Rocket had made a ring for Eli.
It was shaped like a white cherry blossom, delicate and detailed, with tiny grooves that caught the light. In the center lay the skull piece—small, ancient, humming with something that felt older than stars. When Rocket gave it to him, he explained:
"I made this with some parts from the Dark Aster and a couple of other things laying around the Milano. So it should be hard enough to withstand light-speed travel and the impact of a small meteorite—the size of a small island."
Eli turned the ring over in his fingers. The craftsmanship was impressive. He hated to admit it, but Rocket was good at this kind of thing. The ring was light but felt solid. Durable. Like it could survive almost anything.
He looked at Rocket with a complicated expression and asked, "Why did you make it so… girly? I already have enough problems with this kind of thing. I don't want more."
Rocket laughed—a sharp, barking sound that echoed off the walls of the Milano. "I thought it would be funny. Just imagine you trying to tell someone that you're a guy—but you look like a girl, sound more like a girl than a man—and wearing a flower ring?" He wiped a tear from his eye. "It would be hilarious."
From across the room, Peter snorted. "He's not wrong. You do have a very punchable pretty face."
"Thank you, Peter," Eli said flatly. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear."
"I'm just saying!"
Gamora looked up from her seat, her expression unreadable. She glanced at the ring, then at Eli's face, then back at the ring. Her lips twitched—just barely—but she didn't say anything.
Drax, who had been sharpening his knives in the corner, looked over and said, "The flower is a symbol of life and renewal. It is not girly. It is powerful."
Eli blinked. "…Thank you, Drax."
"You are welcome. Though you still look like a woman."
Eli sighed.
He just took the ring and wore it upside down to hide the flower, twisting it so the cherry blossom faced his palm instead of the world. He thought that maybe, one day, he would give it to someone in the future. Someone who deserved it. Someone who wouldn't get mistaken for the wrong gender every five minutes.
But for now, it was his. An emergency power-up hidden in plain sight.
---
The Milano exited the jump and the stars stretched back into place.
When they got to the planet's system, they saw it immediately.
A huge crack in space—right above the planet. It wasn't a natural phenomenon. It looked like someone had taken a knife and sliced through reality itself, leaving behind a wound that bled colors that shouldn't exist. Purple. Green. Gold. All of them swirling together in a slow, hungry spiral.
Some tentacles were already trying to make their way through the crack, pushing against the edges like fingers through a torn curtain. They were massive—each one thick as a building, covered in something that looked like bark but moved like muscle.
The planet's defense force was getting into formation below, small ships arranging themselves in tight grids, getting ready to defend their home. They looked tiny compared to what was coming through.
In the ship, the first to see the crack was Peter. His face went pale. He just said, "My god, that thing is huge. Can we really take it down?"
And he was right. Because just one tentacle was almost the size of a five-story building. And there were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. It was hard to tell—they kept moving, kept shifting, kept pushing.
"Maybe we signed up for something above our pay grade," said Rocket in disbelief, his eyes staying on the visible tentacles. His ears were flat against his head. His tail had stopped moving. For once, he wasn't complaining about money or salvage rights. He was just staring.
On the side, Drax was visibly shaking with excitement. His hands gripped his knives. His eyes were wide. "All right, now THIS is going to be a glorious battle!" he shouted with a big smile on his face.
"I am Groot," said Groot. His voice was quieter than usual. He sounded nervous.
Eli stepped forward, now clearly seeing the thing through the viewport. The crack. The tentacles. The sheer scale of what they were facing. He said to the team, "Okay guys, I think we can do this. We stopped Ronan with an Infinity Stone. So how hard can a little monster be?"
"Little?!" Rocket shouted, spinning around to face him. "Are we even seeing the same thing here?! That's not a monster—that's a catastrophe! That's the thing nightmares have nightmares about!"
"I agree with Eli," said Gamora, standing up from her seat. Her hand rested on her sword. Her voice was calm. "If we could stop Ronan, then this should not be hard. And we can't let it just absorb the planet's life force."
Peter shouted while putting on his space helmet and grabbing his guns, "Alright gang, let's do this!"
"I'm telling you, Groot, these idiots are going to get us killed," said Rocket, even though he was already strapping on his own gear and preparing his big guns too. The others did the same. Weapons were checked. Suits were sealed. The air in the Milano shifted—from nervous energy to something sharper. Something ready.
And right at that second, they saw it.
A bright mix of colors exploded from the crack. Purples and blues and greens and golds—all of them swirling together, clashing, merging, forming something that made Eli's eyes hurt just to look at.
When they looked outside, they saw it.
A monster.
Almost as big as the Dark Aster.
Glowing in all kinds of colors—not just one or two, but all of them. Its body was a shifting mass of light and shadow, constantly changing, constantly moving. Its eyes—if they were eyes—burned white-hot in the center of its form.
It pulled itself through the crack in space, and the tentacles that had been pushing through before were just the edges of it. The tips. The rest of it was still coming.
And coming.
And coming.
Eli felt his heart stop for just a second.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Maybe I was wrong about the 'little' part."
"No kidding," Rocket muttered.
The monster roared.
It wasn't a sound—not really. It was a vibration that went through the ship, through their bones, through their teeth. A frequency that made everything hum.
Drax smiled wider.
Peter checked his blaster.
Gamora drew her sword.
Groot's branches extended into sharp points.
Rocket aimed his cannon.
And Eli—
Eli cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. The skull ring sat heavy on his finger, hidden against his palm.
"Let's go to work," he said.