Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Xandar [May 2015]

  –Jack Sullivan–

  Well, he couldn’t say that this was ued.

  As he stood before Irani Rael, in what should be strong enough handcuffs to stop even someone like Spider Man from moving, he couldn’t help but feel as if this was the sequence of his own as.

  “So, Good M?” He offered to Irani Rael who did not look amused at his as, and instead made all the guards leave the room, despite their vehement protests.

  As soon as the door closed, she sighed and leaned bato her seat, in apparently exhaustion.

  “Tell me, Mr.Sullivan, have I or Xandar as a civilization ever offended you? You just raised a tier 5 arm, the highest one we have, and disturbed the lives of millions of individuals on just a whim,” She looked at him with oh so weary eyes.

  “Believe it not, what I did today was just a precursor to what will happen soon,” He shrugged, the a breaking the handcuffs as he leaned bad sat down on a sofa made up of his barriers. It was hard, yes, but it looked cool.

  “What are you insinuating?” her voice lowered an octave as the pressure in the surroundings increased, with the lights dimming or rather, gathering arouhe Nova Force she housed within her body reag to her will.

  Disregarding the pressure and the unnecessary theatrics, he replied, “Well, if I had not e today, a my energy signature across the os, for anybody who was looking, well, let’s just say that very soon, you would have had a very purple problem on your hands.”

  Her eyes narrowed before her face went pale. She whispered, horrified, “No! Thanos..”

  “Yup, the purple S is on his way, or will be on his way here, soon enough.”

  “For what? We have never antagohe Mad Titan and targeting us does not seem his MO. He mostly targets weaker civilisations for his so called “culling.” Targeting us would just paint an even bigger target on his bad frankly, not worth the hassle.” Irani spoke rapidly even as a dashboard of sorts appeared in front of her which showcased the location of everything around their sor system.

  “Well, Ms.Rael, you are fetting ohing. A very important thing.” He emphasised as he waved his hand and created a small 3D hologram of the Power Stone, only it was green because, well, it was a hardcoded thing of his powers that everything has to be green. He was “greenwashed” as it were.

  Her eyes squinted as she looked at the hologram before they widened immensely as she, almost violently, tapped on the dispy in front of her.

  Knowing that she got the message, he leaned ba his throne, well, sofa but he liked to pretend it was a throne.

  “The Power Stone.” He looked up as she looked at him, haggard, even more so than before.

  He nodded, “Yup. He will be here for the Power Stone. He probably already knows that I am here but if that will only hasten his response or stop him in his tracks, only time will tell. BUt I tell you ohing, Ms.Rael, you are in no dition to protect the stone, her from Thanos, nor from me.” He decred to her, knowing what it would look like.

  Her eyes so him, squinting dangerously, her hands lighting up in a sileure of power, “Is that a threat, Mr.Sullivan? Because let me tell you, the Nova Force is not afraid of you, nor of Thanos. We will fight to our st breaths,”

  He waved her off, leaning ba a rexed mao deliberately show her that he did not take her or her Nova Force seriously, at all.

  If it was Rael in her hayday, she could have given him a serious fight and would probably have sent him pag, after a very heavy fight but he khat her powers had waned siderably, and the Nova Force as a whole itself was a shadow of what it once was.

  e to think of it, Kree, Skrulls, Asgard, Nova Force, The Elders of the Universe, the Elder Gods of Earth, the Sorcerer Supremes, and more.

  All of the above forces once held dominion over ohing or another. Now, some of them had fallen off their peak so much so that they could barely be called a shell of their true self, some had ht disappeared or split into small ks that were barely worth mentioning, or some like the Nova Force who chose to retain a k of their powers in exge for sacrifig the sheer amount of versatility and power that they once held.

  It was like the universe itself had some sort of w. Empires fell and rose, some fell all the way to the bottom, some stumbled before stabilising and some rose and rose, until they left the universe pletely, being a multiversal species, something that had only happely on the long lifespan of this universe.

  Oh yeah, he had still not addressed the Nova Prime.

  “Yeah, look, a single Ronan, armed with the Power Stone gave you so much trouble that I had to practically rescue you guys just so that Xandar would remain standing.”

  “--The only reason we had so much trouble with Ronan was because of the very thing that you are asking from us,” Irani expined her reasoning and they would have been right if it was not Thanos that was gunning for something they had.

  He sighed, “Let me make this very clear for you, Nova Prime. So please, think of this through the lens of Nova Prime, keeping in mind the future of Xandar. Thanos, me, and Carol Danvers, are all beings capable of individually wiping out Xandar, without any outside assistahanos is not like Roanna who will require the Power Stoo do anything.”

  Irani’s eyes turned defeated as she was fronted with the truth of the matter.

  “Thanos wants the Power Stone, I guarahat. Now, the only reason he would e to Xandar was for the Power Stone. Besides, this is just a courtesy call. I am perfectly capable of taking the Power Stone from yrasp, or from anyone save for a select few, without much damage to myself. Trust me, I am sparing your civilisation from losing a majority of the Nova Force, including yourself, because that is what will happen should Thanos attad you fight him with the Nova Force, something that will surely kill you, even if Thanos does not,”

  He finished his tirade and waited for her response.

  “We ot give up the Power Stone for just empty assurances, Mr.Sullivan. No matter how much I want to trust you,” She informed him and thereihe crux of the matter.

  “What do you need?” He straightforwardly asked her.

  “For now? Answers. But iure, I would expect you to help defend Xandar exactly once if the need arises.”

  Well, that was very much acceptable in his book.

  “Alright, that is fine by me. What do you want to know?”

  “.. First of all, why does Thanos want the Infinity Stones? Even he ot wield them without–”

  And after the impromptu Q&A session, the Nova Prime was so much mreeable, after she uood Thanos’ pn to enact his culling on a universal scale, using all the six Infinity Stones, something that was still of an impossibility acc to her because, even if Thanos used some sort of device that nullified most of the damage, he would still not survive because he was not a Celestial. Only the stro of the Celestials would have any ce of wielding all six Stones and in a way, she was right.

  Although, she was also aware that Thanos was pletely mad and would probably not even mind dying if he got to plete his goal of culling half of the entire universe.

  “I assure you, the Stones will be scattered across the os, once I am sure that Thanos has breathed his st, and the same for his Bck Order,” He assured her after getting the Power Stone sealed in a taihat, acc to her, should be able to suppress the energy signature of the Power Stone pletely.

  Doubtful but he was not going to insult the woman to her face.

  “I uand. I will warn everyone in my tacts about Thanos’ dastardly pns. Thank you so much for the warning.” The meaning of the words was not lost on him.

  If Thanos actually moved for the Infinity Stones, all well and good, and all her allies would e together to fight Thanos but if he actually just used the Stone for his own use, well then, he might just find himself being harassed stantly by pirates, rogues, gover operatives and more.

  Not that it would be beyond his ability to handle, especially armed with the Power Sto still, the threat of mutually assured destru retty clear.

  Now, to the matter at hand, the real reason he had e all this way.

  “Do you have any idea about the whereabouts of the Guardians of the Gaxy?” He asked Irani Rael who looked pletely off put by his line of questioning.

  She looked fused for a moment before a familiar looking man stepped forward and whispered something into her ear, making her eyes light up in realisation.

  “Ah, are you perhaps speaking about the same Guardians of the Gaxy that had their entire crime record expunged in exge for donating the entire 4 billion units as rescue fund and the accodes they received to be part of the group that stopped Ronan until you stepped in?” Irani looked at him with a barely cealed smirk on his face.

  He smiled and was about to reply but he was informed rather snidely by the person standing beside Irani Rael.

  “The same group that is now wanted for the theft of multiple anux batteries? Along with vioting the agreement of n the ship that was given to them with experimental dangerous ons, on top of taking rather criminal bounties, some of which resulted in millions of units in damage to Xandarian property and outposts?”

  His smile fell off as the test “exploits” of the group were made known to him.

  “Damn,” He muttered as the man tio go on and on about the crimes of the Guardians of the Gaxy, the test of which was the theft of aire prosthetic arm from the very ship port that orbited the p, and the arm was that of an important fn envoy to Xandar, bringing into the question Xandar’s ability to effectively protect fn emissaries.

  A sdal on literally the gactic scale.

  He winced as Irani subjected him to a very pronounced smirk.

  “I suppose that you guys don’t really have their whereabouts then. If you did, they would be in–”

  “In Handcuffs? Locked in the deepest cells with no sunlight for years? Yes, they would be.”

  Okay, the man was getting on his nerves for being someone who he didn’t even remember, someone who probably didn’t even survive the invasion of Ranon the Accuser.

  “Mr.Sullivan, I give you their accurate location but in exge, you have t them to me, so that they face trial for their crimes,” Irani interrupted the tirade of her subordinate.

  He quirked his eyebrows at her questioningly, the question clear. If her subordinate didn't know, then how did she?

  “Fortunately, when Mr.Quill was sed by our deep geic sers, his lineage indicated a pletely alien biology, previously unknown to us, something that doesn’t happen anymore. Along with the anomalous behaviour we detected of his DNA, had me personally his doctors to pce a deep space tracker in his body. It should be updated every hour, I have you a very accurate locatiht now,”

  His face split into a grin, “A ce to sy fellow human? Why not, bring it on.”

  Sorry Quill. He will be saved from being Ego’s glorified battery pack but might end up in a jail cell in the end. Still, his case could be pleaded by showg the good deeds he did for the betterment of the universe.

  Frankly speaking, Ego’s pn was bound to fail, sidering that there were still Celestials roaming around, and would certainly stop Ego’s seed from spreading and ing the Universe as a whole.

  It was still funny and a little bit sad for him to know that Ego spired this whole grand pn to bee oh the Universe because he believed himself to be the st of the Celestials, all alo the fact was that there were other Celestials out there, just unwilling to i with him.

  It was just that Celestials as a race were solitary beings, they had to be, sidering the sheer effect they had on their surroundings. It was just that Ego did not know that and for some reason, Arishem or any other Elder Celestial did not tact the newly borial for some reason, driving him mad and making Ego coct this stupid scheme.

  Unfortunately, stupid or not, he had to put a stop to it because he did not want to rely on plot armour this time.

  “Thank you. I will be back with the group, to answer for their crimes. In the meantime, please be on the lookout for any abnormal activity from Thanos or his known allies or from his Bck Order.” He warhe group who took it very seriously and floated bato a ship, a strict loaner from the Nova Force, with the tracker details already programmed into the ship’s AI.

  Damn, he really had to learn how to drive a spaceship.

  After all, his retirement pn hinged on sightseeing throughout the universe, after getting himself a bombshell girlfriend that is.

  “ETA - 2 hours.” He read the message on the s and then had the bright idea to che the Power Stone.

  He khat they did not dupe him because his barriers were giving him readings of immensely dense energy being outputted by the taihat housed the Power Sto arse, the energy output but the density of the energy itself was off the charts.

  Well, it should be, because it was a freaking Infinity Stone, he thought to himself as he did the plicated series of unlog steps that were o fully unlock the tainer. He had no doubt that rumours of Thanos’ pn would spread throughout the os within 24 hours, it was just the nature of rumors.

  Now, that was a positive in his opinion because the only reason Thanos was able to blitz through every single civilization holding an Infinity Stone or the location to one, was only because of his anonymity. Nobody knew his pn to use the Stoo decimate half the universe before he had already one Infinity Stone on hand.

  The news of his pns being spread throughout the os will have multiple parties looking into his as, not too deeply obviously because the Purple S was still deeply feared across the gaxy but even minor hiccups would help immensely since his stop was going to be Nidavellir.

  And he just hoped that the rumours spreading did not accelerate his assault on Nidavellir.

  That would just….suck.

  Word t - 2619

  If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .

  I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.