The remaining Guardians are about to meet more of Earth's Mightiest Heroes!
A few warp-jumps later, and the Guardians of the Galaxy arrived at Titan. "I'm picking up a ship enter the planet's atmosphere," Quill said.
"Thanos," Drax growled.
"Everyone, we need to take this carefully," Lylla warned. "Thanos has three, potentially four Infinity Stones now. We should hit him hard and by surprise."
The otter parked the Benatar close to the wreckage of the ship, with everyone quickly going into the wreck. Lylla's sensitive ears picked up voices, none of them Thanos'. "I hear three people, most likely some of Thanos' minions," she warned.
Quill nodded, activating his mask and pulling out a small explosive. He rolled it into the room, the bomb landing at their enemies' feet and blowing them off balance. Everyone ran into the room, weapons ready to fight whomever it was in the other side.
"Thanos!" Drax screamed, throwing his knife at the nearest foe. The enemy put up a yellow screen to block the projectile, the surface glowing with runes. Drax yelled again, and the enemy sent their cape to wrap around the warrior's head, knocking Drax to the ground.
"Is that a wizard?" Lylla questioned, running over to help pry the cloth from Drax's face.
Star-Lord activated his rocket boots, firing at their second opponent wearing red and gold armor. The two got into a short scuffle, with Star-Lord managing to plant a magnetic trap to the armored man's chest, pinning him to the wall.
Mantis, meanwhile, went after the third opponent, whom if Lylla had to guess from his voice was the youngest of their adversaries. The boy panicked and shot a sticky substance from his wrists at Mantis, tying her up.
"Don't mess with her!" Lylla shouted, throwing her staff to hit the young one in the back. Star-Lord came to back Lylla up, shooting at the enemy as he swiftly dodged Quill's shots. "He's agile, and might be able to predict our moves," Lylla noted. The otter picked up her staff and activated its shock function, tossing it straight into the enemy's chest.
The young one spazzed out as electricity ran though his body, falling to the floor as Star-Lord picked him up. Lylla recovered her weapon quickly, ears perking up as a whining sound filled them. The armored enemy had Drax pinned down, his hand glowing with blue energy that was pointed at Drax's face.
"Everybody stay where you are," Star-Lord commanded, gun pointed at the young one's head. "Chill the eff out." He deactivated his mask and pointed his gun at the armored man. "I'm going to ask you this one time: Where is Gamora?"
The armored man pointed his other hand at Quill. "Yeah, I'll do you one better: Who is Gamora?" His helmet came off, revealing a middle-aged man with black hair and a goatee.
"I'll do you one better," Drax said. "Why is Gamora?"
"Tell me where the girl is or I swear to you I'm gonna French-fry this little freak," Quill threatened.
"Let's do it! You shoot my guy and I'll blast yours. Let's go!" the armored man challenged. His arm morphed into a larger blaster, crackling with energy.
"Do it Quill!" Drax shouted. "I can take it."
"No, you really can't take it!" Lylla said, charging her staff and threatening the armored man with it.
"She's right, you can't," said the wizard.
"Is that a talking animal?" the young one asked, only for Star-Lord to shove his gun into his face again.
"You don't wanna tell me where she is?" Quill asked. "That's fine, I'll kill all three of you and I'll beat it out of Thanos myself! Starting with you."
"Wait, what, Thanos?" the wizard questioned. "alright, let me ask you this one time: What master do you serve?"
"What master do I serve?" Quill asked. "What am I supposed to say, Jesus?"
The armored man lowered his weapon. "You're from Earth," he said.
"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri," Quill replied.
"Yeah, that's from Earth, dipshit, what are you hassling us for?" the armored man said.
"So you're not with Thanos?" the young one asked.
"With Thanos?" Lylla questioned. "We came here to stop Thanos."
"We're here to kill Thanos," Star-Lord elaborated. "He took my girl- wait, who are you?"
The young one deactivated his mask, revealing a teenager with brown hair. "We're the Avengers, man," he replied.
"You're the ones Thor told us about," Mantis said, still wrapped up.
"You know Thor?" the armored man asked.
"Yeah," Lylla nodded, putting her staff away.
"Tall guy, not that good looking, needed saving," Star-Lord said.
"Where is he now?" the wizard asked.
Lylla looked around as everyone calmed down. "Why don't we take this conversation outside, Avengers?" she offered.
"Woah, talking bear thing," the armored one said in surprise.
"I think she's an otter, Mr. Stark," the young one said.
"I agree with her," the wizard said. "Allow me to free your friend and we'll discuss things on the planet's surface.
As everyone was now on the same page, Lylla made sure that her team was safe before introducing herself. "Hello there, young one, I'm Lylla, leader of this crew," she said.
"I'm Spider-Man," he introduced, shaking her paw. "That's Mr. Stark- I mean, Iron Man, and the wizard is Dr. Strange."
"You have unusual names on Terra, Spider-Man," Lylla said.
"Well, my real name is Peter, but as an Avenger I'm Spider-Man," Peter explained.
"Star-Lord's name is Peter as well," Lylla said. "I'll just stick with Spider-Man for now."
[***]
(AN: from now on "Quill" will refer to Star-Lord and "Peter" will refer to Spider-Man)
Once they all got outside, Quill took a scan of the terrain, looking for signs of Thanos. "The hell happened to this planet?" he said aloud. "It's eight degrees of its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place."
Mantis was jumping around, Titan's wonky gravity making her jumps super floaty. Spider-Man watched as she did so, while Stark and Dr. Strange planned with Lylla. "Well, we have one advantage," Stark said. "He's coming to us. We'll use it. Alright, I have a plan, or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple: we draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy we just want the Gauntlet."
Lylla hear Drax make a noise and looked over to see him yawning. "Drax, this is serious," she chided. "Iron Man is explaining the plan to us. Pay attention!"
"Did you hear what I said?" Stark asked, annoyed at Drax's indifference.
"I stopped listening after you said, 'We need a plan,'" Drax confessed.
"Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page," Stark muttered.
"See not winging it isn't really what they do," Quill said.
"Uh, what exactly is it that they do?" Peter asked.
"Kick names, take ass," Mantis replied.
"Yeah that's right," Drax agreed.
Stark let out a sigh. "Alright, just get over here, please," he said. "Mr. Lord can you get your folks to circle up?"
"Star-Lord is fine," Quill said.
"And technically I'm supposed to be in charge," Lylla said.
"Yeah, no, I'm not letting the trash panda tell me who's in charge of my ship," Quill argued.
"You guys have a raccoon on your team as well?" Peter said.
Lylla smiled at the boy. "Yes, and he's the one who's helping Thor get his Thanos-killing weapon."
Stark coughed, getting everyone's attention back on track. "We've got to coalesce," he said. "'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitudeā¦"
"Dude don't call us plucky," Quill said. "We don't know what it means."
"It means that we're brave, Star-Lord," Lylla replied, getting an eye-roll from Quill.
"Alright, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan," Quill said. "Except it sucks, so let me do the plan and that way it might be really good."
"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe," Drax added.
"What dance-off?" Stark asked.
"It's nothing," Quill stammered.
"Oh please, do tell them how we stopped a tyrannical madman with your dance moves," Lylla said with a giggle.
"Like in Footloose, the movie?" Peter asked.
"Exactly like Footloose," Quill said. "Is it still the greatest movie in history?"
"It never was," Peter replied.
"Don't encourage this, alright?" Stark said. "We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here."
"Flash Gordon? By the way, that's a compliment," Quill said. "Don't forget, I'm half human, so that fifty percent of me that's stupid? That's one-hundred percent you."
"Your math is blowing my mind," Stark said sarcastically.
"Excuse me," Mantis interrupted. "But does your friend often do that?"
Everyone turned to see Dr. Strange, his head twitching to-and-fro as he used his magic. "Mr. wizard, are you okay?" Lylla asked, going over to Strange.
The green glow from his amulet faded as he fell to the ground, gasping in shock. Stark and Lylla helped Strange to steady himself as he breathed heavily.
"You're back, you're alright," Stark assured.
"What were you doing?" Lylla asked.
"I went forward in time to view alternate futures, to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict," Dr. Strange explained.
"How many did you see?" Lylla asked.
"fourteen million six-hundred and five," Strange replied.
"How many did we win?" Stark asked.
Strange paused, then said in a low voice, "One."
Everyone was stunned speechless at that answer. If they only had one shot at this, then they would have do everything perfect, or else half of the universe would be wiped out.
Author's Note
And the Guardians and Avengers have finally met up! I really wanted Lylla and Spider-Man/Peter Parker to meet each other, as I think that Peter's enthusiasm would mesh well with Lylla's optimistic personality. Plus you can't tell me that Spider-Man wouldn't geek out about a talking animal? We'll be seeing a bit more of the two in the next chapter for sure.
Next Time: The Battle of Titan! Will the combined strength of the Guardians and Avengers be able to stop Thanos in a one-in-a-million shot?
