Holding off unconsciousness, Terrax forces his head upward, looking over towards the Collector, who stands before him, clearly pleased with himself. “What are you babbling about, Collector?” Terrax manages, ignoring for the moment the pain in his limbs and the throbbing in his head.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with, lackey!” Collector dismisses Terrax with a casual, contemptuous tone.

“Don’t I have a right to know?” Terrax urges, surprised by the coarseness in his own voice, realizing that the parched sensation in his throat has external indicators as well as the stinging sensation that it causes his throat. “If I was an help in your goal?”

Collector pulls Terrax’s head upward, so that he glares down at the former herald. “As I told you when this began**,” Collector responds sharply, his voice continuing to display a contemptuous, dismissal, “your role in this is purely incidental. You were merely a donor in my experiments to find the unique energy signature I was searching for. For that very small, minor role, I will give you the reward you do not deserve.”

[**Last issue.]

“I trust that will mean that you will free me?” Terrax asks, even as the Collector releases his head, causing it to drop once more on his chest, as the pain in his neck reminds him that there is currently no comfortable position for his head.

“You will see…when I return,” the Collector returns. “It is so interesting, really. The very place that no one would be likely to look…the very area where Galactus sought more energy, and where he first met the living planet, Ego. For someone to take the ship there, to hide it from peering eyes…! It is no matter now, however. My search has paid off, and the ship will soon be mine!”

A blinding flash of light causes Terrax to close his eyes tightly and keep his head positioned downward. As he looks up, the Collector is gone! “The Collector is mad with his own dreams of collections,” Terrax manages. “I must try to escape while he is gone, lest he decide to add me to his insane collection.”

END OF INTERLUDE

oki floats downward, onto the living planet, as he looks around for any sign of his brother. He sees the humanoid form of Ego, recognizing it from his own research some time earlier. As he hovers slightly above the planet’s sandy surface, Ego turns to face him, glaring over at Loki, realizing that he cannot trust the god of mischief.

“What do you want, Loki?” Ego demands.

“I was searching for any signs of my brother,” Loki replies, noticing that there is signs that a fissure was present moments earlier, but has since sealed itself like a closed wound.

“He has departed this world,” Ego replies, “and perhaps gone on to the next.”

“That is doubtful,” Loki replies. “I believe you have under-estimated my brother. I should know. I have done so myself…in the past.”

“Perhaps so,” Ego replies, his hands charging with power. He then directs that energy at Loki in deadly energy blasts, which are blocked by Loki’s personal force field. “But I will not do so with you!”

Loki returns the energy attack with one of his own, as his own godly power flows from his fingertips, striking Ego, and driving him back. “You have already done so!” Loki responds, as energy crackles around him.

“And thou hath also under-estimated me, Ego!” Thor booms, as he literally explodes out of the closed fissure, as stone, dirt, and other earthly fragments shoot outward from the closed fissure, even as Ego bends over, clearly injured by Thor’s actions in extricating himself from Ego’s prison. “Aye, and ‘twill be a mistake thou will surely regret!”

Loki sees an opening in Ego’s defenses and continues his mystic assault on Ego’s humanoid form, blasting him back, causing him to crash into a series of small shrubbery that bends over from his own weight! “Thy timing could not have been better, brother!” Loki remarks. “Let us finish this conflict and continue on to our goal!”

“If there is a finish to this conflict,” Ego responds, still hurting from his wound, but sending out a deadly energy charge that strikes Loki, knocking him from the sky, where he crashes onto the ground, “it will not be by your hand!”

“Get thee back, Loki!” Thor commands, as he throws his hammer, which strikes Ego’s humanoid form in the face, jerking his head back, as he falls to the ground with a thud! “The god of thunder will handle Ego, and teach him a much-needed lesson!”

With that, Thor flies over to the humanoid form of Ego, preparing to strike him as he swoops downward. As he reaches the form of Ego, it de-materializes, leaving Thor to strike little more than air. As he does so, he crashes down into the ground, creating a crater in his wake.

As Thor stands in the crater, the ground around him starts to shake, as it reforms into a hill, which grows in size rapidly, even as Thor stands on the hill, trying to retain his footing. “What manner of trickery is this?” he asks, even as he concentrates on keeping his footing on the rapidly growing, transforming hill.

Soon, the hill opens up at the top, swallowing Thor up in its wake, even as Loki looks on with surprise, as his brother disappears within the mountain that stands so close to him. For Loki’s part, he quickly takes to the air, flying above the spot where he was a moment before, but trying to stay—at least for the moment—a safe distance from the mountain.

Suddenly, the mountain erupts with lava spewing outward, fifty feet into air, and cascading throughout the air. Loki involuntarily flies backwards, away from the volcano’s shooting lava, even as he mentally raises his own personal force field, to protect him against any stray shots of lava.

“Amazing,” Loki remarks, looking at the mountain, which now has lava flowing along its base, creating something akin to a river of lava around the mountain’s base. “My brother hath been trapped within the erupting volcano!” For a moment, Loki allows himself to be caught up in the pleasant prospect that his brother may not return from his fiery prison. Yet, he realizes, once more, that if Ego would turn on someone who was once his friend, he would surely turn on Loki.  Despite his judgment to the contrary, Loki realizes that, if he can help his brother, he surely must do so. To do otherwise, at this point, would surely be tantamount to writing his own death warrant. This crazed living planet, powerful and unreasonable, would surely think nothing of killing him—and the useless silver-clad former herald of the hated Galactus would do little, if anything, to help prevent this calamity. “The worthless ant!” Loki spats, looking around, but still finding no sign of the Surfer, who was struck early on by Ego’s beams of energy.

Deep within the heart of the planet Ego, Thor is encircled by flames and lava. He looks around, taking in his surroundings. “The villainous Ego did send me to the very bowels of his planet,” Thor silently considers. “While I cannot be harmed by the flames and heat, though they do burn as bright as the sun itself, still I cannot remain here indefinitely.”

Thor pulls his hammer from his belt, as it starts to glow with power. As he holds it, concentrating his energies into it, it glows ever brighter. “It would take some time to return to the surface by merely flying towards the surface, and the fiend would likely make it more difficult still by shifting amid my flight,” Thor thinks, as he continues to send his energy through his hammer.

“I will let my godly strength flow through my hammer,” Thor continues to think to himself, as the energy continues to flow through him and into his hammer, “as I have done on a few other occasions, and use it as a weapon to fell my foe, and break free of this hellish prison.”

With that, Thor’s hammer glows to nearly blinding intensity, as Thor holds the handle with both hands, steadying it in his grip. Within seconds, energy flows from his hammer, striking the fiery walls of his prison. Immediately, the entire planet starts to go through tremors and shakes. Thor immediately flies directly upward, flying through the lava, which disperses and gives way to his rapidly-flying form.

Thor bursts out of the ground above the planet’s surface, even as Loki helps Firelord move along the planet’s surface. The planet is convulsing with tremors from Thor’s attack in the very heart of the planet. Loki is looking around, trying to determine what has happened to Ego.

“Loki!” Thor calls out, as lava trails from his body. “Get thee away from the planet, and get Firelord with thee!”

“Aye,” Loki responds, taking to the air, carrying Firelord beneath him. “Thou need tell me only once!”

As Loki and Firelord return to space, meeting the Surfer, who is hovering on his quivering board, Thor remains behind for a moment. He starts to take to the air, but is halted by the sight of the humanoid form of Ego, walking along the planet’s surface.

“Thor,” he calls out. “You have injured me greatly.”

“But not mortally,” Thor replies. “I was careful not to harm thee too much. I sought not to slay thee, merely to make thee realize that I could not let thee dictate to Odin’s emissaries.”

“Point taken,” Ego replies. “There will be some time before I am sufficiently healed to do any traveling, so the ship is yours.”

“Why did you seek the ship so fervently?” Thor asks.

“Kinship,” Ego responds. “You would probably not understand…the kinship of one planet to another, and so many others…”

Thor looks at Ego, then nods. He takes to the air, and waves at the fading form of Ego as he does so. “I understand,” he responds. “Perhaps you will learn something still. Only time will tell.”

As Thor flies off into space, to re-unite with Loki and the others, Ego’s humanoid form fades from view, as the living planet starts his regenerative process. There will be another day, and another opportunity. He must wait and bide his time until that day surfaces…