Prologue

It's been a little over five years since the team of young heroes last worked together under the guidance of Director Nick Fury. Having concentrated their efforts to the threats that lied beyond the solar system, S.H.I.E.L.D. had officially endorsed the establishment of S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) in order to deal with beings of other worlds.

Peter Parker continued donning the mask of Spider-Man, keeping a vigilant eye over New York City. His efforts had earned him an honorary spot among the Avengers, who periodically asked for his help from time to time. Working towards his master's degree in biochemical engineering, Peter secured a position at Oscorp through his old high school friend, Harry Osborn. While he helped create world-changing substances during the day, he'd help fight the injustices of New York at night.

After graduating from college, Ava Ayala worked full-time for S.H.I.E.L.D. as a special field agent while still being called the elusive White Tiger. When she wasn't hunting down terrorist organizations and criminal syndicates, she was relaxing at her beachfront property in Puerto Rico and reading up on the latest guilty pleasure romance novel or reminiscing on her adventures with her old team.

Luke Cage returned to Harlem after the team disbanded and worked on community outreach programs for the youth, while also opening up his own boxing gym. He eventually crossed paths with a known private investigator from Hell's Kitchen and began a relationship with her, offering his hand to help her with her investigations whenever they came about.

After returning to K'un-L'un to take his rightful place as its champion and ruler, Danny Rand eventually began introducing the ancient city to the 21st Century, building up their infrastructure and their ability to communicate outside of the mystic shroud that surrounded them. While still an enigma to the world, Danny was working hard to change the outlook of K'un-L'un for the better.

Sam Alexander, on the other hand, returned to his outer-world life amongst his old team, the Guardians of the Galaxy. They had their run-ins with dangerous gangs across the galaxy, all while trying to protect local star systems and collecting bounties.

Eventually, however, the team grew apart. Star-Lord returned to Earth to help Nick Fury spearhead the operations over at S.W.O.R.D. Rocket and Groot continued their former bounty hunter lifestyles and Drax disappeared into dark space. Nova and Gamora went to help establish the New Nova Corps on Xandar. Within two years, they were both able to recreate the former Nova Corps to a stronger state.

Gamora headed more covert operations for them while Nova primarily stayed on Xandar to ward off old threats, such as the Kree, from encroaching upon the territory.

For some time, all had seemed fine across the galaxy.

But, that all quickly changed.

Inside The Kyln…

Nova played around with a ball of energy that he created out of the palms of his hands as he waited for the elevator to land at the correct level he was looking for. He was accompanied by two rookie Nova Corpsmen, who were seemingly in awe to be standing next to the legendary hero himself.

The elevator suddenly rumbled while it continued down the shaft. The two rookies were startled, but Sam remained unhinged.

"Relax, guys," he jokingly advised, "If they get in here, we're already dead."

One of them audibly gulped.

"I heard the Outriders got out of their cells," one of them worriedly relayed, "I heard they have massive t-teeth."

"Yeah, and a bunch of arms too," Nova added, "Nothing we can't handle, though."

Finally, the elevator slowed down to a single halt. The two rookies nervously withdrew their energy rifles at the ready, while Nova simply discarded the energy ball, peering as it faded away.

The doors slid open, revealing a rather tall, hooded feminine figure. She had her hands at her hips, seemingly impatient, with a vicious-looking sword strapped at her back. Drawing her hood back, she revealed her bright yellow eyes, one of them covered with an eyepatch, long reddish-black hair, and green skin.

"Was wondering when you'd show up, Gamora!" Nova happily greeted, "Thought they'd send just me to take care of this mess."

"They needed someone to make sure the job gets done," she sarcastically answered, "Besides, you're going to need some help."

She glanced sideways at the rookies.

"D-Do you want us to follow you, sir?" one of them asked Nova.

"Nah, you boys are good. Keep a flask of your finest Xandarian whiskey warm for me. I'll down it once I'm through with this."

"Yes, sir!" they both answered in-sync.

Just like that, the two of them disappeared behind the elevator doors and returned back up to the main command level of the Kyln.

Looking around, Nova observed the darkened chasm underneath the metal cat-walk that they found themselves on. Rows and rows of empty cells lined the walls into the pitch black beyond.

"So, I assume you know the situation now that you're here."

He shrugged, "I heard some prisoners were getting rowdy so Nova Prime ordered me here, with a battalion of Denarians, should we fail in containment."

"That's an understatement," she corrected, withdrawing her sword, "You can walk, talk, and fight, right?"

"Of course."

"Good, follow me."

He lifted himself gently off the floor and energized his armor, causing his entire presence to eradiate a soft blue glow, especially from his weaponized gauntlets. He hovered as he followed her through the long cat-walk towards a sealed off door guarded by a small team of Centurions.

"You going to tell me what happened to your eye?"

She glanced back with a glare.

"Ran into Nebula during one of my missions in the outer-rim. Tried to take her in. Long story short: she tried to cut my eye out. I cut her hand off."

"Jeez. Is your eye good, though?"

"It'll heal."

"Alright, just making sure."

She remained silent.

"So, what's really going on here?"

"There was a power failure in the energy capacitors keeping the Kyln afloat. Whoever was making routine maintenance checks didn't do their job well. Two whole blocks of the prison lost life support. Bastards didn't have a chance before glazing up in the vacuum," she explained, "When the guard figured out what was wrong, they accidentally reverted power from maximum security to the two lost blocks, causing the worst of the worst to crawl out of their cells."

"What kind of baddies are we talking about here?"

"Well, they had all types of scum locked up in there. Outriders. Kree. Chitauri. Brood. Klyntar. You name it, they were probably holed up in there."

"Sounds like it's going to be fun."

"No different than when we fought off that army of rogue Phalanx on Halfworld."

"Yeah, but we had the whole crew back then."

She sighed.

"Yeah, we did."

"So, what's the plan?" he quickly asked, changing the subject.

"Right. So, there's a central module in the middle of maximum security that controls the power to the entire block. Since the energy transformers were damaged in the transfer, we can reactivate emergency power directly from that module. Once power is returned, we can initiate a sonic blast cleanse to completely eradicate any lifeform outside of the module that isn't in their cell."

"Sounds kinda harsh, don't you think?"

"I know. But, it's either that or risk them breaking out into the rest of the prison and then to a ship. There's no easy way to take care of this."

"Alright," Nova shrugged, "If that's the plan."

"Just follow my lead and cover me," she simply instructed, "The sooner we get this done, the better."

"Following you, little green woman."

Sighing, she instructed the Centurions to open the sealed door. They prepared a defensive stance behind Nova and Gamora while one of them activated the door from a nearby console. It slowly slid open…

Suddenly…

GARAGHA!

A pack of Outriders swarmed out of the doorway, quickly pouncing on them. Gamora, having readied her sword, began cutting through them while Nova unleashed a barrage of energy blasts out of his hands. The Centurions advanced with energy fire, cutting down any Outriders who weren't killed by the two of them.

With a clearing finally open, Gamora beckoned Nova forward into the maximum-security block while the Centurions sealed the door shut behind them.

Were it not for Nova's bright glow, they would've been in complete darkness, aside from a few red emergency lights blinking far ahead in the corridor. The putrid smell of rotting corpses permeated throughout the corridor. There were dead bodies of different alien species strewn about, having assumedly been eviscerated by the Outriders as they tried to escape through there.

"Man, it smells worse than Drax's cooking," he joked.

"Ssh! You want them to hear us?!"

They slowly advanced through the corridor, finally into the massive cylindrical prison block, where rows of cells lined the walls hundreds of stories up. On the catwalks that lined the cells, fights had erupted. Over a thousand aliens of different species were up against one another, fighting for domination over the maximum-security block.

Nova and Gamora quickly ran across the catwalk, fighting off gangs of Kree and Chitauri, who were trying to rip each other apart.

The central module was suspended in the middle of the block with some sort of gravity mechanism that kept it from being accessible from the prisoners. Despite that, some of the Brood had flung themselves on top of it and had begun ripping it apart.

"There it is, Nova! Damn it, but it's several stories up there."

"Oh, come on!" He chuckled as he blasted away a pack of Outriders, "You forgot I can fly already!?"

Before she could answer, Nova took flight and swooped down to pick her up by her left hand. She subtly yelled curses at him as she dangled from his right arm.

"Damn you, Nova! I was going to fight my way up there!"

"And lose precious time?! That's not how we do business, Gamora!" he playfully taunted.

Reaching the spherical central module, he dropped her inside, quickly following with her. They fought their way through the nightmarish pack of Brood before reaching the console, which was stained with Brood blood.

"Give me a moment to route the power," Gamora instructed, "I forgot how crazy you were in battle."

"Nothing too crazy for Sam Alexander!" he triumphantly remarked.

Subtly chuckling, she pulled the switch and routed power back to the maximum-security block. Without a second's hesitation, she forced the sonic energy wipe to completely cleanse the catwalks and corridors outside of the cells. Within a few seconds, the loud sounds of alien shouts and fighting had ceased and only silence followed.

Taking a sigh of relief, Gamora sat down on a chair.

"Aw yeah! We did it! I told you we could!" Nova laughed, closing in to give her a hug, but she quickly raised her hand to stop him at arm's length.

"Yeah. We did. But, we're not in the clearing yet, though. We need to hold down this module until reinforcements arrive to help us secure the rest of the block. We don't know what did or didn't get wiped out by the blast."

"If you say so. But, I think we should—"

Suddenly, the entire module began to violently shake, as though critical systems within the module were failing.

"Um, Gamora, what's going on?!"

Quickly, she looked through the system logs on the console.

"Damn it! The sonic wipe damaged the module's gravity mechanism! It's going to fall!"

They both ran towards the exit where they entered through with only seconds left before the module made its freefall towards the bottom of the maximum-security block. Gamora quickly leapt off the edge of the platform and was able to grab the railings off one of the catwalks as she fell. Nova, on the other hand, attempted to keep the module suspended with his powers.

"Let it go, Nova! There's no use!" she shouted from afar.

"You sure?!" he grunted, struggling to manage the heavy module.

"Yes!"

Without another word, Nova let go of the module, but was caught by a loose chain that was hanging off its side. It caught on his ankle and pulled him down with it.

"Nova!" Gamora screamed.

"I'll be fine!" he shouted back, "Yee haw!"

Gamora couldn't help but chuckle in relief. Nova's humor was always something that broke through the dread of conflict. She watched as his glowing blue aura faded into the depths of the darkened block below. With power back, she quickly accessed a nearby lift to descend below.

In the underbelly of the max-security block…

The module crashed hard onto the solid floor below. It shattered into a hundred pieces, with Nova landing into a pile of alien corpses, fresh from having been thrown off the catwalks from the huge prison fight earlier.

"Ughh. Way to go, Sam. That's what you get for being stupid and trying to lift a thousand-ton ball," he sighed to himself.

He quickly hovered up and forced his blue glow to shine brighter to illuminate the area around him. It was completely pitch black with debris from above scattered about.

"What I'd give for some of Groot's natural light right about now."

Then, something scurried about within the debris. Nova quickly energized his hands and pointed them towards the source of the noise.

"Who's there?!"

Whispers then followed.

He began to swirl around, trying to pinpoint where the noises were coming from.

Then, figures began to emerge into the field of view of his aura.

A massive, darkish-brown skinned brute stomped close to Nova. Its large arms were accompanied by razor-sharp claws at the ends of his fingertips. It grunted and snarled loudly at Nova, like a rabid animal ready to pounce.

"Now, now, Black Dwarf. No need to eviscerate our prey just yet," a calm and weaker voice called out from behind the beast.

A slim, lanky figure floated into view. He had a slight grin across his pale-grey face and white hair that rounded the sides of his bald head. He wore some type of robe, whitish, with strange black markings embroidered on it.

"It's a soldier from the Nova Corps," a female voice pointed out.

Behind Nova, a tall, blue-haired, black-armored female alien marched towards him and stopped a few feet away. She had golden-red eyes with a black marking dashed across her greyish face.

"Strange. I thought we had wiped them out long ago," the lanky figure pondered.

"Yeah, well we're alive and well," Nova snapped back, "Now, why don't you weirdos just step back into your cages and I'll forget that you all tried to escape, capeesh?"

"He thinks he's being funny," the female darkly chuckled, "What do you think, my love?"

Out of nowhere, a fourth figure appeared. His grey face darkened by a black hood. He was shorter than the woman, skinnier, with a head that resembled an elf of some sort but wasn't one.

"I think we need to get rid of him and get out of here. There is no telling how long we've been in stasis," he cautiously noted.

"But, our master!" Black Dwarf growled, "He is still out there!"

"Agreed," the lanky figure concurred, swaying his fingers at Nova.

Without warning, a powerful invisible force wrapped itself around Nova and gripped him tight as though he was being constricted by an anaconda. The force shifted him closer to the lanky figure, who studied Nova for a brief second before interrogating him.

"Tell me, human, where are we and where is our master?"

"W-Who the hell are you people?" he grunted in response, struggling to breathe.

"My name is Ebony Maw, faithful servant to the Mad Titan himself."

"Mad Titan?" the grip loosened just enough for Nova to hold a conversation, "Wait a minute… you guys are… The Black Order! You guys worked for Thanos back during his insurrection."

"Correct. We were captured and imprisoned before we were able to realize our master's dream."

"Yeah, well a dream is all it's going to stay. I'm pretty sure your master is either dead or exiled in dark space. Either way, you're out of luck!"

Ebony Maw let out an audible sigh while keeping his gaze fixed on Nova.

"We'll be the judge of that," the female, Proxima Midnight, quickly corrected, "As for you…"

"I'm out of here!" Nova exclaimed, quickly blasting a powerful wave from his hands and blinding Maw long enough for him to loosen his grip.

Black Dwarf tried to pounce on him and smash him with his massive hulk-like arms, but Nova swiftly dodged his stomps and punches long enough to push a powerful energy blast right at the brute's face, causing him to fall backwards onto a pile of debris.

The Maw began lifting random bits of debris off the ground with his telekinetic powers and lunging them at Nova, who blasted them away as he hurdled towards the magician. Just as he got close enough to strike, Proxima tackled him down to the ground and began punching him relentlessly, using her entire body to keep him pinned.

Nova buckled and threw her off of him. Just as he did so, Corvus Glaive, her lover, came swooping in from a higher level with a sharpened spear-like rod and tried to impale Nova with it, but he quickly dodged it, grabbing the rod, and throwing it, along with Corvus, towards the rubble of the module.

While the rest of the order recovered, Maw summoned up another barrage of debris-fire, trying desperately to stop Nova. In a last minute attempt to stop them all at once, Nova clapped his hands together and unleashed a debilitating orb that expanded across the entire area, causing Maw and the others to fall hard onto the ground.

"Not so tough, eh?" Nova chuckled, "You know, after years of invading and pillaging, you guys sure do suck in a four-against-one fight."

"Do we?"

A deep and sullen voice spoke out from the depths of the darkness, prompting Nova to focus his attention towards it.

"Oh? A fifth contender? Coming to get your ass kicked too?" he taunted the voice.

"And here I believed those of the Nova Corps to be more… wise," the voice taunted back, "As legendary as you lot seem to be, your behavior mirrors more of a frightened child, struggling to fight their way out of their own imagination."

"Tough words from a guy who's hiding in the shadows."

"Nobody's hiding."

The voice became embodied in a tall, dark green-skinned alien that stepped forward from the darkness, somewhat resembling a Skrull, but not quite. He had large, black, bat-like wings on his back. His mouth was insect-like, like that of a fly's, but his eyes were more humanoid, greenish-red, and fixed on Nova.

"What the? What the hell are you? You look as though a Skrull, a Chitauri, and a house fly decided to have a baby together. Man, you are disgusting to look at."

The figure remained silent, only keeping his eyes locked on Nova.

"Well, stay still for just one second while I charge up my right hand and swat you like the rest of your buddies here."

Nova rapidly charged his right hand, creating an baseball-like orb that was powerful enough to devastate a larger foe, and just as he was about to throw it at the figure…

SHUUUUNK!

The orb faded out of Nova's hand. He suddenly felt his lungs heavy with the rushing taste of iron pouring through his mouth. It became hard to breath. He looked down and saw a sharp rod piercing through his chest, with blood pulsating through the sides of it.

Corvus pushed the rod upwards, having surprised Nova and impaled him. He lowered it back down and shoved the hero's body off the bloodied rod.

Losing blood quickly, he tried to crawl his way away from them, but the insectoid figure stood in his path.

"Do… do you mind, pal?" Nova croaked, "I'm trying… trying to… trying to bleed out in that corner over there. It looks… better than… over here."

"How disappointing," the figure observed, "You're not worth the title of a Nova."

He pulled the helmet off of Nova's head, revealing his goateed face.

"Give that back… that's… that's mine."

The figure tossed it aside.

"Go get it, then"

The Black Order and the mysterious figure watched as Nova crawled towards his signature black helmet.

"We are wasting our time, Annihilus," Maw noted, "Our master…"

"If he is correct then Thanos fled or perished before the war could even begin. It's been several galactic cycles now since the Mad Titan has departed. Possibly to another galaxy. Or to Mistress Death herself."

"How do you know that?" Corvus skeptically questioned.

"I've been counting down the seconds since we were all placed in stasis. Everything but my mind was frozen."

"So, what do we do now, then?" Proxima asked.

"We shall speak of that later. Come, Black Order, we must leave this place."

"What about him?" Black Dwarf grunted, referring to Nova.

Annihilus noted the amount of blood he was losing trailing off as he slowly crawled towards his helmet.

"He doesn't have much long now."

Back into the darkness, the figures disappeared, leaving only Nova's faint glow. He struggled to get closer to it, but ultimately failed to reach it.

A few minutes later, he heard footsteps running towards him.

"Nova? Nova are you there?"

It was Gamora.

She spotted his blue glow and rushed towards him.

"Nova! What happened?! Are you okay?!"

She knelt by him and helped him onto his back.

"You're… you're losing a lot of blood, Nova, but we can still save you! I've just got to call a medic! The Denarians are almost here!"

"No… no use, I'm afraid," he solemnly told her, "Damn it. They got me good."

"Who did?! Where are they?!"

"The… The Black Order, Gamora. They were… they were locked up here."

The name violently reminded her of the gang of alien raiders that accompanied her father, the Mad Titan Thanos, on his reign of terror across the galaxy, destroying planets and whole civilizations in his quest for the Infinity Gems.

"I thought… I thought they were long dead!"

"Me too…" he sighed, "But, they've got another guy leading them… Some guy…"

"Who?!"

"Annihilus, they called him…"

"Annihilus? Well, no time for that! Come on, we've got to get you out of here!"

He coughed up a wad of blood.

"Nah, I think I'll just stay here…"

"Nova, I'm sorry! I tried to get here quicker, I tried!"

"It's okay, Gamora," he smiled and weakly shrugged, "I gave them a helluva fight, though. You… you should've seen it…"

She kept her tears back, trying hard not to express them.

"Hey…" he then spoke.

"Yeah?"

"You tell Rocket and the rest of those dummies… it was great to ride with them… one last time."

The tears flowed out onto Gamora's face.

"I will. I'll tell them!"

"And… tell web-head and the others… that… I did my best."

With that last word, Sam stopped breathing. Weeping, Gamora lifted him up and hugged him tightly, mourning the loss of her friend.

The galaxy had lost its Nova.

A message from the author...

Thank you so much for reading if you got this far! This is my first time writing a fanfiction story so please let me know if I did good or not! I've posted one-shots before, but I didn't like the way they went about so I'm really trying to make something good here. I took a lot of the writing styles and inspirations from a lot of writers from this category on the website and in others so let me know! ^-^ - Evie.