she had a feeling they were on the same side. "Let's go, ass wipe. You have no idea who you're messing with."
Strange held up his hands as he took the shield off of Peter. "Wait, what. Thanos? All right, let me ask you this one time: What master do you serve?"
Quill looked confused. "What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say? Jesus?"
Lyra elbowed Quill, breaking from his grasp as she sighed. "You're from Earth?"
Quill kept his gun raised at her. "I'm not from Earth. I'm from Missouri."
Tony got off of the bare-chested man. "Yeah, that's on Earth, dip-shit. What are you hassling us for?"
Peter tilted his head. "So, you're not with Thanos?"
Quill dropped his gun. "With Thanos?! No, I'm here to kill Thanos! He took my girl–Wai–who are you?"
Peter smirked as his helmet flew off. "We're the Avengers, man."
"Oh."
The woman's eyes widened. "You're the ones Thor told us about!"
Lyra laughed. "You know Thor!?"
"Yeah. Tall guy, not that good-looking," Quill said as Peter gave him an incredulous look, "needed saving."
Strange sighed. "Where is he now?"
"He went to find a weapon," the man that was under Tony stood up as he said this. She was ecstatic that Thor was alive. She smiled at Peter. "Took our raccoon and tree."
Lyra nodded, eyes flickering to Tony. He scowled. "Tony Stark," he finally said. "Iron Man? Right, okay," he said when they did not move. "My wife, Lyra Stark. Iron Princess? No. Spider Man, Peter Parker. Dr. Strange. Who are you guys?"
Quill nodded. "The Guardians of the fricken Galaxy. Peter Quill, Star Lord! There's Drax and Mantis. Gamora was taken by Thanos. Rocket and Groot went with Thor."
Lyra nodded. "Great, okay. Yeah, the raccoon and the tree. Glad introductions are done. Peter, honey? Are you okay?"
Peter nodded with a laugh as she tilted his head to make sure nothing hurt him.
Quill took out a device as he seemed to measure something. "The heck happened to this planet? It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place."
Lyra eyed Mantis as she jumped around. "Yeah, we got one advantage," Lyra said. "He's coming to us."
"We'll use it. All right, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet," Tony said as they circled up. Lyra and Tony watched Drax yawn. "Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"
"I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan,'" Drax said with no remorse. Lyra rubbed her forehead with a sigh.
Tony looked at Quill "Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page."
"See, 'not winging it' isn't really what they do," Quill said.
"Uh, what exactly is it that they do?" Peter asked.
Mantis narrowed her eyes. "Kick names... take ass."
Drax nodded. "Yeah, that's right."
Tony looked at Lyra with hopelessness in his eyes. "All right, just get over here, please. Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?"
Quill laughed. "Mr. Lord. Star-Lord is fine," he said as he motioned to Drax and Mantis.
"We gotta coalesce. 'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude—"
"Dude, don't call us plucky. We don't know what it means," Quill said as Lyra's eyes met Peter's with a struggling reassuring smile. "All right, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plan, and that way it might be really good." Peter's head went to all of them like a tennis match as he watched them talk.
"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe," Drax suddenly said.
"What dance-off?" Lyra asked with a questioning look, actually wanting to hear about this. Tony gave her a look that asked why she was going along with their idiocy.
Quill looked embarrassed. "It's not a... it's not... it's nothing."
Peter snapped his fingers. "Like in Footloose, the movie?"
Quill became excited. "Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?"
Peter shook his head. "It never was." Quill frowned sadly.
Tony pointed to Peter and then Lyra. "Don't encourage this, all right?"
Peter nodded. "Okay." Lyra nodded with a small amused glint in her eyes.
Tony sighed. "We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here."
"Flash Gordon? By the way, that's a compliment. Don't forget, I'm half human," Quill pointed to the three of them. "So that 50% of me that's stupid? That's 100% you."
"Your math is blowing my mind," Lyra said sarcastically, eyes rolling as she looked at Tony. "What are we going to do, Tone?"
Mantis called worriedly. "Excuse me, but... does your friend often do that?"
They all turned to see Strange sitting cross-legged while he floated above the ground. The Time Stone was glowing brightly as a green energy flowed around him. His eyes were closed as his head jerked around rapidly. It was nauseating to look at.
"Strange, we all right?" Tony called.
Strange snapped out of his trance and fell forward, letting out a cry. Lyra ran to him to help him up.
"You're back. You're all right," Lyra said with a smile as she backed away to Tony again. Strange was staring at the ground heatedly.
Peter scratched his head. "Hey, what was that?"
"I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict," Strange said.
"How many did you see?" Quill asked.
"14,000,605," Strange admitted.
"How many did we win?"
Strange stared intently at Lyra for a moment, before he simply said,
"One."