Hello guys! We're twin sisters from Brazil who have decided to venture into the Marvel universe for the first time (so be gentle, please). This story has already been planned out and will be updated on a regular basis. If you like it, please let us know by reviewing, favoriting, alerting...It's always a pleasure hearing from you guys and we promise this will be worth your time. And now, with no further ado, let's get on with it, shall we?
Chapter I: To Infinity and Beyond Wormholes
"Remind me again why stealing a totally dangerous unstable alien bomb, putting it in my ship and then crossing the entire galaxy with it seemed like a good idea?"
The sudden turn of the Milano prevented anybody from answering Peter's question right away.
"Xandar's offered us 20.000 units each." Rocket replied after the ship regained balance. "I think that's why it seemed like a good idea."
"Really?" Peter asked sarcastically. "Is it just me or suddenly 20.000 doesn't sound like a big number? HANG ON!"
The ship dived into the infinity of space, barely missing the hit.
"20K, seriously? Have we really sold ourselves for that little? I mean, what can you possibly buy with only 20.000 units?" Outraged, Star-Lord couldn't stop with the rhetorical questions.
"A sweater." A low voice echoed from behind.
"A sweater?" Rocket repeated disbelievingly. "You don't even wear a shirt!"
"I have already mentioned that my nipples are very sensitive. Wearing a shirt would only make it worse. "
"Exactly! So, what would you buy a sweater for?"
"I wouldn't." Drax said in all seriousness. "Quill's asked what one could buy with 20.000 units and I answered a sweater."
"That was a rhetorical question!" replied Peter, even more outraged.
"Well, next time, let me know."
"The whole point of a rhetorical question is that you don't have to say it's rhetorical. Everybody knows that!"
"But then how will I know when I have to answer?" Drax asked sternly.
"How 'bout this: I buy you a nice sweater with my units then I shove it deep down your throat so you don't have to worry about answering any more questions, rhetorical or not. How does that sound?" Annoyed, Rocket tried to end that pointless discussion for once and for all.
Drax's face remained aloof for a few seconds. "Was that a rhetorical question or must I answer it?"
"GUYS!" Gamora yelled. "The Krees are almost reaching us. If they hit us, I don't think…"
"They're not gonna hit us!" Rocket interrupted confidently. "If this bomb suffers the slightest impact, everything within a five-click radius will get destroyed. In other words, they wouldn't be such idiots to a point…"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM! And the Milano shook as if an earthquake had just struck in the inside of the ship.
"You were saying…" Gamora said ironically.
"Drax, you and Groot go to the bomb and try to secure it by any means necessary." Peter ordered. "Without setting it off, please."
"Gamora, find a way to get rid of those stupid-ass Krees who apparently prefer to kill us than to live. And Rocket…" Peter looked at his friend. "…do not let them hit us. Again"
The raccoon smirked. He knew that if there was one guy that was able to escape from a furious Kree spacecraft unharmed, that guy was him.
"Peter!" Gamora called. "There's a dead planet about 40 clicks away from here."
"And what's the plan, exactly? Land, wait up for the Krees and minutes later be as dead as the planet?"
Gamora's green face turned to a slight angry red but she only rolled her eyes in response to Peter's sarcastic comment.
"No. We head straight to the center and once we reach the planet's gravitational field we shut down the engines in order to drift around its orbit. The Krees will continue to accelerate and fly right past us. Then, we restart the ship and use the thrusters to push us far from the planet."
Peter glanced at Rocket. Maybe he had understood what Gamora had just said.
"Yeah, that might work." The raccoon concluded.
"So, let's do it!" Star-Lord gave the green light. "And here I was thinking I was the leader, Rocket, the brain, Drax, the muscle and you the pretty girl.
"I am Groot."
"Sorry, buddy." Peter just then realized he had forgotten about the Flora Colossus. "You can be the muscle too."
"That's not what he said, you moron!" Rocket intervened. "But I agree with you, Groot. I also thought it was a very sexist and offensive comment. But, hey, we don't wanna argue with our "leader" here." The raccoon made the air quotes gesture begrudgingly.
"Okay, first, I was joking." Peter tried to defend himself. "And second, I don't think calling a girl "pretty" can be considered sexist."
"I don't think this green-skinned alien is pretty." Drax spoke. "Actually, I find it hard to even tell that she's a girl. I can barely see her breasts. Perhaps, she should be our leader and Quill, the pretty girl."
And suddenly, everybody had something to say:
"Look, I appreciate you calling me pretty, but I'm not a girl…"
"I am Groot…"
"I don't know which one of you I should kill first…"
"Guys!"
"How can she be pretty? She's green!"
"I am Groot…"
"I think she's pretty…"
"Guys!"
"Have you looked yourself in the mirror?"
"Can I answer that or was it one of those rhetorical questions?"
"GUYS!" Rocket yelled finally bringing some silence to the ship. "What the hell is that?"
And far, far away, a tiny and unexpected black dot in outer space seemed to be getting bigger and bigger…
"What?" Peter asked. "That little black dot that looks like a…hole?"
And in that moment, Rocket had a sort of epiphany. His eyes narrowed, his snout frowned and his mouth squirmed.
"Drax, just tell me that the fact you and Groot are here doesn't mean there's something wrong with the bomb."
"The fact that I and the talking tree are here doesn't mean there's something wrong with the bomb." Drax confirmed and the raccoon let out a breath in relief. "But that's a lie, because there's something wrong with the bomb."
"So, why in the hell did you just say there was nothing wrong?" Peter asked in disbelief. And in the face of the Destroyer's total silence, he completed: "This was not a rhetorical question!"
"He asked me to say it." Drax pointed to Rocket.
"I swear to God that all those years living merely as a weapon for Thanos doesn't seem so bad now."
"What's wrong with the bomb, Drax?" Peter asked switching his irritation for concern.
"I know what's wrong!" Rocket exclaimed and sprinted out of the room.
The rest of the Guardians followed right behind him with no idea what could be wrong with the bomb but secretly hoping it wouldn't be the classic "it's about to go off".
"I knew this thing was acting weird." Rocket was pacing back and forth, analyzing the box filled with buttons and wires and a blue goo-like substance filling its interior.
"What are you talking about, Rocket?" Peter asked still concerned.
"Remember when I said this bomb, when triggered, had the potential to destroy a very, very large area?" This time the question was rhetorical, but luckily enough, nobody wanted to answer it. "Well, I was wrong. This is not a mass destruction type of weapon. It's the exact opposite."
Dead Silence.
"What are you talking about, Rocket?" Peter repeated his previous question emphatically so the raccoon could realize that farther explanations were needed.
"Wouldn't you like to be the brain now?"
"Rocket!" Gamora reprimanded him, far more interested in learning how to stop the bomb than in her friends' ego feud.
"Just saying…Alright, instead of destroying, this beauty here creates. See this blue goo-like thingy? It's made of exotic matter and I'm almost sure it's the responsible for that hole out there and its alarmingly constant expansion."
"Almost sure?" Peter just couldn't resist. "Maybe it'd really be better if I was the brain…" Gamora shot him one of her lethal glances and he immediately looked away. "Just saying…"
"What happened to the Krees?" The green alien suddenly asked. "They're not on our tail anymore."
"I wouldn't be so worried about our blue friends if I were you." Rocket suggested.
"Why?"
And in that moment, Gamora's question was answered. But not with words or any other kind of oral sound. The answer came in the form of a violent shudder that made everyone aboard the Milano have their faces instead of their feet (paws, in Rocket's case and roots in Groot's) planted on the ground.
"We must've entered the planet's gravitational field." Gamora said while getting up.
"You're probably right about the gravitational field." Rocket recomposed himself. "But it's not the planet's."
Through the window one could see that that once little black dot, clicks away, had become such a massive hole that calling it a little dot was just offensive at this point.
"The short version is that, THIS thing." Rocket pointed to the blue goo-like substance. "Somehow has created THAT thing." This time, he pointed to the black hole.
"Maybe it all happened when we got hit but what matters right now is that unless we're able to stop this thing." - The bomb- "That thing" - The hole- "is gonna suck us within minutes."
""Suck us" as in "kill us"?" Peter wanted to make sure Rocket wasn't just using euphemisms.
""Suck us" as in really "suck us"." The raccoon kept pacing around the bomb, trying to find a way to disable it. "That, my friend, is what they call a wormhole and no one, in the history of the Galaxy, has ever crossed one before."
"I am Groot?"
"No tree either, you dumb!"
"Well, if there's a way in it must have a way out, right?" Gamora asked being practical.
"Theoretically, a wormhole is like a tunnel. We could travel through time and go back centuries into the past or be sent into a distant future, or even come back right here, to this moment."
"Well, that would be fortunate…" Peter commented.
Rocket went through some wires and pushed a few buttons in hopes he could turn that freaking bomb off.
"Or we could even end up in another universe, parallel to this one, where things would be a whole lot different from what we're used to. Drax could even lose his nipple sensitivity."
"I would like to go to that universe." The Destroyer was suddenly interested.
"So, how do we know where we're going?" Peter asked curiously.
"We don't." Rocket was blunt. "There are two types of wormholes but they don't exactly come with a manual or an identification sign. We could go anywhere in the space-time continuum within this or any other universe.
Peter let out a breath. "You think you can stop this thing? 'Cause I don't like any of our options so far."
"I can try." Rocket said lacking confidence.
"Meanwhile, I'm gonna get us outta here." Peter spoke as a true leader and headed to the ship's cockpit.
"I'm going with him." Gamora said and then followed her friend/potential love interest.
Of course there was always the last option in which the simple act of crossing the hole could cause severe damage to their bodies and minds that "suck us" would actually mean "kill us". Rocket, however, preferred to keep this one to himself.
"All engines must operate at full capacity." Peter said already in the pilot's seat.
"Copy that." Gamora confirmed and increased the thrusters' power.
"So, why aren't we moving?" Quill was pushing the motor to the max but the ship didn't move an inch forward.
"The field's too strong!" Gamora exclaimed.
What to do? What to do? They had to get out of there immediately!
"Activate all weaponry." And at last, the leader of the Guardians saw a light in the end of the tunnel. "If we fire all the guns at once, the reaction force might be enough to propel us away from this damn wormhole's gravitational field!"
The green warrior nodded in consent and BOOOOOOMMMMMMMM! A magnificent sound was heard. Or at least it would have been if they weren't in outer space with no sound propagation…
"It worked!" Peter exclaimed happily when the Milano moved in the opposite direction from the hole. He pushed the engines to the limit and a bit more. "Come on, come on…"
But it didn't go. And seconds later, the ship was being pulled again towards that once-a-little-and-harmless-black-dot-in-space that now could fit three Milanos in.
"I can't shut this down!" Rocket finally gave up and turned to look at his companions. Drax had a confused expression on, Groot was unreadable as always and Peter and Gamora were in the cockpit, doing their best to save them all… "We're screwed."
They had just run out of options and Rocket was right. They really were screwed.
Who knew they would die like that: because of some stupid spacial abnormality? They wouldn't die in an epic battle against aliens or saving the Galaxy one more time. Nope. They'd die being sucked by a hole. No witnesses and no glory.
"If we're sent to that universe you've mentioned earlier, where I have insensitive, rigid nipples, I'm going to buy a sweater…"
"I can't believe I'm gonna die listening to you talk about your nipples…" Rocket grumbled but Drax carried on.
"A yellow sweater. With red stripes on it. Very soft and warm…"
In the cockpit, Peter and Gamora too already knew their fate. But, unlike Drax and Rocket, who had preferred rambling over new sweaters and nipples, those two chose silence. They just sat there, gazing at the stars, at the darkness of space…And then at each other. Without saying anything. After all, they had that unspoken thing going on.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
And it was among hysterical screams and uncontrollable laughter (blame Drax for this one) that our beloved Guardians of the Galaxy vanished.
TO BE CONTINUED…