Sisters: Part two.
Gamora stood for a long moment, and then was out of the cockpit of the Milano and down the corridor with her pistol raised with a speed that would have surprised anyone who hadn't seen her truly pissed off. It couldn't have been more than 90 seconds since the last of Rocket's gunshots: She knew that despite Nebula's gloating video, if she was still damp from her interrupted shower, then there was a passably good chance that she'd find Rocket before Nebula got him out of the building. After all, she thought, barrelling towards Rocket's nest, Nebula was fast, but the building was reasonably secure and the only real way out was the sliding door by the Milano, and it wasn't like there was any other way out-
Ten paces from Rocket's door, focusing on every detail, she spotted the pattern of bullet holes, the blood spatter and the part open door and was already planning her entrance strategy when she heard the click and spotted the spray on det-cord…
Gamora only just had time to grab the door and rip it all the way open, right into the corridor and bending it back on itself to give herself a shield, when the end of the corridor blew, spattering the sheet metal of the door with debris as a figure detached itself from the darkness of the room and spirited across the corridor and dived thought the whole in the wall. In an instant Gamora had kicked the door back open, aimed through the clouds of dust, lined up a shot-
Nebula turned and glared for a moment, shifting Rocket's insensible body on her shoulders like a stole, blocking Gamora's shot, and there was a momentary pause as the two of them just glared at each other, waiting, wanting, communicating wordlessly as only sisters could…
Gamora dropped her aim from head to centre mass and fired twice, at just the same moment the rainbow light of the teleporter flared up, her shots passing right thought the glaring figure of her sister as she dematerialised and was sucked up to her ship, hovering outside.
Gamora glared, and stepped outside into the storm of dust, and the ozone and metal stink of the engine's backwash, her hair whipping around for a long moment as she glared through the cockpit as her sister re-materialised unharmed, shrugged off Rocket like an unwanted sweater, and flew off without even glancing down at Gamora.
Gamora stood watching the Barracuda move off for a long moment, and then set her jaw grimly and calmly, without any rush or visible emotion, flicked on her wrist mounted com.
"Gamora to Nova peace-keeping force traffic control: we have a situation here. Kidnapping and potential people trafficking, I'm requesting you immediately close the main approaches to all Older model Badoon patrol vessels and initiate containment procedures."
There was a pause, and then a brief crackle on the coms.
"Affirmative: situation noted and logged. We will attempt to hold any such vessels, board and search for any persons being trafficked against their will, but we cannot, and I repeat, cannot, intervene in internal matters on Knowhere until such time as a recognised interim government forms. If they try to leave, that's on us, otherwise anything that happens on that head, goes. You are outside of all legal jurisdictions."
Gamora frowned, and raised the com to her mouth again as the Barracuda moved towards the eyes of Knowhere and then ducked down and was lost in the milling mass of ships as it realised Nova ships had started scanning for it.
"Anything goes?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder: the force of the blast had knocked loose the junk wired to Rocket's walls, and the corridor was covered with various weapons spilling out onto the floor, the hadron enforcer, a set of pre-formed shaped charged and some sort of experimental flying harness lying prominently amongst the pizza pockets carpeting the room.
"Affirmative." Said the Nova officer.
Gamora considered this, and she watched were exactly the Barracuda vanished to, triangulating it's likely position and overlaying that with her mental map of Knowhere and possible places she would hide two kidnapped people, a raccoon, and a tree, and then she picked up the Hadron enforcer and replied.
"Good." She said, holstering her pistol and picking up the charges and draping the Aeroharnes over one shoulder and waking out into the heaving streets of Knowhere.
Awesome Mix tape Vol 2: Quaterflash; Harden My Heart
There was a loud click, and Quill woke up with a start.
"Wazf?" he asked, and then groaned: his head was Killing him, and he had that same awkward moment he always had in these situations when he had to work out if it was a hangover of if some had knocked him out again.
There is something Really wrong with my lifestyle choices when both of those are equally likely. He thought, as he raised his hand to his head. Hell, half my dates end up with one or the other….
Or at least, he tried to raise his hand to his head.
Quill opened his eyes, and looked around as the camera pulled back, to reveal him with his head trapped in a head-sized hole cut into a sheet of a light, slivery metal, both of his hands likewise trapped in a similar set up.
"Stocks, seriously, you put me in stocks? What is this, ye olde witch-dunking?" he asked no-one in particular.
"A what dunking?" asked a voice, as the camera panned back further to reveal Drax in a slightly larger set to stocks next to him.
"What?"
"Yes."
"No, what?"
"What dunking?" repeated Drax.
"No, witch dunking."
"Which?"
"What?"
"No, which?"
"No, witch." Said Quill, looking around and trying to work out where he was.
"What?"
"No, witch. You know what? Never mind. Forget it. Where the hell are we?"
"I do not know. In some sort of abandoned hydroponics lab by the looks of it. I'd imagine that these stocks were looked form Tivan's collection, the have his logo on them." Said Drax, glaring straight ahead and the corroded and twisted accretion of glass-and-brass that made up the old ruined greenhouse.
"Okay, cool. So, next question, what the hell happened? Last thing I remember I was trying to find a cool mix tape and then I got ambushed by… shit… it looked Like Gamora's sister."
"I…. Am…. Groooooot." Said a weak voice, creaking with pain and effort.
Quill looked around, and strained to turn his head.
Being a hydroponics lab, one off many you would need to grow food on big floating head in space, it had a whole set of temperature controlled planting and germination banks, designed to encourage plant grown within carefully set perimeters and, if need be, resist cracking by any questing roots. In the corner, wired in place in a large glass vat, was Groot. He looked pretty beat up, in fact he was covered in ice and slowly defrosting, and when he saw Quill all he could do was tilt his head up slightly in recognition.
It was then the Quill noticed the far smaller empty set of stocks at the end of the line, and groaned.
"Oh Jesus, don't tell me she took out all four of us?"
Drax grunted. "I had just been sparring with Gamora, I was somewhat tired…. It... it was a fluke."
"That you got your ass handed to you by a girl?"
"My posterior remains in the same place it always was! I… I was unprepared. I note you were also easily incapacitated."
"Yeah, but if we're going to make a list of the time I've had my ass kicked by women it'll be a long list including several psychotic ex-girlfriends, I was just hoping that at least two or three of us would manage not to get ambushed!"
"It was a fluke, next time I will beat her." Muttered Drax sullenly.
"A fluke… so what, you beat Gamora in the sparring then? Because if you lose twice in ten minutes that seems a lot less like a fluke…."
Drax grunted, and shifted slightly in his stocks. "You talk too much, Peter Quill. Next time I will be victorious…"
There was a pause for several moments as Quill looked around the room, trying to find a way out.
"… and I will have some form of witty come back." Said Drax, completely out of nowhere. "Something that will make her dwell upon her defeat. Something witty and original, like 'you are defeated, evil-doer!' or 'how dare you Stoop That Low.'"
"That's seriously your priority right now?" asked Quill. "I mean, seriously? Not that I'm judging, but that's what you're working on, here, now, in this place?"
Drax paused and considered this.
"You think it may be too scathing?"
Quill was about to reply when he heard the clank of boots on deckplates, and swivelled his eyes around: he couldn't see the door to the room, and guessed it must be behind him, a suspicion confirmed a moment later when a blue hand appeared from behind him and flipped open the smallest stock and unceremoniously dumped Rocket in it, arranging his limbs and clicking it shut with the lazy precision that suggested she'd done this several times before.
Well, at least twice for certain. Thought Quill.
"Stocks, seriously?" asked Quill. "Who even does that? If it turns out I'm wearing assless chaps, I'm gonna be pissed."
"As if you should get so lucky." Grunted Nebula, her voice as ever slightly synthesised as she checked the stock was secure, and then frowned and brushed her hands together to remove some loose fur as she walked around to face them. Two of The Controllers drones hovered over her, one on each shoulder. Clearly that tech had already been picked up on the black-tech market.
"I think carrying your disgusting little beast has given me flees." She said, glaring.
There was a pained groan, and a long-drawn out raccoonsish cough.
"Quill? Yeah, we need to get him a collar, maybe some medicated shampoo." Muttered Rocket, spitting bloody drool weakly as he came too. "Although if you really want someone to give you something to remember, I'm right here sister." He said, barring his teeth nastily.
Nebula rolled her eyes, and leaned in, keeping just out of the range of Rocket's teeth.
"You're in no position to harm me, vermin."
"Tell that to whoever does your laundry." Said Rocket grinning nastily, and making a rude gesture with his left paw. Nebula frowned in confusion, and then stood up and put her hand on her shoulder, checking her collar where she'd been carrying Rocket. It was noticeably damp
Quill stared, and let out an involuntary snort of laughter. "Seriously? That's nasty man."
"Hey, people have a tendency to lose bladder control if you taze them: she threw me down two stories and then electrocuted me, not my fault if accidents happen-"
Nebula snorted with disgust, and without any hesitation kicked hard into the upright board of the stocks, crushing Rocket's tiny hand under her boot-heal. His yelp of pain didn't quite drown out the sickening crunch, and his eyes noticeably bulged and body spasmed before his boldly modifications kicked in to keep him from blacking out, and he let out a high birdlike chitter for several seconds before he was able to regain the power of speech.
"TccccchhhhhA! Oh you hateful bitch! That was my good hand! I had shit to do with that hand tonight!"
"Too much info Rocket." Said Quill, flinching at the visible break on one of the racoon's tiny fingers and thumb. "Kick a little guy like that while he's tied up? Real classy Nebula, you're ruined his hand and by extension his short term romantic prospects: he had shit to do with that hand tonight!."
There was a crack as Nebula kicked Quill in the knee. He bit back the pain, and rode it out. He had to keep talking, trying to take Nebula's focus off Rocket before she kicked him again. The racoon, however, had other ideas.
"I meant fixing the engine, get your mind out of the gutter, Quill, we ain't all dating Miss Palm!" said Rocket, tears in his eyes and hissing through his teeth as waves of pain rocked his body: there were times he really, really wished he didn't have mod-mods that kept him from blacking out when bones broke, sometimes blacking out was the better option.
"Who?" asked Drax. "Does Gamora know about this person?"
"Probably, we need to get better soundproofing." Said Quill, before glaring acidly at Nebula. "I mean, seriously, who kicks someone in the hand-"
There was a brief click of Ki sticks extending, and then a jolt as Quill got a quick jab of several thousand volts to his unprotected legs, making him grit his teeth and yell in pain.
"Ahhh! What, are you just trying to test people's balder control now? Tell me you have a bucket and mop on standby?"
Nebula leaned in. "Believe it or not, I'm not interested in your opinions on how I treat prisoners, or your humour. It means very little to me. Now, any more witty comments? Or can I continue?"
Quill glanced sideways. "Drax? You got that witty comeback ready yet?"
"No: I am still working on it." He glowered
"Rocket?"
"Gahhhh! No, I'm good, kinda want to leave today with some metacarpal's left."
"Go for it." Said Quill.
Nebula glared, and then spoke up.
"I don't like you. I don't like any of you, but that's your problem and not mine, because more than that, I don't care. I don't care if you live or die, or if you're comfortable or in pain. I want revenge, on father, and money, and money for revenge. You are just a means to get that. Gamora, she cares. I'd wager she cares a lot, so unless she wants to get you all back in weekly installments, she'd going to do a little job for me. If she does it, then you'll be fed, and watered and yes, I'll even hose you down every now and then to stop you festering in your own filth. If, however, she doesn't do the job, if she tries to rescue you, or mess me around with any of her heroics, broken hands and assless chaps will be the least of your problems. Do I make myself clear?"
"Wait, so… am I wearing assless chaps or not? You know I can't actually see my legs like this? I could be in a tutu for all I know."
"Ahahaha! Would be more butch than what you usually wear pretty boy!" said Rocket, breathing in short, sharp bursts as he tried to ride out the pain.
Quill looked sideways and glared. "So I'm getting fashion advice now, from you? You? All you ever buy is pouches and spandex!"
"Hey, firstly, I just got my wrist broken! And secondly, it's not spandex! It's a low profile skin-tight graphene body armour with associated load-carrying system!"
"It's got pouches on top of its pouches! There are literally days when I can't see you through all the guns and pouches!"
"Hey, it's the finest kit that Liefeld industries make!"
Nebula glared, disgusted. "You do realise that while you're doing this bit I'm literally standing over you with the power of life or death over you?"
"Yeah, well, this happens to us surprisingly often." Muttered Quill. "Also, you said 'over you' twice in that sentence, it makes your speech seem, I dunno, clunky. Try mixing it up a bit." Said Quill, as Nebula cursed, and stormed out to find some goons to hire: if Nova was going to try to stop her leaving Knowhere with her prisoners, she needed some back up in the form of disposable muscle.
"I hate you." She muttered, storming out.
"I HATE YOU TOO!" yelled Drax after her. He then grinned, and turned to Quill.
"Witty comeback!"
"Eh, sort of…" said Quill. He waited a moment until he was sure Nebula was out of earshot, and then turned his head to Rocket.
"You okay little buddy?"
"Yeah, peachy: this really, really hurts and I think I've peed myself twice in, like, fifty minuets."
"Hell, that sounds like the last time I tried to keep up with you drink for drink. How's the hand?"
"Fucked, but with a little luck, fucked in the right way."
Quill frowned "Right way?"
"Hehe, why do you think I was making a rude gesture with that hand? Combat re-enforcment to my bones, I don't have the muscular strength to break my own reinforced thumb using only the fingers of the same hand, needed a little help… Because once the thumb is broken, it's surprisingly easy to collapse your hand and slip a wrist out through handcuffs, manacles or ATCHHHHHHAAA! OH that smarts! Or, for example, this thing." Said Rocket, grimacing and hissing and spitting but managing to pull his broken hand out through the hole in the stock and wave it at Quill, weakly.
"Tah-da, you dumb hummie."
The dumb hummie grinned "Nice one Ranger Rick! Quick, get your stocks open and then bust me out of here!"
Rocket nodded, and fumbled clumsily along the top of the stock with this free hand for a moment.
"Uh-Oh."
"What?"
"Um… I was kind of counting on there being some sort of lock I could pick on this thing…. Um… can you see any sort of latch at all? I can feel a keyhole but nothing I can get a grip on."
"Ah… now that you mention it Roc', no. Not really."
There was an awkward pause.
"The lock on this frickin' thing's internal, isn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah. You got you paw all busted up for nothing."
A further awkward pause.
"awwwww fuck." Said Rocket.
Nebula stood at the foot of the docking ramp: the bad thing about Knowhere was also the good thing about Knowhere: literally no-one came there for the scenery or the nightlife, they came there because they had nowhere else to go. It was even in the name. And that made for a pretty interesting mix of scumbags, criminals, bounty-hunters mercs and pirates dropping in or passing through. The celestials may have been gods, but the people that orbited this one sure as hell weren't angels.
Nebula frowned up at the pirate ship, and put her hands on her hips before speaking.
"I've hired you because you have a unique set of skills, and are all new to this gods-forsaken head and so won't have any sentimental attachment to the Guardians or anyone else here." She said, looking down the line of the half-dozen high-end mooks she'd found, each more dangerous than the last.
"Now, your job is simple guard duty and extortion, but the individuals you'll be dealing with aren't some simple peasants that can be frightened into submission, they are as dangerous as they are dysfunctional, canny and unpredictable, and what's more, they are just the leverage: my sister is still out there, she hasn't yet responded to my instructions and recovered the objective for me, so we can expect her to try some sort of life-or-death heroics."
Nebula ground a fist into her palm as she walked down the line of goons, her Drones following her: a huge scared cyborg with a heavily muscled torso but no arms, an insectoid assassin, a Kree sniper, a hovering badoon- built killbot, a being of pure energy and malevolence, the best she could hire.
"That cannot be allowed to happen. If we lose our leverage on Gamora, or is she is killed, then this entire exercise is pointless. Gamora must not be allowed to either rescue our hostages, nor die in the process, so no matter what, no matter what it costs, no matter how many of the hostages survive, or whatever the civilian casualties on Knowhere, we cannot' must not let her get thought, or harm her, so whatever you do remember this: all other assets are expendable, but no one touches my sister: she's mine."
"Any questions?"
"Um, yeah, like, so how do we, like, stretch people? 'caus I'm not really into all that Reed Richards stretch-Armstrong henti stuff and it's like, kinda icky."
Nebula paused, and turned back to glare at the Merc' who had spoken, a tall blond woman in a t-shirt, combats and trench coat who hadn't looked up from her communicator the entire time Nebula had been talking. In fact she seemed to be playing some sort of bubble popping game.
"What."
"How do we, like, stretch people? If the assets are extendable?"
Nebula glared. "Were you even listening to me when I was speaking?" Nebula looked the woman up and down again, the other five she'd found with The Index, Mister Knife's register of reliable underworld contacts, a covert list passed around in shady bars detailing the skill set and current burner com's number for a whole plethora of thugs, smugglers, bounty-hunters and hit men, and ranked in terms of reliability from one to ten: a sort of Yellow Pages of galactic criminality, but this one they'd literally just found in a bar and she had tagged along.
"Are you a Terran?" she asked, suspiciously. She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with a second Terran as well as Quill. One was bad enough.
The woman, cocked one hand on her hip, and guested with the com in her other hand.
"Umm, I, like, don't know what that word means exactly, but I'm gonna have to, like, go with a no 'cause I'm clearly an Aquarius, like, can't you tell with my bubbly and adventurous personality and great hair?"
Nebula glared.
"Not like I don't love what you've done with the whole Sinead O'Connor thing, it just, like, I'd never shave my head 'cause I have, like, some standards yanno? I mean, yes I got that lower back tattoo, but I think, like the butterfly really reflects who I am, and it goes with the dolphin on my ankle and-"
"Look." Said Nebula. "I don't know who you are, but this is a serious threat we are dealing with and I need hardened mercs: Krom the Krusher here had his arms surgically removed and was sold to the fighting pits on the personal order of Emperor J'Son for his part in the failed 'Sartori Spring´ coup-d'etat" she said, walking down the line and pointing out the other mercs one at a time.
"Shang-Lo-Pan Azulon has carried out over two dozen assassinations, some of them up to the standards of my sister and I, included the fatal poisoning of an entire Sovereign trade delegation, successfully keeping them out of the Nova-Kree conflict, and during the Kree Xandar war Master Sergent Ko'star Unala'qua took out the President of the Interplanetary peace council from three thousand meters, perfect shot to the head, C-137 is the last remaining C series close range flagellation-class combat-bot in existence, now banned under every military treaty there is, and now fully self-aware and with his pre-set kill-counter disabled, and The Dread Kuthunlon is literally a sentient black hole from a parallel timeline made of pure unadulterated cruelty, who manifests onto our plane of existence as a bleeding hole in space time that tentacles come out of and suck people in to a unspeakable fate. So what, exactly, do you do…."
Said Nebula, pointing, having clearly forgotten her name.
"Tabby."
"Tabby? asked Nebula. "You're standing in line next to a hole in the very fabric of spacetime that constantly weeps goat's blood and who can only communicate in screeching, and you give your name as tabby."
"Tabitha Smith, but, like, I'm always, like, don't call me Miss Smith, that's like my Mom's name and- like, it kinda hard to keep track of codenames, cause, like, for a bit I was Timebomb, but then I was called Boomer, and then Meltdown…wait, or was I Meltdown first and then Boomer…."
Nebula held out a hand to silence her. "Timebomb? So you work with explosives? Are you a chemist?"
"Ewww, no! I'm not into any of that nerd shit. As if!" she said, going back to playing her bubble popping game and ignoring Nebula. She was even chewing gum, Nebula noted.
The blue-skinned assassin glared "So what, exactly, Is it you do?" she asked.
"Huh? Oh, I blow up shit with my mind. Also I steal watches."
Nebula stared. "What."
"Watches: you can get, like, two grand for a second hand Rolex, and these wrist mounted Nova com units sell for, like, a million bucks each back on earth 'cause we, like, only just got the iPhone 7 and-"
"Show me." said Nebula. She then looked down as Tabby proffered the bubble popping game at her.
"Not the stolen com unit!" She said grinding her teeth. "Your power. Show me how you blow something up with your mind."
"Huh? Oh, sure." Said Tabby, thrusting out and hand while still playing with her Com one handed, and producing a glowing orange sphere the size of a melon in under a second, that she then fired at high speed into a near-by fruit-stall without even looking up, vaporizing it in a hugely powerful concussive blast. The stall owner, clothes shredded and face blackened by soot, just stood there shocked for a moment, holding the smoking wreckage of a cabbage, before slumping down to his knees and waling over the ruin of his stall.
Nebula looked back, impressed in spite of herself but also a little appalled.
"You have that level of natural power, and you steal watches for a living?"
"God, yes! I steal watches!" said Tabby rolling her eyes. "So what? You're not my Mom! I can do what I like! Why does everyone always get so hung up on the stealing! You know you're, like, worse than Cable!"
Nebula leaned in.
"I am far, far worse than Cable, whoever he is. Now, my sister will be coming for the prisoners soon enough, but she also probably has some ridiculous sentimental attachment to the civilians of this place, so, I want you in two teams, one guarding, and one causing havoc elsewhere in knowhere to keep my sister distracted until I can arrange some way out of here with the prisoners: if I can get them off knowhere and away from this Nova fleet, Gamora will have to do as I wish."
"Ohhh! Ohhh!" said Tabby, thrusting her com's hand up in the air and chewing her gum loudly. "Shotgun the havoc casing team! Pick me! Pick me!"
Nebula pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine, Kuthunlon, Tabby, cause a diversion: the rest of you guard the prisoners. Work in pairs and rotate out every fifteen minutes to keep Gamora guessing as to who we have working for us and our numbers, Two on the leverage, two causing a diversion, and you two." She said, pointing to the sniper and the Killbot. "You two are with me, we need to find a way out of here past that Nova blockade. And keep civilian casualties light: too many fatalities early on and Nova will get involved and I need some time without that to come up with an exit plan."
"Sure, like, I don't kill people unless they really deserve it, I'll just, like, blow up some parked cars and spaceships and stuff." Said Tabby, flicking out a mini ball of orange plasma the size of a marble and blowing up the singed half cabbage that the stallholder had managed to salvage from his produce, provoking another torrent of tears. Kuthunlon screeched his approval, and waved a tentacle, to Tabby's clear disgust.
"Ugg, why do I always get paired off with the weirdo!? You're even worse that Aaron, or that English girl. Oh, eww, watch it with the goats blood, these pumps are, like, nearly new!"
"Skrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr!?" asked Kuthunlon.
"Yeah, I guess the English girl was Kinda worse, and Aaron was kind of a letch. I love what you've done with your tentacles, BTW."
"Skrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr!?"
Nebula face palmed, and then swore. "Terrans. How did I manage to find one stupider than Gamora's?"
[Cut to Quill, making a particularly stupid looking strained face]
Rocket and Drax both looked over to Quill, red in the face and sweating and straining and contorting, as he rocked the set of stocks he was in back and forth over and over.
"Never going to work." Said Rocket, cradling his injured hand weakly tucked under his other armpit. "Not in a million years, Quill."
"I disagree, over a geological time span the metal will have eroded completely, but trying to stress fatigue the metal by repeatedly rocking the apparatus does seem unlikely to succeed over shorter time periods. And besides, you should have helped me work on a witty come back. 'I hate you too'? pathetic. I clearly should have gone with something truly cutting, like 'die, evil woman!'
"Never going to work." Repeated Rocket "never-"
"Gonna give you up? Let you down? Run around and desert you?" replied Quill sarcastically in-between panting and trying to stop forehead sweat from running into his mouth. "Okay firstly, Drax, you suck at witty comebacks, no offence. You still don't understand metaphor well, and without it wit and irony goes right over your head-"
"Only because my hands are in these stocks. Otherwise I would catch it." He muttered, glaring in a sully manner at nothing.
"-and secondly, less of the negativity Ringtail,You look like the 'hang on in there' cat right now, so it's unfitting. This stock isn't bolted to the floor as securely as yours or Drax's, it wobbles a little, and if it can wobble an little, then it can eventually wobble and lot and sooner of latter the metal will sheer like when you bend and unbend a paperclip enough, and I'm scott free home and dry."
"What good will freeing Scott do if we ourselves are still trapped." Muttered Drax. "and I see no relevance to out levels of dryness when we return to our domicile."
"It's never going break that bolt," said Rocket. "One, you look ridiculous gurning away like that, I can't tell if you're trying to break that bolt or take the toughest shit of your life, you're going give yourself an aneurism straining like that, two those are tempered steel, and three, even if the one loose bolt does frickin' go, you're gonna fall flat on your stupid fat furless face."
"Oh, I'm sorry, is my plan somehow not as good as your "Intentionally get kicked in the hand' plan? Oh, wait, don't bother replying, I can't hear you over the sounds of slowly sheering metal and inevitable victory!"
"And panting." Muttered Drax. "You should rock the stocks using your quads, not your back. It'll be a more efficient work out."
"Says the guy who prioritised not missing a leg day over not getting captured." Said Rocket.
"Says the guy who missed all the days. Because he is no true warrior. And also nocturnal." Growled Drax. "You were captured and put in stocks as well."
"Bite me, roid-rage. Besides: if it's got our hands and head's trapped it's technically the Pillory, not stocks. We are literally being pilloried here." Said Rocket, having to yell to be heard over the panting, swearing and increasingly frantic screeching of tortured metal coming from Quill Stocks, or possibly pillory, as he rocked it further and further with each attempt.
"I tried something Drax, I'm trying here and Quill, dumb as he is, is at least trying to get out of here even if there no way in a thousand years that that bolt is going to-"
Snap.
The bolt holding Quill's Pillory to the ground snapped, as he rocked it forwards to freedom.
"Aha! Yes! Yes yes yes, Fucking yes!" he yelled, before realising that with all the momentum he'd built up the heavy pillory was still rocking on it's own, and now that it was no longer attached to the ground, tilting over alarmingly far forwards.
"No! No no no fucking no… NOOOOOOOOO!"
Crash.
"Owwww! Oh Jesus, I landed right on my face! Ahhh! Ahhh! I think I bit my tongue!" yield Quill's voice from ground level and, hands and head still trapped in a big metal board with a few cut outs, his legs flailed ineffectively as he tried and failed to right the heavy a-frame the pillory had been mounted on before giving up an accepting the fact that he was still trapped in the thing, but now just at 90 degrees to the vertical instead of upright.
"Told you so." Said Rocket, after a pause.
"Duly noted. Now fuck off." Said Quill, slightly muffled by the upside-down Pillory and his greatcoat, that had fallen over his head revealing that he was not, in fact, in assless chaps but just regular jeans.
"You could have got that back up again if you'd worked on you Quads." Muttered Drax.
"Uggggggg…." Sighed both Quill and Rocket, nursing their wounds.
Gamora had finished loading the mining explosive from the abandoned mining pod's bay into her satchel when she heard the first explosion.
Pausing, she turned her head to triangulate the position, and then frowned. That was by the main drag, and she didn't expect Nebula would have tried to hold her prisoners somewhere so heavily populated: too likely someone would stumble onto them by accident and word would get out. Sure, you could just kill the person who found them, but soon someone would come looking for them, and pretty soon you were in a mess that no amount of killing would dig you out off.
Growing up with my sisters taught me that. Gamora thought.
There was a second concussive blast, and screams. Same location.
Frowning, Gamora stashed the explosives, Hadron enforcer and Aeroharnes in a safe space, and, drawing her pistol, jogged off to investigate.
Tabby walked down the main drag of Knowhere, blasting another parked street vendors stall out of her way as she played with her com set and monologued to herself, while the Dread Kuthunlon floated along in her wake, occasionally screeching at passers-by and attacking the odd person who got too close with a tentacle.
"Like, I mean, yes, I am a super hero, but come on! Cable is such a pain in my butt at times, and Monica and the others…. Uggg, sometimes I just need to get out of there and do my own thing, spend a little time by myself, stealing some stuff, yanno? Have a little fun. I mean, honest merc' work, get some cool alien tech, I mean, what are my other options? Cable is a bore, Xavier's school blows up every ten months, and clearly I'm not making it into the Avengers, so a little light mercenary work between X-Force jobs helps keep me sharp. So, why d'you do it? What's in this job for you?"
"Skrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr!"
"Ummm, charades? Is it, like, a movie?" asked Tabby. Kuthunlon screeched, and waved a tentacle.
"Ewww, watch it with the goat blood. Never mind, I don't care." Said Tabby, blowing another parked vehicle out of the way. "Screw this, we're meant to causing a diversion, lets smash up that bar. Nothing like a good bar brawl to, like, get people's attention." She said, directing a ball of plasma the size of a pea into the lock of the bar's backdoor and frying the mechanism.
The barman inside was just wondering what that noise he'd heard was and, this being a bar where gambling was a major pastime, taking bets on the cause of the explosions and marking them up on the holo above the bar. He'd just updated the odds on "Guardian's and/or Quill have finally started a shooting war with Nova" to ten to one and was trying to lengthen to odds on "Rocket: just Rocket." to the point where the house could still make some money on it, when the door from his stockroom blew off the hinges, and a tall blond Terran walked into the bar, stepping over the dog sleeping by the door and swigging from a bottle of looted beer, flowered by a bleeding hole in reality with tentacles growing out of it, which instantly put everyone on edge, because nothing good ever seemed to start with Terrans.
"G'day. What can I do y' for?" asked the Barman, not letting go of the remote to alter the odds displayed on the holo. "Light beer is two units." He said, glancing meaningfully at the bottle. "Door is about fifty."
"Umm, yeah, about that, I'm here to create a diversion to, like, distract everyone from the dudes we've kidnapped, so if everyone could, like, clear out so I can blow up the bar, that'd be real nice." Said tabby, Slurping from the beer while still playing her bubble popping game. "Nothing personal." She added.
"Right." Said the Barman, flatly. "And if we don't?"
Tabby took a deep drink of her beer, and then spat, theatrically, sending a plasma ball into the remote in the barman's hands and blowing it up.
"Then I, like, blow up all your shit and Squidward here goes all henti on your ugly behinds. No offence."
"None taken." Said the barman. "D'ya mind if I get out my insurance documents first? If you sign them I can get my money back."
"Oh, sure, no problem." Said Tabby, not looking up from her game. The barman nodded, and reached under the bar. He then yelped, and pulled out his hand when Tabby sent a stream of concussive force under the bar too.
"That's an awfully gun shaped insurance document." She added, blasting the shattered remains of a Necroblaster out from under the bar. She glanced up. Literally everyone in the bar had some sort of gun out, and was aiming at her. She noticed that the dog by the door has woken up too, and seemed to be wearing some sort of adorable little astronaut costume. This distracted her for a moment, in which the barman produced a pistol from somewhere and the doorman, a huge scared Bolovite with electrodes sticking out of his brain, slammed the power cell into a huge squad support necroblaster.
Tabby sighed, why did people always want to do it the hard way?
She glanced sideways. "Hey Kuth… Ku….. what's your name again?"
"Skrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr!"
"Okay, I'm calling you Squidward from now on because I don't speak screaming static. Hey, Squidward, little help?"
There was an unpleasantly squishy ripping noise, and suddenly all over the Bar purple edged holes in reality opened, and bloody tentacles appeared from out of them, grabbing onto people by the gun-holding arms, or sneaking up trouser legs to wrap around limbs.
Tabby grinned, nastily. "Yeah, I'm not, like, 100% sure where exactly people go when he sucks them into those holes, but I kinda doubt it's anywhere particularly nice. So…." She said, making a lower guns gesture with a downward palm. "So, if you guys just wanna fuck off so I can blow shit up and try and cause a diversion in order to distract someone called Comorra, or something like that…"
"Gamora." Said a voice.
Tabby turned her head.
Standing in the blown-in door behind her was a tall, green skinned woman wearing skin-tight low profile armour, and holding a pistol in one hand, and a sword in the other.
"No I'm. Like, 90% sure it started with a C."
Gamora, half way thought taking a stride into the room, hesitated and cocked her head on one side, she had bigger issues at hand, she thought, noting the tentacles, but still.
"It's Gamora. With a G."
Tabby snorted, and put a palm to her chest. "Tcha! Sure, like, toats whatever. I think I know a little more about my job than you do, queen bee. Like, who died and made you expert on Comorra? Am I right?" she said, elbowing Squidward in his nearest tentacle.
Gamora stared. "No, I'm, actually Gamora. I'm the person you've been hired to distract, and now that I know that's what you're doing, why don't we cut the crap and you just tell me-"
"You're Gamora, you?" asked Tabby, pointing.
"Yes, yes I am."
"Oh… you don't look at all like your sister. Are you, like, adopted? Love your hair by the way, who does your highlights?"
"Ummm, thank you? It's, it's a Xen Whoberi traditional… why am I even talking to you? Look, what did you do to my friends? If they've been harmed in any way-"
"Wait, by your friends, do you mean the random drunks here, or the dudes we, like, kidnapped and put in the old hydroponics station over on westside?"
Tabby was aware of the sudden silence and the look everyone gave her.
"Crap, probably shouldn't have said that out loud. Oh well, Yolo, am I right?"
"I…. I have no idea what you're talking about." Said Gamora "Look, I can see that clearly you're not some random hired thug, so why don't we talk about this in a civilised-"
"Wait, the rest of the Guardians got kidnapped?" asked a random drunk.
Gamora glared, "Yes, look could everyone please stop interrupting-"
"Ha! 'Quill and/or other Guardians captured, eight-to-one' that was my bet on why there was explosions, folks, pay up and look big!" yelled the drunk. Instantly the whole bar groaned, and begun to, arms still tied up in tentacles, pass over cash and credit-slips one handed.
*Citizen Quill is in danger?* said a voice. Tabby and Gamora both looked down.
The dog by the door had woken up fully and was watching them, head cocked on one side. He made eye contact with Gamora, psychically transferring to her a dogs-eye view of the approaches to that hydroponics station and best routes for stealth. She nodded back to him, barely visibly.
Tabby on the other hand, just went "Dawww, what a cute doggy. What's your name little guy?"
*Cosmo. Vostok 4Ka Soviet space probe number-*
"Oh my Glob, it can talk. And it's French."
Cosmo glared. *I am Russian, citizen*
"Um… no, 'cause we, like, won the cold war, so technically there isn't a Russia any more, I think we like, took it over and now it's called Alaska. Or maybe Canada. Or something, I never really listened to all those history geeks. But the point is, America's the best, so suck it, Frenchie. Why has your suit got CCCP written on it? Is that like French for NASA?"
*It in fact says USSR in Russian. The C is a Cyrillic-*
"Um, no, one, because you're French and two, Like, that's not how you spell USSR. I know how to spell that because it's only like, " she paused, and counted on her fingers. "Four letters. Get it right, spacedog."
Cosmo stared. * You are a moron. I am going to… To mark some territory.* He said, clearly slinking off in the direction of the hydroponics station. * Please no one read any other motive into my sudden departure, Da?*
"Ewww, like, way too much info. Why are the European ones always super gross."
She turned sideways to Gamora. "Sorry, who were you again?"
Gamora leveled the pistol at the strange woman "I am going to go save Quill and my friends, you and your tentacle monster, stand down."
"Wait, Quill and my friends? Is he, like your boyfriend OMG, that's so cute!"
"He's… look, it's complicated. I wouldn't say he was my boyfriend… why am I even talking to you?"
"Cause I'm awesome. Yeah, you're right, that muscly bald guy was, like so much hotter. You should go for him. Is he your boyfriend or is he, like, single?"
"Drax is Not My boyfriend!"
"What, eww… don't tell me you and the Racoon…"
Gamora made a duck-faced gesture that was more confused by this woman than angry with her, sighed, and fired the pistol. She didn't have time for this, and it was only set to stun.
She was more than a little surprised when a ball of plasma no bigger than a grape appeared mid-air between them, merged with the ionised gasses from her laser pistol, and deflected her shot to the right of the woman's head with a loud pop. She upped the pistol's power, but her second and third shots likewise missed as the blonde woman raised her hand and summoned more balls of plasma, and then Gamora had to dive behind a table as the bar's patrons dropped their guns and fled the room and a ball the size of an orange punched into the floor where she'd been a moment before and went off like a grenade
Tabby sighed, put her communicator away, switched on the iPod nano mounted to her lapel, and tilted her head to get the crick out of her neck.
Why did everyone always want to do things the hard way? she thought crossing her arms and focusing her power.
"Okay Squidward, party time." she said, summoning a ball of plasma the size of a soccer ball in each hand.
Tabby's workout playlist- The Hives: Tick Tick boom
Quill flinched as he heard the latest round of explosions.
"Well, that sounded a lot closer than the last lot." He said, from the floor
"A quarter mile closer, central Knowhere." Muttered Rocket, still fiddling with the Pillory with his free hand and wincing repeatedly every time he had to move his thumb. "sounds like a hell of a fight: I almost feel sorry for whoever's pissed off Gamora. Almost."
"Yeah, true, but I'm kinda worried now, we should bust out and try and find out what's going on, not…not because I'm afraid for Gamora, she's kicked her sister's ass before and can handle herself… it's just I am getting a little concerned now: those sound like big explosions. And also there's only so much of this space station can get blown up before people start to blame us and run us out of town on a rail, and I literately only just got unpacked in our new place. How's the break out plan going, furry Houdini?"
"Dammit, I've found a keyhole but can't do squat. It only I had my damn lockpicks on me. I gotta start wearing those around the house. "
"Rocket man, if you start wearing every bit of kit you think you'll need in the event of a kidnapping around the house, then pretty soon you won't be able to fit thought doorways." Said FloorQuill
"Just let it go, and lets focus on finding a way out of here." He looked sideways to Drax.
"Drax, dude, you said you thought that if I had your muscular strength, I could have gotten up of the floor despite having both hands bolted to my head like this, right?"
"Indeed." Said Drax glowering. "You also said my witty come back was not good."
"Forget it with the!" yelled, Quill, before remembering to stay calm, and dropping his voice. "Forget it with the witty come backs, dude. Look, so if you think someone with your strength could get off the floor while still pilloried, then surely, surely with that strength you've got to be able to break the pillory, right?"
"The bolts holding mine down are secure. There is no loose element."
"Except Quill." muttered Rocket.
"If I wasn't currently eating the floor, I'd refute that." said the floor.
Drax grunted, and leaned forward into the pillory, pushing with his legs, and felling his boots slip on the slick floor.
"I can't get any traction to push on this, let alone rock it."
"Yes?" said the Racoon. Drax glared.
"Rock it, not Rocket, you furred annoyance! Quill, while you cannot get up, is it possible for you to turn on the floor? I cannot see behind me, and I need to know if there is anything I could use to brace my legs against."
"Ummm, sure, just give me a sec to scootch round." Said Quill, legs flailing, as he tried to push himself along the floor like one of those dogs in a mobility harness. After five or ten minutes and considerable swearing, Quill was able to push himself into the base of Rockets pillory, and use it as an anchor on the left hand side of his fallen pillory, and pivot around it to face Drax.
"Hey, Roc', little help here?" he asked. The racoon swore, but leaned down with his loose hand and, after much straining and yelping because over extending a hand with a broken thumb so you could grab something with the very tips of your fingers hurts, a lot, he managed to hook a claw over Quill trenchcoat and flip it back over his leg so his face was no longer covered.
"Gahah! Heh." snorted the racoon: Quill had some gum from the floor stuck in his stubble.
"What? What!?" asked Quill, glancing up, Rocket grinned and pointed to his own face with his uninjured, still pilloried hand, and grinned.
"Ya got a little something there, Quill." he said. Quill frowned, and then glanced own, making a face and repeatedly inflating his cheeks and striking out his chin while looking down to try and see what Rocket was pointing at.
"Oh man, is that gum? Jesus, that's nasty. Who even drops gum? There was a trashcan right there. Hell, if you take it out and want some place to stick it why not, oh, I don't know, stick it on the huge stocks just sitting in the middle of the room!"
"Pillories." Said Drax and Rocket, at the same time.
"Oh I'm sorry, because now is clearly the best time for the semantics lesson." Muttered Quill, scanning the room. "Drax, you've got the door behind you to your left, but directly behind you and slightly to your right is some sort of wall, and not a glass hydroponics one, like a regular wall. Stretch your feet out, feel for it with our boots: if you can brace against that, you can really try to push on those stocks."
"That pillory." Muttered Drax, but he reached out a foot all the same, and sure enough, and nearly the limit he could stretch to, there was a wall. Grinning, Drax got both boot-tips on the wall, and begun to walk his boots up it. As he did, and his legs got closer in height to his body the angle became less acute, and he had to flex his legs slightly: the wall really wasn't that far behind him and if you were stretching down as well as back, it was a stretch, but if you knew the wall was right behind you, it was close.
Grunting, Drax leaned into it, and begun to push on the wall as hard as he could with his leg and core muscles. Sweating, face contorting and thighs burring, he screwed shut his eyes, focused on his breathing and began to put all his force into it.
"I am Drax the destroyer. Guardian of the Galaxy, slayer of Ronan, scourge of Thanos, husband to a murdered wife, father to slain daughter, and wielder of infantry stones." He said to himself, pushing and grunting. "I am the destroyer, and I am not going to be defeated by mere furniture!" he yelled, grunting and pushing, feeling something start to give as the metal begun to squeal in protest and cracks begun to form in the plaster under his feet and slowly, surely, he felt himself start to move.
"Die, puny pillory, for I am the destroyer and your time has come! Gahaaaaaaaaaa!"
*Crunch*
There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Quill groaned.
"What? What I can't see!" said Rocket, struggling to turn his head. "What happened? Drax, buddy, did you frickin' break out?"
"My feet appear to have gone through the wall." Said Drax, after a moment.
"Yeah, yeah I guess a solid metal pillory is a little bit tougher that drywall sheeting." Said Quill, disappointed.
"In fact, it feels like a single bond of brick under a thin plaster. I imaging the humidity from the hydroponics may have rotted the mortar."
"Well, can you pull yourself out and try again?" asked Rocket, staining to see what was going on.
There was a pause, and then the hollow clonk of a falling brick.
"No. My legs appear to be stuck fast. I am stuck in the wall."
There was a second pause.
"I told you we should have focused on witty comebacks." Muttered Drax after a moment.
Without speaking, all three of them turned their eyes, as if by unspoken agreement, to Groot, in his tank in the corner.
Groot looked to them, nodded, and braced all four limbs of the strong Perspex sides of the hydroponics tank, and closed his eyes, feeling with tendrils, trying to find a chink to get a root into. After a moment, he found a small dimple in the glass, put a finger to it, and closed his eyes, clearing his mind of thought, and focus on a single, rapid grown spurt, trying to increase his biomass and swell his cells using the plentiful hydroponics solution, and grow until he was of sufficient mass to exert considerable pressure on the inside of the tank.
He took a deep breath, and then calmly, clearly, let out his battle mantra.
"I. Am Groot."
*Whumph*
Squeak squeak squeak!
All three of the mammalian guardians winced, and turned their heads away.
"Oh, seriously ya dummy, it's a Hydroponics tank! Its specifically designed to resist root pressure, ya moron!" yelled Rocket
Groot, his face smushed up against the inside of the tank by his own foliage where he'd expanded suddenly and filled ever concealable cubic centimetre of the tank with foliage so he couldn't even move, let out a slow, mournful groan.
"I… am…. Grooooooooot!"
"You should have thought of that before you expanded yourself! Well, try and focus on shrinking back down again, it shouldn't take ya too long. At least we've got plenty of time by ourselves to plan out how to escape." Said Rocket, after a moment. "I mean, at least there are no guards."
"Umm, actually, you may have spoken a little too soon there." Said Quill, the only one now facing the doorway, as the sound of two sets of footsteps, one heavy and one light, echoed down the corridor towards them.
"Well well well, there's a fuzzy little tail I'd recognise anywhere. Still knocking over banks between bounties, Roc'?" Called out a sinisterly cheerful voice from the corridor, as a huge, muscled, armless cyborg pushed in, glowering and scanning the room with a synthetic eye, followed a moment later by a tall, lithe form that leaned casually on the doorway in the shadows, a moment later lit by a match to reveal the sleek blue-black chitin of a wasp-like or fly-like insectoid alien, secondary set of arms lighting a deathstick while the primary set of arms were folded over a heavy yellow set of segmented ceramic body armour, antimatter pistol hanging casually from one clawed hand. Its membranous wings buzzed and hummed to themselves, controlling the airflow around the match to keep it burning, before the light flicked out again.
Once the deathstick was lit, it took a deep drag, paused, and then blew out smoke rings from every spiracle down its back, one at a time, then turned its head to the room, and leaned into the light reliving a set of glittering emotionless compound eyes, one partly hidden behind a HUD lens while two shoulder-mounted disruptors whirred to themselves on servos, covering the room.
"Rocket, long time no see." Said Shang-Lo-Pan Azulon, jovially as he clicked into the room, smoking with the weak secondary arms growing out of his abdomen and racking the slide on his pistol with his main arms and keeping it ready at his side before resting his off hand on the pommel of a cruel looking flambeau dagger. Walking around, he tapped off a little ash on the pillory, just above the racoon's ear, making him flinch and snarl at the hot cinders, before leaning in, staring briefly, and then blowing smoke in Rocket's snarling face.
"Mister Knife sends his regards." Said the insectoid, taking another drag.
