| Synopsis | - Rider and Gamora unconscious beside each other. Then, an ominous noise wakes them. When they come to, they realize whom they are face-to-face with and react; Gamora moves quickly to kill him; Rider tries to ask her what was the last thing she remembers besides trying to kill him, putting a phased pulse ready to clean off her head to her neck. She relents and expresses that all she can recall is that she and Drax caught up to him.
Ride asks Worldmind as to where they even are; the Xandarian gestalt is unable to present any answer, mostly to due their diminished power levels. All around them is what looks like a graveyard of ships. Also, their passport bracelets are inactive and Gamora's precognitive sense is dulled. Worldmind then detects another lifeform ahead, which he identifies as a pachyceph voidnaut, stranded and lost from his herd. Rider attempts to assist him, only for bright creatures that appeared out of nowhere and start mauling on the voidnaut. Rider grabs Gamora and flees from the creatures. Once they are far away, Rider takes a moment to rest, for everytime he loses concentration, the virus takes a firmer hold. Gamora encourages him to surrender to the transmode virus so they can be together again. He slaps her away, stating that he'll fight it with every ounce of his being and refuses to become like her. She retorts that if he wants a fight, then he should help her fight those creature; he snaps back that her Godblade killed Ko-rel, who freed from the monster that he had become as a Select and wishes that she could see what kind of the monster the Phalanx has made her. Gamora defends that the Phalanx gave her a purpose, away from the monster that she was. Rider reminds her that she did have a purpose in the Annihilation War, when they fought together side-by-side; Gamora adds that they were lovers too and that can happen again; he points out that she technically ruined their relationship, for she executed the Kree collaborators he assigned her to interrogate near the end of the war. Therefore, he took on any mission that would keep him away from her. It was a hard decision for him, as he loved and trusted her; Gamora tells him that he should never trust her.
Then once again, the creatures attack. Worldmind reminds Rider that he can't fight them at a fraction of his own power and advises him to withdraw and abandon Gamora. However, Rider refuses to do the latter and carries her away from the creatures again. They then head through a portal that lands them somewhere else. Rider then starts coughing up the virus; Gamora urges him to give in to it or else it will kill him, to which he refuses. Frustrated at his stubbornness, she admits that she stayed away from him too in the last days of the war, for she felt guilty over what she was compared to him; the Phalanx had rid her of guilt; she makes one last plea for him to be with her again.
Worldmind then formulates a hypothesis; they are trapped inside a Vore, a creature that prowls in the spaces between dimensions. They are currently in the birthing canal, where its young are about to be born. Rider forms a shield around himself and Gamora, as they are thrown out of the Vore. Once outside, Gamora attempts to stab him in the back, only for him to strike first, crunching her leg; he didn't trust her for a second. He then dumps her on top of Drax, was furiously firing at the Vore, before resuming transit to Kvch, hoping to find a cure to the virus before it regains control or kills him in the next two hours.
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