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𝑮𝑨𝑴𝑬 𝑶𝑭 𝑺𝑼𝑹𝑽𝑰𝑽𝑨𝑳
-𝒔𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏
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thirteen.
battlefield
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❝RAISE A LITTLE HELL,
RAISE A LITTLE HELL,
RAISE A LITTLE HELL.❞

⋆

❝MR. LORD, CAN YOU GET YOUR FOLKS TO CIRCLE UP?❞ Tony asked, his voice sounding as if he gave up on hope. Quill smirked, chortling. "Star-Lord is fine."

Quill shot Drax, Lexi and Mantis a look, which made them draw near, forming in a circle. Lexi rolled her eyes. "Actually, Peter is fine. My apologies, Mr. Stark."

Peter and Lucy stepped back, watching from a few feet away.

"We've gotta coalesce. Because if we all come at him with is a plucky attitude—"

"Dude." Quill cut Tony off, shaking his head. "Don't call us plucky." he paused, "We don't know what it means." Tony and Amber rolled their eyes in unison. "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."

Amber shook her head, she pursed her lips, getting annoyed quickly. "Hey, Star-Shit? Tony already said he had a plan. Why do you have to do it? You literally just said you don't do well with plans..."

"Tell him about the dance-off to save the Universe." Drax said in his usual monotone voice.

"What dance-off?" Tony asked. Peter raised his hand to Quill. "Like Footloose? The movie?"

"Exactly like Footloose! Is it still the greatest movie in history?" Quill said with hope.

"It..never was." Peter shook his head, confused. Quill dropped his shoulders, narrowing his eyes at the boy.

"Don't encourage this, all right?" Tony said, turning to his two protégés. Lucy and Peter nodded, mumbling an 'okay' in unison. "We're getting no help from Flash Gordon."

"Flash Gordon?" Quill said, butting into their conversation. "By the way? That's a compliment. Don't forget—I'm half-human. So that's fifty percent of me that's stupid—that's one hundred percent you."

"Your math is blowing my mind." Tony replied.

"Yeah, more like fifty percent human, fifty percent an ass." Lucy shot back, leaning forward.

Tony reached an arm out, pushing her back gently. "Stand down." Lucy frowned, doing so.

"Excuse me? But does your friend often...do that?" Mantis asked, looking back at the group. Everyone turned to see Stephen hovering in the air, his head jutting back and forth rapidly.

Amber and Tony stepped forward.

"Strange! You all right?" Tony called out. Amber shook her head, glancing at Tony. "He's looking into the future."

Tony casted a glance back at her. "For what?"

The two rushed forward, just in time for Stephen to exit his trance and fall back to the ground with a gasp. Tony and Amber lurched forward, grabbing on to either arm. "Hey! Hey, you're back. You're all right."

"Hey, what was that?" Peter asked, the rest of the group following behind the two.

"I went forward in time, to view alternate futures..." Stephen said, panting.

Amber nodded encouragingly. "And? What'd you see?"

"All the possible outcomes of the coming conflict." Stephen answered, unevenly.

"How many did you see?" Quill, asked.

"Fourteen million, six hundred and five."

"How many we win?" Tony asked, afraid of the answer.

Stephen paused, staring at Tony before diverting his gaze to Amber.

"One."

❝WHEN YOU SAID WE WERE GOING TO OPEN WAKANDA TO THE REST OF THE WORLD, THIS IS NOT WHAT I IMAGINED.❞ Okoye said with disappointment as they approached the landing pad for their guests.

T'Challa glanced at her. "What did you imagine?"

"The Olympics. Maybe even a Starbucks."

When the jet landed, the hatch opened to revel Steve, Natasha, Sam, Bruce, Astrid, Rhodey, Vision and Wanda. Bruce looked at Rhodey as they approached the King. "Should we bow?"

"Yeah, he's a King." Rhodey nodded.

"Seems like I'm always thanking you for something." Steve greeted, sticking out for his hand for T'Challa to shake.

Bruce cleared his throat, bending forward. Rhodey shot Bruce a look, acting as if their short conversation didn't happen. "What are you doing?"

T'Challa stuck out his hands. "We don't do that here."

As Steve and T'Challa led the way away, Bruce glared at Rhodey, receiving a playful bump to the shoulder.

"So, how big of an assault should we expect?" T'Challa asked.

"Uh, sir? Sir?" Bruce shoved between Steve and Natasha. "I think you should expect quite a big assault."

"How're we looking?" Natasha questioned, referring to defences.

"You will have have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..."

"A semi-stable one hundred year old man, plus an ex-assassin." Bucky said, walking forward with Anastasia at his side. They were both dressed in new amour; Bucky having royal blue amor, Anastasia had navy blue, similarly styled to Natasha's (minus the electric staffs).

"How've you been, Buck?" Steve smiled, giving Bucky a tight hug.

"Not bad, for the end of the world." Bucky smiled, looking at everyone.

Steve looked down at Ana, moving forward to give his other life-long friend a large warm hug. "Anastasia,"

They enveloped each other in their arms for a long moment before Steve stepped back, kissing her on the cheek.

"Steve, it's been some time." Ana said, craning her neck and looking up at him.

The three smiled at one another before following Wanda and Vision to Shuri's lab.

❝THE STRUCTURE IS POLYMORPHIC.❞ Shuri said as she examined Vision's interior design and structure.

"R-Right. We had to attach each neuron non-sequentially." Bruce said, standing on the other side of Vision.

"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?"

"Because...we didn't think of it?" Bruce questioned, perking an eyebrow.

"I'm sure you tried your best." Shuri said, smirking.

"Can you do it?" Wanda asked, growing impatient.

Shuri glanced at her. "Yes, but there more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures. It will take time, brother." Her eyes moved to T'Challa.

T'Challa nodded, standing near the wall.

"How long?" Steve asked.

"As long as you can give me." Shuri replied.

A small alarm on Okoye's Kimoyo beads rung. Okoye placed a bead in her palm. A holographic map flashed, showing the world and with a glowing orange circle over it. "Something's entered the atmosphere."

❝HEY CAP?❞ Sam pressed on his comm. Him, Bucky, Rhodey and Ana stood outside, looking directly up as a ship flew overhead. "We got a situation here."

The ship smashed in the barrier of Wakanda, revealing it. Sam flinched as Anastasia flicked the safety off her light machine gun that was similar to Bucky's

"God I love this place." Bucky said with a sigh.

"Yeah, don't celebrating yet guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Rhodey expressed, dressed in his War Machine suit.

The four watched as more triangle-shaped ships crash landed around the dome. Anastasia's shoulder fell. "Well. This is it. The end of the line."

Bucky looked at her. "Don't say that."

STEVE LOOKED AT T'CHALLA AS THE SHIPS LANDED. T'Challa looked back. Vision grunted, sliding off the table. "It's too late. We need to destroy the Stone now."

Natasha's head whipped around. "Vision, get your ass back on the table."

"We will hold them off." T'Challa said, making his way past Steve.

"Wanda, as soon as that Stone's out of his head, you blow it to hell." Steve ordered.

Wanda nodded uneasily. "I will."

"Evacuate the city." T'Challa demanded as he made it way towards the door. "Engage all defences," he turned, pointing at Steve. "And get this man a shield."

Steve turned to T'Challa, taken back. After a moment, he nodded in respect for T'Challa. He nodded back, leaving.

❝HOW'RE WE LOOKING, BRUCE?❞ Natasha asked, aboard a hovering craft as they all made their way towards the closest ship outside the barrier.

"Yeah, I think I'm getting the hang of it." He launched into the air in the Hulk Buster armour, stumbling slightly before running again. "Woah, this is amazing! It's like being the Hulk without actually—" Bruce tripped on a bolder, falling down. He looked up. "I'm okay. I'm okay!"

As Okoye passed on a craft, she gave Bruce a dirty look.

"I got two heat signatures breaking through the tree line." Rhodey said, flying overhead.

When the hover crafts arrived at the destination, they stopped and both the Kingsguard and Dora Milaje jumped off, sprinting to form small pods of people.

M'Baku chanted as the Jabari tribe joined lastly.

T'Challa and M'Baku clutched forearms in greeting. "Thank you, for standing with us."

"Of course, brother." M'Baku replied with a smile.