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The Bridge of the Eclector.
"AHHHHH—!"
The two Ravagers closest to the primary airlock had absolutely no time to react. Screaming in terror, they were swept off their feet by the violent, roaring airflow. They tumbled backward, arms flailing, and were instantly sucked out into the dark, freezing depths of space.
Through the reinforced viewport, the rest of the crew could vaguely see two distorted human figures rapidly tumbling away. The vacuum boiled the moisture on their skin, turning them into solid ice sculptures in seconds as they silently drifted into the cosmic abyss.
"Grab something!!" Yondu roared over the deafening hiss of escaping oxygen, gripping the armrests of his command chair so tightly his blue knuckles turned white.
The other Ravagers awoke with a violent start. Panic erupted. They scrambled frantically, grabbing onto bolted consoles, exposed pipes, and each other, their boots sliding on the metal deck as the ship's atmosphere vented into the void.
Just when their lungs began to burn and their grips started to slip...
BANG!
The massive steel hatch slammed shut. The airtight seals hissed as they re-engaged.
The terrifying suction disappeared instantly. The bridge's emergency life-support systems kicked in, pumping artificial oxygen back into the room. A deathly calm returned, leaving only the ragged, heavy breathing of the crew and the sheer, paralyzing shock of surviving explosive decompression.
Hermione lowered her wand, dusted her hands off, turned around, and smiled brightly.
"Sorry. I was just kidding."
She said it in a light, breezy tone, like she had just playfully tapped someone on the shoulder. "I still need you guys to find the Cosmic Orb for me. Why would I really throw you all out?"
Everyone: "..."
You call that a joke?! Those two are really dead! We literally just watched them turn into popsicles!
Hermione, seemingly oblivious to the horrified, pale expressions on their faces, continued explaining her thought process with genuine academic curiosity.
"Mainly, I've only ever read about explosive vacuum exposure in Muggle sci-fi books, and I've never experienced it firsthand. I just happened to have the chance, so I thought I'd run a practical experiment to test the physics."
She tilted her head, her dark eyes innocent, her tone deeply sincere. "You don't mind, do you?"
The surviving Ravagers were entirely ashen-faced. Looking at the sweet, innocent-smiling girl, and then glancing out the viewport at the two ice sculptures that were rapidly shrinking into the distance, they felt a bone-deep chill run straight from their boots to the top of their skulls.
Everyone finally understood the terrifying, unpredictable nature of the monster they had invited aboard. They swallowed hard, immediately avoided eye contact, and lowered their heads in unison. They wished they could bury their faces in the floorboards, terrified that making eye contact would make them the subject of her next "joke."
Hermione seemed quite pleased with the effect. She clapped her hands together briskly and walked over to the captain's chair.
Yondu sat stiffly in his seat, his muscles locked tight with tension, not daring to even blink.
Smack.
A small, fair hand gently patted his leather-clad shoulder.
"!"
Yondu shuddered violently, turning his head in alarm to meet Hermione's calm, expressionless eyes.
"Let's go, Captain," she ordered cheerfully. "Target Xandar."
Deep Space.
The massive Ravager dreadnought opened its ventral hangar bay, carefully swallowing Hermione's golden Asgardian skiff.
After securing the "collateral," the Eclector's massive jump engines roared to life. The ship transformed into a streak of brilliant light, tearing through the hexagonal jump points of the interstellar network.
The long cosmic voyage had begun.
Inside the massive warship, the atmosphere was terrifyingly oppressive. No one spoke above a whisper. No one gambled. No one fought.
Meanwhile, the "evil spirit" who had commandeered their ship found a relatively quiet corner in the observation lounge. She sat cross-legged on a metal crate, holding a thick, leather-bound book that looked like an ancient, terrestrial classic.
She was completely absorbed in her reading. The ambient starlight streamed through the porthole, casting a soft, angelic glow over her features, making her look exactly like a quiet, pretty girl next door studying for an exam.
Many Ravagers secretly glanced at her out of the corners of their eyes as they passed by.
If they hadn't experienced the airlock incident firsthand, who could possibly believe that this seemingly harmless teenager was such a ruthless, sociopathic being?
Even the Mad Titan Thanos and Ronan the Accuser, the galaxy's premier lunatics, weren't as casually insane as her! At least Ronan gave speeches before he killed you. This girl just wanted to test a physics hypothesis.
After an unknown amount of time, Hermione finally closed the heavy grimoire. She looked up, stretched her arms, and strolled over to the command deck to find Yondu.
"Moore, I have a question for you," Hermione said, her voice clear and crisp.
Yondu paused, looking around the bridge, before pointing a hesitant finger at his own chest. "Um... my name is Yondu."
"Really?" Hermione tilted her head, looking him up and down. "Well, that's difficult to remember. From now on, your name will be Moore."
Yondu was stunned again. He was a legendary pirate captain, feared across four sectors, and he was being renamed like a stray dog. But looking at the wand twirling in her fingers, he forced a painful smile. "Whatever you say, Boss."
"Hmm, excellent, Moore," Hermione nodded, clearly pleased with the new arrangement. "Now, I'm asking you... who exactly is this 'Peter' you sent to get the Orb?"
Yondu's heart tightened suddenly. He suppressed his rising panic and tried to adopt a casual, dismissive tone. "Peter? Oh, you mean Quill? He's just an ordinary crew member. A total nobody. He sweeps the decks, mostly. There's absolutely nothing about him that you should pay attention to."
Hermione raised an eyebrow, a half-smile playing on her lips. "Really? You sent a deck-sweeping 'nobody' to steal an artifact worth five billion Star Coins?"
Yondu's fake smile froze instantly. He had talked himself into a corner. Just as his cybernetic fin started to whir as he panicked for an excuse, Hermione waved her hand dismissively.
"It's okay, Moore. You don't need to explain. I believe you."
She leaned in, her voice suddenly dropping to a freezing, deadpan whisper.
"However, this 'nobody' had better not fail. He better bring the Cosmic Orb back to me perfectly intact. Otherwise..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but the implication hung heavy in the air. "...I'll kill you all."
Yondu fell completely silent, his throat dry.
Hermione didn't say anything more. She gave him one last meaningful, piercing look before turning on her heel and leaving the bridge, leaving Yondu and his hardened crew trembling in their boots.
The Revelation.
The oppressive atmosphere on the bridge eased slightly only after the automatic doors slid shut behind her.
Kraglin, Yondu's scraggly, loyal first mate, cautiously approached the captain's chair. He looked incredibly pale.
"Boss," Kraglin whispered, glancing nervously at the door. "I... I think I know who that terrifying woman is."
Yondu turned sharply, grabbing Kraglin by the collar. "Who is she?! Do you recognize her species? Is she an Asgardian mutant?"
Kraglin shook his head rapidly. "Boss, do you remember the galactic news reports from a few years ago? About the Chitauri armada that suffered a crushing, humiliating defeat in Sector 52?"
Yondu frowned, releasing his grip. "Of course I remember! According to Nova Corps statistics, 99.9% of their invasion force was eradicated in a single hour. It's said they were entirely wiped out by some local planetary defender. Only their general, The Other, managed to slink back to Thanos with his tail between his legs."
The Chitauri were known as the locusts of the universe. Their weakness lay in their hive-mind command structure. In a real battle, the standard tactical doctrine was to ambush their mothership and sever the neural link.
"Right," Kraglin swallowed hard. "But the survivor reports said the defender didn't exploit the hive-mind loophole. The reports said a single female charged head-on into the Chitauri legions and wiped out the entire armada using biological, reality-warping weapons."
Kraglin pulled up a crude, intercepted holographic file on his datapad.
"Because she possessed extremely powerful, inexplicable energy manipulation, and liked to summon fields of terrifying, man-eating green flora to swallow Leviathans whole... the surviving cosmic races gave her a title."
Kraglin pointed a trembling finger at the door Hermione had just walked through.
"They call her the Cabbage Witch."
Yondu stared at the datapad. The image showed a blurry figure commanding massive, writhing green vines (Venomous Tentacula) that the galaxy had misinterpreted as highly aggressive cabbages.
At this point, Yondu snapped out of his daze. His red eyes widened to the size of saucers, his pupils contracting sharply.
"You mean..."
Kraglin nodded grimly. "I just asked our information broker on the shadow-net. The planet the Chitauri attacked... it was called Terra. Earth."
It's Earth... She's from Earth...
Yondu's head was buzzing loudly.
"That woman... the little girl reading a book in our lounge... is the Cabbage Witch?!" he whispered in absolute horror.
No wonder. No wonder she could vaporize a man with a flick of her wrist. No wonder she wasn't afraid of a dreadnought. She destroyed armadas for breakfast.
Suddenly, a strange thought cut through Yondu's panic. He blinked.
Wait a minute. Quill is also from Earth, isn't he?
After spending the last twenty-something years surrounded by aliens, Yondu had almost forgotten Peter's terrestrial origins.
Maybe, Yondu thought, a desperate, hysterical glimmer of hope rising in his chest, maybe since they're from the same mud-ball planet, they can bond? Maybe I can use Quill to build a relationship with her so she doesn't turn my ship into compost?
As he pondered this desperate survival strategy, the view outside the massive viewport began to shift. The swirling colors of the jump tunnel faded, giving way to the cold, dark depths of normal space.
In the distance, a massive, brightly lit planet came into view. It was a jewel of civilization, surrounded and protected by a beautiful, interlocking network of golden technological satellites.
They had arrived at Xandar.