Where were you going?

The Guardians and Midnight Sons had no problem arriving in the plane of Hades, which was found to be a grey, gloomy place with a bright orange sky. Surrounding them were vast rocky plains, and their flesh felt the frigid sting of a cool wind which seemed to blow from all directions at once. Off in the distance, they could see what appeared to be Pluto's castle, resting atop a high mountain crag. There was definitely something wrong around the castle. Large fires burned, and the air was littered with winged fliers. It seemed Mephisto had also come in search of Galactus, and his demonic forces were battling to force their way into the castle. The castle was only about a mile away, but lying between it and themselves was a dark, wide river which stretched off in both directions as far as the eye could see.

The river was, of course, the legendary River Styx which ran all throughout Hades. There was only one way to cross the River Styx. They sought passage on the vessel of Charon.

Charon appeared as a human skeleton, dressed in long, flowing black robes and a hood. When they approached Charon, the being asked if it could be of any assistance. In order to convince Charon to take them across the river, The Guardians presented Charon with a gift; as was the custom. Charon did not ask for much, and anything would do. The trip across the river only took all of 15 minutes, after which Charon beached his craft and allowed his passengers to disembark.

Just after leaving the boat and traveling maybe 50 yards towards the castle, they heard Charon cry out in agony. Charon desperately defended himself against 5 of Mephisto's demonic thralls. Mephisto had commanded his minions to destroy Charon to prevent him from ferrying Pluto's reinforcements across the river. Charon cried out to them "fifty yards ssssssouth of here, along the bankssssss of the sssssstyx, you will find a cave that masssssksssss a tunnel!"

Following Charon's dying advice and traversing the cave to the secret accessway, the Group came up in the middle of the throne room inside the palace. The throne room, like the rest of the palace, was hewn from solid rock and featured the throne of Pluto, and his absent queen Persephone, as well as a large banquet table laid out with silver and gold utensils, and a number of ornate wall hangings.

When they entered the throne room, Galactus laid unconscious on the banquet table, with Seth, Hela, and 15 of Pluto's soldiers watching over him.  Pluto was absent, ashis forces required his presence in fighting Mephisto.

All of the Guardians negotiated with the Death Gods while fighting to retrieve Galactus by force. After outlining that they should be allowed to claim Galactus, as then none of their adversaries win and balance is restored. Seth and Hela are seemingly convinced and are allowed to leave with Galactus. Hela even works to open an inter-dimensional portal so the Guardians may return to the Earth dimension with Galactus.

-

They felt the familiar warmth come over them that usually accompanies inter-dimensional travel; but this time there was a different sensation. For a moment, they felt sort of empty, as though they had been removed from space and time.

As the feeling quickly passed, they struggled to regain their senses. They were now in a region of no light whatsoever. There were no sounds as well. In fact, all of their senses were greatly impaired. Wherever they were, it was certainly not the Earth dimension.

Suddenly, a narrow beam of light passed through the chaos and illuminated a tall, dark skeletal figure draped only in long black robes. "Good evening, my friends. I am Death.

"I must congratulate you on gaining possession of Galactus. It appears my multitude of followers are as incompetent as ever. I know you would all appreciate returning to your home plane right now, but I am afraid I cannot allow that. You see, I need Galactus' cosmic power. I swear, that Voyd will wake, and when he does he will destroy my sibling Eternity. Once and for all, I will have all of existence to myself. I attempted to pass on Galactus' power to Mephisto and accomplish my goals through him; but it seems my other followers are equally incompetent at accepting their own inferiority. Though to be fair, none of my hopeless minions were aware of my grand machinations until now.

"The only thing I have yet to determine, is what will be done with you. You have all been more than a nuisance up to this point, and I cannot simply allow any of you to walk away. In fact, it is partially due to your interference that I have risked summoning my followers and travelling back to my inner sanctum in order to enact my scheme right now, even though there will not be adequate time to properly absorb all of Galactus' strength. He will have to hope that what he has siphoned will spare his life.

"Now, what to do with yoy?" Death temporarily paused. "Ahhh, I think I have an idea."

Then Death stretched out and waved its hand, causing a huge swirling pit composed of pure energy to appear and consume the Guardians. Just as they all plunged Into the energy pit, Death reached out and snatched the still unconscious Galactus.

Death had just flung them all Into the interdimensional vortex, the chaotic region that surrounds and touches each and every other dimension in the multiverse. The vortex was a region of pure light and being. Once inside the Vortex, they were all relentlessly buffeted with powerful pro solar winds and partially blinded by the immense energy permeating the entire area.

The only way The Guardians managed to escape or even survive being thrust into the interdimensional vortex, was by haphazardly stumbling upon a natural aperture into an adjacent dimension. Serendipitously, the dimension into which they escaped was one in which the real Adam Warlock had resided. Being honestly reunited with Adam Warlock restored the morale for the Guardians, and they quickly gathered an all-star Team to confront Death itself. Silver surfer and Adam Warlock worked the interdimensional travel to arrive at Death's secret headquarters.