After escaping the Kyln and working together to stop Ronan from delivering the Power Stone, the Guardians now bound more tightly than they'd like to admit find themselves entangled in a crisis larger than petty bounties or Ravager feuds. With the Orb handed to Nova Prime for safekeeping, Arden lingers on Xandar, sensing something off. Something distant... approaching.
It begins with a shadow.
A ripple cuts through space above the city, not a warp drive or jump portal something older. Cruder. A tear. And from it emerges a ship far too large for their sensors to make sense of. An ancient dreadnought, dark and silent, eclipsing part of the sun. This is not Ronan's hammer. This is Thanos himself.
Arden watches from the high towers of the Nova Hall, flanked by Rocket and Gamora. His core hums with dread. This Thanos is... different. Not the calculating monarch or the fanatic from his memories. This version bleeds familiarity but stinks of multiversal residue he has crossed, perhaps even conquered them.
When Thanos lands, he doesn't speak. He simply walks through the Nova Corps' outer defense like it's fog. He's here for the Stone and anyone in the way is collateral.
The Nova Corps fall fast. Not from incompetence, but sheer awe. The Power Stone, still in Nova custody, is now a beacon. But as the central vault is breached, something intervenes.
A new figure descends not from the sky, but as if he's unfolded into reality. A being tall and calm, layered in soft luminescence and shimmering fractures in space. This is Mateo, the chosen of the Loxarans, wielders of dimensional force. His presence is not loud. It's fundamental. As though space itself prefers him.
Mateo approaches the battle without hesitation. He walks up the side of buildings without climbing, phasing sideways through Kree soldiers as if their coordinates simply shifted. When he reaches the Nova Prime's fallen helm, it does not reject him. Instead, the Nova Force and Loxaran spatial code bind the helmet reforming slightly in his hands, now textured with glowing latticework.
The Nova-Loxaran fusion isn't like anything the Corps has seen. When Mateo moves, reality trembles. His attacks don't just hit they erase trajectories. Bullets vanish midair. Missiles loop into themselves. Gravity bends.
Arden joins him on the battlefield, moving through slowed time, dodging debris and guiding civilians into spatially-frozen alcoves. Beside him, Rocket has turned Xandar's city-wide shield grid into a trap. Drax is already bleeding, but smiling. Groot is growing into a tangled thicket to stop Thanos's forces from advancing further. Star-Lord brings up the rear still loud, still unsure, but firing all the same.
But nothing they do slows Thanos down.
When he finally steps into the Nova vault, he speaks and his voice splits. It echoes across dimensions, distorted like a corrupted memory of godhood.
"This Stone belongs to no one. But I remember killing the boy made of time. Curious to see him alive again."
Arden freezes. That line again hits like a wound. Thanos has met him elsewhere. Or else-when. The encounter is personal. Chilling. The Titan doesn't strike yet; he simply takes the Stone, and leaves destruction behind.
It's only when the Power Stone vanishes that Thanos's assault escalates. His ship fires, and the dreadnought begins collapsing pieces of the city into one another. Entire districts quake, caught in the war.
But Mateo rises.
From the rubble, pulsing with fused power, the Nova champion lifts into the air and anchors space around him. Arden, now fully in time-control mode, begins to coordinate a counterstrike.
Together Chronobit and Loxaran they pull reality tight around the battlefield. Arden slows time to near-frozen speeds, while Mateo creates moving anchor zones bubbles of stable space where the Guardians can fight freely without risk of Thanos's attacks warping physics around them.
Gamora slashes at corrupted Kree elites. Drax shatters a siege mech. Rocket rides on Groot's shoulder, firing a cannon nearly his own size. Quill, half out of breath, coordinates air cover with leftover Ravager support.
And Thanos… begins to smile.
The fight is not a win. It's a delay. In the end, Thanos departs, taking the Power Stone with him but not before warning them:
"Two champions. One of time. One of space. You delay the inevitable... beautifully. For now"
As his ship recedes, Xandar lies in ruins, but not obliterated. The people are alive. The corps broken but inspired. And standing on the remnants of the Nova Hall, Arden turns to Mateo.
"You came for the Stone?" Arden asks.
"No," Mateo replies. "I came to see if you were real."
The alliance is born not from treaty or politics but recognition. Champions of higher-dimensional races, both flung into a universe that now needs them more than ever.
And this? This was just the first wave.
Many things changed that day on xandar but one thing was for certain nothing would ever be the same especially for two young boys who had witnessed this tragedy. A bright young man by the name of Gon and the other by the name of Killua. Inspired by their friend Mateo they will become heroes in their own right.