Owner Pose
Carol Danvers Somewhere in the habitable zone around Jupiter, orbiting the moon of Europa, is a colossal spacecraft. Almost a kilometre long and a quarter of that wide, it hovers silent and still in the cold vacuum illuminated only by the distant sun and its light reflected from the tempestuous Jovian atmosphere. What's more ominous, the ship itself seems to be built in the image of a great sword - a pointed end, a long blade, and a hilt crossing the main hull near one end. It casts that ominous shadow over the surface of the Moon below.

"<That's it,>" Carol's voice comes through the comm system, the Mightiest Avenger (just accept it, Hulk and Thor) hovering outside the modified, spacefaring Quinjet that made the trip from Earth to the Outer Solar System, "<Not that we were in any danger of missing it. Are you picking up anything on the Quinjet's sensors?>"

The Avengers had reached out to their allies to help fill the complement on this particular mission. With Angels on Earth and all manner of other chaos erupting around the world, the supplemental hero-types were not only welcome, but needed. Besides, Ben Grimm was the reason Carol joined the Air Force in the first place.

"<Try and make contact with it.>"
Ben Grimm The Thing is probably the most experienced space pilot on Earth, certainly the most experienced one with a terrestrial origin. Part of the space refit of the Quinjet made the controls accessible to Ben's particular dimensions - no fiddly little buttons or dumb switches that he'd just break off. He helped to design the console and most of the controls were virtual reactive anyway, requiring just a flick of a big rocky finger to guide him with total precision.

<<Roger that, Cap. I dunno how much good diplomacy's gonna do, given that their ship looks like it came out of a D&D handbook," he says. Hey, Franklin had gotten him to play a little bit. His dwarf healer was level 6, thank you very much.

Aloud in the ship, he says, "Somebody wanna take the comm and try to establish contact so's I don't get distracted and run us into a planet or somethin'?"
Diana Prince Diana could be in space, she just doesn't wanna be. She's also the strongest Justice Leaguer!

Here and now she stands in the center of the Quinjet with her armor on, her sword and shield on her back, and her dark hair loose around her shoulders. One of her hands is up holding on to one of the 'Oh Shit' handles on the ceiling of the jet.

She's staring forward at the viewport and listening to the com traffic.

"I can talk to them." The Princess offers as she's not but a few steps behind where Ben Grimm is seated.
Natasha Romanova This is Natasha Romanoff's first time in space, that she can recall. It's, um... harrowing. But kind of exilerating?? Natasha's not had many brand new experiences at this point in her long life. Part of her feels like she should be on the ground back home, but... last time she fought an invading army of freaks and monsters, it had all happened very suddenly, and heroes were hard to come by at the time. Now? Now there's... quite a few. And it's hard not to feel uniquely unqualified by comparison.

Regardless, they needed hands, and now she's here. Besides, this is hardly 'nothing' by comparison. Objects don't just accidentally look like weaponry.

Wearing a sleek white space-ready bodysuit with an attached helmet with a transparent front, Natasha peers into the cockpit from behind, noting "If anyone over there speaks any human languages, at least." Not that those Guardian weirdos seemed to have any trouble. She is, of course, also on standby to speak to anyone. Being the least trusting person on the team has to be SOME kind of qualification. For something.
Hyperion     The contact from the Avengers was welcome for Hyperion. He'd been doing his best to keep occupied and such in Metropolis, since New York was a bit.. chaotic at the moment. Rather than fighting on the frontlines, he was trying to help everyone else he could while so many heroes were off dealing with Angelic stuff.

    But receiving the call put him into space a few heartbeats later... and accelerating towards the coordinates suggested. His senses were dialed up to eleven as he went because it would suck to run into something he didn't notice.. while accelerating to relativistic speeds.

    But he was in range when Carol spoke to the group.. and sent a signal at least alerting the others to his approach as he decelerated to match them. It's odd how a cape might 'furl' in space, but his flight and a lot of his strength come from manipulation of gravitons, and anti-gravitons.. so don't ask. It's just one of those things.

    "Hyperion. Reporting in. This is your show. I am here to support it, so tell me how best I can help...." And yes, he is focusing on the ship so far away, using all of his senses to try to learn anything about it. He is scanning for EM emissions, etc... thermal. All of the above.
Wanda Maximoff Space Witch checking in! Wanda rarely prefers to sit in the back, and certainly not when they leave orbit. The passenger seat near Ben gives her an ideal vantage point over the Jovian vista and Europa nearer at hand. Where to look first? The iced-over satellite or the huge, sword-shaped craft?

Her smile is only slightly intimidated. The centre of the multiverse leans forward a little for a better view.

"You take us the nicest places, Ben."

The seat creaks as she slowly rubs her hands together to warm them. Twelve rings adorn her fingers. Bone and wood kiss metal silently, warmed up to the temperature of her skin. Her suit matches Natasha's, given she falls squarely in the somewhat human category. White gloves rest in her lap, allowing for those delicate articulated movements that prove helpful to her work.

Cherry motes wander over her pupils and irises like fireworks. Her lips part. "Is anyone else able to register the anomaly around the ship? It's close to it, so not a spatial warp." Her hand rises to her cheek, rubbing the skin in small circles that run anticlockwise. "The technology doesn't belong here. Not now. It feels like the temporal threads around the ship tangled or... twitching. Let me monitor it to see if it changes."
Carol Danvers "<Temporal threads?>" Carol muses, floating there in space a few dozen yards from the Quinjet's forward viewing port. She's clad in the blue, red and gold of Captain Marvel. Her head concealed in a repurposed and recolored Kree battle helmet. She turns faintly in the absence of gravity, looking towards Hyperion.

"<See if you can get a closer look, Hyperion. See if there's any view ports or windows with any action inside. Try and find a docking port.>

Turning back towards the Quinjet, Carol floats up to the glass and places a hand against it from the outside. She nods her head to Diana: "<Give 'em a call, Princess. See if they pick up.>"

Even this close to the ship, it remains unresponsive. The great sword-shaped vessel simply floating. No lights. No emissions of any kind. Only silence and the strange, temporal emanations.
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm nods to Diana, "Kinda figured you for the ambassadorship type. Showin' 'em my mug too early's only gonna scare 'em off," he says.

He looks over at Wanda and grins, "What can I say, I know how to show a lady a good time. Although I would rather be at the hockey game tonight than out here kissin' vacuum starin' at the Death Sword or whatever they call dis thing," he says. "Temporal threads, huh? Maybe it's some sort of compensator for faster than light travel? Ain't always easy to do without turnin' into grandpa."
Diana Prince "It looks like a broadsword, or a claymore." Diana quietly comments as she cans her eyes over the craft that they have approached. She glances to the others on the Jet before her eyes go forward to see Carol pressing a palm to the front. A quick nod is given as Diana walks upon her armored boots toward the space between the two forward facing chairs.

She leans over a bit, and reaches out to tap the comms as she's been in Quinjets before.

"Welcome visitors." Diana starts in a smooth and calm tone to her naturally smoky flavored voice. "We are representitives of the planet Earth, the lone planet within this star system that holds civilization. We have picked up your presence on our scanning systems, and are here to offer greeting, offer friendship and potential alliance. If you are in need of assistance, we would greatly appreciate any response you could give. We are a people who savor peace, life, and aspiring to be better. We hope that you would share these kind of values, and look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible."

She releases the comm button, and straightens up again...
Natasha Romanova Natasha just sort of... eyes Diana for a moment as she describes Humanity in such gentle terms. "... Hm." is all the sound she makes, standing with her arms folded. Part of her thinks 'armed and powerful' would have been a good addition, but... if they're hostile, maybe it's better to find that out as fast as possible.
Hyperion     Giving a nod to Carol, Hyperion drifts closer to the ship. He's not moving super fast as he doesn't want to trigger some automated defensive systems that might react to weapons fire speeds. He shifts his visual perceptions into atomic mode... trying to peer -through- the hull of the ship. Who knows if the ship has things to counter the effect?

    He keeps looking for EM emissions... but he's no soldier. Not a tech guy. "Wonder why the ship is doing its best impression of a hole in space. There is literally -no- EM emissions coming from it. None at all... is that odd?" he offers over comms as he drifts over the dorsal section of the ship.

    "Update. It looks like the Starboard side of the ship.. that's the right side, isn't it? Anyway, it seems there is some sort of airlock or docking port over here that -might- be usable."

    ".... approaching." he adds as he heads that way, coming to a stop as close to said port as he can get.
Wanda Maximoff "Projecting a field to overcome the effects moving at faster than light speed could produce that, though I would expect it tapers off?" Wanda follows along with Ben's explanation, though her forehead is lined by thought. "We won't know until we poke the bear."

The Quinjet projects her opinions softly over the comms. She sits back against the seat, unwilling to assume they are about to enter a desperate situation. Diana builds up that faith giving her greeting and introduction to unknown parties.

"I'm not sure failure to have electromagnetic emissions is natural. That," she nods at the vast craft, "isn't an illusion."

What they see is what they get.
Carol Danvers As Diana speaks into the communications array, there is a pregnant silence from the other ship. It seems as though it is definitely receiving the message, although no other sign is forthcoming. It's not until she finishes her speech that a screed of static tears back through the communicator, filling the cockpit with high-pitched white noise. Amidst the noise, voices can be heard. Almost the same voice, but with strange difference.

                    ... break ... >fzzzssh< ... open the >sksssh< ...

                         ... >fzshsh< -nderstand what you do! >kszh< ...

          ... adjusting temporal - >zzzssh< ...

                                        ... noooOOOOOOO >kshhhhhhhh<

Carol turns swiftly outside the window, leaving behind a trail of incandescent gold as she rockets across the empty space towards the shuttle. Though it still does not emanate any form of radiation, that strange temporal flux grows stronger.

"<Get in range of the docking port, Ben! Sounds like these people are in trouble.>"
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm grumbles a little under their breath, "I mean, if you say so, it's your ride, Cap, we'll go where you say you wanna go. Just gonna add my two cents that in trouble can mean a whole lotta things that still end up with us floatin' space junk. But I knew the job was dangerous when I took it," he says.

He maneuvers the ship with amazing precision and grace, tilting sideways slightly and then doing a light burst forward to get closer to the port.

"Preparing to dock. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!"
Diana Prince Diana glances down at the screen to see that the origins of the response did come from the swordship. She draws in a breath of the lovely Jet oxygen, before she turns around and starts to walk to the docking collar of the jet. "Strange that they would not initially send a emergency call out, if they were suffering ill situations aboard..." She comments as she grips another one of the hand rails hanging from the ceiling while they make finaly approach.

"Nice flying, too, Ben." She adds though, observing his skills from her standing place.
Natasha Romanova Natasha's brow furrows with concern - as much as she's willing to broadcast, anyway - as the message comes back. "At least one person." Natasha notes after Carol speaks, adding softly, "... I'm pretty sure that was just one person." Natasha frowns as she focuses on the sword ship. "... Never thought I'd say this, but we should have brought a psychic on board."

God, Natasha hates having her mind read.

She turns in place to keep her eyes on Diana as she moves past her, then follows closely after, far enough to start retrieving her gear pending boarding.
Hyperion     Drifting closer, Hyperion shakes his head. "I cannot penetrate the hull of the ship with my Atomic senses. But I can confirm a complete lack of EM emissions. I am moving into position on the docking port so when you dock, I'll be able to enter the ship without needing to find my own way inside."

    That said, he just moves there and waits... making sure his cape won't get caught in the docking mechanism. But also there so that if something happens to harm the shuttle, it'll happen to him first.
Wanda Maximoff Ben skillfully maneuvering the tiny Quinjet next to the enormous floating sword goes without comment from Wanda until they seem to be docked. "Good work," she murmurs under her breath to him. A bit of encouragement never goes astray!

"They might not expect help out here. We don't have an outpost on Europa."
Guesswork settles as bitter water on the tongue. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat and looses the webbed straps, getting to her feet. "The anomaly is increasing."

Her fingers curl into her palms, the better to hide their bite. Her thumb rotates a bronze ring around her index finger, slowly shifting the polished surface in rotation. It vanishes when she pulls her gloves on. "I'm just about one." A sidelong look goes to Natasha. "Different means, same effect."
Carol Danvers As the Quinjet approaches the docking port, a strange thing happens. The doors open of their own accord, a narrow passage leading into a cavernous room that must be a landing pad of some sort. Arrayed across the internal tarmac are dozens of identical fighter craft done up in purple and green livery. What's stranger is that looking at them for any length of time prompts them to change. Under the scrutiny of a gaze, the craft go from shiny and new in appearance to decrepit and rust-bound, some of them looking as though they've been battered viciously from outside with a heavy weapon. When unobserved, they seem to shift back to the state they were in.

"<Hyperion, go in with them. I'll keep an eye on things externally. Princess Diana's got the lead if there's a comms break down.>"

That said, Carol flies away from the ship to keep a better view on it from afar.

Once the Quinjet makes landfall inside the great sword-craft, the sensors immediately show there is a breathable atmosphere outside. A large pair of blast doors occupy one end of the hangar bay, monolithic and made from dark stone that seems run through with veins of glowing green. They stand partly open, wide enough for even the Thing to squeeze through.
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm lands carefully, prepared to evacuate in a rush if things turned south quickly. He doesn't turn the ship entirely -off-, leaving it in something of a sleep mode that will still require a verified identity command from him or one of the present Avengers in order to reactivate the ship. He has no desire to be stranded cause some space weirdo decided to steal a quinjet.

"Gotta tell ya folks, this is all real easy so far, which makes me wanna get out the Pepto Bismol and take a big ol' swig. I do not like the feel o' any o' this happy horse puckey."
Diana Prince Diana steps out in to the new ship, but she pauses and looks back to those who need their suits. "This vessel has breathable atmosphere. But I still recommend that you do not remove your helmets until we have secured the ship as a whole. Breathable atmosphere can ... change very quickly." She warns before proceeding.

Her leather wrapped hands remain at her sides as she steps in to the launch bay, her eyes scanning over those strange fighters.

"I am in very much agreement that we could have used a Telepath for this operation." The Princess says over comms. "Something is very strange here. I cannot think of a reason why these ships would be changing appearance like they are..."
Natasha Romanova "No." Natasha says softly, in agreement with Ben. "... This place is all wrong." She keeps up with the group, carrying a rifle in a ready postion in both arms, employing as much room-clearing procedure as she can get away with at the group's pace and checking her corners in usefully paranoid fashion.

"Faulty holograms, magical illusions..." Natasha offers distractedly in response to Diana. She frowns, speaking from recent memory, "... Psychic projection." She shakes her head. "... Either way it's a lot of effort to go to to *fail* to make us thing a derelict ship is doing okay. Doesn't make sense."
Hyperion     "Copy." says Hyperion as he turns towards the doors as they open. "Cavernous." he adds, kind of giving a bit of a running commentary. "I am seeing small combat craft in here like it was a hangar..." and he goes on to give basic descriptions of what he is seeing before shifting senses over to other spectra again. EM and such. Plus, attempting to pierce the inner walls of the ship. Forewarned is forearmed after all.

    He drifts to the deck where he lands and plants himself to be in position to interpose should someone or something attack the group. "As for the changing appearances, it could have everything to do with what Wanda is calling... Temporal energies... or shifting, anomalies... whatever you want to call them. It is almost like we are seeing these craft at different slices of time during their existences.. but not in any linear fashion. Trust me, it is no less strange when you look into the Electromagnetic Spectrum." he adds.
Wanda Maximoff Removing her helmet isn't likely for Wanda. She can work perfectly fine with it on. A nod confirms her understanding to Diana's warning, and she stays closer to Ben and Natasha. Hang out with the people who know how to fight -- a witch's M.O. never differs from any other spellcaster. D&D rules!

Ships blipping between stages has her frowning. Staring at them hard without blinking does not seem to banish the effect.

She murmurs under her breath, the spellwork more subtle than her other underlying abilities. The classical application hardens the mind, skimming a shield across her thoughts, the better to repulse unwanted suggestions. Maybe it will help.

"Are they broadcasts?" she asks Hyperion. "Or have we walked into a time labyrinth wher eevery turn is another year?"
Carol Danvers As soon as the group exit the Quinjet, the great docking port behind them closes with a tremendous thud. The internals of the ship are dimly lit with an eerie green light that seems to suffuse everything yet come from nowhere. Past the doors that lead further into the ship, there appears to be a broad and long walkway wider than a four-lane highway running all the way down the center of the vessel. Either end is cloaked in a silvery fog that seems to coalesce and swirl around their feet.

What's worse and far more morbid are the great rows of seats that seem to flank the walkway on either side. Like a stadium, they are lined with a crowd of spectators. Thousands of them, all dressed in green and purple bodysuits. But all of them are dead, dust-choked skeletons slumped backwards in mute audience of the Avengers down below.

Somewhere, in the back of the mind or on the very precipice of hearing, words can be heard. Repeating. Ever repeating.

"Gloria et Victoria ad Kang."
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm has his head in his little bubble thing to keep him breathing, but he really wishes he could have a stogie right now. He insists on being the first off the ship, as both the veteran of the group and the person on the ship that could maybe take the hardest hit (okay, there's Wondey Woman, but no way he's letting a dame take a hit in her pretty mug when it could be him instead).

"Apparently, it belongs to some damnes named Gloria and Victoria," he mutters aloud. Oh, and does he happen happen to have a jumbo sized energy rifle that he picked up from the armory in the back of the Quinjet? Uhhhhhhhhh, you bet he does.
Diana Prince With the others offering ideas on what could be causing the visual disturbance amongst the short range fighters, Diana stays quiet as she just considers them while they walk deeper in to the ship. Through the doors, she looks around the eerie green corridor, before seeing the stretch of wide open... ominous... spectator stands.

The spoken Latin has Diana reaching over her shoulders to take forth her shield, and to unsheath her sword, with a gliding of polished metal across leather.

"Something is very wrong." She says, not that she has to, to the others.
Natasha Romanova Natasha watches the docking port close with a sort of bitter resignation. A trap. She should have guessed.

... Why *didn't* she guess?

Natasha feels ever more oppressed by the atmosphere around her, her expression falling blank as the rows of corpses sprawl out before her. When Ben speaks, Natasha narrows her eyes, giving a distracted glance back even as she tries to keep aware of her environment. "... What does that mean? Why did you say that?" More pressingly, though unspoken, why don't those two words seem as inexplicable to her as the statement itself?

Different slices of time, the man says. Natasha can't help but concur with Diana. "... We shouldn't have come here."
Hyperion     "So, it feels like we are being herded. It's almost as if we were expected, and are being led to someplace the master of this ship wants us to go." says Hyperion into his comm. Nominally to make sure Carol is getting this information or intelligence. I mean if they don't make it off the ship, she'll need to report back. Right?

    Either way, when the voice speaks, he inclines his head.. hyper-hearing trying to locate the source of said sound. "I believe that may be Latin, but I do not speak the language. Does anyone know precisely what he was saying?" he asks. He really does not want to comply and go wherever this speaker -wants- him to go. It may be a tiny rebellion, but he is planting his feet and not planning to go any further until he figures out a bit more of what is going on.
Wanda Maximoff "Glory and victory to..." The puzzled pause at the end of the phrase follows with Wanda trying to supplement who receives the beckoning of the chant. "I doubt they mean Thai curry. Unless someone truly hates coconut. Or a... like stocks, a board put around the neck and wrists." The other option doesn't sit right either, flipping from Latin to French. She shakes her head.

The skeletons she would rather ignore, the hair on the back of her neck rising. Not precisely spooked, but clearly unhappy, she sidesteps a bit closer to Ben. "Wait a moment. I want to try something."

Something looks like absolutely nothing. Weird mystic fireworks there are not. She spends about two minutes scouring the audience with a look of concentration unless someone drags her off.

Staring at one of the unremarkable dusty, doomed victims, she whispers, "They are here. Stuck on repeat like a video, whatever they say and do goes right back to the beginning. We hear them singing: the dead in the stands all dressed the same. I cannot figure out if they are trapped into a hivemind or conditioned to be like this." Her mouth is dry and the bad feeling isn't getting better. "Their ghosts haven't moved on."
Kang the Conqueror "Gloria et Victoria ad Kang."

As the chanting continues, it seems to grow louder. Wanda's magic seems to awaken something and the skeletal figures shift in unison, some of them gaining more tangible forms as extremely wizened and elderly men staring through rheumy eyes down at the gathered Avengers. They chant with creaking voice, the endless choir seeming to age in reverse from withered remains to vital men all dressed in the same suit. All with the same voice. The same ... face.

"Gloria et Victoria ad Kang."

It is then that a figure strides out from the silvery mists. He's wearing a similar, though more adorned suit in green, purple, and blue. He stands tall, and upon closer inspection appears to be walking upon the air itself. When he speaks, it is with an imperious and resonant voice that silences the chanting around them all at once.

"Avengers?" he asks, a mix of ridicule and disbelief before he shouts towards the ceiling, "You old fool! Avengers!"

The figure turns his attention back to the group: "You. Come with me now. If we act quickly, we may avoid the storm."
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm isn't the leader here, so he doesn't decide where they go or when. Ben's an old military hand, from back in the day, and he's always been comfortable letting Reed take the reins in the Fantastic Four. Ben sees himself in the role of the grizzled sergeant, the enlisted man who can carry more than his fair share of the burden but is still down in the infantry when the brass tacks are down. He's on the frontline, always, in whatever the fight.

He just presses the charge on the energy rifle, a soft whine coming as it fires up to full capacity. "You try anything funny now, purple guy, an' this old mook from Yancy Street is gonna squash you down to the size of an egg plant, you capisce?"
Diana Prince Diana looks to Wanda who is getting ever closer to the dusty old bones along the sides of the giant corridor. "Be careful.... it might..." And then it all begins to come alive. "Right."

Diana shifts her weight from one booted foot to the other as she watches it all unfold before them, this was not a fight she wished to be the initial instigator of...

She listens to the command of the one named 'Kang' and then looks to the others.

Who was the leader here?

"We should do as asked, I believe, less we wish to make a hasty retreat, without having gained much knowledge of how to fix this..."

And so the Princess will do just so, going to proceed ahead of the others, to be the first target, if attacked, in theory anyway.
Natasha Romanova Natasha genuinely doesn't know where to point her rifle, which is a rare situation; at least right up until the greater figure appears, and speaks to them. With her weapon pointed at him. "We're not going anywhere until *you* tell-" and then Diana's speaking, and Natasha keeps one eye on her with visible frustration. "... Yeb tvoyu mat'!" she mutters harshly in Russian before following after her.
Hyperion     Right. And there is the rub. "So, we are supposed to just assume you have our best interests at heart, and rush to follow you like good little lemmings." Hyperion folds his arms over his chest and plants his feet. "I think you will have to accept the fact that we have walked as deep into your trap as we intend to. Now. You either explain and release the Avengers, or I cannot be held responsible for what happens next." Sure, Hyperion is confident that he can't be hurt here. But he's like that a lot. Arrogant and such.

    "Either way, I do not believe that you can expect us to just go along with whatever you say, simply because you are saying it in a way that may imply some urgency." a pause, "Stop playing games. Drop the pretense."

    And then Diana just.. goes, making all of whatever he was trying to say, trying to do as a show of unity... well, he isn't an Avenger. At best he is a lone ally. "Well shit." he mutters at that, and then he just shrugs, "So much for that. You still need to stop playing games with us." he says to Kang as he moves to follow Diana. I mean it's freakin' Wonder Woman. What self-respecting hero is going to let her go off alone and -not- follow?
Wanda Maximoff The witch tilts her head. That's never, ever a good beginning when something wakes up.

The Sight that let her see the dead still remains with her, barely present. Don't blame that for causing trouble.

When this Kang person in his multicoloured presence shows up, he might as well be speaking to the wall. Maybe a door. A poker face falls over her, letting the others speak. Trust everyone else to shoot the guy who causes trouble.

She isn't hastening off at the drop of a hat, but then being one who can presumably witchy-up some escape offers minor options. Stick with the others, that's her plan.
Kang the Conqueror Kang begins to lead the way down the corridor, seeming indifferent to whether they follow him or not. Perhaps he simply assumes that will. He has all the seeming of an aristocrat who is not at all used to being disobeyed or ignored.

"Ben Grimm. Also called the Thing. You're older than I thought. But that's good. More experience. The older the better, right? Ha!"

The man in purple pauses, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head to regard Ben like one might regard a particularly valuable and coveted baseball card. The mask he wears seems to mimic human features perfectly, and a broad grin crosses his face.

"And the Scarlet Witch. The Black Widow, the woman who would birth a thousand super-soldiers. Metaphorically, of course! Ha!"

He turns then to regard Diana and Hyperion, stroking his chin through the mask and pointing a finger.

Newer faces, but recognizable all the same. Albeit from different threats. This is quite the eclectic collection. Regardless! We might've had our differences in the past ... or your future, I should say. Or one of your futures. But that means nothing now. You have a much greater problem to deal with."

He glances at his gauntlet for a moment, a collection of bizarre holographic figures hanging in the air above it.

"Angels? That's ... new. This is worse than I thought. Thank you for showing reason, your highness. Last time I met the Avengers, Stark was acting as their leader. Intolerable man. You seem much more reasonable. Just through here."

That said, Kang waves a hand in the air in front of him. Where there was empty space, a rectangle of light forms. A doorway through space and time that, once passed through, leads to a broad command center with the same external view of Europa - and Carol, glowing in the distance.

"The storm's only moments away. We need to -"

Before he can speak, the outside disappears to be replaced with a whirling, multicolored vortex of light. The entire ship begins to shake, and outside great strips of it seem to be torn free by violent winds.

"Oh ... SHIT! Take a console! All of you. It's telepathic, just THINK about Earth."
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm isn't surprised he's recognized. Most people recognize him. He generally prefers it to be either schoolchildren or beautiful women, but weirdos in funny outfits running spaceships is pretty much par for the course in Ben's long life.

He glances over at Hyperion, "Wondy's got the right idea. We've already come this far and stuck our heads in the trap. Might as well see how hard it bites down. Ain't the first time somebody tried to chew me up, if he does," he says.

He turns back to regard Kang again and puts the rifle up on his shoulder, "In other words, nuts to you, fruitcake."
Diana Prince Diana has her sword pointed down to the deck, her shield held up on her forearm at her side ready to be hoisted entirely up should the need arise, but ultimately she's in a non aggressive stance at the present time.

A quick glance is given to the others after she makes her decision to lead them onward, but its too late now, she's already walking!

Diana has her eyes roam around what is visible, before falling back upon Kang as he starts to speak of all of them?

"Stark is doing what he does. We are the Avengers here now, and we do not seek a fight." She tells him before things start to go sideways... er.

To a console?

Diana looks to where he's indicated, before back to the others, when the ship around them shake again. "If this is a trap, it is a very elaborate one..." She notes.
Natasha Romanova Natasha seems taken aback by Kang's appraisal of her. Does he mean the Black Widows she's inspired? There's less than a thousand, she's positive, and she's killed all but two that she's met since she defected.

This is... uncomfortable.

The harsh appraisal of Stark draws a very subtle, oddly nostalgic sigh from Natasha, but she otherwise keeps her focus, gazing cautiously at the... 'doorway' that Kang has opened before stepping through it... and immediately finding herself in peril.

Given little time to think, Natasha simply grabs a console with both hands, and follows the first order given. Earth. Home. The mansion? The bunker. The Triskelion? This is... harder than she thought it'd be. *Earth.*
Hyperion     Telepathic. Hyperion knows about telepathic tech. Okay, so he knows the theory of it. He does have psionic potential, but it is more Bio-feedback and control of his own cells. The appearance of the storm -does- spur him on to motion.

    As such, he moves with a speed that -most- cannot even perceive. Most, not all. He comes to a stop at a console, and reaches a hand to touch it so that he can connect to it.

    One thing that he cannot help however, is that when he thinks of Earth.. he thinks of -his- Earth, the alternate universe that he was ripped from to arrive in this universe. Let's hope that does not skew the jump somehow. But it -is- the home that he instinctively thinks of.
Wanda Maximoff A title put to a name, but no threat about a dynasty born or anything else. Well... that's good.

Wanda doesn't even honour the statement with so much as a response.

The problem will be the technology, since she wrapped herself in a mental shield to stop such intrusions in the first place. Trust the machine to enter her mind-space or refuse it, protectively meshed in the weight of the spell? Those figures and Kang's orders blur away when the psychedelic spiral crashes down on them. Carol is out there, not in here, and the risk is enormous.

"Captain! Go!" The comms might work and they might not. But someone has to get the hell out of bizarre-ass dodge. She doesn't want to do this, but falling in front of a console, she grabs at whatever she can to stabilize herself with evident distaste. Right now countless people are in rebellion. Angels are in rebellion. A happy little adventure to Jupiter now, apparently, another rebellion

The fulcrum tips and the woman who is the eye for all the many universes stares at it. Then Diana and Ben, who are not.
Kang the Conqueror As the Avengers take their consoles, they'll see in their mind's eye a display. The timeline rendered in whatever way is most easy for their mind to understand. Mathematics, imagery, song lyrics, types of cigar. As they picture Earth, the display begins to change.

"I have much better taste in death traps than this!" Kang calls out over the roar of the ship being torn apart around them, "This is AMATEURISH!"

The man in purple seems to be shouting at some disembodied figure. Or, that is to say, they were disembodied. Outside, the whirling lights and clouds of smoke seem to take form. A leering figure in a tall headdress, two hands with long and spidery fingers stretched out towards the vessel. Impossibly large, like a great planet.

"AMATEURISH, Immortus!" Kang yells, stepping away from his console and stepping across the pitching deck to point at the apparition outside the ship, "Even you can't destroy the Damocles! I would know!"

"You're a fool. You risk total destruction -" the figure outside, Immortus, begins in a booming voice that seems to reverberate through time itself. But he is cut off by Kang.

"YOU risk total destruction. You risked it when you went to war with me!"

Kang slams a fist down onto a nearby console. As he does, a violent jolt of electricity rips through the command deck. The air itself seems to tear open directly behind Diana, glowing white hot as it does so. In the mind's eye of those still grasping the consoles, a synthetic voice can be heard.

>> INVALID INTEGER. ADJUSTING.

And then the time storm fades away outside. Revealing Earth. An Earth that is too close. An Earth that the vessel is rocketing through the atmosphere of.

"Evacuate! Abandon ship!" Kang cries, as panels of white light open before the consoles in response to him.
Ben Grimm Ben Grimm had grabbed a hold of his console and thought of Four Freedoms Plaza, the Baxter Building, Yancy Street, Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden, Central Park, the Bronx Zoo - all the stuff that was his home, his anchor, everything that meant something. Nobody could yank him away from that, nobody!

WHen he finds his eyes opening again, he sees that white light pour over them all and he shouts in his usual eloquent fashion, "AW CRAP!"
Diana Prince With others rushing to the various consoles, Diana slips her sword back in to the sheath on her back, and does the same. She appears at an open one, and scans her eyes across its controls before she places one of her leather wrapped palms down upon its surface.

Oddly enough, Diana does not picture Themysciran when 'home' is told. She pictures New York, as it is where her current residence is, and what she considers her biggest duty to help protect, due to the troubles that her mere presence can help bring upon the citizens of Manhattan.

But, before anything can happen from that, the smashing of a console, and the surging of power goes right through to her console, causing it to explode in Diana's very face!

The Princess is sent flying backward through the portal that opens up behind her, causing her to tumble right through it, and land hard on her back... on hardwood flooring?

She doesn't look around her as she moves to stand up again, and try to rush back through the portal!
Natasha Romanova The Black Widow, likewise, can't resist the force pushing her back through the light, and goes flying into it.
Hyperion     Gone. Hyperion is just gone. In an instant, he is outside the ship. His back pressed to the ventral side of the hull... and his Anti-Gravitons spreading out over the hull as he puts his prodigious strength to use trying to at least -slow- the fall of the crashing starship. He grunts with effort as he fights the gravity of Earth... as well as the mass of the ginormous space dreadnought.

    Quite literally, the joke and humor of this all hits him then. "Oh great. The sword of Damocles -is- falling. Did he name this thing knowing it'd fall out of the sky someday?"

    But then over the comms he says, "I am slowing the ship's fall. Hopefully you can all reach escape pods, or the Quinjet in time. I am searching for a place to set down but..."

    There is a pause, "I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. I am looking at Pyramids in the extreme distance that still have their limestone covers. I think we Marty McFly'd it."
Wanda Maximoff Earth. Home. The dank streets of East Berlin, the sunrise over the dreaming spires of Oxford. Brighton Beach's night market and those long, chewy noodle dishes. A painting in the slanting morning light. She can isolate her balcony for sunny yoga sessions in her mind as the world comes apart.

The Scarlet Witch holds her arms around herself as she's sent tumbling back into the ether. Her skidding and the terrible fall to Earth produces a ferocious unconscious reflex. Her father can annihilate angels on a battlefield. Her brother outruns sound.

Her power, the one fuelled from sheer impulse, roars around her in a ruby-shaped ball that hardens into a protective barrier. At least she has that.
Kang the Conqueror Hyperion's might is enough to slow the ship from falling, but Earth's gravity is fighting him so it only buys a few precious moments. Toppling through the 'escape hatch' doors that appeared before them, the group find themselves deposited in soft, warm sands under a cloudless, blue sky.

Kang is nowhere to be seen. Likewise, Diana is not with them. Hyperion, once he's ready to let go of the Damocles, will be able to see the group from his skyward vantage well enough to meet up with them. For all the crashing, there's no pain or permanent injury. They made it.

In the distance, a pyramid with a golden tip shines impossibly white in the sun. Nearby, a colossal statue is under construction. A man with a stern face dressed in the magisterial regalia of Ancient Egypt. And when they take a moment to see the face of the statue, they can recognize it immediately.

It's Kang.