by Alex Irvine
Drax had reached the surface and spotted the Third Quadrant. He ran toward it, carrying the unconscious Mantis. Ahead of him, Kraglin had opened the ship’s bay doors.
Then blue tentacles erupted through the earth, wrapping around the ship and dragging it forward and down. Drax skidded to a halt, but he couldn’t get out of the way. The ship was about to crush him and Mantis. Drax bent over Mantis to protect her as best he could.
Inside the ship, Kraglin made a desperate lunge for the thrusters and lifted the ship away from the surface, clearing Drax and Mantis by less than a foot. The engines thrummed to full power and the Third Quadrant tore free of Ego’s tentacles. Drax stood as the ship swung around to pick them up, but his feet wouldn’t move. He looked down and realized he was sinking slowly into the earth. He strained but could not pull free. Slowly he was drawn down, holding Mantis up, until the earth closed over their heads.
Below the surface, the column carrying Nebula and Gamora suddenly tipped at an angle and smashed into the wall of the cave. They were pinned in the rubble, which rose around them and sealed them away.
And in the deepest part of the core, within sight of Ego’s brain, the tunnel began to collapse around Groot.
Peter looked on in horror as a cliff wall near the core ripped itself in half, revealing the pure essence of Ego blazing forth from within. Ego walked out, skeletal and terrifying. He flicked a hand, and a swirl of stones dragged Yondu down to the ground. Rocket was next, disappearing in a swirl of blue and crashing stone. He had blasted free of the tentacles time and again, but Ego was more powerful now in his fury. The tentacles snapped around Rocket in a cage and began to squeeze.
“I told you,” Ego said. “I don’t want to do this alone.” Again, Peter was pierced by tentacles that snapped out from the direction of the core. He fought them, but they held him fast. “You cannot deny the purpose the universe has bestowed upon you!” Ego was assuming his human form again, layer by layer. First bone, then muscle, and last the skin that made him a frightening version of the spaceman Meredith Quill had loved until she died.
As the tentacles tapped Peter Quill’s Celestial energies, the planet began to come to life again. And on the other planets where Ego had left his strange plants, the terrible blue life surged into action again, overwhelming everything around it. Peter could feel it, the awful vitality overwhelming cities and sweeping over everything that was not Ego…the Expansion was happening despite all Peter’s efforts to stop it.
“It doesn’t need to be like this, Peter,” Ego called out over the rumbling of shifting rock. “Why are you destroying our chance? Stop pretending you aren’t what you are. What greater meaning can a life possibly have to offer?”
Peter felt the call of his destiny again. The surge of Celestial power was seductive, warring with his anger at what Ego had done to his mother. His twin natures, Celestial and human, were at war.
Yondu saw Peter’s struggle, and he desperately tried to help. “I don’t use my head to fly the arrow, boy! I use my—” Yondu’s voice was cut off as the rocks creeped over his face, but Peter knew what he had been about to say.
My heart.
Peter looked over at his father. At the same time he remembered all the times other people had brought him joy. Laughing with his mother. A rare moment when Yondu taught him something that wasn’t illegal, and Peter felt like he belonged. Sharing a joke with Rocket, a meal with Gamora, the deep connections he had forged.
Ego had never given him anything like that. In fact, Ego wanted to destroy it. He was out to destroy everything that had ever mattered to his son.
Anger surged through Peter. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, fighting for the human side of himself…and beginning to reclaim the Celestial energy that was bleeding away into Ego’s planet. He felt the power return to him, and realized that his destiny was not human or Celestial.
It was both.
He opened his eyes and saw Ego staring at him in shock. “You shouldn’t have killed my mom,” he said.
And then he broke free of the tentacles and rode a wave of anger and Celestial power toward his father. He smashed into Ego, driving him through rock walls and pounding at him with his bare fists, shattering rocks on Ego’s head. Every blow exposed the cold, blue essence beneath Ego’s human skin.
Staggered by the attack, Ego lost control over the energies of the planet. Drax heaved himself up through the earth, gasping for breath. Gamora and Nebula fought their way to the surface. Rocket exploded out of the tentacle-cage, and Yondu sat up out of his rocky tomb.
Peter sensed the same on all the other planets where Ego was trying to grow. The surging blue life slowed…and stopped. Its light began to dim.
And at the planet’s core, Groot struggled to continue on his mission. Ego’s core, his self, was within reach.
“Groot!” Rocket yelled from the mouth of the tunnel. “If you can hear me, hurry up! I’m not sure how long Quill can keep him distracted!”
Groot went through the steps. He activated the timer. He pressed the first button to prime the bomb. Then he hesitated. What was he supposed to do next? His finger hovered over one button…and then he changed his mind and pressed the other.
The timer started counting down. 4:59…4:58…
Groot ran.
CHAPTER 22
Drax pitched Mantis into the Quadrant and clambered in. Nebula and Gamora were almost to the surface. Rocket, with Groot on his shoulder, flew back toward Yondu, the last of them stuck down in the core with no way out. “Yondu! We’re about to blow!”
“Get to the ship!” Yondu called back.
“Not without Quill!”
“You need to take care of the twig!”
Rocket landed and said what he really meant. “Not without you.”
Yondu shook his head. “I ain’t done nothing right my whole life, rat. You need to give me this.”
Rocket knew what Yondu was doing, and knew he wouldn’t be able to change Yondu’s mind. Someone had to stay behind to get Quill off the planet if he could get free of Ego before the bomb went off. But whoever did that probably would not live to tell the story. Rocket detached two things from his belt. “A space suit and an aero-rig,” he said. “I only have one of each.”
Yondu took them. Rocket hovered, about to take off. “I am Groot,” Groot said.
“What’s that?” Yondu asked.
“He said ‘welcome to the frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy,’” Rocket said. “Only he didn’t use ‘frickin’.’”
Yondu nodded. “Bye, twig.”
Rocket accelerated upward. “We’re gonna need to have a real discussion about your language,” he said to Groot.
They got to the Quadrant and landed just inside the open bay door. “Where’s Peter?” Gamora demanded. “Rocket, where is he?” Rocket didn’t answer. He was looking at his timer. There was less than a minute left.
“Rocket, look at me. Where is he?”
Rocket just shook his head, but Groot pointed back outside.
“No,” Gamora said. “No, we’re not leaving him now.” She grabbed a rifle and started to head out onto the surface again—but sparks of blue light flared around her and she dropped, senseless, to the deck.
“I’m sorry,” Rocket said, still holding the stun gun he’d used to stop her. “I can only afford to lose one friend today.”
He looked up toward the Quadrant’s cockpit. “Kraglin, go!”
Kraglin reached for the thruster controls, but Drax stopped him. “No, wait.” He leaned down to the intercom. “Rocket. Where’s Quill?”
Rocket didn’t answer.
“Where’s Quill?” Drax shouted in anguish. The Quadrant lifted away from the surface. Rocket stared out the closing door. There was nothing any of them could do. The fate of the universe was at stake, and only some of them were going to survive.
Deep inside the planet, Ego had regained the upper hand after his son’s initial surprise attack. He and Peter charged at each othe
r again and again, only now Peter was playing defense because Ego had figured out Rocket’s plan. He knocked Peter down and struggled toward the bomb. The rock walls had fallen away from around the core and the bomb was visible on Ego’s pulsing brain. “No!” Ego shouted. “We need to stop it!”
Peter tackled him and shoved him away from the core.
“Stop it! Listen to me!” Ego said. He was no longer fighting, just trying to talk. “You are a god.”
Peter looked at his father, his immortal father. He had tried everything in his power to sacrifice Peter just like he had sacrificed all his other children. He had nearly made Peter into an instrument to destroy the universe. He had told Peter none of his friends mattered.
He had killed Peter’s mother.
And now he was afraid.
“If you kill me,” Ego said, “you’ll be just like everybody else.”
You really don’t get it, Peter thought.
“What’s so wrong with that?” Star-Lord asked.
For the first time, Ego understood his son. “No!” he cried out again…and then the bomb went off.
The explosion of the Anulax batteries destroyed the core of Ego’s self, setting off a chain reaction that spread through the planet’s interior. The human form of Ego crumpled in on itself and turned to dust before Peter’s eyes. The last vestiges of the Celestial energy flickered in the palms of his hands and went out. I killed my father, Peter thought. Because he killed my mother; because he would have drained me and cast me aside; because he would have annihilated all my friends without a second thought.
But it still wasn’t easy to think about.
Peter watched the planet begin to collapse around him, knowing he was about to die in the rolling waves of fire that spread from the destroyed core…and then Yondu burst into view and snatched him up.
They streaked toward the surface, flying up through a seam in the rock as a column of fire rose below them. As they jetted higher into the atmosphere, Yondu turned to Peter. “He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t do nothing right.”
He slapped the space-suit disc onto Peter’s shoulder and the suit flickered to life. They were in the upper atmosphere now, surrounded by the swirl of electromagnetic energies between the air and the hard vacuum of space. Still they flew higher.
“What?” Peter looked down and saw the planet collapsing into itself. Then he looked back at Yondu, who looked straight ahead, a smile on his face as they reached space. Yondu didn’t have a space suit. He had one of Rocket’s aero-rigs on his back, but nothing to protect him from the vacuum. Peter understood what was happening. “Yondu, what are you doing? You can’t do this!”
Yondu still looked up. The aero-rig sputtered and went out. Now they were moving only from momentum, flying through the empty space near the self-destructing ruin of Ego’s planet.
“Yondu! No!” Peter slapped at the disc, thinking maybe he could get it to protect both of them—but it was already too late for Yondu. Looking Peter in the eye, he put both hands on the sides of Peter’s face. Frost creeped over his blue skin. He held Peter’s gaze and gave his cheek a fatherly pat. Then his arms went limp and the frost creeped over his eyes.
All Peter could do was hold him, knowing Yondu had sacrificed his life to get him off the planet. It was true. Yondu had been the only real father Quill had ever known, and now he was gone.
CHAPTER 23
They prepared Yondu’s body in the Ravager way, laying him on a pallet and putting mementos and gifts on it next to him. Peter placed a doll that Yondu had cherished since Peter was a child. The other Guardians added insignia, bits of cloth with badges and medallions, other things that meant something to them. Mantis and Kraglin were there, too. Even Nebula stood nearby, observing. When it was all arranged, Peter felt like he should say something, so he told a story:
“I told Gamora how when I was a kid I used to pretend someone else was my dad,” Peter began. “He’s a singer and actor from Earth, really famous guy. Yondu didn’t have a talking car, but he did have a flying arrow. He didn’t have the beautiful voice of an angel, but he did have the whistle of one. Yondu went on adventures and fought robots. I guess that guy did kinda end up being my dad after all, only it was you, Yondu.” He started to tear up, and paused long enough to get his voice back under control.
“I had a pretty cool dad. What I’m trying to say here is…sometimes, that thing you’re searching for your whole life is right there by your side all along, and you don’t even know it.” Peter paused and looked around the room.
That was all he could say. “I am Groot,” Groot said softly.
Rocket nodded. “He did call you ‘twig.’”
Nebula walked away from the group. She had only stayed out of respect for Yondu’s courage. Now it was time for her to go…but Gamora had one more thing to say to her. She caught up with her sister near a small ship in the Third Quadrant’s launch bay.
“I was a child like you,” Gamora said. “I was concerned with staying alive until the next day, every day, and I never considered what Thanos was doing to you. I’m trying to make it right. There are little girls like you across the universe who are in danger. You can stay with us and help them.”
Nebula thought about it, but only briefly. “I will help them by killing Thanos.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Nebula turned to go. Gamora reached out and caught her arm. Nebula spun, fist raised to strike, but Gamora just stood there, arms open. Slowly, she gathered her sister in for an embrace. Nebula let it happen, and Gamora felt her relax, ever so slightly.
“You will always be my sister,” she said quietly.
Nebula raised one arm and laid a hand between Gamora’s shoulder blades. They stayed like that for a moment, and then Nebula stepped back and walked away to her ship.
Gamora watched her go before returning to the rest of the group.
When Yondu’s pallet was fed into a furnace, his ashes began to sparkle out into space. The Guardians of the Galaxy watched solemnly, feeling bound together by the experiences they had shared.
“Peter,” Kraglin said. “The cap’n found this in a junker shop; said you’d come back to the fold someday.” He handed Peter a small electronic device.
Peter took it. It was palm-sized and shiny, with a digital screen. “What is it?”
“It’s what everybody’s listening to on Earth nowadays. It’s got three hundred songs on it.”
“Three…hundred songs?” Peter couldn’t believe it. That was, like, twenty Awesome Mixes. “Wait,” he said as Kraglin turned to go. Kraglin stopped and Peter handed him Yondu’s arrow. “Rocket grabbed the pieces and reassembled it. I think Yondu would want you to have it.”
“Thanks, Cap’n.” Kraglin’s voice broke with emotion.
Yondu’s ashes sparkled in the void. Beyond them, other lights began to flash.
“They came,” Rocket said.
“What is it?” Drax asked.
“I sent word to Yondu’s old Ravager buddies,” Rocket said. More Ravager ships filled the space near the Third Quadrant. They had come to pay their respects. Stakar Ogord had lifted Yondu’s exile after learning the truth about what he’d done. Every clan had come to salute the Ravager who had helped the Guardians of the Galaxy defeat Ego. Each ship launched special fireworks to commemorate their brother-in-arms in a huge salute across the sky.
“He didn’t chase them away,” Rocket said.
“No,” Peter agreed.
“Even though he yelled at him. And was always mean. And stole batteries he didn’t need.” Rocket rarely got emotional, but he was kind of a wreck now. All of them were. They had saved the universe, but lost a friend they hadn’t known was a friend. Peter and Rocket looked at each other, knowing exactly what Rocket wanted to, but wouldn’t, say.
Being a hero was hard sometimes.
Groot crawled from Gamora to Drax and fell asleep on Drax’s shoulder. It was alw
ays surprising how tender Drax could be.
Peter and Gamora exchanged a look. “What?” he asked.
“It’s just…it’s an unspoken thing.”
He nodded. They moved closer together. The Ravager salute boomed and glittered in the deep void. Mantis and Drax stood close together, too. “It’s beautiful,” Mantis said.
Drax nodded. “Yes. And so are you.” After a moment he added, “On the inside.”
The Guardians of the Galaxy looked out into the vast space they had saved, and watched the memorial for their friend.
It was good to be among family.
EPILOGUE
Ayesha’s handmaiden approached her nervously. The high priestess was unkempt and distracted. Ever since the Guardians of the Galaxy had escaped her, she had spent days and nights in the laboratory, forbidding access to any other Sovereign nobles. But the handmaiden had her orders, so she dared to approach. “High Priestess. The council is waiting.”
“They have determined I have wasted our resources,” Ayesha said. “When they see what I have created here, their wrath will dissipate.”
The handmaiden looked at the creation. She had never seen anything like it, but it resembled…“It’s a new type of birthing pod, ma’am?”
The pod was a ten-foot-tall golden capsule, glowing softly from within, surrounded by curving spikes that focused the energies of creation on what was now growing inside.
“That, my child, is the next step in our evolution,” Ayesha said. “More powerful. More beautiful. More capable of destroying the Guardians of the Galaxy.” She considered that, relishing the idea of the Guardians’ destruction. “I think I shall call him…Adam.”
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