Chapter Nine: Guardians

The Milano.

That was the name of spaceship Walter learned the name of as he and the "body snatcher" were alone in the cargo hold; tied back-to-back with each other by an electric bind that sparked in a faint blue hue whenever they squirmed.

The scent of Old Spice filled the Muppet's non-existent nostrils while in close proximity of his fellow stowaway. She even smells like Sean, he thought to himself. It was quite a bizarre few hours, watching his friend transform into a woman one moment and, in the next, finding himself aboard a spaceship (that may or may not have been named after a 1980s teen idol) with a foul-talking raccoon.

He shook his head in disbelief. "Can't believe we've been captured by aliens. They're probably deciding right now whether or not to eat us!"

Natalie giggled. "Them? Oh, don't worry. I know these characters. They're the Guardians of the Galaxy. These people are practically heroes."

"Hmph!" Walter jeered. "I doubt that. And I doubt that you know that."

"You're right." She sighed. "This mind. The part of it that's this woman I've become. Stuff just randomly pops in my head at times. But I promise you that we are safe, buddy."

"WILL YOU STOP CALLING ME THAT?!"

There was evident panic in his voice. Clearly, he was terrified more of her than their situation.

"Walter," she calmly said. "Tell me what's wrong."

"You! It's you that's wrong! What've you done to Sean? Huh? Where is he?"

Natalie shook her head, snickering. "I'm still here, buddy. Sean Thomas is still here, sitting right here with you."

"You're talking about yourself. You are not Sean Thomas. You're just some body-snatcher who took him over – took away his identify by killing him."

Natalie erupted in hysterical laughter. "Body-snatcher?"

"Yeah. That's right. And don't you laugh!"

Her laughter intensified, only aggravating the Muppet further. "Oh, I'm sorry, Walter. It's just…you always have such a cute imagination." Her hilarity soon subsided, and she once more addressed her companion in a soothing tone: "Seriously, buddy, it's O.K. Sean is O.K. He's just stored away. His body and mine are one in the same, just in two separate forms."

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I only want my best friend back, is that so much to ask?"

Natalie's eyes lit up. "Best friend? I…I thought Gary was your best friend."

"Gary is my brother, and the greatest brother a guy could ever have…but Sean has been there for me at times when Gary isn't able to – that's why he's my best friend."

Tears quickly filled her eyes. She was immensely touched by this sentiment.

"Oh, Walter."

The tears she shed fell down her caramel-colored cheeks and to her red plaid shirt, unable to wipe them away with her bound hands.

Walter could hear her sniffling. "Are you crying?"

"It's…It's just the atmosphere of the room." She fibbed. "They don't keep this place all that clean, ya know."

Footsteps sounded from one of the corridors interconnected with the room. Two of the Guardian members, Peter Quill and Gamora, soon entered. The first thing Quill caught sight of upon his entrance was the weeping Natalie. Guilt instantly weld up inside him. "Aw, jeez. Don't cry, lady. We're not gonna kill you – we promise...well, I made all of us promise...made Rocket promise."

Gathering herself, Natalie addressed the self-proclaimed "Star-Lord": "I'm not afraid of you all." She then added with an enormously content smile, "I just found out that I'm tied to my best friend right now!"

There was an awkward glance shared between Quill and Gamora, hearing this baffling exclamation from their overly exuberant captive. "O…kay?" Quill acknowledged. "Moving on to the main issue of the hour: who are you and the Sesame Street reject? And how did you two get on the Milano?"

Walter's face scrunched in anger. "Sesame Street reject? I am a Muppet!"

"Uh, yeah," Quill mockingly uttered. "Last time I checked, the Muppets were television characters, as in not real. So, obviously, you're just some species or whatever that only looks like a Muppet."

Walter sighed. "I'm surrounded by actual lunatics today."

"Did my father, Thanos, send you?" Gamora inquired.

Natalie immediately shook her head in reply. "No, I promise we have no affiliation with that Mad Titan."

"Did a guy by the name of Yondu send you?" Quill questioned.

"Nope." Natalie confirmed. "No affiliation there either."

"Do you even know the guys these people are talking about?" Walter queried her.

She turned her head sideways to address him: "Of course. One's a big light purple dude, and the other's a dark blue dude. Both with bad attitudes."

Once she faced forward again, Natalie suddenly found herself staring down the blade of a sword wielded by Gamora – the razor sharp tip just an inch from the bridge of her nose.

"Recognize this weapon?" The green-skinned warrior asked.

From Natalie's visual perception of the blade in close proximity of her face, its tip looked as if it had been split into two. "No…can't say that I do," she said in response of Gamora's inquiry.

"It is known as Godslayer." Gamora established. "It was given to me by Thanos. If you do not recognize it, then you are no assassin of his."

She drew back her sword while Quill retrieved a small remote device from his pocket to shut off the electric bind holding Natalie and Walter together. Once they were free, the two jumped off the steel crate and stretched out the kinks in their bodies from the multiple hours of sitting.

While she performed a few yoga stretches, Natalie was unknowingly being observed by Quill, who noted the way in which she was dressed; her clothing was too down-to-earth to be part of any planet Quill and his team had been to.

"So…you're from Earth?" He passed it off as a question in the guise of an observation, avoiding the possibility of being wrong.

Finishing her stretches, Natalie stood upright and faced the two Guardians. "Yep. Me and my little friend here."

Quill confusingly glanced at Walter. "But he's…?"

"A Muppet." Natalie finished. "Yeah, I know. It's confusing."

"I do not understand." Gamora said, gesturing to Walter. "This creature made of cloth is somehow alive?"

Walter's body stiffened in frustration. "For the last time, I am a Muppet!" He stared intensely at Gamora and added, "What're you supposed to be? The Green Giant's sister?"

Angered by the tone of his address, Gamora aimed her sword to his head. "Do not offend me, creature! I am not one you wish to upset so easily!"

"Whoa, whoa! Time out!" Quill quickly stepped in between them, preventing any assassination from taking place in the room. "Let's just focus back on the topic at hand, shall we?" He brought his attention back to Natalie. "You're from an apparently twisted Earth, I get that. But what do I don't get is how you got aboard our ship without one of your own."

Natalie shrugged. "Our arrival is rather complicated to go into detail. Honestly, I'd rather we focus on where it is we're headed: Asgard."

"Asgard, eh?"

The voice of Rocket Raccoon directed everyone's attention to the corridor adjacent from the one Quill and Gamora entered earlier. He carried a pot containing what appeared to be an animate twig with a tiny face and arms.

"I've had some encounters with a few characters who've come far from there." The strange raccoon attested.

"Then you know how to get there?" The hopeful Natalie queried.

"Well, yeah, but it's near impossible. It's not exactly a hop and a skip away from where we are now. You're talking about a journey that could take days...maybe months."

Natalie smirked. "It could only take me seconds." Her smirk then faded into a scowl. "That is, if I weren't so new to my Guardian power."

"Guardian power?" Quill noted with suspicion. "I thought we trademarked the 'Guardian' name after being inspired by a power-crazed, murderous Kree militarist."

With a heavy sigh, Natalie returned to the steel crate, planting herself back on it. "Earth doesn't stand a chance unless I reach Asgard. It's gonna fall right into the hands of the Skrulls."

The ears of Rocket and Quill perked in horror.

"No, no." Quill uttered. "You did not just say 'Skrull,' did you?"

"What are Skrulls?" Gamora asked.

"Only the worst pain-in-the-butt species in the universe." Rocket remarked.

"Tell me about it." Quill acknowledged. "There's this one time when a renegade Skrull once infiltrated the Ravagers and nearly tore us apart from the inside, planting doubt in our minds and causing us to turn on each other in a heartbeat."

Gamora frowned. "I don't believe I have ever come across one."

"You have." Rocket said. "Ya probably just didn't realize it."

"The Skrulls have this 'gift' that allows them to blend with any civilization they find – look exactly like anyone in it." Quill directed his troubled gaze to Natalie. "If you say that the entire Skrull Empire has infiltrated Earth, then it is seriously in trouble."

"That's the reason why I have to reach Earth – to prevent multiple disasters that I've foreseen to come from the secret invasion." Natalie stated.

"If the danger is on Earth, what is your purpose for reaching Asgard?" Gamora quizzed.

"I'm gonna need all of the Avengers, including the prince of Asgard himself, to stop the Skrulls' invasion." Natalie answered.

Rocket's face wrinkled in bafflement. "Who the heck are the Avengers?"

"And you called me about this situation? Why? Why not contact one of your friends from S.H.I.E.L.D.? Like Nick Fury?"

"Tried Fury. He's not answering – probably already trying to work on a cover-up to this. The whole thing smells fishy to me. A rift between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the poster boy of this country? They worship Cap. He's like one of the founding members of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Actually, he isn't."

"You're a history buff all the sudden?"

"I've been to the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian – pretty cool stuff, man. You oughta visit sometime."

"Not a fan of museums, unless they feature something of me. Hey, crazy question, but weren't we discussing about S.H.I.E.L.D. possibly turning on my fellow Avenger?"

"Right. I don't know what else to tell ya, Tony. The officials here at the Pentagon are going nuts. Some of them are going as far as labeling Cap a traitor to the country. The World Security Council is investigating the situation, but it's not looking too good for Cap."

"Just do whatever you can to get to the bottom of things, Rhodey, even if you have to get by the red tape."

He could hear Rhodey sighing heavily on the other end of the phone. "O.K., Tony. But I suggest you do the same. He is your friend after all."

"Thanks for reminding me."

After the nine-minute conversation had come to an end, Tony telepathically switched off the phone function of his telepresence headset – a device originally designed to mentally link him to his "Mark XLII" armor but had been retrofitted for communication purposes, shortly after the armor's destruction. With the device still donned on his head, he was soon approached by Bruce.

"Any good news?"

Tony shook his head. "Not even the government knows what's going on."

"We should find Mindy," suggested Jacqueline, from her spot in the entertainment section of the tower's suite. "She's working with S.H.I.E.L.D. and had probably seen all this happening before it did. If anyone can know what's going on here, it's her. It'll take some time to get a center on her location in this realm though."

"Don't bother." Stark denied. "Nobody at S.H.I.E.L.D. can be trusted right now."

Sheryl, standing beside Jacqueline in the bathrobe she pilfered from Tony's bathroom, detected the certainty in his voice. "That sounds like more of a declaration than an educated guess."

Stark paused for a long time and then decidedly came clean: "Look, I haven't even told Rhodey this because of his connections with the government – they're just as much a part of what's really happening."

"And what is really happening?" Jacqueline questioned.

"The decades-old terrorist group Hydra has been operating and growing inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. since its very beginning."

Bruce, Sheryl, and Jacqueline each felt like a massive tidal wave had crashed through them.

"Hydra?" Bruce muttered in shock. "A-Are you sure?"

"You remember when we were on the Helicarrier and I hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database, discovering the weapons they were making from the Tesseract? I uncovered some even nastier secrets inside the agency – stuff that Fury probably had known but didn't tell us because of his lack of trust. Hydra has been using S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources for the purpose of carrying out their lifelong plans for world domination."

Bruce's eyes enlarged with realization. "The weaponization plan? It did seem like more of a Hydra plot than a S.H.I.E.L.D. one."

"And Hydra did once use the Tesseract for such a purpose." Tony then added with a smug look, "Rhodey should be here to see me kick butt at this history stuff."

"Man, I feel so…betrayed." Sheryl disconsolately said. "I mean, we fought alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. in our battle against Doctor Facilier and his forces, but we were fighting alongside Hydra the whole time? It doesn't make any sense."

"It does when you consider the fact that they were just protecting a world they wanted to soon dominate." Jacqueline scoffed.

Sheryl's body turned rigid, anxiety masked deeply on her face. "Oh, no! The Livingstons! Any of them could be Hydra! Jacqueline, Sean could be Hydra!" The latter prospect sickened her. "He's a part of us...a representation from this world of who we once were! And he could be…!"

"Sheryl, chill." Jacqueline urged. "He is definitely not Hydra. Like you said, he's a part of us, meaning there's no way he could turn evil." She shrugged and doubtfully added, "Ciciley and Elendriel, on the other hand…I'm not so sure about them."

"And that reservation is exactly why we should work in finding not just Mindy but Sean also." Sheryl proposed. "The thought of either of those pure souls with S.H.I.E.L.D. scares me."

Jacqueline shook her head. "The very idea of both of us using our abilities simultaneously…Sheryl, we could end up attracting Yve Ette's attention from whatever parts unknown she may be hiding. She is connected to our power, remember?"

"For all we know, she may already be here, hunting for our butts as we speak." Sheryl anticipated. "She may even have a hand in this S.H.I.E.L.D./Hydra situation."

Jacqueline could not argue on that last possibility. It sounded solid enough to convince her into complying. "Alright. Fine. Let's find ourselves."

Genevieve awoke with a gasp.

There was no recollection as to how she ended up unconscious in the first place; it was as if a part of her memory of the event that led to it was extracted from her mind. And just as blank as her memory was, so was the room that she found herself in.

It was pitch-black with the one available light source shining right above and blinding her. She made an attempt to move, only to discover right away that there were shackles on her wrists and ankles. Her hands and arms were strung above her head and her legs were pinned, chained to something in the darkness that she could not see.

It then became evident to her, the moment she squirmed in her awkward position, that she had been completely stripped of her clothes and left naked. The cold metal surface of the steel table chill to the touch whenever she wriggled to get free. She even tried to use her power to escape from the binds that contained her. Unfortunately, it was the binds themselves that resisted her attempts.

"HEY!" She yelled into the darkness. "I know you're there somewhere, getting your twisted pleasure in watching me like this! Show yourself!"

Sure enough, there was an observer. The lone figure stepped out from the darkness and into the light, allowing Genevieve to finally see her abductor.

"Yve Ette!"

It was as if her nightmares had become reality, looking up towards the corrupted reincarnation of her past as she loomed over her, hands on her hips and a sinister smile showing from her face.

"It's so good seeing you again, Genevieve." She spoke in the English accent that accompanied the reincarnated form she inhabited. "After the near-destruction of the Disneyverse, I would have never believed our paths to cross again. And thank you oh-so-much for the new body. It's so big and strong. I've grown quite fond of it."

"What're you doing in this realm? Why've you taken allegiance with the Skrulls?" She noted the feigned surprise in the face of her adversary. "Yeah, we both know who they are, thanks to all the knowledge Mindy got from her time here."

"Fascinating creatures they are. Their capability to camouflage their alien appearance at will and become anyone they want. Sound familiar?"

"The Skrulls want to tear the universe apart and piece it back together in their own image. And you've given them access to the one place that is easy pickings for them."

"And you don't think I know that? It's why I set them off the leash. I'm undoing all the hard work you've put into this world and the next – all while working my way back to the Disneyverse to put my master plan in play."

"Your 'master plan'? What would that be?"

Yve Ette chuckled. "Oh, Genevieve. You should know better than that. Being in the Disneyverse as long as you have, haven't you learned about asking the bad guys their plans?"

"Well, I figure since you're going to kill me anyway, I might as well die with the information."

"Honey, you weren't brought aboard the Skrulls' command ship to be executed. There is something they want out of you."

On cue with Yve Ette's emphasis on context, a massive, mechanical black "hand" with razor-sharp claws slithered from the darkness. Its "body" was a long, thick scaly cable that strongly resembled a snake. It hovered over Genevieve, who gazed on the mechanical horror with penetrating fear.

"I've bragged all about you and your Guardian abilities to the Skrulls." Yve Ette divulged. "They want to harness such cosmic power for one of their own, transforming it into the first of their species: a Super Skrull."

The mechanical hand opened its palm to reveal a bright red glowing light embedded into it, bathing Genevieve's naked, terrified form in its hue.

Yve Ette watched on with wicked delight. "I should warn you, sweetie. What's about to happen next is really going to hurt."

Moving faster than the blink of an eye, the hand shot at Genevieve. Its claws dug deep into her bare flesh, bringing out the most painful scream her body had ever exhibited.