-Broadcast-
[Banner's ejection from Valkyrie's ship sent him rocketing upward through the open air with tremendous velocity. The ejection seat's explosive propulsion was designed to clear a pilot from a failing aircraft quickly—it was not designed for comfort or dignity. Banner's arms and legs flailed wildly in every direction as he tumbled through the sky, his body completely out of control, spinning and rotating with no sense of up or down. His scream was lost in the roar of wind and engines.]
[He shot upward through the open hatch of the Commodore like a missile, entering the spacecraft's interior at high speed. His trajectory was all wrong—instead of landing safely inside, he crashed violently into the interior ceiling with a resounding THUD that echoed through the cabin. The impact drove the air from his lungs. Stars exploded across his vision. His body bounced off the hard surface, momentum carrying him toward the opposite side of the ship. For a terrifying moment, he was about to fall right back out through the still-open hatch on the other side.]
[But survival instinct kicked in. Banner's hands shot out desperately, his fingers grasping at anything they could find. He managed to grab the edge of the hatch frame at the last possible second, his grip white-knuckled and desperate. He hung there for a moment, half in and half out of the speeding spacecraft, wind tearing at his clothes, the chaotic cityscape of Sakaar visible far below. His legs dangled in open air. Death was one slipped finger away.]
[With considerable effort and several terrifying seconds of struggling, Banner managed to pull himself fully inside the Commodore. He collapsed on the interior floor, gasping, his heart racing, adrenaline flooding his system. That had been way too close.]
Thor, sitting in the pilot's seat and witnessing this entire undignified entrance through the Commodore's interior cameras and his peripheral vision, couldn't help laughing. The sound started as a chuckle but quickly built into full-bodied laughter. Banner's flailing limbs, the crash into the ceiling, the desperate grab at the edge—it had been objectively hilarious despite the danger. Thor's shoulders shook with mirth.
But before he could finish laughing, before he could even catch his breath from the humor of the situation, the spaceship was attacked again. The Commodore shook violently as energy weapons struck its shields. Alarms began blaring. Thor's laughter cut off abruptly as his focus snapped back to the immediate crisis.
[His displays showed a new threat approaching fast. A sleek, aggressive-looking spacecraft piloted by someone who clearly knew what they were doing was bearing down on their position. As the ship closed distance, Thor could make out the pilot through the cockpit canopy. It was Topaz herself—the Grandmaster's enforcer, his bodyguard, his most loyal lieutenant. Her face was visible through the transparent cockpit, twisted with determination and barely contained fury. She had taken personal command of the pursuit.]
[Banner pushed himself up from the floor, still shaky from his violent entrance. He stumbled forward toward the cockpit area where Thor sat frantically working the controls. His voice came out loud, urgent, carrying the edge of panic that came from being in a flying vehicle being shot at.]
"Shouldn't we do something to fight back?!"
[His hands gestured wildly, indicating the attacking ships, the weapons fire, the generally terrible situation they found themselves in. His scientific mind was screaming that sitting here taking fire was tactically unsound.]
Thor's hands flew across the control panel, searching desperately for anything resembling weapons systems. "Yes! Absolutely! It's definitely time to fight back!"
[His voice carried agreement and growing frustration in equal measure.]
"Where are the weapons on this spaceship? There have to be weapons! Every ship has weapons!"
[His fingers jabbed at various controls, trying to activate anything that might shoot back at their pursuers.]
[But the ship's systems remained stubbornly non-combative. No weapon indicators appeared on his displays. No targeting systems activated. Nothing that resembled armaments responded to his increasingly desperate button-pressing.]
Valkyrie's voice came through their communication system, and even through the electronic distortion, Thor could hear the apologetic resignation in her tone. "No weapons! It's a sightseeing boat!"
[A pause, then she continued as if feeling she needed to explain this absurd situation.]
"The Grandmaster doesn't arm his pleasure craft! Why would he? It's for parties!"
"What?!" Thor's voice rose several octaves, carrying utter disbelief and outrage. He couldn't believe that after all the effort he'd put in—the planning, the infiltration, the betrayals, the fighting—he'd ended up stealing a sightseeing boat! Of all the spacecraft in that hangar, of all the vehicles he could have chosen, he'd grabbed the one that was essentially a flying party venue! "This can't be happening!"
Valkyrie's voice continued, providing context that only made things worse. "This ship was specially used by the Grandmaster for vacation trips and revelry! For entertaining guests! For showing them the sights of Sakaar!"
[Her tone suggested she found this situation both unfortunate and somewhat amusing.]
"Comfort and luxury, not combat capabilities!"
Banner had finally made his way to the cockpit area, stumbling behind Thor as the ship performed evasive maneuvers. He braced himself against the walls and seats to keep from being thrown around again. "She said the Grandmaster used this ship for holiday parties?!"
[His voice carried the same disbelief Thor had expressed, as if saying it out loud might change the reality.]
Thor's jaw was clenched with frustration. "I heard you! I have excellent hearing! Don't touch anything!"
[The last part was directed at Banner, whose hands were hovering near various controls with the dangerous curiosity of a scientist encountering unknown technology.]
"We don't know what these buttons do, and I don't want to accidentally activate a disco ball or champagne fountain right now!"
[His mind was racing. The plan had to continue regardless of this setback. They were committed now. Turning back wasn't an option. They'd just have to make do with a weaponless party boat while being hunted by the entire city's armed forces. Wonderful.]
Outside the Commodore, the pursuit continued with increasing intensity. Topaz, in her combat-configured spacecraft, completely ignored Thor's stolen vessel for the moment. Her attention—and her weapons—were focused elsewhere. She fired wildly, aggressively, at Valkyrie's ship with single-minded determination.
Topaz had been irritated with Valkyrie for a very long time. Years of perceived slights, professional rivalry, personal animosity, all bubbling beneath the surface of forced civility. Valkyrie had always been too independent, too confident, too unwilling to show proper deference to the Grandmaster's authority—and by extension, to Topaz herself. And now, with Valkyrie openly rebelling, with the Grandmaster's explicit permission to use lethal force, Topaz finally had her chance.
She certainly wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away. She chased Valkyrie relentlessly, her weapons systems firing continuously, energy bolts streaming from her ship's cannons in a nearly solid stream of destructive force. Her face, visible through her cockpit, showed savage satisfaction. This was personal now.
[Valkyrie's ship weaved and dodged through the air, performing evasive maneuvers that showcased her considerable piloting skills. She rolled, she dove, she climbed—doing everything possible to avoid the incoming fire. But Topaz was also an excellent pilot, and she had a better ship. The distance between them was closing. The attacks were getting more accurate.]
[Soon, inevitably, under Topaz's fierce and sustained attack, Valkyrie's spacecraft was unfortunately hit. A direct strike penetrated her weakening shields and struck one of the ship's main engines. The engine exploded in a brilliant flash of fire and debris. Shrapnel scattered across the sky. The ship immediately began losing altitude, one side dropping as thrust became asymmetric. Alarms shrieked inside Valkyrie's cockpit. Damage displays showed critical failures across multiple systems.]
[But Topaz wasn't satisfied with disabling the ship. She wanted Valkyrie dead. She continued her relentless assault, weapons never ceasing their barrage. More shots struck the crippled vessel, tearing through weakened armor, destroying internal systems, turning the ship into flying scrap.]
Valkyrie, reading her instruments and understanding immediately that the situation was beyond salvaging, made a split-second decision. Staying with the ship meant dying with the ship. That wasn't acceptable. She had unfinished business—a certain Goddess of Death to kill.
She abandoned the pilot's seat, grabbed her Dragon Tooth Sword from where she'd secured it nearby, and moved with practiced efficiency toward the top hatch. Her hands found the emergency release. The hatch blew open, and fierce wind immediately filled the cabin. Without hesitation, without looking back, Valkyrie climbed directly up and out onto the exterior hull of her dying spacecraft.
[The wind at this altitude and speed was tremendous, tearing at her clothes and hair, trying to rip her from the hull. But she'd spent centuries as a warrior, had ridden Pegasus through worse conditions than this. She planted her feet, found her balance, and prepared for what came next.]
["No! No!" Inside the Commodore, Banner had been watching Valkyrie's ship through the viewport. He saw her emerge onto the exterior hull. His face showed growing horror as he realized what was about to happen. His voice rose with worry, with the helplessness of watching disaster unfold and being unable to prevent it.]
[Topaz, seeing Valkyrie expose herself on the hull, saw her opportunity for a kill shot. She adjusted her aim, targeting not the ship's engines or systems, but the woman herself. Her weapons unleashed a devastating barrage directly at Valkyrie's position.]
[The impacts were catastrophic. Explosions bloomed across Valkyrie's ship. Fire and smoke and debris erupted in all directions. The spacecraft, already critically damaged, simply came apart. It exploded in a massive ball of sparks and flame that consumed everything. The fireball expanded rapidly, a sphere of destruction that seemed to swallow Valkyrie whole. Pieces of burning wreckage spun away in every direction, falling toward the city below.]
[Topaz, watching the explosion consume her target, thought she had finally killed Valkyrie. Success! Victory! Revenge! Her face split into a wide, triumphant smile. Laughter bubbled up from her chest—savage, satisfied, celebratory. She'd done it! After years of animosity, Valkyrie was gone! The bodyguard's laughter echoed inside her cockpit, slightly manic with released tension and bloodlust.]
["No!!!" The scream came simultaneously from both Thor and Banner, their voices overlapping in horror and denial. They'd been watching the same scene, had seen the explosion consume Valkyrie. Thor's hands gripped the controls white-knuckled. Banner's face had gone pale, his eyes wide with shock. They'd lost her. After everything, after the planning and fighting and barely escaping, Valkyrie was—]
[But then, the next second, something impossible happened. A figure shot out from the expanding sphere of fire and sparks. A human form, somehow intact, somehow alive, propelled by the force of the explosion or her own timing or sheer force of will. The figure flew through the air in a controlled arc, trailing smoke, the Dragon Tooth Sword gleaming in one hand. Valkyrie—very much not dead—completed her trajectory and landed with perfect precision on the edge of the Commodore's hull, one hand grasping the exterior frame to secure her position.]
[Her landing was so smooth, so controlled, that it seemed impossible she'd just survived an exploding spacecraft. But there she was, hair wild, clothes singed, but very much alive and apparently uninjured. The warrior's timing had been perfect—she'd jumped at the exact moment before the explosion, using the blast to propel her toward Thor's ship rather than being consumed by it.]
[Seeing that she was not dead—that she'd somehow pulled off this insane escape—Thor and Banner's expressions transformed from horror to relief to joy in rapid succession. They smiled, enormous grins of disbelief and happiness spreading across both their faces. She'd made it! The crazy warrior had actually made it!]
But before they could be happy for long, before they could properly celebrate this miraculous survival, they were targeted again. The tactical situation deteriorated rapidly.
[Five or six additional spacecraft appeared behind the Commodore, approaching fast. They were smaller, more maneuverable fighters—exactly the kind of vessels designed for this type of pursuit. They fanned out into an attack formation, their weapons systems activating with predatory efficiency. Energy signatures spiked as their weapons charged. They had the Commodore surrounded, bracketed, with nowhere to run.]
Thor saw the new threats on his displays and shouted urgently to Valkyrie, who was still clinging to the exterior hull, exposed to both weapons fire and the brutal wind. "Get in! Inside! Now!"
[His voice carried command and concern in equal measure. She was vulnerable out there, an easy target for any pilot with basic aim.]
But Valkyrie had other ideas. "Right here!"
[Her voice came back through the comm system, steady and confident despite her precarious position.]
[Instead of climbing down toward the hatch to enter the Commodore, she did the opposite. She climbed upward toward the top of the spacecraft, moving with the sure-footed confidence of someone who'd performed similar maneuvers a thousand times before. The wind tore at her, but her grip was secure, her movements precise. She reached the apex of the hull and began running along the curved surface, accelerating despite the impossible conditions.]
[Then, at the perfect moment, she suddenly jumped. She launched herself off the Commodore's hull in a backward leap, her body rotating in mid-air with acrobatic grace. Her trajectory was perfectly calculated. She landed with a heavy THUD on the hull of one of the pursuing spacecraft directly behind them. Her boots hit the metal, her knees bent to absorb impact, and she immediately drove the Dragon Tooth Sword down through the hull to anchor herself.]
[The pursuing pilot, suddenly aware that someone was on his ship, began performing violent evasive maneuvers trying to shake her loose. The spacecraft rolled and dove, but Valkyrie held on. Using the Dragon Tooth Sword to stabilize herself, to maintain her position despite the ship's attempts to dislodge her, she pulled herself along the hull toward her target.]
[She knew spacecraft anatomy intimately after centuries of various occupations. Her free hand found a hull panel and tore it loose with enhanced strength. Beneath was the glowing power conduit leading to the main engine. Perfect. She angled her sword and drove it deep into the exposed machinery, cutting through power cables and fuel lines with surgical precision.]
[As she pulled her sword free, sparks erupted from the wound she'd inflicted. The engine's containment began failing immediately. Alarms screamed inside the pilot's cockpit. The spacecraft shuddered, power fluctuating wildly. Then the engine exploded in a massive fireball. The ship fell away beneath Valkyrie's feet, spinning out of control, flames streaming from its ruptured hull as it plummeted toward the city below.]
[But Valkyrie was already moving. In the split second before her platform disintegrated completely, she jumped again. Another backward leap, another perfect arc through empty air. She continued her deadly ballet, landing on yet another pursuing spacecraft with the same heavy impact. Another sword thrust through hull. Another ship disabled and falling.]
Thor watched this display of aerial combat prowess with a mixture of awe and concern. Valkyrie was magnificent, deadly, operating at a level of skill that few warriors in any realm could match. But she was also taking tremendous risks, putting herself in danger with every jump. One miscalculation, one slip, and she'd fall to her death or be shot out of the sky.
He couldn't just sit here watching. He had to help. His hands moved across the controls, his decision made.
"I have to help her!"
[His voice was determined, brooking no argument. He couldn't pilot and fight simultaneously, which meant someone else had to fly.]
"You take control of the spaceship!"
[He reached over and physically grabbed Banner, starting to pull him toward the pilot's seat.]
"No! I don't know how to operate this thing!" Banner's voice rose with panic as Thor pushed him into the pilot's chair. His hands came up defensively, trying to avoid touching the intimidating array of alien controls. "I've never flown anything! I don't even have a driver's license anymore—they revoked it after the Harlem incident! This is a terrible idea!"
"You're a scientist! Use your PhD!" Thor's voice carried absolute confidence in Banner's abilities, perhaps more confidence than Banner himself possessed. He didn't care about Banner's protests, about his lack of piloting experience. Banner was brilliant. Brilliant people could figure things out. That was how brilliance worked.
[Thor physically pushed Banner down into the pilot's seat, positioning him in front of the controls whether he wanted to be there or not. Then, without waiting for further argument, Thor turned and walked toward the back of the spacecraft, heading for the rear hatch. He had ships to destroy and a warrior to support.]
[Banner sat in the pilot's seat, staring at the bewildering array of controls, his expression showing barely controlled panic. His voice called after Thor, rising with indignation and fear.]
"My degree doesn't include flying alien spaceships, Thor!"
[His hands hovered over the controls, afraid to touch anything. His seven PhDs—physics, biology, nuclear engineering, and more—were impressive credentials, but "spacecraft operation" had not been covered in any of his coursework!]
"This isn't covered in any doctoral program! Not even theoretical xenotech courses come close to this!"
Back in the real world on Earth, the watching heroes were both amused and impressed by the chaos unfolding on screen.
"Hahaha! Banner! If you are interested!" Rocket's distinctive voice carried his typical combination of mockery and genuine technical enthusiasm. "I can teach you how to control a spaceship! Basic piloting, advanced maneuvers, weapons systems—the whole package! I'm an excellent teacher when I want to be!"
His grin suggested "excellent teacher" might involve considerable trial-and-error and possibly some explosions.
"Oh! Thank you! I'll definitely consider it!" Present-day Banner's voice came from above, where he was flying through Sakaar's sky using his specialized armor. He was engaged in active combat even as he watched his future self struggle with piloting. His palm cannon discharged with a sharp crack, the energy beam lancing through an enemy fighter. The ship's engine exploded, and it spiraled downward trailing fire and smoke. One more threat eliminated.
The armor Banner wore was extraordinary—the Hulk armor series that he'd developed himself, working independently from Tony's Mark series. While Tony's designs were elegant and sleek, Banner's were functional and adaptive, built around his unique physiology and his greatest challenge: the unpredictable transformation.
The most important innovation—the feature that made this armor truly remarkable—was its adaptive capability. If Banner transformed into the Hulk while wearing it, this nano-armor would automatically adapt to accommodate the Hulk's drastically increased body size and mass. The individual nanobots would spread themselves thinner, redistributing across the much larger surface area. Although the armor would become considerably thinner—and therefore more vulnerable—it would remain functional.
This meant the Hulk could use long-range weapons for the first time. The palm repulsors, the shoulder-mounted missiles, the targeting systems—all would remain operational even after transformation. And crucially, the armor provided flight capability. The Hulk would no longer be limited to his trademark jumping method of transportation. He could fly, could pursue aerial targets, could engage enemies at range before closing to melee.
After Banner had demonstrated the prototype, the Guardians' Rocket had been fascinated. He'd examined the armor extensively and made several valuable suggestions. The adaptive nano-distribution system—the core innovation that allowed the armor to stretch with the transformation—had actually been Rocket's idea, refined from his observations of various alien technologies.
But what Rocket found most entertaining, what made him laugh every time he thought about it, was the psychological warfare aspect. He'd pointed it out gleefully: "The most interesting thing about this armor is what happens after a fight! The enemy has gone through so much trouble—exhausted their ammunition, employed special weapons, coordinated attacks—all to finally knock off Hulk's armor! They've achieved their objective! And then what?" Rocket's eyes had gleamed with malicious glee. "Then they have to face the extremely furious Hulk! Without armor! Just raw, angry Hulk who's now even madder because they broke his stuff! The looks on their faces when they realize!"
Whenever Rocket thought of this scenario—of enemies celebrating their victory in destroying the armor, only to realize they'd just made things infinitely worse—he couldn't help but burst into laughter. The image was just too perfect, too ironically beautiful. It never got old.
-Broadcast-
[On screen, Thor had reached the Commodore's rear hatch. Without hesitation, without safety equipment or any apparent concern for the danger, he opened the hatch and jumped out into open air. The city sprawled below him—a dizzying drop that would kill any normal person instantly. But Thor was far from normal.]
[He adjusted his trajectory mid-fall using subtle shifts of Stormbreaker, guiding himself toward one of the pursuing spacecraft below. He landed on its hull with tremendous impact—his boots hitting metal hard enough to dent it. The ship shuddered beneath him, its pilot suddenly struggling with the unexpected weight distribution.]
[Thor didn't waste time. He moved immediately to the engine housing, his hands finding the exterior access panel. With one powerful motion, he simply tore it off, exposing the glowing machinery beneath. Then, with casual brutality, he reached inside and ripped out critical components. Wiring sparked. Fuel lines ruptured. The engine seized.]
[The spaceship immediately began falling, trailing sparks and smoke as its power failed completely. Thor pushed off just before it went down, leaping to his next target while the disabled ship plummeted toward the city below, its pilot screaming into his comm system.]
[Meanwhile, inside the Commodore, Banner was living every academic's nightmare—being forced to operate complex machinery with zero training and lives depending on success.]
[He tried desperately to control the spaceship, his hands moving frantically across controls he didn't understand. The spacecraft lurched and dove erratically as Banner accidentally activated various systems. They dropped suddenly, then climbed too steeply. They rolled left, then overcorrected and rolled right. His scientific mind was working overtime, trying to deduce the function of each control through observation and basic principles, but spacecraft operation was not intuitive.]
[All the while, he was constantly avoiding enemy attacks. Energy bolts streaked past the cockpit canopy. Proximity alarms shrieked continuously. Warning indicators flashed across every display. It was chaos, and Banner was drowning in it, his heart racing, his breathing rapid, knowing that one mistake would kill them all.]
[Valkyrie, still engaged in her deadly ship-to-ship combat, landed on yet another pursuing spacecraft. But this time, instead of immediately disabling it, she looked at its configuration more carefully. Her eyes fixed on the ship's dorsal turret—a large weapons emplacement mounted on top of the hull. An idea suddenly crystallized in her mind, a plan forming from desperation and tactical opportunity.]
[She scrambled along the hull until she reached the turret itself. The weapon was currently aimed forward, tracking the Commodore, preparing to fire. But Valkyrie had different plans.]
[She came to the edge of the gun turret housing and grabbed the barrel with both hands. Using her considerable strength—Asgardian physiology enhanced by centuries of training and combat—she forced the weapon to rotate. The servos designed to aim the turret screamed in protest as she manually overpowered them. She wrenched the barrel around, changing its orientation by 180 degrees. Now, instead of pointing forward at Thor's ship, it pointed backward at the craft behind them.]
[The pilot inside, suddenly realizing his own weapon was being used against his allies, began frantically trying to fire before Valkyrie could—but her commandeering of the turret had locked him out of the firing controls.]
[Topaz, seeing what Valkyrie was doing, seeing the massive turret suddenly aim in her direction, immediately banked hard and flew away from the muzzle's line of fire. Her survival instincts overrode her bloodlust. She peeled off from the formation, her ship rolling and diving to get clear.]
[But the spacecraft directly behind Topaz wasn't as quick to react. The pilot, focused on pursuing the Commodore, didn't notice the redirected turret until too late.]
[The weapon fired—a massive discharge of energy that lit up the sky. The beam struck the unfortunate spacecraft head-on, overwhelming its shields instantly and coring through its hull like tissue paper. The ship exploded in a brilliant fireball, debris scattering across a hundred-meter radius. The pilot never even had time to scream.
Valkyrie, satisfied with her improvised tactic, abandoned the turret and jumped again, seeking her next target.]
[Thor had moved to another spacecraft by this point. He arrived on its hull and approached with methodical efficiency. Instead of subtle sabotage this time, he simply swung Stormbreaker with devastating force. He brought the axe down on the ship's hull repeatedly—massive, hammer-blow strikes that crumpled metal and shattered systems.]
[The strikes rang like thunder—which, given who was delivering them, was fairly literal. Each impact sent shockwaves through the entire spacecraft. After the third or fourth strike, something critical failed. The ship's structural integrity gave out, its power plant destabilized, and the entire vessel exploded in flames.]
[Thor pushed off just before the explosion consumed everything, Stormbreaker pulling him through the air toward safety and toward his next victim. Behind him, the destroyed ship crashed earthward, another flaming monument to the inadvisability of pursuing the God of Thunder.]
[But one threat remained—perhaps the most dangerous one. Topaz had recovered from her evasive maneuvers and now clung determinedly to the Commodore's hull. Her ship was temporarily abandoned—she'd actually disembarked mid-flight and physically attached herself to Thor's stolen vessel.
She moved along the exterior with grim purpose, heading for the cockpit, for Banner, for anyone she could kill in revenge for this entire disaster.]
[Inside the spaceship, Banner was still frantically searching through the control systems for anything resembling a weapon, any way to fight back against the enemies that kept attacking. His fingers jabbed at various interfaces, bringing up menus he couldn't read, activating systems whose functions were mysterious.]
"Okay! Come on! There has to be something!"
[His voice was rising with desperation, talking to himself as much as the ship.]
"Some kind of defensive system! That looks like it might be a weapon control! That icon looks vaguely gun-shaped!"
[He squinted at a particular holographic display, trying to convince himself it was what he needed.]
[After several more seconds of frantic searching, he found what appeared to be a weapons panel. There was a large, prominent button covered in alien text he couldn't read, but the icon above it looked aggressive, warlike. His finger hovered over it.]
"That looks like a machine gun! It has to be! Nothing else makes sense!"
[He pressed the button with more force than necessary, hope and fear mixing in his expression.]
[The response was immediate, but not what Banner had expected at all. Instead of weapons fire, instead of defensive systems, the Commodore suddenly began launching fireworks. Dozens—no, hundreds—of brilliant, colorful pyrotechnic displays shot out from hidden launchers all over the ship's hull. The explosions of color were magnificent, creating elaborate patterns across the sky—hearts, stars, spirals. It was spectacular, beautiful, festive, and completely useless for combat purposes.]
[And worse, a holographic projection of the Grandmaster suddenly popped up in the middle of the cockpit, life-sized and cheerful, rotating slowly with arms spread wide in celebration. His recorded voice boomed through the cabin speakers:]
"It's my birthday! Today is my birthday! Thank you all for coming to celebrate with me! Isn't this wonderful?"
[The projection was accompanied by upbeat, festive music that completely clashed with the deadly serious situation outside.]
[Banner stared at the hologram and fireworks display with an expression of utter disbelief and crushing defeat. Of course. Of course this is what that button did. This was a party boat. The largest, most prominent button would naturally be for the birthday celebration protocol. Why would he have expected anything different?]
[Outside, the watching pilots—Topaz included—were stunned into momentary inaction by this absurd display.]
[The people flying Topaz's spacecraft were especially affected. They'd been lining up attack runs, coordinating firing solutions, when suddenly their entire field of view filled with colorful explosions and birthday wishes. For a crucial few seconds, they couldn't see anything. They were flying blind through a manufactured aurora of celebration, their sensors confused by the thermal signatures of hundreds of burning fireworks.]
[After she—or rather, her pilots, since she was currently clinging to the Commodore—passed through the bewildering fireworks display, vision finally clearing from her cockpit, she suddenly realized there was a massive problem ahead. A ship, a large cargo vessel, was sinking into one of Sakaar's toxic seas directly in her flight path. The damaged vessel was half-submerged, at an angle, its bulk taking up the entire width of the narrow passage between buildings they'd been flying through.]
[There was no time to react, no space to maneuver. Before Topaz's pilots could process the danger and execute evasive procedures, the spaceship she'd been commanding crashed head-on into the sinking vessel. The impact was catastrophic. The front of the spacecraft crumpled like paper. The cockpit shattered. The momentum carried the ship through and into the toxic waters beyond.]
[The spacecraft, now nothing more than twisted metal and sparking electronics, plunged into the sea. It hit the surface with a tremendous splash, sending up gouts of corrosive liquid. Then it sank rapidly, disappearing beneath the waves, carrying its crew to their deaths in toxic depths. Bubbles rose briefly, then nothing. The ship was gone.]
["Yeah!!!" Banner, having witnessed this entire sequence through his displays—from his accidental fireworks gambit to the spectacular crash—was immediately excited and relieved. That troublesome pursuer was finally gone! The seas had claimed her! He might not understand spacecraft controls, he might be flying on pure panic and improvisation, but apparently birthday protocols were just as effective as weapons! Maybe more so!]
[His excited celebration was cut short as another proximity alarm began wailing. There were still more enemies, still more problems. But at least one major threat was eliminated.]
[Thor, having disabled his current target, jumped from that spacecraft onto yet another one. He moved with the confidence of someone in his element, combat and chaos being his natural habitat. He opened the cockpit hatch with brutal efficiency—simply tearing it open rather than bothering with release mechanisms—and reached inside. The pilot, screaming, was unceremoniously grabbed and thrown out into open air. The man's screams dopplered away as he fell, his fate sealed.]
[Then Valkyrie also arrived at the same spacecraft, landing on its hull with her characteristic perfect timing. Their eyes met across the exposed cockpit. She grabbed the ship's control stick, taking over piloting duties from the now-absent original pilot. She pulled back hard, causing the captured vessel to accelerate sharply upward, climbing toward where the Commodore flew above them.]
[Thor and Valkyrie exchanged glances, both smiling despite the danger, despite the chaos. It had been a long time—centuries for Valkyrie—since either of them had felt this way, this camaraderie, this satisfaction that came from fighting side by side with someone who matched your skill, who understood combat at your level. There was something pure about it, something that reminded them both of who they used to be.]
[When the captured spaceship arrived directly under the Commodore, positioned precisely beneath the still-open hatch, the two warriors moved as one. They abandoned the piloting controls simultaneously—the ship would crash without a pilot, but they'd already gotten what they needed from it. In perfect synchronization, they jumped straight upward through the air, through the hatch opening, and into the Commodore's interior. They landed inside with heavy thuds but kept their footing, immediately secure.]
[Banner, noticing their return through the interior cameras and the sounds of their landing, felt a wave of relief wash over him. They were back! He wasn't alone anymore! His head turned back toward the cockpit's rear section, and he immediately yelled:]
["Everyone! We're about to go through the Devil's Anus!"]
[His voice carried urgency mixed with residual panic from his improvised piloting experience. His gesture indicated ahead, where their destination loomed increasingly large in the forward viewport.]
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