Star-Lord

"Fuck!" Shendu blurted out.

Everyone looked at him.

"You can talk?" Tony's eyes widened.

Shendu no longer had the luxury of pretending. He raised a claw and pointed at the white streak drawing closer in the sky.

Steve followed his claw, and his face went pale in an instant. "That's..."

Natasha's voice was as cold as ice. "That's a nuclear missile. The council launched it after all."

Tony swore as his faceplate snapped shut again. "I'll intercept it!"

"Too late." Shendu's voice was quiet, but everyone present heard it clearly.

"Where is it headed?" Steve turned toward Tony.

Tony's armor was scanning at full power. His voice trembled through the faceplate. "Midtown Manhattan... toward Times Square."

Times Square was where the Chitauri forces were making their last stand. Large numbers of civilians had yet to be evacuated, and it was also where they were headed.

If the nuclear missile exploded there...

"How much time?" Steve had already clenched his shield.

"Two minutes."

The entire substation fell into deathly silence.

What could they do in two minutes?

Was it enough to escape the blast zone? No.

Was it enough to evacuate the civilians? Even less so.

Shendu stared at the approaching white streak. The Mouse Talisman throbbed fiercely in his chest.

He thought again of those wrecks—the Leviathans sprawled across the streets, the crashed aircraft, the Chitauri war machines buried beneath the rubble.

As a demon from Hell, Shendu would never allow himself to die like this.

"Little dragon?" Steve's voice seemed to come from far away.

Shendu did not answer.

He closed his eyes and sank all his awareness into the pulsing talisman in his chest. Then he raised his head, looking at the dense mass of ruins and wreckage overhead.

Maybe they did not need to be intact. As long as they could move—even just a fragment, a claw, anything that could fly.

As long as it could hit it. As long as it could knock the nuclear missile off course or blow it up before it reached the ground.

Shendu drew a deep breath. His claws dug into the ground as the talisman's power surged from his body, turning into countless invisible threads that pierced the sky.

Tony's armor let out a piercing alarm. "Energy readings are spiking! The source is..."

Everyone looked at Shendu.

The dragon stood there with all five claws buried deep in the ground, his entire body shrouded in a faint golden glow.

His eyes were closed, and his expression was more focused than ever before.

Steve reached out, but Natasha grabbed him. "Don't touch him. He's... doing something. He seemed to do this in the tunnel too."

In the sky, the wreckage that had been lying completely still began to tremble.

A crashed Chitauri aircraft atop a building suddenly glowed with an eerie blue light. Black smoke spewed from its engines, and then it moved.

It slid crookedly off the roof, smashing through two walls before plunging headfirst toward the ground.

Farther away, the tail of another Leviathan wreck twitched.

On another street, more than a dozen scattered Chitauri corpses opened their eyes at once. Blue light reignited in their sockets as they struggled to their feet and staggered forward.

"My God..." Banner murmured.

On Tony's scanner, the energy curve was climbing madly, already surpassing every limit he understood.

For the first time, surprise entered his voice. "He's controlling those things? How is he doing that?"

Shendu could not hear them. His awareness was spread across dozens of threads, each one connected to a lifeless object, each one desperately trying to pull the wreckage upright.

It was too much. There were too many of them. The Mouse Talisman's power had already been weakened, and now he was giving it everything.

He could feel himself being drained dry.

But the nuclear missile was still flying.

One minute left.

He gritted his teeth, twisted all the threads into one, and slammed them all into the nearest aircraft wreck.

Move.

Move!

The aircraft trembled. Blue flames burst from its engines, and its hull tore free from the rubble, wobbling into the air.

Shendu felt his consciousness stretch like a string about to snap.

He stared at the aircraft, watched it clumsily adjust its direction, watched it point its nose at the approaching white streak.

With the last of his strength, he shoved that thread of consciousness forward.

The aircraft became a blue meteor, crashing head-on into the nuclear missile.

"What the hell?!" Tony's shocked voice came through the comms. "The nuclear missile was blown up by the collision!"

Shendu's vision went black. He felt his body falling, only to be caught halfway down by something.

In his haze, he heard Steve's voice. "Hang in there."

Then came Tony's swearing, Natasha's orders, Banner's roar, and a violent explosion.

Boom!

When Shendu opened his eyes again, he found himself curled inside a sleeping pod, with a face pressed close to its glass and staring at him.

The face was young, wearing a flippant smile, though his eyes shone with startling brightness.

"Hey, big guy. You're awake?"

The man stepped back, allowing Shendu to see him clearly.

He wore a reddish-brown leather jacket and slightly dirty pants, with a Walkman in hand. "S.H.I.E.L.D. really keeps an actual dragon. An Eastern dragon, too. That's a rare find."

Shendu did not answer.

He surveyed his surroundings. It was a white room, its walls covered in S.H.I.E.L.D. emblems, while several machines emitted steady beeping sounds.

His current appearance was reflected in the sleeping pod's glass. He looked hollowed out.

"Little dragon!"

The door was pushed open, and Steve strode in. Seeing Shendu's open eyes, he visibly relaxed. "You were unconscious for three days."

Three days.

Shendu slowly slid out of the sleeping pod. His claws touched the floor, and the icy sensation traveled up through his feet.

"That nuclear missile..." Shendu said, his voice somewhat hoarse.

Since he had already spoken before, there was no need to keep pretending to be mute.

"You blew it up by ramming it."

Tony explained the situation from the doorway. "It exploded two hundred meters above Times Square. More than three thousand people died, but if it weren't for you... that number would have been in the hundreds of thousands. Even we would have died."

Tony walked in and pointed at the ceiling. "Those things—the wreckage you controlled—all turned into scrap metal. How did you do it?"

Shendu lowered his head and looked at his claws. He had already prepared an explanation.

"My ability."

He spoke slowly. "I can... give some of my power to lifeless objects. Only temporarily, and only within a limited range."

Tony stared at him for a long while, seemingly judging whether he was telling the truth.

Shendu did not avoid Tony's gaze. After all, he was telling the truth.

The young man in the leather jacket's eyes lit up. "So he can make dead things move? I remember there are a few anime figurines on the ship."

Steve frowned. "Who are you?"

"Oh, right. I forgot to introduce myself."

The man shoved his Walkman into his pocket and held out a hand. "Peter Quill, from Missouri. Currently a... galactic junk-cleanup contractor. You can call me Star-Lord."