Twilight's Spell

The Battle Ends

I see nothing but white. I can't remember what happened either. I start to look around, trying to clear my head. Something begins to appear in my vision. It's a glowing cube, the one that has the Space Stone in it. I can see it's attached to some strange device. Standing next to it are two people I've seen before. The first is my baby sister, she's holding the scepter that contains the Mind Stone. With her is the man from my dream back in the Kyln. Neither has changed since the last time I saw either of them, except for looking slightly more beat up.

"It's not too late," the man tells her. "You can join the right side and we can take over together!" That's a change from the last interaction I saw them have.

"I would never." She sounds cold. This is similar to how I saw them acting earlier. "Why do you want me to join you? Why would I ever join you? You brainwashed me and killed my father!" I can see tears in her eyes. My blood starts to boil at all of this. This man hurt my sister and killed our father. Or who I can only assume was our father.

"Oh, Hannah," he responds, "you know so little, and I know so much. Much more than you could ever wish to know. You can still win. All you have to do is step away from the portal." Now that he's mentioned it, I can see that the machine with the cube has opened a portal in the sky. And it looks like Chitauri are coming from it. "Your team is vulnerable and disorganized. You could join us." My memory begins to jog itself.

The world changes from wherever I just was back to Xandar. I'm laying in the wreckage of the Dark Aster and I can hear music playing. It's "Ooh-Ooh Child" by the Five Stripes. I guess Peter's music turned on in the crash.

"I called him an idiot," someone says. It's Rocket. He's holding onto some twigs.

Not twigs, Groot. I think to myself.

Suddenly, Ronan walks out of the remains of his ship. I can see the anger build up in Rocket. "You killed Groot!" he yells. He tries to follow it up with an attack, but Ronan just knocks him away with his Infinity Stone powered hammer.

"Behold!" Ronan announces to the people of Xandar, " Your Guardians of the Galaxy! What fruit have they wrought? Only that my father and his father shall finally know vengeance. People of Xandar, the time has come to rejoice and renounce your paltry gods! Your salvation is at hand." Ronan prepares to use the stone on the planet.

"Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier. Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter," a voice sings. It's Peter. What in hell's name is he doing? I try to stand and stop him. "Listen to these words." I struggle as he continues to sing to Ronan. "Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier. Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter. Now bring it down hard!" He starts dancing. "Someday, we'll get it together and we'll get it..."

"What are you doing?" Ronan asks. He and I are on the same page of questions it would seem.

"Dance-off, bro. Me and you." Peter looks over to Gamora, who is just as confused as the rest of us. He offers his hand out to her. "Gamora." She quickly shakes her head no, not that I blame her. "Subtle. Take it back." I wish I could stop him, but standing up proves to be really difficult right now.

Ronan looks to be getting annoyed. "What are you doing?" he repeats.

Peter laughs. "I'm distracting you, you big turd blossom." Suddenly, Drax and Rocket fire off the Hadron Enforcer at Ronan's hammer. It explodes, freeing the Power Stone. Both Ronan and Peter jump to grab it.

"No!" Gamora and I both yell. That doesn't stop Peter from grabbing the stone before Ronan can get his hands on it. He is instantly filled with the raw power of the stone. Mine is bound to my necklace, which makes the power easier to handle, but Peter has one that is able unleash its full capabilities.

We're all engulfed in a cloud of purple, a sign of the stone trying to destroy Peter. He starts to yell from the pain of just holding the stone.

"Peter!" Gamora calls. She's trying to get closer to him. "Take my hand!"  He mutters something, but I'm not close enough to hear what it is. "Take my hand!" she repeats. She's desperate to try and save him. He grabs her hand and the energy is spread between the two of them, but it's still too much.

I can see Drax come up on Peter's other side. He grabs him and gets hit with the energy as well. I start to drag myself to try and help out as well. Rocket makes it to take Drax's hand before I can. It suddenly occurs to me the black energy coming off of me. I can help in another way, I think to myself.

"You're mortal!" Ronan yells. "How?" I take this moment to gather the energy I'm exuding and prepare an attack.

"You said it yourself, bitch," Peter answers. I don't think I've ever seen him this confident. "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy." The four of them use the power stone to destroy Ronan while I can tell I am holding him in place. Almost as soon as he's gone, the cloud disappears from around us. That's the signal to everyone that it's all over.

"Well, well, well, quite the light show," I hear Yondu chuckle. I finally force myself up to help deal with this. "Ain't this sweet. But you got some business to attend to before all the nookie-nookie starts." I stumble closer.

"Peter, you can't," Gamora pleads. "Peter." She's obviously worried about something like this happening again.

"You gotta reconsider this, Yondu," Peter says. He's not afraid of Yondu anymore, proof of how much he's grown over this adventure. "I don't know who you're selling this to, but the only way the universe can survive is if you give it to the Nova Corps."

" I may be as pretty as an angel," Yondu tells him, "but I sure as hell ain't one. Hand it over, son." That's the last straw for me.

"We almost died to stop that genocidal maniac from having this thing," I yell, getting right up in front of him. "One of our friends did, and you think he's just going to hand it over? You're out of your goddamn mind if you think that's going to happen, Dad!" As soon as I'm done, Peter hands the orb over and Yondu laughs. The Ravagers are signaled that it's time for them to leave.

"Pleasure doing business with you, honey," Yondu says to me before turning around to join his crew.

"Yondu," Peter calls to him. "Do not open that orb. You know that, right? You've seen what it does to people." Yondu just nods and the Ravagers leave. We watch the ship fly away.

"I cannot believe you just did that," I mutter. I have not found the strength to move yet.

"He's gonna be so pissed when he realizes I switched out the orb on him," I hear Peter tell Gamora, probably hoping I would hear so I could understand what he really did.

"He was gonna kill you, Peter," Gamora says. I turn around to see Peter looking down at the orb.

"Oh, I know," he respond. "But, aside from Brooke, he was about the only family I had." I hold back from bringing up our baby sister.

"No, he wasn't," she comforts. I look around us. Drax is comforting Rocket while they sit by what was Groot, the citizens are celebrating our victory, and I don't know what to do next.

Hannah, a voice in my head says. Your sister's name is Hannah and she's alive on Terra. I guess I know exactly what I'm doing next.