Jason was gripped by a level of nausea that transcended biology; he wasn't just losing his lunch, he felt like he was losing his soul. His skin, usually a healthy, vibrant red, had faded to the color of a bruised plum.
Every time the ship hit a hexagonal jump gate, Jason's body would lurch, his eyes rolling back as the "pull" of the universe tried to flatten him into two dimensions.
Leander Hayes, however, was standing perfectly still. He wasn't even using the crash webbing. He was staring at a holographic tablet, his brow slightly furrowed as he scrolled through the sparse, messy logs of a man named Adicon.
"This Adicon guy... he was either a saint or a total lunatic," Leander muttered, ignoring the fact that the ship was currently vibrating so hard the floor tiles were humming. "It says here his ship sank—actually physically crushed and sank into the 'atmosphere' of space—twenty-seven times in eleven years. And every single time, he just bought a new one and went back to find the Red Whale."
Leander looked up, noticing Jason was turning a shade of green that definitely wasn't in his DNA. With a casual flick of his wrist, Leander let a pale blue mist drift from his fingertips. The sapphire vapor expanded, coating the interior of the cockpit in a thin, shimmering film of Space Stone energy.
Instantly, the cabin went dead silent. The bone-rattling vibrations stopped. The artificial gravity stabilized into a perfect, 1G embrace. The "pull" of the jump gates simply... slid off the ship.
Jason gasped, his lungs finally expanding without the pressure of a thousand atmospheres. He slumped in his seat, looking at Leander with a mix of profound gratitude and a simmering, toxic jealousy. "You... you're just going to do that now? After fifty jumps of me feeling like my intestines were being used as jump ropes?"
"I'm still getting the hang of the 'stabilization' frequency," Leander said, his voice informal and light. "But back to the Whale. Why the obsession? Is it just because it's big?"
Jason wiped cold sweat from his brow, leaning back as the blue mist kept the universe at bay. "It's not just size, kid. In this galaxy, the 'Starry Sky Giants' are the ultimate mystery. I used to be obsessed with them too, back when I was a sprout. I wanted to be like Adicon—tracking the legends. But then I saw the Chitauri's Leviathans. Seeing those beautiful, ancient things turned into cyborg slaves... it broke the magic for me."
He gestured to the tablet in Leander's hand. "The Red Whale is different. It's the 'Holy Grail' of the giants. It's one of the only ones that isn't inherently a planet-killer. Most Class-A monsters, like the Mad Star Gall, get put down by the big empires because they have 'Civilization Destruction' hardcoded into their brains. They see a city, they flatten it. Just like the Zerg. They're locusts with gravity wells."
Jason brought up a rare, grainy photo of the Red Whale on the main screen. "But the Whale? It's a solitary wanderer. A natural warship that doesn't want to go to war. That's why people like Adicon waste their lives trying to 'tame' it. Imagine owning a creature that the Kree Empire is afraid to shoot at. You wouldn't just be a king; you'd be a god."
"Adicon did it, though? The logs say he eventually used a monster to invade someone," Leander noted.
"He tamed a different one," Jason spat, his voice full of old resentment. "A lesser beast. He used it to burn a civilization, and now his name is mud among the 'Giant-Chasers.' But the Red Whale... it's stayed free. For nineteen hundred years, it's just been drifting. Some say it's older than the Nova Corps. To see it and survive? That's a story you tell for a hundred years. To stand on its head like you did? That's... that's just cheating, Leander."
Leander didn't answer. He just looked at the picture of his "big friend" and smiled. The heavy, dark cloud that had been hanging over his heart since he left the Earth's orbit felt a little thinner. The universe was a meat grinder, sure, but it also held things of impossible beauty and loyalty.
"How much longer, Jason? I can feel the 'smell' of my home sector."
Jason checked the nav-com. "Thirty minutes to the final jump point. From there, we drop out of the warp-stream and it's a day and a half of sub-light cruising to your coordinates. We're almost there, kid. You're actually going back."
Leander's lips curved into a real smile this time. "Good. Because I think my friends are in over their heads."
Malibu, Earth - The Stark Mansion
While Leander was drifting through the sapphire peace of the Space Stone's protection, Tony Stark was experiencing a very different kind of "pull."
The world was exploding.
Tony tumbled behind a crumbling marble wall as a hail of machine-gun fire from the hovering helicopters turned his living room into a graveyard of glass and expensive furniture. His breath was coming in ragged, panicked hitches.
"Sir, Mrs. Potts is clear of the blast zone," Jarvis's voice crackled in his ear, calm despite the apocalypse happening around them.
Tony didn't waste a second. He clapped his hands, a signal programmed into the nerve-centers of his latest toy. Outside, the Mark XLII armor—a prototype held together by prayers and experimental sensors—separated from Pepper Potts. The pieces didn't just fly; they screamed through the air, smashing through the floor-to-ceiling windows and swarming toward Tony.
"Come on, come on, piece by piece," Tony hissed, rolling as the floor beneath him began to tilt toward the Pacific Ocean.
The order was wrong. The suit was confused. Jarvis had to bypass the standard sequence, prioritizing the vitals. The chest piece slammed home first, a heavy clank that stopped a 7.62mm round meant for Tony's heart. Then the helmet snapped shut, the HUD flickering to life with a swarm of red error messages.
Tony rose from the rubble, a golden-and-red ghost in the smoke. The Mark XLII looked sleek, but as he tried to lift off, the thrusters just let out a pathetic, wet sputter.
"Jarvis! Where's my flight power? I'd like to not fall into the ocean today!"
"We're experiencing multiple sub-system failures, sir," Jarvis replied. "The flight stabilizers were damaged in the initial missile strike. This is, after all, a prototype."
"Wonderful. Exceptional timing."
Tony didn't have time to complain. He was a genius, suit or no suit. He grabbed a grand piano that was sliding past him and used the suit's physical strength to launch the instrument at one of the helicopters like a giant, wooden frisbee. The impact was spectacular, sending the aircraft spiraling into its partner.
He tore open his own forearm plating, physically ripping a miniature missile out of its housing and throwing it at the remaining chopper before detonating it with a repulsor blast.
But the victory was short-lived. The dying helicopter swerved, its rotors screaming as it sliced into the foundation of the house. The entire mansion—Stark's sanctuary—gave up the ghost.
"Sir, the structural integrity has reached zero percent," Jarvis noted, as the floor vanished.
Tony plunged. The Mark XLII, flightless and heavy, dragged him down into the churning debris of his own home. He hit the water hard, the weight of the concrete and the suit pulling him into the dark.
Worse, a steel cable from the wreckage whipped around his neck, snagging on a piece of the foundation. He was being anchored to the bottom of the ocean. He clawed at the cable, his metal fingers slipping as the pressure began to mount.
Up above, in the ruins of the driveway, Pepper Potts screamed his name into the smoke, looking down at the empty, bubbling water where the man she loved had just disappeared.
Tony was pinned. One arm was stuck under a massive slab of concrete, the ocean floor looming beneath him. The HUD was flashing "OXYGEN CRITICAL."
"Sir," Jarvis's voice was fading, distorted by the water. "I suggest you take a very deep breath."