All he could do was stare.

His mind was too shocked to comprehend just what was happening.

The woman in front of him looked at him and smiled.

That smile shattered his heart. The mental walls he had so carefully constructed to hide his emotions were beginning to crumble.
Deep down he knew that this person was not his mother, but he let himself be drawn into the cruel illusion.

His breathing became shallow and rapid. His heart raced. Tears began to well up in his eyes.
He took a step forward and raised his hand. He reached out and touched her cheek.

She even felt warm.
All Peter could do was stare. This was the face that haunted his dreams during his first few years with Yondu. This was the face he had stubbornly refused to say good bye to on her death-bed.

He had memorised every feature of her face, from the spattering of freckles over her cheeks to the mole located between her left ear and her hairline.
Something about her face was wrong.

It seemed too perfect. Not a freckle in sight.

He moved his hand towards her ear. He almost held his breath as he gently brushed her long hair out of the way and tucked it behind her ear. He almost didn't want to look, with a deep breath he fixed his sight on the patch of skin where he knew there should be a familiar beauty mark. The skin between it and her hairline was clear.

Peter let out a sigh and dropped his hand.

He took a deep breath and composed himself. Slowly he turned and looked his father in the eye.

"You made a poor copy" he said, trying his best to keep his emotions out of his voice. He refused to let Ego win. Ego wanted this 'creation' to soften Peter's resolve. To fool him into following the lead of a homicidal maniac.

He refused to let that happen. The woman standing behind him – no, not a woman – the artificial copy Ego had created was not an autonomous being. Everything about her was controlled by Ego. She was a puppet.

"This is not my mother" Peter spat. "My mother died decades ago"

Ego didn't say a word. But his face twisted into the most twisted smirk Peter had ever seen.

"What? No witty comeback Dad? No more monologues about how the universe is tainted and how we are the answer?" Peter asked.

"And why the hell are you smirking? WHAT ABOUT BRINGING MY DEAD MOTHER BACK TO LIFE IS FUNNY TO YOU?" he screamed.

Rage. That is all Peter felt right now. Pure and utter rage.

Peter longed for a weapon. Anything he could use to take the smug grin from this psycho's face.

He felt a great power surge inside him. He felt it flow from his core and into his limbs.

He curled his right hand into a fist and directed the strange power into it. Before he knew what he was doing Peter had lunged for Ego and punched him hard in the jaw.

The force threw Ego off his feet and he landed ten feet away on the flat of his back.

Peter jumped up into the air and manipulated the elements around him to enable him to fly straight for the living planet's avatar.

He landed right on top of him and immediately started pummeling Ego's face. A viciousness he had never felt before overcame him and seemed to power his limbs without much effort. Peter's fists had hardened to inflict the maximum damage.

Pretty soon, Ego's face was unrecognisable. A bloody mess of bone was now visible through the gashes Peter had made in the face.

"Please stop!" came a voice from behind Peter. For a second Peter thought that the voice was that of his mother. However, he soon realised that she was no longer standing where he last saw her. However, there was someone else who he recognised immediately.

A figure emerged from the doorway and walked into Peter's line of sight. It was Mantis. Peter hadn't seen her since she had arrived at the crash site with Ego. She was a strange looking alien with big black eyes and two antennae emerging from the top of her forehead.

"Son of Ego, please stop"

Peter glanced at the weird alien, but did not stop his assault on Ego.

"Like hell I'll stop!" screamed Peter "This bastard his getting what he deserves"

Mantis looked unsure of herself for a minute before she finally said "If you refuse to do as he asks, then the others will die!"

Peter looked at her in confusion. "What others?" he asked

"Come with me" she said, "I will show you"

Peter stood up and followed her retreating form back into the main building.

"Wait!" Peter yelled "Who is he threatening to kill?"

Mantis turned and looked at him sadly.

"You are not the only one of Ego's children to be brought home" she explained.

"What do you mean? Weren't all the other's incompatible with celestial genes?"

Mantis gestured for him to follow her and this time he did.

"Unlike you, most of his offspring have no access to their celestial heritage. Due to this flaw in their DNA they were deemed useless him, but I convinced him to save some of them. Ego raised me here with many of your brothers and sisters over the years. I grew close to some of them and I couldn't bear the idea of losing them. I came up with a plan to save them. I told him that he should keep some of them alive just in case he could find a way to use them in his plan"

"Wait! So, I have siblings here and he is keeping them prisoner?" asked Peter as they turned a corner and descended into what looked suspiciously like a dungeon.