GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: ROCKET RACCOON & GROOT STEAL THE GALAXY!

“I believe I issued a command,” says Navorth.

  Chaos ensues. Mayhem, indeed, although the word is now newly redefined to levels that might have previously been considered preposterous.

  The Black Knights surge forward. Hanxchamp shrieks like a small child. Gruntgrill dives for cover. Xorb Xorbux and Roamer rush to retrieve their weapons. The security guards try to defend themselves against the onrushing Black Knights.

  Rocket and Groot duck into the shadows.

  Gamora appears like a ghost. There is a lot of blasting and screaming nearby. She slices the cuffs off Rocket and Groot with her swords.

  “What’s the plan?” she asks.

  “We drag our pal out of that pit,” says Rocket.

  “What about all the rest of this?” Gamora asks.

  “I am Groot,” says Groot.

  “Okay, fine,” agrees Gamora. “You get the Recorder. I’ll deal with everything else.”

  She leaps away. In a second, she is locked in feral combat with two Black Knights. Rocket and Groot rush for the main walkway. Rocket pauses for a second to lift a pair of Subduematics from some of the slaughtered security guards. The Oh What the Flark Event Horizon is so far behind him now that it’s just a dot to him. As he scampers, he double-fires the pistols and takes out a Black Knight. Roaring, Cardinal Navorth comes at him, his sword swinging, leaving trails of light in the air.

  Roamer appears out of nowhere and smashes into Navorth. The two giants fall, grappling furiously.

  “Wow,” says Rocket. “Did the Spaceknight guy just switch sides?”

  “I am Groot!”

  “Yeah, he did seem to be wavering earlier, that’s true. Trouble is, is he gonna turn back on us once he’s finished with the right reverent poncy-cape there?”

  “I am Groot.”

  “Fair point. The outcome of the scrap is in doubt.”

  Roamer and Navorth are engaged in a terrible struggle. They are both super-mortal, armored giants. Every blow they strike makes the air buckle. Dents and rips are appearing in Roamer’s matte-black armor.

  Rocket and Groot rush up to the edge of the walkway overlooking the Datacore. The cage is descending far below.

  “You can’t stop this! You won’t!” Xorb Xorbux yells, leaping in front of them, his pistol aimed.

  “Wanna bet?” snarls Rocket, and he shoots first.

  Hit by a brace of Subduematic rounds, Xorb Xorbux topples backward off the walkway and falls into the Datacore pit. His plummeting body strikes the cage a glancing blow on the way down and makes it swing perilously. Xorbux disappears into the pink inferno.

  “The percentile just dropped by one percent!” Gruntgrill cries from cover, studying his tablet.

  “Flarking Z’Nox was as stupid as he was ugly,” Rocket says to Groot. “Hey, Kaliklaki!”

  Groot lifts the struggling Gruntgrill out from hiding and sets him on the deck.

  “What’s the score now, pal?”

  “Uhm it’s -tik!- ninety-five percent and rising fast! Ninety-six! Ninety-seven! -tik! - -tik! - -tik! - we’re achieving total datamap!”

  “Pull him back up!”

  Gruntgrill shrugs. A stray shot has fused the lever of the hoist control.

  “Flark!” says Rocket. “Groot, buddy! Haul him outta there!”

  Groot reaches out and grabs the chain suspending the cage. He starts to pull with every fiber of power his massive body contains. The cage begins to inch back up.

  With a fanatical scream, Allandra Meramati runs forward and plunges a power dagger into Groot’s ribs. Groot screams with pain. The dagger stuck in his side seethes with lethal energy. Allandra Meramati grabs the protruding handle and begins to saw.

  “You will not deny this!” she yells. “I believe!”

  “I believe you have chugged the wrong Kool-Aid, lady,” replies Rocket. He puts her down with shots from both pistols, straight-armed. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

  But Groot is badly hurt. He falls forward, the dagger crackling in his side. He topples into the Core. His grip on the chain gone, the cage drops again, violently.

  Groot plunges into infinity.

  I cannot save him. I cannot save myself. I am lit up with pink light. My mind screams.

  This is the end. It is the beginning of a new era—but for me, it is the end.

  • CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR •

  WATCHED

  THERE is peace down here. Absolute peace.

  I float in a void. From far above, I hear shooting and yelling. I hear Rocket calling frantically for his friend Groot. I hear Roamer and Cardinal Navorth battling it out like utter furies. I hear the teleport bang as Sharnor the Accuser appears in the Datacore Chamber and starts throwing her weight around. I hear Gamora gleefully slashing Black Knights apart. I hear Ebon’s dark-matter zap and Grekan Yaer’s gravimetric slam as they sweep into the Datacore Chamber and try to contain the situation, without success. I hear Badoon War Brotherhood troopers storming the room, blasting at everything and everyone.

  I hear Arnok Gruntgrill yelling, “Ninety-nine! Ninety-nine -tik!-percent!”

  Ninety-nine percent. Almost there. The sounds recede. They fade.

  I feel my mind draining.

  I feel empty, yet full.

  I am alone in a soft pink void. I feel and see and know everything. It is an extraordinary feeling, gentle reader—one that I will never be able to repeat. I am almost a deity in terms of my apprehension and ability.

  I feel…

  I feel as much in control of everything as…Ferris Bueller did in the movie of that name…

  Uhm…the title of which is…well, it includes the words “Day Off” and an apostrophe “s.” Just catering to your cultural…your…

  What was I saying again, gentle reader?

  I am getting very groggy.

  I…

  What?

  Something. Did you just say something, kind reader?

  Jump-ship ju-ju, I love your boog-a-loo, I love…

  What was I saying?

  Wait…

  I am not alone in the void. Beside me hovers a giant robed figure with an even more disproportionately giant bald head.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I am the Watcher,” the figure says. “I am Uatu. I am of the oldest race of all. I watch and record to compile all aspects of knowledge of the Universe.”

  “Oh, a bit like me, then,” I nod.

  “No, no, I compile the ultimate knowledge of the Universe,” he says.

  “So do I.”

  “Yes, but not on quite the same scale.”

  “Okay.”

  There is a long pause. The Multiverse twinkles around us.

  “So, uhm, you can hear me?” asks the Watcher.

  “Yes.”

  “And see me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right,” says the Watcher. “That’s not supposed to happen at all.”

  “What can I tell you?” I ask him. “I can see everything right now. I am one with the Universe.”

  “I suppose that’s to be expected, then,” says the Watcher.

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “This is a moment of cosmic significance, Recorder 127. This is the moment when the very nature of Universe 616 changes forever.”

  “And you’re down with that, are you, Mr. Uatu?”

  “I am just a Watcher,” he observes.

  “But you could step in and act,” I suggest. “You have the power.”

  “I do.”

  “But you won’t.”

  • CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE •

  GREAT POWER, GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

  “I’m still a little dismayed by the idea you can see me,” admits the Watcher.

  “What do I do?” I ask.

  “In what sense?”

  “I can’t handle this. My databanks are exploding and melting. I am simply not capable of being the conduit of the Power Cosmic. The matter forges of Rigel made me well, but they did not build me for this.”


  “Then depose the power to someone who can,” the Watcher says.

  Then he fades away, big head and all.

  “One hundred percent!” I hear Arnok Gruntgrill cry from far above.

  I’ve just become a god, gentle reader.

  Give me a sec, okay?

  I AM in the cage, swinging above the pink froth of the Datacore. I look up and see the sorely wounded Groot clinging perilously to the cage’s chain above me.

  I am one with everything. I do not want or need such power.

  Depose, the Watcher said.

  I know I have no other chance. Neither does the Multiverse.

  I pulse the omnipotence out…and give it to Groot.

  Why? I hear you ask, gentle reader.

  Well, because I trust him.

  Groot, hanging from the chain, lights up. The dagger impaling his ribs flies out of him and drops into the pink data-chaos below us. The wound it leaves closes and heals.

  He coruscates with power.

  “I am Groot,” he says, surprised.

  He’s right. He is Groot. Everything is Groot.

  “Send them away!” I cry. “Groot, I beg you! Send them away! You can do this. I have given you—granted you—the Power Cosmic.”

  Groot has become the most powerful entity in the Universe. He is omnipotent. He could, just now, do anything. Implode Galactus. Turn Thor inside out. Restart universal history.

  But I really, really trust him.

  “You’re pretty much glowing down there, pal,” Rocket calls from above.

  “I AM GROOT!”

  “Okay, that’s fine, you’re a god. That’s great. Nifty. Now act godly-like toward your old pal. Sort this flark out!”

  Groot does. Sharnor the Accuser vanishes. So do Grekan Yaer and Ebon. So do the Badoon and Roamer, and all of the fanatics of the Universal Church of Truth.

  Groot grows more confident. He reaches out farther with his power. In the shattered building above us, hundreds of warriors disappear. The troubled skies above downtown Alpha C are suddenly empty of battlecruisers and Templeships.

  I have underestimated Groot’s nobility.

  The power in Groot swells. It is blinding. Timely HQ is restored to its pristine condition. The swathes of downtown Alpha C crushed or flattened by the fighting are remade. The fallen and the wounded are made whole again. Even the dead are returned to life: alien warriors, Timely employees, innocent Alpha Centauran bystanders. As the dead Badoon, Kree, Xandarian, Shi’ar, and Universal Church faithful rise again, they vanish back to their places of origin.

  “Amazing, pal!” Rocket calls down. “Just amazing! You put everything back the way it was! Good for you!”

  “You have done the right thing, Groot,” I say. “You have used the power responsibly.”

  “One last thing you gotta do, ol’ buddy!” Rocket calls out. “One last thing to put right.”

  “I am Groot.”

  “Yes, you do know! You gotta get rid of the power…the power and the whole Datacore, so no one can ever use it again!”

  “I am Groot.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I bet it’s a temptation to keep it now you’ve got it,” agrees Rocket from far above. “But you gotta do the right thing, pal. Come on, you’re one of the good guys. You were raised in the royal houses of Planet X. You were brought up to understand the demands and responsibilities of power, and to rule wisely as a good ol’ tree monarch if the time ever came! Come on, pal! Besides, I don’t wanna hang out with a guy who’s all omnipotent and stuff!”

  Groot is tempted. I can feel he is very, very tempted to keep the power. But, of course, gentle reader, Groot does the right thing. The power bursts out of him as he casts it off. It radiates out across the infinite Multiverse, dissipating and fading into the cosmic background. The Datacore below us empties in a pink flash—its energies dispelled, its data scattered. The Datacore’s systems fuse and burn out. Groot has made sure that it can never, ever be used again.

  As his last act as a god, Groot creates a cosmic safeguard. If anyone, anywhere ever even thinks of trying to recreate the datamap in pursuit of such power, they will instantly forget how to do it.

  The threat is gone. It can never return.

  I am left in the cage, with Groot limply clinging to the chain above me. We swing gently in silence above a dark, burned-out, almost bottomless pit: the ruined chamber of the Datacore.

  I hear Rocket whistle in relief.

  “Hang on, pals!” he cries. “I’ll fish you both out of there.”

  He turns to Gruntgrill and Hanxchamp. Nearby, Sledly Rarnak is sitting on the deck, feeling his neck, a puzzled expression on his face. Xorb Xorbux is leaning against a wall close by, in a state of shock.

  “Don’t just stand there!” Rocket demands. “Help me pull them up!”

  “And fast!” Gamora exclaims, rushing to the guardrail. “We’ve got to get them up! The chain is damaged! It’s going to give way!”

  Her warning is already too late. Chain links fatigued by the immense cosmic energies creak. Stress fractures appear.

  Links break and part.

  Groot and I fall. We hurtle to our certain deaths.

  There is a sudden smell of surprise twist, a waft of shock reveal, and a flash of light.

  The Spaceknight appears above us. His flight systems screaming, he powerdives and grabs Groot with one hand and the cage with the other.

  With immense effort, Roamer carries us back up and deposits us on the walkway.

  “Buddy!” Rocket cries with delight, hugging Groot’s leg.

  “I am Groot!”

  “Good to see you, too, Recorder-dude!” grins Rocket.

  He looks at Roamer.

  “Nice save,” he says.

  “I was cast far away by the Power Cosmic,” replies Roamer. “I triggered the interpolator. This is, apparently, where the Universe needed me to be.”

  “I think the Universe is trying to tell you something,” says Rocket.

  “I think I will listen carefully to it and take its advice seriously,” replies Roamer.

  “Hang on! Hang on!” Hanxchamp cries. “These nutzookis just flarked up the biggest Timely project ever! They’ve cost us…more money than I can even imagine, and I can imagine quite a bit when it comes to money! They’ve ruined our corporate future! I want them locked up! They’re going to pay for these crimes! Pay big time! Grab them, Spaceknight, and take them to—”

  “I do not work for you, anymore,” replies Roamer. He detaches the interpolator and hands it to Gruntgrill. “Thanks to this device, I realize I have not been working for you all along. It has shown me my error.”

  “Someone do something!” Hanxchamp squeals. None of his executives seem prepared to act.

  “Do something!” Hanxchamp screams.

  • CHAPTER FORTY-SIX •

  TAILS TO ASTONISH

  “We are,” says Rocket Raccoon. “We’re leaving.”

  LO, there must be an ending.

  Oh, come on, gentle reader. If you’re reading this, you must read comic books. I was culturally referencing for you again. Earth comic books do that sort of pronouncement all the time.

  All the shooting and dying and exploding is done, and there will be no more screaming, panicking, or running away from jeopardy. My story is essentially over.

  I just want to emphasize the gravity of what we have just been through. The Universe—the Multiverse—was just saved from a terrible fate.

  Thanks, essentially, to a talking raccoon and a mobile tree. Yes, yes, other people were involved—but at the heart of it, it was down to them. Without them, you’d have “Timely Inc.” stenciled on your cells. Without them, the future would be mindlessly endless and megacorporate.

  They are Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, Multiverse, actually—but the title is not so zingy when it doesn’t alliterate.

  And so, I say goodbye to them.

  “It’s been an experience,” I say as we approach the open landing ramp of the Nova Corps pro
wl cruiser on upper-landing-dock port 3447 of the Timely Inc. tower.

  Gamora has already slipped away into the shadows, with a “See you later” to Rocket and a peck on the cheek to Groot. She has her own agendas to pursue until it is time for the Guardians to regroup and do their thing again.

  Roamer has also departed, with a silent nod to us. I think he is heading back to Galador.

  “Wanna come with us, bud?” asks Rocket.

  “Where are you going?” I reply.

  “Oh, thither and yon. Yon in particular.”

  “I must stay here,” I answer. “I have summoned the Ark Fleets of Rigel. They are coming to collect and repair me, and to recover all of my dormant brethren in the Core below.”

  “Yeah?” says Rocket.

  “I need to be downloaded and reformatted,” I say. “I have been out in the Universe for too long.”

  “Okay, bud, good luck with that,” says Rocket.

  “Are you sad, Rocket Raccoon?” I ask.

  “Nah, nah, just got some dust in my eye is all.”

  “I am Groot,” says Groot, bending down and hugging me.

  “Yes, you are,” I say.

  “If you’re ever in need of an adventure,” says Rocket, walking up the prowl cruiser’s ramp, “you know, give us a call. Okay, Recorder-pal?”

  “I am Groot,” says Groot.

  “I am Groot,” I reply, with the warmest affection.

  And then they are gone.

  MANY of your years have passed since then, gentle reader. Though my databanks have been emptied by my Rigellian creators, I have deliberately chosen to retain the records of that high-spirited adventure, for personal reasons. I have also done my best to record the fortunes and destinies of the principal characters involved in the episode. I have absorbed and recorded them over the years through any data sources I can find.

  I can share them with you, if you like.

  Sharnor the Accuser returned to Hala as a “hero of the people.” She announced to the Kree that she had single-handedly overturned Timely Inc.’s threat. She was feted and given decorations, and ultimately joined the staff of Ronan the Accuser, who celebrated her merits and presented her with an even bigger ceremonial hammer.