till the end of the line

57 It's Never As It Seems

Yet another day, they were all chasing each other around my living quarters as Bruce sat by me, watching Thor and Val faced off in a small 'battle' against Loki and Lina.

~

Excusing myself from the control room for a moment, I soon returned to a quiet, still, and dark room, "Guys, what's happening?"

"Katerina. Would you happen to know what that is?"

I walked over to Thor and looked out the window as an enormous ship a thousand times our ships' size appeared.

"I- I don't know what that is. What do we do?"

"Thor, Katerina, someone is trying to board the ship," I turned to the doorway as Heimdall spoke, "What do you want us to do?"

Thor and I shared a look before he gave me a motion to answer as I turned back to Heimdall, "Send a transmission. We'll see if they mean harm." He nodded and left before I turned to the group, "Thor, you come with me. Bruce, I know you don't want to, but be on standby with Hulk. Lina, you stay by Loki. Val, you come with us."

They all nodded as I walked out of the room followed by the rest before we soon arrived at the ship's helm.

Awaiting the transmission return, we all stood by the controls before soon hearing the warning sounds as the lights flashed.

"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman. We are under assault, I repeat, we are under assault - The engines are dead, life support failing. Requesting aid from any vessel within range. We are 22 jump points out of Asgard."

We all then held onto the ship as it shook and rumbled before the voice became more desperate and pleading, "Our crew is made up of Asgardian families, we have very few soldiers here. This is not a warcraft. I repeat. This is not a warcraft!"

We then all fought to stay standing as missiles were being fired at our ship. One by one, the Asgardians began to drop dead before we soon saw a creature, who looked like Squidward, show up.

I fought the creature with my powers but struggled before we soon lost too many people. Heimdall was injured, Thor, Loki, and Val were tired. And hundreds of Asgardians were dead and littered like sand.

Before long, we surrendered and listened as he spoke.

"Hear me, and rejoice. You have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan... You may think this is suffering, no. It is salvation. Universal scales tip toward balance because of your sacrifice. Smile..."

Some of his men stabbed remaining Asgardians as the creature then spoke again, "For even in death, you have become Children of Thanos."

We all stood, unsure of what to do before we soon heard another voice, "I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail, nonetheless."

Out from behind a wall, a large purple man walked out and grabbed Thor from behind by his chest plate, "It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you, to what end? Dread it... run from it... destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say... I am."

Holding up his left arm, he revealed a golden gauntlet that held a purple stone. All I could focus on was Thor who was being held by the throat as blood began to fall from his lips as he muttered, "You t-talk too m-much."

The large man then smirked and turned to me as he looked between Loki and me, "The Tesseract, who has it?" Sharing a look with Loki, he nodded as the man spoke again with a low voice, "The Tesseract, or your brother's head. I assume you have a preference."