Facades
Unmapped Sector
Ravager Spaceship Rechristened ‘Vengeance’
“They’ll be here within hours,” the insect-like humanoid on the screen said in a hushed voice; as if afraid beings hours away would hear him.
“How many?” the woman at the console asked.
“Seven,” came the reply.
“Activate the failsafe,” she ordered.
“We can’t,” the Agullan monk replied. “Sensors indicate a cloaked ship hovering over the cloister. If we launch it could be intercepted.”
This information was met with a growl from that informed. She didn’t want to go there. If anyone had found it, it was a certainty that Thanos wouldn’t be far behind. And if he was on the way, she didn’t want to be in the same sector as that artifact. But, if he found it, everything she’d worked for was lost.
She looked down hesitantly at the course she’d set in her console, as those conflicting urges, the urge to flee and the urge save her only hope of ultimate safety, warred within her. As if voicing its own opinion, her mind replayed one of her worst memories. Something she considered to be in very poor taste.
>>
It was a tale she’d visited often enough in her sleep. The details often changed, but the low points were the same. She still had no idea what had brought Thanos down upon her family. She’d been just a child when he attacked their estate and killed everyone minus her and her brother, Gaem. That life now seemed utterly unreal, at best a dream, at worst a taunt about the terrible hand life had dealt her.
Afterwards they’d been taken aboard his mighty ship and ‘processed’. They were separated, tagged, and informed that they would soon be paired with what Thanos sadistically called ‘friends’. She was quick to discover that his idea of that word was as twisted as this world she’d been thrust into.
“You will each be the test of the other,” her first instructor explained with barely contained delight. “You will compete for everything. You will, of course compete at one point with all of Thanos’s children, but with your friend you will always compete, always struggle. Losing will be punished. Winning will be punished less.”
She remembered being terrified that they’d pair her with her older brother. She could never have raised a hand against her longtime protector, the one who’d always provoked her father when he was intoxicated.
But in the end, she’d been paired with a young Zen-Whoberi girl named Gamora. Punishments were as brutal as they were random. Failing at any task, any lesson, could mean anything from a viscous beating, physical torture, psychic torture, loss of meals, extra work, etc. The monsters controlling their lives seemed to have limitless ways of doling out anguish. Nor was having been punished an acceptable excuse for failure. Sometimes she’d been certain that the trainers deliberately chose the punishment most likely to induce failure in whatever tasks came next.
She and Gamora learned this quickly, and both did everything they could to avoid punishment. As it turned out they were fairly well matched in scholastic matters.
Then Thanos began training them in combat and everything changed. Nebula found that she had an aptitude for fighting, an ability to see any confrontation as if it were moves on a chessboard and choose the best action accordingly. But despite this ability, she kept losing her bouts. It was as if something held her back. No matter how much she wanted to avoid punishment something just wouldn’t let her capitulate on the advantages her mind showed her.
At first, she’d thought maybe it was simply a stubborn refusal to do what her captors wanted, but she’d eventually come to the conclusion that there was something else, something deeper, going on. No matter how much she was punished she just couldn’t get over that slight hesitation and she didn’t know why.
Thanos saw it too. After yet another defeat he decided to ‘help’ her. The bout was barely over when he pushed into the ring, seized her by the arm, and drug her out of the room.
“That streak of compassion of yours holds both of you back,” he told her as he marched her through the corridors. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
He placed her in a device that suspended her in the air. Then she began to feel a pulling sensation on her left arm. It continued to increase, until far past the point of simply causing pain, but she knew better than to cry out. She strained against it, pulling with every muscle in her body. She begged Thanos to stop, but it didn’t seem as if he even heard her.
Then she did scream, a howl of horror and pain as her left arm was ripped from her body. She passed out from the pain, the thought that this terrible existence was finally over the last thing to go through her mind.
But it wasn’t the end. She awoke to an even worse pain, as a metal arm was fused to her skeletal structure and skin. Despite the proven consequences she screamed and cried, begging him to stop. Again he was silent. Then she was flung back into the tiny cell that served as a bedroom. Of course, there was no bed to curl up on. She had to make do with the floor. She curled up into a ball and whimpered herself to sleep.
>>
It was far from her worst memory, but it served to illustrate all the reasons to avoid the risk of being captured by that madman again. Warring with that was the thought of how powerful Thanos would become if he found that last stone; the shear amount of power he would control was terrifying. There would be no escaping him then.
She took a reassuring breath. “Give me a link to the satellite. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said in a resigned voice.
“Thank you,” came the reply. “I will inform the monks that the Blue Mistress is on the way.”
“I’ve told you not to call me that,” the bald woman replied bitterly, as she activated the link on her screen. On it a group of seven were picking their way through the thick undergrowth surrounding her hiding place. She recognized all of them immediately. “Idiots,” she hissed, upper lip curling in disgust as she entered the new course on the console.
>>
Eb Dunomisa
4th moon of Ahl Agullo
“Can someone please explain why we’re following some weird cloaked guy through some unnamed forest?” the cybernetically enhanced raccoon like creature going by the name ‘Rocket’ asked. He was four feet of fur, fangs, and angry . . . mostly angry.
“Because we couldn’t land the ship closer,” Drax The Destroyer said as if talking to a fairly slow child. The six-foot four-inch mountain of blue flesh had only one conversational mode: blunt. Generally blunt as in ‘the trauma leading to your death’. He also had some aversion to shirts. He refused to wear them even when traipsing through said jungle.
“Because,” Peter Quill said, trying not to sound like he was talking to a slow child “the weird cloaked guy has money. You remember money right Rocket? It’s the stuff that comes in handy for things like port fees, refueling costs, and last but not least, parts and equipment for when someone pisses off a couple of planets,” he said, that last rather pointedly.
“I am Groot,” the tree monster with them added.
“And Sys-Net,” the rather tall human agreed.
“Hey I only pissed off one planet,” the raccoon-thing reminded him. “It’s not my fault that you’ve got daddy issues. Besides,” he went on, cutting off whatever outburst was working its way out of Quill “I already gave you a brilliant plan to make loads more money than some creepy cloaked old guy would ever have.”
“Stealing the Shi’ar family’s crown jewels is not a brilliant plan!” Quill yelled exasperatedly.
“It was foolproof!” the raccoon replied.
“Would this be as foolproof as your plan to steal Anulax Batteries?” The sexy green woman in front of them asked pointedly.
“They’re called Duracell Batteries,” Drax corrected, earning an eye roll from all assembled.
“Hey, I got away with it didn’t I?” Rocket replied.
“You almost got us killed, and got my ship destroyed!” Quill pointed out.
“Yeah, well, anything’s better than being some creepy old dude’s babysitter,” he sulked.
“Are they always like this?” the cloaked individual asked the one member of the team currently abstaining from the fight.
“I wouldn’t know,” the antennaed Mantis replied softly. “I have only just met them.”
“How much further?” Quill yelled from the back, interrupting whatever the cloaked figure was going to say.
“Not far,” he said, turning stiffly, as if dealing with neck problems.
“I am Groot” the four-and-a-half-foot tree monster that had been shambling along with them said again.
“Yeah, I know you had a raid with your clan, but this is important Groot,” Quill replied.
“I am Groot,” Groot replied sullenly.
“I don’t care about the Oxnyx Rifle, Groot! It’s just a game!”
“And what’s with this guy,” Rocket continued. “I don’t trust him. I mean look at him. He’s so creepy and weird, and have you seen his skin? It’s pasty and . . . old. It’s like-”
“Could you at least not insult him until after we’ve been paid?” Quill cut in, sounding more than a little irked. “That’s all I ask. Just keep your yapper shut for a little longer. Please.”
“Fine, but I still say he’s weird,” Rocket grumbled.
Which, ironically, brought them to the top of the crest they were climbing. The others had stopped and were looking down the other side at an ancient series of buildings. The greens of the jungle they’d been marching through gave way to an orangish brown soiled valley dotted with green buildings.
“What is this?” Gamora, asked breathlessly. The greenish stone buildings had a feeling of great age, despite the fact that they were all in very good condition. They seemed to be organized in concentric circles. At first the pattern seemed random, but there was some pattern that tugged at them; as if the algorithm that had created it were at the tips of their brains.
“This is the cloister of the monks of Taung Kalat,” the stranger told them. “It is a place of rest, contemplation, and spiritual healing.”
“I thought you said it was abandoned,” Gamora said slowly, while casing the area. It was a habit she’d never been able to break. The stranger didn’t respond.
“What was it you wanted from them?” Quill asked, making a similar sweep of the area.
“A simple orange jewel,” he replied.
“No one traverses hundreds of light-years and alien jungles for a simple jewel,” Quill pointed out.
“It is one of a set,” the stranger explained, starting down the path to the monastery. “My employer wishes to complete it.”
“How exactly are you planning to obtain it from them?” Gamora asked suspiciously as they followed.
“My employer has given me considerable room to bargain in this matter,” the hooded man explained as he continued picking his way down the path.
“Sounds like a good way to waste a lot of money to me,” Quill commented, mostly to himself, pausing to check out the emptied area.
“Hey, don’t insult the boss’s boss till we get paid,” Rocket said sarcastically as he passed him. The rest of the trip down the fairly steep trail was passed in silence, as the group collectively wondered where the inhabitants were. As they came closer, they could see buckets of water, simple gardening tools, and various other implements unattended. It looked as if their keepers had dropped them and run; a most unusual response to visitors for a famed place of refuge and spiritual healing.
“Tell me this doesn’t bother you,” Gamora said under her breath. She and Quill had slowly dropped to the back of the group, as the anticipated ambush consistently refused to resolve itself.
“Which part?” Quill asked in equal quiet “The empty monastery, the creepy jungle, or the annihilated planet rising behind us?” Gamora glanced behind them to where Ahl Agullo had just cleared the horizon. She didn’t know what had brought Thanos to the planet three years before. It wasn’t for his children to demand such information. And she hadn’t been there, as she’d already been on loan to Ronan at the time. But whatever had brought the purple titan to the planet wasn’t important anymore. All anyone knew was that the Agullans had not complied with his demands. By the time he’d left, they’d gone from a technological society of 60 million intelligent (if ugly) humanoid insects, to a few thousand survivors of a horrific slaughter huddled together. The monks here probably couldn’t have gone home at this point if they’d wanted to.
“The part with the previously unmentioned employer willing to throw away this much money for some orange stone. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sounds like most collectors to me,” Quill countered as he continued to case the area. “Let’s accumulate vast amounts of money just so we can waste it on sculptures and pictures just to one-up our friends.”
“And the fact that he didn’t tell us about this mysterious employer? Or the fact that he led us to believe this monastery was abandoned?” she added.
“I don’t know Gamora,” Quill replied. “My gut says we can trust him. I mean look at him,” he added gesturing to hunched old man. “I’m surprised he made it through the forest.”
“Unless it’s just an act,” Gamora argued.
“Look,” Quill said stopping to grab her shoulders and turn him towards him “if he’s not on the level we’ll just kill him. Why would he have been willing to pay us so much to be his babysitters if he could handle this himself?”
“I-I guess so,” Gamora said uncertainly. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders and continued on. “Don’t let Rocket hear you call it babysitting,” she added.
“Too late,” the raccoon replied from further up the line. Quill rolled his eyes, turning to follow.
He caught up to the rest of them where they’d stopped. They’d arranged themselves in a huddle near the entrance to what appeared to be a completely random building.
“It is here,” their guide/ward said with finality.
“How can you tell?” Quill asked. Everything looks the same to me.
“Agullan monasteries always follow certain patterns,” he explained. “Prepare yourself,” he added, starting towards the looming entrance. “The monks have assembled inside.”
“Now how could-” Rocket started, but the cloaked figure had already disappeared.
The rest of the group looked to Quill. “Alright, it’s odd,” he admitted. “But are we really going to turn back now?” he asked pointedly. “Come on guys, we’re almost paid and rid of this guy. Just . . . keep your eyes open.” With one more glance at the others he pulled his energy pistols, set them to ice, and stepped inside. The others shared one more glance before following suite.
There was no sign of the old man when they entered. But there was only a single way to go. The group moved down it cautiously. The tunnel sloped downward, twisting this way and that. The green stone of the building walls quickly conceded to the same orangish sediment they saw above. The cave walls themselves seemed to be glowing faintly, though none of them knew why.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Rocket said.
Gamora whipped around. “I’ve asked you never to say that,” she hissed, just as a six-foot bipedal insect slammed into Quill. It lumbered along on two massive limbs, leaving four manipulator arms to attack Quill with. His guns went clattering to the ground as he wrestled with the heavier being. The group started to move to help, but found themselves surrounded by like beings.
“Ahaaahaha!” Drax yelled, charging into the group with a glint in his eyes. The group gave a couple steps in surprise at his direct assault. It was clearly not what they’d been expecting.
“You know what, Quill?” Rocket asked as he activated one of his expanding rifles. “You were right. This is more fun than robbing some crown jewels and having time to do our raids. And with that he began shooting anything that moved. Honestly it was a surprise that he didn’t hit an ally the way he was plowing through ammo.
“Yeah but they don’t have online gaming in Shi’ar prisons either,” Quill grunted as the insect rolled on top of him and gripped his neck.
Gamora pulled her sword and beheaded the Agullan with an upstroke before it could strangle Quill. “Why are they attacking us?” she asked as she helped him to his feet.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask,” Quill quipped as he snagged one of his guns just in time to shoot one of the insectoids before it could sneak up on her. “Maybe having your dad wipe out most of their species has rendered them somewhat xenophobic.”
“He’s not my father,” Gamora growled as she beheaded two more with one stroke. Quill shot his way over to his other pistol.
“We should talk to them,” Mantis yelled from the corner she was hiding in.
“They don’t seem interested in talking,” Quill asked as he grabbed his second pistol from the dirt. He barely had time to pick it up before rolling out of the way of another of the insectoids. It tripped on his legs taking a header into the wall.
“Peter!” Gamora barked as he aimed at the failed projectile.
He glanced back as it righted itself. “Seriously?” he asked in disbelief. True, they’d cleared the insects in this corner, but there was still nearly a half dozen of them fighting Drax. Correction: Nine left.
Gamora returned Quill’s glance with a stern look. He considered ignoring it and just finishing the thing off. It had picked itself up, but it wasn’t moving, which compounded the issue. His head bobbled back and forth like a scale as he weighed his options.
Cursing the luck that had made him the face of the group, he stepped directly into Rocket’s line of fire and held his guns up with his palms out. Gamora backed up as well, sword at the ready. “We mean you know harm,” he said loudly over Rocket’s grumbling.
Rocket’s loud demands that Quill get out of the way acted as something of a counterpoint to that statement. Still, even with that hit to his credibility, he might have succeeded if Drax hadn’t picked that moment to start using one of the aliens as a flail against its comrades . . . laughing gleefully with every swing. Needless to say, the overture was not taken seriously.
The alien launched itself from the wall at Quill, claws curved like nasty looking ice cream scoopers. Rolling his eyes Quill opened fire again. The fight ended with the last surviving of the insectoid monks with its back to the wall, surrounded by the guardians.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, trying again. The insect glanced meaningfully at its fallen comrades. “We didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Peter revised quickly. “Why did you attack us?”
“We know Thanos sent you,” it clacked menacingly.
“We don’t work for Thanos,” Gamora stated, putting her sword away and moving to stand next to Quill.
“Lies,” it clacked again.
“Yeah, you’re probably not the best person to try and convince it of that,” Peter said pointedly, giving her a sidelong look. She returned a much darker version of it.
“Look,” Quill said “we were hired to protect him while he tried to buy some antique. That’s all.”
“But,” it said looking back and forth between the two “he said . . . who are you?”
“We’re the Guardians of The Galaxy,” Quill told him.
“I don’t know this name,” the alien replied.
“Dude, you gotta get out more,” Rocket butted in.
“It has not been easy since the destruction of my home planet,” it replied dryly.
“Rocket, shut up,” Quill demanded before turning back to their captive. “Does the name Star Lord mean anything to you?” he asked. It shook its head in the universal symbol of ‘no’, causing an intense expression of frustration to flicker across the human’s face.
“Drax the Destroyer?” Drax asked. Again, it shook its head.
“Rocket the Mercenary?” the raccoon thing piped up. Another headshake.
“The old man?” Gamora asked.
“Pretty sure your name’s Gamora, Gamora,” Rocket replied.
“No,” she protested. “You said he warned you,” she said, pinning the alien wither her gaze. “Who was ‘he’?”
“The one that preceded you,” it said. “I know nothing else of him.”
“Was he an old man with grey skin?” Peter asked, catching on to where she was going.”
It shook its head again. “I have trouble determining age with exoderms,” it stated. “But his skin was pure white.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Peter said to Gamora. “We need to find our wayward money bag before something happens to him.”
The alien looked between him and Gamora in confusion. “I recognize that word, but I wasn’t aware you gave your wallets gender.”
“You have no idea,” Quill replied offhandedly. “When I was sixteen, I had this one wallet with a picture of-”
“He means the old man that hired us to protect him,” Gamora cut in, flashing a glare at Peter.
“I do apologize,” a hunched figure said from almost directly behind them. Needless to say, the group whipped around faster than a tornado. The only things held in a tighter grip than their weapons were their sphincters. “When I saw the monks prepared to fight, I decided I could best serve you by staying out of the way,” he added, completely nonplussed by the weaponry bristling at him.
“Yeah and while we’re apologizing why don’t you explain why these supposedly peaceful monks attacked us on site,” Rocket demanded. “Not that I mind killing ‘em,” he added.
The old man looked at the raccoon, then to each of the others as if gauging his options. Then his shoulders slumped slightly as he made a decision. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you,” he said with a sigh.”
“No really?” Rocket replied glaring meaningfully at Quill.
“Rocket,” Gamora snapped quietly, attempting to shush the excitable creature.
“What?” Rocket snapped back. “How many times did I tell you he couldn’t be trusted? And none of you listened to me, did you? Oh,” he continued in a poor approximation of Quill “my gut says we can trust him.”
“I am Groot,” the tree monster replied supportively.
“My point exactly,” Rocket answered. “None of you ever listens to me!”
“This isn’t helping,” Drax said calmly. Despite the dire nature of events, despite their tenuous parley, despite the truism waiting to be revealed, everyone turned to stare openly at the berserker; quite a few of the starees had considerable slack in their jaws.
“What?” the object of their shock asked with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “I want to hear what he has to say.
“I am Groot,” the plant monster replied.
“Yeah this is definitely the weirdest day I’ve ever had,” Quill agreed before turning back to the old man. “Alright spill,” he demanded.
Before speaking, that commanded looked between each of them again, no doubt wondering how such a clearly chaotic group had remained cohesive at all. He decided to table that thought for later. “What I seek is not some simple lump of amber,” he explained slowly. “It is a gem of amazing power over the spirit.”
“The soul stone?” Gamora gasped.
He nodded. “It has been hidden here, safe from Thanos, for many years. But this location has been compromised. He is on his way,” he added. Gamora paled noticeably at that little revelation. “I must obtain it any way I can and move it somewhere where it will be safe.”
“Who’s your employer?” Gamora asked.
“My contract specifies non-disclosure in that-” he started, but halted as she stepped forward and laid her sword across his neck. Just for complete overkill the rest of the group pointed their various weapons at him. He couldn’t help but glance, wide eyed, at the arrayed weapons. “The Collector,” he blurted quickly.
Quill and Gamora glanced at each other, and backed off by mutual agreement. They could hardly blame him for attempting to apply the very same solution to the issue that they’d attempted not so long ago. Everyone else lowered their weapons a half second later.
“You realize this is the last infinity stone right?” she asked him. “If Thanos ever learns that your employer has it then nothing will stop him.”
“The-my employer has taken adequate precautions in that respect,” the old man said. “He’s already hidden the aether successfully for more than a year.”
“And you want to give him another one?!” Gamora asked incredulously. “Why not just give him all six? Make it a one stop shop for the end of the universe.”
“As opposed to this never-ending shell game?” the old man replied.
“Wait, back up,” Quill cut in. “Granted that the stones are really powerful, but Thanos is already the most powerful creature in the galaxy. So, what if he gets the stones?”
“Did you grow up under a rock or something?” Rocket asked.
“No, I grew up prisoner to Ravagers as I recall,” Quill pointed out.
“Thanos wants to complete the Infinity Gauntlet,” Gamora explained. “When combined with the six Infinity Stones it could destroy the entire universe.”
“Why would he do that?” Quill asked. “Isn’t that where he keeps all of his stuff?”
“He wouldn’t,” Rocket replied. “But he would use it to kill half of the galaxy’s inhabitants all at once.”
“What the hell for?” Quill asked.
“He’s been trying to impress Death for as long as I’ve known him,” Gamora explained.
“Wait, Death?” Quill asked.
“You don’t know who death is either?” Rocket asked incredulously. “Remind me to give the Ravager educational system a bad rating when we get back.”
“I know who Death is,” Quill replied defensively. “He’s a creepy old skeleton, wears a black robe, has a scythe.”
“She,” Gamora corrected.
“Really?” Quill asked. “Well, I guess a skeleton’s a skeleton. Still seems to be an odd fetish.”
“She doesn’t always look like that,” Gamora replied. “In fact, I think you’d classify her as . . . hot,” she added.
“So, to recap,” Quill said “we are trying to keep him from getting all the stones so he can’t complete this gauntlet thing, to kill half the creatures in the galaxy, to make it with Death?”
“And we are running out of time,” the old man replied pointedly.
“Then lead the way,” Quill replied with a wave further down the tunnel.
“You cannot,” their prisoner stated.
“You will be compensated,” the old man replied.
“It is not ours to sell, nor yours to take,” it replied.
“You’d rather Thanos got it?” Gamora replied incredulously.
“The Blue Mistress will retrieve the stone,” it replied with certainty.
“The who?” Rocket asked.
“She is on her way,” it didn’t quite explain.
“That wasn’t the question,” Gamora pointed out, taking a menacing step towards it.
It eyed her momentarily. “We don’t know who she is. She came to us after Thanos had razed Ahl Agullo. She gave us the materials for self-sufficiency. In return she asked that we hide the stone.”
“Tell you what,” Quill replied “if your mistress shows up before we get to the stone, she can have it.” This drew looks of various intensity from the others. “What? What are the odds she’ll be here in the next fifteen minutes?” he asked, half turning to them defensively. At that moment the creature attacked. It pushed off the wall they’d backed it onto and threw itself at him. It was met with the butt of Quill’s left blaster. It fell, unconscious to the floor. “Tie it up quickly,” he ordered.
When the deed was done, they resumed their trek downwards, with the old man leading, Quill and Gamora bringing up the rear. The further they went the faster the old man seemed to lead them, like a kid dragging his parents through a toy store to that one coveted treasure. Gamora became more restive at roughly the same pace. Twice she looked as if she were about to speak before thinking better of it. Finally, Quill broke the silence.
“Something’s bothering you,” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied uncertainly. “It’s just . . . this blue mistress of theirs.”
“Plenty of blue bigendered species out there,” Quill pointed out.
“Maybe,” Gamora said uncertainly “but Nebula’s last mission before Thanos lent us to Ronan was to track down the Spirit Stone. When she returned empty handed, he was furious.
“You don’t really think she’s their blue mistress, do you,” he asked, unconvinced. Gamora just looked at him. “Come on,” he argued. “It’s not exactly the Indigo Psycho’s modus operandi.”
“Don’t call her that,” Gamora snapped.
“Look,” he said apologetically “I know she’s your sister but she’s not exactly the do-gooder type; more the crazy, psychotic, rip your heart out of your chest, revenge type.”
Before Gamora could respond the tunnel wound into a large chamber. It had pillars made of more green rock reaching up to the ceiling over a hundred feet overhead. The orange soil was dotted with green and blue vines and undergrowth. The massive chamber looked ancient. Many of the walls and pillars seemed to have collapsed over time creating a maze of rubble.
From their vantage point they could see other entrances feeding into the chamber, spaced evenly around its diameter. Some ended on ledges above their location. In the center was a massive six-armed statue of an Agullan with gems for eyes. Most of them were the traditional colors of an Agullan’s eyes, but one was distinctly orange.
“This way,” the old man said, quickening his pace still further. “If we hurry-” he started before being rudely interrupted by a stun stick that close lined him from the opposite side of one of the pillars. Before they could do much other than skid to a stop Nebula stepped out from behind the pillar she’d been hiding behind. She flipped the stun stick in her other hand to an ice pick grip and stabbed down at their prone charge without hesitation.
Somehow the old man managed to roll out from under the strike. He aimed a kick at her torso as the motion brought him around. She sidestepped it easily.
“Nebula what are you doing?” Gamora yelled as the guardians ran to save their payday.
“She’s here to retrieve the stone for Thanos!” the old man yelled as he scooted away from her.
Her only response to this accusation was a snarl as she lunged at the old man again. He rolled to the right from the pillar he’d backed up against, but she’d clearly anticipated that. The stun stick in her left hand met him half way, discharging itself directly into his forehead. He slumped to the ground. It was unclear if he was dead or unconscious.
But what was clear was that Nebula was going to make sure; again, the reversed stun stick plunged downward towards her target. Before it could connect Gamora’s sword flashed up, deflecting her coup de grace.
“Stop this,” she yelled again as Drax came up behind Nebula and gripped her wrists. He squeezed until Nebula let the stun wands fall to the ground. Nebula glared at Gamora.
“How could you be so stupid, sister?” she demanded. As their minds composed an appropriate response, she rammed her head directly into Drax’s nose. As he screamed in pain, she slammed her foot into his instep. When his grip lessened, she reached up behind his head and rolled the big man forward directly on top of Quill. She then launched herself into the air with both feet in a flat spin. Just as Drax cleared the space between them her foot snapped out, catching Gamora’s sword arm. The impact sent the sword flying. At the same time, she reached down with both hands, grabbed the dropped stun sticks, curled into a ball, and landed on crouched legs.
“No crazy cyborg is keeping me from getting paid,” Rocket yelled, opening up on her with his gun. She dove to the side, behind a pile of rubble, dragging Gamora with her. As soon as they were out of the line of fire, she hammered Gamora with her metal hand and pushed herself off of the rubble, disappearing around the pile. Gamora got up just as Rocket flew around the corner, leveling his gun in her direction.
“Where’d she go?” he demanded, pulling the weapon away from Gamora. Gamora nodded in the direction she’d last seen her sister. Rocket immediately headed that direction, but was stopped as Gamora grabbed him.
“Wait,” she explained. “She wants us to follow her.”
By this point Quill had managed to extricate himself from under the blue berserker. “I’ll find her,” he said hitting his jet boots. He boosted up forty feet and began to scan the area. It was pockmarked with pillars, piles of rubble, and various bits of undergrowth.
As he passed a pillar Nebula stepped out from behind it and hurled one of her stun wands directly into the jet aperture on his right boot, causing an explosion. Quill’s reconnaissance flight became a reconnaissance crash. He managed to compromise, making a hard landing a hundred feet from the pillar Nebula had stepped out from.
Gamora, Drax, and Rocket charged over to the opening the missile had come from, but found only Quill struggling to stand back up while holding onto both pistols. No Nebula. No errant stun stick.
“There!” Gamora yelled pointing further down the dome as a blue figure disappeared behind rubble.
“No, wait!” Gamora cautioned them again.
“Yeah I know, she wants us to follow,” Quill said. “But what are the options? Wait in this maze for her to sneak attack us again? Quit, and forget about getting the stone to safety, to say nothing about getting paid?” Gamora hesitated before nodding agreement.
“Keep your eyes open,” Quill ordered. “Knowing it’s a trap is sometimes enough to avoid it.” And off they went again.
Meanwhile Mantis was trying to revive their employer. Fortunately, it appeared he’d only been knocked out when Nebula slammed her stun stick into his forehead. Realizing he’d live, she dragged him to some rubble and propped him up. She’d barely finished this task when he started coming to.
He opened his eyes, looking frantically back and forth. “What happened?” he asked as his search stopped on her.
“You were hit with a stun stick,” Mantis explained calmly. “You will be alright,” she added touching his hand as if for support. A shudder rippled through her as the touch opened an empathic connection between them. Then she jerked her hand off of his and backed away.
“I would have preferred if you hadn’t done that,” the old man said, rising smoothly from where he’d been sitting.
“What are you?” Mantis whispered in terror.
As if in answer he closed the distance between them in one massive lunge, placing his outstretched hand on her forehead. She immediately screamed the screams of the damned before passing out where she stood. As he turned towards the center of the maze, he left her, whimpering, behind him.
“Did you hear that?” Drax asked, stopping the quartet’s hunt.
“It sounded like a scream,” Nebula said listening for anything further. But there were no follow up sounds.
“It was Mantis,” Rocket said with a shrug before resuming the hunt. The other three looked at each other.
“I’d better go check on her,” Drax said.
“We’ll keep on Nebula’s tail,” Quill agreed.
Meanwhile the old man moved quickly, always scanning for any of the others currently playing hide and seek in this massive shrine. He could hear the faint noises of hurried steps and shouts coming from the other side of the cavern. They were moving away from the center, leaving his trip to the statue unimpeded.
But alas, such opportunities weren’t meant to last. Just as he crossed the circle of topped pillars surrounding the massive statue, Drax pounded into view. He skidded to a stop, as if surprised to find the old man here alone.
“I heard Mantis scream. Where is she?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry,” the old man replied “I’m bad with names. Which one of you is Mantis?”
“The ugly bug-eyed lady with the antenna,” Drax explained impatiently.
“Ah,” he said thinking quickly. “She is unconscious back where we entered.”
“What happened?” Drax asked, taking a menacing step closer.
As she revived me the Luphoid attacked us again. She was stunned, but I managed to get away.”
“And you just left her?” Drax shouted in disbelief.
“She will be fine,” the man assured him. “Nebula is after me after all. She was quite brave actually.”
“I should go check on her,” Drax said uncertainly. He couldn’t place it, but there was something off about this old man. Something . . . different from what they’d seen before. Something that made him uneasy about the idea of letting him out of his sight.
“That might be best,” the old man calmly. “Please convey my apologies for abandoning her. But this is a matter of extreme importance.”
Suddenly Drax wished Peter or Rocket had doubled back for Mantis. Either of them could probably have nailed down this feeling. They would know the right questions to ask. He was just good at smashing things. And he wasn’t at all sure this was the time for that.
But he was the one here, so he had to try. But how? Then he remembered the eyes of the statue. “Is that the stone you are after?” he asked, using the knife in his left hand as a pointer.
“I . . . yes I think that’s the stone,” the old man guessed.
“I’ll help you get it,” Drax offered. “Then we’ll go get Mantis.”
“That’s really not necessary,” the old man said quickly.
“It will only take a second,” Drax replied. He jogged quickly over to the statue and began ascending its uneven shape. The old man followed at a more sedate pace, trying to figure out how to get rid of this blue behemoth. He’d been too far away to reprise his approach with Mantis, and he had doubts about how well it would have worked with such a simple and stubborn person anyways.
“You must be careful not to damage it,” he protested.
“You can’t damage infinity stones,” Drax said in a tone that suggested that ‘everyone knows that’. Now he was standing on the statue’s massive shoulder, edging towards the head. In another moment he’d be prying the stone out of its socket. That would definitely be a not good situation. It would certainly create a lot of havoc and chaos, but this group seemed to thrive in such environs. He preferred a more orderly, controlled setup.
And time was running out. Nebula was bound to show up any minute. He had to keep these imbeciles from getting the stone. Even getting the fake stone would be not good for him. If they got the real stone it would be . . . very not good. So, he decided on the truth; most of it anyway.
“Wait,” he called out to Drax just as he was lifting his knife to the orange gem. “That’s not the Mind Stone,” he explained. “Please come away from that before you kill us all.
“You said it was,” Drax protested.
“Yes, and I’m sorry,” the old man said apologetically. “I almost forgot that Agullan shrines often feature a protector, with traps to kill trespassers.”
Drax glared at him, gave the stone one last look, and slid down the statue’s front. “It is a good thing you remembered that,” he said approaching the old man with his daggers held at the ready. Again, the old man considered a reprise of previous tactics. But the thought of having his hand impaled by those nasty looking daggers was less than appealing.
“Yes, it is,” he agreed “I . . . did you hear that?” he asked cocking his head.
“Hear what?” Drax asked looking that direction.
“I hear your friend,” the old man said. “It sounds like she’s begging for help. Do you hear it?”
Drax listened to the silence for a moment, then took off in the direction of their entrance. “Mantis I’m coming!” he yelled.
The old man smiled to himself and turned back to the puzzle at hand. He hadn’t been lying about the trick gem in its eye. And as much fun as watching a four-story tall statue attack the Guardians was, he just couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
The statue was of an Agullan on bent knee. It had a short sword in each hand, angled so that their tips almost touched the dirt at opposite ends of the circle. In this case the word ‘short’ was a bit of a misnomer.
As he studied the swords, he realized that they were held wrong. Every statue with a sword held the weapon with the flat facing out and the edge down. Two of these had the flat of the sword facing up and the edge facing in. Agullans also rarely used circles. Circles meant something different in their culture, something far more literal.
He walked quickly to the nearer sword and grasped the hilt with both hands. One significant tug and the entire blade rotated ninety degrees. He repeated that process with the other blade which caused a pedestal to rise from the direct center of the circle. The center of the pedestal’s lid rotated one hundred and eighty degrees revealing a carved hand gripping an orange gem. The light coming from inside it seemed to change sources constantly, creating a hypnotic effect.
He approached the stone with an almost holy reverence, but as he reached out to grasp it a small object flew from the edge of the circle and launched it into the air. A look of intense irritation crossed his face as he looked up to see Nebula stomping towards him.
“I know you don’t want to do this,” he told her calmly. She kept coming. “I know how lonely you’ve been,” he added, bringing her up short. “You don’t have to be,” he told her. “He wants you back. Help me, and all will be forgiven. You know that’s what you really want; to be part of us again.”
Her upper lip flicked in disgust at that. “Your sick games don’t work on me, Maw,” she spat as she renewed her advance towards him, remaining stun stick in her left hand.
“He was worried about that,” the old man agreed, still calmly. “That’s why he gave me this,” he added pulling a small amulet barely larger than the button on it from his neck. He pressed the button. Nebula emitted a yelp of pain that turned quickly to a growl of anger, and collapsed to one knee. The pain that seared through her entire body was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was as if sharded lava were coursing through her veins.
Still, pain was nothing new to her. She’d known many flavors, durations, and intensities over the years. This was a new one, but it was nothing she couldn’t adjust to. Steeling herself she opened her eyes, just in time to see his boot heading for her head. She parried the kick with her right hand and retaliated with the stun stick.
But, whether due to the waves of anguish flowing through her or the anger at the one who’d caused it, she put too much force into the blow. Her adversary stepped easily aside and allowed her to trip over his extended leg. She tumbled to the other side of the pedestal, standing quickly. She cursed him under her breath as she vowed not to let that trick work a second time. For one moment they stared at each other.
Then she moved to attack again. The old man gave ground, parrying the blows he could not evade. The speed with which she’d adjusted took him by surprise. He knew he wasn’t in her league. Eventually, even with the distraction of the pain she would connect.
But there was another way. Unfortunately, it required him to use the amulet that was now swinging wildly from his neck as he worked to keep from getting his chest crushed in. Nebula pressed her advantage, backing against one of the statue’s swords. He tried for the pendant again, but Nebula slapped his hands away with her off hand. He was pretty sure that the only thing saving him was that half of her attacks seemed to be focused on getting the pendulum.
He ended up taking a few punishing blows from her before managing to slip a slightly wide attack. Their positions reversed, with her flanked between him and the stone blade. In one smooth motion he took a step back, caught the swinging amulet and depressed the button again.
This time Nebula gasped as all the extra pain her augment had been sending her cut off suddenly. He took advantage of that momentary stun by kicking her up against the blade. She groaned as the kick connected. Somehow the very lack of pain seemed to amplify the pain of his blow.
“I will kill you Maw,” she vowed, glaring at him. In response he held the button up gloatingly. But before he could press it again Quill dashed around the corner, with Rocket and Gamora right behind him.
“Please help me,” he said in a suddenly quivering voice. He shrank away from her as if terrified. “You can’t let her have the stone. She’d give it to Thanos.”
They weren’t sure what to think of that. Something certainly seemed fishy about this old man standing over her kneeling form. It was clear he’d held his own for some time. But underneath that suspicion there was this tiny voice in their heads insisting that he was telling the truth.
He used that tiny moment of indecision to pass by Gamora in the center of their half arc. “It is good you got here when you did,” he gushed gratefully. “I don’t know how much longer I could have survived,” he added truthfully.
Quill stared at him for a moment. “Once Gamora realized Nebula had been deliberately leading us to the edge of the cave we knew she’d double back here,” he explained.
“You must stop her,” Maw insisted. He used their focus on Nebula to cover scanning for the new location of the stone.
Gamora nodded and stepped forward, sword ready. “How could you betray us like this sister?” she asked sounding hurt.
“How could you be such a fool?” Nebula hissed back. Gamora frowned in confusion and opened her mouth, no doubt to ask what she meant. That’s when Nebula hurled her remaining stun stick at her.
Gamora dodged it reflexively. As she dodged the projectile, she turned to see that she hadn’t been the intended target. Behind her the old man was looking up at the face of the statue as if oblivious to everything else going on.
He was certainly unaware of the stun stick which impacted him at the base of the throat. He gurgled something as the holo-generator hidden beneath his collar shorted out. Gamora watched in horror as the visage of a pasty wise old man was replaced with one she knew very well. He had white skin; not Peter Quill Caucasian white skin, eggshell white skin. His eyes were glowing blue with no whites. His hair was whiter than his face.
“Ebony Maw,” Gamora breathed in mingled disgust and fear. That worthy grinned the most sadistic grin those who didn’t know him had ever seen, and then suddenly wasn’t there anymore. “Stop him!” Gamora snapped.
“Where the hell did he go?” Quill shouted.
“There!” Rocket said pointing his gun at the face of the statue. And sure, enough there he was standing on the statue’s shoulder and removing the orange gem from its face.
The two of them opened fire immediately. At the same moment he held his hand out with a small device in it. A disc shaped shield interposed itself between him and the projectiles. They ceased fire by unspoken agreement.
“Spread out,” Gamora ordered before running to the statue and beginning to scale it with a massive vertical leap.
“Let me illustrate your situation for you,” Quill called up to him as he and Rocket spread out.
“Please do,” he replied amenably. It was quite unnerving.
“You are surrounded by enemies,” Quill explained. “The best teleportation device on the market needs at least another three minutes to recharge. You’re shield will not hold out that long. And lastly, even if it does Gamora is behind you.”
“Interesting points,” he replied, still completely nonplussed.
“So, I suggest,” Quill continued “that you toss down that rock. In exchange we won’t kill you.”
“And the credits you promised us,” Rocket added in.
“A truly generous offer,” Maw replied in a tone that made it impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic. “And you certainly do deserve some compensation for your troubles,” he added as he dropped the shield emitter in the right pocket of his robe. He pulled the Spirit Stone out of his left pocket and regarded it. Then with a shrug he made to toss it down, but slipped.
His right hand streaked out to grab the orange gem being used as an eye to stabilize himself. It was such a natural reaction that only Gamora suspected anything of it initially. As she repositioned herself to chop his head off, he grinned that evil grin and vanished again.
“What?” Rocket demanded. “I thought you said three minutes,” he added.
“Ebony Maw is one of Thanos’s generals,” Gamora explained jumping down from the statue. “They have the best technology in the galaxy.”
“Well, let’s go catch him,” the fox-thing said turning to look towards the walls. “Oh,” he said a moment later.
“Right,” Quill said. “Which exit do we use?”
Any proposal that might have been made was interrupted by the sound of rock grinding against rock. As one they all looked up to see the ‘statue’ stand and look down at them. Somehow it was not a nice look.
“Run!” Nebula yelled as she sprinted the way they’d come. The others took one more look and bolted after her, just barely outpacing the massive swords that slammed into the ground behind them.
They vaulted debris, dodging swings from the swords in what seemed like an eternity long chase. When the guardian couldn’t see any of them it defaulted to cleaving through the massive pillars holding the roof up. Each hit seemed to cause a ripple through the cavern as the ground and ceiling shook.
Nebula landed on the other side of the debris she’d thrown Gamora against not five minutes before to see Drax standing with both daggers drawn over the body of a whimpering Mantis. He’d been looking at the four-story guardian currently rampaging through the cavern. If she had to guess she’d say he was currently in the grips of a moral dilemma: should he attack the thing, or defend his friend.
But as she landed, he looked over at her. “What have you done to Mantis?” he yelled. Nebula ignored him in her headlong flight. He attempted to interpose himself in her path, but she dodged to the right and backhanded him with her metal arm without even breaking stride. Then she was gone, inside the tunnel.
The other three appeared from the same direction a moment later. “Run!” Quill yelled upon seeing them.
Gamora took a half second to take in the scene as she closed the distance. “Drax, grab Mantis,” she commanded. Drax took one more look at the looming guardian, lifted his friend into a fireman’s carry, and charged the way Nebula had gone.
As they passed into the relative safety of the tunnel the statue emitted a roar of frustration. This was followed by the crashing sounds of it continuing the destruction of the pillars. It suddenly occurred to them that there was a very good chance that when the construct succeeded in its suicidal mission it might just collapse the tunnels as well. By unspoken consent the group increased their speed back the way they’d come.
They piled out of the tunnel entrance just as the center of the monastery collapsed fifty feet downwards, taking several buildings with it. Turning away from the future pool they’d created yielded the knowledge that they were surrounded by many more Agullans, all armed with nasty looking spears. They looked rather pissed. Nebula was standing behind the ring of angry insects looking up at the sky. They couldn’t see anything, but they could hear the sound of an engine receding above them.
“Now I know this looks bad-” Quill started, hands up in surrender, before being interrupted by a bulb of light that flashed out from where the sound had disappeared to and hammered straight into his ship. “Ah man not again!” he yelled standing up. A move that precipitated a rather hostile tightening of the circle surrounding them. Along with the angry clacking of mandibles.
“Nebula,” Gamora called out, “tell them we’re okay.”
Nebula didn’t respond immediately. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she demanded quietly, gaze drifting to the ground.
“Not really,” Quill replied. “And who is Ebony Maw?”
“Ebony Maw,” Gamora answered from his side, “is one of Thanos’s favorites. He has the dark tongue. The ability to make others believe him, even control them given enough time.”
“Um, how much time?” Quill asked uncertainly.
“I don’t know,” Gamora replied. “Why?”
“We just spent three days on the Milano with him,” Quill pointed out with a wince for his lost ship. “I’d kind of like to know if anyone here might turn on us at any time.
“If he could have turned one of us, he would have done it in the caverns,” Gamora answered.
“If you’ll recall I TOLD YOU NOT TO TRUST THAT GUY!” Rocket yelled. “Oh, I’ve got a gut feeling-” he continued before being rudely interrupted.
“Shut up,” Nebula snapped finally turning towards them. “Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet. And you just led him to the only stone whose location had eluded him,” she continued advancing on them. When he collects the others-” she added before being interrupted in turn.
“Yeah, yeah, I already know,” Quill cut in. “He’s going to destroy half of the galaxy so he can have some creepy make-out session with Death. What do you care anyway?”
“Do you think it will be easier to kill him when he wields the gauntlet?” she asked, definitely using the tone reserved for slow children.
“I think your odds were about the same,” Quill replied. “Unless you were hoping to assemble the gauntlet,” he added as an afterthought.
There would have been more but Nebula stared him into silence before switching her gaze to Gamora. “How do you tolerate him?” she asked before turning and marching towards the jungle.
“Nebula wait,” Gamora called after her. Nebula paused, back still to the party. “What are you going to do?”
“Another stone must be hidden,” she stated.
“You know where another one is?” Quill asked. She didn’t respond. “You don’t do you?” he accused. Still there was no response. “Well, we know where one is,” Quill added.
“You really think the Nova Core will hand over the Power Stone to any of you?” Nebula replied.
“Well they certainly won’t hand it over to you,” Quill shot back.
“What about The Collector?” Gamora asked.
“Oh, come on,” Rocket replied condescendingly. “That guy was lying about everything. What makes you think he was honest when he said that crazy bastard had the Ether?”
“Best place to hide a lie is in the truth,” Quill pointed out.
“And even if he doesn’t have one, The Collector’s been looking for the stones for a long time too,” Gamora added. “There’s a good chance he’ll know where one is.”
Upon hearing this Nebula resumed her course at an increased pace. “Nebula!” Gamora shouted again. “Let us help you!”
Nebula stopped in her tracks. “You’ve never had any interest in helping before,” Nebula whispered, without turning. If it hadn’t been for Gamora’s genetic augmentation, she wouldn’t have heard it.
“Yeah well, maybe that’s because you’re creepy, and scary, and mean!” Rocket yelled after her. Clearly his cybernetic enhancements had also made him privy to the conversation.
“ROCKET!” Gamora and Quill shouted at the raccoon-thing in unison.
“I can’t change the past,” Gamora pleaded. “But I’m here now. We all are.”
“Wait, did she say something?” Quill asked, feeling out of the loop. “You can hear her?”
“Shut up Peter,” Gamora hissed.
Quill shrugged turning back to Nebula. “Come on,” he said giving the warmest grin he could muster. “You know you’re going to need a ruggedly handsome smooth talker to convince The Collector to help you.”
In response Nebula did a double eye roll with a slight shake of the head, as if she couldn’t believe Quill’s ego. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be useful. “Let them pass,” she said before continuing towards her ship’s hiding place. The Agullans surrounding them raised their spears and cleared a path to follow her. The Guardians wasted no time pursuing.
“Well done Quill,” Drax said as they cleared the circle of angry. “I thought for certain she was going to have them impale you.”
“But she didn’t, because that’s how it’s done,” Quill explained.
“I don’t understand why she tolerates him,” Nebula whispered to herself earning a smirk from Gamora and a cackle from Rocket.
“What?” Quill asked noting their reactions. “Is she talking about me?” he asked. The others just shook their head. “Yeah?” he yelled at the Luphoid “Well you’re . . . bald!” Many sets of eyes were rolled.