Somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy, there was a viltrumite. Unconscious, floating, and utterly broken. His skin's been charred, his face mutilated, but his heart was still beating.
BEAT. BEAT. BEAT.
The death of Viltrum. A war between Asgardians and Viltrumites. He barely escaped the attack, but that didn't stop them. They hunted and hunted him down.
It was genocide. Can't say they didn't have it coming, because they did. They exterminated countless planets. Countless worlds. Countless races. Bloodshed was all they ever knew. They were sinners, sure, but they didn't deserve to have their entire race wiped out. That was what Vaahs told himself to cope with it.
Now he's fucked too, just drifting around in space. They got him, got some good hits before he managed to escape.
The cold of the void should have claimed him years ago. But it didn't. He was in a coma; there was only the agonisingly slow knitting of his own flesh. Viltrumite cells refusing to submit, fighting a microscopic war against the Asgardian magic.
Every pulse of his heart pumped thick blood through ruined veins, forcing them to rebuild. The pain was too much. It was the memory of a thunder god's hammer caving in his skull, of roaring thunder that had shattered the eardrums of his arrogant brothers and sisters before they were slaughtered like cattle.
They had called him a defect in the glorious, blood-soaked tapestry of the Viltrum Empire.
Yet, here he was. The 'defect' was breathing, while the proud, unyielding purebloods were nothing more than red smears. He had survived because he didn't fight with the blind, arrogant rage of his kin. So much for the "blood-soaked" tapestry.
He was entirely alone in a new galaxy, the last broken son of a dead empire. And he just bumped into a spaceship.
...
"What the fuck is that on my ship, Rocket?" Peter Quill asked, looking at the screen.
Rocket hopped out of his chair, scratching his ass as he looked at the screen too. "He's also naked and jacked... damn, who the fuck IS this guy?"
"I am Groot," a deep, wooden voice rumbled from the back of the cockpit.
"No, Groot, it's not a weird space-squid," Rocket snapped, jumping up onto the console to get a better look. "It's a guy. A very beaten-up, very naked guy. And he's just... stuck to our ship."
Quill squinted, leaning closer to the reinforced glass. The body was a horrific mess of charred flesh and deep, purpling bruises, but even through the catastrophic damage, the sheer, dense musculature was undeniable.
Gamora stepped forward, pushing past Peter.
"Rocket," Gamora said, her voice dropping an octave. "Look at these readings."
Rocket tapped the screen. "Is that residual cosmic energy? No. It reads like Asgardian magic."
"Asgardian?" Quill frowned, crossing his arms. "Like Thor?"
"Like Thor," Rocket confirmed, scratching his chin. "Except this guy looks like he went ten rounds with the blonde meathead and actually lived. Barely."
"We should turn the windshield wipers on and scrape him off," Drax announced, strolling into the cockpit loudly crunching on a bowl of zarg-nuts. "He is clearly a warrior of great resilience. If he wakes up, he will likely try to conquer us. Or eat my nuts."
"We don't have windshield wipers, Drax. It's a spaceship; you spend ONE day on Earth. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING CAR." Quill sighed. He looked back at the floating, mutilated figure.
"Besides, if he survived whatever did that to him, I don't think bumping him off the hood is gonna do much."
"So, what? We just let him hitchhike on the hull?" Rocket asked, crossing his arms. "Because let me tell you, cooked flesh and space-guts are a nightmare to scrub off the exterior plating."
Gamora made the call. "Bring him into the cargo bay airlock. Put him in a containment cell. Activate the maximum gravity suppressors and the reinforced energy shields."
"I AM GROOT!"
"Shut up, Groot."
With a sequence of button presses, the ship's tractor beam hummed to life, catching the drifting Viltrumite in a pale blue field of energy. Slowly, he was pulled down toward the lower airlock.
Inside the dark, cold vacuum of his own comatose mind, Vaahs felt the shift.
The emptiness of space was abruptly replaced. The lack of pressure vanished, replaced by the artificial gravity of a starship deck pressing his back against cold metal.
Oxygen. His starved lungs didn't just breathe; they inhaled greedily. A ragged, wet gasp echoed through the airlock, so loud it was picked up by the ship's internal comms.
Up in the cockpit, the Guardians went dead silent.
Down in the cargo bay, behind the reinforced glass of the holding cell, the 'corpse' was moving. Vaahs' fingers, still stained with the dried blood of his fallen empire, twitched against the floorboards, gripping the metal grating with terrifying strength.
Slowly, agonisingly, his remaining, un-swollen eye fluttered open. It didn't look around with confusion or fear. It just stared straight ahead.
He clenched his fists, feeling life return to him one more time. He closed his eyes, calming down for once.
"Okay, what the fuck is he doing? Hmm? Answers, people."
"He is preparing his mind for battle," Drax stated solemnly, pulling his twin daggers from his boots. "It is what a true warrior does before he bathes in the blood of his captors. I respect him."
"Drax, stop respecting the terrifying naked guy! He's not bathing in anyone's blood!" Quill threw his hands up.
Down in the cell, Vaahs wasn't preparing for battle. He was just trying not to scream.
Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. The residual Asgardian lightning had cooked his nervous system.
He opened his single, bloodshot eye again. Slowly, agonisingly, he pushed himself up from the cold floor. His muscles trembled under the strain. Bones that had been fractured forced themselves back into alignment with cracks that echoed right up into the cockpit comms.
"Oh, man, that is so gross," Quill muttered, wincing and looking away from the screen. "Did his femur just snap back together?"
"Fascinating," Rocket whispered, his nose practically pressed against the holographic readout. "His cellular regeneration is feeding off the ambient energy of our shields. He's literally using our prison to fix himself."
Vaahs finally stood upright. He was slouched, swaying slightly, black blood dripping from his chin. He looked through the reinforced glass, straight into the security camera lens. He didn't roar.
He just stared.
Then, he raised a single, trembling, charred hand and pressed it flat against the shimmering energy barrier. The shield hissed violently, flaring a blinding, hostile orange as it tried to repel the foreign contact. The energy burned his palm, but Vaahs didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.
"Hey! Hey, back off the glass, buddy!" Quill yelled into the intercom, his hand hovering over the ship's internal stun-grid button.
Vaahs ignored the voice. He leaned his forehead against the barrier, letting the energy field sear his already mutilated skin.
"Where... is... Asgard?"
The cockpit fell dead silent.
Rocket slowly turned his head to look at Quill, his ears pinned back. "I don't think he's a fan, Pete."
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[1st POV]
The energy barrier crackled against my forehead. I didn't move.
Not because I was trying to be intimidating. I just... needed something solid to lean against. My legs were shaking. I'd never admit that out loud.
"I'm of no danger. I can understand if you're scared of me, but I promise you, I'm not one to be scared of."
My own voice surprised me. It came out steadier than I felt. Hoarse, yeah, scraped raw, but steady. Good. That was something, at least.
Silence from the speaker above me. I could hear them breathing through the intercom. Several of them.
I stepped back from the barrier and lowered myself until I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the cell. Hands visible. Palms up.
I knew how this looked. I knew what a Viltrumite walking onto a ship meant in every corner of this universe. We weren't exactly known for sitting cross-legged and making polite conversation. We were known for tearing the roof off and demanding tribute.
So I sat. And I waited. And I tried not to let them hear me grinding my teeth against the pain of my ribcage knitting itself back together.
One. Two. Three.
Slow breaths.
Four. Five.
Come on. Think. You're alive. You're breathing. Think.
The camera in the upper corner had adjusted its angle twice since I sat down. Someone was watching very closely.
I tilted my head up toward it.
"I know you can hear me," I said, keeping my voice even. "You don't have to say anything back yet. That's fine."
I looked down at my hands. The left one was still half-charred, the skin tight and cracked and ugly. The right was almost normal again. Funny, how the body works. How it just... refuses.
"My name is Vaahs." The word felt strange in my mouth. It had been a long time since I'd said it out loud to anyone. "I'm — I was — Viltrumite. I don't know if that means anything to you."
I exhaled slowly.
"My planet is gone. My people are gone. I don't know exactly how long I was out there, but based on how hungry I am right now, I'm guessing it's been a while." I paused. "If you have food, I would be... genuinely, deeply grateful."
-------------------
Up in the cockpit, nobody said a word for a solid five seconds.
Then Rocket said, "Did the scary space-murderer just ask us for a snack? Fucking hell, a viltrumite? Those guys were wiped out centuries ago."
"He said genuinely, deeply grateful," Quill repeated slowly. "That is okay. That's weirdly polite."
"He's sitting with his hands up," Gamora said. She hadn't taken her eyes off the monitor. Her fingers were still resting on the stun-grid controls, but she hadn't pressed them. "He's positioning himself as non-threatening on purpose. He knows exactly what he's doing."
"So he's smart," Rocket said. "Great. Smart and indestructible. Cool. Very cool."
"I AM Groot."
"Yes, Groot, I know he's pretty, that is not the point right now."
-------------------
Another minute passed. I was starting to count the bolts in the floor panelling to stay focused when the intercom crackled.
"Okay, so." The voice was male. "Fun little situation we've got here."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"You know what a Guardian of the Galaxy is?"
I looked up at the camera again. "No."
"Cool. Cool-cool-cool. We're sort of like... protectors. Of the galaxy. Hence the name. And I'm just going to level with you — we've had a lot of people try to destroy, conquer, or generally inconvenience the galaxy, so we're a little bit twitchy about big scary guys showing up out of nowhere."
"That's reasonable," I said.
A pause. Like he hadn't expected me to say that.
"...Right. Yeah. Okay. So. Viltrumite. I've heard of your people."
"Then you know what they were."
"...Yeah."
"I wasn't like them." I said it flatly. Not defensively. Just as a fact I was too tired to dress up. "That wasn't a popular opinion on Viltrum. And it doesn't matter anymore."
The intercom went quiet again, but this time it felt different. Less hostile. More uncertain.
I could work with uncertainty.
"The question I asked before," I said quietly. "About Asgard." I ran my thumb across my burnt palm. "I don't want revenge. I'm not saying they were wrong to do what they did. My empire- what my people did across the universe, they weren't wrong to stop it."
I breathed in.
"I just want to know if it's over. If there's anything left to go back to. I'd like to know that for certain before I figure out what comes next."
The silence that followed was longer this time.
Then, a different voice. Female.
"Asgard is very much still standing."
I didn't react. Not outwardly. My hands stayed where they were, palms up.
"The war ended centuries ago. Your people—" A brief pause. Not uncomfortable. Clinical. "There were no survivors recorded. You're the first Viltrumite anyone's encountered in a very long time."
Centuries.
I sat with that word for a moment. Turned it over.
I'd been drifting in the Andromeda Galaxy, in a coma, for what I'd assumed were weeks. Maybe months. I hadn't considered the alternative. But some quiet, already-grieving part of me that had been running the math since I first opened my eyes wasn't surprised. The hunger alone should have told me. The degree of healing still left to do.
Centuries.
"Okay," I said.
Another silence from above. Like they'd expected something more.
I didn't have anything more. The war was over. Asgard was standing. My people were gone. These were facts, and I was too hollowed out to perform grief for strangers watching me through a security camera.
"You said you know what Viltrumites are," I said, looking up at the lens. "Then you know about the war."
"It's not exactly obscure history," the male voice said carefully. "One of the biggest conflicts in the last few millennia. Kind of hard to miss."
"Then you know how it ended."
"...Yeah."
"Good." I exhaled slowly. "Then you understand why I'm not going to pretend I'm owed any sympathy."
"I was nineteen in Viltrumite years when the war ended," I said. It came out more easily than I expected. "Barely a century old. I hadn't— the missions they gave someone like me were nothing. Small things. I was considered soft by their standards." I looked down at my hands again. "I know what that empire did across the universe. I knew it then. I just didn't have the power to do anything about it, and I told myself that was the same as innocence."
I paused.
"It wasn't."
The silence above me shifted again. Someone was leaning closer to a monitor. I could picture it without seeing it.
"I want to know if Odinson is still alive."
Up in the cockpit, nobody moved.
"Thor?" Peter said slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, he's— why?"
"We spoke during the battle. Briefly." I kept my voice even. "He was the one who put me under. I want to find him."
The silence that followed had a different texture to it entirely.
"...Find him," Rocket repeated, his voice flat. "You want to find Thor."
"Yes."
"The Thor. Thor Odinson. Son of Odin. God of Thunder. That Thor."
"Is there another one?"
"I just want to be very clear about which Thor we're discussing before this conversation goes any further."
"Rocket," the female voice said sharply.
"I'm just asking clarifying questions, Gamora, I think they're valid—"
"I'm not going to attack him," I said. "I'm not interested in revenge. I told you that already." I exhaled through my nose. "He nearly killed me. He would have been right to finish it. I just—" I stopped. Tried to find the honest version of it rather than the easier version. "He's the last person I spoke to before the dark. I'd like to close that loop. That's all."
The cockpit above me went very still.
"Yeah, okay, reasonable. Food first. Thor conversation later. The cell door's gonna open. You do anything stupid, Gamora takes your head off. She will, she's done it before, we're not joking."
"Understood," I said.
A pause. "I'm Peter. Peter Quill. Star-Lord."
He said the second part, as if it meant something. "You're a lord of the stars? Times must have changed quite a bit since my kind's extinction."
"Yeah, yeah, yep, correct."
"My name's Vaahs," I said.
"Voss. Okay, Voss."
"No, it's V—"
"Okay, Voss, I gotta go do some stuff, I'll be back later."
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[A/N: A lot of the science stuff I say in this fic will be absolute bullshit, as you can see, I used ChatGPT for creating that stuff specifically, so I hope that's not too frowned upon. If you're worried that he's not enough "viltrumite", don't worry. It's just his normal behaviour, but sometimes instincts tend to be louder. I don't really have a set story for this; I plan on making it along the way. One chapter a day or two during the summer is the release schedule as for now. I didn't really read a lot of comics but I don't want this universe to be like the MCU so it's gonna be complete AU. I will take references and stuff tho. Hope you like this shit. To be continued. :)]