"Be ready," I announce. "I see the creature and it's at most a minute out."
"Which it will be its last," Gamora says.
"I thought your thing was a sword," Peter remarks on the large gun that she's holding.
"We've been hired to stop an inter-dimensional beast from feeding on those batteries and I'm going to stop it with a sword?"
"It's just… swords were your thing and guns were mine, but… I guess we're both doing guns now. I just didn't know that."
Several months have passed since Xandar. We now travel across the galaxy helping whoever needed help. It was pretty rewarding and if we got a monetary reward, then even better.
"Drax, why aren't you wearing one of Rocket's Aero-Rigs?" I ask.
"It hurts," he replies, prompting Rocket to make fun of him. "What about him, what's he doing?"
"I'm finishing this so we can listen to tunes while we work," the raccoon replies.
"How is that important?"
"Blame Quill and Kata, they're the ones who love music so much!"
"No, I actually agree with Drax on this, that's hardly important right now," I state.
"Oh, ok, sure Kata."
"No, seriously, I side with Drax."
"I understand that. You're being very serious right now."
"I can clearly see you winking!" Drax tells Rocket.
"I'm using my left eye?" Luckily, the creature attacks before Rocket and Drax start fighting each other. We shout at Baby Groot as he dances around the platform and Rocket's speaker is destroyed.
"The beast's hide is too thick to be pierced from the outside!" Drax announces. "I must cut through it from the inside!"
"What? No, Drax! Drax!" Gamora shouts as Drax disappears into the creature's mouth.
"What's he doing?!" Peter exclaims.
"He said that the skin is too thick to be pierced on the outside so he's attacking it from the inside," I say, before trying (and failing) to stop the creature with my freeze breath.
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"I tried telling him that!" Gamora replies.
"Skin has the same level of thickness on the inside as it is on the outside!"
"We realize that!" I snap.
"There's a cut on its neck," Peter noticed. "Rocket, get it to look up!"
"Yes! I have single-handedly vanquished the beast!" Drax exclaims once we've killed it.
"I am Groot."
"What? What are they called again?"
"Anulax batteries," I answer.
"Harbulary batteries."
"That's not even close to what I just said!"
"They're worth thousands of units apiece, which is why the Sovereign hired us to protect them," Peter adds. "Careful what you say around these folks. They're easily offended. The cost of transgression is death."
We go inside and Queen Ayeisha explains a little bit of her culture. Peter starts flirting with her but is interrupted by Gamora.
"Oh, please. Your people promised something in exchange for our services. Bring it and we shall gladly be on our way," she states. A few of the guards brought out Nebula.
"I understand she is your sister," the Queen said.
"She's worth no more to me than the bounty due for her on Xandar."
"Our soldiers apprehended her attempting to steal the batteries. Do with her as you please."
"We thank you, High Priestess Ayesha," Peter replies. The Queen then insulted the fact that he was half-human.
"You know, they told me you people were conceited, but that isn't true at all," Rocket remarks sarcastically, winking. Ayesha doesn't look pleased. "I'm using my wrong eye again, aren't I? I'm sorry." Drax grabs Rocket's collar as we walk outside.
"You're lucky you're not dead," I tell the raccoon as Groot tugs on my goggles. I move him from my shoulder and hand him to Peter.
"You're telling me," Rocket opens a pouch to reveal the precious batteries. "You wanna buy some batteries?"
"Rocket!" I scold as Drax laughs.
Back on the Milano, I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. After the fight with Ronan, I had asked Rocket to help me find a way to charge it, but I hadn't turned it on yet. After staring at the device, I push a small button on the side and a white apple logo appeared on the screen. A few seconds later, a picture of Alex and I appeared. It was taken a few weeks after I first arrived on Earth. She was babysitting me and decided to teach me about selfies. I was only about nine years old then.
I smile slightly.
"I am Groot!" Baby Groot shouts excitedly, pointing at my face. The others turned towards us.
"I've smiled before," I retort.
"Groot's right," Peter replies. "You're typically too busy brooding or being angry to smile."
I stop myself from replying because an angry retort would prove them right. They are right, though. I was always angry. I was angry at everyone who could have taken action to save Krypton. I was angry at the Monitor for sending me here as my universe was being destroyed. I was angry at Thanos and Ronan, who had forced me back into hero status. Most of all though, I was angry at myself for surviving while Crisis wiped out Kal, Kara, Lois, Jonathan, and everyone else. I had spent over two years focused on that, but ever since we became the Guardians, I've actually been happy.
This is weird, we got a Sovereign fleet approaching from the rear," Peter says, interrupting my thoughts.
"Why would they do that?" Gamora questions.
"Probably because Rocket stole some of their batteries," Drax answers.
"Dude!" Rocket shouts.
"Right, he didn't steal some of those. I don't know why they're after us, what a mystery this is."
"What were you thinking?" Peter asks.
"Dude, they were really easy to steal," Rocket replies.
"That's your defense?" Gamora inquires in disbelief.
"Come on! You saw how that High Priestess talked down to us. Now I'm teaching her a lesson!"
"I didn't realize your motivation was altruism. It's really a shame the Sovereigns are mistaking your intentions and they're trying to kill us," Peter snaps.
"Exactly!"
"He was being sarcastic!" I tell Rocket.
"Oh, no! He's supposed to use a sarcastic voice! Now I look foolish!"
"Can put your bickering on hold until after we survive this massive space battle?" Gamora requests.
"More incoming!" Peter announces.
"Good, I want to kill some guys!" Rocket shouts.
"What's the nearest habitable planet?"
"It's called Berhert," Gamora answers.
"Hey, I wound up there once," I remark, remembering one of my early misadventures in this universe.
"How many jumps?" Peter asks.
"Only one, but the access point is forty-seven clicks away," Gamora replied.
"And it's straight through that quantum asteroid field," I warn.
"Quill, to make it through that you'd have to be the greatest pilot in the universe," Drax says.
"Lucky for us, I -" Peter starts, only for Rocket to interrupt.
"I am. What are you doing?"
"Are you kidding me? I'm clearly the best pilot out of all of us," I insist.
"I've been flying this rig since I was ten years old," Peter argues.
"I learned how to pilot spaceships when I was nine!"
"I was cybernetically engineered to pilot a spacecraft," Rocket says.
"You were cybernetically engineered to be a jerk," Peter snaps.
"Stop it!" Gamora orders.
"Later on tonight, you two are gonna be laying down, there's gonna be something squishy in your pillowcases," Rocker tells us. "And you're gonna be like, 'what's this?', and it's gonna be because I put turds in there." I highly doubt Rocket can get past the lock on the cabin I share with Gamora, but I'm not gonna risk it. I reluctantly step away from the controls.
"You put your turd in my bed and I shave you!" Peter threatens.
"Oh, it won't be my turd. It'll be Drax's," Rocket responds.
"I have famously huge turds!" Drax laughs.
"You guys are disgusting," I say.
"We're about to die, and this is what we're discussing?" Gamora asks. Rocket and Peter just continue to argue.
"Idiots," Nebula snaps. I had almost forgotten she was here.
"Well, that's what you get when Quill flies," Rocket remarks. I fish around my jacket pockets, pull out a crumpled piece of paper, and throw it at him.
"We still have a Sovereign craft behind us," Gamora says.
"Our weapons are down," Peter adds.
"I can try to fix them," I say, rushing out of the cockpit.
"Twenty klicks to the jump!" Gamora shouts. "Hold on." Drax grabs a spacesuit and begins shooting at the remaining ship as I pull apart and rewire circuits.
"One klick!" Gamora shouts.
"What is that?" Rocket asks. I'm trying to repair several of the Milano's rapidly failing systems, so I can't look out the window to see what "that" is.
"Who cares?" Peter replies. "That's the jump point! Go! Groot put your seatbelt on! Prepare for a really bad landing!"
I'm trying to repair some circuitry in the ceiling, so during the crash, I'm tossed around the hold. My powers protect me, but soon, Peter's gonna notice that some of his action figures have become plastic pancakes.
"That was awesome!" Drax laughs as we exit our destroyed ship.
"Look at this!" Gamora shouts. "Where is the other half of our ship?"
"My ship," Peter retorts.
"Our ship," I correct. "Last time I was here, the ship I was on crashed. I'll see if I can salvage any of the wreckage." I walk off as Gamora continues yelling at Peter and Rocket.