join p atreon.com/KeyofStars for advance chapters | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter | Report issues @discord.com/GVBdncd9Wr
To avoid sounding like he was setting himself up for failure, Kevin planned to get engaged to Annie back in the The Boys world after they had explored the universe together.
There was no need to wait for Banner to achieve results.
Since he had to look after Wanda and Pietro, Kevin brought them along when he prepared to set off the next day.
Calling the Guardians of the Galaxy to pick them up on Earth, Kevin waited with Annie and the others for the Guardians of the Galaxy to arrive.
After the Ego incident and the Ultron incident, the Guardians of the Galaxy were still doing their old job: cosmic mercenaries.
Although they called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy and Superheroes, they were essentially mercenaries. Whoever entrusted them with a task and paid the most, they would work for that party.
When Kevin contacted the Guardians of the Galaxy, they were in the middle of a mission and couldn't break away to pick him up. In the end, only Ms. Nebula, now an unofficial member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, could come to get Kevin.
"You said you were leaving the Guardians of the Galaxy, didn't you?" Kevin asked, surprised to see Nebula.
If he remembered correctly, after the last Ultron incident, Nebula had confidently declared she was leaving the Guardians of the Galaxy to venture out on her own.
Hearing Kevin's question, Nebula's expression became very subtle. She sighed, turned her head, and changed the subject, saying, "That's not important... By the way, is this your girlfriend?"
"Yes, my girlfriend Annie. These two... are Wanda and Pietro. Peter knows them, but you probably haven't met them."
When everyone fought Ultron last time, Nebula stayed on the spaceship to guard it and didn't go. Only Rocket and his group met Wanda and Pietro.
Nebula didn't ask further. She politely nodded to them, then started the spaceship and said to Kevin, "Actually, I don't think it's a good idea for you to let your girlfriend meet those idiots."
"Uh..."
Kevin was momentarily unable to refute Nebula's words.
He thought for a moment and could already imagine how Peter and those scoundrels would tease Annie when they saw her.
Annie also raised her eyebrows in surprise at the remark.
She turned and quietly asked Kevin, "...Are your friends... problematic?"
"No problem, Annie. It's just... they can be a bit unreliable at times, but they're good people at heart."
Kevin soothed Annie, Wanda, and Pietro, then said to Nebula, "It's fine. It's just a quick meeting anyway, and I'm taking my girlfriend for a spin in the universe to see the sights and sounds. After all, she's a country bumpkin."
Annie: "?"
Slap.
Kevin's flippant remark earned him a heavy slap on the back from Annie.
Seeing this, Nebula muttered with an 'oh, spare me' expression, "Peter and Gamora are already enough for me. Now, with you guys added... it looks like there's really no staying here..."
However, even though Nebula was grumbling, her actions were not slow.
Activating the jump drive, Nebula turned back and instructed everyone behind her, "Those of you flying for the first time need to be careful. Your body will feel very uncomfortable during a wormhole jump. Try not to throw up."
"Okay, I got it!" Annie raised her hand and responded as if on a school trip.
No sooner had she spoken than Nebula started the spaceship, jumping through the wormhole.
After more than a dozen intermittent jumps, the spaceship finally arrived at the current location where the Guardians of the Galaxy were working.
A massive planetary ruin.
According to Nebula, the Guardians of the Galaxy's current mission was to help someone find something in the ruins. They had already found clues, and the work was at a critical stage, which was why Nebula had come to pick them up.
"How are Yondu and his crew? Are they also staying with the Guardians of the Galaxy?" Kevin asked Nebula curiously, remembering Yondu who had stayed there.
"Yondu has settled on Xandar. His little sidekick inherited his abilities and is now doing missions with Quill and the others."
"From Yondu's exclusive crew member to an exclusive member of the Guardians? That's good."
"If he didn't constantly stick that damn arrow into my arm, then yes, it would be quite good."
...
Kevin could tell that Nebula's words carried some resentment. Clearly, Kraglin often stuck his arrow into Nebula when practicing.
Yondu chose to settle on Xandar, and of course, his skill in controlling the arrow couldn't be lost, so he passed it on to his loyal and only remaining crew member, Kraglin.
It's just that Kraglin didn't seem to have that talent. Even after learning for so long, he could only summon the arrow with a whistle.
And where the arrow would ultimately fly was completely beyond Kraglin's control.
Fortunately, everyone on the Guardians of the Galaxy was a tough character.
Nebula was entirely robotic; as long as her head wasn't damaged, she didn't have to worry about being hurt by the arrow. Drax was thick-skinned and tough, with high defense and strong recovery, so being stabbed a couple of times was no problem at all.
Groot goes without saying. Although Gamora's physique was similar to a normal person's, her intuition was not to be underestimated. Star-Lord now retained a part of his Celestial power, so he didn't have to worry about getting hurt.
Ultimately, the only ones prone to injury seemed to be Mantis and Rocket.
However, since they hadn't had any incidents so far, they should be fine.
Kevin and Nebula were still chatting when Star-Lord Peter's voice suddenly came through the communicator: "Hey! Blue Sister, is Kevin here? I heard he brought his girlfriend?"
"Peter!! Damn it! The mission isn't over yet! Do you want to die!!"
Immediately after, there was the sound of Gamora fighting something. From the sound of the battle, it was not difficult to tell that Peter was temporarily slacking off.
Before Peter could respond to Gamora, Nebula said angrily, "Quill! If you call me 'Blue Sister' again, I'll replace your shower gel with permanent blue dye!"
"Hahahahaha, then Quill will become Blue Quill! I think that's pretty good!"
Rocket's loud laughter came through the communication again.
And Groot's one line, 'I am Groot.'
The communicator was noisy. Annie listened to these noisy voices, blinking and looking at Kevin suspiciously: "...Are they really your friends?"
Annie always felt that these noisy guys didn't seem to match Kevin's personality.
In her impression, Kevin had always been a very lazy person, with no energy to argue with people.
Facing Annie's question, Kevin could only sigh helplessly.
He nodded and said, "Yes, that's right, these idiots are indeed my... friends."
He didn't know why, but for a moment, Kevin felt that the word 'friend' didn't seem so noble anymore.
...
Star-Lord and the others' work was actually nearing its end.
The fact that they still had the leisure to argue on the communicator proved that this final task was not that difficult.
And so it was. After arguing on the communicator for a while, they completed their work without any major incidents.
And after completing their work, the first thing they did was not contact the client to deliver the requested item, but rather return to Nebula's ship to meet Kevin.
"Oh! My goodness, let's see who this is, isn't this our honorary member Kevin! He actually brought his girlfriend to see us!"
As soon as they met, Peter comically spoke in a melodious voice.
His tone made Kevin sound like some important figure, making Kevin roll his eyes.
"Excuse me, who are you? Do we know each other? Annie, let's go, don't get infected by this strange idiot."
Kevin said, pretending to take Annie away.
"Hey! No, no, no, I'm just kidding—Hey, beautiful lady, nice to meet you, I'm the captain of this small team, Star-Lord, Peter Quill, and also Kevin's boss. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Star-Lord came beside Annie, and with a flick of his hand, a yellow flower, from who-knows-where, appeared before Annie.
Kevin looked at the blue light emanating from his hand and twitched his mouth: "I say, is that how you use your Celestial power??"
"What's wrong? It takes me a long time to create a flower!" Star-Lord said self-righteously.
After gaining Celestial power, his physical abilities certainly increased a lot, but he couldn't create various things to fight for him like Ego.
At most, he could manipulate rocks and soil to a certain extent, which was the most basic application of Celestial power.
Or, like now, conjure a flower to flirt with girls.
Star-Lord seemed to think it was amazing that he could conjure a flower, but Gamora, beside him, mercilessly exposed his lie: "If you spent the time you spend listening to music and studying flowers every day, perhaps you would have been as omnipotent as Ego by now!"
"Please! I only studied flowers because of Rocket!"
"What?!" Rocket hadn't expected this to be brought up to him. He raised his small paw and pointed at Star-Lord, saying, "You'd better explain yourself, Quill, what do you mean 'because of me'? I never told you to study those messy flowers!"
"Didn't you say that to control power, you have to start by transforming into flowers? You said it!"
"Idiot! I meant you'd only be successful when you can create flower avatars like Ego, not when you become a crappy plant master!"
"I am Groot?"
"Sorry, Groot, I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about this idiot here!"
"I say, folks." Seeing them about to argue there, Kevin helplessly interrupted them, "There are still a few kids here, can you please not use foul language?"
Kevin was referring to Wanda and Pietro.
Star-Lord then looked at the twin siblings and apologized, "Sorry, I almost forgot to say hello to you."
"No... it's fine, you can continue, don't mind us," Wanda said softly.
She still seemed a bit unaccustomed to talking with these 'aliens'.
The Guardians continued to argue, and Nebula, watching from the side, rolled her eyes. After a while, as she prepared to confirm the mission item they had retrieved, she frowned.
"Wait, where's the mission item you brought back?"
"Isn't it with Drax?"
???
Star-Lord instinctively replied, but it only earned Nebula a head full of question marks.
No, you guys trust Drax with something so important??
Nebula was about to curse and look at Drax, but then she saw Drax fiddling with a small, square-shaped machine, doing something with it.
Nebula knew at a glance that it was indeed the mission item for their trip.
Before Nebula could stop him, Rocket shrieked, "Oh, my God! Drax, put that thing down!!"
Drax was confused. He opened his palm and asked, "What's wrong? This thing has been around for who knows how many years, it must be useless by now."
"Even so, you can't just press random buttons! What if you break it and the client doesn't pay me?!"
At this point, Star-Lord also sided with Rocket, scolding Drax.
Drax was reprimanded and, looking displeased, prepared to put down the device in his hand.
But Kevin, looking at the device, felt inexplicably familiar with it. He felt like he had seen this thing somewhere before.
But what exactly was it that made it feel so familiar?
Anything that Kevin remembered and left an impression on him must be a key item in the Marvel World, but this thing... Kevin couldn't recall for a moment where it came from or what it was.
And just as Kevin was pondering, suddenly, when Drax finally threw the device onto the table, a yellow, square-shaped cuboid appeared beside everyone.
The cuboid was human-height, like an upright door.
When he saw this yellow cuboid-shaped door, Kevin was silent at first, then he took a deep breath.
Damn it!
This is the TemPad!
The Time Variance Authority's essential tool for time travel!!!
What the heck, why is the TemPad here!!?
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars for advance chapters | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter | Report issues @discord.com/GVBdncd9Wr