TGS - #44

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Knowhere[2014]

—Jack Sullivan–

Another one of those floors cleared up, he watched as he finally reached the floor that he knew was the receptionist area of the Collector's enterprise. He saw the area in front of him was filled with the purple fire as well with it showing no signs of extinguishing itself.

He had no idea how those fires came to be but seeing that they were made using the power of an Infinity Stone, it would certainly take more than just time to extinguish them.

He looked at his left forearm, which was charred to the bone just a scant few minutes ago, looking as good as new, save for the lack of clothing on his arm.

'My powers really have improved a lot,' he thought to himself as another series of barriers imposed themselves on the ceilings and walls of the hallway as he jumped straight through the last hallway, covered in barriers.

He reached the other side to see a huge hole in the center of the entrance walkway with everything charred around it.

'Wait!' His eyes narrowed as he looked at footsteps that came out of the huge void smack dab in the middle of the area, the carpet around it charred beyond recognition.

He counted four footsteps that left visible marks in the flooring through the carpet as well before the area in front of that last footstep was a huge depression that stretched who knows how deep down. He slowly floated on top of the depression in the flooring, only to see a raging purple fire still going in the bottom.

He sighed and looked around, the entire place was in shambles. He could not see anything that even resembled the prime tablet that Carina kept handy. Speaking of Carina, there was no way that the Collector would abandon his COllection, it was the second most treasured thing in his life, after his life, that is.

Of course, as he looked around the place, he realised that the Collector had most probably fled only because he felt a threat to his life. But who could do this? 

And where was the Infinity Stone?

He could somewhat recognise the place in the scenes of Guardians of the Galaxy 1, where the Collector would open the Orb and then Carina would die because she tried to grasp onto Ultimate Power, something that her body was woefully unprepared for.

He sighed once again, as the last of the special needs inmates of this place died without him being able to do anything about it. Some of them died gruesome deaths, deaths that no one deserved.

He could keep track of an incredible number of things using his barriers and through them, he could see that most of the inmates that had lived until now would be fine for a while longer unless a fight broke out but he knew that Kumpo would be more than capable of calming things down.

Yeah, his acquaintances in this place were apparently stored in some cell on the other side of the place where all the pods were kept. He covered them in a barrier and transported them straight to the pods, where the other inmates were just now coming out of their pods, the very concept of freedom alien to them.

He was thankful that the purple fire was not all encompassing else he would have died an ignominious death here in this place.

He slowly dispelled all the extra barriers he had kept in place to protect the pod inmates from either walking to a place with a dead end or to stop their pod from falling down because of the extensive damage done to the entire place. Most of the environmental sealing barriers had long since dispelled because…. there was no longer any need for it.

He shook his head and headed out of the complex, eager to find his way out of this hellhole, all thoughts of killing the Collector all but forgotten from his mind as he floated out of the place. 

He stopped at the edge of the doorway and looked back for some reason. He lifted his hand with the intention of extinguishing the rest of the fires in this place so that some innocent bystander wouldn't get burned to nothingness by mistake. Plus, all this energy feedback was messing with his mystical senses, stopping him from sensing anything in the complex.

Just as a series of barriers began springing forth on those fires, he heard a series of weak wheezing sounds.

His neck snapped to the hole as he heard the sound coming from the inside. He flashed to the entrance of the hole and looked down to see the telltale signs of a portal closing.

His eyes widened as he watched the portal about to close in slow motion, his hand outstretched towards it, a small green barrier manifested just in front of the barrier, ready to show him just what was happening near it, as his body rocketed to the end of the hole as well.

Unfortunately, he caught the portal at the last stage of its closing as it snapped shut, with the sensory barrier only telling him a person carrying a burned man on his back. He could not make much of the surroundings of the area neither the appearance of the man nor the burned man.

A second after the portal closed up, he slammed down in the place after extinguishing the purple fires.

"What in the,...." He muttered to himself in confusion as he saw the sensory barrier quite a few feet above the solid ground. That would mean that whoever that burned man was, he was floating a few feet above the fire but the man's condition suggested that he wouldn't be able to open his mouth, let alone maintain flight.

As for the identity of the person, he was quite certain that it was none other than the Collector himself.

It all started coming together in his mind. The huge hole in the center from which footsteps were coming out was probably the place where the Power Stone was taken out of the Orb. It also happened to be the place where Carina probably took out the Power Stone from the containment field.

Only this time, instead of just dying on the spot, something else seems to have happened. The purple fires and the huge hole in which the Collector was, were things that were not computing properly in his mind.

The portal at the end, he could never forget that flavour of the magical portal. It was undeniably the portal made by a sling ring commonly used by the Masters of the Mystic Arts.

Just what level of contacts did the Collector have? And how did someone who could use portals to such a level happen to work for the Collector here?

What happened to the Guardians of the Galaxy? Did Ronan arrive here as expected? What happened to the person who started those purple fires, if Carina didn't do them herself?

Questions and Questions with no answers in sight.

He sighed, shook his head, and headed out of the complex, ready to just leave this accursed place. He entered the lower levels of the hollowed out interior of Knowhere and saw pandemonium.

Fires spread everywhere, purple fires being some of them as well. He absentmindedly manifested some barriers to extinguishing those fires. He could see blaster fire, some dead bodies, even more depressions in the ground, and more. 

He had enough of just questions with no answers as he floated down into the way of running aliens. 

He opened his mouth to ask his question but they just brushed past him, not even registering his presence in their path.

"E-excuse me?" He said, but none of them seemed to understand him.

It took far more effort than he would readily admit to, to find someone who had a universal translator and was willing to set it up so that someone could understand English. Fortunately, they still had English as an option despite the rarity of humans in the wider galaxy.

Humans seemed to not have any idea of more places like these. 

'We seem to multiply like rabbits despite not having the necessary resources for it. Who knows what would happen if humans came to know about the multiple hospitable planets available for cheap if only they knew about the precious commodity they had in terms of the plethora of enhanced people on Earth,'

The very thought made him shudder as he imagined the exports that humanity as a whole could give to the wider galaxy.

Capitalism, that seemed to exist in a limited capacity in the universe.

Fascism, Racism. Damn.

He removed those thoughts from his mind as he took a whole summary from the nice person in front of him. He didn't have a galactic account so no credits to give the nice person so he just gave him the gold he had swiped from some places on his way to the top of the Collector's enterprise.

He had figured that Gold must still have its value in the galaxy, considering that Odin did keep everything nice and Golden in his realm. That has to mean something, right? 

It must be to show off the amount of wealth he has and how much gold he could afford to keep as just decoration, instead of using it.

Apparently, Ronan did arrive here, with the Dark Aster in tow. The Collector didn't come out to greet him, as was customary since Tivan was the owner of this place.

Angered by the slight, Ronan ordered his soldiers to ransack the place, only for them to encounter the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Of course, Drax was summarily dealt with by Ronan, as were the rest of the Guardians. Then Ronan took the Stone and left the place in the Dark Aster.

The nice person(alien?) also showed him some grainy footage of Ronan coming out of the establishment and following him were some soldiers who were carrying something on a gurney. 

He could not see much from the corpse on the gurney but by the end of the footage, just as the gurney was about to escape the camera frame, he saw pink. Pink tips of hair.

That was how he realised that the person who used the Power Stone was Carina. But then since when did she have some sort of fire related powers?

Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts from his mind and threatened some shady looking guy into giving him a lift straight to Xandar, unheeding of his pleadings telling him that he was a registered criminal and would most likely be shot out of the sky before landing.

'Like Xandar would have free resources to care about you while Ronan was attacking it, small-time criminal' He internally scoffed before ordering him to proceed while he munched on some alien exotic fruits. 

He leaned on the window of the almost rusted spaceship as it entered the Gate system. This was the first time he was consciously travelling through space at FTL speeds.

He was excited about it at first but then, after a while, the corona of colours seemed to get boring as he concentrated on the bitter taste of the apple that left a sour aftertaste for some reason. A very quirky fruit indeed!

According to his reluctant taxi, they should arrive at Xandar in less than an hour. Plenty of time for his body to heal and bring itself back to optimal condition.

His regeneration had really shot through the roof. This trip had plenty of bountiful returns in terms of his powers but the mental experience of it was so not worth it.

He would have taken a decade of training over this any day of his life and yet he internally knew that he did not really have a decade to train and hone his powers. He lifted his hand as a small barrier manifested on top of his palm, spinning faster than his eyes could follow.

He waved his arm as the spinning barrier continued to move unabated throughout the spaceship, cutting through some support bars as if they were not there at all.

Now, it was not like he could not do the same thing before. It's just that he could feel his limits back then. Right now, he could not feel them.

He had a feeling that as he was now, he could probably wield a single Infinity Stone properly and maybe even two without immediately dying. Anymore would certainly leave him crippled or outright dead.

He could feel it, and the confrontation with Thanos grew closer. It was only a few more years before Thanos would start collecting stones and as was right, he would be there to stop him even before he could get his hands on even a single Stone.

The scared alien who also did have the English language in his universal translator approached him. It was funny how he didn't have that language when the alien was asked nicely. Only when he was bodily threatened did the option to understand English was unlocked in his mind.

The language of violence was universally understood and he was quite glad for it.

"S-Sir, we are approaching Xandar's gate. Sir, once again, Xandar's gate is heavily monitored. They might just shoot us in space, sir. Please Reconsider, sir," The pitiful alien began pleading with him. 

He just shot him a look as he floated to the captain's cabin and waited for Xandar to arrive.

He could see some sort of timer being projected on a screen, probably showing the ETA. The alien, who was a huge 9 ft tall bipedal lion of some sort, stood away from him as he watched the timer with trembling limbs.

He really was scared of the Nova Force it would seem. 

Makes sense since they really struggled with an Infinity Stone empowered Ronan but Small time criminals like these would be within their powers to deal with.

The timer became a single digit as he watched with anticipation, green energy wafting off his body.

As the time hit zero, apparently that was common throughout the universe, reality itself glitched in front of them as they came in front of a veritable scrapyard.

He would have thought that the alien had betrayed his trust but the presence of that huge Dark spot in the atmosphere of the ship confirmed the location.

"See, does it look like they have time to deal with you?" He asked the alien, almost patronizingly before he walked back to the airlock, the Gundam armour unfurling around him.

"Sayonara, alien," He said for some reason before he punched the airlock button and rocketed out of the ship, heading straight to the black spot in the air.

The Dark Aster.

It was a magnificent ship and it would be a damn shame if it was destroyed by a human shaped projectile ramming into it at hypersonic speeds.

Alas.

He prepared himself for collision as he accelerated at his maximum speed, heading straight to the huge black target in the air.

______xx____

Knowhere

–Carol Danvers–

The locals were deathly scared of her and were no help in figuring out what happened here but the computers might be able to tell her what the hell happened here for The Collector himself to abandon his prized Collection.

She extended her left hand at one of the many partially burned computer consoles in this place as a singular cord entered into the console, the supercomputer back in her ship working to break the encryption of this place.

The purple fires burning in this place were really dangerous, breaking apart hardened Galvanium as if it were just paper.

She got a really dangerous feeling from the fires so she didn't approach it and she turned out to be right.

Looking at the footage of what had happened, her eyebrows rose into her hairline as she saw the flow of events that led to the escape of Jack Sullivan from this place.

She was right in her assumption that Jack was not working for The Collector willingly. 

The question was, if he had freed himself, just where was he now?

The more she watched, the more she understood what had happened. She saw the ship he had left in and tasked her computer to see if it could find any records of the ship.

In the meantime, she took upon the task of rescuing all the prisoners of the Collector's Collection.

Most of them probably didn't have homes to return to, so Xandar would be the default destination for them but still, she would ask them and if they wished to return to their home planet, she would do all she could do to make that happen.

That was just how her mind worked. She would help others irrespective of the damage it might cause her.

It took her years to recognise the behaviour and even more years to acknowledge that it was an issue.

Predictably, the ship was of a small time smuggler who didn't have enough law and order within him to register his flight patterns.

Well, she might as well rescue these people before going after Jack Sullivan.

Word Count - 2920

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