Well I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter. I'll do my best to keep this brief. I'm starting school in a week and I've got 12 hours of class and I'll probably have a ton of homework/ projects, I'm volunteering my weekends to a Halloween fair, and joy of all joys my laptop is on the fritz. As always, constructive criticism is always welcome while flames are not, feel free to message me or leave a review. – Kit
It took Rocket all of five seconds within waking up to feel that something was off. Wiping the drool with the back of his paw, he groggily rose from his top bunk casually twitching his ears and taking a whiff of the air. It was quiet. Quill wasn't blasting his annoyingly catchy Terran music thank god. Maybe he'd finally gotten some freakin' sense in that weird human head of his...Nah, must be something else.
His curiosity got the best of him and he climbed down from the bunk bed and hit the metal floor with a soft 'plap'. He stretched some and groaned at how chilly it was, but made his way out the door and through the tunnel like hallway. The closer and closer he got to the cockpit the more muffled voices he heard.
"-lly, Peter, thats your idea? He is not one of your one night stands." Rocket rolled his eyes, she had it bad for Quill. " You can't just leave him hear with a note"
"Perhaps we should simply announce the issue at hand" The big lug's voice echoed obnoxiously in his ears. Obviously the problem had to do with him. "We can't do that!" There was Quill again.
'I'd better step in before these goons get even louder' He mumbled in his head. Quickly climbing the ladder to the cockpit like the animal he refused he was he cursed and growled. Its too damn early in the morning for all this noise.
"All right, all right, what the hell is going on in here!?"
The Guardians froze in place, but it was Quill who recovered first, although not well.
"Uuuh, nothing. There's nothing going on here. Wha- why would you think that?" he replied with the stupidest looking face. More stupid looking than usual. Rocket just raised an eyebrow at him, then looked to the other tall people.
"It's about G-" Gamora slapped her green hand over Drax's mouth before he could finish his sentance.
"We have something that you should see" Gamora said while nodding her head in the direction of the ship's screens, still clamping her palm over Drax's face. Quill nervously looked at her before whatever she was hinting at clicked in his head.
"Oh, right" He turned and walked to the controls for the comm. unit. "I usually end up recording all my calls, for uh- well you know what, its not important, but check out this message" The holographic screen sputtered out light until a picture of some Nova corpsman was flickering in the air.
Gamora had finally released the giant muscle- head. "You might want to seat yourself, friend."
Quill hit 'Play'.
A stunned raccoon stared blankly at the screen as the others trained their eyes on him. A snarled appeared on his face and he whipped his head around to the front of the ship to where a tin pot held a tiny Groot. He stomped angrily towards the sentient plant baby.
"Did you know about this?"
The baby Grootling waved his tiny hands in front of him. He couldn't talk yet, but they all knew that he was trying to indicate that he didn't know about it, and even if he could talk all he would be able to say was "I am Groot."
Rocket tugged at his ears "I can't freaking believe this." He grated out. They needed a plan of action to sort this out, but his head was too muddled to come up with one. First Groot "dies", then he lives again, and now there's another Groot? He needed some booze. He really really needed some booze. He groaned into his hands then massaged his aching head.
The rest of the crew looked sympathetically at him, not really knowing what to say. Drax put a heavy palm on Rocket's head and they all migrated into their respective seats. They had a long journey ahead of them, and a lot to think about. It was best to get to Xandar as soon and smoothly as possible.
Music suddenly blared around them and Peter danced in his seat.
"Oh come on, Quill!" Rocket and Peter commenced their usual bickering with a clueless comment thrown in from Drax every now and then.
Gamora smirked to herself. 'And to think I was willing to fight and die for these fools."
It took twelve Terran hours to get to Xandar, and there were two hours left. The bickering got old fast and Gamora was now nursing a giant headache and murderous thoughts. She may have hated killing for her kidnapper, but she would gladly kill again to shut her new friends up. Drax was taking her shift and nodded to her, keeping his distance. She practically stalked out of the cockpit and into her room below deck.
Drax himself grew tired of their constant arguing, but he was not about to draw his finger across his throat to them. He still did not grasp most of Quill's strange idioms, or Rocket's insults, but he was content with knowing that they were a team, and should they find themselves in trouble that they would "have his back."
Rocket managed to "convince" Peter at gun point to turn of the music for the rest of the trip about an hour ago when they went to bed, and The Destroyer was reveling in the silence, though it would not last long. They were nearly to Xandar, he could view the planet in the distance. He decided to call into Nova to see where he should park the newly built Milano. One call and half an hour later he was landing on next to Nova Headquarters.
"Friends, we have landed. You must awaken now" Drax's voice boomed over the intercom to each of the sleeping pods. One by one they made their way out of the retro spacecraft and onto the landing pad surface. The sun was only just beginning to make an appearance across the surface of the ground and the sky was still tinged pink.
Among the soft glare of the sun they noticed some figures walking towards them. It was time to meet with Denarian Dey and get this whole mess sorted out.