"Ahem, ahem!"

"Yongdu?"

Peter Quill was packing his luggage, and he looked back and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

At the door of the dormitory, Yongdu Udon Tower stared around uncertainly, as if avoiding making eye contact with Peter.

He pulled out a semi-curved silver-gray device from his waist and threw it into Peter's arms.

"Ahem, that adult's men are more terrible than the other, I suspect that there are many good ones on your home planet, since you are a kid who went out from our marauder legion, you can't be too much worse than others!"

Peter Quill looked at the curved piece of armor that Yongdu had given him, and fumbled for it to stick to the back of his neck.

Immediately after that, the armor quickly extended and combined, covering Peter's entire head, except for the brown hair that was still exposed, turning into a full-coverage silver-gray helmet, and the eyes were shining red, and the overall shape was quite retro and technological.

"This was given to me by Starka, the 'Star Eagle', who rescued me from the Kree slaves and led me to the path of a marauder, and it was the best thing I didn't need anyway, so you can take it."

Without waiting for Peter to respond, Yongdu threw up his ochre-red trench coat and fled.

He touched the part of his head that was covered by the energy omentum, which turned out to be just suitable for revealing Yongdu's Yaka Sentinel Arrow Sensing Fin, and his fingers nodded to the side of the helmet, and retracted into its original form.

Young Star-Lord looked down at the suitcase, topped with the Photon pistol that Yondu had taught him to shoot for the first time when he was eight years old.

After a while, he silently closed the box, borrowed a small ship from the Marauder, and headed for the Phoenix, which was slowing down not far away.

"You, hello, hey. I'm Peter Quayle, and I'm—"

"I know you, sir, I heard that you were abducted from the earth since you were a child? Don't worry, when you go back, everything has been arranged for you, and everything is packed up? Soon it will enter the course of the curvature engine. ”

Scott Summers greeted Peter politely, looking at the silver-white pair of energy-suppressing glasses of "Laser Eyes", so that Peter Quill couldn't help but mentally compare with the visor that Yongdu had just given him.

"Well, can I see Mr. Howlett first?"

Peter looked at the mutant warriors who walked between the corridors with some apprehension, and these things he had dreamed of becoming since he was a child looked full of distance.

Although there were few good people in the mercenary ranks of the Marauders, and even a cluster of rogue bandits and criminals, Peter could not feel the pride and alienation that came out of his bones.

Scott paused for a few seconds, didn't ask more, just nodded, and led him in the direction of the central ship's hall.

From time to time, he curiously asked Peter about his experience growing up among marauders. Although he couldn't see the look behind the "Cyclophalo" eyepieces, Peter could feel the sympathy on his face.

"Sir, Peter Quill asks to see you."

"Let him in."

A low, magnetic voice seemed to sound softly in my ears through a door.

Scott nodded at Peter, and stepped back from the door.

As the alloy door slowly opened, a broad back with silver hair standing on a brass-colored stone platform appeared before Peter's eyes.

James closed his eyes slightly, his legs crossed, and the transparent ship deck above his head leaked a faint and clear starlight, covering him like a layer of tulle, looking at Peter Quill in the eyes, indescribable silence and solemnity.

"What's the matter? When you return to Earth, your mother's relatives will soon be found, and if you want to stay with me, you are the first Earth human to wander and grow up in the universe, and there will be areas where you can act. ”

Peter was more natural and casual in the presence of James than in the vicinity of warriors of his age, and he approached with his hands in the pockets of his fur trench coat, and sat lightly on the stone platform, looking up at the starry sky as if there was no obstruction.

"Sir, I can't remember if I left Missouri at six or seven, maybe it was younger."

James slowly opened his eyes, looked sideways at the little fellow he had met in a foreign land, and waited quietly for him to continue.

I don't know if the cottage where my mother lived is still there, if the banyan tree at the door has been planed, and under the tree there is the Captain America card that I buried in the soil. I can't remember my grandfather's appearance, and he's probably no longer in this world."

A wandering child can always exercise a big heart, and if he doesn't, then it will be difficult for him to survive.

Peter Quayle, who has never had a straight shape, suddenly became unusually calm, he looked at the outline of the Andromeda star cluster and the attached half-life galaxy that he had been forced to carry by Yongdu since he was a child, and sighed faintly:

"Sir, I love the stars, I think it's an eternal illusion. Well, I mean, they always flare, collapse and die. But here, I can pretend, pretend that things are eternal, pretend that life is longer than a thought."

James smiled suddenly, but only leaned to the side, and Peter, who was leaning back to him, could not see the heroic face of the gods smiling so brightly.

Peter Quayle's words were stuck at this point, as if the monologue, which did not seem like he could speak, had exhausted all the words in the young man's head.

But James spoke softly, and then he continued:

Even if the gods come and go, mortals are prosperous and sunset, the world is impermanent, even if the stars and everything are fleeting, like fireflies flickering and short-lived, and they are annihilated into cold and dust in an instant, we can still pretend."

James suddenly blinked a little boyishly, and looked at Peter, whose eyes were red with horror, and patted him on the shoulder.

"Go ahead, Earth now has perfect interstellar navigation technology, and you can come back at any time if you want to. I'll tell you a secret, even if you don't recognize the place you once lived in, and you can't find a familiar face anymore, just taste what you've eaten and you'll know where your home is. ”

Peter's oil-stained hand wiped hard in front of his eyes, blurring his already not white face, and stood up and bowed to James in a proper manner.

As soon as he got up, a brilliant golden stream of fire sprang up from James's fingertips and rushed in from the top of Peter Quill's head, only to flicker a few times between his pupils, and then fell silent and disappeared again.

"If you encounter trouble in the future, it will help you, remember, go back and talk to Yongdu about your 'father', I originally wanted to tell you when I take you back to Earth, but it must be clearer to tell it by someone who has witnessed it."

"Star-Lord", who was about to continue to ask, saw that Mr. Howlett just waved his hand, and seemed to have no interest in continuing to speak, so he had to swallow the question blocked in his throat, and ran towards the place where he came from with hurried but happy steps.

Turning around and sitting back on the stone platform, James also looked up at the endless galaxy, beside him, Qin had already walked to his side, his head resting on his shoulder, and his red hair was cascading down like a waterfall.

"You like that young man, it's rare to see you so patient with people outside the family."

"Well, maybe it's how we feel about home, it's all similar."

The two figures snuggled up and watched the stars until the Phoenix entered the stage of curvature flight, turning the stars into a path of silver light.

All that was left was the familiar shouting and invective of the Marauder ship.

"Yongdu! Your Lord Star-Lord is back! Is the Milan ready? I can't go back on what I said, I haven't given it to Craglin yet! ”

"Damn the money-losing thing. How did you come back again! Shet! I knew my helmet wasn't going to be given away."

"I almost got the Milan number! Peter Quayle! I will never forgive you in my life."

Compared to Star-Lord and Yongdu's shouts, Claglin, who had no eyes to see the spaceship in his hand, wailed even more miserably.

——

It's just that the "Wolf Tower" prison, which circulates like an urban weird talk among ordinary people's social groups, seems to be a place where there is no return.

Indeed, the prisoners held there were either heinous and heinous because of their extraordinary strength, great abilities and extreme dangers, or because they had committed heinous crimes.

The latter really didn't have a chance to be released, and even in that super prison with unique rules, even if he was not sentenced to death, he was likely to be abused to death by various weird and powerful cellmates, or acted as an opponent in the daily combat training of the cold guards, and was accidentally "damaged".

However, for the former, the sentence will still be based on the circumstances of the specific crime committed. If you have been doing well in the Wolf Tower, you still have a chance to return to normal life.

Merely. It's not your ordinary neighborhood police station that does the "parole filing" for mutants or superhuman beings.

Wearing a second-hand old suit from the eighties, T'Chaka made the lame man next to him look down on him several times.

Although he is only the king of a remote and small country on the African continent, Wakanda is one of the extraordinary forces guarded by the "Black Panther" after all, and being poor like this really makes the cripple feel bad.

"Don't look at it, the way you haven't taken care of your beard and hair in a few years is not much better than mine. What do you mean by being here, Howlett doesn't like Wakanda for a long time, and I probably won't even be able to sell a penny. ”

T'Chaka and the "lame" who came to Wakanda to lobby him sat in front of a coffee shop in Manhattan, New York, not far from the headquarters of the Whip of Order.

Looking at the magnificent sword-shaped gate, it seemed like waiting for someone.

"Hey, hey! Don't look at me now, I haven't cleaned up much, but the problem of money for the famous handsome school officials has long been solved, and there are a lot of giant chaebols who want to see the Howlett family deflated, although they don't have the courage to make a move, but it's still okay to fund our plan behind our backs. ”

The lame man took the coffee and sipped it a little, ruffling his gray hair and continued to hum:

"For example, Japan's Shishida family, the Osborne Group, which is in the prime of life and full of ambitions, has a new helm. I just didn't expect you Wakanda to be so poor, if not-"

"Why would they take such a risk to help you?"

The old panther heard a little bit of information about his identity from the cripple for the first time, but he only asked about the situation of the "gold master", and did not care about the cripple's past experience.

"Tsk, that's my business, after decades, I should always do something, right? Well, here we are, and one of the most important links has appeared. ”

At the door of the Whip of Order, a sturdy figure wearing a huge trench coat and cloak with his whole body covered like a stone mill walked out of it, and he could vaguely see a tall and thin man with frosty white sideburns behind him.

As if they had already made an appointment, a combination of tall and thin walked straight towards the cripple and T'Chaca, and when they got closer, they realized that one of them was actually a "stone man" with a face made of yellow-brown rocks.

Ben Graeme habitually looked around, and when he saw that there was no chair suitable for him to sit on, he simply stood still, and Reed Richards sat calmly beside him, although his face remained unchanged as it had been a few years ago, but inexplicably looked much older.

"Just talking here?"

"Generally speaking, it's not a big problem, 'Order' has a special way of monitoring you, but it doesn't need the FBI's tracking and monitoring methods."

The lame man picked up the lame leg and put it down, changed his posture and said, discussing how to deal with the Howlett family at the gate of the whip of order, which was quite a bit of "dark under the lamp".

"I've seen that part of the drawings and technology, there is hope, but it's only hopeful, and after I came out, I slowly learned that James Howlett has been missing for many years, and although the world's extraordinary forces have been ready to move, no one dares to move just because the 'mutant triumvirate' is pressed there."

The returning Steve Rogers and Barnes held up the rack of the Whip of Order with a shield and a punch, and the legendary lair of the Howlett family, where the powerhouses and extraordinary technological power are simply unfathomable, and it can't be done."

Reed spread his palms and spoke without any emotional fluctuations, as if he had completed a simple mathematical formula, and the results were sure and clear.

"First, the technique will be done with vibranium, and your brain will be used to complete it, far from the effect in the original drawings. Second, it's not just us, there are many places that haven't been reached. If possible, I could even go to the kingdom of the gods and ask if the descendants of the god-king Odin would be interested in joining. ”

"Third, hey, you set your eyes on the Howlett family in the most 'weak' state at the moment, and I have always kept an eye on James Howlett himself, as the saying goes, 'the enemy is the one who knows you best', do you think this 'wolf emperor' can't come back?"

On a secluded street corner, some people have noticed the "stone people" with strange faces and body shapes, but people in this era have long been accustomed to encountering strange-looking evolutionaries in their daily lives.

It's like seeing a giant man or a short dwarf walking on the street more than two meters tall, and the eyes will instinctively look a few more times, and look back twice after walking by, but that's all.

"You're confident and want to have enough chips under the table, otherwise. We have to go, the daily report after coming out of the Wolf Tower is very important, and there is a trip to the Extraordinary Daily Affairs Department in New York, let's get in touch again. By the way—"

Reed Richards, who got up and wrapped his coat tightly, suddenly remembered something, looked at the black panther who looked like a middle-aged man and the cripple who was purely a bad old man, and asked with a low expression:

"What's the name of this thing, this plan?"

The cripple grinned as he clutched the messy stubble on his chin with a headache, as if he was thinking.

"Tsk, a group of people like us, well, let's call them 'Avengers'."

(End of chapter)