Star-Lord's words made Arthur's lips twitch uncontrollably. And it was not as if this was something new; he'd smirked so often that the muscles at the corners of his mouth were probably more developed than anywhere else on his face.
Arthur sighed with a helpless expression on his. "Alright then," he said flatly, "you're useless."
"…Is this what they call burning bridges?" Star-Lord widened his eyes dramatically, as though he could somehow see through Arthur's true nature.
Arthur grinned, sharp as a blade. "Want me to do it, or will you handle it yourself?"
Without a word, Star-Lord fished a syringe out of his pocket, jabbed it into his neck, and pressed down on the plunger without hesitation. As consciousness faded from his eyes, he managed to raise his middle finger at Arthur in one last act of defiance.
Arthur chuckled as he stored the frozen-in-gesture Star-Lord back into the Disassemble Space.
That's when an odd thought struck him.
"Wait a second… If I die while everyone's in my Disassemble Space… what happens to them?"
Arthur's mind started to spiral.
"Would they just… pop out all at once, like loot from a video game boss fight? Or would they simply vanish, erased completely? Huh. Why does it suddenly feel like the weight on my shoulders just doubled? Am I… carrying the hopes of an entire village now?"
His thoughts were running wild now and this was something new as that rarely happened to him these days.
"Focus," He muttered, shaking his head. With a wave of his hand, he deactivated the Eye of Horus and lowered the energy barrier around him.
Then he started walking.
When he'd scanned the area earlier, the Eye of Horus had given him a rough layout of the city. He wasn't entirely certain, but heading in this direction should take him outside the city limits before long.
Surprisingly, nothing got in his way. There were no trouble, no guards, no unexpected complications. He slipped out of the city with ease.
Arthur had been curious about what lay beyond the walls of such a technologically advanced civilization. Was Sovereign one of those planets where cities sprawled endlessly, bleeding into one another without pause?
But once he stepped outside, he found that wasn't the case. There was still a clear divide between the city, the suburbs, and the wilderness.
In fact, the wilderness seemed to take up the majority of the planet's surface.
"Perfectionists," Arthur mused as he sped across the landscape. "They probably insist on perfecting everything inside the city before they dare expand outward. Build, renovate, upgrade… only when it's flawless do they move forward. Yeah. Sounds about right."
Whether or not that theory held water didn't really matter to him. Arthur wasn't about to waste time overanalyzing Sovereign psychology.
He poured his internal energy power into his legs, pushing his acceleration to maximum output. The scenery blurred into streaks of light as he rocketed forward like a golden beam across the landscape.
Then, abruptly, Arthur came to a stop.
His eyes scanned the surroundings carefully. Activating the Eye of Horus again, he swept the area for signs of danger or life. Finding nothing, he summoned a spaceship from the Disassemble Space and it materialized in the clearing with a soft hum.
In a flash, Arthur teleported inside.
"With cloaking active, I should be able to release the others now, right?"
He activated the ship's stealth systems first, then canceled his Sovereign disguise. Just as he was about to start releasing his allies one by one…
Arthur's lips curled into a slow, dangerous smile.
Arthur released two people at once: Gamora and Star-Lord.
That wasn't the remarkable part. What stood out was that Star-Lord was still frozen in his middle-finger pose.
"A gentleman can wait ten years to exact revenge," Arthur said cheerfully, "but me? I settle the score morning, noon, and night."
He stood there with a grin, arms crossed, watching the show unfold.
Star-Lord regained consciousness almost immediately, no surprise there, considering his Celestial heritage. When Arthur released him, his memory was still caught on the moment he'd flipped him off. His arm was mid-descent, the obscene gesture about to drop, only for Star-Lord to hastily raise it back up.
Not once, but twice.
Gamora opened her eyes on the second raise, staring blankly at the scene in front of her.
They locked eyes.
Star-Lord blinked, and panic began to dawn on his face, and blurted, "Arthur! That's cold!"
He bolted, vaulting over the railing and dropping to the lower deck.
"Don't run!" Gamora snapped, leaping after him like a predator. "Pulling something that crude in front of a lady? You''ve gone too far, Quill!"
Arthur chuckled, satisfied with his mischief, and began releasing others from the Disassemble Space. The ship wasn't large enough to house the entire team at once, so he only summoned those essential for piloting and operations, Rocket, Tony, and a few others.
Star-Lord, despite being a competent pilot himself, had apparently forfeited his seat by running for his life. That was fine; Arthur figured he could get some well-earned rest now, trusting the crew to manage the journey. Maybe by the time he woke up, they'd already be at their destination.
He gave his brief orders, laying out their plan, and the team quickly split into their roles.
Meanwhile, Star-Lord returned hours later, disheveled, clearly having endured Gamora's wrath. Whatever conversation they'd had, it seemed to have cleared the air, though Gamora now shot Arthur an annoyed glare every time she looked his way.
Rocket had already taken over the cockpit, his tiny claws dancing over the controls as the spaceship lifted smoothly into the air. Tony deployed a Sumer drone, cloaked it, and sent it out to gather planetary intel.
"This planet's a treasure trove," Tony said with genuine excitement, eyes glued to his display as streams of data filled the screen.
Arthur, on the other hand, was in no mood for technobabble. He yawned. "You guys figure it out. Just be careful, get us to the palace quickly, and then we can focus on business. None of you know how exhausting it is to fly through space with your body alone."
That earned him a round of exasperated but jealous looks.
Within their team, only Thor could rival Arthur in sheer physical resilience, able to fly unprotected through the vacuum of space.
Star-Lord might reach that level someday, given his Celestial genes, but for now, even he could only dream of it.
As Arthur had predicted, when he awoke, the ship was hovering near the palace perimeter. He checked the time and blinked in surprise, he'd been asleep for almost fifteen hours.
That was unusual. In the past, Arthur could go days without rest and still function at full strength. But ever since he'd forcibly absorbed Ego's essence, he'd been prone to bouts of deep, almost unnatural sleep.
As he stretched and prepared to rejoin the others, they filled him in on a little "detour."
During their flight, the radar had picked up a Relic site. For Star-Lord, this was practically divine intervention; a treasure-hunting opportunity like that was irresistible.
Tony and the others weren't much better, intrigued by the possibility of uncovering rare Sovereign tech.
So they'd landed. And spent six hours exploring the Relic.
They'd returned with two artifacts, both completely foreign in design. Judging by the aesthetics, they seemed to be remnants of an ancient civilization that had existed long before the Sovereigns perfected their golden empire.
Arthur studied the objects carefully, his instincts prickling. For some inexplicable reason, he felt an almost primal urge…
…to bite them.