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Xandar [May 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–
Well, he couldn't say that this was unexpected.
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 consequence of his own actions.
"So, Good Morning?" He offered to Irani Rael who did not look amused at his actions, and instead made all the guards leave the room, despite their vehement protests.
As soon as the door closed, she sighed and leaned back into 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 alarm, 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 action breaking the handcuffs as he leaned back and 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 around her, the Nova Force she housed within her body reacting to her will.
Disregarding the pressure and the unnecessary theatrics, he replied, "Well, if I had not come today, and sent my energy signature across the cosmos, 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 Scrotum is on his way, or will be on his way here, soon enough."
"For what? We have never antagonised the 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 back and 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 solar system.
"Well, Ms.Rael, you are forgetting one thing. 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 display in front of her.
Knowing that she got the message, he leaned back on 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 can tell you one thing, Ms.Rael, you are in no condition to protect the stone, neither from Thanos, nor from me." He declared to her, knowing what it would look like.
Her eyes snapped to him, squinting dangerously, her hands lighting up in a silent gesture 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 last breaths,"
He waved her off, leaning back in a relaxed manner, to 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 packing, after a very heavy fight but he knew that her powers had waned considerably, and the Nova Force as a whole itself was a shadow of what it once was.
Come 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 one thing 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 outright disappeared or split into small chunks that were barely worth mentioning, or some like the Nova Force who chose to retain a chunk of their powers in exchange for sacrificing the sheer amount of versatility and power that they once held.
It was like the universe itself had some sort of law. 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 completely, becoming a multiversal species, something that had only happened exactly once in 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 explained 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 assistance. Thanos is not like Roanna who will require the Power Stone to do anything."
Irani's eyes turned defeated as she was confronted with the truth of the matter.
"Thanos wants the Power Stone, I can guarantee that. Now, the only reason he would come to Xandar was for the Power Stone. Besides, this is just a courtesy call. I am perfectly capable of taking the Power Stone from your grasp, 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 attack and 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 cannot give up the Power Stone for just empty assurances, Mr.Sullivan. No matter how much I want to trust you," She informed him and therein lies the crux of the matter.
"What do you need?" He straightforwardly asked her.
"For now? Answers. But in the future, 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 cannot wield them without–"
And after the impromptu Q&A session, the Nova Prime was so much more agreeable, after she understood Thanos' plan to enact his culling on a universal scale, using all the six Infinity Stones, something that was still of an impossibility according 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 strongest of the Celestials would have any chance of wielding all six Stones and in a way, she was right.
Although, she was also aware that Thanos was completely mad and would probably not even mind dying if he got to complete his goal of culling half of the entire universe.
"I assure you, the Stones will be scattered across the cosmos, once I am sure that Thanos has breathed his last, and the same for his Black Order," He assured her after getting the Power Stone sealed in a container that, according to her, should be able to suppress the energy signature of the Power Stone completely.
Doubtful but he was not going to insult the woman to her face.
"I understand. I will warn everyone in my contacts about Thanos' dastardly plans. 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 come 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 constantly by pirates, rogues, government operatives and more.
Not that it would be beyond his ability to handle, especially armed with the Power Stone but still, the threat of mutually assured destruction was pretty clear.
Now, to the matter at hand, the real reason he had come all this way.
"Do you have any idea about the whereabouts of the Guardians of the Galaxy?" He asked Irani Rael who looked completely off put by his line of questioning.
She looked confused 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 Galaxy that had their entire crime record expunged in exchange for donating the entire 4 billion units as rescue fund and the accolades they received to be part of the group that stopped Ronan until you stepped in?" Irani looked at him with a barely concealed 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 anulax batteries? Along with violating the agreement of not arming the ship that was given to them with experimental dangerous weapons, 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 latest "exploits" of the group were made known to him.
"Damn," He muttered as the man continued to go on and on about the crimes of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest of which was the theft of an entire prosthetic arm from the very ship port that orbited the planet, and the arm was that of an important foreign envoy to Xandar, bringing into the question Xandar's ability to effectively protect foreign emissaries.
A scandal on literally the galactic 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 canon invasion of Ranon the Accuser.
"Mr.Sullivan, I can give you their accurate location but in exchange, you have to bring them to me, so that they can 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 scanned by our deep genetic scanners, his lineage indicated a completely 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 ordering his doctors to place a deep space tracker in his body. It should be updated every hour, I can have you a very accurate location right now,"
His face split into a grin, "A chance to school my fellow human? Why not, bring it on."
Sorry Quill. He will be saved from becoming Ego's glorified battery pack but might end up in a jail cell in the end. Still, his case could be pleaded by showcasing the good deeds he did for the betterment of the universe.
Frankly speaking, Ego's plan was bound to fail, considering that there were still Celestials roaming around, and would certainly stop Ego's seed from spreading and consuming the Universe as a whole.
It was still funny and a little bit sad for him to know that Ego conspired this whole grand plan to become one with the Universe because he believed himself to be the last of the Celestials, all alone but the fact was that there were other Celestials out there, just unwilling to interact with him.
It was just that Celestials as a race were solitary beings, they had to be, considering 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 contact the newly born Celestial for some reason, driving him mad and making Ego concoct 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 Black Order." He warned the group who took it very seriously and floated back into 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 plan hinged on sightseeing throughout the universe, after getting himself a bombshell girlfriend that is.
"ETA - 2 hours." He read the message on the screen and then had the bright idea to check on the Power Stone.
He knew that they did not dupe him because his barriers were giving him readings of immensely dense energy being outputted by the container that housed the Power Stone. It was sparse, 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 complicated series of unlocking steps that were needed to fully unlock the container. He had no doubt that rumours of Thanos' plan would spread throughout the cosmos within 24 hours, it was just the nature of rumors.
Now, that was a net 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 plan to use the Stones to decimate half the universe before he had already one Infinity Stone on hand.
The news of his plans being spread throughout the cosmos will have multiple parties looking into his actions, not too deeply obviously because the Purple Scrotum was still deeply feared across the galaxy but even minor hiccups would help immensely since his next 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 Count - 2619
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