Villain Ronan

Once upon a time, the universe held its breath.

There was a warrior traveling through the dark between the stars. His name was Ronan the Accuser, and he was the kind of person who made whole planets go quiet when his ship appeared on their scanners. He wore armor the color of midnight and painted his face the way ancient Kree warriors did, in patterns that meant: I do not intend to lose.

He carried a war-hammer called the Universal Weapon, and that hammer had never once let him down.

But now the hammer held something else. Something small and round and blazing with a purple light so bright it hurt to look at: an Infinity Stone. The Power Stone. One of six stones that had existed since the universe was young, each one holding a power so enormous that no ordinary person was meant to hold it alone.

Ronan had taken the Stone from Thanos, his eyes bright with ambition. He had pressed it into the head of his hammer, and now the weapon thrummed like a living thing.

His destination was Xandar — a warm, busy planet full of people going about their days. Families eating dinner. Children running in the evening light. The Nova Corps, their brave space police, patrolling the skies. Xandar had done nothing wrong. But Ronan had decided that it needed to be gone, and Ronan was not the kind of person who changed his mind.

His enormous ship, the Dark Aster, moved through space like a storm cloud.

Now. Far behind the Dark Aster, in a battered spacecraft called the Milano, five very different people were having a very serious conversation.

"We are all going to die," said Rocket, who was a raccoon and therefore very honest about odds.

"We are not going to die," said Gamora. She was already studying the Dark Aster's schematics, her green fingers moving across the screen. "We are going to find a way."

"There is no way," said Rocket.

"There is always a way," said Gamora. "We just have not found it yet."

Star-Lord — whose real name was Peter Quill, though he very much preferred Star-Lord — looked at his team: Gamora with her serious eyes, Drax with his crossed arms, Rocket with his scowl, and Groot, who stood calmly in the corner, swaying slightly, because Groot was always calm.

"I Am Groot," Groot said.

"Exactly," said Gamora.

They flew into the battle.

Oh, it was something to see! Rocket fired every weapon he had ever built or borrowed or cleverly attached to the outside of the Milano, and explosions lit up the dark around the Dark Aster like fireworks. Drax leapt across the gap between ships, landing on the hull with a CLANG that echoed through the corridors, and charged through Ronan's soldiers with the kind of energy that comes from a warrior with a purpose.

And when the ships collided and everything was shaking and sparks were flying everywhere — Groot wrapped his long arms around his friends and held them close and kept them safe, because that was what Groot did when the world got dangerous.

Ronan stood at the center of it all, hammer raised, Power Stone blazing.

Star-Lord stepped forward. He reached out his hand.

He grabbed the Stone.

The energy tore through him like all the lightning in all the storms in all the galaxy at once. It was too much. It was far too much for one person. His eyes went wide. His whole body shook.

Gamora moved.

She crossed the floor in three steps and grabbed his hand with both of hers. She planted her feet. She held on.

Drax reached across and grabbed on.

Rocket scrambled up and grabbed on.

Four people. Four sets of hands. One impossible power shared between them.

Together, they steadied. Together, they breathed. Together, they turned the blazing energy of the Power Stone toward Ronan the Accuser and held it — just long enough — just enough — for it to matter.

KRACOOM.

The sound rolled across the sky like a wave. Ronan fell. The Dark Aster crumbled. And Xandar — warm, busy Xandar, with its families and its evening light and its children — stayed standing.

The Guardians landed on the grass. Wind-burned, a little singed, more than a little amazed.

Gamora looked at the others — her strange, ridiculous, wonderful family — and she laughed. Just a small laugh, surprised right out of her.

The Power Stone went to the Nova Corps for safekeeping. The sky over Xandar cleared.

And four very tired Guardians sat in the grass for a while, saying nothing at all, feeling the solid ground beneath them.

It was, Gamora thought, a very good feeling.