Earth
Katherine Anne Pryde.
Shadowcat.
Star-Lady.
A woman, barely more than a girl, with a responsibility she'd never asked for. A woman who had spent her entire life since she was thirteen fighting for the mutant race alongside the X-Men. A woman who, if she wanted to keep fighting for it, would have to fight for something far greater. Greater than mutantkind. Greater than Earth.
“Ship, plot a course for the Kree territories. I have a feeling I'll find who I'm looking for there.”
Ship didn't respond, but she felt a surge of energy as the living, thinking, breathing machine began to lift into the air, speeding smoothly through the atmosphere of Earth and leaving the Xavier Institute far behind. It seemed like only a few seconds before they hit the edge of the atmosphere, and the sentient vessel thrummed with intention, seeming to inhale deeply before blasting off into hyperspace and out into the realms beyond the planet Kitty Pryde called home.
With Peter Quill missing and the Nova Corps in the center of a bureaucratic meltdown, the galaxy would be in dire need of someone to fight for it. To protect it. It would need a savior, a warrior.
A guardian.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Rannid, Kree Space
When a certain Ship made its landing on a peaceful, modest Kree planet, there were more than a few people that recognized it. Many became uneasy as they noticed the vessel that had been piloted by the notorious outlaw, the masked space pirate known only – to them – as Star-Lord. Some others recognized the ship in another way, as the one flown by the hero of the same name. A ship that had meant salvation and hope when it arrived in times of dire trial. Some people retreated into their homes, others walked out into the streets to get a glimpse of it, hoping to see, one more time, the man who had saved the world time and again.
There was one more onlooker on that planet, however, that recognized the ship as the one belonging to neither criminal nor savior – but rather that of a friend that had long since vanished, going to an insignificant little planet called Earth and never returning. The presence of Ship meant one of two things: either Peter Quill had returned, or something truly terrible had happened. Drawing her lean, wicked dagger from her boot, Gamora – the most dangerous woman in the universe – neither withdrew nor spectated.
Ship allowed the alien assassin entry without pause as she approached from the shadows. That was a good start, a sign that Quill may have still been inside the ship. Slipping in through a port-hole on the vessel's underbelly, the green-skinned killer slithered inside of the ship, moving towards the cockpit with the silent grace of a shark, despite being far, far more lethal. She moved like a green ghost, knuckles clasping tightly around the hilt of her blade as she caught a glimpse of the pilot's chair.
She saw his boots. His gloves. In the reflection of the command console she could see the glowing red spots that marked the eyes of his helmet. But it wasn't Peter Quill – that much she could tell straight away. No music playing in the tapedeck, none of the graceful ease with which Peter could operate Ship. This person, this imposter, had no idea what they were doing... and worse, they had no idea who they'd just angered.
Gamora drew her sword from its scabbard in one smooth motion, her eyes narrowing, heart racing as she prepared to take vengeance without asking questions. If this... vile creature was wearing Quill's things and flying Quill's ship, then all of her hopes were gone. It meant that Star-Lord was dead, as she had most deeply feared. That the Guardians of the Galaxy were no more.
Driving the blade of her sword through the back of the pilot's chair, she felt the blade sink through fabric in one smooth motion, felt the entire thing move through the seat and into whoever was within it. Or, at least, she thought she had... until entirely failing to hear the gurgle, the twitch, the splatter of blood that should have accompanied a blow aimed to burst through the breastbone.
“Oh... hey, don't see that every day.” The voice in the pilot's chair. A woman's voice. No... a girl's voice. “'Bout time you showed up, I was starting to think you'd never find me, and... yeesh, finding you is just way beyond my paygrade.”
Gamora's eyes widened, the assassin drawing back reflexively as the woman she'd just run through seemed entirely unfazed by the attack. The blade had gone all the way through to the hilt, though... was this woman merely an illusion?
Kitty sat up from the pilot's seat, flicking the switch on the side of her helmet and causing it to flip and draw away, collapsing into a tiny clip nestled around the cuff of one ear. Far from Peter Quill – she was short and slight, her medium-brown hair drawn into a girlish ponytail.
There was a long moment of silence as Kitty Pryde and Gamora looked at each other, the latter sizing up the former, still regarding her as an opponent, a threat. Finally, the emerald assassin spoke, her posture tense. “Explain yourself.”
Well, that could have been worse, Kitty thought with an internalized sigh, closing her eyes for a moment and preparing herself to explain. “Peter was a friend of mine. A... close, friend, you might say.”
“So you slew him, robbed him of his possessions, and now mock his legacy.”
“Close, but nope,” Kitty sighed, openly this time. “Peter vanished a few months ago, leaving Ship and some of his gear on Earth. I've been searching for him this whole time, even had some friends of mine try to track him down. Wolverine couldn't find him, neither could Warpath. And with the Professor out of action the Institute doesn't have a telepath with enough control to search for him with Cerebro.”
“You realize I know none of the people and things you speak of?”
“I was just about to realize that, yeah.” Kitty remained still, staying phased for now – Gamora was visibly on edge, ready to strike out like a serpent at any moment. Wouldn't exactly be prudent to leave herself vulnerable just yet. “Long story short... I'm Peter's friend, and I didn't hurt him. I've been trying to find him.”
“And you decided that the best way to do this was to wear his armor and weapons, steal Ship, and goad me into seeking you out.” Gamora tilted her head, blinking her fierce pale eyes. “You may wear his garb, but you lack his tactical finesse.”
“You're too sweet.”
Gamora's posture relaxed – if only very slightly – and she lowered her sword, though she did not sheathe it. “Let us... pretend, for a moment, that I believe what you've told me. Why draw me here? What is your plan?”
“Without a Star-Lord, the Guardians of the Galaxy fell apart,” Kitty said softly, treading lightly now. She knew very little about Gamora – only what Peter had told her – and knew even less about what might offend her. “Since I can't find Star-Lord, I'm going to do my best to fill his boots.”
“So you are... what? Star-Girl? Star-Waif?”
“Star-Lady, thank you very much.”
“And you think you can reform the Guardians. You do realize that our old team is scattered across the universe?” Gamora arched a brow. She was relaxing more now, since Kitty wasn't being threatening in the least, nor even holding a weapon. “Last I checked, Drax is in Asgard looking for answers about the Infinity Gems.”
“We don't necessarily need Drax. Or Groot. Or the raccoon guy–”
“–Rocket–”
“–Him. We can make an all-new team. An all-different team.”
Gamora slowly sheathed her sword, keeping her eyes on the fresh-faced young mutant and finally relenting. “I assume you have an idea as to where we should start, then?”
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Hundreds of lightyears away....
“Let me out! I can control it! I'm not like him, I'm... I'm not like them!” The blonde girl let out a scream as the the sonic safeguards built into her holding cell reactivated, causing the Other to scream, to lash out, compulsively showing its true face and not doing much to improve her case for herself.
“Think that's the first time I've heard that?” Her guard – a masked man who had never done the courtesy of providing his name – chuckled to himself. “The Jury's been hunting down symbiote hosts for decades, little girl. Everyone who ends up with one of those... things... attached to them says that they're different, that they're in control. And you wanna know what happens to each one?”
Gwen Stacy swallowed hard, thinking for a moment. “Erm... probably not?”
The man drew close, and though his mask concealed his wicked smile, Gwen could feel it radiating off of him. That genocidal malice that wraps around into a fervorous joy. “They go in the furnace of Thassix. Each and every one – host and all.”
She could feel the symbiote nagging at her, gnawing at her, slithering along her skin as the sonic pulses steadied into a dull throb. It was as confused and as upset as she was, she could feel it. Part of it wanted to bond with her, part of it wanted to find one – or any – of its old hosts. Several faces flashed before her eyes as it yearned for something familiar, some of the faces known to her, and some lingering longer than others. She recognized the rugged jawline of Flash Thompson, the dark, keen eyes of Eddie Brock – and lasting the longest was the most familiar face, that of her old friend and her old lover. That of Peter Parker. Venom's first host.
But more than anything, what the symbiote wanted was to flee, wanted to be free of this place and the pain it was being put through. Tendrils thrashed and slapped out around her, whipping limply at the impervious, transparent barrier that was keeping Gwen inside. Fanged mouths stretched and wailed with pain and fury, and the man guarding her just chuckled and walked away, having said his piece. He had no interest in what Gwen had to say, and the way the symbiote was behaving, she couldn't entirely blame him.
It seemed like she'd gone through quite a lot for it to come down to this. All of her adventures with Peter, encounters with so many vicious super-villains, even eventually gaining powers of her own, and then... “accidentally”... picking up the Venom symbiote, and it came to this moment, right now. Trapped in a sonic cage, captured by The Jury, and carted halfway across the universe to be ejected into the heart of a star where both Gwen, and Venom, would be destroyed forever....
Gwen blinked as a sound shook throughout the transport vessel she was on, and an alarm went off. The cage she was in flickered, then shuddered, the sonic waves coursing along it finally switching off entirely. The symbiote purred, snapping back tight around her skin, forming a fine weave of its tendrils into a dark parody of the costume she had worn as Spider-Gwen... and then the doors slid open.
“You... what the...” the guard came racing back into the room, reaching for the lean, cylindrical pistol at his hip. He never had a chance. For all of their technology and their tactics, he was nothing more than a human.
One tendril lashed forward without Gwen even willing it to, wrapping around his pistol and flicking it away like a cigarette butt, but the Jury sentry wouldn't be left unarmed quite so easily. Setting one hand on the opposite forearm, he extended one fist and projected from it a burst of sound-projected, high-intensity fire, creating a hellish cone of heat in front of him and shooting it directly at Gwen.
Or would have, if she hadn't been behind him.
“Farewell into the long goodnight, our old friend,” Gwen's voice echoed in the sound of a thousand hissing whispers, tendril upon tendril wrapping around the man, binding his arms, his legs, his throat... his mouth... his nose... his eyes....
“Gwen? Gwen?!” Kitty came rushing into the containment chamber of the transport ship, propelling herself forward with rocket-powered boots and skidding to a somewhat clumsy halt, her mask retreating back into the device behind her ear to show her youthful, concerned face. “Are you okay? I came to rescue yo–” she paused, swallowing hard as she saw Gwen release the Jury guard, the man slumping into a limp heap on the ground. “Is... he okay?”
Gwen looked over her shoulder, the mask under her hood slithering away to show her face. She gave a weak smile, glancing from Kitty Pryde to the man on the floor, a man who'd breathe his last. There was no way she could stop herself, no way she could control the hate, the rage that Venom was filled with, fueled by. It had been over before she knew what was going on... but Kitty didn't need to know that. “He'll be alright. Just knocked him out.”
“Alright, great.” Kitty said, a trusting smile crossing her face. “Let's get outta here. I've got something I need to tell you about.”
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The Allokari Fighting Pits
“WRAAAUUUGHHHKK!!!”the beast bellowed. It was all fangs and bloated scarlet skin, the occasional claw, and a blast of icy breath that had taken the souls of hundreds of gladiators before. It went by no true name, not even its species was known. For the benefit of the Pits, however, it was known as Desolation.
Such reputations, however, meant little to someone like Aldrif Odinsdottir, Asgard's Assassin. The Huntress of Heven. “Take it back,” Angela growled, her eyes narrowing as she clutched one hand around the hilt of her broadsword.
Another shriek escaped the creature as it charged towards her, its pustulous red underbelly beginning to swell with a brilliant blue-white light that could only mean one thing. Desolation opened one of the five enormous maws that encircled its vile body and gushed forth a stream of ice nearly as intense as the hoarfrost of Jottenheim.
Nearly.
The blast completely enveloped Angela's golden-armored body, consuming her entirely as far as the spectators watching the match were concerned. It wasn't until the blast of breath stopped and the icy mist cleared, however, that they realized how this match was going to go. Angela stood unfazed, a small scowl on her face as she lightly wiped a few lingering ice crystals from her opposite arm with her free hand. “Unwise,” she said softly, and the time came for her to retaliate.
Moving forward like a blur, Angela took several quick steps along the beast's side, running a narrow track between two mouths and driving her sword into one particularly viscous-looking patch of flesh, a gush of pus splurging forward and nearly missing the Asgardian angel as she flipped herself upward, drawing her bladed longbow mid-flight and landing on top of its head. “You were warned, creature. Now, your legacy ends.”
With a deep breath, Angela plunged the thick, wedge-shaped blade at the end of her bow into the center of the creature's body, cleaving its skull in two along its fault line and neatly bisecting its primitive, yet nonetheless vital, brain. Desolation shrieked, its body twitching and spasming in the throes of its inevitable death as its bloated, shapeless form staggered and stumbled around the arena, slamming into walls and gates before finally skidding to a halt. Angela remained resolutely atop it, glancing over to her broadsword still embedded in the beast's side.
She drew it from its body in one smooth motion as she descended off of its body, slinging her longbow across her back once more and raising her blade to the sky in triumph.
“The winner... is Angela!”
It was the eighth such match that Angela had won. The red-haired huntress walked through the victor's gate, taking the proferred cloth to wipe off the length of her blade and sliding it back into its scabbard across the backside of her waist. She couldn't help but feel that she wouldn't be here much longer, however – though fighting and winning in these matches had been amusing, her free time in between matches had grown dull, the surrounding area all but explored. Now returning to her suite in the Allokari winner's ring felt like a chore, no longer even a distraction and far from something so significant as a goal.
“You fought well out there. Maybe a little clumsy, but... you make up for it.”
Angela would have ordinarily responded to an unseen voice with a drawn blade, but this one was familiar. She halted in her short journey, glancing over her shoulder, still seeing nothing. Assuming that Gamora would retreat from the shadows when she chose, the huntress simply responded. “You flatter me, assassin.”
“Hopefully enough to persuade you into lending me your aid.” This time, Angela could feel Gamora's presence behind her, and turned to face Thanos's daughter with a warm smirk.
“That could be arranged. Bring lubricant and first aid materials, I'll meet you in my suite in one hour.”
Now it was Gamora's turn to smile, folding her arms across her chest and clarifying. “A new team is being formed. A new Guardians of the Galaxy. Unless you're having more fun fighting in the pits than exploring the universe.”
“You need not convince me, assassin. All you needed do was ask.”
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Xandar
“You're telling me I can expect no aid from the Nova Corps?”
“The Nova Corps are in no position to grant it, ma'am.”
Carol Danvers exhaled through her nose. In all honesty, this wasn't completely unexpected – Xandar had been in a state of political turmoil for the last two years, and it had taken everything the Nova Corps had just to keep things stable. She looked away for a moment, furrowing her brow in thought, before the officer at the front desk spoke again.
“Do you not have contacts upon Earth? The... X-Men or whatever they are?”
“I have no affiliation with the X-Men,” Carol admitted. “The Avengers are busy with yet another uprising from Ultron. The Fantastic Four are dealing with a cosmic anomaly in another sector of space.” All of them too busy with their own world-ending threats to assist Carol with hers: a rising darkness somewhere in the heart of the universe, building power. Readings had been showing cosmic power being funneled into one location for months – and that never meant anything good.
“Oh, hey!” the man said, his face lightening. “What about the Guardians of the Galaxy? They've helped us out with loads of stuff over the years. That one guy with the mask, and the um, the tree guy. What's that thing he always says? 'I am Groot!' Hah! Classic Groot.”
Miss Marvel let out a soft sigh. “The Guardians of the Galaxy have been disbanded for months, scattered across the universe after Star-Lord vanished. What I'd give to have them here right now.”
“That could be arranged, y'know.”
Carol arched one brow, turning to face the voice that had come from behind her. A girl in a red-eyed helmet, so much like the one worn by Peter Quill. Beside her were three others – Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the universe, Carol recognized. The others she did not – a tall redhead in skimpy golden armor and armed to the teeth, and a mousy, smaller girl in a white suit, hood, and mask. “Who... are you?”
A press of a button flicked Kitty's helmet off of her face, showing off her wide, pleased grin. “We're the Guardians of the Galaxy. And I think we just found our fifth member.”
“...So you have. And in exchange, I have our first mission.”
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
And so, the new team was formed.
Star-Lady, the leader.
Gamora, the assassin.
Angela, the huntress.
Miss Marvel, the soldier.
Venom, the monster.
Though they may be mismatched, though they may not know each other well, and though they may be going up against something beyond their ability to overcome, one thing remains: For better or worse, these five women are the new Guardians of the Galaxy.
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