The Power Stone

Some battles are decided by the biggest weapon. Some are decided by the fastest ship. And some — if you pay close attention — are decided by people who love each other enough to share the unbearable thing together.

This is the story of the last kind.

Ronan the Accuser stood on the bridge of the Dark Aster and pointed his warship at Xandar. The planet gleamed below — white towers, open parks, quiet neighborhoods full of people who were going about their ordinary days. Billions of lives. Ronan felt nothing about them except that they were in the way of his ancient hatred for a peace treaty he had never accepted.

The Power Stone pulsed in the hammer at his feet. Purple and terrible. Enough to destroy everything.

Peter Quill opened a channel.

"Hey Ronan," he said. "I challenge you to a dance-off. Right now. Just you and me."

Ronan stared at him. Everybody stared at him. Peter was already dancing.

It was not a good plan. But it was a plan, and in those thirty seconds, Rocket did the thing that mattered.

In a modified mining ship — a thing held together largely by optimism and Rocket's refusal to believe in mechanical limits — he screamed up toward the underside of the Dark Aster at full speed. BOOM. He blew through the hull. The engines went dark. The Dark Aster, all its terrible weight and all its terrible purpose, began to fall toward Xandar like a mountain falling out of the sky.

Inside the crashing warship, the Guardians fought toward the bridge. Gamora found Nebula in the corridors, and the two sisters fought in the way that only people who once loved each other very much can fight — sharp and close and full of old pain. Drax found Korath and ended the fight quickly, because that was Drax's way. Peter and the others pushed forward.

Then Groot stopped.

He stood in the middle of the corridor, growing.

His arms stretched and reached. Branches spread and thickened and wove together. He was growing himself into a cage around his teammates — a cocoon of wood and bark and dense green life that could absorb what no suit of armor could. Rocket understood before anyone else, and Rocket ran to him.

"No, no no no, Groot, you'll die," Rocket said.

Groot looked at him with calm, dark eyes. He reached out a long branch and placed it very gently on Rocket's head.

"We are Groot," he said.

He had never said anything else. But this time, everyone understood exactly what he meant.

The Dark Aster hit Xandar. The crash was immense — a sound that rolled across the whole planet, a shockwave that shook windows in the capital city. And in the middle of all of that, four people were held safe in a cradle of wood and warmth.

When it was over, the Guardians climbed out of the wreckage into dust and red light.

Groot was gone. Where he had been, there was rubble and silence.

Rocket knelt down.

And then Ronan stepped out of the smoke.

The Power Stone blazed purple in his fist. He raised it. This was the end.

Peter stepped forward and picked up the Stone bare-handed.

He lasted two seconds before the energy started to overwhelm him — his arm burning white, his vision going — and then Gamora grabbed him. The energy split. Then Drax. Then Rocket, who was already on his feet, who had just lost his best friend and who was not going to lose anything else today. Four hands, four hearts, one unbearable power shared into something bearable.

Peter was not fully human. He had never known what his father was, but somewhere inside him there was something older than Earth, something that had been waiting for a moment like this. He looked at Ronan.

He looked at Xandar.

He thought about his mother's mixtape.

And he held on.

The purple fire went outward. Ronan was gone. The Stone was still. Xandar breathed.

In the rubble, something small and green pushed up through the dust.

A sprout. Barely the size of a finger. Trembling a little in the air left behind by everything that had just happened.

Rocket found it. He picked it up very carefully, the way you pick up something precious. He planted it in a small pot he found in the wreckage of his mining ship.

"We are Groot," he said softly, just to himself.

The sprout swayed in the quiet.

The galaxy was still.

And five people — well, four and a new beginning — stood in the ruins of a battle they had won together, and understood that whatever they were to each other, it was something that would hold.

Go to sleep now. The galaxy is safe tonight. Someone is keeping watch.