Whatever I had been expecting when we walked into the bar, it was definitely not what I found when we were lead into the room. It was like a weird twisted combination of a zoo and a museum, the glass gases housing every kind of creature or thing imaginable. The room seemed endless from where we walked in, with cases going up into the sky. It was unnerving.
"Okay this isn't creepy at all," Rocket summed it up, his voice still revealing just how drunk he really was. Although to his credit he seemed to be sobering up fairly quickly, not willing to take chances though I walked next to him. Slowing my pace greatly so I could get his gun away from him at a moment's notice in case he decided to start shooting.
"We house the galaxies largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manor." The attendant explained, but it sounded rehearsed. I wonder how many times she had to say that line.
I blinked surprised when I heard a low growling coming from my right, I turned to see they had one of those dogs we had foolishly decided to send up into space… well I guess that's where they went. I wonder if they had any monkeys. I looked down curiously when I heard another growl. I was more than a little surprised to find that Rocket had taken offense to the dog and was growling back.
"Dude," I hissed at him putting my hand on my hip as I shot him a look of disbelief.
"What? He started it!" Rocket defended in disbelief, surprised that I would blame him.
"I don't care who stared it. Just knock it off, we got enough problems." I reminded him turning back to look towards were we were walking.
The attendant forced a meak smile as she announced dramatically, "I present to you, Taneleer Tivan. The Collector."
The man was weird. And that was me being kind in describing him, I couldn't tell what kind of animal made the belt that he wore like a cape but I have no doubt it was probably a rare species or something. He also had some weird glass, they didn't look stylish or comfortable so I can only assume they had some kind of purpose to them.
I forced myself to look somewhere else, reminding myself that this guy was going to be paying us a lot of money and it was best not to give him a reason not to. I looked over the cages when suddenly movement in one of them caught my attention. My eyes widened a little at the sight of a chitauri in one of the cages.
It looked exactly like the ones who attacked New York, and so I couldn't help getting a good look at it as I didn't get a chance to when I helped defend the city.
"What is that… thing?"
I looked back towards the Collector, I guess, who had suddenly become very interest in Groot.
"I am Groot."
I glanced back down at Rocket to see him glaring supeciously at the Collector, ready to jump to the tree man's aid if the collector got too close.
"I never thought I'd meet a Groot," the Collector admitted with a little bit of excitement in his voice as he looked Groot up and down, "Sir, you must allow me to pay you now so that I may own your carcass. At the moment of your death of course."
"Well this certainly took a turn," I admitted looking around the group to see if anyone else was as concerned as I was.
The Flora Colossus in question didn't seemed worried though. In fact he shrugged casually as he, "I am Groot."
Whatever Groot response wasn't what Rocket had been expecting because the drunk raccoon looked up at him in disbelief as he demanded, "Why? So he could turn you into a frickin' chair?"
"That's your pet?" The Collector asked carelessly nodding towards Rocket.
"His what?!" Rocket snarled already reaching back for his gun.
I moved before then holding one hand out towards the coon as I addressed the odd man a little nervous, "No, no! You really should not be making jokes at him right now! He's an angry drunk! And I think he might actually kill us all."
Instead of responding immediately the Collector began eyeing me curiously, his eyes going towards my streak. I resisted the urge to squirm under his gaze as he asked casually, "This is an exciting day for me, two rare species in one day."
"Uh, I wouldn't really consider myself rare," I admitted suspiciously looking around for help.
"Tivan!" Gamora interrupted coming to my rescue as she stepped in front of the psycho skillfully getting the conversation back on track, "We have been halfway around the galaxy to get this orb."
"Very well then," Tivan agreed reluctantly dropping the previous topic going back towards his new toy, "Let us see what you brought."
I looked around the group realizing suddenly that I didn't know who had the orb, I really hope it wasn't Drax. I found my eyes fall on Quill as he pulled out the orb, trying to look cool… until he dropped it. I sighed pinching the bridge of my nose as he scrambled to recover from his actions. At least this explained why he was willing to risk being ditched, after all once we realized he had the orb we wouldn't have gone anywhere.
And here I thought we had agreed not to let him have the orb.
Tivan eagerly took the orb from Quill carrying it to his table so he could admire it properly. Setting the orb down he quickly began a story, "Oh my new friends. Before creation itself, there were six singularities."
A switch was flipped and suddenly a machine hummed and began twisting the orb expertly until it opened, finally revealing what it was that made that damn thing so important. In the center of the orb there was a single purple, glowing, stone. And I found that the hum I had been easy to ignore increased tenfold. But how did I remember it?
Something else was turned on as a number of holographic images appeared around us revealing different photos and videos. I tried to listen to Tivan's speaking but I found myself too focused on the images to care.
Especially when I spotted one of them.
The familiar hum, it all clicked into place the second I laid eyes on the so familiar alien power source that almost caused the destruction of New York City. The Tesseract.
I knew more about that cube than almost anyone, during my training into SHIELD I had been working on the Tesseract with Erik. I had been there when the psycho power hungry Loki came through, and that action alone had nearly killed me.
I could distinctly remember standing on the other edge of the device, in the wrong place at the right time. While I had not actually touched the cube directly, when the portal had opened I couldn't dodge out of the way fast enough. The beam had knocked me out cold for a good minute or so.
The doctors who I saw claimed that no permanent damage had been done but now I see that it was mostly the cause of my messed up afterlife. This was way worst then I thought.
"Blah, blah, blah!" Rocket suddenly dismissed his voice now mostly sober as he yelled in annoyance, "We're all very fascinated whitey! But we'd like to get paid!"
I rolled my eyes at Rocket's impatience not very amused myself.
"How would you like to get paid?" The Collector asked sounding generally curious.
Rocket only got more annoyed at the Collectors cluelessness shouting annoyed, "What do you think fancy pants? Units!"
I sighed following the rest of the group, watching the Collector as he began shifting threw a drawer to find our payment. He suddenly looked up, eyes widening just a bit. Before I could ask him what was wrong he suddenly snapped warningly, "Carina! Get away from that!"
I spun quickly on my heels eyes widened as well, the attendant who had led us in glared at her boss with such hatred I've no doubt she despised him. Defiantly she shouted at him, "I will no longer be your slave!"
Suddenly realizing what she was about to do I held out my hand shouting panicked, "DON'T!"
But she had already made up her mind and with no hesitation, clearly deeming that risking death was worth destroying the Collector and us alone with him, she grabbed the stone in one hand.
And that was when she started screaming as her pink skin cracked and broke revealing glowing lines of purple and black.
"Holy-!"
The initial blast was strong enough to knock me clear off my feet, but almost as soon as my back hit the ground I was leaping to my feet. I glanced around the room before I made a quick decision, I couldn't run fast enough to get away so instead I choose to dive behind the desk that Gamora and Quill had found.
I can't say where Rocket or Groot were, but if I had to guess I would say they were trying to out run the blast. The attendants shrill screams echoed around the room as the energy consumed her, I didn't dare to look up and see for myself. Unwilling to listen to the dying girls screams I covered my ears, the energy of the stone made my ears pop like I was on a plane. I squeezed my eyes shut desperately trying to block it out.
I didn't fight when I felt somebody grab me yanking me towards them, I took a chance to glance and see that Gamora, Quill and I were now huddled together behind the desk waiting out the explosion.
It was even worse when the screaming stopped, because that was when I knew that she had been completely absorbed. That was also when she went bang. The explosion seemed to shake the building, and the light that was produced by the blast was so bright I could see it even with my eyes squeezed shut.
My brain instantly flipped to trying calculating out chances of surviving the blast, until the ground stopped shaking and the room calmed. I found that somebody, Quill I realized, had thrown his arms around Gamora to clutch my arm. I shifted a bit couching a bit as we moved away from one another too terrified to be embarssed.
We looked at one another before slowly we all sat up so we could look over the top of the desk. As expected the room had been totally destroyed, with the single small stone responsible resting on the table as if it had never moved. The attendant, Carina I realized, was nowhere to be found.
"What the fu-," Quill started to curse but was interrupted when a light behind us blew up.
I took a shaky breath as I stared at the destruction asking dully, "What-who the hell left the pink girl alone with the bomb?"
"Come on!" Gamora shouted suddenly having already pulled herself together, jumping effortlessly over the desk.
"Oh by Thor's hammer… we-we almost died!" I gasped standing up running both my hands through my hair as I spun in a circle looking at the destruction around me while at the same time heading for the exit.
I paused only when I spotted one of the only cases that hadn't been completely destroyed, in a stunned state I looked into the cage blinking curiously as I did so. The dog inside whined at me pleadingly as it lowered its head.
Without needing any more encouragement I grabbed the nearest heavy object I could, tossing it as hard as I could at the glass. The second the glass had been removed the dog barked happily at me before he run out of the room to freedom.
I smiled weakly after him, before I followed after him moving quickly through what had once been the packed bar. It appeared that the attendant wasn't the only one not to survive the blast. It was only now that I realized the Collector, Tivan I think, seemed to have disappeared. Maybe the attendant had taken her vengeance.
When I left the ruins of the bar I was pleasantly surprised to find Rocket and Groot just getting up, seems they had managed to successfully outrun the blast. I forced myself to take a deep breath trying to calm myself down as I ran my hands through my hair. This whole thing just got a whole lot more complicated.
