HOURGLASS

Chapter Two

The battle raged on for hours, with neither side having a clear advantage. Captain Marvel made her grand entrance, completely annihilating one of Thanos's ships with ease. Charlie and Daniel, for the most part, stuck together for a while until a large mass plowed into her, knocking her off her feet and slamming her into a large slab of concrete before she knew what hit her.

"Charlie!" she heard Daniel shout before he was swamped by a group of space warriors. Charlie briefly got the wind knocked out of her until she gasped and furrowed her brow, summoning a time warp, albeit weak. The humanoid snarled, baring its massive, yellowed teeth at her before screeching loudly, making Charlie cringe and try to cover her ears.

"Stupid super hearing!" Charlie growled, her sensitive ears doing her absolutely no favors at that moment.

Suddenly a tiny needle-shaped thing flew through the air into the creature's gaping mouth. Charlie was confused until the creature ceased shrieking. She watched in morbid fascination as the creature's previously hunched back went ramrod straight with a series of sickening cracks. Thick blood began to dribble, then spew out of her adversary before a thick bamboo, covered with blood, shot out of its mouth. 

"Hah! You just got bamboozled! I have no idea what that word means, but its a pun!" a somewhat familiar voice exclaimed. "Wait! Charlie?!"

Charlie looked up and the first thing she saw was shoulder length platinum blond hair fixed in a bubble braid and tied by jasmine vines. A black and green ensemble with a silver emblem of a stylized tree was on the chest of the short, somewhat slim figure. Practically neon green eyes were bright with excitement despite the situation. 

Eden plowed into Charlie, wrapping her arms(and various types of vines) around Charlie. "I've missed you soooooo much! I thought I'd never see you again!" Eden cried, hugging Charlie almost impossibly tighter. 

"Oh, my God Eden!" Charlie exclaimed, somehow managing to pull back enough to look at her. While she hadn't grown in height, she was still just as bubbly and weird as she had been five years ago. She had gotten more freckles, and her huge smile was just as infectious as ever. 

Eden suddenly flipped over, then jumped up and over a smaller creature before slamming her fist down and causing a tree to grow around the creature, crushing it to death. "I'm gonna destroy some more aliens kay BYE!" Eden yelled, growing a palm tree below her, which quickly leaned over with her weight as it grew taller. She crouched at the top of the palm just as a large space worm, which Charlie would later learn was a Chitauri Leviathan, began to charge at her. This Leviathan was smaller than the others, and as it opened its mouth to roar at Eden, she smiled mischeviously and touched the palm tree with her hand, causing the top of it to grow in size and weight. The small hero then jumped off the palm as the Leviathan swallowed the palm tree, which jammed down its throat. Without warning, its head split open as a small forest suddenly grew. The creature dropped like a stone and didn't move again.

Eden fell a short distance before landing with a roll on the ground. Charlie watched her run off with glee before she fired a web at another Chitauri Leviathan and vaulted up on top of it. She looked down at the carnage before her before shooting two webs at a soldier down below and yanking them up high before letting go of the webs and letting them fall back down to their death. Satisfied with her handiwork, she backed up on the gargantuan creature, only to then took off running down its spine, summoning her power as she ran. 

Down below on the battlefield, another spider-themed hero just finished dispatching another alien when one of the Leviathans above screeched at a decibel no one should hear. He winced and covered his ears even though his sensitive hearing was protected and regulated by the suit. His eyes tracked a figure sprinting down the spine of the beast.