The Secret Lover • Peter Quill (Guardians of the Galaxy) (Complete)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DRAX'S SLEEPING QUARTERS

Gamora backs away, recovering.

"What did she do to me?!" asked Gamora.

"She already told me everything." said Drax.

AT EGO'S PALACE

"I only had one problem. A single Celestial doesn't have enough power for such an enterprise. But two Celestials - well now, that just might do." said Ego.

DRAX'S SLEEPING QUARTERS

"The bodies are his children." said Mantis making Gamora look horrified.

AT EGO'S PALACE

On the DIORAMAS Ego is seen with hundreds of species of female aliens.

"Out of all my labors the most beguiling was attempting to graft my DNA with that of another species. I hoped the result of such a coupling would be enough to power the expansion" said Ego.

"I had Yondu deliver some of them to me. It broke the Ravager code - butI compensated him generously. And,to ease his conscience, I told him I would never hurt them." said Ego.

"That was true. They never felt a thing. But, one after the other, they failed me. None of them had the Celestial genes. Until you,Peter. Out of all my spawn, only you have carried the connection to the light." said Ego making Peter smile, an enchanted idiot, the cosmos in his eyes.

IN DRAX'S SLEEPING QUARTERS

"We need to find Peter now and get off this damn planet." said Gamora.

"Ego will have won him to his side by now. He has a way of -" said Mantis.

"Then we just go" said Nebula.

"We are not leaving him" said Nikolai looking at Nebula with hard eyes.

"No. He's our friend." said Gamora.

"All any of you do is yell at each other. You're not friends." said Nebula.

"You're right. We're family. We leave no one behind." said Drax before looking at Nebula. "Except maybe you."

"Oh my god." said Nebula tired of them all.

IN THE PALACE

"For the first time in my life, I am truly not alone." said Ego.

Peter suddenly looks sad making Ego look at him confused.

"What is it, son?" asked Ego.

"My friends." said Peter.

"That's the mortal in you, Peter." said Ego.

"Yes. I don't need that." said Peter.

"What are we?" asked Ego.

"Forever." said Peter.

"What are they?" asked Ego.

"Temporary." said Peter.

"You think you love them. But love is merely an evolutionary trick in the service of reproduction. We are beyond such things." said Ego.

"Yes" said Peter.

"Now -" said Ego but was interrupted by Peter.

  "But my mother." said Peter making Ego looks at him, questioningly.

"You said you loved my mother." said Peter.

"That I did. My river lily, who knew the words to every song that came on the radio. I returned to earth to see her three times. I knew if I came back a fourth, I'd never leave." said Ego.

"The expansion, the reason for my very existence would be over. So I did what I had to do. But it broke my heart to put that tumor in her head." said Ego.

"Wh- what?" asked Peter as the cosmos disappear from his eyes. Tears stream down his face.

"I know that sounds bad" said Ego.

Peter pulls out his pistols and fires, the blast tears through Ego, dispersing the molecules forming his body. Peter shoots at him again and again and again. The flesh disappears from Ego like bites from a cookie, exposing the angry alien skeletal form beneath. But, as the charge on Peter's blasters wears out, Ego just looks at him, and, although he's filled with holes, he's merely disappointed

"Who in the hell do you think you are?" asked Ego looking at his son angry.

"You killed my mother!" said Peter angry.

Ego transforms into David Hasselhoff.

"I tried so hard to find the form that best suited you, and this is the thanks I get?And then, once again," said Ego as he becomes his usual form. "You really need to grow up"

A  spiky cosmic light- propelled tendril shoots up from the floor behind Peter, and just into Peter's body. Peter is thrust into the air. He opens his mouth to scream and white light emits.

"I wanted to do this together! But I suppose you'll have to learn by spending the next thousand years as a battery, 'Star-Lord'." said Ego.