Chapter eleven: sisters, part Five; edge of seventeen
Nebula ran for the Milano.
Her damn sister was proving impossible to contain, as usual. Her idiotic friends had proved for more troublesome than expected, and the mercs she'd hired appeared to have gone rouge: Tentacles was out of control, the damn Terran had changed sides, the robot had finally been disabled by Nova, the kree's life signs monitor had just cut out, and she would be dammed if she trusted the brute or that damn creepy bug further that she could throw them.
Off all the shitty awful moments in her life that had been directly or indirectly caused by or involving her sister this was, she calculated, the 87th worst.
What a family. She thought, as she sprinted, implants grating and organics sweating, towards her ship. If she could just make it out of her with her sister's friends, she could still use them to leverage Gamora into fining that damn Infinity Stone for her.
In theory, she was meant to give it to the crime boss she worked for once she had it. Her life had been repeatedly and inventively threatened should she fail.
She had to smile slightly at that. An infinity stone could buy a world, it was a fortune beyond imagining, and a powerful weapon. One, maybe, powerful enough to kill her father.
And she'd be dammed if she was giving up that chance.
Nebula ran.
Gamora woke with a face full of bone dust and dog, groaned, and shifted.
She was in a basement full of caffeine pods, huge wholesale crates of Choma-soda, and about a third of the building that had once stood above it. Groaning, she pushed a slab or sculpted celestial bone off her, and checked on Cosmo. Alive, but out cold. She put him in the closet thing she could to the recovery potion given he was a quadruped, and staggered up, glancing upwards, looking for a way out.
There. Fallen beam running at an angle. She could run or shimmy up that, then jump to the lip of the hole. Hopefully if Cosmo did wake up in time to help with the fighting, he could follow her scent trial to catch up with her. Rocket certainly never seemed to have trouble finding people when he wanted to, mores the pity, so she'd have to hope this was the same.
She did a quick inventory. Knife, laser-pistol, Aeroharnes with about 5% power left. She could fetch the explosives from where she' hidden them too.
Not much.
She ran up the beam, and jumped for the lip. Whatever she had, it was more than Quill and the others had right now.
She hoped they were okay…
"Ahhhhhh!" Yelled Rocket, Kicking at the tentacles that were trying to make their way into the ship towards him, climbing up the pillory.
"Ahhhhhhh! Bad touch! Bad touch! Ewww! That one actually touched my frickin' tail! Personal space! It's like a Kree prison in here!" He yelled, fighting off the two pseudopods that kept trying to pull his legs apart while another tried to wrap around his tail. "Ahhh! Quit trying to lay eggs in my butt!"
"Dude, you think you have it bad?" yelled Quill, as the still-alive severed tentacle tip flopped about on the end of his pillory, trying again and again to get up his nostril and forcing him to keep truing his head and blowing at it to try an fend it off. "I've got Kornenberg's fever dream truing to romance my sinuses here! Oh… and the big one is humping my leg."
"That's one's a girl, I think: it's laid an egg-sack on your boot! I… let go of my fricking tail!" Yelled Rocket, wiggling. "I'm already a hideous amalgam of machine and flesh created by mad scientists, my life doesn't need to get any more Akira!"
"I knew I shouldn't have shown you that film!" yelled Quill. "All you did for a week was complain, build railguns and bikes, and ask for an orbital death laser! You and Regan are the only people who want space lasers, what it with the initials RR and wanting to build spacelasers!?"
"Okay, firstly, my second name is not racoon! I don't even know that that word means, you dumb hummie, and second, If you were a good friend, Quill, you'd have been on-board with my plan to build a frickin' death laser! This is why I can't really on other people: no one believes in my death-laser related dreams and- bad touch, bad touch!"
"I am Groot! I am Groot I am Groot I am Groot!" Yelled Groot in fear, and the tentacles started to make in-roads into his pod, forcing their way thought the seals around the edge.
"Ahhh, Quill, use your skills to defeat them." Yelled Drax, as one tentacle smeared slime over his bald head and another kept trying to get in his ear.
"What skills? Fucking Pictionary?" Yelled Quill, shaking his chief admirer off his boot when it went for his crotch.
"You have lain with an Askavarian!" said Drax, whipping at his face to keep with a hand to keep slime out of his eyes. "Surely you learned to master tentacles?"
"I… Dude it was one time to get info, you can't seriously think I'm into this stuff and …. Drax, is you hand free?"
"The goo was in my eyes! It smells most unpleasant! And the taste! It was most similar to your cooking, Quill-"
"Your hand!"
"I was able to slip it out: the slime appears to have made my wrists quite slippery-" said Drax, rotating his wrist: wearing no clothing from the waist up, having zero per cent body-hair, and being so jacked his wrists were almost the same size as his hands, he'd slipped a wrist out quite easily once lubricated.
"Why?" he asked, glaring at the other Guardians.
There was a babble of voices as the other three all started shouting and gesticulating at once, largely pointing at the shelf where Nebula clearly kept her self-maintenance tools, including several plasma cutters. Confused, he pulled his other hand out, to pull the tentacle out of his ear so he could hear properly.
"What?"
"Oh Come on!" yelled Quill and Rocket. Groot Grooted.
Nebula hit the ramp of the Milano running, and was up and on the bridge in seconds, booting up the autopilot. All she needed to do was get to the Barracuda and transfer the prisoners over to this ship, then she could be away Scott free and-
A yellow light flare beyond the cockpit blister, so bright she could feel the heat from there through the armour-crys. She looked up.
"Seriously!"
Everything was on fire.
Tabby shot a jet out of her feet to maintain height, then thrust both hands forwards to send a focused wave of plasma cutting thought the tentacle's surrounding the Barracuda , trying to cut through the bundles of heaving polyps without destroying the trapped ship. It was harder than she thought it would be, especially if you didn't want to burn out Knowhere's oxygen supply and kill everyone, which she guessed would be kind of a bummer. Ture, she was making a mess of downtown with splash-damage, but that was mostly evacuated after her fight with green-chick anyway.
She was a little concerned with the Nova fleet filming all this, though. She didn't want this to end up on youtube. Or, god forbid, Monica or her friends to find out.
"Okay, so what are we dealing with now?" asked Nova Prime, to Denarian Dey, as she marched toward her command suite at Nova HQ on Xandar.
"The peacekeeping fleet at Knowhere has come under attack, Ma'am. It looks like someone tried to kidnap the Guardians of the Galaxy, but they fought back, and the fighting spilled out into the streets and now we have a situation."
"Of course we do." She muttered, pinching her nose as she walked thought the double doors and towards her command lectern. "They can survive wielding an infinity stone but I can't trust them with sharp cutlery. Okay, on screen. Let's see what they've gotten themselves into this time…"
The screen booted up.
Nova prime and Dey stared for a long moment. Dey paled.
"Are those."
"On fire, humping, extra-dimensional tentacles? Yes. Oh and look, another enhanced human, who can shoot fire out of her hands, while flying, badly, while yelling "Yeet!" over and over, without context ." she said, watching Tabby sever a tentacle tip with a plasma bust and punt it down-range when it tried to grab her.
"That's what I thought ma'am."
Nova put her face in both palms. "Even by Terran standards, Quill is just the worst."
Dey frowned, considering this. "Quill, not the one with red spandex suit, regenerative abilities and awful, awful puns?"
Nova Prime considered this. "Third worst Terran."
"Third?"
"The undefeatable one, who could control rodents with her mind and wouldn't stop punching out Galactus? Quill might make a shortlist of the worst non-Canadian ones."
"What about that big green one on Sakaar?"
Nova prime winced. "Fair point. So, do you think if we intervene this will make the situation better, or far, far worse?"
"Oh, so much worse. We have no jurisdiction, and don't even know what the sides are. It'd be a blood bath."
"Well, that's never stopped a liberal democracy from intervening in foreign policy before… but let's wait and see on this one. I have faith in Quill and the Guardians of the Galaxy."
"Yeah me too… but… why?"
Nova prime shrugged, and pointed. "That is one of the most insane things I've ever seen… but for Quill, that's Tuesday. If anyone can muddle thought that with sheer dumb luck, it's the Guardians. Peter Jason Quill, despite what it looks like, can handle that. "
Smash cut to Quill, still with head trapped, tentacle up nose, looking out of a widow at a view that is entirely flaming tentacle's as the ship spins, out of control.
"Oh shit, oh shit oh shit were all going to die! We're going to die, Rocket, Dieeeeeeee!"
Rocket, crying, nodded in agreement, the tentacle's leaving hideous slug-like track through his fur, now slimed and sticking up at all sorts of weird, ugly angles. "Oh man, I can't die, I'm far too pretty to die! Groot help me!"
"I. AM. GROOT!" yelled Groot, snarling. With the tentacles opening up small holes in his containment pod, we was able to get his own tendrils out, but they were being mistaken for tentacles my amorous suitors, so his pod was a the centre of a growing nest-like ball of severed tentacle and broken wood as he fought them in a complex 3D wresting match, fighting to get once close enough to the plasma cutter to throw it to Drax.
"Wheeee! Yeah! Ahahahahahaha! Yes! Yes!"
Quill and Rocket, paused, made eye contact, and then looked sideways. Even Groot spared a glance over, not stopping his battle.
Drax was pumping both fists enthusiastically as he stared out the window, grinning! "Yes, Die, evil tentacle!"
Rocket and Quill shared a new look, and resumed screaming.
Nebula moved the Milano into position, waiting. Three, two one…..
Tabby cut the last of the tentacles, the Barracuda spun off in a crash-course, heading for a building full of civilians. The crash would set off the FTL core, and atomise both ship, crew and civis.
Nebula moved.
The Milano's cannons roared, forcing the damn Terran woman to summon a shield of concussive force, knocking her backwards into the wall of Knowhere, punching deep into the side of a shanty clinging to the side of the bone cliffs. As she gunned the annoying Firestarter out of the way, she swooped above the Barracuda and fired the magnetic snares.
On the Barracuda, Quill, Rocket, Groot and Drax cheered as they burnt their way free of the tentacles. They cheered again as the spinning of the ship threw everything not tied down into the air, and the plasma-cutter flew off the shelves, and into Groots waiting tendril. They cheered again as Groot tossed it to Drax, seconds before a tentacle grabbed his arm and snapped it in the seconds before it too burst into flame. Drax missed the catch, it going over his head his reflexes just a fraction too slow, but Rocket actually caught it as it sailed past him.
Then the ship suddenly stopped spinning, the g-force whipping the Guardians around and ripping the cutter from Rocket's tiny hand, to land on the floor near to Drax's foot.
"Awwwww!" yelled Quill, his sentiment echoed by Rocket and Groot, albeit with more swearing from the racoon. The "Aww!" was repeated when they got a look thought the cockpit blister and saw Nebula, in their own ship, glaring at them across about fifty foot of space before making the finger to the throat means death gesture at them, before turning her ship around and dragging theirs after it.
"Well, this is one of the worst moments in my life." Said Rocket, flatly.
"Do not be a-feared, tiny friend, I think I can still reach the Plasma-cutter!" said Drax, straining, fingers just brushing the handle of the tool.
"Cool, but I was thinking more the fact that the tentacle climbing Quill's leg just made it to third base and I'm forced to watch." Said Rocket, flatly. "Oh boy, that's gonna make me regret the eidetic memory Quill."
"Yeah, not gonna lie to you, I'm starting to think this one is less interested in laying eggs and is just looking for a good time." Said Quill, trying to enthusiastically but unsuccessfully to knee himself in the balls to dislodge it.
"I don't want to hurry you, Drax, but I really kind of do." Said Quill, wincing. "Oh, this takes me Back, please hurry."
Nebula maneuvered the ships along, tuning sideways to get them out of the line of fire of the Nova cutters peering in through Knowhere's dead eyes, cursing. The damn Terran woman was doing a good job of clearing the tentacles, but that had just opened up the main exit to Nova's warships. She swore, checking the holo-projector mounted into the pilot's seat arm-rest for a schematic. Surely there had to be another way in or out of the place?
The holo flicked on, and started playing some sort of primitive holo play. "Disturbing the peace? I got thrown out of a window! What's the fucking charge for getting pushed out of a moving car, huh? Jaywalking? This is bullshit!"
Cursing, she tried and failed to switch off the recording, only succeeding on switching on the tape deck and adding to the noise. Then, putting the ship on auto for a moment, she moved to the co-pilots seat, making the ship, and the towed Barracuda * lurch* suddenly before it righted itself. The seat was set up too small for her, and was covered in stray racoon hairs, but at least its nav-com was set up to function as a navigational aid, and not a home cinema. Her eyes darted from side to side, blue head thrust into flickering blue projections: the Guardians had set up their warehouse for ship maintenance and refuelling; that implied there was a private airlock somewhere nearby.
There.
Private airlock right around the corner from the warehouse. She'd have to unlocking on foot, but if she was smart, she'd only have to leave the ship for a few minutes.
She really didn't want to leave her hostages unattended for a few nanoseconds if she could avoid it. She wanted to keep the sips hovering, and slaved to a remote, and she wanted to drop off the ships somewhere where she could approach the warehouse from above…
There: a large arch of bone where the brain had been mine out from around it, overlooking the warehouse district: it gave her a clear approach, and she could drop of the arch at the last moment and roll into the cover of the corridor that lead to the airlock. Plus, if her sister tried to interfere, the arch left her only one approach: one with a sheer drop to either side, and no cover. A perfect spot.
Still, no point in taking and chances, she though, mashing a set of command prompts into the touch-pad of synth-skin on her left fore-arm, while extending a data-spike from a knuckle and slamming it into the info port on Rocket's armrest, slaving the ships movements to her own. She winced at the strength of Rockets surprising tough firewall in her mind, trying to force her out, but she was a daughter of Thanos, and she cowed the Milano in a few moments. The Damn Fox might be a pain in the ass, but he did take good care of his machines.
Which reminded her…
As the Milano and the Barracuda hovered into position, one on each side of the arch, mirroring each other, she strode towards the lover hatch, helping herself to one of Rockets plasma-carbines from his wall of guns as she passed, ignoring the winding tape-deck blaring out a tune by the Bangles, and twitching her head to one side as she sent out a signal to the Barracuda.
The rat wasn't the only KLS tech on her ship, after all.
The Milano *lurched* suddenly.
Drax, straining, sweating and grunting with his fingertips just brushing the plasma-cutter panicked for a moment as it rolled with the ship, away from him. But then the ship corrected, and it rolled back.
Right into his hand.
Snarling with victory, Drax bunt through the few remaining tentacle tips clinging to his pillory, before truing the cutter to the metal of the pillory, starting to oh-so slowly burn thought the hinge. Rocket and Quill cheered.
"Oh man, at last we get a break!" yelled Quill "Drax, you cut me out next so I can fly the ship, then Groot so he can bust out Rocket… Rocket?"
"Oh boy…. That's a bad sign." Said the Racoon, staring dead ahead.
"What is… oh boy." Said Quill, turning his head to look at what Rocket had spotted.
A pair of those damn mind-control disks sitting on the shelf had just woken up, and then, blinking and beeping, shot out of the ships cockpit blister and into position, hovering over a tall thin bridge of bone, near the Collectors private airlock. They hovered, like an honour guard.
Then Nebula dropped out of the moving Milano right between them, plasma-carbine in hand.
Gamora lurked in the shadows of the mining gantry and readied her sword as she counted down in her head. In the distance Peter's tape deck slowly wound down, streaming out his music for all to hear.
She peered around the corner cautiously, checking both the sword and her target pistol and tensed her muscles. It couldn't be long now, she thought, as she mentally counted down.
*Downwards camera pan following Nebula as she drops from the ship to the bridge of bone. The camera movement continues downward for a second after she stops moving, revealing the mining explosive stuck to the underside of the arch. Pans slowly back up to show Nebula contemptuous striding along, brushing herself off, as the camera pans right and starts to move after her in a tracking shot. Nebula stops, freezing in place as if shocked. The camera moves a moment longer, bringing Gamora into shot, waiting, feet apart and sword held to one side, on the far end of the bridge, close to the vanishing point of the shot, the bone pale bridge pointed to her with the dark drop to either side.
Awesome mix tape plays: Stevie Nicks, Edge of Seventeen.
*Close up on Nebula' eyes, angry twitch under the organic one.*
*Close up on Gamora's eyes, steely, calm. *
Nebula swore under her breath "Oh you hateful cun-"
The Charges blew.
Gamora ran.
She pushed all distractions from her mind as she broke cover and sprinted down the gantry: the generations of miners of Knowhere had eaten the flesh and bone of the Celestial away to either side as they perused viable deposits of pineal matter, leaving an rough arch of intact bone hovering above the neon lights of the town like a bridge. This was where a handful of sharpshooters had pinned down Yondu and his men when he'd come to Knowhere. It was a good spot to defend, and a very, very stupid one to attack: no cover, one way in, one way out, and a hell of a drop to either side. If you wanted a place to hold hostages, you'd not be disappointed.
Unsurprising: Papa Thanos didn't raise fools.
Gamora ran down the centre of the bridge as the first set of mining charges went off behind her, kicking out a cloud of dust and shards of bony shrapnel, giving her precious little cover but perhaps confusing their sensors for long enough for her to get some speed up. The first drone came at her out of the dust a moment later, but she swatted it aside with a shot from her laser and focused, putting it from her mind as she sped down the bridge towards the Blue figure waiting at its centre. She had to hit the centre before the next set of charges went off: if in doubt surprise the enemy.
If faced with an un-assailable objective, don't assault it: demolish it.
There was a distinctive crack of ionizing air and a plasma bolt shot past here head, close enough to singe hair. She saw Nebula drop her aim, and she jumped up just in time as her sister put the next round low and in front of her, forcing her to vault over it to prevent the splash-damage burning off her feet.
She staggered as she landed and fired of a shot, making Nebula flinch back, when the next set of charges went off and the bridge shook under her. Gamora grinned grimly, she had a plan to get down from here, and she was willing to bet that her sister didn't. Nebula would have to run, or fall.
Nebula dropped the plasma gun, but didn't run. She drew her Kali sticks with a crackle of electricity, and ginned at Gamora charged.
Which was stupid, thought Gamora, because how was she going to get off this bridge unless…
Gamora looked to the ship hovering off the side of the bridge to Nebula's left, an then and only then noticed the one slowly rising into view of her right, and suddenly Gamora realised that she didn't have a clue which of the two ships was the Milano and which was the Barracuda. Which was a very big problem because she needed to jump onto one of them to save her friends, but needed to take out the other one before it could shoot her down, and the time available to make the call was somewhat limited by the fact she'd just blown up the structural supports for the big ass arch she was standing on.
That said, This isn't the craziest situation I've ever been in with my sister. She thought as she leapt, sword signing and pistol already picking out her target.
Gamora shot out one of the charges, making it blow prematurely and send out a spray of bony shrapnel that downed the other drone coming at her, taking the other drone with her sword and slicing it in half. Nebula rushed past the fallen drone, and came at her wildly, ignoring the standard forms but managing to block Gamora's sword swipe with one stick while thrusting the other at her sisters belly. Gamora used the force of Nebula's swing into the upraised sword blade to pivot away from it mid-air, and landed behind her, forming the from the roof high-guard with her sword, then giving ground and slashing at her sitter's head as Nebula screamed and tried to bull Gamora back with raw rage. Nebula was swinging fast and hard, and with two weapons, attacking twice for each of Gamora's retaliatory blows: there was only so long Gamora could hold her off, unless she wanted to take a killing stroke. She counted her steps and she backed away, one, two.
Nebula came in with a swing that got under her guard and was about to smash her kneecap in.
Three.
Gamora stamped hard on the downed drone, and it retaliated by shooting up, just like the Controller's ones had, catapulting Gamora thirty feet in the air. Nebula, her mighty swing not hitting anything, overbalanced and fell to one knee, dropping her kia stick. It rolled away from her. As she reached over the edge of the arch to try and grab it, she saw the main explosive charge directly beneath her, and her eyes went wide.
Boom-Crack!
Nebula jumped left as the bridge exploded under her, Gamora used the Aeroharnes to boost right, landing on the nose of the Milano and, after the barest glance at the unoccupied cockpit blister spun around, pistol raised.
Nebula stood on the nose of the Barracuda glaring, one finger hovering over the control panel built in to her other arm, a laser designator glowing out of her cyborg eye picking out Gamora's centre mass as the cannons and missile pods of the ship targeted Gamora with enough firepower to level a city block .
Nebula scowled. "You picked the wrong ship."
Gamora's eyes flicked a hair sideways from her sister then she smiled. "Did I?"
Nebula frowned, confused.
"Ahem" said small voice behind her, flattened and attenuated by the glass.
Nebula spun around.
The four male Guardians were standing in the cockpit of her ship, glaring at her, dripping with goo, although Starlord managed a sarcastic wave, but that wasn't what drew her eye: Groot was holding Rocket over Nebula's pilot seat, his tendrils growing around the racoon like an exoskeleton, making his legs long enough to, with Groot's help, reach the control peddles, while he had a tiny paw on both the pitch/yawl controls and the throttle.
He glared evilly, hunched over, fur raised, eyes narrowed, and lips pulled back to show teeth.
"Hi." He said.
The Baracuda shot straight upwards into the ceiling of Knowhere with a sickening crunch, mashing Nebula deep into the half-rotted bone and smashing the nose of the ship into so much metallic confetti . The thrusters screamed and flared as Rocket gunned the engines, but then the ship id a strange cat-like little ass-wiggle as Rocket managed to untangle it and back it out of the crater it had just made. Slightly wobbly, the ship sank back down to the same level as the Milano and righted out, facing Gamora, cockpit blister swooshing open.
Gamora, looking up at the crater, glanced over to her crew, and nodded.
"You okay?" She asked, as Quill hopped over the gap onto the Milano, and took her hand.
"Are you?" replied Quill, looking up with her.
"I'm okay ." said Gamora, going into give Quill a brief one armed hug. "I'm just glad you're… what the hell Is that smell!" she said, recoiling, and wiping her hand on her pants.
"Terran. Thought you' be used to it by know." said Rocket, trying to get the tentacle goo of himself by rubbing at his fur with one paw, and glumly picking off egg-casings with the other.
"There were tentacles. Gooey tentacles….Like, a lot. Like, Greek meal numbers of tentacles. I don't want to talk about it." Said Quill wincing. "And I thought saw someone flying around burning them?"
"I made an unlikely ally. Terran mercenary, she's somewhat… difficult." Said Gamora, wincing.
Quill looked over his shoulder, following her gaze.
Tabby was in a three way fire fight with a heaving mass of tentacles, and two Nova star-fighters trying to link up and project their force-field around her. She was, hoverer, laughing manically throughout it and hurling schoolyard insults at both parties.
"Wasn't… wasn't she working for Nebula earlier?" asked Quill.
"Yes."
"So…. Is she on our side now?" he asked. Gamora considered it.
"I doubt it, she's less a team player and more… what's that term you used when we were playing that stupid game with the dice? The one were Rocket got us all killed by trying to pickpocket the litch, Drax seduced a monster, and you wouldn't stop speaking in that stupid extra-heroic voice to describe your actions? Xargos and Xargotrons? Drgvoves and Donnerkins?"
"Dungeons and dragons? Oh… Chaotic neutral?"
Gamora frowned "You said Chaotic asshole before."
"I was describing Rocket: the correct term is Chaotic neutral."
"Yeah, well I'm guessing she's one of those. If not both. " said Gamora, glancing up from the firestorm downtown, to the crater they' just punched in the roof. "But she's not the woman we need to worry about right now." Muttered Gamora, hefting her weapons.
"Do, do you think she survived that?" asked Rocket, after a moment.
"No." said Gamora, eyes narrowing. "I know she did. We need to be ready, this isn't over yet." She said, changing the fuel cell of her pistol. "Rocket, bring us over to that ledge by the crater. Carefully."
Pain.
Why was it always pain? Couldn't, just for once, her sister have just let her win?
Nebula felt her arm snap back into position, and screamed, as her body, painfully re-assembled. Pain. Her vison swam. She grit her teeth. Damn the pain, she wasn't giving up this easily.
"Need a hand?" a needlessly cheery voice asked. She struggled to focus her vison.
Shang-lo-pan Azulon stood on the wall in front of her, hand outstretched, the other behind his back like he was offering her a courtly dance, his resemblance to a wasp only increased by the fact he was quite cheerfully walking along the damned ceiling of knowhere. She wondered how hard she had hit her head, before she remembered his gravity manipulation watch. She tried to speak, found she couldn't, and then brought her secondary vocal unit online.
"The Guardians… my sister. They escaped. You… you need to re-capture them. We... we need a new plan"
"Escaped? Ah, how unfortunate." Buzzed the wasp "Well, no point crying over spilled nectar. Like you say: time for plan B, unfortunately. Your hand, lady Nebula, if you would.
She grunted, her shoulders snapping back into position, and then hesitated. "time for plan B, unfortunately." What did that mean?
And why couldn't she see his other hand?
He grabbed her wrist, and she slammed her other hand forwards catching the mono-filament blade as he stabbed it down at her heart. The knife slammed thought the metal of her palm with no resistance, but then the hilt caught, surprising Shang, so far as she could tell. He chittered, and tried to pull the blade out, but she wrapped her fist closed around then knife's haft, blade sticking out the back of her hand, sparks flying from the servos. Shag glared, vestigial wings buzzing, and tried to force the blade down towers her heart. She snarled, sweat dripping own her blow, her and Shang almost close enough to kiss, if he'd had lips.
"Nothing personal, but Mister Knife does not like loose ends: the plan always was, if the mission went south, to kill you before the Guardians or Nova could learn anything about his operations from you. He doesn't want you talking, you see, but just for the record, any last wor-"
Nebula head-butted Shag, hard enough to hear chitin crunch.
Shang recoiled, but as he did he kept hold of Nebula's arm and tossed her down, using the gravity manipulator to throw her off the roof of the world, it was a sickening drop, one even she wouldn't survive-
Or it would have been, if she hadn't landed on the wings of the Milano, a mere 30 feet or so from him, narrowly missing Quill.
"Hey, Baxter Stockman, quit throwing villains off ledges at us, who do you think you are, John McLane?"
Shang looked down, and smiled.
"Now." He buzzed into his wrist mounted com, sending Krom flying out of the cover of the nearby ledge to attack, two arms of semi-molten metal glowing. He took a moment to search for Gamora, all the time increasing the brightness of his armour's camouflage system with one of his weak secondary arms until it glowed a pure shining white. An old tradition of the reckoner guilds: if you were going to kill someone for money, they had the right to see you coming.
Shang-lo-pan Azulon, reckoner of sins and assassin in white, attacked.
Gamora clung to the nose of the Barracuda as Rocket brought it in towards the ledge. It rocked once as Nebula was thrown down and bounced off the left wing. Gamora watched as her sister rolled and managed to grab hold of a wing-tip just as her legs went skidding over the drop. It rocked again as the huge thug with the metal arms jumped down onto the right wing, and quickly sung a fist into the metal of the wing, sending out a spray of sparks. Behind her, in the open cockpit, she heard Rocket swear.
"He's going for the frickin' control lines! I'm about to lose the right thrusters! I'm going to have to put her down!" yelled the racoon, him and Groot fighting with the helm as the damaged ship started to spin out.
"Try to keep her up, Rocket, the last think we want is for my sister to-"
Mid-sentence, as Gamora was literately saying it, they passed over a tall building, bringing the room a mere twenty feet under the ship. Nebula dropped off the wing onto it, and rolled easily away. Gamora curse, and ran after her, across the back of the moving ship. If she could reach the edge in under five seconds she could jump onto the same roof and surprise her sister-
A glowing figure shot down from the bone ceiling of knowhere moving so fast that burning so bright that they left after-images in her retinas. Shang, falling with the force of five gravities, slammed into the metal of the wing just in front of her, crumpling it like paper. He stood up slowly, mantling eye contact with her, wings busing, shoulder mounted disintegrators aimed at her, knife in one hand, antimatter pistol in the other.
Gamora took as step back, and then felt the air move behind her, half turning her head. The big one, Krum, was standing directly behind her
"Lady Gamora. We meet at last. I wish it could be under different circumstances. " buzzed the glowing insect, weirdly cheerfully. "Allow me to introduce myself. I have the honour to be-"
"Assssssssssssshole!" screamed a wildly dopplering voice. Shang barely even had the time to turn his head before Quill barrelled into him, flying full force with his rocket-boots, now retrieved from Nebula's stash on the Barracuda. The Wasp made an almost comedic expression of surprise before Quill solder-barged him of the side of the ship, sending him falling. As she spun with her sword to take out Krom she had to pull the blow at the last moment as Drax charged in front of her and started to grapple the metal-armed man.
"Go!" yelled Quill, slapping at the side of his neck to re-activate his helmet. "Go after your sister, we got this!" he yelled, drawing a pistol as Shag halted his fall mid air and flew back at Quill.
Gamora nodded, waiting until the plummeting ship was passing close to a good rooftop, and jumped after Nebula.
Quill, grinned under his helmet, and started firing blaster shots at Shang. "Hey, asshole, not so tough now I'm out of my shackles, are you?! Why don't you pick a fight with someone your own siz-"
Shang slammed into him, knocking him clean off the ship, and forcing him to fight to stay airborne with his rocket boosters. The assassin nodded to Krom, wrestling with Drax.
"Krom, keep them busy, and if you're going to kill them don't take all day." He said lightly, firing his disintegrators into the side of the ship, and triggering a small explosion from the fuel cells and a torrent of swearing from Rocket. "I'm going after the daughters of Thanos." He said cheerfully, as the shoulder mounted weapons smoked and ejected their spent fuel cells. "Oh and if you're going to kill Rocket, please try to kill him first so he doesn't have to watch Groot die: we have to maintain certain niceties when dealing with old friends." He said, taking off after Gamora, and firing his antimatter pistol into the cockpit several times, eating huge rage holes in the ship and sending waves of sparks and panicked racoon chittering flying out thought them as the ship spired out of control.
"After all." He muttered , free-falling sideways after Gamora. "there's no reason to be unprofessional about this."
In the ship, sparks flying around him, haloed by embers and the stench of burring fur, Rocket tried to put the ship own safely, but the fuel cells were on fire, and the wing and nose structurally failing.
"I am Groot!"
"Yeah, so you cocoon me and jump, then what? You get smashed to bits, again, the ship crashes killing Quill and Drax and vaporising whatever poor shmuck we land on. No, I'm an asshole, but I'm not a total asshole. I can land this, Groot! If the ship could just hold together for another few moments! I- Ah! Fuck!"
The holo on the com exploded, showering Rockets face with sparks. "I can do this Groot, and can save everyone! I just need shit to stop breaking!"
Groot looked around as the ship tore itself apart around him, plummeting towards the populated lower ward of knowhere, and nodded, turning his back to Rocket to face into the bowels of the ship.
He extended a tendril, and then another, and then another, digging both feet into the disintegrating deck and extending his arms, sending them snaking thought into the interior of the ship, wincing at the touch of fire, and the small explosions and falling sparks nibbled at him like a thousand ravenous ants. Rocket didn't see it, focused as he was on the con, but all over the ship new holes appeared as vines punched thought the hull from the inside, knotted themselves around the chassis, and pulled the parts back inwards. Rocket felt the vibration decrease as the airframe regained rigidity, and he tried to bank away from the occupied buildings and set her down in the street. Groot, half turning watched his paw moments carefully, and made the corresponding corrections to the control-surfaces with his vines where the hydraulics couldn't. Rocket bared his teeth in consecration as the ship plummeted, gliding dangerously close to its stall speed, and every alarm on deck blared.
"Groot, this is going to be a rough one, you might want to hold on onto something and-" Rocket turned to glace over his shoulder, and froze, mouth open in amazement:
The entire ship was splitting down the middle under the strain, and Groot was holding it together.
"I…. Am! GROOOOOOOT!"
Rocket grinned, and turned back to the controls. "Attaboy Groot! All we gotta do is hold this for another five seconds and-"
The left wing exploded: The repulsors suffered a massive cascade failure, and all blew at once, their fuel with them. The entire left wing, and most of Groot's right arm, disintegrated in a millisecond. They dropped like a stone, nose down, about to mash the cockpit, and Rocket, into jelly.
The Racoon froze for a moment, and then flung one arm up in-front of his face, as if to protect it.
Not like this! Not-
The screaming of the falling ship halted, and rather than the crunch he was expecting Rocket felt a sudden silence, and an instant feeling of weightlessness as well as a strange not unpleasant, tingling all over his fur. He open his eyes, and touched his face, arms and boy with his paws, surprised to find they were still there. He was floating, weightless, Groot too, and everything was silent and calm.
His first thought was that they had died, and this was what came after. He glanced out of the ships ruined cockpit.
Panting with exertion, all four legs spread wide and head down as if bearing a terrible weight, stood Cosmo, EVA suit stained with dust and blood, and the debris on the street levitating around him as he blazed with psychic power. Visibly straining, he lowered his head further, and as he set the Barracuda gently down Rocket felt gravity return as the dog slowly lowered him back into his seat. He realised that he wasn't wearing his harness, the seat was set for Nebula, he couldn't: if Cosmo had stopped the ship without grabbing him too, he'd have been flung thought the cockpit and dashed to death on the road. He gazed backwards at Groot, returning his limbs to a more practical size and nursing the damage done to his right arm, before looking back to Cosmo. The dog visibly sagged with exhaustion and then nodded to him, very slightly. Rocket narrowed his eyes, then nodded back. This doesn't make us even the Racoon thought.
*I was unaware I was in your debt, citizen.* said the Dogs voice in his mind. Rocket, scowled, and helped the wounded Groot climb down from the ship, wincing at the pain is his own broken paw all the time: He'd not even noticed it when flying the ship, but now it was back with interest.
"You exist, that's bad enough. And stay out of my mind; you'll catch something nasty." The dog barked what might have been laughter.
*That I do not doubt.* Rocket ignored this, and glanced around.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, fleabag, but weren't there three idiots having a fist fight on the roof of our ride before we landed this?"
*Ah…. Well, About that, citizen…*
Quill, regaining control of his flight with much swearing, glanced up.
Gamora was gone, Nebula too. He couldn't see them. Bug boy, yes: he was lit up like Christmas. Quill was about to go after him and stop him getting to Gamora, when there was a noticeable shudder from the Barracuda and it dropped suddenly, spilling smoke. Quill cursed, and flew at it: Drax was still on top of the thing, and Groot and Rocket inside it.
Drax was, unfortunately, wrestling the guy with super metal arms, and looked to be losing.
Well, one way to settle that…
Drax charged at Krom the Crusher, but the huge man just picked him up and suplexed him into the roof of the ship with a crash and groan of bending metal. The man then tried to role on top of him, locking his legs around Drax's waist for some ground-and –pound, but as Krom raised his fist up, a series of blaster rounds caught him in the arm and side, spaying metal from his artificial arm and knocking him sideways with a smoking crater in his shoulder. Both Drax and Krom then rolled up, but Quill got a flying double footed kick to the cyborg, then fired his rocket boots to throw the man even farther back towards the edge of the ship. Quill went to follow up with a smack in the face with a pistol butt, but Krom grabbed him with the good arm, and tossed him off the side. Quill wright himself with the boots, but then Krom jumped off the ship and landed on him, riding him down on to a nearby rooftop. Drax dropped down behind them, rolling, and while Krom pinned Quill with one metal arm and started to pummel him with the now damaged left arm, Drax ran up behind him. With a roar, Drax threw himself into a proper, old school wrestling stance, grabbed the man by the waist, and picked him up, Krom tried to turn and lock both his legs around Drax's throat, but as he did Drax threw him to the ground, bombing him into the roof, hard, head first. He then grabbed both of the guys metal arms, picked him up by them, and held him over the edge of the roof, head-butting him for good measure as he tried to struggle.
"You are damaged! My friend Quill shot you. He likes blasters!" Shouted Drax, straining to pull the larger man's arms apart, as he did, he put a knee in the man's chest. "I do not like guns I prefer…. Unarmed combat!" he yelled.
Then he pushed with his knee and sent the man falling backward, both of his arms ripping away from the magnetic felid that controlled them, and the man plunged over the edge with a bellow and a sickening crunch.
Drax, holding the two severed arms at waist height turned to Quill and nodded, seriously.
"Witty comeback." He said.
Quill was about to say something but got distracted when the Barracuda crashed into the street behind Drax.
Quill and Drax shared a look, and then ran off in the direction of the shouting.
After a moment, there was a low groan from below the roofline, and the sound of some shifting wreckage.
"What a terrible pun" groaned Krom's pained voice, before he blacked out
Rocket and Cosmo, both limping after the pummelling they' each taken, and leaning on Groot for support, rounded the corner at a fast limp when Drax and Quill appeared round a corner, jogging their way.
"You okay?" asked Quill, making a b line for Rocket.
"No, but I'll live. You?"
"I'm good. You seen Gamora?" Rocket shook his head.
"Not since she jumped ship. Follow Shang: long as I've know him, he's someone who finds who he's looking for." Quill and Drax shared a determined look.
"You guys go, I'll catch up." Said Rocket. Quill and Drax node, and ran off. Groot noticed Rocket pawing at his leg, and looked down.
"You too, you big dummie: they're going to need all the muscle they can get. And watch out for Shang: that's an antimatter pistol: no matter who you are, one shot, and you're dead. Don't…. don't get dead, Groot." Groot nodded, and ran off.
Rocket and Cosmo gave each other a slow cool look, an then started to silently increase their pace.
Nebula ran.
She was now in escape mode: her ship was gone, her mercs traitorous, her captives free. Time to cut her losses, steal a ship and ad Mr Knife and his organization to her list of enemies. Time to get the hell out of knowhere, and then find a different time and place to settle old score with her-
"Sister!" shouted a voice.
Nebula froze, just for a moment.
Gamora sprinted out of a side-ally, and slammed into her, sending her flying with a furious blow. She rolled upright, fist swinging, but Gamora caught it, and slammed a nee into her face, hard. She rolled up just in time to catch a kick in her midriff, and staggered back, ands raising in a high guard, ready to punch and-
And Gamora, standing over her, was crying.
"You! You lunatic! You drop off Ronan's ship over Xandar rather than let me take your hand, and I don't know if you're alive or dead for months and this is how I find out you're alive? When you kidnap my crew?!"
Nebula threw a punch. Gamora easily dodged it, and punched her back, right on the nose, hard.
"What's wrong with you!" yelled Gamora, punching again.
"What's wrong with me?" buzzed Nebula, voice synthesizer struggling. "This is how we grew up Gamora! Kidnaping loved ones as leverage, running with mercs, killing those who stand before you… this is how we grew up! This is what our father taught us, what you taught me! I'm only doing what you taught me!"
Gamora froze up, mid punch.
"I… it doesn't have to be like this, Nebula. There's another way: a better way." said Gamora.
"What? Working for the Nova Corp? collecting infinity stone for them, or Tivan, or whoever? Answering volence with violence?" hissed Nebula. "You've not grown, sister, you've not changed. You've just swapped one family of murders for another one. How is that different from father and the black order?"
"Because our fucked up family is there for each other." Said a voice.
They both turned.
Peter Jason Starlord Quill stood, hands open and at waist height, showing that he was clearly unarmed, Drax staying back off his shoulder. "We're there for each other when they need it. When they need someone. We look out for each other. You ever do that? Look out for someone, not expecting anything form it, just trying to share what you have."
"All you'll have is pain if father ever finds you and your little family." Said Nebua, growling.
"Yeah, then we'll share that too." Said Starlord. "That's the difference."
Gamora looked to Peter gratefully, and then turned. "Nebula we-"
Shang landed between them, punching a crater in the floor with his enhanced weight, and exploded with light.
Gamora rolled out of the way of the knife cut, and jinked sideways to avoid the first shot from the antimatter pistol, which ate a hole in the street a yard wide. The second was fired at Quill, who only survived it because Drax tackled him from behind and it went over them both. She then kicked up from floor height, trying to take that dammed pistol out of the fight, but the Reckoners armour was glowing too brightly to look at directly, and she missed. The pistol was instantly pointed down at her, when Nebua hit Shang from behind with a double-fisted hammer blow. He stumbled, firing into the floor again, then spun impossibly fast at only half his weight and caught her a viscous slash with the knife across her robotic hand, severing a finger. Gamora kicked Shag in the knee, and Nebula ducked under the next slash to punch Shang across the face, and then spin away from him just as Drax charged in. Shang dogged under Drax's swinging blow gracefully, touching him with a single finger on the weak secondary arms, and flipped his gravity, sending him falling horizontally into a wall and sticking him there. He aimed a pistol shot to finish Drax off, when two blaster rounds from Quill slammed into him, sparking off his ceramic body armour, and making his aim waver and miss.
Groot then rounded the corner an whipped a tendril at Shang, that he ducked using the gravity manipulator to limbo under it, before using the same weapon to make Groot twelve times his usual weight, pinning him to the ground with a snap of breaking wood. He aimed again, and again blaster shots rained down, putting him off.
Quill flew in on his rocket boots, guns blazing, trying to slam into him from behind when he turned and slammed a punch into Quill with the force of five gravities. Quill dropped like a sack of shit, a dent in his helmet, and Shang aimed at his head…
And realised that Nebula was making a break for it the same time Gamora did. She was running for the airlock, about to steal a ship an slip past the distracted, tentacle-fighting nova forces, and both her and Shang had to pick: go for her, or go for Quill.
Shang took aim quickly, hoping to finish Quill and still get a good shot on the fleeing Nebula, assuming that Gamora would go after her sister, when Gamora roundhouse kicked the pistol out of his hand, sending it spinning to the street a dozen yards away, near to Groot. She followed up with a sword-swing at his head, but he blocked with the monomolecular dagger and then he came for her. He was unbelievably fast, and kept switching the knife between this two main and two smaller arms, allowing it to move in patterns she couldn't predict. And the damn gravity watch, when he ducked back, he moved like he weighed nothing at all, but when he stabbed at you, there was an impossible weight to it that jarred her sword with each block and parry. She fought defensively, playing for time, a plan forming.
"You should not have stood between me and my quarry, lady Gamora." Chirped Shang,conversationally "You should not have fought back: the plan was never to kill you so long as you went along with Nebula's instructions. Your sister, and friends would also have lived… well, maybe not Rocket: he has never met a bridge he didn't burn and it has not ingratiated him to my employer, but there was no need for the others to die, so long as it all went to plan. And now, I find myself obligated to kill you all." He said, flicking on his eye mounted holo recorder. "This really is most vexing."
"You could try-" she grunted and swung a sword at him, which he dodged lightly. "Not killing us. Just a suggestion."
"I took payment for this job."
"Nova will beat it." Grunted Gamora, dodging another knife thrust, he caught her on the back-slash, opening a small cut on her arm, one of many from the last few frantic seconds. Sooner or later, at this rate, he'd hit an artery or a tendon, and it would be game over.
"That's not the point: I took payment. I get paid, I do the job. Period, there is an honour in that. You don't break your word, you don't balk at any job you've said yes to, and you don't extort for more money. Clear, clean, simple. Like it should be." He muttered, pressing close. "Whatever happened to taking a simple pride in your work? This is why I'm going to win this, I don't let emotions get in the way of doing a good job. Thant's why you can't beat me: you could have, when I first landed; but you focused on saving your sister and friends, and gave up the advantage. That's why I defeated Drax, and Quill, and Groot; they rushed in to try and save you out of their love for you, rather than taking the time to formulate a plan that had a chance of success. They used their feelings, so they got sloppy."
Gamora, backing him up, keeping him occupied so he wouldn't take his focus off her, smiled. "Yeah, but at least they didn't forget how to count." She said, just as she slammed her sword into Shang's chest, glancing off his armour. In an instant, he'd grabbed it, making it weigh several tones and drop from her hands.
Shang, focusing on recording the kill for prosperity, moved forwards, Knife raised.
"Count?" he said, cheerful and conversational. "Whatever do you mean?" he said, aiming his strike carefully. "and answer carefully, I hate cryptic last words."
"Me, Drax, Groot, Peter… You missing anyone from that list?" asked Gamora, as Shang stepped forwards to thrust-
PewThock!
There was a blinding flash of light, and Shang staggered, missing his thrust, and overstepping as Gamora stepped away from him.
*Over the shoulder shot of Gamora, looking at Shang as a glowing-edged hole eats its way thought his chest . Camera focal point changes ,and the shot zooms thought the hole in the chest to show Rocket, standing a dozen paces behind Shang, lowering the antimatter pistol, face carefully blank.*
Shang staggered as he tried to turn, the hole growing second by second, eating thought him. He looked over to Rocket, and tried to say something, but by then it had destroyed his thorax mounted voice synthesiser. He reached into his pockets, scrabbling to find something before the antimatter destroyed it, and then with his dagger cut off one of his one fingers and threw it and his key-fob of holo-photos to Rocket, before collapsing, and vaporising into nothing.
Gamora looked form the space were Shang had been, to the finger, to Rocket, and back again.
"Are you okay?" she asked, at length. Rocket was just staring at space were Shag had stood, his face strangely blank.
Rocket took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Fine. You?" he asked and then, before letting her answer: "Check Quill, the might be hurt." Said Rocket, looking at the gun in his paws and carefully, like it might bight, putting it on the ground and walking away from it. He turned his back on her and helped Groot up: with the garvitonium watch destroyed, everyone's personal gravity had returned to normal, something Drax found as he slid off the wall.
Gamora helped Quill deactivate his helmet, and thank the fates, hr still had a face under it, having suffered no more than a split lip. The blinked up at her, groggily, and she had to admit, that even sweaty, bloodied and covered in tentacle goo, she was very, very happy to see him.
"Hey, you okay?" she asked, stroking back some hair away from his eyes.
He smiled up at her, weakly.
"You know, at times, Gamora, you're just like an angel without wings."
Gamora frowned. "So, a person then?"
"Yeah… yeah I guess. Sorry, that sounded really dumb. Umm, did we win?" he asked
Gamora looked around then mess they had, once again, made of down-town knowhere.
"Technically. But I doubt we'll be the most popular folk here about for a while."
"Yeah, well, good thing we were planning on a long trip then, isn't it?" muttered Quill, pulling himself into a sitting position with a groan "Plenty of time away for the locals to forget that- is that a finger?"
"Yes. Mind your own business Quill." Said Rocket. he sounded a touch huskier that usual, but Quill decided it would be tactless to mention that. Likewise, his pained look was probably due to his broken paw.
"Nebula?" he asked. Gamora's expression told him she'd got away. Well too bad, then again, he did not want to have to deal with her right now, so maybe that was for the best.
Quill groaned. "Is it just me, or does everything hurt."
*such is life, citizen. You also smell terrible and are covered in goo.* said Cosmo, lying exhausted on the street corner, panting.
"Yeah… let's get back to base, and before we kiss this dirt-ball goodbye, let's get cleaned up somewhere with real hot water, for a change."
Gamora smiled. "Well, I was half way thought a shower before all this started, so that sounds like a great plan, Captain." She said, helping him up. After all, there were worse ways to end a hard day than a hot shower and crashing on the sofa with someone you cared for, she thought.
As Gamora helped carry Quill back to their base of operations, Rocket gathered up the finger and Shang's family holos, and wrapped them up. He should do the decent thing, and post them back to his wife, although he didn't doubt he'd live to regret it, he thought, rubbing at his chest. Damn, was it just him, or did that cut Nebula had given him itch something crazy?
On her new ship, a worse rust bucket that her last one, Nebula checked her scanner frequency. Son working for Mr Knife had been a disaster, and holding Gamora's friends as leverage was a bust… but there was more than one way to skin a cat.
Or a weird, talking, stripe-tailed fox thing.
The tracking chip she'd implanted in the rodent when it was out cold was transmitting loud and clear. Let her sister try and find the stone for the greater good. She'd just come in once she'd fond it and take it from her.
She just had to hope that no one killed the annoying rat before it got the stone.
Azula-lo-pan-Shanglong looked at the package on the tube before her. A single chitinous finger preserved in resin.
"He killed him?"
Krom the crusher nodded "I have the security logs from Knowhere. I'm sorry, I would have been there but-"
"I do not accept your apology, nor his." Said Azula, crushing Rockets letter in one hand, and glancing over to the holo projector, showing her wedding photos. In the front row, grooms side, several drunken bounty hunters cheered her and Shang on as they wed. Rocket, as the shortest of the bunch, was easy to pick out. It was the happiest moment of her life, her favourite holo of the day… and now it was tainted, he husbands killer staring out of it at her. She reached out an crushed then projector with a claw, flames from it licking around her , blue and oily. "I will not accept your apology in words… I demand actions."
She turned to Krom "If you want my forgiveness, my price is simple. Rocket dies, screaming."
"I feel that Mister Knife already has that in mind."
"Mister Knife is not a widow because of him. Contact every reckoner guild, and then get on your ship and go after him." She said, sitting at the com.
"Az, this is not healthy… Shang knew the risks, he would not want-"
"Do you want my forgiveness?" she asked. "do you not want to avenge your friend?"
Krom paused, and then nodded slowly. "Rocket dies."
Azula paused. "Rocket? No, that's not enough. They all die. Put me in contact with Mister Knife, Krom, I know you have means to communicate with him. Rocket, Groot, Drax, Gamora, Quill… Nebula, for getting Shag into this. Tell Mister Knife that if he wants any more co-operation with the reckoner guilds, this is a priority. The Guardians must pay for what they have done!
