The Travel to Ego's Planet / the Ravanger Ambush:
The half group of Guardians entered the pod with Ego and Mantis and the yellow marble wall formed behind them. Rocket, Meredith, Groot and Nebula watched as the pod rose up from the ground, and ascended high into the sky until…. voom! It set off on its journey to wherever Ego lived.
Inside the pod Ego was lying down on a bunk and Mantis gently placed a hand on his master's head and closed his eyes.
Tina watched the scene carefully wondering what he was doing. After a moment, Ego had fallen asleep and Mantis left to give him some space. Tina next noticed that Peter was holding a picture of their hero: David Hasselhoff who they pretended was their father for years.
"May I take you two to your seats?" Mantis offered as he approached them.
"Yes. That would be lovely thank you," Tina thanked.
"And we have water as well, if you wish to keep hydrated,"
"Of course we wish to be hydrated," Peter said back in a rude manner.
"Peter," Tina hissed, frowning at him. "He was just offering us a drink. Let's just go and sit down,"
The whole group took their seats except Gamora at a white seating area and Mantis poured them so drinks.
"Hey, can I ask you a personal question?" Tina requested as he sat down.
Mantis looked surprised. "No one has ever asked me a personal question."
"Your antenna. What are they for?"
"Their purpose?"
"Yes. Lady Quill and I have a bet." Drax suddenly jibbed in.
Tina glowered at him. "You're not supposed to say that."
"I think that when you are about to go through a doorway that is too low, your antenna feel this and keep you from being decapitated."
"I bet they're for detecting people when they're near," Peter added himself into the bet. "Of for sniffing,"
"Peter…" Tina complained, getting annoyed with the boys now, particularly at her brother's rude
"Come on sis. You add in a bet," Peter pushed her to accept the challenge.
"Okay." Tina gave in. "Anything other detecting doors or sniffing,"
"They are not for feeling doorways," Mantis answered. He cast a dark glower at Peter. "Or for sniffing people. I've got a nose for that,"
"Aaah!" Drax moaned, angry he lost the bet.
"Ha-Ha!" Tina laughed him as well as Peter for getting theirs bets thrown back at them.
"They have something to do with my empathic abilities."
"What are those?" Gamora asked curiously.
"If I touch someone, I can feel their feelings."
"You read minds?" Peter asked.
"No, telepaths feel thoughts. Empaths feel feelings... emotions," Mantis explained.
"That's really interesting," Tina was smiling with relevance. "I've never met anyone who could read another's feelings,"
"May I?" Mantis requested politely.
"Of course," Tina offered. What harm could a single touch do? It wasn't like he was toxic.
"Ah ah!" Peter interrupted Mantis before he could touch his twin. "No one's touching my sister. Not without my permission. Which you do not have Mr. Mantis sir,"
"Pete…It's fine," Tina assured, a little intrigued by his overprotective brother mode. "He just wants to feel my feelings,"
"The touch will not harm her. I promise," Mantis assured.
Peter huffed quietly through his nostrils. "Fine," he slouched back at his but kept a firm watch on Mantis.
Mantis gently touched his palm on Tina's hand. His attentans glowed a pale light, and warm smile swelled on his face. "You feel love Tina. Love for your brother. And your friends,"
"Yes. I do feel it," Tina was putting on a cheesy grin and he grinned back.
Peter frowned at the scene.
Mantis took in another breath. Another feeling arose through his body. "You also feel annoyance, irritation at your brother,"
"Okay. Enough with the touchy stuff," Peter ushered Mantis's hand off Tina much to her irritation. "What?"
"She is very irritated at you for your over-protective nature," Mantis read her face.
Peter was appalled but surprised by Mantis's empath skills. It really did work.
"Your turn Peter," Tina pushed him forward.
"What? No!" Peter objected, not likely the idea of being touched. "I do not like to be touched! By him!"
"Come on Peter! He's not toxic or anything," Tina said in exasperation.
"Okay. But make it quick," Peter reluctantly allowed Mantis to touch him. Just like with Tina, his antennas glowed again, and a warm smile appeared on his face again. "You feel love. Love but concern for your sister,"
"Yes. It should be obvious," Peter panned out, looking grumpy with him.
"Not only that. But romantic – sexual love,"
"No! No! No! You are dead wrong!" Peter ranted out, pulling his arm away. "I most certainly do not!"
"For her!" Mantis pointed at Gamora. She widened her eyes in embarrassment.
"No, No, that is not true!" Peter objected.
Drax exploded with ecstasy. He spilled out into peals of laughter. "He just told everyone, your deepest darkest secret!"
"Dude, come on, I think you are overreacting a little bit..." Peter complained.
"You must be so embarrassed!" Drax wouldn't stop laughing much to both Peter and Gamora's fury. "Do me! Do me, do me!" he implored eagerly to Mantis.
Mantis touched him and he became all ecstatic like Drax. "I have never felt this humour!"
Tina couldn't stop laughing at how embarrassed her brother was; it was so funny! Orlins laughed so much too that he fell of his shoulders and onto her knees. "You should see the look on your face!" Tina spilled out tears of joy. "If Mum was here, she'd fine it so hard to stop laughing! And Meredith too!"
"So unbelievably uncool." Peter muttered out, annoyed at how Mantis had made a laughing stock of him.
Mantis stood up and walked over to Gamora, attempting to touch her, but a quick swipe she grabbed his wrist. "Touch me and the only thing you are going to feel is a broken jaw."
"Okay. Will you let go please?" Mantis bade.
Gamora slowly loosened her grip and Mantis pulled his wrist away from her. He turned back towards Drax, Tina, Orlins and Peter. "I can also alter emotions to some extent."
"Yeah, like what?" Peter questioned in a rude manner. He was fumed with Mantis for embarrassing him with his empath abilities.
Tina elbowed him.
"Oww!" he cried out, rubbing his sore spot. "What was that for?"
His only answer was a stony stare.
"If I touch someone who is sad, I can ease them into contentment for a short while. I can make a stubborn person compliant. But I mostly use it to help my master sleep." he looked sympathetically at Tina. "He lies awake at night, thinking about his children,"
"Do one of those on me!" Drax pleaded. "Do it! Do it! Please! Please!"
"Okay," Mantis reached forward and Drax allowed him to place his palm on his forehead. His antennas glowed. "Sleep." he chanted.
Drax fell back, snoring like a pig, much to Tina's amusement.
"That is cool," she commented. "Do that on Peter!"
"What?!" Peter screamed at his sister's request.
"Meredith please! I said I was 'sorry'! Multiple times!" Rocket beseeched. He chased Meredith around the ship and around the crash-site, but Meredith wouldn't let him come close to her. Baby Groot kept telling Rocket that she didn't want to be near him, but he wouldn't listen.
Meredith finally lost him when she turned smaller and snuck into a little hole in the ship that he couldn't fit through.
"Meredith please! I know that I did some really reckless stupid things! But you can't be mad at me forever can you,"
Meredith growled heatedly at him.
Rocket sighed. He really had screwed up things with her. "Don't talk to me? Fine," he said with remorse. "But just know I'm not goanna stop protecting you. I don't how much you push me away. I don't care…how hurt I feel everything I try to fix things with you. I don't care how much you hate me now! But just…know that I care,"
Meredith didn't speak to him. He sighed again and turned away and headed into the forest.
Baby Groot went into the little hole and urged her to come out, telling her it was clear. They curled up together on some little cushions and Meredith placed a song on to help them sleep: Southern Nights, one her absolute favourites.
Inside the control room, Kraglin had finally tracked down the Milano. "Cap! The Milano is on Behert!"
"Send out ten ships! Those Guardians won't be leaving us this time! It's a good thing we put that tracker on their ship back at the battle of Xandar," Yondu told his brother as they walked over to a ship along with five other crew members and Taserface.
"Once we get there, we'll at least kill half of them but keep the twins and that green snobbish lady alive,"
"No Warran! We were told to bring all of them to Ayesha!" Yondu reminded. "She wants to kill them herself!"
"Well we shouldn't waste our time dragging in a whole team to their planet. They're pretty crafty warriors and smart dorks. All together they'd be able to escape this ship before we'd even make to Ayesha,"
"Then we keep them in separate cells," Taserface offered.
"You've been acting weird, weird since the Battle of Xandar," Yondu scrunched his eyes at his brother but still kept the pace. "What is going on with you?"
"None of your business," Warran shrugged him off and tried to board the ship but Yondu grabbed his shoulders and gripped their blades.
The crew felt tense.
"You are my brother. It is my job to know. It is my job to know what happens when you get all weird as such. What is wrong with you?!"
Warran wouldn't speak a word.
Yondu wouldn't have come along. "Retch!" he addressed a colleague. "Take him to his room. I'll deal with him when I get back,"
Before Warran could react, he fished out a pair of laser shackles and bounded his hands. He stripped him of all his bombs and weapons, and he was pulled away. "Let go of me!" he shouted. "Get your damn hands off of me!"
The ships arrived at the planet of Behert after twenty jumps, under the cover of night. They landed their ships carefully over five yards from the crash-site of the Milano.
They armed themselves with guns with light-beams and started taking slow steps towards the damaged ship. The closer they came, the louder they could hear pop music, most likely one of the Quill Twins' favourite pop-songs.
Groot and Meredith slept peacefully on the ship with Nebula lying on the floor watching them as she was shackled to the wall. She held a grumpy face as she could nothing but sit and think and wish to kill her sister.
Rocket crouched on his paws on a branch in the shadows as he watched the Ravangers stalk closer toward the ships, toward Groot and Meredith and their prisoner. He smugly smirked as he took out a few control pods; he had some clever tricks up his sleeve that were just waiting to be played on those space-pirates.
A group from the west was just 100 feet from the crash-site, when…blink. Blink. Blink. An alarm was ringing on their left. They turned around and saw three boxes shoot out dozens of blow-darts. They were injected in the face and they collapsed to the ground, their guns' having their triggers pulled and sending out a constant sound of bang bang bang.
Meredith's ears flicked up when she heard a constant sound of a gun firing. She woke up. So did Groot. It didn't sound Groot. And Rocket wasn't on the ship with them. Was he being attacked?
Rocket went pouncing from branch to branch in the trees like a wild-cat causing them to crack and rustle. The Ravangers heard him. They looked up and spotted him.
"Up there!" one shouted.
"Shoot him!" another ordered.
The group aimed their guns at the trees and shot at Rocket. But his cyber-body programming allowed him to jump carefully out of range. He found a safe spot on a thick branch and fished out a control. He pressed a button.
Boom!
A small circle-shaped shocker, hidden under the leaves on the grass, sent out a mighty sonic wave that sent the Ravangers flying up into the air, then landing back on the ground with a painful thud.
He pressed another trigger.
Another shocker was activated and made another group of Ravangers in another part of the forest fly up and land back down.
Rocket pressed for each shocker two more times until they reached their limit. The Ravangers were knocked out and wouldn't wake up for a long night.
There was still another group to take care. Rocket jumped again from tree to tree and fished out some little robotic sticky pins that Tina had helped him invent. He scoured the ground as he jumped from tree and there they were. He suddenly jumped on the one at the very back sticking one of his electric pins to his head. He hoped from head to head to the same thing to the others as well. Once he took care of the tenth one, he hopped back onto a branch and pressed a button on a wrist-gadget.
Instantly, the sticky pins created an electric shock that stunned the Ravangers; they fell to the ground. Rocket leapt back down on the ground and stalked a little on all fours.
"Not so cool without your toys are you now?" a Ravanger shouted from the shadows.
Rocket stood up cautiously as two Ravangers appeared both behind and in front of him. He waited for the right moment and then... He battle-cried as he leapt on the pirate like a panther and punched him in the face until he fell backward. He leapt onto the other and punched him to the ground too. He thought he was at victory when a second later, he heard a long whistle. There was only one person who could who could do that. He gazed through the trees and saw a bright red beam shooting towards him. And behind it was the long golden body of an arrow. He closed his eyes thinking it would shoot through his head and kill him.
It didn't pierce his head; but it would if he moved. "Crap," he cursed himself as he opened his eyes. He heard a cackling laugh and saw a blue alien with a red robotic metal-head piece approaching from the bushes, along with too many Ravangers henchmen. They surrounded him.
"Hey there Rat?"
"How's it going, you blue idiot?" Rocket greeted back with hate.
"Not so bad. We've got ourselves a pretty good little gig here. This golden gal with quite a high opinion of herself…has offered us a large sum to deliver you and your pals over to her…because she wants – to kill y'all,"
Back in the ship, Meredith and Groot were growing increasingly worried for Rocket. Meredith was already starting to get over her anger at him.
Nebula saw how scared they were; an idea popped in her head. "Release me! He needs my help! If you two want him to live, you need to get me out of these bonds! There are going to kill him!"
Groot was about to make a move. But Meredith stopped him. Instead she urged him to stay put as she darted on her four legs outside.
"She can't stop them all by herself," Nebula kept going on. "You need to let me help her,"
"I'll tell you; it was pretty easy to find you. I put a tracer on your ship back during the battle of Xandar. I couldn't those twins getting away with betraying me,"
The Ravangers laughed with victory.
Rocket was filled with regret more than ever. He felt ashamed of himself for how he had put not just himself but his friends in danger too. And his surrogate son, and his love who would likely never forgive him or talk to him again. "Give me your word that you won't hurt Groot or Meredith and I'll tell you where the batteries are,"
"Lucky for you, my word doesn't mean squat," Yondu expressed.
His henchmen laughed in triumph.
"Otherwise, I'd actually hand you over,"
Yondu's next words made everyone look at him in anger and shock.
"OTHERWISE YOU'D WHAT?!" Taserface bellowed.
"We'll take them batteries. They're worth what? A quarter mill on the open markets?" Yondu struggled to think of a good excuse that would appease his men.
"That Priestess offered us a million. A quarter is only one third of that!" Taserface protested, acting as if Yondu was once again defending the Quill Twins
"A quarter ain't a third," Yondu corrected.
"A quarter is 25," another criticized. "We can't even buy a pair of boots with 25 units,"
Yondu frowned at him for being stupid with maths. "Enough! The point is, we ain't stupid enough to help kill the Guardians of the Galaxy. The whole dang Nova Corp be on us."
"That ain't right. I just gotta say this one time, Captain," Kraglin began. "No matter how many times those Quill Twins betray you, you protect them like that none of the rest of us matter. I'm the one what sticks up for ya."
A majority began agreeing with him, shouting out rants at how their captain only cared about the twins' well beings above their glory.
"Take it easy, Kraglin." another Ravanger tried to calm him down.
"Yondu's gone soft," Taserface declared, "It's those Quill Twins, they've changed him…suppose it's time for a new change in leadership!"
Numerous Ravangers joined his side. Suddenly there was a huge growling sound coming from the trees. Yondu was suddenly knocked from behind by an angry Guntrin. She leapt in the middle, surrounding her enlarged sized body around Rocket, who was surprised that she had come to rescue him.
"You again. I'll make you suffer like I used to long ago," Taserface aimed his gun at Meredith but she swiped it out of his hands. One of his supporters was about to shoot at her but Yondu's Yaka arrowed hovered in front of his head.
"Anyone who harms that Guntrin answers to me,"
Meredith was surprised that Yondu was defending her despite her knocking him out.
Suddenly…blast! Yondu's fin was struck of his head. He and his arrow fell to the ground. The Ravangers looked behind and saw Nebula with a gun outstretched in her right grip.
"Oh crap," Rocket cursed. How could Groot let her go like that?
Nebula shot out two electric blasts from her gun. He and Meredith were hit and they were stunned. Meredith turned back to her small size as she fell to the ground beside Rocket.
The Ravangers turned and looked at Nebula.
"Hello boys," she greeted casually. She held up her robotic arm with a yarn fruit to her mouth and took a bite and then a munch. She spat it out. "It's not ripe," Her sister was right.
"Take them away!" Taserface ordered. The Ravangers tied up an unconscious Yondu and Rocket and caged-up Groot, who was found knocked out in the remains of the Milano. Taserface picked up Yondu's arrow and slid it in his coat pocket. He then picked her up by the tail, the red Guntrin that was once his before Peter took her from him.
"You're mine again," he cackled coldly as he bared his white ugly teeth.
Hope you're all enjoying the book. Please let me know what you all think of it and send reviews and ideas they are most helpful. Thank you once again DaemonWolf of Chaos for all the support so far. It means a lot.
