Untitled MCU/Destiny Crossover Part 2

 There had been dead silence on the quinjet while it traveled to Avengers Tower. Less awkward and more exhausted, but Hawkeye still thought that the other team was communicating somehow. He tipped his head at Iron Man and rubbed his index and middle fingers of his right hand over his temple. He knew when Iron Man caught the signal when he tipped his head the slightest amount forward. Then JARVIS came over his comm. “Mr. Barton, there is some sort of communication running between them but it is encrypted under a method that I have never seen before. They would definitely notice if I broke in to monitor. Also of note it seems they are sending a signal outwards, also encrypted. The rate and frequency of the outbound signal would lead me to assume it is a distress beacon.”

Well, that was food for thought, and sort of proof of their wrong place story. Not that he really doubted it, given that they had come through from the other side of one of Reed Richard’s stupid dimensional portals that he kept dropping all over the city. But how were they in just the right place to follow those creatures through? That was what worried Hawkeye the most. It wouldn’t be the first time a group had pretended to be “saviors” only to be the cause of the problem in the first place. And Travelers, Light, Ghosts? What was that all about?

His musing was cut short by their arrival at the tower. They all got out and made their way into the briefing room. Cap and Iron Man taking opposite heads of the table. The rest of the Avengers filled in leaving a set of seats open for the new group. Cap, cleared his throat, “So why don’t you tell us why you think you have hopped both dimensions and traveled time?”

The three looked at each other. Storm-12 spoke first. “Time is obvious. The aircraft we just arrived in is proof enough that this is pre-Golden Age. We don’t have many records of that era but this tech is just too… how do I put it? Archaic. Plus the date the one in passable armor gave us. Guardians all know that the time before the Golden Age started was sometimes called the Common Era. Which leads us to the dimension question. Given the date were given the Traveler should have arrived by now. The fact that you don’t know what the Traveler is, lets us know that it simply hasn’t arrived. Whether or not it ever will is a question best left to the Warlocks amongst the Guardians. We are Hunters, not Warlocks. While Hunters as a whole tend to be quite curious… our curiosity is more aligned with scouting unknown locations, finding the weak spot to hit a sniper shot on a new enemy, or going on long patrols. Warlocks, on the other hand, prefer the more cerebral methods of satisfying their curiosity. When not on the battlefields they tend to be researchers and scholars.” 

Ivy chimed in, “And Titans… well their idea of curiosity is more along the lines of “Can I punch it?”” 

The other members of the group laughed a little and shook their heads. 

 Dia spoke then, and her words had the feel of someone quoting sage advice, “‘There’s nothing more dangerous than a Titan hurtlin’ at full speed.'” 

The other two looked at her and when their eyes met a sense of old grief flowed between the three; as they placed their right fist over the left sides of the chest and bowed their heads. For a few moments, there was complete silence. Then, Tony broke the moment with his usual amount of tact. “What do mean my tech is “archaic?” I’m decades ahead of the rest of the world in tech development.” 

It was Ivy that answered and who broke Tony’s heart a little. “Well, that’s really fucking sad for this planet. To be fair your own armor isn’t terrible. But that ship you brought us in doesn’t look like it can break atmo much less carry a jump drive. That means it’s pretty darn useless in the grand scheme of things. If Nokris is heading to the Moon… and we all think he is. We have no way of getting there before he sets up a colony that could devastate everything in this system.”

Tony opened his mouth to start to argue when Steve broke in. “Who exactly is Nokris? What are the Hive? And why did they immediately attack when they came through the portal?”

The three newcomers exchanged glances. Then Storm-12 sighed. “It’s a long story. We can give you the biological basics fairly quickly, but then you’ll need context. And that’s, well that’s centuries if not millennia of history to explain. So in order… Nokris is a heretical Hive Wizard. The Hive are a species that feed on death energies. Unfortunately, their life cycles seem to function almost like a pyramid scheme. The older and more powerful the Hive being the more death energies they need to survive. So they breed constantly. Each life stage consumes enough to grow to the next stage and sends any extra up the age chain. In such a way even the lowest thrall can feed their gods. The progenitors of the species. Which is also the answer to why they attacked. To create death energy they need to kill living beings. This city is an all you can eat buffet.”

It was Dr. Strange who spoke next. “And how is this Nokris a heretic if they all feed on death energies? What makes him so dangerous?”

It was Dia’s turn to explain things. “Nokris turned up on Mars. He is a high priest of the Worm God Xol. I also have a sneaking suspicion that he is of Oryx’s brood and not Savuthun’s. But the reason we know he is considered a heretic has to do with overheard comms chatter. There was something about him experimenting with Resurrection techniques in a way that got him kicked out of the rest of the Hives’ hmm…. locations. Which is perhaps how both he and Xol ended up buried under a Martian glacier for a few centuries.”

Ivy picked up the narrative, “At this point, it doesn’t even matter why he got booted. He’s here in this universe’s system. With him probably the oldest and most powerful Hive on this side of the portal. His first move will probably be to establish a breeding ground to build up an army to feed himself into becoming a new Hive God. As it stands, if we don’t kill them all before they get entrenched here this universe will never be free from the threat they pose to all living creatures. Nokris and his brood must be destroyed.”

Steve frowned, “You are talking about genocide.”

The three guardians looked at each other and then it was Storm-12 who spoke after some sort of silent discussion. “Well if you want to be technical about it, we are talking xenocide. But what part of they feed on the energy created by killing living beings, even occasionally themselves, and your woefully under-prepared planet is an all you can eat buffet for them are you not comprehending? Because trust me, they will have absolutely none of the same hesitations you seem to have. Negotiating with the Hive just ends up with the negotiators getting eaten. “

Ivy settled into her seat and propped her feet up on the conference table. “When we refer to the Last City we are not using hyperbole. In our time and dimension after the Collapse, the Dark Age, and the Age of Iron the City was finally built. It’s the only city remaining in the solar system. Before the Collapse, during the Golden Age, with the help of the Traveler’s terraforming powers human-kind had colonized as far out as the moons of Saturn. We’d begun to try and reach out and create colonies beyond the solar system entirely. All of that was destroyed in the Collapse. Now there are a few folks here and there who out of personal preference don’t live in the Last City, but there are no settlements. Those people are loners by nature. Anyone else who leaves the City would be a Guardian, and while we are the protectors of the City, we aren’t exactly members of the City proper. We live in the Tower on the Wall. Or are stationed in outposts around the solar system to be advanced warning systems for the next set of attacks, or are researchers, or anything really but civilians.”

“Why?”