Hawkman was aggravated but there was little he could do. He could still reason and think for himself, but some powerful magic compelled him to obey everything this creature called Magyar ordered him to do. He'd been relegated as a bodyguard for this creature who; he'd learned was the leader of a large faction of an astral race known as Githyanki.

Magyar was a powerful warrior/wizard who kept talking about plans to enslave a special segment of powerful humans that would be instrumental in solidifying his power base. At the moment He was standing guard while Magyar prepped another powerful geas spell that would place a second superhuman under his control. This one was supposed to be even more powerful then Hawkman himself.

Hawkman discovered that for some reason, he was able to understand everything the Githyanki said despite the fact that the creature spoke a completely different language then he'd ever heard. The creature understood him as well, even when he spoke ancient Egyptian and other languages Carter knew, including Latin.

Attempts by Hall to learn more had been rebuffed by his captor. He had no choice but to wait and be patient until an opportunity presented itself to be free of his captivity.

After several awkward moments Harley had succeeded in gaining the trust of Clayface. Despite her own addled mind she recognised the desperation and longing in her companion. She quickly began exploiting that.

After spending several hours cunningly gaining her charges trust; she went out into the night with him to help him find a new victim to alleviate his agony, carefully staying well out of his reach until they could find a victim.

Out into the night they went.

Hobgoblin and Boomerang realized they didn't have the resources they needed to storm Avenger's Mansion (or the facsimile) so they moved on.

They landed and began walking to conserve fuel. Both were becoming irritated and began sniping at each other.

After several hours walking and (especially Hobgoblin) chafing at being stuck in their gear for so long, they came across a dirt road that led past several medieval looking farms.

Both were tired and decided that the first oppulent farm they came across would recieve them as guests whether they liked it or not.

Eventually they saw a farm that suited them. It was child's play to subdue the farmer and his family and all their hands but Boomerang was ill prepared for it when Hobgoblin slaughtered the head of the household and declared himself master of the property.

Boomerang wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

Gabe Jone was surprised to learn that this was not the only hellicarrier available and that nearly all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were accounted for except certain top brass and apparently their best sharpshooters and their Mandroid division.

He was further surprised to learn that he was the highest ranking member available. Ergo, he was in charge. He had never been so ambitious that he wanted to be the top dog, but he never was one to shy away from respoinsibility either.

He immediately called for a meeting of all available personnel to brief them on what he knew of the presense of Hydra and to be briefed on what the other agents knew.

The two Hydra agents watched as the flivver retreated. Both would have been happy if it had been shot down.

The aircraft carrier was mustering some fighter jets to initiate a pursuit but the flivver was faster then it looked and was out of sight and out of range of radar before the fighter jets could be deployed.

The Hydra agent and the medic went off to report to the ship's commander and brief him of what they knew of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s presence.

As they were led to his office they each cast suspicious looks at each other at different intervals so that neither was aware of the other's suspicions.

For the Checkmate agents, the key that was ingrained in them was secrecy. It was paramount that the excess agents that were housed in the stadium be transferred to somewhere secret where the general public could not be made aware of the organisation.

So after spending the better part of the day laying low in the domed stadium, the agents found that their colleagues had determined every residence in Gotham that was currently unoccupied and helped situate all the agents that didn't already call Gotham their home into those residences.

In some cases, agents were forced to share, but those were rare as there were several unoccupied homes and apartments available.

The Intergang agents waited with varying degrees of patience. Nothing happened to relieve their boredom and only some resourceful ones figured out a way to relieve their stress. The rest felt like they had merely traded prison sentences.

Day 2, late in the evening:

The Vision was testing his density control powers. He had descended to the lowest levels of the mansion and was actually diving into the floor of the basement and descending several yards underground before rising back to the mansion's basement level.

On his most recent foray he found himself rising not into a lower level of the Avenger's mansion but out above a vast unfamiliar field, surrounded by a mountain, forest and an oceanfront.

Temporarily paralysed by the sudden and inexplicable change of scenery, the Vision was immobile for a few seconds as he strove to understand the sudden change in his environment.

Once he became fully functional, the synthezoid noticed a pair of Skrulls; male and female, engaged in a heated argument, many yards away.

Because he was still intangible, they had not noticed his presence.

Raksor and Nenora both were arguing heatedly. Raksor wanted to know why he should place any trust in a traitor to the Empire.

Nenora was trying to convince Raksor that she would never sink to those levels again.

Neither knew how they got there but Raksor had been fully briefed on how Nenora had failed the entire Skrull empire to suit her personal gain. Raksor intended to execute her as was the edict handed down for her betrayal.

Eventually Raksor began to worry about the dimonished Skrull population and began considering the usefulness of Nenora as a breeder to help replenish the once great Skrull race.

Besides, he realised he wasn't where he was supposed to be and correctly
surmised that it was the same for her.

The Vision drifted underground remaining intangible and eased closer to the Skrulls, eavesdropping on the heated discussion. He had long ago familiarized himself with both languages belonging to the Kree and Skrull race. If the Skrulls attempted to shape change their efforts would be useless as he could instantly analyze their physical makeup and recognize them.

He quickly learned that both Skrulls had no idea how they got there anymore then the Vision did.

The Vision's analysis quickly told him that wherever they happened to be, it was extremely Earthlike and he would have thought they were actually somewhere on Earth if not for the two moons.

The Vision decided to continue to discreetly monitor the Skrulls activities.
The Skrulls would undoubtedly react violently if he revealed himself.

Raksor and Nenora finally agreed to a truce to work together to decide where they were and how they got there, putting their other issues aside.

Surveying their surroundings they pulled out scanners and looked around the field they were in.

Raksor trained his on the mountainside and was very intrigued by the readings. The mountain was clearly more then it seemed. Before he could investigate his readings more thoroughly he was distracted by a shout of delight by his companion.

Nenora discovered that a very large boulder was actually a disguised Skrull shuttle. Raksor decided the mountain investigation could wait as they rushed to the boulder and after punching in some codes revealed the shuttle for what it really was.

They quickly clambored in and began prepping the shuttle for take off.

The Vision saw the Skrulls enter the shuttle and prep it for takeoff. He decided to phase through the shuttle and become a stowaway. He felt it would be best if he monitored the Skrulls activity and hopefully find out what was going on.

Neither Skrull had any inkling of their travelling companion and took off into space.

Hercules, the Prince Of Power was badly outnumbered he'd become embroiled in a scheme involving a team up between the Red Ghost and the Mad Thinker and he was flanked by the Red Ghost's super apes, the Awesome Android and Dragon Man, both under the control of the mad Thinker.

As Hercules considered the best way out of his predicament; Dragon Man the Android and Mikhlo the gorilla each struck at the same time, knocking Hercules into the air as if he were a guided missile.

As the stunned Hercules sailed through the air a rift in space opened and he was engulfed.

Hercules landed harshly in the middle of a field leaving a deep ditch several yards long and three feet deep in the soil of the field. Barely conscious, Hercules looked up to see a small spacecraft departing into the sky framed for a short while by a huge moon despite it being broad daylight.

Watching the craft disappear into space, he noticed a second moon in the sky as well.

Looking around, he saw no sign of his adversaries and was further confused by his new surroundings, his only thought was how impressive the hit he'd recieved must have been. Never had he been hit with such force.

He pulled himself together rubbing his forehead in confusion. Suddenly, he turned around at the sound of mocking laughter.

The mockery came from an enemy of his. Nightmare stood a few yards away and seemed to be overwhelmed with spasms of derisive cackling, clearly at the expense of the son of Zeus.

Hercules burned with anger. "Ho Nightmare! Tis time I bestow the Gift on you!"

With that he charged Nightmare. Alarmed; Nightmare fled immediately, having been the recipient of "the Gift" before.

Nightmare barely had time to get away. He hadn't realised Hercules could move that fast! It was one thing to rub it in with impunity but he'd learned the hard way that Hercules was one person who could bring the pain to somebody like Nightmare, at least when he was away from his own dimension.

Well he was back in his dimension now and although Hercules couldn't follow him he gloated temporarily in the fact that here even Hercules would be hard pressed to hurt him.

He decided to monitor things in his scrying devices. He needed an update on the current activities of Dr. Strange and he would soon need to conference with Dormammu and Umar.

When he arrived at his scrying devices, he was shocked to discover that he had no way at all of monitoring Dr. Strange or anyone else on the Earth as he knew it. he also was unable to get in touch with Dormammu or any of the other extra dimensional beings such as Mephisto or Sattanish.

Instead, he found he had a link to the world he'd left Hercules to and a new world he identified as Apokolips. Many of the heroes and villains he delighted in tampering with, replaced by a small handful of heroes and villains he was completely unfamiliar with.

He flew into a rage. How could this be? Who could place such limitations on Nightmare?

His rage was so great and encompassing that it actually served to incapacitate him for a great length of time amounting to several days for mortals.

Nenora and Raksor broke past the ozone layer and piloted the craft in an orbit around the planet. To their delight they discovered a Skrull destroyer class starship in orbit around the planet. They set coordinates for a rendezvous.

Looking down at the planet, they were startled to see the Earth profile that they were familiar with. Except the Earth they knew had only two moons. It was a perplexing mystery.

This bore more thorough investigation, but that would have to wait until they had connected with the Skrulls in the starship and had plotted a course of action. Something was not right.

After circling the "Earth?" once, they were able to dock on the starship.

They were eagerly greeted by confused personnel who were grateful to connect with other Skrulls though once they realised that one of the new Skrulls was the infamous Nenora they were left in a bemused state as Raksor spoke heatedly with the ship's captain.

Raksor pulled rank and the captain grudgingly led Raksor and Nenora to the conference room after he notified his top brass to join them.