Villain Ronan

Once upon a time, above the planet Xandar, the sky was about to turn the color of dread.

There was a man named Ronan the Accuser, and he wore black armor so heavy that his footsteps rang like bells on the metal floors of his warship, the Dark Aster. Ronan carried the Universal Weapon — a stone hammer that crackled with blue lightning — and he was not happy. He had been not-happy for a very long time. He believed that Xandar had wronged his people, and he had decided, in the cold and certain way of someone who has stopped listening, that Xandar must be destroyed.

And now he had found the way to do it.

A small silver orb. That was all it looked like on the outside — a modest, unremarkable little sphere that fit in the palm of a hand. But inside glowed the Power Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, a piece of pure energy older than most stars. With it, Ronan could level Xandar in a single stroke.

He was on his way.

Now. You have already met Drax the Destroyer. You know what burned in his chest. You know the name — Thanos — that had been his compass since the day he opened his eyes on Titan. And you know that Ronan the Accuser had once been Thanos's loyal servant, which meant that for Drax, Ronan was not just a villain. Ronan was a thread leading back to the one he sought.

Drax had never been patient in the quiet, waiting way. He was patient the way a volcano is patient — holding everything in until the moment came, and then not holding anything at all.

Inside the prison station called the Kyln, while the Guardians sat in their separate cells and argued about escape plans and who had gotten them into this situation in the first place, Drax stood up and did something that made everyone go very silent.

He announced his location. Loudly. To Ronan. Personally.

Star-Lord stared at him with wide eyes. Rocket's ears flattened against his head. Gamora pressed her lips together. Even Groot tilted his wooden head slowly to one side.

"He will come to us," Drax explained, completely satisfied with this plan.

Later, on a place called Knowhere — and what a place it was, an enormous hollowed-out skull of an ancient Celestial floating at the ragged edge of the galaxy, full of miners and merchants and purple clouds of alien gas — Drax slipped away from his friends in the middle of the night. He sent a message directly to Ronan's ship. I am here. Come. Face me.

He sat down to wait.

Ronan did not come alone. He never came alone. He came with his fleet, with his soldiers, with the Dark Aster blotting out the stars above Knowhere like a storm front rolling in. And Drax ran forward to meet him — no plan, no backup, no waiting.

CRACK. SLAM. WHOMP. Drax hit Ronan with everything he had. He threw his daggers. He charged with his shoulders down. He fought with the heat of every old loss and every long year of searching, and it was magnificent and terrible and brave.

And then Ronan raised the Universal Weapon, and the blow sent Drax sailing backwards into the yellow liquid pools that swirled across the floor of Knowhere's mining tunnels.

The liquid closed over him and everything went dark and quiet.

It was Groot who found him. One long wooden arm, patient as a growing tree, reaching down into the dark until it found Drax's wrist. Groot pulled him up slow and steady, and when Drax broke the surface, dripping and coughing and blinking in the strange light, Groot held him like something worth holding.

Rocket was furious. He ran back and forth on the dock saying things that were not appropriate for bedtime stories.

Gamora stood with her arms crossed, worried.

Star-Lord rubbed the back of his neck and looked out at the stars.

And Drax lay in Groot's arms and looked at the ceiling for a long, quiet moment. Then he said — and this is the part that surprised everyone — "I was mistaken. I thought I was ready."

No arguing. No blaming anyone else. Just the plain and honest truth, offered quietly, like a gift.

Rocket stopped running and looked at him.

"Yeah," Rocket said, much more softly. "Okay."

They would all be ready later. Together, over Xandar, with Groot and Rocket and Gamora and Star-Lord flying at his side, Drax would face Ronan again. And the battle would be different. Not because Drax was stronger — though he was, a little. But because he was not alone.

And that made all the difference.

Close your eyes now. Even the biggest, strongest warriors learn that some battles need more than one brave heart.

Sleep well.