NOTE: There will probably be grammar mistakes that I will fix later.
"Oof!"
"Uhn!"
"Ow!"
Rocket, Yondu, and Mikey were all roughly shoved into a holding cell by Taserface and his men.
"Dudes," Mikey coughed as he sat upright and glared at the Ravagers, "you totally suck at hospitality."
Taserface just chuckled darkly and locked the doors. "We deliver you to the Kree in the morning." Then he sneered as he leaned in closer to the bars. "None of you will last much longer after that."
As Taserface and his men walked away, Rocket called after him. "Okay, Taserface! Hey, tell the other guys we said 'hi', Taserface!"
This made Taserface stop dead in his tracks, but he didn't turn around.
Mikey giggled and joined in on the taunting. "You know, Taserface, you have a heart of stone, you really do. But to tell ya the truth, stone would actually be softer. And of course, I'm being metaphorical!"
Taserface growled in annoyance and continued on his way. Mikey heard one of the Ravagers suggesting to smash Groot with a rock, but thankfully Taserface said that he was "too adorable to kill."
Rocket sighed as he sat down. "No offense but your employees are a bunch of jerks," he told Yondu, who sat across from him.
"Yeah," Mikey sat down next to Rocket. "I'm guessing they're all gonna get poor performance reviews after this? Let's see. 'Teamwork: poor. Dependability: poor. Personality: poor. Appearance...' Oh, definitely poor." He and Rocket chuckled, but they stopped when they noticed how forlon Yondu looked, so the Turtle awkwardly cleared his throat. "Sorry. So, uh, what's your story?"
Yondu briefly glanced up at the two then lowered his gaze again. "I was a Kree battle slave for 20 years when Stakar, my mentor, freed me. He offered me a place with the Ravagers. He said all I needed to do was adhere to the code. But I was young...and greedy...and stupid." He looked directly at Rocket. "Like you stealing those batteries."
"That was mostly Drax," Rocket lied.
"Was not," Mikey mumbled.
Yondu continued his story. "Me and Stakar and the other captains, we weren't so different from you Guardians. The only family I ever had. When I broke the code, they exiled me."
"Um, if you don't mind me asking, what did you do that was so bad?" Mikey asked.
Yondu clenched his teeth. "I stole kids from their homes and families."
Mikey's jaw dropped. "What?" he asked incredulously. "You mean Quill wasn't the only one? Dude, that's...that's just sick!"
"I didn't ask questions, 'cause I only cared about the pay. But the code restricts Ravagers from dealing in kids." Yondu sighed heavily in shame. "This is what I deserve."
Rocket stood back up. "Slow down, drama queen. You might deserve this, but we don't. We gotta get outta here."
"Where's Quill?" Yondu asked.
"He's with his Dad," Mikey answered.
Yondu's red eyes widened. "Ego?"
"Yeah," Rocket. "It's a day for dumbass names."
At this, Yondu grinned and chuckled, showing his rotten, yellow teeth.
Rocket grinned, too. "You're smiling, and for a second, I got a warm feeling, but then it was ruined by those disgusting-ass teeth."
"Yeah, dude, there's this amazing invention called the toothbrush," Mikey joked. "You should try it sometime."
Yondu's grin dropped to an annoyed frown. "You two like professional assholes or what?"
Mikey shrugged and nodded to Rocket. "I learned from the best."
"Why didn't you deliver Quill to Ego like you promised?" Rocket asked Yondu.
"He was skinny," the blue Ravager told him. "Could fit into places we couldn't. Good for thievin'."
The raccoon looked at him skeptically. "Uh-huh."
"That's what Quill said." Mikey stood up and walked over to a table, where he picked up a few pieces of paper and a pencil. "Don't worry, dudes. I have, like a hundred awesome escape plans swimming around in my head right now, so listen up..."
...
About thirty minutes had passed and Mikey was still writing down ideas in the form of drawings. He, Rocket, and Yondu all sat in a circle on the floor, and the whole place was littered with crumpled up paper.
"Okay, how about this one?" Mikey held up a drawing of rats wearing ninja masks. "We'll recuite an army of rats and train them in the art of ninjutsu, and they'll kick the Ravagers' butts and take over the ship! It's foolproof!"
Both Yondu and Rocket looked at Mikey unimpressed.
"Ninja rats?" Rocket muttered.
"Hmmm," Mikey rubbed his chin in deep thought then crumpled up the drawing. "You're right. That's impossible." He put down another blank piece of paper and began to draw. "How about this? We'll recruit an amy of rats, instruct them to dig a tunnel with spoons-"
"We've already agreed that the spoon plan ain't gonna work," Yondu said.
Rocket sighed exasperatedly. "That's it. We're never getting outta here."
"Hey, you gotta think positive, Rocket," Mikey said.
"Oh, think positive? You want to know what I think? I think you're an idiot."
"Oh, yeah?! Well, what do you have in mind, Mr. Smartypants?!"
"At least I wear pants, you nudist!"
"Oh, that's rich!"
"Hey!" Yondu spoke up. "You two done? I got an idea on how to get outta here. But we're gonna need your little friend."
...
Groot slowly walked down the halls, completely drenched and miserable. The Ravagers dressed him up in a miniature outfit that was made specifically for him, and then they tortured the poor little guy by kicking him, stomping on him, and pouring their alcoholic drinks all over him.
He was about to walk past the cell when Yondu caught his attention. "Psst! Hey, twig! Come here."
Groot approached the bars and looked up at the trio with tiny sad eyes.
"Groot..." Mikey's heart broke right in half and he poked his finger through the bars to pet Groot.
"Aw, man," Rocket groaned. "What did they do to you?"
"Hey, you wanna help us get out of here?" Yondu gently asked Groot with a friendly grin.
Groot nodded.
"There's something I need you to get and bring back to me. In the captain's quarters, there's a prototype fin, the thing I wore on my head. There's a drawer next to the bunk. It's in that. It's red. You got it?"
Groot nodded again and sprinted down the hall.
Yondu chuckled and smiled confidently at Rocket and Mikey. The two animals just looked at him worried.
...
A few minutes later, Groot came back with a stained pair of underwear.
"That's my underwears," Yondu told him.
Rocket facepalmed. "Yeah, I was pretty sure he didn't know what you were talkin' about. You have to explain it more careful."
Yondu tried again. "It's a prototype fin."
...
Groot brought them an orloni that squirmed and wiggled in his grasp.
"That's an orloni," Rocket said. "It's a fin, Groot."
Yondu sighed and shook his head. "You explain it this time," he told Rocket.
The raccoon took a deep breath. "All right."
...
Groot now held a robotic eye.
"That's Vorker's eye," Yondu said. "He takes it out when he sleeps."
Mikey shrugged. "Well, he was kinda close, I guess."
"Go," Yondu told Groot. "Look again."
"But leave the eye here," Rocket instructed.
Yondu looked at him confused. "Why?"
"He's gonna wake up tomorrow," Rocket snickered, then he laughed, "and he's not gonna know...WHERE HIS EYE IS!" He leaned against Mikey for support as he went into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.
Mikey and Yondu looked at each other puzzled.
...
Groot dragged a metal desk with his vines and brought it to the cell.
Rocket shook his head and groaned. "That's a desk."
"Here, let me try." Mikey knelt down and drew an arc on a piece of paper. "See, look," he held the drawing up for Groot to see. "It's shaped like this."
...
Groot returned with a large, curved brown lump in his hands.
Everyone leaned in closer to look at it.
Mikey squinted his eyes. "What the heck is...?" His eyes bulged out when he realized what it was.
They all pulled back and yelled out in disgust. "Oh, gross!" "That's disgusting!" "Where did you even find that?!"
"No, Groot!" Mikey frantically shook his heads and hands. "That is NOT a fin!"
"Put that away and go wash your hands!" Rocket ordered. "Now!"
...
After Groot washed up and came back, Yondu showed the little tree creature his Ravager badge.
"The drawer you wanna open has this symbol on it," he explained as he handed Groot the badge. "Okay?"
Groot stared at the badge in his hands then up Yondu. He slowly lifted the item over his head and wore it like a hat.
"What?!" Yondu yelled. "No!"
"He's thinks you want him to wear it as a hat," Rocket told the captain.
"That's NOT what I said!"
"I Am Groot," Groot squeaked as he put the badge down.
"He's relieved you don't want him to," Rocket translated.
"I Am Groot."
"He hates hats."
"I Am Groot."
"On anyone, not just himself."
"I Am Groot."
"One minute, you think someone has a weird-shaped head, the next minute it's just because you realize part of that head is the hat." Rocket paused. "That's why you don't like hats?"
Groot nodded.
"Not even tiaras?" Mikey asked.
Groot shook his head.
"Well, what about sombreros? Everyone loves sombreros."
Groot shook his head again.
"This is an important conversation right now?" Yondu mumbled.
...
After another thirty minutes of waiting for Groot to return, they head heavy footsteps coming down the hall and toward their cell. Mikey began to panic, fearing that someone had captured Groot and was coming to teach them a lesson.
Kraglin stepped into view and was holding Groot and Yondu's fin.
The young Turtle ran to the bars and angrily shook them. "You let go of Groot right now or you'll be sorry!" he yelled to the Ravager.
But to his surprise, Kraglin held the fin out to him. "Here."
Mikey blinked as he slipped his hand through the bars and took it. "Wait...aren't you one of the bad guys?"
Kraglin swallowed and guilt was written all over his face. "I didn't mean to do a mutiny," he said in a cracked voice. Then he whispered sadly, "They killed all my friends."
Mikey turned around to see how Yondu would react to this. The blue Ravager seemed stone-faced and said nothing for a brief moment. Then he ordered, "Get the third quadrant ready for release."
Kraglin took a deep breath, straightened up, and pounded his chest in respect to his captain before handing Groot to Mikey.
Rocket stood up. "One more thing. You got any clones of Quill's old music on the ship?"
Mikey grinned from ear to ear. "Awwww, yeah."
Kraglin just looked at the two confused.
...
Through all the speakers in the entire ship, the song "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and the Americans played loudly, much to the confusion of the other Ravagers.
Two men who were in charge of guarding the cell opened the doors and stepped inside, and to their shock and horror, Yondu was sitting in a chair with his new fin being installed by Rocket.
Before the men could even raise their guns, Yondu whistled and in a blink of an eye, his magical arrow pierced right through them both. Yondu caught the arrow and casually walked past the bodies with Rocket, Groot, and Mikey following close behind. Rocket stopped for a second to steal a gun from one of the dead Ravagers.
In the captain's quarters, Taserface, who had been sleeping in Yondu's personal bed, awoke with a startle and noticed that the fin was missing from the drawer. He got up and pushed a button on the wall.
He's got it! his frantic voice spoke over the intercom, alerting the other Ravagers. Yondu's got the fin!
Immediately, the other Ravagers spread out and searched for Yondu throughout the ship. The first group to reach him were also the first to be pierced by the arrow.
Yondu pushed a door open and the four stepped onto a catwalk, one of dozens in the huge docking bay. There were over twenty Ravagers that stood on the other catwalks all around them. One of them spotted Yondu below him and yelled, "Down there!"
Yondu whistled a tune and the arrow flew up and down, fowards and backwards, piercing eveything in its way. Mikey watched in awe as the Ravagers who stood above them all dropped like flies. This Yondu guy was a badass.
Groot, who had been riding on Yondu's shoulder, looked up and spotted a Ravager whom he recognized as one of the men who had stomped on him earlier. He was also wearing Mikey's nunchucks on his belt.
"I Am Groot!" Groot yelled as he pointed to the Ravager.
Mikey looked up and saw his nunchucks. "Hey!" he shouted. "Those are mine!"
The frightened Ravager fled and Groot used his vines to latch onto the catwalk and pull himself up. With a cute roaring sound, the little tree creature ran after his tormentor. The man was too busy looking back at Groot as he ran to notice Mikey ahead of him. Just as he turned his head, the Turtle punched him hard, knocking him out.
"I'll take those," he said to the unconscious as he grabbed his nunchucks. "Thank you." He picked up Groot and put him on his shoulder before he lept off the catwalk to join the others.
The group walked into the security dock, where there were security monitors that showed Ravagers searching for them from every part of the ship. Yondu watched the monitors as he whistled, and the arrow flew through the wall and struck every single Ravager.
Rocket noticed a Ravager that was about to reach one of the dock's doors from outside and he aimed his gun in that direction. The blast went right through the door and hit the Ravager, instantly killing him. An evil grin formed on Rocket's lips and he laughed like a kid having fun on the playground as he continued to fire through the doors and walls, killing many Ravagers. Yondu joined in on the laughter, watching in satisfaction as the Ravagers on the screen continued to drop.
Mikey safely stood in the space between the two, feeling very scared at the moment and clutching Groot close to his plastron.
Groot just smiled obliviously the entire time, thinking it was all a game.
Yondu stopped laughing when he spotted Taserface on one of the screens. With a scowl on his face, he stepped closer to the monitor and whistled a tune that was angrier than the ones before.
As Taserface marched down the hall with a large gun in his hands, the arrow darted from around the corner and came straight at him. Yondu did another tune and the arrow burst into flames. Taserface actually managed to jump out of the way in time and laughed pridefully. But as he turned around, the smile on his face faded when he realized that he wasn't the target.
The burning arrow hit a giant tank, which exploded and the flames completely engulfed him.
From inside the dock, Mikey and Rocket both stared dumbfounded at the screens as every part of the ship exploded.
"Oh, crud," Mikey squeaked as he pulled his head halfway into his shell.
"You maniac," Rocket gasped. "The whole ship's gonna blow."
But Yondu grinned. "Not the whole ship." He summoned his arrow back to him with a whistle and put it in his pocket. Mikey and Rocket quickly followed him out of the dock and to the third quadrant, where Kraglin was waiting for them.
"Release the quadrant," Yondu ordered.
"Aye, Cap'n!" Kraglin quickly pulled latches and flipped switches on the flight controls.
Meanwhile, Taserface, who had miraculously survived the first explosion but was badly burnt, weakly made his way to a screen and punched in a code.
A member of the Sovereign appeared on the screen. Who is this? she asked.
"I am sending you the coordinates for Yondu's ship," Taserface gruffly said as he tapped in more numbers and sent them to the Sovereign's database. "I only ask one thing: that your High Priestess tell him the name of the man what sealed his fate...Taserface."
The woman stared at him for a brief moment before she snickered, and then to Taserface's chagrin, she doubled over with laughter.
Taserface rolled his eyes and groaned right before a second explosion engulfed him.
After Kraglin pulled the final latch, the entire rear upper quadrant detached itself from the rest of the ship right before the explosions could reach them and sailed away.
Mikey stood next to Kraglin in front of the large window and chuckled in amazement. "Dude, this is awesome."
"Where to, Cap'n?" Kraglin asked Yondu.
From his seat, Rocket pulled up the navigation panel and set the destination. "Ego."
Yondu, who sat opposite of Rocket, looked over at the raccoon in horror. "NO, BOY!"
The ship drove straight into a jump point up ahead and drove through various locations throughout the galaxy in a matter of seconds.
Yondu grunted as he again turned to Rocket, his face slowly distorting. "It ain't healthy for a mammalian body to hop more than 50 jumps at a time," he said through gritted teeth.
"I know that," Rocket said, his own face twisting a bit.
"We're about to do 700!"
Rocket became worried and clutched the arms of his seat. Groot, who was sitting on Rocket's shoulder, whimpered and huddled close to the raccoon.
"Hey, what about reptilian?" Mikey asked Yondu, feeling like someone was morphing his face as if it were Play-Doh. "I'll be okay, right?"
"No!" Yondu yelled. "It's even WORSE for a reptilian!"
Mikey's heart dropped. "Ohhhhh nnnnnnooooo...!"
The ship picked up speed and everyone screamed as their faces stretched and morphed. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel great, either. The more jump points they went through, the worse their stomachs felt.
Mikey would never look into a funhouse mirror again after this.