Rocket was piloting a junker of a rented cruiser towards the last place he wanted to go. The vessel was silver and basic, equipped with little more than an emergency shuttle. There was barely enough room for him, Gamora, and Groot.

"Take over, I need to get ready." He climbed down from the chair and crawled around Groot.

Gamora nodded and slipped into the seat. "Rocket, is there any other way we can do this?"

"No." The raccoon retrieved his bag of supplies and began equipping himself with anything he could possibly need. His paws were covered in black, fingerless gloves. He strapped on a makeshift jetpack, which was actually little more than Quill's boot thrusters belted to his back and set up to be activated remotely.

"Aren't those Peter's?" Her chair turned around and she gave Rocket an accusatory glare.

"I am Groot." The tree chimed in, both of them ganging up on the raccoon.

"Yeah, and? Eternals can fly, he don't need 'em anymore." Since his foot got hurt, the idea of having a jetpack slowly embedded itself into his mind. He didn't have the right materials to build one, so this would have to do. It would certainly help make him more mobile and compensate for his height deficiency.

Gamora didn't appear to like that answer, but she stopped pressing the issue.

"My communicator will be on. No matter what you hear, don't swoop in to help unless I specifically say so. We need a code word or something. Oh, I'll start humming Hooked on a Feeling." The terms were to come alone, so having her as backup could endanger Lylla.

They approached Halfworld, so named because exactly half of the planet was verdant nature, while the other half was fully industrial. Rocket told her to land in a certain area towards the edge of the technological half. As he exited the ship, he turned to see Groot waving.

Gamora stood next to him with a slight frown. "How will you find him?"

"I know exactly where he is." Rocket stated grimly, walking away before he could see her reaction.

The cyborg slowly walked towards the home of his nightmares. He limped, but the cane would just slow him down. The letters on the building had all fallen off, and there were no lights on in any of the windows. Once inside, he grabbed a plasma ball from his pocket and shook it, illuminating the space around him. The facility had thankfully been abandoned and was in obvious disrepair. Thick dust clung to every surface. It looked as if no one had been here in cycles. His tail drooped towards the floor, the tip collecting dust. As he tread through the empty corridors, he kept expecting it to be a trap, for the scientists to come out of nowhere and get him again. But there were no scientists residing here, only ghosts and memories.

He entered an area of the lab that he remembered, the hallway between the cages and the operating room. Images floated through his head of being dragged back and forth in his hallway. Visions of what they did to him. Somehow, knowing that this place was empty made the memories less vivid, though they wouldn't stop coming to the front of his mind.

A noise shook him from his thoughts. Rocket pulled out one of his guns and tiptoed around the corner, only to find a small green rodent chewing on a disconnected wire. Nothing to be worried about. He let out a sigh of relief.

Eventually he came upon a room bathed in light from a gaping hole in the ceiling. The imposter stood under it as if it were a d'ast spotlight.

"Hello, Rocket." Missile grinned deviously.

"Let Lylla go." Rocket said firmly as he pointed his gun at the imposter. He didn't want to give his double the satisfaction of calling him Missile, since it was obvious that name was chosen just to piss him off.

"Patience, brother. Put that away for now, let's talk."

Rocket hesitantly complied, mostly because Missile didn't appear to be armed. "Are you really my brother?"

"Not exactly, but in a manner of speaking."

"Who the flark are you and why are you doing this?" Rocket had no idea and he deserved an explanation.

Missile's smile fell. "I have many reasons. First, when you and your friends escaped, you didn't take me with you. You left me here to rot."

"I didn't even know you existed until a few days ago!"

"Because of that, I continued to suffer. I endured. As a consequence, my enhancements are far more advanced and numerous than yours." Missile removed his cloak in a dramatic fashion, revealing his cybernetics. His scarring was severe, on both the front and back of his torso. The metal protrusions were similar in design to Rocket's, but much more complex and there were a lot more of them. It was like a robotic arachnid had merged into his back. "Take a good, hard look at what you did to me." Missile's voice was full of pain and resentment.

"I ain't them. They did that, not me." Rocket tried to imagine what his life would have been like if he had saved Missile. The identical pair combing the galaxy, leaving thefts and explosions in their wake. Maybe he never would have met Groot, or any of the other Guardians.

"The damage you caused as you left didn't hinder them at all, by the way. I brought this place down myself." Now his voice oozed with smugness.

"Whoop-dee-frickin'-doo." Rocket had wanted to be the one to destroy this place, but he didn't really care as long as the scientists suffered.

"Once I did escape, I found myself in your shadow. Everyone thought I was 'that trigger-happy rodent that fancies himself as a bounty hunter.' I can't even count the number of times I was attacked by people who you owed money." Missile put his cloak back on.

Rocket wouldn't admit it, but he was beginning to feel quite guilty. He wasn't sure how true the guilt trip was, but it made complete sense, between what the scientists did here and his endless list of debts.

"What I don't get is why you didn't involve the Nova Corps. If I was impersonating and framing someone, that's the first wanted list I'd get on."

"Putting you in prison wasn't my objective, you would just break out again like always. I wanted to discredit you, make you feel how I did, accused of crimes you didn't commit. But perhaps the biggest reason is this. I am 89P12. 89th wave, Procyon, 12th specimen." A cruel smile formed on Missile's maw. "My genetic material was used to create a clone: 8. 9. P. 1. 3."

"NO! Nonononono..." Rocket's worst fear was realized. He fell to his paws and knees. His sense of self was crumbling. It was bad enough that he was a freak, a monster. But now he was even less, just the copy of one. Missile was cackling with laughter.

"Rocket, don't believe him. He will say anything to keep you emotionally vulnerable. As long as you think he is your only source for answers, he has no incentive to be truthful." Gamora's voice came through the communicator. She was right, he had no real reason to trust anything the imposter had to say.

With his resolve restored, he stood up defiantly. "Prove it."

Missile was baffled, eyes big in confusion. "How? There's nothing here. The databanks have been wiped."

"Look, I ain't good at saying this, but I'm sorry. I really am. Can we just let the past be the past?" Rocket held his paw out.

"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to be dead." The doppelganger scurried up a pole and onto the roof of the building.

Rocket heard an explosion, so he quickly activated his jetpack and propelled through the hole in the ceiling, fire and debris close behind. Billowing black smoke assaulted his lungs and obscured his vision. Flying out of the smoke, he could see that Missile had gotten into a small shuttle and was hovering at a slight distance.

Groot had given Rocket a new lease on life, he couldn't squander it by dying here. He needed to get to those years that were originally way out of reach.

"Are you alright?" Gamora sounded urgent. She must have heard the explosion.

"Fine."

"Try not to kill him. It will be far harder to prove your innocence if he's dead, especially if there's nothing left of the corpse." She made it sound like Rocket chose to cause more damage than necessary just for the fun of it. To be fair, he often did.

"Easier said than done!" The only gun he had with him capable of significantly damaging the ship would completely destroy it and the imposter within. Rocket flew over to the natural half of the planet and dove into the trees, avoiding the lasers shooting at him. The jets from Peter's boots weren't really meant for sustained flying, just for short bursts. One of the thrusters shut down with a fizzle, causing Rocket to turn sharply. He moved closer to the surface and shut the other booster off, falling to the ground. Then he picked himself up and remained in a crouch.

Missile's ship began to circle the area, searching for Rocket. Once the ship was overhead, the Guardian carefully aimed his best gun at the thrusters. Perfect hit. The vessel was sent careening to the ground. Rocket hurried to the location of the crash, wincing as every step on his left foot sent a jolt of pain through his body.

"Rocket, I know why he didn't release Lylla. She already escaped and is here with me now."

"Really?" He wouldn't put it past her to lie in order to keep him focused on the battle at hand.

"I'm fine Rocket, I told you I could take care of myself." Lylla's voice was music to his ears.

He was relieved. "You always were full of surprises. Gamora, get her somewhere safe, away from this planet."

"But how will you get out of there?"

"I'll figure somethin' out."

"We'll meet at the location we agreed on earlier."

Missile emerged from the wreckage unscathed, and began firing at Rocket. They traded shots. The imposter's claims of having more thorough enhancements were definitely true, since he was much more nimble than the Guardian. The d'ast bastard was dodging everything. Rocket had a gun that would shoot a wider area, but there would be nothing left of his get-out-of-jail-free-card.

"BLAM!" Rocket shouted as he fired, finally landing a hit on Missile's shoulder. But then his gun was hit, busted and shot out of his hand. He grabbed a large wrench from his bag. It was just an ordinary wrench, but in his paws it was like a sword. Missile was out of ammo and pulled out a pair of daggers. They rushed each other. Steel clashed against steel. Rocket felt a sharp pain as a dagger dug into his stomach. Suddenly, an electrical field enveloped the dagger, sending a painful shock through his body. Luckily he was wearing gloves so the current didn't reach the wrench. "F-flark. You krutacker." Rocket gritted his teeth. Some of the servos in his body shut down, hindering his movement. He managed to swing the wrench and hit the enemy's arm, quickly ripping the weapon out of the wound. It hurt like hell, but he could take it, he'd suffered much worse.

A familiar voice came through the communicator, bringing Rocket back to focus, but it wasn't Gamora or Lylla. "Rocket, it's Rhomann Dey. I'm here to help." A lone Nova Corps star cruiser arrived and hovered nearby.

"Oh yay, the cavalry is here, all one of him." He quipped dryly.

"My hands were tied. This is way out of my jurisdiction. I'm technically on vacation right now. Try to get away from him, I can't fire when you're that close."

"A friend coming to your rescue? How rude."

Rocket bit Missile on the neck, and received another stab in return. He pulled away and struck the imposter on the head, and the cloaked figure lost consciousness.


Rocket and a bound, unconscious Missile were aboard Dey's star cruiser. "Uh, thanks." The raccoon sat against the wall, exhausted and trying to not bleed all over the ship. The fur around his arms, stomach, and mouth was matted and dyed crimson.

"It's the least I could do." Dey calmly piloted the ship away from that horrible planet.

"Can you drop me off on Knowhere?"

"Sure, but I should probably take you to a hospital on Xandar first."

"No!...I mean, I'll be okay, just hand me a first-aid kit." After Dey did so, Rocket bandaged himself up. "So once you take him in, you'll find out what he is, right? Well, if we are clones of each other, will you know which one came first?" He needed to know the truth.

"We'd be able to detect a genetic match, but I don't think we'd know that unless there's a big age gap or something."

Rocket looked at his mirror image. He felt, against all odds, an unexpected wish that things could have been different.