____________________

A/N: ...Before we get into this, I just want to say..... Y'all really should've seen this coming. If you still haven't figured it out by now, You'll get it when it happens.

__________

--- October 19th, 2014 - Somewhere in the Universe ---

The Quadrant, looking nothing more than a blinking light, pops in and out on a trail across the cosmos. It keeps dashing all across the Universal Neural Teleportation Network.

Inside, the whole bodies of Rocket, Groot, Yondu, and Kraglin distort violently as they scream their way around the universe.

The Quadrant comes to a halt at its intended destination.

Ego's Planet, or more technically Ego himself, in the space just in front of them.

Yondu, Kraglin, and Rocket fall out of their seats, retching and clutching their stomachs. 

Baby Groot just straight up vomits. No hesitation, no gagging.

"What the hell you doing, boy?!," Yondu yells at Rocket.

Rocket pushes himself off the ground, "I could tell by how you talked about him - this Ego is bad news.. We're here to save Quill."

"For what?!," Yondu then questions, derisively, "For 'Honor'? For 'Love'?"

"No, I don't care about those things!," Rocket tells him, "I want to save Quill so I can prove I'm better than him! I can lord this over him forever!"

Yondu chuckles as he pulls himself up to the controls.

"What are you laughing at me for?," Rocket questions.

Yondu makes his way forwards near the window, "You can fool yourself and everyone else but you can't fool me... I know who you are."

"You don't know anything about me, loser," Rocket says, bitterly.

"I know everything about you! I know you play like the meanest and the hardest 'cause you actually the most scared of all."

Rocket tells him, "Shut up!"

"I know you steal batteries you don't need and you push away anyone who's willing to put up with you, 'cause just a little bit of love reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is!"

"I said Shut Up!," Rocket shouts.

But Yondu persists, "I know the scientists what made you never gave a rat's ass about you--"

"I'm serious, Dude!!"

"Just like my own damn parent, who sold me, their own little baby, into slavery," Yondu adds, "I know who you are, boy! Because you're me."

They stare at each other..

Completely different species but here they are. It's like looking into a mirror.

"...What kind of a pair are we?," Rocket somewhat jokes.

Yondu backs away and slowly moves on over to the controls next to Kraglin, "The kind that's about to go fight a planet I reckon."

"All right! That's good, okay, That's--," Rocket starts before he stops than stares over at Yondu, "Wait. Fight a what?"

__________

--- Ego's Planet - Sleeping Quarters ---

Gamora, furious, bursts into the room. She sees Mantis standing with Drax. 

Y/N and Nebula enter in behind her, one of the two somewhat calm about the transpiring events. Gamora darts at Mantis, grabbing her by the neck. Drax just watches, not saying anything about it.

Gamora slams Mantis against the wall, "Who are you people?! What is this place?!"

"Gamora, let her go!," Drax eventually shouts.

Gamora ignores him and persists, "The bodies in the cavern, Who are they?!"

"..You are scared."

Gamora, whose skin was making contact with Mantis', drops her to the ground, terrified.

__________

--- Ego's Palace ---

"I call it The Expansion. It is my purpose. And now it's yours as well."

The dioramas all around Peter and Ego transform into a map of the universe. 

Peter stares in his cosmic reverie at the planets around him. Thousands of them with pieces of Ego's lifeform buried within them. 

"..It's beautiful," he mutters.

Peter stares up at a diorama. It shows Ego as he grabs handfuls of his own body, engulfed in light, and plants the wriggling pieces on various planets.

Ego explains, "Over thousands of years I implanted thousands of extensions of myself on thousands of worlds."

The Cosmic Plants overgrow and cover each of the planets, like chocolate on a malt ball. Each and every one of them glowing the same bluish-white tint.

"I needed to fulfill life's one true purpose: to grow and to spread, covering all that exists, until everything is.... me.... I only had one problem. A single celestial doesn't have enough power for such an enterprise," Ego walks around Peter slowly, "But two Celestial?.. Well now, that just might do."

__________

Mantis slowly stands from the floor, "...The bodies are his children."

__________

On the dioramas, Ego can be seen with hundreds of species of female aliens.. One of which was humanoid, but with big eyes and two antennae...

"Out of all my labors the most beguiling was attempting to.. graft my DNA with that of another species. I hoped the result of such a coupling would be enough to power the expansion. I had Yondu deliver some of them tome. It broke the Ravager code but I compensated him generously. And, to ease his conscience, I said I'd never hurt them... And that was true. They never felt a thing.... But, one after the other, they failed me. None of them had the Celestial genes. Until you, Peter. Out of all my spawn, only you have carried the connection to the light."

Peter stands there smiling like an enchanted idiot. The cosmos still surrounding his vision.

__________

"We need to find Peter now and get off this damn planet."

Mantis tries to argue against it, "Ego will have won him to his side by now. He has a way of--"

"Then we just go," Nebula suggest.

"No. He's our friend," Gamora tells her.

"All any of you do is yell at each other. You're not friends."

"You're right. We're family. We leave no one behind," Drax says, then tells Nebula, "..Except maybe you."

Y/N tells her, "You really need to learn to relax. Maybe that's why you don't have any friends cuz if you did then you'd know that all friends do is yell at each other."

"Never tell me to 'relax'," Nebula tells him, "You're all idiots."

__________

"For the first time in my existence..," Ego starts before shouting out, "I am truly NOT ALONE!"

Peter suddenly looks downward, sad. This catches his fathers attention as he turns to look at him.

"What is it, son?," he asks as he steps a few feet in front of him.

"....My friends..."

"Oh, well you see, that's the mortal in you, Peter."

"..Yeah," Peter starts to give in.

"We are.. Beyond such things."

"Yes."

Ego turns, "Now--"

"But my mother?.."

Ego looks at him, questioningly.

Peter continues, "You said you loved my mother..."

"And that I did.. My river lily, who knew the words to every song that came on the radio. I returned to Earth to see her three times. I knew if I came back a fourth, I'd never leave. The expansion, the reason for my very existence would be over. So I did what I had to do.... But it broke my heart to put that tumor in her head."

Slowly The Cosmos disappear from Peter's eyes as he's left there staring directly at Ego with a blank expression.

"....What?..," he somewhat aggressively questions.

Ego starts stammering out, "All- All right, I-I know that sounds bad. But I--"

Peter suddenly pulls out his pistols and starts firing at Ego with no hesitation. The blasts tear through him, dispersing the molecules forming his body. 

Peter shoots at him again and again and again.

The flesh disappears from Ego like bites from a cookie, exposing the angry alien circulatory form beneath. Glowing the same bright blueish-white as always.

But, as the charge on Peter's blasters wears out, Ego just looks at him, and, although he's filled with holes, he's merely.. disappointed. 

He speaks, "Who... in the hell do you think you are?"

"You killed my mother!" Peter shouts in a near-growl.

"I tried so hard to find the form that best suited you, and this is the thanks I get?!," Ego says as he transforms into David Hasselhoff, he then shifts back to himself, "You really need to grow up!"

A spiky cosmic light-propelled tendril shoots up from the floor behind Peter, and stabs into his back.

It thrusts him into the air.

"I wanted to do this together! But I suppose you'll have to learn by spending the next thousand years as a battery!"

__________

Rocket, Yondu, and Groot are crawling into a huge laser drill.

A beeping emits and over comms they here Gamora, "Rocket?!"

"Keep that transmitter nearby so I can find you. We're in an old piece of construction equipment Yondu once used to slice open the Bank of A'askavaria," Rocket casually tells her. 

"Ego's unhinged," she replies.

"I know. Get ready."

Yondu shouts, "Drop it, Kraglin!"

The  small, ugly, bulbous and uneven craft plops from the Quadrant, and heads toward Ego's surface. 

__________

Ego walks calmly up beside the trapped Peter. He snatches the Walkman off of his belt. 

He stares at it. 

Peter can barely speak, "....No.."

Ego presses play. 

The distorted sound of 'Brandy' plays. He stares at it. Perhaps he's feeling wistful sadness, or perhaps nothing at all.

"'My life, my love, my lady is the sea'? Peter, This.. is the sea," Ego says.

Ego crushes the Walkman in his grip as Peter watches helplessly. 

The power surges from him through the tentacle and throughout the entire Palace. The light starts emanating from his eyes and mouth.

Ego summons all his and Peter's energy, when, suddenly, The door beside him smashes apart.  

Y/N has kicked through it and Gamora, Drax, Nebula and Mantis are with him. Ego turns to see them, then hears a rumbling above him.

He turns to look at a window on the palace wall behind him.

And the now-giant-by-perspective Laser Drill comes smashing through the Palace Window.

Yondu shouts, "Hey There, Jackass!"

Ego looks surprised.

The Laser Drill lands on Ego, squashing him. 

The tendril retracts from Peter as he falls and heaves for breath.

Y/N, Drax, Gamora, Nebula, and Mantis rush into the crumbling palace. Gamora splits from them and heads towards Peter.

The door on the side of the Laser Drill slides open. Baby Groot is standing there, smiling, and waving. 

"Out of the way, dumber, smaller Groot," Drax exclaims.

The four of them crawls up through the door.

As Drax crawls in, Groot starts punching him as hard as he can. Probably because he called him dumb, but who's to say really..

Gamora, on the other hand, was helping Peter stand up.

She tells him, "I told you something didn't feel right."

"'I told you so.' That's really what I need right now," he replies sarcastically as they trudge on over to the others.

"I came back, didn't I?"

"Because there's an unspoken thing," he says as a big chunk of the ceiling caves behind them.

"There is no unspoken thing!"

_____

"What are you doing?! You could have killed us all crashing in here like that!," Drax exclaimed.

"Uh, 'Thank you, Rocket'?," he mocks.

"No, seriously, Where the hell'd you learn to pilot? From Nebula?," Y/N says.

"Hey!," Nebula defends.

"We had it under control," Drax continues.

Mantis, who had been pacing back and forth, comes to a stop, "We did not. That is only an extension of his true self. He will be back soon."

As Peter and Gamora climb into the Ship, Peter questions, "What's smurfette doing here?!"

"Whatever I need to do to get a damn ride home," Nebula responds.

"She tried to murder me!," Rocket exclaims.

"I saved you, you stupid fox."

"He's not a fox," Y/N tells her.

"I am Groot!," Baby Groot yells.

Rocket tells him, "I'm not a raboon either!"

"I. am Groot."

"'Raccoon," Whatever!"

Just outside, tentacle-like strands burst up through the palace flooring all around the drill.

Drax looks at it momentarily, "How do we kill a Celestial?"

"There's the center to him, his brain, his soul, whatever it is, in some sort of shell," Peter says as he starts climbing up a ladder.

"It's in the Caverns below the surface," Mantis tells everyone.

Peter reaches the top and notices Yondu trying to kickstart the thrusters again, "Yondu?!"

Yondu thrusts the ship upward for takeoff. 

But tentacles wrap around the ship and yank it back down into the floor, destroying the foundation of the Palace.

The entire building slopes and everyone nearly falls forward..

Except for Y/N, who stood there at a diagonal angle.

"Thrusters are out!," Yondu says.

Peter starts rewiring the mechanics, "I guess I should be glad I was a skinny kid. Otherwise you would have delivered me to this maniac!"

"You still reckon that's the reason I kept you around, you idiot?!"

"That's what you told me, you old doofus!," Peter says.

"Once I figured out what happened to them other kids, I wasn't gonna just hand you over."

"You said you were gonna eat me!"

"That was being funny!," Yondu admits.

"Not to me!!"

From down below, Rocket tells them, "You people have issues."

"Of course I have issues," Peter says as he sees through the windshield where Ego's giant creepy ass skeletal system is growing in front of them, "That's my freaking father!! Thrusters are back up!"

Peter and Yondu thrust the ship forwards instead of up. 

They crash through Ego and down the sloping floor. Then they shoot out through the giant pane of glass at the other end.

Everyone holds on in what's essentially the worst rollercoaster drop ever.

"We should be going up," Yondu shouts.

"We can't," Peter tells him, "Ego wants to eradicate the universe as we know it. We have to kill him. Rocket!"

"Got it!"

Rocket starts blasting the lasers, chipping away pieces of rock below, forming an opening in a crack in the planets surface. They smash into the opening, barely fitting, leading down into the planet. 

Peter flies expertly, twisting through tunnels and around corners. 

While Rocket mans the lasers, blasting pieces of rock out of place just in time so they can scrape through. 

"So, we're saving the galaxy again?," Rocket asks.

"I guess."

"Awesome! We'll  really be able to jack up our prices if we're two-time-galaxy savers," he says, ecstatic.

"I seriously can't believe that is where your mind goes!"

"It was just a random thought, man! I thought we were friends! Of course I care about the planets, and the buildings, and all of the animals on the planets."

"And the people," Peter tells him.

".....Meh."

Mantis giggles at Rocket, "The crabby puppy is so cute, he makes me want to die!"

__________

Meanwhile, Kraglin is mellowly hanging out, eating some soup and listening to 'Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang by Silver' .

"Soup! Soup!," he exclaims, singing in the tone of the song, just with different words.

He stops eating and starts to stand as he hears and sees a bunch of ships start appearing from nowhere, heading towards Ego.

He looks a bit closer.

Sovereign Omnicrafts were popping in through Jump Points.

Kraglin, in shock, watches the massive fleet of envoys diving downward. 

He grabs the comms, "Uhh... Cap'n?"

..No answer..

"Cap'n?"

__________

Yondu doesn't hear the crackling speaker beside him lowly emitting Kraglin's calls as they maneuver down through the fissure. 

"So tell me, Why'd Ego want you here," Yondu asks Peter.

"He needs my genetic connection to the light to help destroy the universe. He tried to teach me how to control the power."

Yondu questions, curiously, "So could you?"

"A little," Peter admits, "I made a ball."

"A ball?"

"I thought as hard as I could, that's all I could come up with."

"You 'thought'?," Yondu rhetorically asks before actually asking, "You think when I make this arrow fly I use my head?"

They look at each other instead of where they're going, and the crash into an overhanging piece of rock. 

The entire side door is ripped off. 

As the screech through a smaller space and into the Planets Hollow.

The Laser Drill drops into this enormous open space within the planet.  

The Guardians gather on the side of the ship open to the hollow, gazing out at its stunning beauty, lit by Ego's white glow running throughout it.

Mantis turns, looking through the portholes on the other side.

"There! That's Ego's core," Mantis points at the ball in the center, down below them. 

They twist down towards it.

"That ore is thick, Rocket," Gamora tells him.

"I got it covered," he says as he flips a bunch of switches and presses a shit ton of buttons.

All the small lasers on the sides move through grooves to combine into one huge laser in the center of the ship: The Mega-Laser!

"We must hurry," Mantis tells everyone, "It will not take Ego long to find us."

Y/N says, "With how powerful he claims to be, I'm surprised he hasn't already."

Peter steadies the craft as best he can beside the Core. But it's an unwieldy beast, built for power, not precision.

Rocket powers up the mega-laser and holds tight to the shuddering controls as it drills, burning a hole into the protective sheathe. 

It melts and starts to drip down. 

"We drill into the center, we kill him!," Peter holds tight to the steering wheel.

Yondu notices the blinking light on the comms and Kraglin's voice finally comes through clear, "Cap'n?!" 

"What is it Kraglin?"

"Hey.. Remember that Ayesha chick?" Kraglin somewhat casually asks.

"Yeah, why?," Yondu then immediately looks out the window and shouts, "Aw, Hell!"

Ayesha's Squadron is swooping out of the cracks in the ceiling all around them. 

Peter quickly pulls away from them.

But the Sovereign envoys start blasting at the ship all at once. The Laser loses power and the whole ship turns sideways.

Y/N, Drax, Mantis, and Gamora go tumbling from the hole in the side. 

Nebula and Groot grab onto the floor.

Y/N, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis fall from an incredible height. They land - One, Two, Three, Four - without so much as a scratch.

Gamora looks up and sees the Laser Drill swerve behind Ego's Self Chamber as it tries to avoid the Envoys' blasters.

_____

Nebula and Groot settle as the ship rights itself and blasts pierce the ship around them. 

Peter peers down at Rocket, who has jumped out of his seat and is pouring out the contents of his satchel.

"Why aren't you firing the laser?!," Peter asks.

"They blew out the generator! I think I packed a small detonator," Rocket tells him.

Nebula tells him, "A detonator is worthless without explosives!"

"We got these!," Rocket shows Nebula the Anulax batteries.

Peter leaves the controls to Yondu as he climbs down beside Rocket, now messing with wiring on his bomb, "Is it strong enough to kill Ego?"

"If it is, it will cause a chain reaction throughout his entire nervous system," Rocket explains.

"Meaning what?"

"The entire planet will explode. We'll have to get out of here fast. I rigged a timer."

Rocket stuffs the bomb back in his satchel. Groot climbs on his back.

Rocket and Peter slap on their Aero Rigs.

They run and jump out of the laser drill, flying on their Aero Rigs, avoiding the gunfire. They zoom towards the blast hole on the side of the self chamber.

They land inside rather messily, tumbling to the ground.

_____

Mantis is worried about something else entirely. The entire chasm begins trembling and the walls start to mutate. 

"He's coming!"

"Didn't you say you could make him sleep?," asks Drax.

"When he wants! He's too powerful! I can't!"

Drax tells her, "You don't have to believe in yourself because I believe in you."

They look ahead. They see, on the enormous wall in front of them, the light-form of a giant Ego screaming angrily.

His scream becomes a tunnel of rocks rushing towards them like a train. Mantis sees a nerve bundle on the ground coming from Ego's Core. 

Although afraid, she grabs it, "SLEEP!" 

She screams with effort and some pain as energy travels through the bundle and into the core, where it darkens. The light leaves the rock formation and it slams into the ground in front of them, splashing dirt over them. 

But they are safe, and mostly shivering. Drax and Gamora look at each other.

"Nice one," Y/N says, though a little curious as to how Mantis was able to do that to a supposed Celestial.

"I never thought she'd be able to do it," Drax admits, "With as skinny and weak as she appears to be."

Mantis's arm is trembling, "I don't know how long I can hold him!"

_____

Rocket shines a powerful Pen-Light inside the cavity, exposing the interior, spattered with Swiss-cheese-like holes glowing with light.

"The metal is too thick! For the bomb to work we'd actually need to place it on Ego's core. And our fat butts ain't gonna fit through those tiny holes," He says.

"Weelll...."

Peter slowly eyes Groot, who is playing with a leaf on his arm and thinking about something else entirely.

Rocket looks over, "....That's a terrible idea."

"Which is the only kind of idea we got left."

Rocket sighs as he puts Groot on his back and moves deeper into the blast hole, mumbling to himself, "Unbelievable. 'Rocket, do this. Rocket, do that.'"

Peter turns toward the opening, "Ugh, What a day.." 

He then jumps out into the fray.

_____

Blasts are heard in the deep background. 

Rocket places a tiny bomb in front of Groot. It is a small, simple device with two switches and two buttons. Though relative to Groot, it's about his size.

He explains, very carefully, "All right. First you flick this switch, then this switch. That activates it. And then you push this button, which will give you five minutes to get out of there. Whatever you do don't push this button, because that will set off the bomb immediately, and we'll all be dead. Now repeat back what I just said."

"I am Groot."

"Uh huh."

"I am Groot."

"That's right."

"I am Groot," he says, hovering his hand over the wrong button.

Rocket stops him, "No! That's the button that will kill everyone! Try again."

Groot thinks for a moment, "..I am Groot."

Rocket nods at that.

"I am Groot?"

"Uh huh.."

"I am Groot!," he goes to press the same button.

"No! That's exactly what you just said! How is that even possible?!Which button is the button you're supposed to push?! Point to it."

Groot thinks. 

And then he points to the one that will kill almost everyone.

"NO!!"

"Hey, You're making him nervous," Peter shouts from above from through a crack.

"Shut up! And give me some tape! Does anyone have any tape out there!? I want to put some tape over the death button!"

"I don't have any tape. Let me check."

Peter disappears from the hole. 

As Rocket waits, he hears, amongst the chaos, faintly, "Yo, Yondu, do you have any - ow! -do you have any tape?! Gamora! You have any tape?! Oh Okay! Hey, Y/N, Please tell me you have tape! Drax, do you?!"

He goes quiet for a moment.

"Yeah! Scotch Tape would work!"

Another moment of silence.

"Then why would you ask me if scotch tape would work if you didn't have any?!"

Rocket and Groot look around, waiting. Rocket is impatient. He coughs. Groot is like a bored kid in a waiting room. He shifts around and plays with the wires on the bomb. 

Peter appears back above the small hole above, "Nobody has any tape!"

"Not a single person has tape?," Rocket shouts as he sees Y/N crash into a Sovereign Omnicraft just behind Peter, "Did you ask Nebula?"

Peter hesitates, "..Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I asked Yondu and she was sitting right next to him."

"I knew you were lying!"

"You have priceless batteries and anatomic bomb in your bag! If anyone had tape it would be you!"

"That's exactly my point! I have todo everything!"

"Dude, you're wasting a lot of time here!!"

Rocket turns back to Groot grumbling. 

That's when he notices that He has already taken the bomb and is heading towards the small hole to the core.

Rocket makes a 'WHEEEEEE' sound and smiles brightly as he hops into the hole and slides down as if on a water slide.

Rocket, heavy-lidded, watches him go, "....We're all gonna die.."

_____

Yondu and Nebula, in the cockpit, are being overcome as blasts come through the walls. 

Yondu shouts, "We're done for without the generator!"

Nebula groans, frustrated. She flips open a section of the dashboard, then a part of her arm.

The remaining Sovereign envoys have encircled the battered Laser Drill.

Peter flies into the Laser Drill, slamming into the wall.

"Guardians!," The High Priestess Ayesha can be heard from one of the Crafts, "Perhaps it will provide you solace that your deaths are not without purpose."

Nebula is feeding the wires from the craft into her mechanical arm.

"They will serve as a warning to all of those tempted with betraying us: Don't screw with the Sovereign."

Yondu works some switches. The Lasers slide back into the slots all over the ship as The Sovereign start blasting at them. The ship shakes slightly as the sounds of someone landing on the top of the ship reverberate through the gunfire.

"This is gonna hurt," Yondu tells Nebula.

"Promises, Promises."

Yondu flips all the switches and all the power runs painfully out of Nebula's body into the ship. And the lasers beam out of the ship entirely on one side slicing through almost nearly every single Envoy.

Yondu notices as another pair of lone laser beams start firing out from the other side of the ship, taking out the rest.

He looks over out the window to see Y/N sitting on the top of the Laser Drill with his feet dangling off.

Peter sees flaming chunks crash into the them and fire spilling toward the ship's engine, dripping fuel.

"We're gonna blow!!," He shouts.

Yondu whistles loudly as the flames hit the fuel.

_____

Gamora watches as the entire laser drill explodes. 

She is stricken, "Peter?!"

She sees a small body flying from the ship, which eventually becomes two. 

It's Nebula, being carried by the arm by Y/N. They both land softly on the ground just a few yards away from her.

Gamora looks at them, worried. Y/N just stares upward calmly and a bit peeved he was in an explosion. Nebula gives her what might be a little smile, and looks upward as well. 

Gamora follows their line of sight.

Peter is flying from the explosion on his aero-rig. Yondu is holding onto his flying arrow, his one arm up straight, his heels touching. 

Peter looks up at him and snickers. 

"What?," Yondu asks.

"You look like Mary Poppins."

"..Is he cool?"

Peter looks up at him, at the man who raised him, and smiles, "....Hell Yeah, he's cool."

Yondu looks out at the others as he comes in for a landing, "I'm Mary Poppins, Y'all!!"

Peter and Yondu land beside Y/N and Nebula.

Fiery ship fragments rain down around them as if this was the greatest heavy metal video of all time.

Most of the other Guardians enter the fray along side Y/N, Peter, Yondu, and Nebula. One by one, Gamora, Drax, Rocket flying down on his aero-rig, and finally, Mantis, staring forward with concentration until...

A huge chunk of spaceship flies in from the side, smacking her upside the head. 

The others all look down at her in shock.

"DAAMMN!," Y/N shouts.

Drax shouts at her unconscious form, "Mantis! Look out!"

Mantis, unconscious next to a ship fragment, has lost hold of Ego.

The entire hollow around them begins to rumble. The ground and walls themselves shift and waver. 

The place starts to light up.

Drax lifts up Mantis in his arms, "She's just unconscious."

_____

Groot runs and hops through the tunnels. 

He comes to a crossroads.

He sees a Cosmic Light emanating from one tunnel. 

He thinks for a moment then dashes off toward it.

_____

"How long before the bomb goes off?," Peter asks Rocket.

"In the unlikely event Groot doesn't kill us all, about six minutes."

Yondu speaks into the comms on his lapel, "Kraglin! We need the Quadrant for extraction in T-minus five minutes."

"Aye, Cap'n," he hears back.

They all peer up to see the surface of the planet unfolding and cracking away, so that the bright skies shine through.

"Someone needs to be up top when Kraglin arrives. Drax, take Mantis," says Peter.

Drax nods, still holding Mantis. 

Peter grabs the aero-rig off himself and slaps it on Drax's back, which automatically wraps around his upper body.

He starts soaring upwards, "AHHH!! MY NIPPLES!!!"

The ground around them splits into enormous cracks. 

The backside of the ground crumbles away, causing Gamora and Nebula to fall down. The other four all look down trying not to fall down as well.

"GAMORA!," Peter shouts.

Huge Cosmic Tentacles burst from the ground all around Y/N, Yondu, Rocket, and Peter. The giant glowing Face Of Ego appears just behind them, screeching.

_____

Gamora is plummeting, seemingly to her death, when she looks over and sees Nebula falling just behind her. Nebula grabs Gamora's arm and then jams her mechanical arm into the side of a passing cliff.

They snap to a stop hanging down off the side.

Nebula full on chucks Gamora up onto a flat surface.

As Nebula climbs up after her, Gamora looks at her, surprised by her actions.

"Oh, get over it," Nebula tells her.

_____

"Come now, Peter. I know this isn't what you want."

Peter was firing at a tentacle as it tried to reach him.

Yondu whistles, the arrow weaving through other tentacles around them.

"What kind of father would I be to let you make this choice?"

Rocket tosses a bunch of tiny bombs at some, which they stickto and explodes.

Y/N fires his heat vision at a bunch of others.

But, unfortunately, they are by no means winning this fight.

"Soon, Peter, We will be all there is! So stop.. PISSING! ME! OFF!!"

 _____

"We have to get up to the extraction point!"

Gamora and Nebula look over the edge and see a huge rift of land rising quickly.

They look at each other then jump.

They grab onto the edge of the rising rift, clutching to it as it flies upward toward the open space above them.

_____

Drax reaches onto the surface.

He sees the Quadrant waiting for him there. He darts as fast as he can for the ship.

Inside, Kraglin opens to Loading Door.

But four huge tentacles from the planet reach up and grab onto the Quadrant, yanking it down.

Kraglin, freaking out, throws the thrusters into high gear.

The thrusters flare as the massive ship struggles to free itself from Ego's tendrils.

And it does pull itself up for a moment, but the tendrils tighten, slamming it back down. The whole Quadrant starts to tip over.

Kraglin falls down against the side of the ship.

Drax sees the ship falling towards him and he running the opposite direction in fear.

But he arrives a the edge of a cliff. He crouches as the ship continues down toward him, about to squash both he and Mantis.

But Kraglin, kinda heroically, crawls his way back up to the controls as he dangles from them. He pushes on the thrusters, so that the ship goes back upright.

Drax turns and again runs straight toward the Quadrant. 

_____

Gamora and Nebula are still rising on the rift when they start to tilt

They then slam into a wall near the opening in the surface of the planet. 

_____

Peter turns and sees Ego, in his terrifying skeletal light form, strolling down towards him as the land around him parts like the Red Sea.

As Ego walks, the dirt and molecules around him form organs in his body, piecing himself back together.

Peter sees a tentacle slam Yondu to the ground and cover his entire body.  

He turns to see Rocket hollering as he fires at tentacles, but they overwhelm him.

And lastly he sees Y/N, the only one not being overwhelmed. Though he was holding on of the tendrils above his head as he shot laser blasts at the others the swung towards him.

_____

Up above, The Planet itself starts to wrap around Drax's legs as if it were quicksand, pulling him and Mantis down into it.

He starts lifting her unconscious form above his head to keep her from going under.

_____

Gamora and Nebula scramble, trying to climb back up, when tendrils wrap around them, stopping them from going further.

_____

The walls are tightening around Groot. He grows his branches to try to stop them, but they aren't working.

He begins to cry, terrified, on the brink of suffocating.

_____

Ego approaches his son. 

He is fully formed, and he is more truly 'himself.' 

Alien. 

Dark eyes and pale skin. 

"I told you I don't want to do this alone."

A tendril bursts from the ground and once again, pierces Peter from behind. It starts to lift his slowly from the ground.

"You cannot deny the purpose the universe has bestowed upon you!"

Smaller light tendrils stab into his face and body.

And the light gets sucked out of Peter and up into the Self Chamber once more as it bursts with light.

"It doesn't need to be like this, Peter..," Ego says as he approuches his son, "Why are you destroying our chance?! Stop pretending you aren't, what you are! One in billions.. Trillions, even more!"

Y/N looks over at them at Ego's last few words.

Peter looks up at Ego, barely able to focus, as the molecules form skin over the muscle and skeleton and innards beneath.

"What greater meaning could life possibly have to offer?!"

Yondu struggles beneath a tentacle a few yards away. 

He tries to get out, "I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy! I use my h--"

Peter hears this as the Rocks and Dirt cover Yondu's face. He looks over at Ego, with a less blank face.

Y/N looks over at them, pushing the tendril above him harder.

He then pushes hard enough that the tendril completely disappears altogether.

And then.. It's as if everything went quiet.

Peter clutches his fist.. Like in that Arthur meme.. and we see the light growing brighter around Peter and Ego..

Then behind him, Y/N stood there taking a deep breath..

Suddenly rocks and pebbles started floating up in the air around his body. 

Like magnets.

Eventually, bits of rock begin to swirl around Peter's body as well.

And Ego looks confused, as the ground quakes around him.

A surge of energy shocked into the planet a few feet away, causing Ego to look over towards Y/N.

A gust of wind flies by and suddenly Y/N was standing next to Peter.

Ego's head tilts in even more confusion as he watches as both Peter and Y/N seem to surge with so much energy.

The two of them slowly look towards each other, nodding once, then back to Ego, as if they had come to an understanding about something.

They glare at the Celestial who is Millenia older in a near rage.

Peter speaks, "You shouldn't have killed my mom and squished my Walkman!"

And in a solid tornado of rock, Peter and Y/N propel forward. 

"And if, you don't love me now
You will never love me again"

Ego tries to protect himself as the two of them slam into him, flying upwards with him.

Peter raises his fist, now a giant rock club. And he punches Ego back.

This sends him flying into Y/N, who spins and kicks him back to Peter, his foot now covered in a dense coating of rock.

This causes Ego to lose concentration..

"I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)"

A pair of arms are left protruding from the surface of the planet, still holding Mantis aloft.

The dirt falls away, and Drax, who was entirely covered, heaves for breath.

"And if you don't love me now
You will never love me again"

The tendrils fall, freeing Gamora and Nebula as they gasp for air.

Yondu breaks through the rocks around him, drawing in breath. 

The tendrils holding Rocket aloft crumble, and he looks around, confused.

"I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)"

The tunnel around Groot snaps back to what it was. Once more he can see the light at the tunnel's end, and one looks like a giant brain composed of a bright light. 

He runs forward.

"And if, you don't love me now
You will never love me again
I can still hear you saying
You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)~~"

Rocket flies up and yells to Groot, "Groot! Groot, if you can can hear me, hurry up! I'm not sure how long Quill and Y/N can keep him distracted!"

Meanwhile, deep inside, Groot arrives at the end of the tunnel, and stops there.

The center of the core holds a huge cosmic placenta, and, within that, Ego's true self, the Cosmic Brain. It roils furiously, the reflection of its fight with Y/N and Peter, thrashing around within this womb.

Although afraid, Groot places the bomb on the placenta. 

Groot stares at both buttons, scared...

..He doesn't know which one to pick..

Groot soon makes a decision on which button to press. 

He goes to push the death button....

Then his finger stops just millimeters from the button, trembling.

He thinks for a moment.

And then changes the course of his finger, pushing the correct button.

The Countdown Clock Commences.

Baby Groot turns, terrified, and runs like a madman.

_____

Drax moves with Mantis to the loading bay. He throws her up and climbs up inside, making his way up the ladder a few feet away.

Just outside,  Gamora and Nebula, climbing up to the surface in the dirt storm.

_____

Ego rises on his own molecular tornado and strikes back at Peter and Y/N. 

They were all trading blows Two-On-One.

Sometimes they'd hit Ego towards the other, and sometimes they'd just go in for the attack in unison.

Y/N flew up higher just above the two.

Peter manages to grab and throw Ego up towards him.

Y/N does a front flip axe kick, sending him back down fast.

Peter throws a hook at him blasting him back and through a few slabs of rock around the place.

Down below, Yondu protects his face as dirt swirls in the wake of the Y/N & Peter Vs Ego battle.

Rocket, carrying Groot, flies back down beside him.

"Yondu!," he shouts, "We're about to blow!"

"Get to the ship!," Yondu tells him.

"Not without Y/N and Quill."

Yondu persists, "You need to take care of the twig!"

"...Not without you..," Rocket says.

"....I ain't done nothing right my whole damn life, rat... You need to give me this.."

Rocket sighs, giving in. Groot looks over at him, wondering what'll happen.

He grabs some things from his bag and hands them to Yondu, "A space suit and an aero rig.. I only have one of each..."

Yondu nods. 

Rocket nods back.

Rocket starts to go, but stops and looks at Yondu. 

"I-..," He wants to say something, but he doesn't know what. 

Baby Groot knows.. he always knows what to say, "I Am Groot."

"What's that?," Yondu asks.

Rocket smiles at him, "He says welcome to the frickin' Guardians of the Galaxy... only he didn't use 'frickin'."

"..Bye, twig.."

Groot waves.

And Rocket flies toward the surface. 

On the way up, Rocket mutters to Groot, "..Y/N seriously needs to stop teaching you bad language."

_____

Ego manages to slam both Peter and Y/N back against a wall. 

He then grabs them and chucks them at another wall, making them indent into it.

They look up at him as they rip themselves out.

The three of them blast off, flying towards each other.

Ego uses the light to bring rocks to his body, forming a giant avatar of himself.

Peter brings Yellow Rocks to his body, forming a Giant Pac-Man which encased both him and Y/N.

Y/N started to shift some things around, forming sharp teeth around the opening and closing mouth, giving it sharp horns, and all around condensing the rocks tighter around them.

It looked a bit less like Pac-Man and more of a Cartoon Demon Pac-Man.

Ego's form flies into Pac-Man's mouth, so hard there's a sonic boom.

The three of them fall, tumbling, still trading blows.

They reach the ground and land hard, face first.

_____

The timer counts down. 

A minute left.

_____

Gamora and Nebula are caring for Mantis as Rocket and Groot arrive.

Gamora look out then back to him, "Rocket, Where's Peter and Y/N?"

Rocket doesn't answer.

"Rocket, Where are they?!"

Rocket looks down at a timer in his hand. 

It's almost time.

He's not entirely sure it'll work. A part of him sadly wonders, 'if it does, then does that mean it'd also work on Y/N?'

"Rocket?! Rocket, look at me! Where are they?!

Rocket just shakes his head a little.  

But Groot points sadly outside. 

"No," she just says, and stands, "We're not leaving without them."

Gamora hardens.

She stands and snatches a rifle off the wall. 

She cocks it back.

She starts out the bay door..

When an electrical blast hits her from behind. She falls over in The Quadrant, unconscious, with Rocket standing behind her.

"I'm sorry.. I can only afford to lose two friends today..," he then yells up through the ship, "Kraglin, GO!"

"Wait!," Drax shouts, "Are Y/N and Quill back?"

No answer.

He then shouts louder, "Rocket, Where's Quill and Y/N?!"

Rocket looks sadly out the bay door as it closes. 

Drax's voice echoing, but he can't bare to answer..

_____

Y/N, Peter, and Ego are surprisingly exhausted, on their knees and breathing heavily like boxers going into round nine. 

Ego goes to stand.

But Y/N slams into him with closed hands, sending him back to the ground along side them.

Ego suddenly reaches out for the core, and gets out raspily, "NO! WE NEED TO STOP IT!"

This time Peter throws him to the ground. But Ego comes back up, grasping his son's jacket, not aggressively but pleading with him now.

"Listen to me! You are a god! If you kill me, you'll just be like everyone else!"

Y/N watches as the interaction happens. The rocks covering the planet now breaking more inward.

Peter eventually says, "...What's so wrong with that?"

Ego looks at his son, scared, "No!!"

The countdown reaches zero. 

The brain explodes.

The explosion causes the life forces to burst through the entire planet. 

Ego fades to nothing in Peter's hands.

Y/N was kneeling a few feet away with his arms spread out wide towards the explosion.

Peter looks over at him with a smile. He lowers at head, at peace with the death that seems to be coming, when, from the side, through the debris...

Yondu is flying towards him on an Aero-Rig.

Yondu grabs him, almost a tackle, really, lifting Peter up and Flying Away.

Y/N looks up at them flying away with a soft smile as the explosion engulfs him..

But suddenly a blur shoots out from the middle of it after them. Completely unharmed, Y/N follows after them, a bit slower than normal but he's catching up.

As Yondu, Peter, and Y/N fly upward, the planet explodes behind them, flames licking their heels, huge stretches of the planet caving in. One huge chunk of the planet shooting out slowly after them.

But it slowly stops before going further once it reached far away from the exploding planet.

Yondu holds a surprised Peter as they soar up into the sky, "He may have been your father, boy. But he wasn't your daddy... I'm sorry I didn't do none of it right. I'm damn lucky you're my boy."

Peter's touched by his words.

That's when Yondu slaps the spacesuit disk onto him. The shimmery sheathe cover him.

Yondu breathes out as completely as he can, emptying his lungs. And they exit the planet's atmosphere, bursting into outer space.

A few boulders float out in front of them and beside them. Some of which, the size of cliffs.

"Yondu, you can't! What are you doing? What are you doing?! Yondu!!"

Yondu's jet pack expires its supply of fuel, and they stop there, in space, floating. Peter tries to remove the spacesuit from himself but to no avail.

Yondu's grip weakens.

"Yondu. Yondu, no!"

Yondu grabs his son's face with both hands, looking and touching him with love.

And Yondu's face expands and his body goes limp as he dies there...

And he starts to drift away but Peter grabs onto his Aero-Rig..

Tears shed from his eyes...

"...No.."

Suddenly, both Peter and the late Yondu Udonta were lightly whisked away.

Peter looks over to see Y/N carrying them.

He drifts them on over to a floating rock. They somehow manage to land onto the giant rock floating.

Peter was kneeling with Yondu in his arms.

Y/N looks at them not saying a word.

He looks up as he hears the Quadrant managing to land next to them. Peter was still holding onto Yondu with tears in his eyes.

And that's when they hear it..

They both turn around to see the rocks behind them pulling themselves back together. They were reforming in front of their eyes.

Eventually it stops, and there in front of them was the planet..

Ego..

Still Alive..

His face plastered on the side on the planet with a grin.

Peter gently places Yondu down and moves forward to make his way towards him. He was angry, and had the look that he was about to something stupid.

Y/N holds out an arm to stop him, holding him behind him, "No.. I'll handle this. You should take him and go."

"I'm not leaving you, man," Peter tells him.

Y/N looks at him then nods. They both go over and lift Yondu, carrying him back to the Quadrant.

The Loading Bay Doors open up to reveal Rocket standing there, he sees Yondu and then Ego behind them, "Oh, my god. It didn't work.. This was for nothing."

Y/N helps Peter get Yondu up in the ship.

Peter pulls him in deeper, telling Rocket, "We can't do this alone."

"Then what the hell do we--"

Suddenly, The Quadrant was jerked upwards.

Peter and Rocket look over to see Y/N starting to lift the whole ship. They run over to the door, noticing that he had managed to fly them up and a bit farther away.

"Y/N, What the hell are you doing?!," Peter yells.

Y/N just looks at them and smiles sadly..

He then reels back and shoves The Quadrant as hard as he can. This causes them to go flying miles away, as they tumble around the ship for a few minutes.

Soon, the ship manages to stabilize.

Rocket and Peter look back out the still opened Loading Bay doors.

Rocket looks kind of scared as he rhetorically asks, "What the hell does he think he's doing?"

_____

Y/N softly lands back down on the rock he was on. 

He watched Ego with a sigh as Ego watched him back. He thinks for a moment, not exactly knowing what he should do. Wondering if this was the moment..

Y/N thinks back to some of Loki's first words to him.

He then asks, "...How bout a story?"

Ego's face contorts as if questioning his words. He then notices Y/N's eyes. The orange color they always are when using his enhanced senses.

"Can you hear them?," Y/N asks him, "All those people who are currently terrified. Of you, and- and your 'judgement'. All those people whose ancestors most likely devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves to people like you... Can you hear them crying?"

Ego's face forms a wide grin. As if he could, indeed hear their cries. And that he was taking a huge amount of joy from it.

Y/N looks at him with a grimace.

He continues, now speaking in a way that makes it hard to tell just who he's talking about, "Oh, you like to thing you're a god. But you're not a god.. You're just a parasite eating out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others... You feed on them! On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow!!.. So.."

Ego's grin grows wider.

"So, come on then.. Take mine," he tells the giant planet, "Take my 'memories'... But I hope you've got a biigg appetite--"

Energy tendrils shoot out from Ego's core and stab into Y/N. It tries to lift him in the air but he managed to keep himself grounded to the rock.

"--Because I've technically live a long life and I have seen a few things."

More tendrils shot out and into him. It was as if Ego was an addict looking for his fix. And he seemingly found the perfect source. 

The perfect source with a looot of power.

"I'll walk away from the 'Infinity War'.. I'll mark the passing of the Beyonders..."

Ego's eyes squint at the names. He had clearly never heard of them.

"I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained! No time! No space! Just me!," he tells him, thinking back on the scepter, then starts thinking about Malekith for the first sentence, "I walked in worlds where the laws of reality were devised by the mind of a mad man! I've watched universes freeze and creations burn! I've seen things even you wouldn't believe!!"

The grin on Ego's face starts to fade. 

Tears were now falling from Y/N's eyes, "I have lost things and will continue to lose things you will never understand!!"

If a planet could look afraid, now would be the moment. Ego had a huge frown as he, completely unwillingly now, continues drawing energy from Y/N.

"And I know things.. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge.. that will make parasite gods blaze! So come ooon~, then! Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!~"

Y/N's arms were spread out wide as even more energy was shot into Ego.

Suddenly, Ego's face contorts momentarily before he eventually starts imploding in on himself. Y/N stands there with a blank face, just staring at it.

He then drops to the ground...

..

...

....

...

..

Then from nowhere.. laughter..

Chuckling..

Cackling, what ever you wanna call it.

Y/N was lying there on the ground staring up into space with a grin on his face. His laughter echoed out through the stars.

His still orange eyes started flickering before stopping and glowing a shade brighter.

His laughter started to slow.

He eventually started to stop altogether, sitting up and looking out amongst space.

He stared in a specific direction with a worried but knowing smile, and let's out a quick chuckle, "....Of course... Where else?.."

He was staring in the direction of Earth.

Y/N lies back down, staring back up into space, his eyes flickering but still staying alight. He breathed heavily.

He starts humming quietly..

Eventually he sees as The Quadrant slowly lands a few feet away from him. He slowly stands up, trying not to over exert after what happened.

He limps on over to the ship, still humming.

Once he reaches the Loading Bay Doors, he stops and looks back out towards the direction of Earth..

"......there are no strings on me..."

____________________