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Using the coordinates Yondu had provided, the Dark Aster dropped out of warp into an unfamiliar stretch of space.
Through the massive viewport on the bridge, Hermione saw it, a planet hanging in the void ahead, vivid and teeming with life to an almost unsettling degree. Its surface was threaded with strange vegetation and flowing veins of energy, beautiful in a way that felt off. Too perfect. Too deliberate.
"That's Ego?" she asked.
Hard to believe. A planet thousands of kilometers across, and it was alive, genuinely, consciously alive.
The bridge had gone quiet. The Ravagers had seen plenty of strange things out in the cosmos, but a living planet still sat outside the edges of what any of them could comfortably wrap their heads around.
Hermione turned. Her gaze settled on Quill and Yondu.
"Yondu. Take him down."
Quill's head snapped up. His eyes were steady, set.
Yondu's face was all worry. He opened his mouth, started to say something, then let it go with a sigh and clapped a hand on Quill's shoulder instead.
"Come on, boy."
He knew the plan. He knew the risks. And he knew he wasn't going to talk Quill out of it.
A small Ravager ship detached from the Dark Aster and angled down toward the planet's surface.
It had barely cleared the upper atmosphere when the ground split apart below them. Hundreds of fissures tore open at once, and from them came tendrils, massive, glowing blue, snapping upward with savage speed, whipping and coiling toward the ship like they meant to tear it apart.
"Damn it!" Yondu wrenched the controls, yanking the ship into a steep climb and barely clearing the sweep of three deadly tendrils.
He slammed on the external speaker.
"Ego! It's Yondu! I brought your son back to you!"
The tendrils froze.
Every last one of them hung suspended in mid-air for a long moment, then slowly pulled back and sank into the earth.
Ahead, the ground began to move. Soil and stone shifted, crawled, gathered, and shaped itself into a man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Handsome in a well-worn way, with a full beard and clothes that looked like they'd been borrowed from another era. He walked toward the landing spot with a calm, unhurried smile.
Ego.
Yondu set the ship down carefully. The hatch opened, and the two of them stepped out.
Ego's eyes went straight to Quill. He stopped. Closed his eyes, like he was listening for something only he could hear.
Then he opened them again, and the delight on his face was impossible to hide.
"My child." His voice was soft with something approaching reverence. "It really is you. What a bloodline. What potential. You've inherited everything from me."
He turned to Yondu. The warmth in his expression cooled just slightly, replaced by something measuring. "Yondu Udonta. You've been avoiding me for years. Why bring him now?"
Yondu's stomach lurched, but his grin never slipped.
"Hey, listen — the kid was tiny back then. Way too small to handle your power. I was worried something might go wrong and set back your whole grand plan. So I took him under my wing, raised him right, got him properly trained up. Figured I'd wait until he was ready." He spread his hands. "And now he is. Though naturally, the price we discussed back then... we're going to want to revisit that."
The excuse had more holes than a derelict freighter, but Ego didn't seem interested in picking at them.
He had lived for hundreds of millions of years. His mind lived in the broad sweep of his plan, in the vast depths of his own power. Untangling the petty calculations of mortals was something he'd never bothered to get good at, and had no interest in becoming good at now. The boy was here. The boy had the potential. Whatever Yondu wanted in exchange was a small price.
"Fine." Ego nodded and spoke toward the empty space behind him. "Mantis. Bring the payment."
A woman emerged, or rather, floated in, carried by a cluster of hovering stones. She was slight, soft-spoken, with two delicate antennae curling up from her head, and she held a heavy metal chest against her chest with both arms.
"Master." She offered the chest to Ego in a quiet murmur.
Ego took it and tossed it to Yondu without ceremony.
Yondu snatched it out of the air and flipped it open. The interior blazed with color, rare energy crystals, exotic gems, things worth more than most ships. His face split into a grin. He swept a greedy, appreciative look across the contents and nodded deeply.
"Ha! Lord Ego doesn't disappoint. The boy's all yours." He snapped the chest shut and backed toward the ship. "I'll show myself out!"
He was back in the cockpit before anyone could say another word, and the ship was in the air a moment after that, shooting skyward and vanishing into the blue.
Three figures remained on the ground: Ego, Quill, and Mantis.
"My child." Ego stepped forward, arms spreading wide, face open with something that looked, convincingly enough, like a father's love. "Not a single day has passed that I haven't thought of you."
Quill's contempt was cold and absolute, buried under a smile he'd calibrated with care, just enough warmth to read as cautious hope, edged with the distance of a stranger meeting family for the first time.
"Father."
Ego looked pleased. He took Quill's hand and drew him into the planet, showing him its wonders, teaching him how to reach inward for the power that had always been there, waiting, the raw, ancient force of Celestial blood.
Under Ego's instruction, pale blue light gathered at Quill's fingertips. It danced. It shifted. It shaped itself into whatever he imagined. Something enormous was waking up inside him, slow and vast and utterly unlike anything he'd ever felt before.
"You feel it?" Ego's voice rang with pride. "That is your power. Our power. This entire planet is a part of me, and you, my son, will inherit all of it."
The days that followed had a strange rhythm to them. Ego was patient, even tender, guiding Quill through the control of his abilities. Quill learned fast. His mastery sharpened visibly, day by day, and the more it did, the more Ego glowed with satisfaction.
Then, during one of their quieter conversations, Ego finally showed him what he was really after.
"Look at it." He gestured toward the stars, and something lit up in his eyes, not warmth. Something else entirely. "The universe. Chaos. Disorder. Filled with lives that mean nothing and go nowhere."
He looked at Quill.
"I am going to change all of that. I will spread my consciousness — my Light — to every corner of existence. I've already planted seeds on countless worlds. When we combine our power, father and son together, those seeds will wake up. They'll grow. They'll consume those empty worlds and make them part of me." He let the words settle. "The entire universe will become me. Eternal. Complete."
Quill felt something cold move through him. He kept his expression exactly where he needed it, curious, awed.
Then Ego's tone shifted.
"Your mother." The fanaticism dimmed for a moment. Something softer moved across his face. "I loved her. Truly. The time I spent with her was the happiest of my long life."
He paused. When he spoke again, his voice had weight.
"But I have a great work to do. I couldn't let myself be lost in something as small as love. I had to keep moving. For the universe. For what comes after." He met Quill's eyes with something that looked almost like an apology. "So I had no choice but to... I planted something inside her. A small thing. A tumor."
There it was.
Hermione had warned him. He'd known it was coming. He'd had time to prepare.
None of it mattered. Quill's blood hit his skull like a battering ram.
➤ Next: The Fraud Gang Strikes Again
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