"This guy actually survived out there?"
Quill couldn't help but marvel.
After all, beings capable of surviving direct exposure to outer space were incredibly rare. Not to mention humans—even among aliens, there weren't many who could endure the vacuum of space.
"Look at this guy. Handsome and built like a tank..."
Drax sighed admiringly.
"Hey! Aren't I built too?"
Quill immediately protested.
As far as he was concerned, this guy looked about the same as him.
No, wait.
He should be significantly better-looking and in better shape than this guy.
"Give me a break, Quill. You're one meal away from being overweight."
Rocket immediately shot him down.
"He's right. You need to lose some weight."
Drax gestured toward Quill's double chin and belly.
"What?! Gamora, don't tell me you also—"
Before Quill could finish, he noticed Gamora staring fixedly at the unconscious Thor.
Even Groot and Nebula had gathered around him, examining him curiously.
"He's extremely angry. His heart is filled with confusion and guilt."
The antennae on Mantis's forehead glowed softly.
She had already sensed Thor's emotions.
Quill couldn't take it anymore.
Seeing Gamora absentmindedly touching Thor's muscular arm, Quill immediately told Mantis to wake him up.
The moment she said, "Wake up," Thor shot upright like a spring.
Everyone jumped in surprise.
Before anyone could react, Thor slowly turned around.
What greeted him was the fully alert Guardians of the Galaxy.
Even Quill and Rocket had their guns raised.
"Who are you people?!"
Thor had only just regained consciousness.
His brain was still booting up after everything that had happened.
Every muscle in his body tensed.
Seeing that he wasn't immediately hostile, everyone relaxed and explained the situation.
They had received a distress signal and come to investigate.
Thor then recounted what had happened to him and the Asgardian refugee ship.
---
"Ever since I met Thanos, he's only had one goal."
Gamora sat in a chair.
No one understood Thanos better than she did.
"To maintain balance in the universe, he wants to eliminate half of all life."
Nebula spoke next.
Like Gamora, she had grown up under Thanos's control and knew exactly how he thought.
"To achieve that goal, he slaughters endlessly. Every planet he visits loses half its population."
Gamora's voice remained calm, but everyone could hear the sorrow beneath it.
"She's right. That's what happened to my planet."
Drax carefully polished his knives.
Ever since hearing Thanos's name from Thor, he had been obsessively sharpening them.
"If he gets all six Infinity Stones, all he'll have to do is snap his fingers..."
Thor lowered his head, eating canned food as he spoke.
"...and half the life in the universe will disappear."
"You really know a lot about Thanos."
Thor glanced at Gamora.
"Gamora here is actually Thanos's daughter."
Drax casually added.
Thor didn't know Gamora's history.
Blue lightning immediately flashed in his eyes.
"Your father killed my brother."
His voice was calm.
He tossed aside the empty can and rose to his feet.
A powerful aura erupted from him.
Lightning crackled in his remaining eye.
He was no longer the God of Hammers.
After all, Hela had already crushed Mjolnir.
Thor slowly approached Gamora.
Quill and the others immediately stepped in front of her.
Nebula likewise moved protectively to her sister's side.
"Easy, brother! Adoptive father! Adoptive father!"
Quill stood in front, trying to look intimidating.
Unfortunately, the gap between him and Thor was simply too large.
"Gamora was kidnapped by Thanos. She hates him just as much as anyone."
Thor brushed everyone aside and stopped in front of Gamora.
Then his intimidating aura vanished completely.
"I understand."
He gently patted her shoulder.
"My father once told me I had a half-sister."
A bitter smile appeared on his face.
"Then she destroyed all of Asgard."
"That's fate for you. It never lets things go smoothly."
The hostility disappeared from his eyes, replaced by sadness and understanding.
Gamora hadn't expected this response.
To discover someone who had gone through something so similar left her momentarily speechless.
She looked back at Thor with genuine empathy.
---
Quill hated every second of it.
He immediately squeezed himself between them.
"I understand you too."
He pointed at himself dramatically.
"My father killed my mother, so I had to kill him..."
Quill immediately launched into a lengthy retelling of his tragic backstory.
By the end of it, he'd somehow rewritten events so that he was entirely responsible for killing Ego.
Carl's contribution had been erased from history.
Even Rocket couldn't stand listening to it.
He rolled his eyes.
"Good thing I've still got both my eyes, buddy."
Quill continued trying to one-up Thor.
At this point, he felt the only category where he could beat Thor was having two functioning eyes.
Thor, however, wasn't listening at all.
He stared blankly at the spoon in his hand.
Then suddenly looked up.
"I need a hammer."
He frowned.
"Not a spoon."
With that, he immediately walked over to one of the emergency escape pods.
"How do you start this thing?"
He began poking randomly at the controls.
"Do I need fingerprints? Voice authorization?"
Thor fiddled with the console as if it were a Quinjet requiring biometric access.
He pressed buttons completely at random.
Watching this, Rocket was dumbfounded.
"What... are you doing?"
he finally asked.
Because through a series of utterly nonsensical inputs, Thor had somehow managed to open the ship's user manual.
"I'm going to pilot this ship."
Thor spared Rocket a glance before continuing his button-mashing.
"That's not happening."
At that moment, Quill stepped forward.
His voice suddenly dropped several octaves as he tried to sound more authoritative.
To everyone else, however, he sounded ridiculous.
"What are you doing now?"
Rocket asked in disbelief.
At a time like this, Quill was still clowning around?
Ignoring him, Quill continued.
"I can't allow you to just take our ship."
He kept speaking in an unnaturally deep voice.
In fact, he was clearly trying to imitate Thor's manner of speaking.
"Quill, why are you lowering your voice?"
Rocket asked again.
"I'm not."
Quill immediately denied it.
"You are."
Drax responded without hesitation.
"You're trying to copy this handsome god's voice."
He pointed at Thor.
"And you're doing a terrible job."
Quill whipped around.
"No, I'm not."
"See? He just did it again."
Mantis suddenly exclaimed.
"This is just my normal voice!"
Quill was reaching his breaking point.
How could teammates sabotage him this relentlessly?
At that moment, Thor walked over and stopped directly in front of him.
"You are mocking me."
Thor's lone eye narrowed.
He clearly felt insulted.
"I'm not mocking you."
Quill stubbornly maintained the fake deep voice.
"Try imitating me again."
Thor stared at him.
With only one eye remaining, he somehow looked more like Odin than ever before.
Especially right now.
"Enough!"
Nebula finally snapped.
She couldn't take it anymore.
This ship had never had a single normal person aboard to begin with.
And now another equally abnormal person had joined the crew.
She was at the end of her patience.
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