I finally have an established timeline for this series up on my bio! :) check it out! Some of these stories are in production right now, but they should be coming out soon. Enjoy the latest installment to the "Ravagers" series :)

::Kraglin's Big Day::

Description: This is it. His big chance. His opportunity to prove to Yondu that he can plan missions without assistance... Too bad things never work out right for Ravagers. "Ravagers" Series!

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(Kraglin)

I have never been so uncomfortable in my life.

This was supposed to be my chance to prove to Yondu I could handle serious jobs without his input. I'd been his go-to man for a long time, but he always had some say in the missions I planned out. This was the first time that he was letting me take on a job, plan it, and execute it without his two-cents. I tried hard not to appear as excited as I was when he gave me the opportunity. We were all still a little hung up on the incident that killed almost a third of our crew. Honestly, I think the only reason Yondu gave me the opportunity was because he was too stressed out about the incident to go about business as usual. I ain't ever seen him so upset. He isolated himself from the crew for weeks. It wasn't until rumors started floating around that he had killed himself that he finally started to come back to reality. I can't really blame him for his sudden disappearance. I know better than most what kind of sh*t he was dealing with. Not many people realize that Captain suffers from PTSD, and it's not something I would ever start spreading around. After everything that happened, I really have nothing bad to say about his reaction. He'd had enough to deal with.

In any case, he approached me one day with a business opportunity that he wanted me to take on, and when he said it would be all on me I jumped at the opportunity. It was a relatively simple mission. Some local officials had contacted us to take care of something, off the record. This wasn't new by any means. Xandarian officials often contacted us for some unofficial business, despite the fact that many of us hold criminal records there. Apparently, the local government had had enough of being bullied by the crime boss that had infested their city. They wanted us to take care of him. Problem was, the guy was heavily guarded. Our opportunity to hit the guy was presented to us in the form of a woman he had never seen. He was getting married to a woman he had never met to unite two crime families. Luckily for us, she and her posse had been detained, giving us the opportunity to slip in a substitute. That substitute came in the form of our one and only female Ravager: Layla.

Layla had been surprisingly co-operative about the whole ordeal. I think that by being the one to suck all the air out of the Eclector, and therefore save the crew, she had been given a bit of a confidence boost despite the poor circumstances. When she had joined the Ravagers she had requested that she be left out of the action, and up to this point she had for the most part. But when I cautiously brought the idea to her she had been more than willing to help. So, I started my planning.

The original bride's posse had been relatively small, consisting of only five guards. So, besides Layla, I had room for five more Ravagers on this mission-myself included. I selected them carefully, knowing that most of the crew had it out for our female mechanic. I had acquired a very good team, and everything was going perfectly. Too perfectly. Something was bound to go wrong at some point, but I was prepared for everything. Or at least, I thought I was.

It was just two days before our mission when everything went to hell. Word had spread around the Eclector that Layla was going on her fist official mission. Many Ravagers weren't taking it well. So, someone decided to take matters into their own hands, and he tripped her down a flight of stairs.

She caught herself about half way down, but the damage had already been done. I found her in the medical ward, a cast around her ankle and a bandage wrapped around her forehead. She was in a great deal of pain, and Doc said she had a minor concussion. She'd be on crutches and pain medication for weeks.

My plan was ruined. It failed before it even began.

Layla was the one who came to my rescue. I was about to go to Yondu to tell him about the situation when she came to me with an idea. She assured me that I could save face and promised me that she wouldn't tell Yondu about what happened. I decided to trust her and we headed planet-side. I didn't know what her plan was until we arrived. I probably should have asked before we left.

"What the hell is this?" I scrunched my eyes up at the bright neon sign above the shop front. Layla was already opening the door as I said this, having some difficulty due to juggling crutches, and she looked back at me with a barely contained smirk.

"It's exactly what it says it is: Fabulous." I could tell she was enjoying this. I don't know what I did to her in the past to make her enjoy this so much, but the dread that I was feeling intensified the moment I set foot in the establishment.

The store wasn't anything scary, in fact it looked a lot like the boutiques that my sisters used to drag me into from time to time. They never bought anything, we were always too poor, but they loved looking through all the fancy clothes and things. The only thing remotely odd about the store was its cliental.

"Why are there so many men here?" I cast Layla a confused look, which she snickered at. I was beginning to feel the dread pool in my stomach. "Layla, what are we doing here?"

"Layla! Darling, is that you?" a very boisterous sounding woman said from behind the store counter. She had hair that stood at least eight inches tall, dyed jet black with yellow streaks. Her makeup was done in a similar way. Her eyelashes were longer than anything natural, with yellow glitter clinging to the tips, and smoky eye shadow covered her eyes. Her lips were painted black, matching her hair and her all leather bodysuit. I suspected her nails were fake, there was just no way natural nails could get that long without breaking.

Layla approached the counter without pause, accidently dropping one of her crutches when the woman came around to give her a tight hug. I stooped down to pick it up for her.

"Darling, where have you been? It's been ages!" The woman held her at arm's length, absolutely beaming. "You simply must tell me what you've been up to!"

Layla laughed, her cheeks flushing pink. "You wouldn't believe half of it if I told you."

The woman responded skeptically, giving her the sassiest look I have ever seen. "Try me, sugar. And what happened to your leg girl?"

"Maybe I'll explain in a bit." Layla conceded, finally turning towards me. "I'm actually here on business. Kraglin, this is Glamor. Glamor, this is Kraglin. She went to culinary school with me." She introduced us properly, and I shook her hand like a proper person, not wanting to offend a friend of Layla's. The woman had a very firm handshake, it actually left my hand stinging a bit. I was distracted for the moment until I heard Layla speak up again. "I need you to turn him into a woman."

I choked on air, being thrown into a sudden-vigorous- coughing fit. "What?"

I was completely ignored by the two women, as Glamor suddenly looked very intrigued and launched into a string of questions. "Oh, what's the occasion? Hm, might take a bit of work. He's got some toned arms… And oh dear, his face." She clicked her tongue in distaste. "That's a shame."

"What's wrong with my face?" I objected, feeling rightly insulted.

Glamor waved at me in dismissal, "Oh nothing I can't fix." I still felt incredibly insulted. "So, what look are we going for? Classy? Tacky? Slutty?" Suddenly I was being violated. She was all up in my personal space, poking at my sides and basically giving me a full body pat down. "I could make him into a classic Marsha Xenar."

I crinkled my nose in confusion. "Marsha Xenar was a drag queen…" Suddenly it hit me. I felt like an idiot for not realizing what was happening sooner. I was standing in the middle of a drag boutique… Layla was suggesting that I take her place as the bride. "What the hell!" I cast her the most furious look I have ever sent in her direction, ever. She at least had the decency to look a little sheepish.

She shrugged, adjusting her crutches under her arms. "Out of all the guys you chose for this job you are the most feminine looking. I would have suggested one of the others but… well, you just aren't as bulkily built as they are. They have too much muscle, it'd just get in the way…"

Glamor nodded in agreement, her hair bobbing as she did so. "You've got that right. Too much muscle just gets in the way of the clothes. I remember I had to slim down so much."

I looked between the two of them for a solid minute, and I'm pretty sure my eye started twitching. I came from a city that was pretty accepting of unique individuals, but that didn't mean I ever in my wildest dreams wanted to do that myself. "Hell." I walked away, pushing through the front doors to get some fresh air. I heard Layla call out behind me, but I ignored her.

Standing just outside the shop I took a deep breath of air. "Hell…" I said again, shaking my head. I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling at a loss. My options were few. I knew that. Either I found a way to fix my plan, or I went crawling to Yondu to see if he could fix it. I didn't like the latter idea. This was my chance to advance in the Ravagers. This might be the only opportunity I lived to see. I had to see it through! Even if it meant parading around as a woman for a day…

I sighed, grabbing two fistfuls of my hair. "F*ck!" I shouted, not caring that there were people around. I'd have to do it. I had to complete this mission without Layla, and this might be the only way. With that thought in mind, I turned away from the few people staring at me and went back inside the shop.

Glamor and Layla were conversing as I walked back in. They paused when they saw me, Layla looking nervous and Glamor looking unimpressed. I guess I may have offended her a bit. D*mn… "Okay, what do I have to do?" I submitted, feeling like I had just signed my life away. I didn't particularly like the gleam that crept into Glamor's eyes as I said it.

"Well," Glamor smirked, "first things first, we have to do something about your face."

"What's wrong with my face?!"

The next few hours were torture. Glamor explained to me in a crash-course fashion how to "tuck" my junk and fit me with fake breasts and even a fake a**. I felt ridiculous. Layla let me have some dignity and offered to go grab some lunch for the three of us as I learned the ways of drag. With her leg out of commission it would be some time before she returned, giving me plenty of time to get the embarrassing stuff out of the way. Messing with my face actually became one of the last things that happened. After I had been fitted with an entirely new body, and found a dress that would hide the fact that I had muscles and broad shoulders (I still don't know how Glamor did that) I was able to return to my clothes and remove all the fake bits in preparation to have my face "fixed".

Glamor introduced me to a process that I would forever hate afterwards. According to her my pores were filled with crap that needed to be removed, and my beard had to go (which I had already kind of assumed). She took me into a room at the back of the store that kind of reminded me of hair salon and had me sit down in a slightly reclined chair. She started pulling things down from cupboards and setting them up on the counter behind me. I was relatively okay feeling at this point, thinking that the worst was behind me…

My sisters had told me about waxing before, but I'll be honest, I had no idea what it was until the moment Glamor tore a strip of my beard off in one go. I screamed, surprised at how painful the sensation of hundreds of hairs being forcefully torn away from my face felt. I think I even shed a tear or two just from the sheer painfulness of it. But it didn't stop there, oh no, she kept at it until my face and neck were completely hairless. I don't think I've shouted that much in a half an hour ever in my life.

When she finished I took a deep breath. This would all be worth it in the end. I just had to keep telling myself that.

"Alright hon, we're half way there." Glamor said with a smile, pulling a whole new set of torture instruments down from the cupboards.

I groaned, "What could you possibly do to me now?"

"Hm." She smirked, "Well, I still have to suck all the gunk out of your pores, add eyelashes, and color your eyes."

"Is any of that as painful as what just happened?" I silently begged for the answer to be no. I didn't think I could handle any more.

"Beauty is pain, hon."

"Oh hell…" I croaked.

The next thing to go was the "gunk" in my pores. She spread this weird yellow cream all over my face, creating a bit of a mask, and then started heating it up with an air gun. It didn't feel like it was doing anything at first, then the burning sensation started. It was small at first, but once noticed it started getting worse fast. My face felt like it was being doused in boiling water, and the mask started to smell like rotting flesh. I grit my teeth and bared it, praying for it to end soon. Either my prayers were answered or I blacked out a bit, but soon I started to feel the mask being removed.

"There, see? Look how nasty your face was."

I opened one eye cautiously, peering at the slab of hardened cream. There were small balls of pore gunk all over it. It actually was pretty gross. Maybe I should invest in a little face wash after this…

Before I could say anything she had started working again. She took a towel soaked in some stinging liquid and wiped it all over my face, explaining that it would close up the pores so nothing would get back in and infect it after I left. She then attached some fake eyelashes (a painless process, thank goodness) and dropped some liquid eye drops into my eyes. She said the drops would make my eyes a bright blue and last for about a week.

And then we were done. I've never felt so violated and embarrassed in my life. Layla returned shortly after that with lunch. I took mine outside, unable to stand another second inside that shop. I think that place would be the source of nightmares for many months to come. Layla came out to join me after about an hour, having had settled the bill (friend prices, she assured) and caught up with her old friend. She handed me my bag of accessories and the clothing bag and we headed back to the M-ship.

"Layla, I swear if you say a word of what happened today to anyone I will maroon you on a moon somewhere." I growled as we parked the M-ship back on the Eclector.

She laughed. "Well, you'll have to tell your team at some point. But I promise I won't tell anyone." She moved ahead of me, awkwardly tripping over her crutches for a moment before calling back. "I'll just make myself scarce until the job is over. You won't have to tell Yondu a thing." We were just about to go our separate ways when she added, "By the way, your skin looks really nice."

My team took the news relatively well I think. Well enough that they at least waited for me to leave the briefing room before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. I had to recruit one more member for the team so that we had the right number of people, but that was easy. The hard part had yet to come. I had to somehow transform myself into a woman for an entire day. And Yondu could never know. I already promised half of my earnings to my team to keep them quiet about the affair.

The plan was simple enough. Arrive to the wedding on time and get close enough to the crime boss to shoot him between the eyes. Easy. Piece of cake actually. The hard part would come when we tried to escape afterwards. The place was heavily guarded. If our intel was right we would only have a small window of opportunity to escape after the deed was done. As I started looking over the plan again I felt a little better that it would be me getting up close to the man instead of Layla. I don't know that she would have been able to handle the mission. She wasn't trained for this sort of thing. I don't know what I had been thinking before. As much as it put me in an uncomfortable situation, it was better that she not be involved.

Sleep didn't come easy to me that night. I was just too anxious. I was excited, and nervous, and deep down there was still that pool of dread that I might fail.

"D*mn sir, you make a good woman…" Garrek said, whistling when I exited the M-ship's shared washroom. He laughed, and the others joined in. I growled, shoving past them all to put on my stupid heals.

"Shut the f*ck up." The wig I was wearing was obstructing my vision, Glamor had said it was the only way to hide the more masculine bone structures in my face, but it made walking through a crowded M-ship difficult. I bumped into many walls on my way back to my quarters. The dress was awkward as well, and I kept tripping over the bottom of it. I didn't know how I was going to function in the thing, let alone the shoes. How the hell to women do it all the time? I felt like after this was over I should call my sisters and apologize for every time I ever made fun of them walking in those d*mn-awful shoes.

Taking a look at myself in the small mirror hanging in my quarters, I had to admit that I did make a decent looking woman. I never would have believed it if anyone had suggested it before, but with the proof staring right back at me I couldn't deny it. This just might work… I realized, and I had to fight the smile off of my face before re-joining the others.

I went over the plan in my head all the way up to the moment when it was about to go down. I couldn't tell if it was just nerves or if the dress was too tight, but I could hardly breathe…

The man was monstrous. I've only seen a handful of people bigger than the man that stood in front of me. The veil that covered my face did wonders to hide my twitching eyelid as I stared at him. He was all muscle, as I had already known from his picture, but he towered over me by at least two feet! His guards weren't much smaller either, and suddenly I was rethinking my life.

Why the hell had I agreed to this?

I'll skip the blurry details. I honestly only remember slices of it. One moment I was up on stage about to get married, and the next I was running away from a dead man screaming, "I wasn't ready you bastards!" with every muscleman in the room hot on my trail.

We ran to the transport that Garrek had been waiting for us in and zipped away, but in the process I had broken a heel and twisted up my ankle something fierce. I ditched the shoes half way to the transport, trying not to get hit by blaster fire. The veil was whipped away by the wind just as I hopped aboard the vehicle, and the closest pursuer to us gave me a funny look as we took off.

There was much whooping and hollering in victory as we made our getaway, and as soon as I was sure we were in the clear I hobbled to my room to change. It felt a little weird putting so much effort into the look only to have to take it off after two hours. I imagine that is what women must feel like when going out on a date that ends in sex…

Everything was going so smoothly. When we docked back on the Eclector Yondu was nowhere to be seen. So, each of us went our separate ways and I contacted Xandarian officials for our payment. My hurt leg had stopped throbbing, and I could even walk on it normally within hours. It was a full day before I was confronted with my Captain, him inquiring how the job went. I launched into detail what the plan had originally been, leaving out any mention of anything that actually happened. Everything was going well, until Layla rounded the corner.

Yondu's eyes zeroed in on her injured leg and the bandage around her forehead like a hawk. I swear he stopped f*cking breathing! He looked f*cking pissed. "And, how exactly did this come about?" he asked, his glare shifting to me. I gulped, sure I had paled a few shades. Luckily, yet again, Layla was able to come to my rescue.

"It's nothing really." She laughed off the tension that was building in the hallway, her smile cutting through it like butter. "I fell when we were retreating. I twisted my leg pretty bad, and Doc says I have a small concussion. But he says I should be up to work again within a few weeks. It's really not as bad as it looks." She insisted, continuing her way past us.

After she turned around another corner all tension left Yondu, and he turned to give me a sly look. "So… We can do this one of two ways." He said, his arms crossing over his chest. "I can either keep pretending that I don't know what happened to Layla before your trip and tell you that if you ever let her get hurt again I'll beat your a** into the next life, or-" he paused, suddenly unable to hold back the snarkiest of smiles, "I can bust yer balls for a month because you paraded around in a dress and heels for your first solo-planned job."

I gaped, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. How had he known?

Sensing my disbelief, Yondu scoffed. "You really think you can hide things from me? Did it not occur once to you that all accident reports eventually trickle their way up to me?" he rolled his eyes. "I knew Layla was out of the picture within hours of her incident."

He left me there in that hall, floundering like an idiot. I was sputtering, trying to think of something I could say in my defense! But my poor brain could only make one small thought form. It made sense that he'd know about what happened to Layla… But how the hell had he known about the dress?

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