NOTE: There will probably be grammar mistakes that I will fix later.

Beep Beep! Beep Beep!

The transmitter in Gamora's pocket beeped and she quickly pulled it out and answered it. "Finally! Rocket?"

Rocket's staticky voice came through, Keep that transmitter nearby so I can find you.

Leo stepped forward. "Rocket, is Mikey with you? Is he okay?"

Yeah, he's fine. We're in an old piece of construction equipment Yondu once used to slice open the Bank of A'askavaria.

"Ego's unhinged," Gamora told him.

I know. Get ready.

...

In space, a small craft plopped from the Quadrant and flew straight toward Ego's planet. Mikey sat in the seat up front opposite to Yondu, who steered the ship, and as they approached the planet, the Turtle gulped as its red clouds morphed into a huge face with a wrathful expression.

"Dudes?" Mikey whimpered. "Is it just me, or does that planet look...mad?"

...

In the palace, Quill continued to dangle helplessly as the tentacle of pure light continued to drain him of his life force. He could feel himself getting weaker and weaker by the second and slowly lose consciousness.

Ego slowly walked up to him and snatched the Walkman from his belt. He pressed the play button and "Brandy" softly played, the song Meredith loved so much.

Quill shed a single tear, remembering the times he and his mother would sing that song together, before the cancer took her away from him. The cancer her own angel, his father, gave her to save his own hide.

Ego grinned as he listened. "My life, my love, my lady is the sea." He looked up at Quill. "Peter, this...is the sea." And then he crushed the Walkman in his grip right in front of his son, who moaned softly in despair.

The power suddenly surged from Quill, making him scream in pain, and it traveled through the tentacle and throughout the palace. Ego smiled in satisfaction as he felt the all energy reach the planet's vines, which led to the core. It glowed bright blue as it absorbed Quill's power.

...

On various planets throughout the galaxy, the plants that Quill had left behind suddenly burst into explosions of blue light, which immediately transformed into blob-like masses that extended throughout the civilizations and landscapes. Each blob would crush and consume every building, forest and person in its path, ever growing and unstoppable.

On Earth, in the state of Missouri, the plant exploded behind a Dairy Queen and the blob made its way toward a small town.

...

As Ego continued to blissfully bask in the energy, the palace doors were suddenly kicked open and he turned to see Gamora's group running inside. Before he could even react, Yondu's craft crashed through a huge window and headed straight for him.

"BOOYAKASHA!" Mikey cried out in his seat.

"Hey, there, jackass!" Yondu yelled to Ego.

The ship landed right on top of Ego, seemingly crushing him. But Yondu knew that that wouldn't be enough to kill the Celestial; it would only buy them enough time to escape.

As soon as Ego was hit, the tentacle that had a hold of Quill retreated to the underground network of energy. Gamora ran to Quill, who lay on the floor, while Drax, Nebula, Leo, and Mantis headed for the ship. At the entrance door, Groot greeted his friends with a smile and wave.

"Out of the way, dumber, smaller Groot!" Drax yelled as he climbed onto the ship. This made the small tree creature very mad and he kicked and punched at Drax as hard as he could.

Mikey ran to the group as they entered and hugged his brother. "Leo! I'm so happy to see you, bro!"

Leo winced in pain as Mikey squeezed harder, still sore from the cavern incident, but he was just as overjoyed to see his brother again and hugged him back. "Me, too, Mikey."

Meanwhile, Gamora helped Quill up and supported him as they walked to the ship together. "I told you something didn't feel right."

"'I told you so'," Quill muttered. "Just what I need to hear right now."

Inside the ship, Drax continued to berate Rocket. "What are you doing? You could've killed us all!"

Rocket looked at him annoyed. "Uh, 'Thank you, Rocket'?"

"We had it under control!"

Mantis shook her head. "We did not. That is only an extension of his true self. He will back soon."

As Quill and Gamora climbed in, the former noticed Nebula standing by. "What's Smurfette doing here?"

"Whatever I need to do to get a damn ride home," Nebula hissed.

Rocket pointed a finger at her. "She tried to murder me and Mikey!"

"I saved you, you stupid fox!"

"He's not a fox," Gamora corrected her.

"I Am Groot," Groot squeaked.

"I'm not a raboon, either!" Rocket scolded him.

"I Am Groot."

"'Raccoon'. Whatever."

Mikey held his gut as he doubled over and laughed. "'Raboon'? Oh, I'm definitely writing that one down!"

Suddenly more tentacles of light burst out of the ground and surrounded the ship. Leo saw them from one of the windows and turned to Quill. "Is there a way we can destroy Ego?"

"There's a center to him," Quill said. "His brain, his soul, whatever it is. Some sort of protective shell."

"It's in the caverns," Mantis told the group, "below the surface."

Leo shivered at the thought of going back to the caverns, but the lives of his family and friends back on Earth were at stake, so he quickly shook it off.

Quill climbed up a ladder that led to the ship's cockpit and was shocked to see his old boss sitting in the pilot's seat. "Yondu?!"

The ship began to take off, but the tentacles wrapped themselves around it and yanked it back down to the ground.

Yondu grunted as the ship shook violently. "Thrusters are out!"

Thinking quickly, Quill sat down in the other seat and started rewiring the mechanics. "Guess I should be glad I was a skinny kid. Otherwise, you'd have delievered me to this maniac!"

"You still reckon that's the reason I kept you around, you idiot?" Yondu asked him incredulously.

"That's what you told me, you old doofus!"

"Once I figured out what happened to them other kids, I wasn't just gonna hand you over."

"You said you were gonna eat me!"

"That was being funny!"

Quill looked at him flabbergasted. "Not to me!"

Leo heard the whole conversation from below and shouted up to them, "Trust me, after nearly getting eaten myself, I can guarantee you that it's not funny at all!"

Mikey looked at him surprised. "Wait, something tried to eat you?"

Leo sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. "It's been a long day, Mikey."

"You people have issues," Rocket said as he shook his head.

"Well, of course I have issues!" Quill shouted.

At that very moment, Ego's skeletal form arose from the ground in front of the ship and roared as the skin began to regrow on his head, giving him a frightening look.

"THAT'S MY FREAKIN' FATHER!" Quill yelled as he pointed at the monster.

The ship whirred as the thrusters tuned back on and it took off at full speed, going right through Ego and another large window. But as they flew out of the palace, Quill took control of the ship and steered it downward.

"We should be going up!" Yondu shouted.

Quill shook his head. "We can't. Ego wants to eradicate the universe as we know it. We have to kill him." The ship continued to plummet toward a fissure in the earth. "Rocket!"

"Got it!" Rocket activated the ship's lasers, which further opened the crack and allowed them to go underground. As the ship moved, the lasers chipped away the rocks and paved the way for them.

"So, dudes, we're savin' the galaxy again?" Mikey asked the crew. "Right on!"

Rocket laughed as he continued to fire the lasers. "We're really gonna be able to jack up our prices if we're two-time galaxy savers!"

Quill shook his head. "I seriously can't believe that's where your mind goes."

"It was just a random thought, man! I thought we were friends! Of course I care about the planets and the buildings and all the animals on the planets!"

"And the mutants!" Mikey added. "Don't forget the mutants!"

Rocket nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and the mutants!"

"And the people!" Quill also added.

The raccoon paused before he shrugged. "Meh."

...

As the ship continued to drill deeper into the earth, Yondu turned to Quill. "Tell me why Ego wants you here?"

"He needs my genetic connection to the light to help destroy the universe," Quill said. "He tried to teach me how to control the power."

"So could you?"

"A little. I made a ball."

Yondu raised an eye ridge. "A ball?"

Quill shrugged. "I thought as hard as I could. It was all that I could come up with."

"You 'thought'?" Yondu chuckled. "You think when I make this arrow fly, I use my head?"

Before Quill could say anything, the ship suddenly crashed into an overhanging piece of rock and the side door was ripped off in the process. They squeezed through a small space before they finally reached center of the planet.

Mantis looked through one of the windows and pointed to an enormous orb into which all of the blue energy entered through the vines. "There. That's Ego's core."

"That ore is thick, Rocket," Gamora told the raccoon.

"I got it covered." Rocket flipped some switches and all of the smaller lasers came together and formed one big laser in the center of the ship, burning a hole into the metallic material that surrounded the core.

"Are you sure this will work, Quill?" Leo asked.

"We drill into the center, we kill him!" Quill responded.

Meanwhile Mikey looked out through the side opening at the huge network of glowing vines. "Wow," he whispered in awe. And then he saw something that nearly made his eyes bug out of his sockets. "Uh-oh."

Pushing past the others without any explanation, he quickly climbed up into the cockpit and joined Quill and Yondu. "Hey, Quill?"

"What is it, Mikey?" the human said, still focused on the drilling.

"Remember those Sovereign douchebags?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh..." Mikey nervously pointed to something outside.

Both Yondu and Quill looked up to see a fleet of Sovereign ships heading straight toward them.

"Oh, hell!" Yondu yelled.

Quill pulled the ship away from the core as the Soverign fired their blasters at them. One blaster managed to hit the side of the craft which caused it to turn sideways. Gamora, Drax, and Mantis fell through the hole but landed safely on a chasm far below.

"How did those golden turds find us?!" Rocket yelled.

"It must've been Taserface!" Mikey said.

Leo looked at his brother confused. "Taser-who?"

As Quill struggled to avoid the firing crafts, he yelled to Rocket, "Why aren't you firing the laser?"

"They blew out the generator!" Rocket said as he ran to his travel bag on the floor and dug around in it. "I think I packed a small detonator!"

"A detonator is useless without explosives," Nebula said.

Rocket grinned as he pulled out the Anulax batteries. "Well, we got these."

Mikey's eyes went big at the sight of the batteries. "You still have those things? Why not just return them to the Sovereign? They're the reason why those jerks are trying to kill us in the first place!"

"It's a little too late for that, Mike!" Rocket yelled angrily.

Quill left Yondu behind in the cockpit and went down the ladder to join the others. "Is that thing strong enough to kill Ego?"

Rocket taped the batteries to the detonator. "If it is, it'll cause a chain reaction throughout his entire nervous system."

"Meaning what?"

"The entire planet will explode. We'll have to get out of here fast. I rigged a timer."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Mikey handed Quill and Rocket a couple of Aero-rigs and put one on himself. Groot climbed up his shell and sat on his shoulder. "Let's go kick Ego-maniac's huge butt!"

"Mikey, wait!" Leo ran after him, but the younger Turtle jumped off the ship and flew with Quill and Rocket toward the hole in the core. He watched on nervously as the trio narrowly avoided the gunfire and let out a sigh of relief when they managed to get inside the hole.

Down below, Mantis, Gamora, and Drax stood and watched as the ground started to crack and wall in front of them began to mutate.

"He's coming," Mantis said with dread.

"Didn't you say you could make him sleep?" Drax asked her.

She shook her head. "When he wants! He's too powerful! I can't!"

He gently touched her shoulder. "You don't have to believe in yourself, because I believe in you."

Hearing those words gave her the courage to face the giant face of Ego that was now on the wall. He opened his mouth and released a wave of blue light that was heading straight toward them.

Thinking quickly, Mantis knelt down and touched one of the nerve vines that was in a crack in the ground. "SLEEP!" she screamed as her antennae glowed.

The wave immediately disappeared just as it was about to reach them, and Ego's enormous face faded away as he went to sleep.

Inside the hole, Quill, Rocket, and Mikey inspected the interior. In the distance was a wall with small Swiss-cheese-like holes.

"The metal's too thick," Rocket said. "For the bomb to work, we'd actually need to place it on Ego's core. And our fat butts ain't gonna fit through those tiny holes."

Quill looked down at Groot, who was fiddling with a leaf on his arm. "Well..."

Both Mikey and Rocket followed his gaze, then looked back up at him and simultaneously said, "That's a terrible idea."

"Which is the only kind of idea we got left," Quill told them.

Mikey turned to Rocket. "Hate to say it, Rock, but he's right."

Rocket shook his head and grumbled, "Unbelievable."

Mikey picked up Groot and followed Rocket deeper into the hole while Quill stayed outside to fight off the Sovereign crafts. Once they got deep enough, the raccoon placed the small bomb on the ground and showed Groot how to manually activate it.

"All right, first you flick this switch, then this switch. That activates it. Then you push this button," Rocket pointed to one of two red buttons, "which will give you five minutes to get out of there. Now whatever you do..." He pointed to the other button, which looked just like the first except that it was cracked. "...don't...push...this button, because that will set off the bomb immediately and we'll all be dead."

Mikey looked at Rocket incredulously. "Dude, couldn't you have made this a little bit simpler?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rocket said sarcastically. "I forgot you were a genius, too."

"Well, I'm not but-"

"Then can it and let me do my work!" Rocket turned back to Groot. "Now repeat back what I just said."

"I Am Groot," Groot said.

"Uh-huh."

"I Am Groot."

"That's right."

Groot pointed to the cracked button. "I Am Groot."

"No!" Rocket shouted. "No, that's the button that will kill everyone! Try again!"

Groot rubbed his chin in thought as he looked at the bomb. "I Am Groot."

Rocket nodded. "Mmmm-hmmm."

"I Am Groot."

"Uh-huh."

Again he pointed to the cracked button. "I Am Groot."

"No! That's exactly what you just said! How is that even possible?!"

"Here, let me try," Mikey said as he scooted forward. "Groot, this is the good button," he pointed to the first button, then to the cracked one. "And this is the bad button. Good button. Bad button. You only press the good button. If you push the bad button instead of the good button, we all go boom-boom."

"Okay, now you're just insulting his intelligence," Rocket mumbled.

Mikey ignored him and asked Groot, "Okay, Groot, which is the good button?"

Groot pointed to the first button.

"Good! And which is the bad button?"

He pointed to the cracked button.

"Great! Now which button are you supposed to push?"

With a smile, Groot pointed to the cracked button.

"NO!" both Mikey and Rocket yelled in frustration.

Quill peered into the hole and shouted, "Hey, you're making him nervous!"

"Shut up and get me some tape!" Rocket shouted back to him. "Does anybody have any tape out there? I wanna put some tape over the death button!"

"I don't have any tape! Lemme check!" Quill disappeared from the hole and Mikey and Rocket could hear him asking everyone for some tape amongst the chaos.

As they waited, Rocket impatiently sat with his arms crossed and sighed exasperatedly every few seconds while Mikey repeatedly popped his lips. Groot tried to mimic Mikey in a moment of cuteness, but he couldn't pop his lips since he was made of wood.

Less than a minute later, Quill returned. "Nobody has any tape!"

"Not a single person has tape?" Rocket asked.

"Nope!"

"Did you ask Nebula?"

Quill paused. "Yes!"

"Are you sure?"

He paused again. "I asked Yondu and she was sitting next to him!"

"I knew you were lying!"

"You have priceless batteries and an atomic bomb in your bag! If anybody's gonna have tape, it's you!"

As Quill and Rocket continued to argue, Mikey turned his head and saw Groot running toward one of the small holes with the bomb in his hands. He let out a loud gasp and tapped on Rocket's shoulder. "Rocket!"

But Rocket ignored him and continued to bicker with Quill. "That's exactly my point! I have to do everything!"

"ROCKET!" Mikey grabbed the raccoon's head and forced him to look at Groot.

They both watched in horror as Groot hopped into the hole, squeeling in delight as he slid down a slope.

Mikey chuckled nervously and tried to be optimistic. "Hey, maybe he'll remember our little lecture and push the right button."

"We're all gonna die," Rocket said in despair.

Mikey's forced smile dropped. The optimism was gone. "Yep. Totally."

...

The Sovereign crafts continued to chase after Yondu's ship and one of the blasters hit the rear end, causing severe damage.

"Agh!" Yondu grunted as he felt the impact. "Rear thrusters are out again!"

The ship slowed down as the thrusters went out and hovered in midair as the Sovereign surrounded them like a herd of hungry sharks.

Leo climbed up into the cockpit to join Nebula and Yondu. "Can't you do something?!" he yelled in panic.

Yondu shook his head. "We're done for without that generator!"

Quill flew into the ship through the opened side and looked on as the fleet continued to close in on them. This was not good.

High Priestess Ayesha's personal craft came forward. Guardians, her cold voice spoke through the speakers, perhaps it will provide you solace that your deaths are not without purpose. They will serve as a warning to all of those tempted with betraying us. Don't. Screw. With the Sovereign.

But as Ayesha spoke, Nebula flipped open a part of her robotic arm and inserted some wiring from the dashboard into it. Leo looked at her in confusion and was about to ask what she was planning to do when the blasters began to hit the ship from all sides.

"This is gonna hurt," Yondu warned Nebula as he flipped some switches.

She only grinned. "Promises, promises."

Yondu flipped one final switch and Nebula's body lit up with blue electricity as the power was drained from her body and transferred into the ship. All of the lasers fired at once and hit every single Sovereign craft as Yondu made the ship spin around like a disco ball.

Back at the Sovereign headquarters, Ayesha watched helplessly as all of the remotely piloted crafts, including her own, get blown up, and when the screen went blank, she threw her head and howled in despair, "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

As the crafts continued to explode, one of the fiery chunks managed to get inside the ship and dripped fuel. Quill noticed this and yelled to the others upstairs, "We're gonna blow!"

From below, Gamora watched as the ship suddenly exploded. "PETER!" she screamed. "LEO!"

A large cloud of black smoke hovered over Gamora's group and burning chunks of the ship came raining down. Nebula dropped down from the cloud unharmed and landed on her feet with ease. She looked up directly at her sister, who was on the verge of tears, then she lifted her face to the sky.

Gamora followed her gaze and was extremely relieved to see Leo, Quill, and Yondu slowly floating down from the smoke. Both Quill and Leo had their Aero-rigs on while Yondu used his arrow to get down by holding it straight up with one arm.

Quill looked up at his mentor and laughed.

"What?" Yondu asked him.

"You look like Mary Poppins."

Leo looked up as well and held back his laughter when he saw how right Quill was.

Yondu didn't get the reference. "Is he cool?"

Both Leo and Quill looked at each for a brief moment before the latter said to Yondu, "Hell yeah, he's cool."

Yondu grinned ear to ear and announced to others with pride, "I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!"

Quill looked back at Leo and winked, silently telling the Turtle to let the blue pirate have this moment. Leo smiled and nodded in understanding.

The three landed safely on the chasm and walked up to Gamora, Nebula, Drax, and Mantis, who was still struggling to keep Ego asleep. A moment later, Mikey and Rocket flew down from the core and rejoined the others.

Mikey approached Leo and smiled warmly at him as he held up his hand for a brotherly handshake.

Leo smiled as well and blinked back his tears. They hadn't done this in a long time since Splinter's death, and it felt so good to grasp that hand and give it a loving squeeze. It felt like their broken bond had finally been mended in that one handshake.

Mikey opened his mouth to speak when he noticed a burning chuck of debris hurling toward Mantis. He was about to yell her name but it knocked her on the side of her head and she was out cold.

"Mantis, look out!" Drax yelled seconds after she was hit.

Everyone gave the tattooed man a look.

"I tried, guys," he said sheepishly.

Mantis had lost her grip on Ego and the ground and walls began to shift once again as the vines glowed brightly.

"Uh-oh," Mikey said nervously. "He's awake."

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!