Chapter 341: Presentation
16th May 2013, Middle of Space
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
Yondu blanched when I mentioned Thanos, and I could understand. The Mad Titan was like the boogeyman in the galaxy. He didn't hold a physical empire, he didn't conquer planets and star systems, he simply killed half the population and left.
No one really knew of his intentions, his goals or his dreams, outside of killing half the population of every planet he visited. His children, trained soldiers utterly devoted to him, were extremely feared. Gamora was one of the most feared women in the galaxy. The Ravagers kept glancing her way many times with nervous looks on their faces, as if they expected her to snap and kill them all at a moment's notice.
Still the fleet started to arrive towards Ronan's ship, I nod towards Yondu, "Good luck."
Hela followed me as I walked towards the small shuttles. We entered inside and were ejected from the ship. We made our way to Xandar's surface while the Ravager fleet prepared the attack. This should be interesting, at least.
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(Peter Quill POV)
Peter Quill, the self-proclaimed Star Lord was falling. At least he wasn't alone anymore. Ever since his mother died, he was alone. He didn't have any true friends. Yondu's crew wasn't really appropriate for a young boy to befriend. Even now, as an adult, Peter was weary of a lot of them. Oh, the whole cannibal thing was very persuasive, but it was a running gag because that's what he cried out when he first saw them. But at their core, Ravagers were killers, thieves, and worse.
Truthfully, he never really liked being a Ravager, and he had hoped that the orb would have been his way out. Even when he ran missions for Yondu, he always refused anything that was too extreme, like murder or pillaging. He might be a thief, but he always thought of himself as an explorer. Yondu had understood this line, and had thankfully never asked Peter to cross it. Yondu could be surprisingly thoughtful at times. But deep down, Peter knew that he would inevitably be forced to do something against his moral code, and that he wouldn't be able to refuse, which is why he was always looking for a way out.
He's actually been saving up for years for the day that he could just leave Yondu's crew and never look back. His dream was to live a luxurious life, full of adventures, like the movies in his childhood. At first, the orb heist in Morag was supposed to add a few thousand units into his savings. Oh, it wasn't anything drastic, just a reasonably large payday that would put him one step closer to freedom.
Alas, when he realized that the orb was actually worth billions of units, and that Gamora already had a buyer, he knew that this was it. Even split four ways, it was enough for his retirement plan and more. This was his freedom on a silver platter, his true happy ending.
Unfortunately, the orb contained an infinity stone, a planetary weapon of mass destruction, and all thoughts of retirement went to hell. Well, they did when Drax – the moron – chose to invite a fucking rogue Kree fleet to their doorstep, because he wanted to kill Ronan. And well, that ended up with Peter back at the beginning with the Ravagers, under Yondu's thumb, and planning a desperate heist with a ridiculous plan that was pretty much suicidal. His dreams of freedom were crushed, and he was now desperately trying to stay on Yondu's good side to atone for his transgressions.
Oddly enough, the plan went reasonably well. They were able to infiltrate the Kree warship, sneak on board, and kill a few Kree soldiers. Gamora was able to disable the security lockdown, although she had to fight her bald blue robot sister. Rocket was doing a good job at killing any of the stragglers attacking the city, which was evacuated by the Nova Corps. Speaking of the Nova Corps, their planetary defensive fleet was very impressive with how it connected with each other, and held up the entire war ship, until Ronan decided to get serious and use the infinity stone to blow them up.
Still, it was enough for them to sneak on board and use Rocket's moon destroying weapon thingy, to hit Ronan point blank. That was when shit hit the fan. How the fuck did Ronan survive a direct blast of Rocket's weapon? He didn't even kneel. Maybe he used the infinity stone or something, but Peter didn't know.
He was relatively sure that he was going to die until Rocket crashed into the control room and hit Ronan point blank with the Milano. Now, that was some impressive flying. Anyway, the war ship was falling towards the surface with no end in sight. And Quill was prepared to die.
Quill was falling, but he wasn't alone. His crew was with him. Gamora, the woman who had tried to kill him, was giving him a sad smile while holding his hand. Drax was looking down strangely smiling – he was probably thinking about seeing his family again. Rocket, the sassy talking raccoon who kept insulting him, was weeping as Groot was turning himself into a protective cocoon in a vain attempt at saving his friends. Because they were his friends. It was such a strange concept, having actual friends, even if they all tried to kill each other before.
They didn't know each other for long, but he was glad to have met them. At least he would die a hero, having saved billions of lives, or at least tried to. It was a fitting end, in a way, that he wouldn't die a monster as he always feared. He would die a free man, like he dreamed. But at least he had purpose, his life wasn't an empty one.
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Peter suppressed his tears as Rocket was slowly crying at Groot's face, "No, Groot! You can't. You'll die. Why are you doing this? Why?"
"We are Groot!" the talking tree softly answered back, and for the first time, Peter could understand the underlining message. He expressed his love on a very deep level, and Peter was glad to reciprocate the feeling. At least, Peter would die loved.
Peter closed his eyes as he sensed his end nearing, until it never came. Slowly, Groot's body slowly returned to normal, but Peter didn't understand what was going on. He stopped feeling the heat that came with falling into a planet's atmosphere with no heat shields.
When they looked through the hole Rocket made, he saw that the entire projectile was immobilized. Did one of the engines fix itself somehow? He didn't even hear any of the engines working.
Everyone looked confused until their comms went online, "Well boys and girls, did you miss me?"
"Morrigan?" Peter questioned with surprise in his voice.
"I told you that when you idiots would inevitably fuck up, I would handle it." She drawled back.
Well, honestly, Quill sort of forgot about the woman slightly. Getting any information out of her was like pulling teeth. He barely got her name and that of her companion – Hela. The strange thing was that Gamora was actually scared of her, well not afraid, mostly just wary. She knew something about this fellow human. Something that made her very dangerous, even if she mostly looked like some noble who rarely did the dirty work herself.
When she had chosen to stay on Xandar to 'inevitably fix whatever mess you make' he just thought that she wasn't a fighter. There was no shame in it, some people were born to fight, and others were not. But now, the woman was somehow holding an entire Kree warship in the air.
Morrigan then spoke up, "I'm getting you down. Try to hold onto each other as much as possible."
Slowly the ship started to continue falling down. But they were already barely a mile high, so it wasn't too drastic of a fall. Except that the moment they touched the land, the ship turned into black feathers that started to flow in the air, before dissipating into shadows and disappearing into nothing.
Quill jumped down on the ground and pinched himself to make sure that it wasn't a dream. This couldn't be real. The Nova Corps seemed to not freeze in surprise and shot down any Kree soldier that survived – although they tended to be either very injured, or just dead.
The self-proclaimed Star Lord burst into hysterical laughter, until he saw the familiar purple energy glowing around. Ronan was still alive, and he still had the stone.
He heard the Morrigan's voice in the comms, "Rocket, get the Hadron Enforcer ready."
"It didn't work last time," the talking raccoon protested.
"Well, I wasn't there last time, just trust me."
Grumbling the raccoon started working on his weapon, which looked to be in surprisingly good condition.
When Ronan had released a blast, sending his attackers away and started monologuing, "People of Xandar, the time has come to rejoice and renounce your paltry gods! Your salvation is at hand."
"It's done," Rocket signaled back.
"Drax aim it at the staff, not Ronan himself," the woman signaled.
"I will fulfill my mission."
Drax then held the machine and aimed it at his target, "Fire, Rocket!" the Morrigan yelled.
The projectile hit the staff, this time, which was destroyed, releasing the infinity stone. Peter saw his arm moving by itself, as if it was being pushed by something. He grabbed the empty orb he had, and threw it at the infinity stone.
The orb opened up by itself, and swallowed the stone. He had to say that Ronan's baffled face was worth this entire mess.
For some reason, the Morrigan was snickering, "Pikachu, I choose you."
"What?" he asked.
"Oh, Earth reference. I forgot you were taken in the eighties. So, that was after you left Terra."
Grumbling at the fact that someone knew more Earth pop culture than him, he almost missed Ronan running towards the orb, only for a large piece of metal, probably a remnant of the ship, to fall from the sky and cut him in half, before turning into feathers and disappearing as well.
Peter, his crew, and even the Nova Corps stood there gaping at the corpse of the man that had terrorized the galaxy for years, and tanked weapons like they were nothing, die from an accident of all things. Although Peter didn't think that it was accidental at all. At least, considering the Morrigan's silence on the matter.
Peter walked towards the bisected Kree terrorist and went to grab the orb he threw. He didn't even realize that he was laughing. It was just so ridiculous. He fully expected to die because of this. He was smiling next to Gamora, with Rocket and Groot at their side, that were hugging, and finally Drax that had tears in his eyes, having finally avenged his family.
Unfortunately, the celebrations were interrupted by Yondu, "Well, well, well. Quite the light show. Ain't this sweet? But you got some business to attend to before all the nookie-nookie starts."
Peter stifled a groan; he had forgotten about Yondu in all the madness with Ronan, "You gotta reconsider this, Yondu. I don't know who you're selling this to, but the only way the universe can survive is if you give it to the Nova Corps."
"I may be as pretty as an angel, but I sure as hell ain't one. Hand it over, son."
Peter sighed and handed him the fake orb, making sure to hide the real one from him. After the Ravager Captain left, Peter muttered to. Himself, "He's gonna be pissed when he realizes I switched out the orb on him."
Gamora's smile made things worth it. Yondu was the closest thing that he had to a family, but it was time for him to grow up.
Before he was going to be interrogated by the Nova Corps, Morrigan said, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything about my involvement in all of this. I'd rather keep a low profile."
Peter was confused, "Don't you want to get pardoned from going to jail?"
The Morrigan snorted, "I didn't get arrested, Peter, I broke into the prison. It would take someone very powerful to even think about taking me down."
"Why the hell would you break into a prison?"
"To meet you, of course."
Still, Peter was confused, "Why would you want to meet me?"
"It's because of your father."
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