Holding Out For A Hero
“Set him down there!” Peter shouts as the guardians filter into the med bay as post battle adrenaline is replaced with panic and worry. Rocket is swiftly placed down as Nebula gets the life support working. “Who was that guy?” She asks pressing the mask down carefully as they all let out a sigh of relief when they see the plastic mist up with shallow breaths.
The guardians look between each other to see if anyone had answer. “He was a golden man clearly.” Venom deadpans deciding to poke it head out “Thanks, captain obvious.” Peter rolls his eyes “You’re welcome.” Vee happily bounces side to side. “Alright but for real it could be the Sovereign. Never seen them shoot lasers though.” Quill recounts.
Drax then comes to a genius conclusion “Maybe they are after the harbulerry batteries. Explains why they are so determined to kill rocket.” He theorises, face no longer covered in blood and cuts after the fight, eating from the bag of Zarg nuts. “I cannot believe that you are eating those now of all times.” Nebula shakes her head from the other side of the table as she eventually stumbles across the x-ray machine.
“They taste good. Do you want some?” He asked offering the bag forward “Drax, we need to focus!” Mantis chides as the screens of the X-ray machine suddenly flicker to light revealing something only two of the were expecting. Atop Rocket’s heart there was some sort of technical device that needed closure inspection. “Oh great.” Nebula sighs.
Quill’s eyes immediately dart up “What? Do you recognise it?” He asks desperately “Not a lot but this looks like the handiwork of Orgocorp. The killswitch requires some sort of passkey to be deactivated” She explains taking a step back “But now we have a lead. With the tag on his chest and this I know someone who can help us get into Orgocorp and get what we need.” Nebula adds as her usual cool returns.
No doubt this would be some sort of black market contact and would end up with the guardians performing some sort of heist in order to get a favour and it would go on and on and on until they were days behind schedule.
The again what choice did they have?
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“Are you serious? The Ravagers!” Peter yells spotting the familiar ship in through the window whilst working on restoring the faulty parts of the Bowie. “They are the ones that took you from earth as a baby.” Mantis tried to remember “Yeah but not as a baby. I was kid and Grandfather had just screamed in my face and shoved me out the room.” Quill confirms.
Flipping it open and inspecting it revealed that the fix would only take a few seconds whilst the unwanted guests docked. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t visit him while you were on Earth.” She wonders with a squint “We were busy having a child.” Venom answers causing Peter to cringe at the symbiote “That is a major oversimplification…but yeah.” He explains before flicking the switch into place as the yellow swiftly turned green.
He looks over to his half-sister whilst tinkering with the comm device “besides he’d be ninety five years old and humans die when they’re like fifty.” He mumbles before announcing the repair to Nebula “It’s done. Get the ship ready to go.” Quill instructs getting an affirmative. “Are you going to die?!” Mantis abruptly asks much to Peter’s offense.
“I’m not fifty!”
Out of sight Drax had nodded along, still not having finished his snack of choice “Forget it. Let’s just see what the Ravagers know that could help us save Rocket.” He deflates rubbing his temple as the three slowly move towards the docking bay.
The group met Groot and Nebula half way and soon the guardians were face to face with the ravagers. With them was the one and only Gamora who had forgone her old assassin attire in favour of Ravager appropriate clothes as the once usually well styled hair has become knotted against itself in certain places.
Even better there was apparently half a dozen sparkle portals all over his ship’s hallway. The sister exchange a grunt and tilt of a the head as greeting before quickly moving past the non-existent pleasantries and towards “Business.”.
---
Gamora gave a quick debrief over what the guardians were going to have to do ranging from how they were going to get into the place, the necessary outfits even more information on the High Evolutionary. “In some parts of the galaxy he is worshiped as a God.” She divulges whilst the group changed into the frankly uncomfortable outfits “Yeah well we helped kil; someone called The God Butcherer. This guy is just another wanna be conqueror.” Peter shrugs nearly tripping over the leg of the jumpsuit.
“By the way that weird hammer isn’t going with us.” She adds annoyed at the reminder of the only true guardians’ work she was a part of since coming back. “Why not, man? If things go wrong we’ll need it.” Quill questions, his back suddenly slamming against the wall. The sigh is practically audible across the ship. “Because if we walk in with a magic-lighting shooting hammer I’m sure that’ll end well.” She explains.
“Well that’s a bummer.”
“You still have us. We will protect you because we are awesome.”
“I sure do and obviously we are.”
“If everything they make is organic, does that mean it is edible?”
“You say something smart and then always follow it up with something weird but no, you cannot eat the weird gross fleshy things they make.”
“But what if they have brains on sale. Can we buy some then. It has been too long.”
“Sure. If they for some reason have brains we can buy them, Babe.”
Peter follows the permission up with scratching just under Vee’s chin and smiled to himself as he saw pure joy flash across the symbiote’s face. It was contagious as he felt in start to bubble within himself and after almost forgetting what it felt like it only made it all the better when the alien nuzzled against Peter’s jawline, tickling the growing facial hair.
The guardians one by one stepped out of the stalls wearing their jumpsuits and it felt all too familiar to inmate outfits they were given in the Kyln except with a whole lot more orange. “Do you not have this is in any other colours? It clashes with my skin.” Drax requests causing the Ravagers to burst out laughing.
“Ignoring that. I’m sure there is some last catch we need to know about this place.” Quill raises a brow as Venom tries to mimic the gesture with much less success by squinting one eye “I mean apart from the hell it’ll be if you trigger the alarms you should be fine. I thought you guys were made of tougher stuff.” Starhawk remarks “I mean all those Orgo-guards cannot be fun to deal with when riled up, especially when there is a hundred of em.” He laughs taking a portal back to his own ship along with his people.
“Well that’s just great. I swear there is no such thing as ‘good luck’ anymore, more.” Peter complains.
“Good luck to us.” Mantis interjects with a smile.
“Better than nothing. Let’s get going people, Rocket needs us and we’re running out of time.” Quill orders as they each before a differently brightly coloured astronaut-esque costume.
Now he just needed the perfect song.