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Tony's suit hadn't been able to assimilate much of the language the aliens had barked at him before they somehow disabled his armor and threw him into a dark room, but before shutdown his system did manage to process one word: prison.
Tony laughed sourly, coughing and regretting it; he'd taken a battering, trying to fight back against incarceration; he wouldn't be surprised if he'd cracked a rib or two. Tony probably would have guessed this was a prison cell of some sort without having to resort to his highly-experimental real-time language assimilation subroutine: the way the door clanged shut noisily as it was locked; the dank, mossy, impenetrable walls were another clue; the thick bars over the window, yeah, that was pretty distinctive too. There were chains too, but his captors hadn't bothered with them yet for Tony. Maybe they were puzzled by the armor, even though they'd managed to depower it somehow, and they hadn't stripped him from it yet.
He wasn't alone in the cell, though. That was concerning. And although Tony had escaped the chains, his new companion hadn't. Tony squinted at the other figure in the cell; he had a worrying notion that he'd maybe been thrown in the room to be eaten by a purple centaur.
Maybe purple centaur wasn't the right term. Centaurs didn't have an extra pair of eyes on the end of stalks; they probably also weren't covered in blue fur. This centaur-type-creature had weak spindly arms ending in seven-fingered hands; its main eyes were almond-shaped, larger than a human's; it had three vertical slits where Tony expected a nose to be. Most noticeably, it had no mouth.
It also had a tail that was also separately chained to the wall. It made sense; there was a scythe-like blade at the end, which was firmly bolted in a brace so it couldn't even move.
"It's rude to stare," the figure said, after a long pause, with a thick masculine voice that seemed to rumble around Tony's skull. Except, his prison companion didn't say it; Tony was keenly aware that the room was still painfully silent, except for Tony's own ragged breaths. It was some sort of… thought-speak? Directly spoken into his own brain? It felt a lot like being around Black Bolt.
"Sorry," Tony said, although he wasn't sure he was. "I'm Tony. Hi."
"Hello, Tony Hi," the figure thought-said. "I am the War-Prince, Alloran-Semitur-Corrass."
"Alloran-Semi—?"
"You can call me Alloran."
"You can call me Tony," Tony said, not wanting to bother explaining that Hi wasn't part of his name. Not when there were more urgent things going on here. Like what were those dinosaur-like aliens stalking around? And what kind of alien was Alloran? And why were both of them in this prison? He had to start small. "So, uh. What are you in for?"
One of Alloran's eyestalks twitched noticeably. "Excuse me?"
"Why do those, uh, friends of yours have you chained up in here with me?"
"They are not my friends," Alloran hissed, heatedly.
"Sorry, sorry." Tony held up a gauntleted hand, despaired that he couldn't light up his repulsors, and then worried whether holding up a palm was a hostile or peaceful gesture to whatever alien culture this Alloran was from. "Some of them looked like you."
"They're enslaved," Alloran thought-spoke; Tony could feel heat behind those words. Agony. Rage. "Them and the Hork-Bajirs with them. All taken over by Yeerks."
"Yurts?"
"Yeerks. Alien parasites that climb into brains, take over bodies, claim them for their own." Alloran tilted his mouthless face. "You have not heard of them where you're from?"
"My species are kind of new when it comes to exploring the galaxy," Tony admitted. He hated to admit that. The handful of aliens he'd met so far on his trip with the Guardians of the Galaxy tended to look at him like he was a baby when he admitted that. "The people I was traveling with might have heard of you," he offered, hoping that would mollify the furry alien a little.
It seemed to. Alloran's nose slits shuddered, like he was satisfied by Tony's answer. "Are your traveling companions the type to try and rescue you? I don't relish their odds if they are."
"Maybe," Tony allowed. The Guardians certainly were a toss-up kind of crazy, but he didn't think Quill was the kind of person to leave a man behind. "I think low odds actually increase my odds of them trying to rescue me, actually."
Alloran laughed directly into Tony's mind. "You have odd friends."
"So these Yeerks of yours – they put you in here?" Tony asked; as much as he liked banter, he liked being imprisoned much less.
"Just for a couple of hours."
"That's a lot of chains for just a couple of hours."
"They plan to kill me, after those hours are done. I suppose they want to ensure I don't run away."
Tony tilted his head. Huh. So the death penalty was a thing for this prison. That was...worrying. God, he hoped Quill had noticed him wander off in the wrong direction. He needed more information, to know if the Guardians themselves were gonna be in trouble on this planet themselves, leaving Tony to try and figure out a way out of this on his own.
"So is this your planet?" Tony started, gesturing at the window, which showed a pretty nice view: a forest of very tall trees. Maybe the Yeerks saved the good view for those about to die.
"It's not."
Tony stared. "That's your whole answer?"
"Forgive me if I have little wish to do anything but wait to die," Alloran thought-said, sounding pretty snippy.
Tony quirked a skeptical eyebrow at him. "Are you saying you have two hours left to live and you'd rather sit here in silence rather than talking about yourself? I've met a lot of alien races this year; no one yet hasn't been at least a little bit eager to hear their own voice."
"I don't have a voice to hear," Alloran shuffled his hooves like he was irritated. "Besides, some things are better than words."
Tony was still internally grimacing over his faux-pas when Alloran looked at him with his very alien eyes and oh—
Oh.
Yeah. Some things were easier than words.
History. So much history being dumped into Tony's brain in a stunning montage of brief memories. Alloran was an Andalite – a tribal, herbivore race, who often suffered from claustrophobia – his being in this small cell was one final insult before his execution. Alloran's homeworld was beautiful, covered in wide open plains; the Andalites were a species who'd never really known violence, until the Yeerks had started to crawl into their brains, enslaving as many as they could. And to save them – to save as many people as he could – Alloran had tried to unleash a Quantum Virus, which would have taken out every Hork-Bajir in existence, the dinosaur-type aliens that the Yeerk used as their shock troops to commit terrible violence against everyone they could.
The Hork-Bajir were an innocent, peaceful species. They didn't deserve to die. But killing them would have saved so many lives. It had been a difficult choice, but Alloran had made it.
Alloran's thoughts were painfully clear: if he had the choice, he would make that decision again.
Tony thought about that.
Tony thought about the problem he'd run away to space in order to escape thinking about for a while. He thought about infinite Earths colliding. He thought about the incursions trying to kill not just one universe, but all of them. He thought about the weapon he was making, back on Earth; the terrible price he was willing to pay to help keep their universe safe: his planet-killing weapon.
"You know what," Tony said, sinking down on the ground next to Alloran, tentatively patting him on one of his furry legs. He thought he heard the sound of Rocket's favorite blaster in the distance, the Guardians coming to his aid after all. "I think you and I might really get on."