Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy:
Knowhere: a port of call near the end of the universe. It’s a real place.
Peter Quill aka Star-Lord sits in a bar drinking and flirting with a beautiful alien with squid hair. She seems interested until she looks at someone behind Peter and turns away. Peter looks up to see his teammate, a very scantily clad Gamora. What is she doing here? he demands. What is he doing here? she retorts. He is a wanted man. So is she, he points out.
Gamora sits down. Why is he here, at a place he always goes to? Because it’s the first place anyone would look for him. So they probably already looked for him here and moved on. What is she doing here? Looking for him. It’s the first place she looked. He thought she needed some special time for herself.
As she touches his shoulder, Peter reminds her they talked about this. If she hangs out with him in places like this, it dramatically lowers his chances of meeting a fine female companion. Which because he is the only human in this port of the galaxy is already an uphill--
She takes his drink. Did he forget his father has the entire Spartax army looking for him? He did have the entire Spartax army looking for him / them, he corrects her. Past tense. Now he has the entire Spartax army looking for Thanos. He didn’t forget about Peter, Gamora insists. He is so hard to forget, Peter agrees and grabs another drink from a tray.
So what’s the plan? Gamora asks. What are they going to do next? Peter downs his drink. First, she is going to look at her bellybutton and she’s going to see that his one of a kind elemental gun is pointed right at it. Then she is going to tell him who she really is. Has she ever been hit by lightning? He hears you never really recover.
She glares. Peter swears. She is a Skrull, isn’t she? She-- His voice begins to slur as he mutters, it’s this sneaky shapeshifting. That’s why no one likes them. She grins and tells him he doesn’t have to be mean. He was right about his father. He does have the Spartax guard looking for Thanos. So he hired every bounty hunter on the planet to look for Star-Lord. Skrull bounty hunter, he slurs. And the drink the bartender served him. Well, she thinks he’s figuring it out. Peter’s head hits the table a he loses consciousness.
Elsewhere:
So how is everybody doing? his father, King J-son of Spartax asks the other galactic bigwigs in their clandestine meeting. Everyone’s kingdom still in one piece? Everyone happy they now have a newly reformed Skrull Empire?
Young Annihilus asks him to tell them why he called them together. He did not, J-son replies. He was hoping he could go his whole life without ever speaking to any of them again.
Where is Thanos? Y-garr of the Brotherhood of the Badoon asks bluntly. If he knew he’d be dead, J-son replies. Kallark, aka Gladiator, Majestor of the Shi’ar announces he called this meeting. What’s on his mind? the Brood Queen demands. Kallark begins, this will be a sensitive subject based on the events of the past few weeks. But there is a problem on Earth and it needs to be taken care of immediately. He is speaking of the young mutant, the Kree Supreme Intelligence remarks. Kallark agrees. They have received similar intelligence, it continues. Why doesn’t he fill them in on his superior intelligence? J-son suggests.
The Supreme Intelligence shows two images of the same woman: one as innocent Marvel Girl, the other as the world-destroying Dark Phoenix. It explains her Earth name is Jean Grey. She is a mutant, one of the original X-Men. Most of them will know her as the primary host of the Phoenix. She embodied the Phoenix when it sent the Glarax star into supernova, obliterating 11 planets including the entirety of the Trikla population.
She died years ago, the Brood Queen points out. The Supreme Intelligence reveals the X-Men have gone into the past and pulled the original members to the present.
Why would they go and do a thing like that? J-son wonders. Nostalgia, the Supreme Intelligence suggests. Because they are mad selfish children who never learn from their mistakes, Gladiator opines. Is that the reason for the space-time continuum tremor he has been told about? J-son asks. No, but it didn’t help, the Supreme Intelligence replies.
Young Anihilus wants to know more. J-son explains, before Thanos tried in vain to invade Earth there was a space time continuum tremor. Just another example that Earth is a dangerous place full of dangerous creatures. But Gladiator didn’t bring them all here just to let him say: I told you so.
Gladiator states Jean Grey is alive and she needs to answer for her crimes. J-son remarks she has travelled here from the past. So she has not actually committed these crimes yet. It is the feeling of the Shi’ar Empire that it does not matter. Crimes against the galaxy were committed and the creature who committed them is alive and well. The Shi’ar Empire will have Jean Grey answer for those crimes.
What is he asking of them? the Brood Queen wonders. He is not asking them for anything. He is telling them that the Shi’ar Empire is about to embark on a secret operation to extract the young woman from her home planet. They plan on taking her to the galactic tribunal for judgment and punishment. They agreed to leave the Earth alone and the Shi’ar plan on doing that as soon as this matter which is of great importance to their empire is taken care of. He invites each of their empires to have delegations at the trial.
The Supreme Intelligence reiterates the creature did not commit the crimes just yet. They were committed, Gladiator replies with a cold smile. By her. And she will answer for them.
The Guardians’ ship, cloaked from interstellar radar:
Rocket Raccoon, Groot and Drax sit at a table when they get a transmission from Tony Stark. He explains he stole their intergalactic smartphone transmitter thing last time he was on board. That’s how he’s broadcasting to them. With all things with Thanos and that he won’t be joining them on any more intergalactic vacation disasters. He wants to thank them for their incredible hospitality. He’s really glad he was able to spend this time with them. If they are interested in any more Earth stowaways he’s got a couple of candidates who… um. He’s going to retake this, Stark decides. Okay. This is Tony Stark broadcasting live from--
Rocket interrupts, pointing out he knows they are watching him, right? He thinks he is recording that? He might have? Tony admits sheepishly. Any chance he could give him back the tech he stole? Rocket asks. Any chance FedEx delvers to where they are? Tony retorts. He doesn’t know what that is, but assumes it means he is being a gronad, Rocket replies.
Tony thanks them again. Rocket ends the transmission while he is still talking. They continue eating
Knowhere: at a market are their last member Gamora and their guest Angela. Gamora tries out a huge sword, asking for Angela’s opinion. She doesn’t see it, Angela replies, it’s not her. Suddenly, she senses something, namely the fake Gamora carrying the unconscious Star-Lord.
The two women confront her, asking what she is doing. Fake Gamora fires a gun, which Gamora easily deflects the blast with her blade. Before fake Gamora can say anything, Angela decapitates her. She points out the corpse is changing shape. Gamora explains she is a Skrull. A species of shapeshifting scoundrels and religious zealots. And she just killed her. Gamora wanted to know who she worked for. Angela tells her she knows who she works for. She told her that Quill’s father has him marked for death. She works for his father. She promises the conversation she would have had with the bounty hunter would have been irritating. She sees she has perturbed Gamora. As her killer, this bounty is hers. She presents Gamora her ship.
Gamora is confused, then Peter awakes. Gamora tells him he is an idiot.
Sixteen Flonax (one week) later aboard the Guardians’ ship:
Rocket Raccoon tells the others they’ll want to hear this. He explains last week, when the murder girls (Angela and Gamora) decided to go totally flarnak on the Badoon home planet, Rocket took the liberty of planting a signal tag into their intelligence system. The can hear any and all Badoon communications. A lot of it is nonsense, just run of the mill Badoon garbage. So he created a secondary program that alerts him if there was any mention of Earth in any of their communication systems. And he was just alerted.
He plays the transmission of a Badoon announcing the Shi’ar would have them believe that the Phoenix host is alive and well and living on Earth. The Gladiator of the Shi’ar told the king of Spartax they are going to find this young Jean Grey human and put her on a ridiculous trial. All the troubles of the galaxy and this is what the Shi’ar are busy with. Let them put on this show for the Spartax. It will only make it easier for the Brotherhood of Badoon to put its sword down this side of the galaxy once and for all.
Peter explains Jean Grey was an X-Man. A mutant Earth girl. She became host of this destructive cosmic force. It wasn’t pretty. At all. But she is dead. The Phoenix is gone, he guesses.
Maybe it’s someone else, Gamora suggests. No, they were talking about Jean Grey, Peter points out. But if she is alive, she was the harbinger of destruction, Gamora remarks. Peter insists something feels off. Drax decides it isn’t their concern.
Peter remarks he doesn’t like the sound of this. He doesn’t like his father’s name being mentioned because— Peter thinks he is looking for an excuse to come to Earth. It might just be gossip, Rocket points out. The Badoon are dumb zarnooks. They will know if someone is coming to Earth as soon as—
There is an alert. Someone has entered Earthspace. Someone being the Shi’ar. His call, Rocket tells Peter. They getting into this? Let’s go, Peter orders.
They track the ship or try to but it cloaks itself. Rocket admits they are better than the Guardians. However, he can calibrate their course and find their destination: Canada. What’s a Canada? Gamora asks. It’s cold and distant. Peter quips. She’ll love it. Drax figures it’s a tap.
Ready for a fight, they leave the ship to find a group of shocked X-Men. Peter realizes they are too late.
