This Quill guy really should've been sent to hang out with Peter or Scott.
They'd definitely have endless common topics to talk about—three nonstop chatterboxes together would probably drive everyone else insane.
Still, Nick Fury managed to extract some useful information.
First, the speaker was also from Earth.
Second, he'd apparently been kidnapped by aliens as a child.
If he was human, that made things easier. At the very least, communication wouldn't be difficult.
"You're from Earth? Are there any other humans on your ship?" Fury immediately asked.
The question carried multiple layers of meaning. Besides the obvious, Fury was also probing for the number of passengers aboard and where the others came from.
Clearly, Quill had absolutely no defenses against that kind of questioning.
His loose mouth spilled everything instantly.
"Oh, I'm the only Earthling. There are five of us total—a big red dude, a green-skinned hot alien chick, a tree guy, a raccoon, and yours truly, the devastatingly handsome Star-Lord."
Gamora and Rocket both covered their faces in disbelief.
As the only two people on the ship whose brains were functioning properly, they found Quill's tendency to reveal everything about themselves absolutely unbearable.
"Move aside. I'll handle this."
Gamora finally couldn't take it anymore.
Quill's intelligence was a complete mystery.
When he was dumb, he was really dumb.
Like right now.
"People of Earth, we came here looking for someone."
Gamora skipped the nonsense and stated their purpose directly.
Meanwhile, the ship had already broken through Earth's atmosphere.
Rocket gave Gamora a thumbs-up, while the navigation display in the center of the cockpit pinpointed the source of Fury's signal.
"Head straight there."
At Boss Lady Gamora's command, the spacecraft immediately accelerated toward Avengers Base.
---
Inside the Avengers Base, Fury had just opened his mouth to ask who they were looking for when the alien ship suddenly appeared directly above the facility.
"Earthling, so this is your headquarters? Doesn't look very impressive."
From the ship, Gamora looked down over the entire Avengers compound.
She had seen far more technologically advanced bases.
More imposing ones.
She had even seen living biological bases made of flesh and tissue.
Compared to those, the Avengers Base looked primitive and outdated.
Alarms rang throughout the facility.
Steve and the Avengers still present in the base immediately rushed outside and looked up at the hovering spacecraft overhead.
"So this is the alien ship Fury mentioned?" Steve asked Natasha.
"Yeah. Fury said there's a human aboard who was kidnapped by aliens as a child. Apparently they're here looking for someone."
"Looking for someone? Do any of you know aliens?"
Rhodey shot into the air with a burst of thrusters, attempting to approach Quill's ship.
But the next moment, the ship's main cannon unfolded and locked directly onto him.
"Whoa—hey! I'm not hostile!"
Rhodey immediately raised both hands.
Fury's orders were to make contact with the aliens—not start a war.
"Attention, Earthlings below! I'm landing the ship now, so you'd better move back. This thing crashes into stuff all the time unless you hand over the head of that tin-can guy."
Rocket piloted the ship in a crooked, wobbling descent.
Even now, his obsession with collecting weird body parts hadn't disappeared.
"The hell?! That alien wants my head? A genius brain like mine would be wasted on him. Wait, no—why should I give him my head at all?!"
Rhodey's train of thought was equally bizarre.
"Enough, Rocket. Quit screwing around and find Karl first."
Gamora's voice came through the speakers.
Everyone below immediately froze upon hearing Karl's name.
"The Karl the aliens mentioned… is it the Karl we know?"
Rhodey looked toward the others.
He had clearly heard the name, and there was only one Karl he knew.
"No idea. We'll know once they come out," Sam said while looking toward the ship's hatch.
The ship had already landed.
The hatch opened.
The first person out was a blond man who looked exactly like a human from Earth.
Beside him walked a long-haired green-skinned beauty.
Behind them came a muscular brute, a towering tree creature, and a short furry animal.
"Sorry, but I gotta ask—is that thing your pet?" Rhodey's loose mouth struck first again.
Rocket instantly exploded.
Baring his teeth, he looked ready to leap at Rhodey.
"The hell?! You're the pet! Your whole family are pets!!"
Quill quickly grabbed Rocket and tossed him toward Groot behind them.
"I am Groot."
Groot calmly spoke a single sentence while holding Rocket.
"The hell?! Even you too?! I'm the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy!!"
Rocket unleashed a furious tirade at Groot while obediently sitting on his shoulder.
Quill then walked straight toward Steve.
In his eyes, Steve was obviously the leader of the group.
After all, Captain America naturally carried the aura of a born leader.
"You the boss here?"
Quill extended his hand.
Steve shook it politely.
"Hard to believe Earth still looks the same after I've been gone for over twenty years. Feels weirdly nostalgic."
Quill looked around.
There wasn't much greenery inside the base itself, but in the distance there were still forests and rivers.
"You're really from Earth?" Steve asked despite already knowing the answer.
Among the group, Quill looked the most human.
Surely it wasn't the tree guy or the raccoon.
"Yep. Used to live in Colorado. Been a long time since I came back. Planning to go visit."
Quill thought about his childhood.
His mother's death.
The father he'd never met.
And the canyon where Yondu took him away.
After introductions were exchanged, Quill and the others followed Steve's group into the base and sat down in a conference room.
"So who exactly is this Karl you're looking for? We happen to know a Karl too," Natasha asked once everyone had settled down.
The more she listened, the more she felt the Karl Quill mentioned was the same one they knew.
"Oh, his name's Karl Norman. We fought Ronan the Accuser together and stopped him from destroying Xandar…"
The moment Quill started talking, he couldn't stop.
He vividly described the entire battle against Ronan in dramatic detail.
Sure enough.
Everyone silently concluded that the Karl Quill knew was indeed their Karl.
But how had Karl even gotten involved with these people?
"As far as we know, Karl has never left Earth. So how exactly did he end up helping you save Xandar?" Steve asked the key question.
To his knowledge, Karl had never left Earth.
And even if he had, he'd need transportation.
Humans couldn't survive in the vacuum of space with their bare bodies alone.
Of course, Steve still didn't know someone like Captain Marvel existed.
Otherwise, that assumption would've fallen apart immediately.
"Huh? That's not right. I met Karl in a prison on Xandar," Quill said, equally confused.
How could these people claim Karl had never left Earth?
Could it be they weren't talking about the same Karl at all?
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