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"It's time to go," Hermione whispered to the empty cockpit.
During her brief downtime, she had been busy. Using her deep understanding of the Space Stone's matrix, she had meticulously enhanced the Asgardian skiff's jump engine. Theoretically, the spaceship could now perform continuous, pinpoint-accurate space jumps without relying on the Bifrost or standard cosmic jump points.
Hermione settled into the pilot's seat, the supple Asgardian leather adjusting to her posture. She skillfully initiated the pre-flight sequence.
On the control panel, nestled right next to the original, glowing Asgardian rune stones, were several touch interfaces she had added herself. They shimmered with a soft, arcane light—a seamless blend of high-level enchanting and Muggle logic.
She tapped the holographic star map, zooming out past the Nine Realms, past the Sovereign system, and locked her coordinates.
Destination: Xandar, Capital of the Nova Empire.
Her plan was simple. She was going to intercept an idiot.
While directly robbing a mentally challenged scavenger might seem a bit crude and out of character for the "Witch of New York," efficiency was paramount. The Power Stone—currently locked inside an Orb—was about to be pawned off by Peter Quill. She needed to collect it before Ronan the Accuser got his oversized hammer on it.
"Preparing for a space jump," Hermione announced aloud, letting the ship's rudimentary AI register the command.
The spaceship's engines emitted a deep, powerful hum that vibrated right through the floorboards and into her boots. Outside the viewport, the golden landscape of Asgard began to stretch and distort. In a flash, the scenery transformed into a blinding, kaleidoscopic tunnel of hyperspace colors.
The spaceship tore through the invisible fabric of the cosmos. It was smooth, silent, and perfect.
Just when Hermione leaned back, thinking the voyage would be entirely uneventful, the spaceship shuddered violently!
BANG!
A dull, heavy thud echoed through the hull. Red emergency lights instantly bathed the cockpit in a harsh glare, and a shrill alarm began to blare.
Hermione was thrown forward, saved from kissing the control panel only by the sudden, vice-like grip of her enchanted seatbelt.
Outside the viewport, a pale golden magical shield—her modified Protego Horribilis array—had automatically flared to life, absorbing the brunt of the kinetic impact. However, the shockwave was immense. The skiff felt like it had slammed into a solid brick wall in the middle of empty space, coming to an abrupt, jarring halt.
Hermione steadied her breathing, blinking away the red spots in her vision. She unbuckled and leaned close to the porthole.
Blocking her path was a colossal warship.
It was a ferocious, jagged steel behemoth, patched together from mismatched hull plating and bristling with exposed weaponry. Its sheer size dwarfed the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarriers back on Earth. It looked bulky, industrial, and thoroughly clumsy—completely devoid of the elegant, magical aesthetics of Asgardian engineering.
A cosmic car crash? Hermione frowned, pulling up the ship's diagnostic holograms.
The structural integrity was 100%. The engines were functioning normally, and the shield emitters were stable.
However, the external monitoring cameras zoomed in on the port side of her ship. A stray piece of space debris, ejected from the behemoth in front of her, had scraped violently against her hull. A long, ugly gash of silver metal was exposed where the pristine, golden Asgardian paint had been violently chipped away.
Hermione's face darkened. The temperature in the cockpit seemed to drop ten degrees.
"It's a brand new boat," she hissed through gritted teeth. "I literally just picked it up."
Before she could fully process her annoyance, the comms console flared to life. The enemy warship was forcing a communication ping.
Hermione accepted the channel.
A rough, hoarse voice blasted through the speakers, laced with thick static, obvious impatience, and overt threat: "Hey, you little brat! Who the hell are you?! Why are you ramming our ship?!"
Outside, the giant warship wasn't waiting for an apology. Dozens of massive, rotating auto-cannons swiveled into position, locking onto Hermione's golden skiff. The barrels began to glow with dangerous, superheated energy.
Hermione suppressed her rising anger. She leaned into the microphone, her voice deadly cold and perfectly modulated.
"Open your airlock. I need to come aboard and speak to your supervisor about your insurance policy."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. The captain was clearly not expecting a customer service complaint in the middle of deep space.
After a few seconds of baffled silence, the voice roared back, twice as angry. "Huh?! You want us to open the door?! Girl, I think you're tired of living! Light her up!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Several thick, red energy beams shot from the warship's cannons, hurtling toward Hermione's vessel in an instant.
They struck the pale gold shield with blinding bursts of light, scattering into harmless, fiery sparks. Hermione's ship didn't move an inch. The magical barrier merely rippled like a pond disturbed by a pebble, absorbing every joule of the attack effortlessly.
"Reckless," Hermione murmured. Her eyes turned cold.
She tapped the rune for the ship's weapon systems. Several sleek, golden turrets popped out from the sides of her skiff. They fired a volley of concentrated plasma beams directly at the warship's bridge.
A shimmering hexagonal energy shield flared into existence across the behemoth's hull, successfully dispersing Hermione's return fire.
The two sides exchanged another volley, the void lighting up with red and gold fire, but neither could penetrate the other's defenses. It was a stalemate of shields.
The communication channel clicked back on.
"Come over here if you dare!" the raspy voice roared, trying to sound intimidating.
"You come over here if you dare," Hermione retorted smoothly, not backing down an inch.
"Come here!"
"Come here."
"..."
"..."
An eerie, profoundly awkward silence fell over the communication channel. It was the cosmic equivalent of two stubborn drivers refusing to back up in a narrow alleyway.
Inside the Bridge of the Eclector.
The atmosphere was thick, oppressive, and smelled faintly of spilled engine coolant and stale sweat.
Captain Yondu Udonta sat slouched in his massive command chair, his blue face rigid with frustration. The mechanical fin on his head twitched slightly.
As the leader of a notorious Ravager faction, Yondu had roamed the stars for decades. He had built his name on a foundation of raw courage, ruthlessness, and a terrifying flying arrow. Other ships usually diverted their hyperspace jumps just to avoid crossing paths with the Eclector.
He had never been provoked to this extent by a tiny, flashy pleasure yacht!
During that brief exchange of fire, the shield strength of that little golden ship had been mathematically outrageous. Their quad-cannons couldn't even dent it!
The Ravagers were a loose, chaotic alliance of outcasts, criminals, and mercenaries. They thrived on smuggling, piracy, and treasure hunting across the galaxy. They were unruly and lawless. But right now, Yondu's crew of seasoned killers were looking at each other in bewildered silence.
"Boss..."
A crew member with a scaly, reptilian head and cybernetic eyes approached the command chair hesitantly. He pointed a clawed finger at the tactical monitor displaying Hermione's ship.
"Boss, that hull design, the energy signature... that spaceship looks like it's from Asgard."
Asgard?!
The moment the name was dropped, a tense murmur swept through the grimy bridge.
"Asgardians? What the hell are they doing all the way out here?" "Damn it, the warriors of the Golden Realm aren't to be trifled with. I've heard they eat raw metal and breathe lightning!"
The crew members whispered frantically, their eyes darting to the monitor. The apprehension was palpable.
Although Asgard rarely interfered in matters outside their precious Nine Realms, their reputation was universally feared. Odin the All-Father was a name that made even the rigid Kree Empire and the bureaucratic Nova Corps think twice before starting trouble.
Yondu's heart gave a hard thump against his ribs.
Damn it, he thought. How did I run into a royal VIP out in the middle of nowhere?
But as a captain, he couldn't show weakness. He slammed his fist down hard on the metal armrest of his chair.
"What's with the panic, you bunch of cowards?!" Yondu barked, his red eyes glaring down his crew. "So what if it's Asgard?! Look at your star charts! This is the Tania Star System! We are a hundred and eight thousand lightyears away from their shiny little Nine Realms!"
He stood up, his leather trench coat sweeping behind him.
"Even if she is some Asgardian princess, so what? Look out the window! She's in a dinghy! We're in a dreadnought!"
When it came to ship-to-ship combat, the Ravagers rarely backed down from anyone who wasn't flying a Kree Accuser's Dark Aster or the Mad Titan's Sanctuary II.
Hearing their captain's logic, the crew's apprehension melted back into bloodlust.
He was right. This wasn't Asgardian territory. No matter how powerful their gods were, they couldn't reach across the galaxy to save one tiny ship. The enemy had strong shields, sure, but their firepower was clearly average. If they dragged the fight out, the Eclector would crush them through sheer attrition.
"The boss is right!" a burly alien cheered, racking the bolt on his plasma rifle. "Yeah! Who cares who she is? Anyone who dares scratch our paint gets taught a lesson!" "Sink her!"
The bridge erupted into a cacophony of fierce, bloodthirsty cheers. They were ready for a boarding action.
Just then, the static-laced communication channel chimed again. The bridge went dead silent.
That same cold, eerily emotionless female voice echoed through the speakers.
"Okay. I'm coming."
Yondu blinked. The Ravagers exchanged confused glances.
What did she say? She's coming over? How? Is she going to try and ram the broadside in that little boat?
Before Yondu could order the defense grids raised, the air in the dead center of the bridge began to distort. It twisted, folding in on itself with a sharp CRACK that made everyone flinch.
The next second, a figure materialized out of thin air.
The young woman wore strange, dark robes over terrestrial clothing. She held a slender wooden stick in one hand. She dusted off her shoulder with the other.
Her dark eyes calmly swept over the dozens of heavily armed, utterly stunned space pirates surrounding her. Finally, her gaze settled directly on Yondu Udonta's astonished blue face.
"I'm here," Hermione said evenly. "Now. About my paint job."