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Dead silence fell over the bridge.
Every jaw dropped. Every eye went wide. They stared at the petite figure that had materialized out of thin air in the center of their bridge, and for a few long seconds, no one made a sound.
Then the silence cracked.
PFFT,
Someone couldn't hold it together. A single snort escaped.
That was all it took. Raucous laughter exploded across the bridge.
"Ha! I thought we had a real problem on our hands! It's just some little chick!"
"Scared the hell out of me! How'd she even get in? Crawl through a drain pipe?"
"Look at her — all soft and delicate. Is Asgard really that desperate? They're sending out little girls now?"
The Ravagers loosened up. Whatever cold unease had gripped them moments before evaporated completely.
None of them knew how she'd gotten in. But it didn't matter. Asgardian or not, a single girl waltzing alone onto their warship, that wasn't bravery. That was a death wish.
Yondu settled back in his command chair, the tension draining from his face.
He pointed at Hermione and barked at the scar-covered bruiser beside him: "Taserface. Go grab her. Hell, maybe we'll make Asgard pay a ransom."
"Heh heh. You got it, boss."
Taserface bared his teeth in a savage grin, cracked his knuckles, and crossed the bridge in long heavy strides.
"Don't take it personally, sweetheart. You walked right into this one."
The other Ravagers egged him on, their expressions easy and mocking. A fat lamb that delivered itself, Asgardian name or not, cross the Ravagers and you'd still get skinned.
Taserface reached for her.
Hermione didn't look at him. She barely moved. She just raised her hand, slowly, almost lazily.
A ball of flame ignited in her open palm.
It came from nowhere, alive with something that had no right to exist, pulsing with a vitality that set every instinct screaming. The moment it appeared, the temperature spiked. The air warped. Shadows bent.
Taserface's grin died on his face.
He tried to step back.
He didn't make it.
The flame lunged like a living thing and swallowed him whole.
No scream. No struggle. One blink — and the man, his armor, every shred of his equipment, gone. Reduced to fine ash. Not even a smear on the floor.
Silence.
A silence so complete it had weight.
Every laugh died at once. Every face locked into the same rigid, bloodless expression.
The flame rose into the air, circled once, and then exploded outward. Dozens of fiery serpents erupted from the blast, each one coiling silently through the bridge, slithering to every corner, weaving around every Ravager until the whole crew stood trapped inside a ring of living fire.
Heat rolled over them in blistering waves. Skin prickled. Eyes watered. The air turned thick with the smell of something burnt that used to be a person.
The bridge that had been shaking with laughter 30 seconds ago was now so quiet you could hear someone swallow.
No one dared to breathe.
What the hell is that thing?
Only then did Hermione lift her head. Her gaze moved across the room without urgency, without heat, and stopped on Yondu.
"Just now," she said, her voice light and unhurried, "who was it that told me to come over?"
The serpents surrounding Yondu lowered their heads.
"I'm here. So what happens next?"
The Ravagers standing around Yondu took one collective step backward. Then another. Then several more, until their boss was the only one standing anywhere near the front.
Every man for himself. Classic.
Yondu said nothing.
He swallowed. His back was already soaked through with cold sweat. He could feel the annihilation radiating off those flame-things, a pressure against his skin, against something deeper than skin, and he had no doubt at all that one stray thought from her would be enough.
But years of hard living kept him upright. He breathed in slowly, schooled his face into something resembling calm, and let his eyes move. Looking for anything. A gap. An angle.
He made a decision. His lips parted by a fraction, and a whistle slipped out, barely a sound at all.
The Yaka Arrow lifted from its housing and drifted, silent and steady, curving around toward Hermione's back.
"One thing I should mention," Hermione said, not turning around. "My Fiendfyre can incinerate Yaka metal before it gets within a foot of me. If you'd rather keep that arrow, I'd strongly suggest leaving it alone."
Yondu's expression stopped moving entirely. His pupils pulled tight.
For a long moment, stubbornness and fear waged a very short war.
Fear won.
The Yaka Arrow dropped to the floor with a small, undignified clatter.
He wasn't going to gamble on that.
Hermione gave a small nod. She'd known who he was from the moment she saw him, blue skin, mohawk, that particular look of someone who'd been dangerous for a very long time.
Yondu Udonta. Peter Quill's surrogate father. "Star-Lord's" reluctant dad.
"Esteemed... Asgardian... um." Yondu labored over the words. He forced something onto his face that was technically a smile. "Lady. We extend our most sincere apologies for the, uh, extremely poor welcome just now. This was a misunderstanding. A total misunderstanding."
"I'm not Asgardian," Hermione said.
He blinked. "Sorry?"
"I'm Midgardian."
"Midgard?"
"Earth."
"Earth?!"
His eyes went wide.
He thought of Peter, involuntarily. Also from Earth.
But the gap between Peter and whatever was standing in front of him right now, that wasn't a gap. That was a canyon.
Since when did Earth produce something like this? That backwater planet was supposed to be full of nothing but soft, breakable, ordinary people.
Hermione had already stopped paying attention to his shock. She walked to the ship's display and studied it.
"You hit my ship," she said.
Half the bridge nearly choked.
We hit your ship?
They had been parked. Sitting completely still. She had blasted out of a jump point without looking and plowed straight into them, and now she was standing here telling them they had hit her?
The nerve.
Not a single one of them said a word out loud. Not with those serpents still circling.
"But your ship looks fine," Yondu ventured carefully.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. She pointed at the screen. "Fine? You call that fine? There's a paint scratch on the side wing. The size of a fingernail."
Everyone stared.
She's running a con.
Yondu's jaw ticked. He could feel his blood pressure climbing in real time. The smile stayed on his face through sheer willpower.
"And... how would you like us to compensate you?"
"This is a brand-new ship. Custom order, Asgard's latest model." Hermione held up one finger and traced a line in the air. "I barely had it out of the Nine Realms before you scratched it. Depreciation alone—" She tilted her head. "Tell you what. I'm not unreasonable. You clearly aren't rolling in money, so I'll round down. Keep the loose change."
Yondu and the crew let out a quiet, collective breath.
Maybe she was going to be generous about it.
"Five billion credits should cover it."
The breath came right back in.
➤ Next: What Are You Doing on My Ship?
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