The moment the name "Peter Quill" left Leander's lips, the atmosphere in the shop didn't just turn cold—it turned lethal. Hatton's massive, silver-skinned body stiffened like a statue. With a violent slam of his fleshy palm against the armrest of his mechanical wheelchair, the shop's security protocols roared back to life.
The four electromagnetic spheres on the ceiling hummed with a high-pitched, predatory whine, their targeting lasers painting red dots across Leander's chest. The twin machine guns on Hatton's chair swiveled, their barrels locked onto Leander's forehead.
"Are you one of Yondu's boys?" Hatton spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and genuine fear. He leaned forward, his green-patterned skin flushing a darker shade. "If you are, you should know that I, Hatton, and that blue-skinned whistle-blower are sworn enemies. You come in here eating my stock and asking about his golden boy? You've got a lot of nerve, kid."
Leander didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his hands in a gesture of peace. He just stood there, his golden eyes reflecting the spinning barrels of the guns. Part of him was curious—he wondered if his current skin density could deflect the rounds, or if he'd need to manually manipulate the metal in mid-air. It was a dangerous game, but Leander had faced gods; a silver merchant in a wheelchair didn't rattle him.
"Relax," Leander said, his voice smooth and devoid of the 'stiff AI' tone Hatton might have expected from a high-tech visitor. "I'm not a Ravager. I just need to find the man they call Quill. It's personal."
Hatton stared at Leander for a full sixty seconds, his finger hovering over the trigger. He looked for a twitch, a sign of a hidden weapon, or the tell-tale arrogance of a Yondu loyalist. Finding none—only a calm, almost terrifying confidence—he slowly tapped his armrest again. The guns retracted, and the spheres on the ceiling returned to their passive patrol.
"Alright. You've either got a death wish or you're the real deal," Hatton grunted, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. "Why do you want that thief? Did he swipe something from you too? He's got a habit of taking things that don't belong to him and leaving a trail of pissed-off merchants in his wake."
"Do you know where he is?" Leander asked, ignoring the insult. He had a hunch Hatton knew more than just Quill's location; he likely had the star-charts for half the sector. But Leander kept his cards close to his chest. He didn't want the word "Earthling" tied to his face just yet.
"I don't keep tabs on that loser," Hatton muttered, turning his chair back toward the scanning equipment. "Those Raiders are constantly on the move, roaming the void like a pack of starving wolves. Last I heard, they were hitting supply lines in Sector 3 of the Ridi system. But tracking a Ravager ship is like trying to catch smoke with a net. They don't stay in one place long enough to catch a tan."
Leander let out a short, dry chuckle. "He sounds famous."
"Yondu's crew? They're the biggest band of rogues in the galaxy," Hatton said, his voice full of professional disdain. "Mercenary work, piracy, smuggling... they'll do anything if the credits are right. They don't have an ounce of honor between the lot of them."
Hatton turned his attention back to the monitor where Leander's metal suitcase was being analyzed. "Anyway, the results are almost in. You're lucky. Preliminary scans show some unique properties, but don't get your hopes up. Metal is a commodity, kid. If you found a metallic asteroid, you could retire on a junk-moon. But a single suitcase? It's pocket change in my world."
Leander began to pace the shop, his eyes glowing with a faint, internal golden light. To his enhanced senses, the high-tech gadgets in the display cases looked surprisingly... basic. He looked at a row of energy cells; even at their peak, they only held about twenty percent of the output he'd seen from Tony's Mark I arc reactor back on Earth.
However, some of the portable gear was impressive. He spotted a pair of multi-spectrum goggles that made Tony's "O No. 2" glasses look like primitive toys. But he didn't care. To a man who could reshape matter with a thought, these were just fragile toys that could be crushed in a heartbeat. He wasn't here for gear; he was here for the way home.
His senses drifted toward the back room. He could "feel" Yumi standing behind a partition, her eyes glued to a surveillance monitor showing the main hall. He felt a prickle of annoyance. These two are definitely playing a game, he thought. They're sizing me up like a piece of meat. He caught the faint "vibration" of a data transmission. Yumi was sending a message in a coded script he couldn't decipher. He didn't fear them—he could collapse this entire building into a silver marble if he had to—but he needed them to stay cooperative until he had his answers.
Leander stepped closer to Hatton, his presence commanding the room. "The results, Hatton. I don't have all day."
Hatton turned his head, his expression a mix of confusion and calculation. "The scans are... weird. This metal is an elemental alloy I've never seen before. It's got top-tier hardness, but the conductivity and thermal expansion are completely off the charts. It doesn't fit the standard templates. It's an 'average' price metal because nobody knows how to work with it."
He looked Leander in the eye. "I'll give you 1,500 credits per cubic meter for the batch. That's the best you'll get. Most shops won't even touch this stuff because they can't melt it down without specialized Kree furnaces. Take it or leave it."
Leander didn't care about the price. "Keep the money. Deduct the cost of the battery I 'sampled' and give me the information I want. Consider the rest a tip for your silence."
Hatton's chubby face broke into a wide, genuine smile. He knew he was ripping the kid off—the metal was clearly worth five times that—but he wasn't about to argue with a "charitable" customer. "Spoken like a true gentleman. You've got a deal. What do you want to know? My lips are sealed."
"I want the room cleared," Leander said. "Just us."
"Of course, privacy is our specialty," Hatton chirped.
Leander glanced at the miniature security cameras tucked into the corners of the room. He could see the faint glow of the recording lights. He also felt Yumi's lingering presence through the wall. He flicked his wrist in a subtle, almost invisible motion.
A pulse of magnetic energy rippled through the shop. Every camera lens cracked internally, and the surveillance monitors in the back room went pitch-black. Behind the wall, he heard Yumi let out a muffled yelp of surprise as her equipment died.
Hatton didn't notice. He was too busy pulling up a holographic interface. "Ask away, kid."
"I want everything you have on Peter Quill," Leander said firmly. "The most detailed file you've got. Every scrap of history, every known haunt, and his origin."
Hatton let out a soft whistle. "You've got a real obsession with this guy. Fine. I've been tracking the Ravagers for years to protect my shipments. I've got a mountain of data on Yondu's pet human."
With a swipe of his hand, Hatton projected thousands of digital folders into the air. They swirled like a cyclone of data. Hatton's fingers blurred as he filtered the results. Within seconds, he condensed the information onto a sleek, silver tablet and tossed it to Leander.
"Ten minutes," Hatton said, his tone turning business-like. "Read it, memorize it, then get out. I don't want the Nova Corps tracing this transmission back to my shop."
Leander grabbed the tablet. His eyes flew across the screen, his mind processing the alien script with the help of his internal "translation" instinct.
Name: Peter Jason Quill Aliases: Star-Lord (Self-proclaimed), Star-Prince. Physical Stats: 188 cm / 79 kg. Race: Terran (Earthling). Class: Primitive/Biological. Capabilities: Master Pilot, Intermediate CQC, Marksman. Uses illegal 'Elemental' weaponry. Affiliations: Ravager Clan (Yondu Udonta's faction).
Leander's heart skipped a beat as he scrolled down. There it was—the section on "Terran Origin." He clicked a hyperlink that led to a deeper database on the inhabitants of Sector 4.
The entry was chillingly brief:
Planet: Earth (Terra). Classification: Low-level civilization. Protected under the Interstellar Non-Interference Act (Level 3). Location: Fringe of the Kree Empire, Sector 8. Coordinates: Sote N48380SS. Note: Known for biological diversity but zero warp-capability. Frequent target for illegal 'abduction' runs by low-tier scavengers.
Leander stared at the coordinates: Sote N48380SS. It was a string of characters that felt more valuable than all the gold on Xandar. He finally had a destination. He had the address of his home.
He skimmed through the rest of the file—Quill's run-ins with the Nova Corps, his "heroic" escape from a Kree prison, and a list of his known associates. But none of that mattered.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared on Leander's lips. He wasn't a ghost in the machine anymore. He was a traveler with a map. He looked at Hatton, who was busy checking his inventory, unaware that he had just handed a "primitive" boy the keys to the kingdom.