Beyond

Cracks

Lance's jet pack allowed him to drift out into the black ink.

He loved the weightless feeling, the way his body fell into it without hesitation.

His eyes closed and a smile pulled onto his lips. Oh how he had missed space.

"Okay, what have we got?" Clint's voice asked making Lance's eyes open.

Right they had a mission.

Blue's pur almost sounded like a chuckle as it rumbled in the back of his mind.

He twisted his body and launched towards where the others were exaiminging the the satellite.

Why did those blaster marks look so familiar?

"Friends, I have found something." Thor explained as he pushed a lump of metal towards them.

As he got closer Lance's eyes widened. He stared at it with his heart thumping heavily in his chest.

He knew why he recognised those blast marks. He knew that metal, he knew that symbol.

"Kiddo? You okay?"

"It's a Galran ship." Lance answered brushing his hand across the metal to be sure it was real. "I've seen a million of these I know this is Galran."

"Okay, it's alright. We believe you." Clint said holding his hands up. "I just asked if you were okay."

"Not really." Lance admitted. "If this is here then something followed me or, they're already here in space."

"I don't understand." Natasha admitted. "Followed you? You said you came here by accident."

"I did." Lance agreed as he moved. He dropped to examine the hull more closely, he soon found the access port and was quickly getting on board.

The main pilots chair was gone. "We have a problem." He admitted as he exited again. "The pilots gone."

"As in dead?"

"As in 'eject button' gone."

"Is there a way you can track them?" Steve asked over the coms.

Lance shook his head. "Not a lone Galran, that would be impossible."

"Well it looks like this ship gained access to the satellite." Tony explained lifting a thin cable that came from the ship. "They decided to watch the news."

"Why would they do that?" Clint frowned.

"To learn more about earth before attacking?" Steve offered.

"No," Lance said sharply as he shook his head, "this isn't a scout for a bigger army, they would have sent a drone or a sentry. No, this is someone with a mission. Someone who has come alone because they don't need back up."

"Got any ideas?"

"No, I don't even know how it got here." Lance admitted letting himself twist in the anti gravity while he thought. "It must have jumped through space like I did. But how?"

"Loki."

"Thor not everything is Loki's fault." Natasha said gently.

"And isn't he in prison?" Clint added.

"Would love to throw puny god around again." Hulk chuckled making Thor sigh.

"No my friends, you see, only the Tesseract has the power to teleport through realms." Thor grumbled swatting the metal hull.

"What's the tesseract?" Lance asked making all eyes move to him. "What? From another universe, remember?"

"Apparently it's called an infinity stone. It never runs out of energy and grants the user certain abilities." Natasha explained.

Lance just stared at her. "What, what, what?"

"A rock that allows you to do cool stuff." Tony explained with a shrug. "It allowed Loki to jump between realms of Asgard and earth."

"And opened the portal that allowed the Chitari to come to earth." Lance realised. "Okay, that makes sense, but if I ended up here because Haggar attacked my portal then that means she could manipulate another portal to send someone else to the same location."

"Except you were unconscious when you arrived." Steve reminded.

"Exactly, I didn't know where I came in from." Lance said with a faint smile. "But with this I can find out."

"So this Haggar has a serious vendetta against you?" Clint noted.

"Apparently." Lance agreed. "But I have one against her so it's cool."

"These aliens, what do they look like?" Hulk grumbled.

"Purple furries." Lance shrugged. "They look like cats in a way with human bodies and purple hair."

"Then we'll start looking."

Lance shook his head. "There's no point, they wont let you find them."

"Lance we can find anyone." Natasha said gesturing between herself and Clint.

"Haggar can change your appearance." Lance frowned. "She turned a lizard into a gigantic robot."

"How?"

"Science," Lance shrugged, "I don't know and I don't want to know."

"Well, we'll start looking anyway." Clint assured.

"Why would an alien from another universe chose to listen into a TV station?"

Lance felt his heart plummet. "Nerds!"

"What?"

Lance blasted his jet pack back towards Blue where he had left his phone.

He quickly ran towards the cockpit and scrambled to unlock his phone.

Nerds

Guy's? :L
You there?

M: Yeah?
What's up?

Just double checking. :L

G: what's going on Lance?

I wish I could explain. :L
Just promise me you'll stay safe.
And watch each others backs.

M: Dude
You don't have to worry about us.
We're superheros.

G: why are you so worried?

I've already lost enough people. :L
I'm not losing any more.

M: we're not going anywhere.

I know, but I needed to check in. :L

G: you're going to tell us what's going on
Right?

I want to. :L
Just...
Be patient with me.
I'd rather not do it by text either.

M: okay, but we're here for you.
You know that right?

Yeah, and no matter what :L
I've got your backs too.

G: thanks Lance.