What's Behind the Curtain

Chapter Ten

Reagan

No. Just no. There is NOT a traitor here.

Me I can vouch for.

Madison? She would never betray us. Honestly, I think she's having the time of her life right now.

Katie? She might not seem like it, but she really is a good and loyal friend. She'd never betray us.

Kaitlyn? Honestly, I think if she was approached by Ronan, she'd run away screaming.

Andrew? No. I don't think he would. I haven't known him as long as I've known some of my other friends, but from what I've seen so far, he's a good friend.

Other Sam? I would say he would probably betray us, but he isn't even in our group, and I doubt he can actually do anything in his state.

Jaime? She's only been here for about an hour. How could she have done anything?

So who?

Before Zara could finish her sentence, a portal opened up out of nowhere. Out of it came Ronan.

"Ah, Zara. I see you've found my 'spy'?"

Zara clenched her jaw. "I smashed the phone, Ronan. No more spying for you."

Wait. What?

"I hate to get into your blood feud or whatever, but WHO IS THE FLARKING TRAITOR?" I screamed.

Zara glanced at me. "Ronan hacked into your friend's phone. He was using it to listen to your conversation."

Ronan sighed. "Honestly, it disturbed me. Sam, I didn't know you went around kissing twelve year old girls!"

"THAT WAS A ONE TIME THING!" Sam hurled one of Peter's shot glasses at him.

Peter was passed out drunk. Wow, Peter. Great timing.

Ronan dodged the shot glass easily.

"I must say, I didn't expect you and your little friends to be so...calm, Sam. Most Terrans probably would have fainted from shock a lot earlier."

"THAT'S WHY WE'RE FANGIRLS!" Madison shrieked. And with that, the Terrans attacked.

Before Ronan could react, Katie and Madison each took a broken shard of glass and stabbed Ronan, catching him off guard. Andrew tried to punch him. And failed. Kaitlyn just slowly backed away. Jaime did the same.

I stole one of Peter's guns and shot Ronan. None of this hurt him a lot, but it did distract him so Sam and Zara could suit up and blast him with Nova force.

Kaitlyn and Jaime were hurriedly trying to wake Peter up. "Peter! Get up!" Jaime hissed. Peter blinked.

"Wha- OHH, um, on it!" He took off his two trademark element guns, spun them once, and started shooting Ronan, who was already confused by the Terrans pestering him.

"GUYS! UM, GUARDIANS ASSEMBLE! God, we need a better catchphrase. GET OUT HERE! WE'VE GOT A CODE RONAN!" he screamed.

The Guardians rushed out of the Milano. Gamora leapt onto Ronan, slashing with her knives. Drax did the same. The Terrans scurried out of the way when Rocket opened fire. Groot...well, I'm not entirely sure what Groot was doing. He looked like he was meditating.

But then Ronan put up a force field bubble thingy that somehow deflected all of the Guardians attacks, and created a wave of energy that sent us all flying backwards.

He laughed an evil laugh. (It needed work. It sounded like a dying goose.) "Fools! For I have the Infinity Stones, nothing can repel me!" He held his hand up, and clutched there were purple, blue, and red gems. Those weren't all the Infinity Stones, but three of them together were still immensely powerful.

Wait. So, I'm a fangirl, I've done my research, and the Infinity Stones are pretty much the most powerful thing in every universe, and he uses them to GET REVENGE? Why hasn't he used the Reality Stone to wish us all away, or taken control of our souls with the soul stone or something, or-

No. Oh, no. The Mind Stone can read minds. He knows what I'm thinking. And I just gave him a TERRIBLE idea.

Crap.

He takes the red stone out from his palm, and holds it high above his head. "BY THE POWER OF THE REALITY STONE, I-"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence, because his feet start to sprout roots. Groot is standing behind him, his hands glowing yellow and wrapped around Ronan's head. Moments later, Ronan is a pretty willow tree. All of our mouths hang open.

"What...the...WHY COULDN'T HE HAVE DONE THIS EARLIER?!" Peter screamed.

"Cause he was kindling, Quill," Rocket said, unfazed.

Peter sinks into the lawn chair. "I can't believe it..."

"You don't know everything." Rocket and Groot walk away, and Drax and Gamora shrug, following them. We all let out a sigh of relief.

"Well, you've got a new tree now," I said, trying to lighten the mood.

"I hope your dog pees on it," Katie said, poking the tree.

"Yeah," Madison agreed. "I think I'm going to sit down now." She sits down next to Peter. We all sit down next to Peter.

"That was intense," Sam said, laying down on Madison's deck.

I take a deep breath, and stare up at the Ronan-tree. "I know. But at least-" Something shiny catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. "Um, what's that?" I ask, pointing up at the branches of the tree.

Sam squints at the tree. His expression quickly changes to shock. "The Infinity Stones," he breathed.

"Ooh, shiny!" said Katie. She began to climb the tree.

Peter realized what she was doing. "Wait, no! Don't tou-"

Too late. Katie has the stones in her hand, studying them. "Don't what?"

"Don't touch them," Peter finished, a mixture of shock and confusion on his face.

"Why not?"

"Well, they tend to incinerate humans..."

"Clearly you have some false information, space man. They feel like rocks. Which is the way they should feel," I said after Katie dropped them down to me. The Ronan-tree isn't very tall.

Peter's face went pale. "What the..."

"Maybe they're different in our universe," I muse.

"They have to be," Peter said, still staring at us.

"Well, if you could just hand those over, I can take them to the Nova Corps to keep them safe," Zara said, holding out her hand.

My friends and I exchanged a glance. "NEVER!" Madison screamed, and I tossed her the stones. Miraculously, she caught them (you have to understand we're the unathletic kids at school, it's a miracle popular, athletic people like Other Sam even talk to us), and she tucked them in her pocket.

Zara grit her teeth, and lunged at her. Sam blasted Nova force at her. "Sorry, Zara," he said. "But the stones are probably going to be safer with Terrans than in the Nova Corps, where it seems like the Power Stone had been stolen from them already..."

Peter cringed. "Yeah, they were trying to keep that hush-hush. That might have been the reason they sent Zara here, to get Sam and Ronan. And the stones."

"Why can't they just keep them? They're harmless to humans in this universe, anyone that even finds them – which is highly unlikely – will just think they're fake if they see a Terran holding them. It's the perfect disguise," Sam argued.

Peter nodded. "I guess that's true. Alright, fine, but we'll be checking in on you. Just to make sure you don't do anything stupid with them."

I rolled my eyes. "Us? Stupid?"

Katie fell out of the tree.

"Actually, don't argue that. But we promise. We won't do anything stupid."

"Okay..." Peter cast a sideways glance at Katie.

"Hey, um, do you have any explanation as to how you're even in this universe?" Jaime asked. We looked at her.

"No," Peter said carefully, "but with all of the multi-verse colliding that's been going on recently, it's not really surprising. Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in this universe. Or maybe it's the Reality Stone. We might never know."

"Guess we shouldn't question it," Jaime finished.

"Something like that."

"HEY! QUILL! SHIP'S FIXED!" Rocket yelled.

Peter glanced at the ship and back at us. "That's my cue," he said. "Come on, kids. Give Daddy a group hug," he said, grinning.

We all crowded in for a group hug, even Sam.

"QUILL! GET YOUR D'AST BUTT DOWN HERE!"

"Shh. We're having a moment."

"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE HAVING A SEIZURE, GET OVER HERE!"

"Ugh. Fine."

We broke apart, and Peter ruffled my hair. "You're a good kid, Reagan. Others of you, not so much. But you're still all some rad people. Have fun, don't do drugs, and keep the stones safe!"

He activated his rocket boots and flew over to the Milano. We all watched as the ship took off.

I turned to Sam. "So, where are you going?"

He shrugged. "I think I'm going to head back to Carefree. Do some super hero work. Check in with my mom. Carrie."

Oh. Right. Carrie.

Sam's girlfriend. Who is also his age.

Well, there go any of my chances ever.

"Cool," I said, looking at my shoes. "Well, bye."

"Bye," he said kind of awkwardly.

He leaned in for a split second, almost as if he was going to hug me, but hesitated, and leaned back instead. He adjusted his helmet and flew away.

Madison took the stones out of her pocket and handed them to me. "I think you should keep these, Reagan. You're probably the most responsible one out of all of us."

"Yeah, I am," I agreed. I took them and shoved them into the pocket of my shorts.

Well, back to normal, everyday life, I guess.

Then I pulled out the stones.

THE END

TO BE CONTINUED

I THINK THAT WAS AN OXYMORON

There will be a sequel to this story called What's Behind the Sequel. Review and favorite!

WELL! I'm BACK! I'm actually writing the sequel now, but due to some changes in fandoms and life, I needed to fix the ending to match the sequel. So enjoy the edited chapter! I'll be posting a twelvth (How do you even spell "twelvth"? I need autocorrect.) part saying to come check out this chapter. Wow, I think I'm breaking the fourth page by doing that. Weird. Anyway, review, favorite, follow, please! (Okay, it's "twelfth". Just pretend that never happened.)

P.S. How many of you think they're going to do something stupid?