Authour's Note: This is just a fun beginning I wrote. I just wanted to post it as a prompt, maybe help inspire someone else to write a crossover like this. Might finish it... might not. I am not going to finish it now but maybe later. It is just something I work on on my breaks when I blank out on my other stories.

The Universal Truth

Chapter One

The Collector

"Who is this guy you wanted to sell this to?" Peter asked as he tossed the orb lightly between his hands. It gave a slight tingle to the palms as if there was an energy rising out of it. If Ronan wanted it, Peter didn't doubt that it did hold some sort of power or importance to it. However, if this was true, he really didn't have a good feeling selling it to a stranger who held their business in a ruffian's bar. Now, he was no prince or anything, but he didn't consider himself the level of the shit covered gangster with the hooked hand and a shifty eye who was sitting next to him either. Quill scooted his chair a few inches away from the man as if that would stop those creepy eyes from following him everywhere. Gamora smiled cheekily as she leaned back in her chair.

"Better than that weakling you were going to sell it to," she sniped. Peter frowned at her, though begged her to continue. "He's called the Collector. He collects objects, organisms, anything rare unique across the galaxy and the universe. I made a deal with him before you caught us in this mess."

"Let me say that 'this mess'," Quill said, trying his best to mock her attitude, "was a joint effort with you, the raccoon, and the walking bush. Meat head, where ever he is, just joined for the ride." Rocket gave only a stiff growl in retort from where he was pinned in the corner of the booth. He and the Meat head just had gotten into a rather large fight and Quill was still wondering if the raccoons strange lack of insults was because he was still sensitive about being called a vermin, or his mind was occupied on when and where to destroy Drax. Luckily though, for all of their sakes, the Destroyer took a step outside to probably dunk his head in a bucket of water to clear his mind.

"Still your fault," she retorted absent mindedly. Quill pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance and shook his head. Sure, he was the one who took the orb to begin with, ran from the Ravagers, and tried to sell it to a person who didn't have any balls. Sure it was the bounty on his head that caused Rocket and Groot to chase after him in the first place, but that nearly did save his life. He was sure that if he and Gamora went at it with no intervention by the bounty hunter tag team, she would have killed him with no remorse and have gotten the orb anyways. So, he sent them all to prison, but no one died. It was also him who took the orb from the planet before Ronan's men could get it, therefore either saving the galaxy from the man's crazy wrath or prolonging its destruction.

"When are we going to see this Collector man then?" Quill sighed.

"Anytime now. Their fight probably gained the man's curiosity-"

"What?" he gasped as he stole a glance to their drunken and upset friend.

"Well, he is a collector of rare things. How many times have you seen a talking animal or a walking humanoid tree?" Gemora asked rhetorically. Quill heard Rocket grumble something under his breath about not being an animal. He rolled his eyes lightly. "We aren't the most normal group, now are we? I don't even think Terrans are that common."

Suddenly a door on the wall next to them opened up and a young pink girl came walking out, her pigtails bouncing behind her gracefully. She wore a huge welcoming smile, which Peter knew never reached her eyes. It was quite a common thing in the Galaxy to be a slave. Some planets banned the trade of humanoids which was something Peter quite agreed with. However, no matter the effort put forth either by himself or an entire solar system, the trade was something that could never be stopped. And so, Peter Quill had given up quite a long time ago. The girl caught sight of them and stepped to the side, beckoning them through the door.

"My master will see you all now," she said with a happy, yet very hollow tone. Quill frowned slightly as he stood up and pocketed the orb in his holster.

The room was very dim, only lit by a few florescent lights on the floors and in the occasional display cages that lined the entrance way and were scattered about the far depths of the establishment. Creatures of all gruesome types were trapped behind the sparkling glass, gnawing at it with their grimy teeth or slimy hands, wanting to get out. Some of the more powerful or dangerous ones had some electrical restraints around them in order to keep them restrained and away from the glass. A slight smell hung in the air that even the most powerful of cleaners couldn't get out but only fade into the background, hidden but not overlooked. It was the smell of feces, of decay, of death. A shiver ran up Quill's spine as he walked down the entranceway, peering into the quite elaborate of cages. Exotic as the creatures were, he couldn't help but notice that the farther they walked into the room, the more humanoid these creatures became.

They twisted their way through the labyrinth of cases before they came upon the center of the room where a man was crouched over an examination table. The strange looking man, dressed in odd shades of white which Peter had absolutely no clue how they didn't manage to get dirty in the state of the place, seemed to be poking and prodding at a small silver object, a pocket watch. The girl skipped over with heavy steps and whispered something into the man's ear who upon hearing it looked up with a rather disappointed look on his face as if he was upset to have been pulled away from his long and enduring work. Sharp black eyes studied them from across the room, examining them like his next specimen. They passed over each one of them. Quill felt himself tense up as the man's eyes seemed to falter on him before continuing on. Once they caught sight of Groot though, the man completely stopped in shock, managing to drop one of the tools he was holding.

"My god," he whispered almost breathless before scurrying over to them in a gust of wind. He got up right close to the walking tree, not leaving the least bit of a centimeter between them. Groot frowned slightly, rather confused and took a tiny step backwards, which the man just followed suit to close the gap. He ran his fingers along the tree's twisted branch legs as if admiring the craftsmanship. Quill saw Rocket start to bare his teeth as the man continued. "How would you like to sell your corpse to me once you passed? Add it to my collection, eh?" the man seemed to chuckle as he licked his lips at the pleasure of the idea.

"Hey! Get your sticky fingers off of him, or I'll put you in your collection!" Rocket scolded the man. Gamora gave him a light kick to the side to make him shut up. Though Quill was glad to see his insults coming back, though they still weren't up to par, this was simply not the time for it. The Collector took a step back as if he was truly offended, though it was quite obvious he wasn't.

"Of natural causes of course! All of my specimens here have come to me by all humane standards," the man tried to assure them. Quill looked around at all of the cages. Now that they were standing in the middle of the room, he could see just how many there were. The room stretched far above their heads littering the walls with cages with even some from there dangling from the ceiling by rusted bands of steel wire. Whether all of the creatures were bought, hunted, captured, or kidnapped, he doubted that the man was telling the truth.

"Well… though it's quite a fascinating amount of stuff you got here, I am afraid my friends and I don't wish to be in it," Quill told him lightly. The man looked at him as if he spoke blasphemy.

"Mr…"

"Starlord-"

"Yes, Starlord. You look like a man who knows a good treasure when he sees one, and this, I am so happy to tell you, is quite more than fascinating. I would like to give you a tour of my gallery and let your eyes see for themselves-"

"We are here to fulfill our previous arrangement," Gamora interrupted motioning to Quill for the orb but the man waved her off lightly.

"It's not going anywhere, I assume. I rarely show people the vast extents of my wealth, but… for a disbeliever's eyes, I simply must," he said with a challenging grin that stretched from ear to ear. Quill felt the shivers run back down his back again as the Collector spun away, his white fur cape billowing behind him. He whisked the battered silver watch off of the table and stuffed it in his pocket possibly for another time before beckoning them deeper into his lair. Gamora sent her elbow into Quills ribs as they all attempted to follow.

"Ow, what was that for?" he whined as he rubbed his sore side.

"You don't insult his gallery!"

"I was complimenting it! Besides, it was his gallery that was going to put Groot's dead body in a box, or possibly make it into a box."

"All we needed was to sell the orb and now we get a tour. He's probably going to give us less for it-"

"Hey, all I want to know is if this thing," Quill said patting his pocket where the orb was securely held, "is going in the right hands or not. It has to be a weapon of some sort. I want to know who we are giving it to."

"That's not you choice to decide," she huffed stubbornly.

"What does it matter anyways? As long as we get paid I say we drop it off to the highest bidder," Rocket snided. Quill rolled his eyes as they continued to follow the strange man through his vast amounts of cages. The way he was blabbering on about each individual creature made Peter think he was a mad man. Though the creatures never failed to entertain them, the farther they went the more Peter regretted doing this. It seemed like hours since they had last seen the door and there was no sign of them yet stopping. Rocket was pretending to shoot himself with his own gun while Groot was actually taking a fascination to one of the displays that held a weird slime monster which slightly resembled a zit. Everyone was shooting annoyed and completely bored glares at Quill but they had no choice but to trudge on. If they were to stop, they surely would have become lost. Though all of the creatures surely were strange and some Quill didn't approve of, there was nothing that labeled the man as an evil fellow, just a crack job with a strange hobby and a twisted sense of humanity. As they neared the entrance, though a couple rows back, the Collector let out a joyous shout as he came upon a rather specific cage.

"Ahh, you simply are going to love this one," he said with a grin, quite distasteful in Quill's perspective. "I got it just half a decade ago. I wanted to show it to you because it is among one of my most rarest and astounding items!" As they got closer to the display Quill came to realise that the creature trapped on the other side of the glass was nothing other than a teenage boy. He was curled up tight in the far corner with his head rested against the polished glass. Golden hair strayed down into his face which was distorted in a restless sleep. What really caught Quill off guard was that the boy had on the electrical restraints which were given to the more dangerous creatures in the other reaches of the man's collection. They separated his gloved hands by an invisible force and there was even a restraint around the kid's neck for extra measure. This boy couldn't have possibly needed those.

"Yes, you are simply going to love it!" the man repeated with a huge unrestrained grin on his face. "It is quite entertaining." The Collector giggled lightly as he pressed a small button on his wrist watch and twisted the face of it. As if in response the restraints around the boy seemed to tighten slightly and a zap of electricity flew out of them. The boy in the display screamed and writhed suddenly, awakened from his unconscious state, and his arms flew up to his neck in an attempt to rip the collar off of him. As soon as it started though, the current stopped and the collector tapped the face of his watch once more which made the restraints fall completely slack. The boy fell tiredly to the floor, still in pain from its torture. Quill frowned slightly as the Collector smiled.

"Come on now, get up! Show us what that science of yours can do! Entertain us," the man chanted to the boy on the other side. The boy lifted his head and piercing golden eyes were shot right at the man in a deathly stare, ignoring everyone around expect the Collector. He forced himself tiredly off of the ground so he was sitting again and just glared even more.

"Alchemie ist nicht zur Unterhaltung!" the boy yelled at the man, completely ignoring the fact that the Collector was the one in charge of the electrical restraints that were on him. However, it was what the boy had said that made Quill stop cold in his tracks.

"Was that… German?" he asked the man. Quill knew many languages in the Galaxy, and could identify even more, but this was the first time since he left earth that he heard any of their languages at all. The Collector nodded his head as he gave a slight kick to a small mechanical contraption on the platform of the cage.

"Translator is constantly breaking down. This is the only display I need it for," he commented lightly. "It is an alchemist, a rare breed, and is even one of the most powerful of them all. What makes it a truly remarkable piece is that it's Terran. Such a primitive planet with no advanced technology in space travel. It is a rare occasion to find one in these far reaches of the galaxy," the man said matter of factly. Quill frowned as he heard the man say this. Though it was quite true Earth didn't have a complex enough space program nor the resources to make it so far out, the man made his planet sound like it had no intelligence at all. They had Albert Einstein, they had Plato, they had Disney World. No civilization could have these things and not be able to call themselves great.

"How did you get him?" Quill asked numbly as he stared at the golden haired boy who had now taken up an attempt to rip the restraints off of himself. They were tight to the skin and refused to move. It was quite obvious from the start the boy was wasting his time.

"I bought it. It was a fair price, even for its condition. However, if you are wondering the seller, I like to keep them quiet." The Collector suddenly turned to Quill and then eyed him slightly with those beady black eyes and leaned in closer. He took a tiny step back from the crazed man as he started to feel the man's breath on his chin.

"You're Terran aren't you?" he asked him suspiciously. Quill opened his mouth to answer but found it shutting again without saying anything. How do you really respond to that, when the man was trying to put you in his gallery? The man reached into his pocket and Quill found his hand faltering towards his gun holster but suddenly the man whipped out a business card from his long white cloak. He handed it to him and then swiftly handed another one back towards Groot. "You two know where I am. If you are willing to make a deal, I gladly accept," he said smoothly.

"What's the use of money if you're in a box?" Rocket mumbled underneath his breath but the collector seemed to ignore him as his attention was caught by the boy in the cage. The kid looked suddenly curious as he walked over to the glass. His eyes had changed from the Collector to Quill in a split second.

"American?" he asked him curiously, the translator beeping out the words with rough static and a heavy accent. Quill, quite stunned, nodded his head.

"Yeah, hamburger, cheesesteaks, and rock and roll. Where are you from?" The boy's face softened lightly and Quill almost saw a shadow of a smile.

"Amestris… or…. Austria… I guess," the boy muttered scratching his head, obviously trying to remember the English word. As he was in deep thought, the collector stepped forward and gently pushed Quill out of the way. The Austrian looked up from his thoughts and seeing the man again, his face quickly hardened and his glare returned.

"Alchemy!" he commanded the child again. The boy, instead of backing down, took another step closer to the glass. He glared daggers into the man as they were only now inches apart.

"Alchemy is not for entertainment," the boy hissed at him, daring him to try anything. Quill thought the Collector would surely electrocute the boy again with the look he was giving him, but instead he reached into his pocket and pulled out that silver watch he was toying with earlier. The boy's eyes widened in shock as he saw it and he reached out like he wanted to snatch it just to forget that there was a wall of glass there. He punched the glass a good time and it sent the entire display rattling. Everyone flinched but the Collector who knew he had the boy beat. "Give it back," he growled at the man, but the man just grinned at the boy.

"I will give it back to you as long as you show my customers here what exactly your powerful art can do," he smiled. The boy frowned as he contemplated the trade for a bit but he soon took a step back still keeping his eyes locked on the Collector. He brought his hands together and clapped them lightly. He bent down and placed his palm on the ground. Blue lights flashed around. Quill thought it was a trick of the light but suddenly the floor started morph and move. It formed and soon with a blinding flash, a sculpture of a horse stood in the middle of the cage floor. The boy stood up and examined his work for a second.

"Ha! Is that his mighty power? He made a statue!" Rocket cackled, clutching his stomach in his laughter. The boy growled and clapped his hands again. He touched the sculpture and it suddenly shot out into huge piring spikes. They hit the glass with such force it threatened to crack it. The entire box rattled and the boy shot a glare towards the rather frightened raccoon, who Quill guessed already shat his pants. However, suddenly the Collector tapped his wrist watch and the boy was sent to the ground in pain. He writhed and clawed at his restraints around his neck but they wouldn't budge. Quill watched, on the verge of being horrified, but the man wasn't stopping. Tears started to bridge the boy's eyes and a scream tore at his lips. Gamora suddenly shot her hand down to his holster and pulled out the strange orb. She held it in front of the Collector, who's eyes were latched maliciously on the Austrian.

"I think we still have business to attend to," she said stiffly. The man looked down with a new glint in his eyes as he caught sight of the orb. He tapped his wrist again and the electricity stopped, leaving the boy breathless and weak on the floor. The restraints quickly tightened once more and locked the boy's hands in their original position, keeping them from clapping again.

"Y-yes, I do believe you have seen the wonderful extent of my collection," he smiled weakly as if the orb put him in a trance. "L-let's take a look here." The man started to lead the group of travellers back to his work desk but Quill's eyes lingered on the boy infront of him. He was still panting a bit from his shock, but was managing to force himself to sit up, snapping himself out of his daze. A look of hopelessness flashed across his face for a second and Quill felt a bit of anger swirl back on him. He tapped the glass lightly with his finger once his group was out of the way. The kid looked a bit startled as his head whipped up in the dirrection of the noise and his golden eyes latched onto his.

"Lass mich allein," Edward mumbled sadly, a huge frown forming on his face. The translator must have broke down again as his german was coming out fully, his accent pure. The kid shifted enough to turn his back on Quill as it seemed he didn't want to talk anymore.

"What's you name?" Quill asked. The kid didn't reply for a second as he must have been translating in his head.

"W-why do you want to know?" he stumbled weakly, nothing above a mutter.

"I just do."

"Bitte," the kid gasped. "Just leave me alone." Quill sighed as he saw the boy curl up a bit as if he was suddenly cold.

"Why do you want the watch?"

"Doesn't matter any more. I am stuck in here. It's out there. I am trillions of miles where I should be-"

"And where is that?" The boy looked up at him, his golden eyes holding a pained memory. Quill wasn't unsettled by the kid's emotion. He felt the same when he was taken from earth and his mother a long time ago. However, there was something darker in his eyes than even what he felt back then. His

"H-home," the alchemist muttered.