Ain't no thing like me 'cept me!

after attending to wanda and ensuring she was stable - even going so far as to have a private conversation with her within the astral realm, the sorcerer had found a strong bond with her. but it had come at a price, not his friendship with her, no that was always a key something that he loved to have with his fellow magic-user, but the amount of magic he’d expended over the last week.

wong would have known how bad it was getting for stephen, he’d used his own energy fields, something that most sorcerers under the craft of the mystic arts knew not to do - it would kill them if they used too much, and yet….

sighing, he sat at the steps of the capital building, leaning against them and enjoying the peace and quiet that had been afforded to him. closing his eyes, he sensed the approach of someone near by, raising his brow he continued to wait patiently for a response or a verbal approach before finally speaking; “yes? what is it?”

“Hey, wizard.”

Good. Rocket had been wandering around for a while trying to find a way to fix himself, and so far, nothing had been working. He’d even managed to find a shirt, but it was weird and bulging in all the wrong places, and he was really starting to not like this. It was messing with his head, and it was just ... wrong. 

And he was blaming magic. 

So it was nice to find a resident wizard and Quill’s sort of other-dad. Plus, Strange was competent and also more likely to help, less likely to laugh, and more fun to provoke. Win win win. For him, anyway.

“I need some help,” he said. “I’ve gotten stuck like this and it’s a pain.”

He paused, remembering that he didn’t look like himself. “Oh yeah. It’s Rocket, by the way. Yanno, Quill’s bud.”

cassie probably shouldn’t head towards the sound of trouble, but she can’t help herself. she’s not so confident in her powers since coming back, but if it ends up life or death, she’s certain she could grow or shrink her way out of any situation she finds. and what she does find is nothing more than some whack-job looking utterly out of place, and confused by his own existence. without a shirt on. “jesus, dude, get a shirt on.” she replies, rolling her eyes at the state of him - men. “might come as a surprise, but not everyone wants to see all that first thing in the morning.”

she sighs. “island’s called genosha. some kind of safe haven so we don’t all die. or something. i don’t really know anymore. all i know is we’re stuck.”

“Yeah I would, except -- I don’t have a shirt. Unless you got spares?” He shrugged. “Ya know, I’d agree with that, cos this isn’t my usual form. All this hairlessness, ugh. I don’t know how you humies deal with it. But I figure something’s making me eat my words. You know, I hate all that walk a mile in someone else’s shoes bullshit, unless I’ve stolen the shoes off them.”

He was rambling at full speed and figured that he wasn’t making sense to the human, but he didn’t particularly care. “What do you mean ‘stuck’? We leave this place we die or something? Wait, one of you lot was telling me about some Earth movie -- Hunger Games or something, where humans have to survive together on an island and eat one of their lot every week or something. Is this what it is?”

the sound of rustling in the distance caught her attention, causing her to silently slip away from the group. she was sure that walking together just made them a larger target regardless, and insisted that perhaps it was best they split up and cover more ground. lorna had known about the natives that predated her father’s rule of genosha for some time – but the only rule before was that you left them alone and didn’t accept dinner invites. it was creepy but a safe place for all those genetically different was bound to have a few cons. something was now causing these people to act out, and she wanted to find out what before they moved in on the city.

they were too quick to easily spot, giving lorna cause to fall back on her other senses. the metal blades they carried was the first thing she could feel in the distance, and she followed the familiar pull it gave until green eyes fell in a direction where one had stilled, even for a moment. with a raised hand, and the familiar swirl of her powers, lorna pulled the blade from them, stopping it shortly before her to turn it around threatening back towards them. it gave her a better view of the weapon, handmade – the handle seemed made of bone. 

“this is all seeming a little too wrong turn for me.” lorna muttered as she held the knife midair, waiting for a reason to throw it back. “come out, come out where ever you are, i don’t really want to skewer you.”

Rocket was bored as hell, and a little jaunt out of the city and into the woods sounded like as good an excuse as any to rustle up some excitement. And maybe blow some shit up.

He was still in weird humie form, which took some getting used to - he nearly brained himself on a branch that he could have sworn looked higher, and he found himself next to a girl who seemed to have a thing for knives.

She reminded him way too much of Gamora. And she had green hair. “Huh, let me see that,” he said, peering at the knife. “Looks pretty homemade to me. Did you do that with your head? Or do have a big ass electromagnet on you?” he asked. 

He kept up the light banter even when the smelly bastards who had been lurking around burst from the trees, screaming in some language that even his universal translator couldn’t really translate. “Well, looks like the party’s here.” He grinned, paused as he realised how weird that felt with humie teeth, then shrugged and pulled his laser cannon from its holster. “Time to blow some people up--”

Oh wait.

“Aw shit. Did Metal Bending Dude say that we can’t kill them?”

One moment he’d been sleeping, the Milano on course back towards Earth, and the next moment --

He was here, and he was..

a fucking humie.

Standing, he promptly smashed his head against an overhanging beam and stumbled blindly around before he managed to find his balance. That was when he realised that he was also naked. And that, since he didn’t have fur... “Huh,” he said, checking out his anatomy, before shrugging. He still had all his gear, and a spare pair of Quill’s pants that he had been using as a bedsheet, so he pulled those on. “Hey!” he yelled out at the nearest person. “Any idea where the hell this is?”

Bruce wasn’t really sure what to make of the environment change or the fact for some reason he was back to being himself. He’d been out for a few hours and already his symptoms were coming back. On the other hand his brain was working overtime with ideas. Writing until his hand was too cramped to continue then storing the small notebook in a water proof bag in his pocket helped relieve his fevered mind of the information.

Now he was looking for food and maybe someone to explain his theories to. Of course the Stone had other plans. He saw a small animal being chased by a flaming dog and even his genius brain didn’t know what to make of that.

When the small creature spoke he remembered Rocket from the cave. Luckily Bruce wasn’t the only one listening. As he took a step forward his body began to grow and veins of green covered his skin.

The hand that slammed down on the hell hound was large and green. “BAD DOG!” Hulk shouted and tossed the hell hound a few yards away into a nearby building. The creature was dazed upon impact and shook its head a few times.

Hulk held out a large hand to Rocket. “Climb on to Hulk,” he said. He could easily out pace these creatures and it would be a much safer place for Rocket to fight from.

Rocket caught sight of the human out of the corner of his eye as he dashed past.

“Shit,” he muttered. This was the last thing he needed - a baby-sitting job involving a noncombatant, who also seemed to be on the sick side, to boot. 

...Which was when the human started turning green. 

“What. the. hell?” 

Rocket wasn’t a stranger to green people - hell, he called one family and travelled with her. But as far as he knew, Gamora didn’t change skin tone, and she certainly didn’t bulk up like she’d been juicing on speed. 

But whatever the hell the humie had done to himself, it was certainly useful. Rocket stared in absolute awe as the guy bodily grabbed the hell hound and sent it careening aside.

When Clint arrived at the top of the tower, his voice came over everyone’s coms.

“This is Agent Barton. If you are in need of backup or assistance, please respond with your name, location, and flavor of emergency. If you know of a secured location, give me a call so I can direct others towards it. If you are injured and cannot travel to a safe location, hide as well as you can and give me your location. Someone will be sent to retrieve you.” 

Clint set the communicator next to him and waited to see if anyone heard his call.

Huh. Rocket was starting to think that the humies weren’t capable of using technology. Nobody seemed to even remember that they had the comms units, let alone use them. Not that Rocket really minded - it was an excuse for him to gather more of them. And take them apart. And build good shit with the parts that blew other shit up.

Either way, he jumped when a voice came over his comm. It took him a moment to recognise the voice - he certainly didn’t recognise the name - but then the stray memory clicked.

“Bow and arrow guy, right?” he called back. “Not quite a flavour of emergency, but there’s a whole of stupid assholes trying to eat me.” Glancing up at the sky, he scowled as another one came for him. They were big, winged, and generally looked like someone had crossed a monkey with a lizard and thrown in some bat for fun.

“Fancy some target practice? Cos I don’t fancy being retrieved. Much rather blow shit up.”

He paused. 

Drax had only just arrived within this orange place. He was unsure as to where he was, unsure about the area and even more unsure of the mirrored surface that he was currently wading in by his ankles.

He glanced down at his reflection, blinking a few times and attempting to remember what was the last thing that happened…

Quill…?

Ah, yes. His death, a not so fine and favorable to a warrior’s death. But he had fought Thanos and that was good for him. Still, he needed to find Thanos again and finish his duty in order to rest peacefully.

He was planning on walking to see if he could find anything to do within this wasteland when he looked over towards the commotion that had suddenly started in the distance from where he stood. His blue eyes scanning as he saw a familiar shape hurtling towards him – and also a not-so familiar shape.

“Furry Beast-!“ He yelled in greeting upon seeing Rocket, “Ha-ha! At long last I am not alone, and you have brought me something to kill-!“ Drawing his blades, he stood in front of Rocket to protect him before letting out a battle yell and running straight for the creature with abandon.

Rocket smelt Drax before he saw him. Even before he heard him, and that was quite an achievement. Considering that he had almost given up hope of finding Drax within the Soul Stone, seeing him was a relief. A huge relief. He was starting to think that the Guardians would never be reunited. 

Now... he just needed to find Groot. But if Drax had turned up after all this time, there was still the chance that Groot was out there, somewhere.

“Brought you something?” he said incredulously. “Well, I suppose you’re kinda right... he’s all yours, buddy.”

Racing past Drax, he led the dog thing towards his fellow Guardian. “Oh boy,” he said, stopping back and letting Drax distract the creature, “I’m actually glad to see you. Good timing there, pal. So... whatcha been doing all this time?”

Not one to stand around talking idly, he took the chance to grab his laser cannon, waiting for Drax to move out of the way so that he could get a clear shot. Not that Drax really needed his help - it was more in case Big Furry and On-fire had friends or pack mates or something. 

There’s a fucking huge dog thing with teeth and fangs to match that’s chasing him, and it’s on fire.

Here he was minding his own business, trying to find some kind of higher ground to get away from the stinking water, when this thing barrels out of the nearest building, grabs his precious gun, and bites it clean in two.

Rocket officially hates this fucking place.

He has a plethora of grenades and other devices, but it’s all he can do to keep his ass out of the snapping jaws of the creature behind him. He can practically feel the heat from the flames, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to be on fire in a second. Hell, this was not how he expected to die. 

He barely sees the person as he dashes past, scampering on all fours. He’s too busy trying to dodge and there’s water in his eyes anyway. But he hopes to hell that they have a good gun or two, because he really doesn’t fancy ending up as as dog food. 

she tosses the bag over to him and nods. “ yeah… and you’re rocket. “ natasha makes it sound like a question just to make sure. granted, she wouldn’t forget having met him. it’s not every day you run into someone like this.

the russian shrugs. “ i don’t know i’ve been doing things—-not like me. “ at least not what she’s like anymore. “ just a general apology, that’s all. “ since frankly she’s not sure who she’s offended or pissed off. it’s not like natasha needs enemies here. “ though i’m pretty sure if i pissed you off i would’ve been blown sky high with that pretty gun of yours. “

"Got that right,” he says, smirking sideways at her with just a hint of fang. There’s something about her that he likes - she feels like a fighter to him, someone a lot like Gamora, and he’s always liked the dangerous ones. Even if they’re likely to stab him.

Her words surprise him, even though he shouldn’t be. He should have known that this place wasn’t just affecting him, but it’s nice to have that confirmed by someone else. 

“Huh,” he says. “You’re not the only one. Think there’s something about this place that gets into our heads, and I don’t just mean like -- it stresses people out. Can’t say I’m an expert though. You should ask someone like Selene - she seems like someone who’d know more about that.”

He shrugs and grins when she calls the gun pretty. “Naw, I’m pissed off most of the time cos people are morons, but you ain’t done nothing yet. Besides, if you like my gun, you must be one of the good ones.” He runs a paw over it. “It’s a laser cannon. This asshole called Ebony Maw blew up the last one when he attacked, so I had to build this one out of scraps. Not as polished as it would be if I had some proper materials... but it still packs a helluva punch.”

He quirks a curious eyebrow at her, tilting his head. “What’s your story? You seem like like you know your way around firearms.”

Arms crossed, Clint trudged through the lightly falling snow and looked for someone he knew. There was only half the galaxy here so, you know, how hard could that be?

Apparently very hard because he’d been walking around campsites for what felt like hours, so probably about twenty minutes, and he hadn’t seen a single person he knew. 

This sucked and he was cold. 

He finally found what looked like an abandoned campfire and decided to warm himself up before he continued his search. He mostly remembered how to reassemble a campfire and after a few minutes he had a fire going well enough that he could comfortably sit and relax for a bit without freezing too much.

He heard someone approaching and turned his head to indicate them, but didn’t turn all the way around to face them.

“Don’t be shy,” he told them, jerking his head towards the little fire he’d managed. It wasn’t very impressive, but there was room for more than just him to get warm. 

“Shy?” 

Rocket scoffed at the remark. Seriously, this had been his patch of messed up icy ground. Admittedly, it didn’t vary much from the rest of the messed up icy ground around here, but he had spent some time with a laser carving a space away from the snow. 

“That’s hilarious,” he said, sauntering up to the stranger. “This is my space, but seeing that you got the fire going, I’m willing to share.” Which was true - he was tired, cold, and it was nice that someone else had done the hard work here. Honestly, they were all going to freeze to death at this rate. 

Plonking himself down beside the flames, he glanced over. “Don’t recognise you. Are you new here?” 

natasha’s taking a moment to herself, sitting outside in the water. she doesn’t mind it—the new change. but, maybe that’s just because she’s so tired of it all. she has no strength to fight it anymore. she’s staring down at a bag or some type of food in her hands. something that she’s kept tucked away just in case she, or anyone else, needs it. 

she notices someone else nearby but, she doesn’t go to move right away. “ i have a bag of…something. not really sure what the hell it is exactly. “ she lets out a simple laugh. how pathetic, she mumbles to herself in russian. this is what she’s resulted to. “ if you want it—-it’s yours. “ natasha offers it to the other. 

“ and for the record, “ she begins speaking again, feeling it’s necessary. with everything that’s been happening recently, all of the changes within the stone and the changes with her own psyche. she’s not the same black widow anymore. she’s not the type of lash out and fight for no reason though for some reason, unbeknownst to her, it had happened a lot here. “ if i did anything. i’m sorry. “

Rocket minds the new change. He minds it a lot. His fur is dripping, and it itches, and the water’s up to his knees, and it’s getting in his gear, and he’s sick to hell of this stupid place already.

“Yeah I’ll take it,” he says automatically, when the other offers a bag of stuff. Rocket’s never been one to turn down stuff, especially not when it’s freely offered. “Romanoff, right?” he asks. He vaguely remembers having met her before. 

He blinks at her free apology. “Not sure who you were talking to, but you sure didn’t do anything to me.” He tilts his head, wondering if he should be concerned. Curiosity wins out.

“So what did you do? Sounds like you pissed someone off, bad.”

Peter had begun to hear voices again – he tried to ignore them and knew that it was because of the Stone that they were entering his mind and plaguing him. But it wasn’t until the one that sounded an awful lot like Yondu came to life and then began to push him around that he realized this was more than just voices.

These shits were real.

Breathing heavily, Peter withdrew one of his guns and pointed it at the fake Yondu. “Listen, you’re not my dad – he died saving my life, you’re just some impostor fake person trying to be him-!” He yelled, still aiming the gun at them.

Of course what his mind didn’t tell him was that this wasn’t Yondu, and in fact just someone else within the Stone that was currently being guised as his dead father figure to his own eyes. “So either make like a ghost and go away or watch me shoot you until my gun overheats!” He grit his teeth as he aimed the gun and began to start it up. “So what’s your choice, A-hole?”

Rocket had been worried about Quill, even though he would rather have been chucked out of an airlock than admit to it. But while he didn’t regret walking out on the Guardians - or at least, walking away from them - he liked to think that he’d never really left them. And he definitely hadn’t stopped caring.

“You know, that could work if you could actually hit anything,” he said, staring at the gun aimed at him.

Of course, his words were just a bluff - he knew that Quill’s aim wasn’t half bad, and at this range, it was pretty much a given that he’d hit him. But he hoped that Quill still had enough presence of mind to recognise him, especially since he looked nothing like Yondu.

But then again, most people here didn’t look like Yondu either, so ... Quill’s head was clearly screwed.

“Sunset Boulevard is a t.v. show.” Scott says his gaze averting lower until his eyes falls onto a raccoon. A talking raccoon. Which, hey, isn’t the weirdest thing he’s seen ( he’s seen booby in ice form. what’s weirder than a walking iceberg??), but it is the most interesting. “Hopefully there’s shelter somewhere else. I’m not too thrilled to be freezing anything off.”

He raises an eyebrow, his hand reaching up to traces his fingers over his visor. “Yea, dude, these aren’t for sale. If i were take these off we would be in even more trouble than we are now.” His hand drops back to his side. “These keep the radiation energy that comes out of my eyes from blasting things in my sight.”

“Figures,” Rocket mutters. “You Terrans and your love of TV. That shit’ll rot your brains.” Narrowing his eyes, he glances at the human. “So, you’re definitely new in town. So... if we’re really lucky, this place will change soon into some climate that’s hospitable. It’s kinda done that a couple of times now. ‘course, the last one was a jungle... with bloody dinosaurs.” 

He shrugs when the human mentions that the visors aren’t for sale. That’s what they always say, but everyone has a price. Especially in the face of imminent death. But it’s the explanation that catches his interest. “Radiation energy?” he asks. “Your eyes blast things?”

   It was hard pretending like nothing was bothering him — even more so now, that there was actually some weird shit happening with Charles. And for some reason, the body count was sparse and he didn’t know what to do anymore — there was only so much he could, do actually. Aside from the fact that he was able to dance around whatever was hurting everyone else mentally, that didn’t leave him with much to go off of. 

     While he was looking for THE X-MEN, Peter knew that he couldn’t stay still like this for long. Pulling up his communication device, he takes a moment — and you better believe his voice shakes.  “  If you’re listening, this is Quicksilver. Most of you know me as that, or – Peter Maximoff.. so listen, it would be great if we could get a little help — and by we I mean the x-men, and myself since it’s kind of hard to reach everyone .. “  he wasn’t really ever famed for his ability to get the point across —- but you get the idea. 

   “  Sending the coordinates out, meet if you can. “ 

Rocket vaguely remembered the voice from what felt like a distant memory. His fellow thief, in a junkyard, back when this world was stupid and orange-- or when it had been jungle. Honestly, it was getting hard to remember. It was starting to feel like they’d been here forever.

But the request for help made him prick up his ears. This Quicksilver dude sounded desperate, and desperate people usually paid. Even if it wasn’t in actual currency, it always helped when people owed you. And Rocket intended to collect - with interest. 

    “  I ain’t coutin’ on the powered ones — I noticed The Doctor had a wavering moral compass but who knows how long that’ll last, huh ? I have other means on getting us out, isn’t that why we have Selene? If anything, she can trick them to let us out —- “  if you couldn’t tell, Billy was more than pissed off — he was enraged.  

      “  Leave Castle to me, he’s only looking for me so if we don’t show ourselves more than we gotta, we’ll be fine, again —– we can bring the fight to them, but I need intel, I  haven’t exactly been gettin’ around to see where they’ve been regrouping, I need my team for that. “ and there’s venom at the end of that — he’s only rallied with Rocket and Selene, that’s two out of the three ( excluding himself of course ) but still, he was gonna fix that. 

    YOU BETTER BELIEVE HIM ON THAT. 

He didn’t quite like it when things went to shit —- no. Billy had a thing about control and when he didn’t have it, it was like a cog missing from a pile of gears — it made him erratic and impulsive and trigger happy. 

   “  I’ve got Bucky and Natasha on our side. “ he grits his teeth. “ but you know what, I might be making cuts and recruiting more bodies that pique my interests – “  and no, he ain’t talking about cutting bucky and natasha, it’s moreso ones who have lost his interest entirely, but he’s not sure why he’s telling rocket this information.  “ I appreciate good form, and good listening. “  billy points, you shoot — you get it. 

  Pulling his gun from it’s holster, he taps the side of his temple with it. “ No one is gonna steal shit from us, because I shoot first and ask questions later. I say we either take their base, or make use of the plentiful resources we got around here. Easy. “ and it was. especially with everyone running shitless. 

“The doctor, huh...” 

There was only one doctor that Rocket knew of in the Stone - and though a bunch of the humies used that title, he had an inkling that he knew which one Russo was referring to. “He’s not as goodie two-shoes as he’d like people to believe,” Rocket said. “He’s practical. And practical -- well, we’re practical.”

“Barnes and Romanoff, huh? They’re solid fighters,” Rocket agreed, nodding. “Barnes is best friend with that Captain America guy - don’t know if he’s gonna get an infection of morals. The Captain seems like the kind to beat the law into you with the stick that’s wedged up his ass, if you catch my drift. But you know - if they have brains, they can shoot straight, they ain’t gonna throw a fit about a bit of a body count... I’m good.” 

Something had seemed off to Stephen – though he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Whatever it was though, he was going to remain incredibly weary of it. Still, he felt changes coming on around and within him. Dark changes, things that crept up within his mind and things that just sort of… needled away at the far recesses of his mind.

Things that he never wanted to see the light of day.

His brother plagued him again, his mother, his father, even his dear sister were all there whispering to him and making him feel more isolated and insane than he’d ever felt before within this wretched place. Growling softly to himself, Stephen began to conjure the Winds of Watoomb and send the pushing spell out when he felt the presence of someone approaching him.

Turning slowly, he armed himself and decided to pull up a shield. “Whoever you are, beware that you are approaching a Master of the Mystic Arts and I will not hesitate to destroy you.” He couldn’t trust anyone, not even himself – and that truly frightened him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rocket said, staring at the wizard. “Heard that before.” 

Rocket had figured out a while back that this place was screwing with all of them, and that it was getting progressively worse. The only thing he hadn’t figured out was how to deal with it, and honestly, he couldn’t care less about most of the people here. The Guardians seemed relatively unaffected at this point, and Stark still seemed to be working on getting people out, which meant that, as far as Rocket was concerned, things were just fine.

That was, until the wizard started to go nuts. And wasn’t that just great, because if the wizard was losing his shit, there was a good chance that Stark would start losing his shit too, and that would jeopardise the entire plan to get out. Not to mention that Strange was probably one of the most powerful people here, and that would be fun.  

Plus, okay, Rocket liked the wizard.

So ... here came Rocket to save the day. Again.