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The Bridge of the Eclector.
The bridge was deathly silent.
The sharp, concussive CRACK of displaced air still echoed off the grimy metal bulkheads. Everyone stared wide-eyed, their jaws slack, looking at the petite figure that had appeared out of nowhere in the dead center of their heavily fortified command deck.
The air seemed to freeze. The only sound was the low, rhythmic thrum of the warship's massive engines beneath their boots.
A few seconds passed. The brief, paralyzing shock began to recede, replaced by a completely different emotion as the Ravagers processed what they were actually looking at.
"Puff..."
Someone near the navigation console couldn't hold it in and let out a snorting sneer.
Immediately afterwards, the tension shattered. A raucous burst of laughter erupted across the bridge, bouncing off the steel walls.
"Hahaha! I thought she was some tough character!" a multi-eyed alien wheezed, slapping his knee. "Turns out she's just a little girl!"
"You scared the hell out of me!" another pirate shouted, wiping a tear of mirth from his grimy cheek. "How did you get in here, sweetheart? By crawling through the ventilation shafts like a rat?"
"Look at that figure," a third mocked, looking her up and down. "So delicate and fair-skinned. Is Asgard running out of soldiers? Sending out young girls to fight their battles now?"
The Ravagers relaxed visibly. The primal fear they had felt due to the unknown teleportation vanished instantly.
Although they still didn't understand the mechanics of how she had boarded through raised shields, in their eyes, the threat level had dropped to zero. Even if this intruder was genuinely an Asgardian, what could a lone, unarmed teenager do against a bridge full of seasoned killers? She had single-handedly broken into their dreadnought, only to deliver herself to the slaughter. She was courting death.
Yondu Udonta sat back in his worn leather command chair, his rigid posture softening. The mechanical fin atop his blue head lowered a fraction.
He pointed a scarred finger at Hermione, a cruel, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his face. He looked toward a burly, heavily scarred Ravager who looked particularly fierce, sparking with crude cybernetic implants.
"Electric Face, go and grab her!" Yondu ordered, his raspy voice cutting through the laughter. "Damn it, we're going to make Asgard pay a hefty ransom for their little princess!"
"Hehe. Okay, Boss!"
Electric Face grinned maliciously. He cracked his knuckles, the cybernetic nodes on his forearms buzzing with lethal, blue voltage, and strode heavily toward Hermione.
"Little girl," Electric Face sneered, towering over her, "don't blame us for being impolite. You came here on your own two feet!"
The other Ravagers joined in the jeering, their eyes filled with sadistic mockery, placing bets on how fast she would cry.
In their eyes, this was practically a golden lamb delivered right to their doorstep. So what if she was from Asgard? Offending the Ravagers in deep space meant you were getting skinned alive, gods or no gods.
However, just as Electric Face raised his sparking, lethal hands, preparing to grab her by the throat...
Hermione didn't even look up at him. Her expression remained entirely bored. She simply raised her right hand slightly, palm facing the ceiling.
Call—!
A flame, imbued with an eerie, dark vitality, suddenly ignited in the center of her palm. It wasn't the orange-red of a normal fire; it was a sickly, shifting crimson that seemed to drink the light around it.
The moment the Fiendfyre appeared, the ambient temperature on the bridge spiked violently. The air began to warp and distort with the sheer, unnatural heat.
The sneer on Electric Face's face froze instantly. A primal, instinctual hint of absolute terror flashed in his eyes as he felt the heat peeling the top layer of his skin. He tried to back away, stumbling over his heavy boots, but it was too late.
The flames didn't just burn; they pounced.
Like a living, starving beast, the Fiendfyre leaped from Hermione's palm and instantly engulfed him completely.
There were no screams. There were no struggles. The heat was so absolute, so fundamentally destructive, that it vaporized his vocal cords before he could make a sound. In the blink of an eye, the burly man, his cybernetic armor, and his weapons were completely reduced to fine, gray ash.
The ash fluttered gently to the metal deck, leaving not a single trace of the man behind.
Silence.
It was an even more profound, utter silence than before.
The laughter on the bridge stopped so abruptly it was as if someone had flipped a switch. The mocking expressions on the faces of all the Ravagers froze into masks of pure horror.
The eerie crimson flame didn't dissipate. It swirled in the air where Electric Face had just stood, expanding rapidly before exploding outward into dozens of ferocious, writhing fire serpents.
The serpents slithered silently through the air, their jaws snapping, roaming every corner of the bridge and completely surrounding the remaining Ravagers.
A wave of suffocating, scorching heat hit the crew, making their skin sting and their eyes water. The recycled air of the ship was instantly replaced by the acrid, metallic smell of burning ozone and vaporized bone.
The once bustling, arrogant bridge was now so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone held their breath, terrified that a sudden inhalation would draw the fiery snakes into their lungs. Cold sweat poured down their foreheads, evaporating almost instantly in the heat.
What the hell is this thing?! the crew screamed internally.
Hermione slowly lowered her hand and raised her head. Her dark eyes calmly swept over the paralyzed crew before finally settling on Yondu Udonta.
"Who sent me here just now?"
Her voice remained cool, measured, and perfectly calm, yet it cut through the crackle of the magical flames with terrifying clarity.
"I've come. And then what?"
As soon as she finished speaking, several of the massive fiery serpents surrounding the room lowered their heads slightly, their hollow, burning eyes locking directly onto the blue-skinned captain.
Swish—
The Ravagers standing near Yondu's command chair didn't hesitate. Survival instinct overrode loyalty in a microsecond. They all took several large steps back in unison, instantly isolating their leader and highlighting him at the absolute forefront of the danger zone.
The key takeaway of Ravager culture: when apocalyptic disaster strikes, every man for himself.
Yondu: "..."
He swallowed hard, the click of his throat audible in the silence. His heavy leather coat was already soaked through with cold sweat.
He could feel the malevolent, destructive aura emanating from those fiery serpents. He had absolutely no doubt that if the petite girl standing before him had a single stray thought, he would follow in Electric Face's powdery footsteps.
But as the captain of this ship, a man who had survived the harshest corners of the galaxy, his years of life on the run prevented him from collapsing on the spot. He took a deep, trembling breath, trying to remain calm. His red eyes darted around, calculating angles, searching for an opportunity to escape or strike.
Steeling his resolve, he slowly moved his hand toward his coat. He parted his lips slightly, letting out a sharp, barely audible whistle.
Call out—
A streak of glowing red light zipped out from his coat. The Yaka arrow, crafted from Centaurian metal, hovered silently in the air, instantly circling around to aim directly at the back of Hermione's head.
"I forgot to tell you," Hermione said casually, not even bothering to turn around. Her voice was conversational, as if discussing the weather. "My Fiendfyre is hot enough to burn that Yaka metal completely into vapor before it even touches my hair. If you don't want your precious toy to be gone forever, you'd better not get any funny ideas."
"!!!"
Yondu's expression froze instantly. His pupils contracted sharply, and his blue face turned an ashen, sickly shade of purple. The confidence he had tried to muster crumbled.
In the end, his fierce determination was entirely suppressed by the sheer, paralyzing fear of the unknown power she wielded.
The glowing red whistle arrow slowly lowered, clattering harmlessly onto the metal deck.
He gave up. He didn't dare to gamble his life—or his arrow—against her.
Hermione nodded in satisfaction. She had recognized him the moment she laid eyes on him. Dressed in a ragged burgundy coat with a mechanical mohawk, Yondu Udonta was Peter Quill's adoptive father and the leader of this Ravager faction.
"Dear… Asgardian… uh, lady," Yondu stammered, struggling violently to organize his thoughts. He forced a smile that looked more like a painful grimace, his posture dropping into an extremely humble, submissive slouch. "We sincerely apologize for our rudeness just now! It was a misunderstanding! A complete, terrible misunderstanding!"
"I'm not an Asgardian," Hermione interrupted him smoothly.
Yondu was taken aback, blinking in confusion. "Huh?"
"I am a Midgardian," Hermione clarified, folding her arms.
"Midgard?" Yondu echoed, racking his brain for the galactic translation.
"It's Earth."
"Earth?!"
Yondu's eyes widened suddenly, nearly popping out of his skull.
He subconsciously thought of Peter Quill, the boy he had abducted decades ago, who was also a pureblood Earthling (or so he thought). Quill was squishy, constantly complained about the food, and got beat up in bar fights.
But isn't Peter a bit too different from the monster standing in front of me?! Yondu thought frantically. When did such a ridiculously powerful being appear on Terra?! Wasn't that remote backwater planet just a bunch of defenseless weaklings?!
Hermione ignored his existential shock. She turned her back on the terrifying fire serpents and walked straight toward the central holographic tactical display.
"You crashed into my spaceship," she stated calmly, pointing at the projection.
Upon hearing this blatant revision of reality, the Ravagers on the bridge nearly coughed up blood.
Did THEY crash into HER spaceship?! Hey lady! We were parked here properly in open space! You just rushed out of a hyperspace jump point without even looking and rear-ended us! Now you're accusing US of a hit-and-run?! Have you no shame?!
Of course, they only dared to roar these indignant protests in the absolute safety of their own minds. Looking at the menacing fire serpents hissing inches from their faces, not a single one of them possessed the courage to utter a word aloud.
"But... but your spaceship is fine, isn't it?" Yondu asked cautiously, gesturing weakly toward the viewport. "Our shields took the hit..."
"Nothing's wrong?" Hermione raised a delicate eyebrow, her tone laced with dangerous indignation. She pointed a sharp finger at the zoomed-in telemetry on the screen. "Didn't you see that piece of paint chipped off the port side? Look at it! It's as big as a fingernail!"
Everyone: "..."
She's extorting us! She's literally shaking down a pirate ship over a scratch!
Yondu's lips twitched violently. He could actually feel his blood pressure soaring to dangerous levels, a vein throbbing wildly against his mechanical fin. But with the heat of the cursed fire baking his skin, he forced a strained, agonizing smile.
"Then... how do you think we should compensate you, my lady?"
"Well," Hermione sighed, looking out the window at her golden skiff. "This is a brand new ship that I just picked up. A custom-made, latest luxury model straight from the Asgardian royal shipyards. It hasn't even left the Nine Realms' jurisdiction yet, and you guys have already taken it for a bumper-car ride."
Hermione held up one finger and gestured vaguely in the air, doing the mental math.
"With just a little bit of friction, the resale value is completely ruined. But... how about this. I won't make things difficult for you. You all look like you live in a dumpster, so you obviously don't have much money. I'll be generous and round the repair fees down for you."
Yondu and the other Ravagers breathed a collective, albeit slight, sigh of relief. They thought that, despite the terrifying display of power, the other party was going to be somewhat lenient. Maybe a few thousand credits and they could walk away with their lives.
But Hermione's next words struck them like a physical thunderbolt.
"Let's just call it 5 billion star coins as compensation. Cash, unmarked chits, or rare universal artifacts accepted."