A mysterious probe passes through the wormhole linking Earth’s solar system with the Shi’ar Empire and descends into Earth’s atmosphere. Minutes later, three Mandroids pursue Deathcry through the streets of New York and confiscate a canister from her, Before the Mandroids can use lethal force against Deathcry, Hercules, Quicksilver and Crystal arrive and defeat them. As Deathcry claws through debris seeking the canister, a helicopter lands nearby and Gyrich emerges. At Avengers Mansion, Gyrich informs the Avengers that the wormhole has been accessed four times recently, risking destabilizing the sun. When they tracked the trajectory of the most recent probe, they found Deathcry at the landing site. Deathcry misinterprets Quicksilver’s concern for an accusation and runs away. In the pre-dawn hours of the next day, Deathcry returns to her room and finds Hercules waiting for her. He reminds her that he knows what it’s like to be alone and gives her a holodisk that he secretly recovered from the canister during the battle. The holodisk contains a message from K’rin, but damage to the disk has garbled the message. Meanwhile, on the Shi’ar homeworld, Lilandra prays that the message never reaches its destination, for the sake of them all.