Back Against The Wall
“What kind of monster slaughters a civilisation?” Gamora shouts continuing to fight with the ships controls “Oh I don’t know maybe a certain purple titan perhaps!” Peter shouts back taking back the captain controls and quickly adjusting the ship’s trajectory away from the exploding planet. The sight beyond the window was nothing but ash and fire of what moments ago was a peaceful planet. Nobody deserved to die like that well maybe there were some exceptions to that.
Stopping himself from starting the list, he quickly set the ship to Auto-Pilot before jumping out the seat with the disk in hand. “What are Mantis, Drax and Nebula?” Quill asks as the two run towards the med-bay “I don’t know, last transmission it sounded like they were close to the High Evolutionary base. Maybe they got away.” She answers hopefully as the two found themselves at Rocket’s bed side accompanied by Groot.
“Take this.” Peter says handing the device to Gamora before muttering to himself “This has to work. It has to.”
-
Now kids were not Nebula’s forte but even she could tell that anyone would struggle with the sheer number of them that were locked in the cages. There must have been dozens of them, all staring at the trio, or what is four after all she couldn’t hear the incessant slime’s nagging anymore, with a look of horror mixed with wonder.
“We were lucky we were able to knock down that door-“ Drax started to compliment himself being cut off by a pair of arms roughly shoving back “Rocket and Gamora are probably dead because of you!” Nebula spits “I didn’t know.” Drax tries to poorly reason “Oh you didn’t know? When are you going to stop using the fact you’re a big dumb idiot for contributing nothing and the rest of us having to pick up the slack?!” She continues to lecture loudly.
Mantis quickly gets between the two “Don’t push him! She demands scowling at Nebula “And you, you’re no better. The only thing we can rely on you for is for when someone shows weakness you’ll be right there to support it.” Nebula shouts “I don’t care! I know you need to find fault in everybody else to make yourself feel better so go on, find it in me.” Mantis challenges causing Nebula to shake her head with a curse of “Oh go to hell, Mant.”
“Well you don’t have the right to push him!” Mantis responds, her voice starting to crack “It’s not his fault he’s stupid.” Nebula just looks away “He’s a liability.” She explains “He makes us laugh and he loves us. How is that a liability? All you care about is intelligence and competence.” Mantis argues with a returning fire.
Drax meanwhile offers an awkward “I’m not sure I appreciate this defence.” But instead gets ignored as she continues “He has sadness but he’s the only that doesn’t hate himself and I don’t if he’s stupid.” Mantis confesses getting a sneer from Nebula. “You think I’m stupid?” He asks sadly looking at the ground “Yes.” Mantis confirms with an apologetic look before raising her hand with a simple command, “Forget.” She whispers.
“Forget what?” Drax asks dumbly as Mantis feels that rare sensation of being blocked from someone’s mind as the familiar fanged face appears “Yes, you are stupid. But you are our friend.” Venom explains as Drax seems to brush it all off in favour of moving forward ahead of the others with a loud declaration of “Hah, these locks are no match for me!” As he quickly yanked one away into a sparking heap as the children looked on at the spectacle as the symbiote disappears back into Drax just as quickly as it appeared.
“Jib jib eh?” One of them mutters causing the group to look at each other with confusion. “That language isn’t in my translator.” Mantis states as Nebula lets out an exhausted sigh “Of course it isn’t.” She groans before pressing her comm down “Quill, Quill are you there?”
-
Groot frowned as he saw Gamora frantically wire the disk to the series of connected medical devices whilst Quill adjusted all of the cables into the right place along Rocket’s body, hands trembled with ill contained fear. “Okay…okay this okay. It’s gonna work. Start it up.” Peter says plugging the last wire into Rocket before the monitor whirred to life abruptly with various letter, numbers and code scaling the screen at a staggered pace.
A broad smile appeared “It’s working. Jesus Christ, It’s working.” He exclaims happily as Gamora remains focused, watching the code with an cold look in her eye. “Something’s wrong.” She realises as the text crawled to a stop, “No, it’s working. It’s fine.” Peter tries to argue whilst holding rocket’s arm. “It’s too slow. It won’t go through it time.” Gamora warns stepping back at the realisation.
Quill looks up and feels his heart sink into a pit of cold, isolated despair seeing the text refuse to move beyond a flicker of new code every few seconds. “It can’t…it has to work.” He mutters weakly but is silenced the room being thrown into red light and filled with the sound of high pitched ringing “No..” Peter weakly says before his voice turns to a bellowing scream.
“NOOO!!”
furrowing his brow and pulling at the cords, wildly casting them aside. “I can’t lose him.” He says to himself pressing a shaking against Rocket’s still chest and pressing down with reckless abandon.
“Peter.” Gamora tries to warn meekly.
“I can’t…” He responds shaking his head.
“He’s gone!” She shouts across the table.
“I’m not! Losing! Him!” Peter decides with each press being timed with another word.
He continues even after his hand goes sore but the determination and desperation remain even as Gamora turns away. It was until fifteen seconds later the alarm stopped. The blaring replaced by an abrupt desperate, muffled gasp for air from Rocket as the oxygen mask fogged up once more. “It’s going through!” Gamora witnesses the code suddenly speed up and shoot through the rest of the way as Peter lets out an ecstatic “YES!” as he pulled his hand away in favour of removing the mask.
The monitor soon completes its objective as Rocket’s eyes open to a blinding light and the sight of his friends or at least some of them. He rapidly blinked at the light before feeling himself being suddenly pulled by a pair of large arms. Next thing he knew he was leaning against Quill’s shoulder as a series of bark limbs suddenly coiled around the group.
“Where’s Nebula?” He coughed out as he leant back “Umm she…” Peter trailed not prepare to face the potential truth “Because her comm link on the screen behind you.” Rocket points out as Groot and Peter awkwardly turn to face the screen. “Um Nebula are you there?” Quill tried to ask only to be met an loud, relieved response from Nebula “Oh thank God, Quill we’re here to get you off the ship? Where are you?” She asks in return “Oh I got off.” He answers.
He had all but sense Nebula’s immediate frustration “You’ve got to be joking me.” She complains “You should know by now that I always find a cool and badass way out of dangerous situations.” Quill points out “Where are you guys? Is Venom still with you?” He added not wanting to hear an answer he wouldn’t like to say the least “We’re all on the High Evolutionary’s ship and yes you’re little weird parasite is with Drax right now.” Nebula answers audibly pacing.
It was then a familiar voice appeared over the comms “Tell Peter we said hi, tell him we’re coming to save him.” The man sounded occupied and distracted. “Seriously, pay attention to plan or play with the kids. One or the other.” She yells back as Gamora repeats it “Play with kids?” She echoes.
“How did you get out?” Mantis abruptly asks “That’s not important right now.” Peter tries to non-answer but is powerless when Groot leans over and whispers “I am Groot” causing the other to gasp out a loud “You jumped out of a window to a thousand foot drop, sounds dangerous.” When suddenly Rocket chimes in with “The important thing is we’re all alright.” He mutters sounding exhausted.
A airy silence creeps its way between the group “Rocket?” Nebula cracks after a moment of silence. Peter looks over at his friend “Yeah, he’s here and he’s okay.” Quill explains as they hear the sound of hitched breaths “Rocket, we love you very much and we’re happy that your alive.” Mantis states in Nebula’s place causing Rocket to let out a bittersweet laugh “Well I guess that makes you the idiots.” Rocket states as everyone ignores Drax’s word of warning of the incoming-
“He’s right on that one.” The High Evolutionary states before shouting at the presumed kids around them “Get back into you cages!” He yells as a blast of some sort plays over the radio. “Nebula?!” Peter calls out but the High Evolutionary ignores it in favour of starting a nothing game of words “So you like to joust, do you?” He states “Go to hell you sick son of a bitch, you killed all those people.” Peter spits out.
The High Evolutionary just shakes his head “As I will your friends. I’m sending you my coordinates and they will die if you do not bring me what is mine!” The man screams down the comm as Peter quickly racked his brain for a comeback to the threat “Screw you, you stretched face, robocop look-a-like, Skeletor wannabe, purple nurple looking piece of sh-“ The com suddenly went silent.
“He hung up.” Peter blankly states.
“You think?” Gamora says with wide eyes.
Peter just shrugs, if they were going to rescue the others then they were going need support and well he knew just who could be called on even if neither of them would be ahead of the issue. He removed the pager from his belt and inspected it again. “Time to test if you really work.” Quill thought to himself typing out the simple message before pressing send.
The screen quickly changed to an image of a digital lightning bolt that bounced back and forth. It was going to be one hell of couple’s reunion.
-
Now getting thrown into a dark cell isn’t most people’s idea of a good time but when you also land on your neck, like in Mantis’ case, it only gets worse. Even more so when you look up to the sight of the same kids again looking at you like your some sort of wonder animal in some sort of show. “Peter will be trying to get to the space port. He won’t know about the children.” She realises but before she could come up with a plan Nebula was quickly storming towards the bars.
She yelled pointing at a girl “You! You need to tell all the other frigging kids to stay away from the starboard wall!” The former assassin shouts as the girl murmurs back a faint “Jib Jib?” causing Nebula to groan loudly “They know three words and two of them are Jib.” She complains before taking a deep breath. “YOU NEED TO TELL ALLL THE OTHER KIDS TO STAY AWAY FROM THE…what the hell is this?” as she saw Mantis wildly flailing her arms about “EXPLAINING IT, DICKHEAD!!” Mantis yells back.
The argument causing the myriad of kids to suddenly burst out into tears as Drax calmly stepped forward as Venom subtly emerged behind his back to talk to Gamora “We could break the bars open but this is nicer. We will not scare the kids because Peter taught us to be a good parent.” It explains mischievously smirking as it slinks away. “You’re scaring them.” Drax states before leaning towards the crown and crying children.
“Hello, stupid idiots.” He greets as the cries begin to stifle “I had a little girl like you.” He observes one of the girls at the front, the one Nebula had tried intimidating “She used to like when I made monkey noises.” Drax says before letting out a stream of beeps, baps and bups. “How is that monkey noises?” Mantis questions with a raised brow to which Nebula shrugs with a muted “Beats me.”. Drax continued his impression of a monkey as he tapped Nebula and Mantis on the head causing the kids to burst out in laughter.
Moments later he leans closer to the bars and suddenly starts speaking fluent…well fluent whatever these kids were speaking judging on how the girl seemed to listen aptly as the conversation ended in a cacophony of Jib Jib. “I told them to stay away from the starboard wall.” Drax explains placing his hands on his hips proudly “You could have told us you spoke their language at any time.” Nebula complains “And you could have asked at any time.” Drax returns.
-
“This could be futile, Quill. He’s too powerful.” Rocket mentions.
“Then we’ll die trying.” Peter compromises.
“What good is dying trying?” Rocket scrunches his face.
“We could just give him the badger.” Gamora reasons.
“Our thing is dying trying.” Rocket suddenly decides.
“I am Groot.” Groot states.
“I know who you are, you giant tree idiot.”
After the productive conversation the group split off towards the various smaller sub-ships nearby the cockpit. “You could stay behind on this one.” Peter mentions throwing the hammer up, watching it spin and catching it again. “I’m not leaving my sister with that Jackass.” Before pulling something from behind her. “This you? It fell out of your bag.” She hands over what turns out to be a polaroid. On it was the image of nearly all that Quill held near and dear at one point.
It depicted himself, Venom, Thor and Love sat around a campfire when they were as close to a family as you could get. Love had a bright, giddy smile on her face as she roasted smores over the flames. Thor had a thumbs up with one hand as the other was used to pull Peter close in a tight hug that threatened to choke the life out of him. Venom was nestled between the two as it watched the young one carefully with a surprisingly content look upon its usually hungry face.
Peter himself was the one with camera in hand, capturing what felt like the last time all four of them were as happy as could be. It made some thing in him give as he clutched it close to his chest before placing it aboard the console as he took his place once more in the captains chair. “Let’s do this.” He declares sending the ship through the gateway towards the looming almost giant ship before them.
Yet Peter’s determination was over ruled by confidence as he pressed play on his Zune causing a song to play over the ship’s (and the now separated break off.) PA system. “Wait for it.” He whispers as they continue to fly forward.
“Wait.” Quill insists slowing the ship to a crawl as a glowing light began to spread behind the High Evolutionary’s ship before a tear gave way to Knowhere as the decapitated head emerged from a gateway of its own with Kraglin’s announcement of “Hey there, ya creep.” Before he his own co-captain started to prepare the attack.
The boom of the explosive against the High Evolutionary’s ship was heard even from where the Bowie was across from it on the battlefield. “Wait…” Peter repeated one last time “Captain, the star port has been breached but that missile is all we have. The port is ready when y’all are” Kraglin reveals “That’s not everything.” Peter expertly claims as a beam of rainbow lights descends from above the ship.
As the hard light disappears, in its wake is a certain axe wielding God of thunder who looked at the floating cockpit with a sure grin “You called?” The God remarked causing Peter’s heart to jump as he shook his head fondly “We have Thor.” He finished his sentence before stating a new command “Now, everybody move in!” He yells as they all race towards the breached hull.
Except they only made it half way before flood of strange things started to flood out of the ship in droves. “Oh what now?” Rocket groans as the swarm of hellspawn bombarded his ship in seconds. “Oh Flark!” He yelled trying to regain control. Yet Before Peter could try and offer support, he and Gamora were too caught up with their own collective of horror movie props attacking them as the two returned fire, with the occasional blast of lightning from Thor, there was a beam of golden light heading straight for them.
Seems like that guy couldn’t get enough of the Guardians and was coming back for more. Peter was less than enthusiastic as he let out a annoyed…
“Here we go again!”