Ash's POV

*Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…*

"Ugh…" I shook my head trying to get the ringing in my ears to stop when I noticed my staff was in my hand and not in its armband form and the ground under my hands looked more like my namesake than dirt or sand.

"-is! Ash!" Through the ringing, I could hear someone calling my name and I dazedly looked up to see JJ pulling me up before the ringing finally cleared for me to hear her ask,

"-re you good?"

"I think?" I groaned as she pulled me to my feet but I had to use my staff to prop myself up since I was still feeling lightheaded as I asked,

"Where's-?"

"Girls!" I heard someone yell out and I looked up to see-

"Dad!"

He ran over and hugged me with his good arm and I dropped my staff to hug him back tightly before he pushed me back to scold,

"I thought we agreed not to use that move if we could help it…"

"I know but-"

"But nothing!" He snapped before taking a deep breath and exhaling through his nose patiently to say, "You could've hurt yourself and the others."

"I kept them on this time." I held up my wrists to show that my Kimoyo bracelets were still on while adding, "So no radiation exposure."

"Alright… I'm just glad you're OK…" He pulled me close again and I hugged him again.

"How come you're not that mushy with us?" I heard JJ tease her dad with Groot made kissy noises before he muttered,

"Oh shut it…"

"OK anyone know where exactly we landed?" Dylan questioned as he looked around at the lack of… anything but ashy ground and small piles of rocks all around us.

"It appears we're on one of Chrysinthea's moons." Zaruk spoke up as they were looking up into the sky and they all followed their gaze to see said lifeless planet in the distance with other different-sized moons surrounding the planet in distant orbits.

"'One of?'" JJ questioned before remembering, "Oh right there's 9 of'em… Which one are we on now?"

"I'd say we're on…Chaandai."

"Heh 'Chaand' actually means 'moon' in Hindi." Dad noted amused but it went unnoticed by everyone else as Rocket questioned,

"OK so we're on the planet's moon but don' we need to be on the actual planet?" He emphasized while motioning impatiently with both arms to the planet.

"Don't worry, there should be a beam platform in the observation outpost that can teleport us directly to the planet's surface."

"You've got one of those on a moon?"

"There's one on each moon so we would get alerted on the ground if an invader was coming close." Zaruk explained before Xay asked,

"And where would that be?"

"I'd say in this direction." JJ spoke up.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, looking over to her and saw that she was holding my staff and the gem on the end was glowing in the direction she was pointing it in.

"Call it a hunch." She stated plainly before she handed it back to me and it dimmed back down when I pointed it in the opposite direction before returning it to the previous direction and it glowed again, confirming her hunch.

"Then this way it is." I led the way keeping my staff pointed up to keep directing us when Dad suddenly asked,

"Hold on if we're on a moon, how come we're not suffocating right now?" Pointing to himself, Dylan, Rocket, and Groot.

"The outpost used to generate an artificial atmosphere since this is where we would also cross breed various plant species before bringing them back to the main planet. Some of the atmosphere must still be intact thankfully." Zaruk explained and Rocket commented,

"Yeah real lucky…"

Dad and Dylan started talking with Zaruk about the technology used in artificial atmospheric generation and Xay talked with Rocket and Groot about Wickity after he tried to take a bite out of one of Groot's head twigs, leaving JJ to walk by my side at the head of the group.

"How're you doin' in all this?" She asked and I shrugged and told her,

"I'm doing alright I guess."

"'You guess?' Ash, you blew yourself up, somehow survived that, and then dragged all our butts through a space rift after you'd been knocked out cold, how you're just 'alright' 'fter all that don't make sense."

"And I don't understand how you get so easily flustered after everything we've seen today alone." I noted with a sly grin trying to get her mind off the matter and it worked as she huffed and playfully shoved my side while telling me,

"Shut up!"

The both of us giggled and chortled before I asked her,

"So how're you doing through all this?"

"Still worried we don't know what we're doin', thinkin' I wanna be back with the others since today is when we have team building battle royale style fights."

"Uh huh?"

"Yeah last one standing gets out of cleaning duties for a week, Nebula s'ggested it to keep us sharp.. and to get out of ship work since she always kicks our asses.."

"That definitely sounds like something she'd suggest and do." I breathed through my nose in amusement as she continued,

"Plus Groot'n I'd be makin' crazy junk food combinations that he can't really eat but he'd watch me eat'em and laugh e'ry time I go to hurl."

"Must be nice having a.. younger brother?" I started to say before questioning since I remembered her telling me he was reincarnated or reborn from another Groot.

"Least you get all your dad's attention to yourself and don't live with seven other roommates." She playfully griped.

"I actually really miss the others…" I admitted looking down at the ground before continuing, "After what happened at the Compound, everyone just kinda split up and I haven't heard from a lot of them in a while now… I mean a few months ago we welcomed two more people to the 'circus' as dad calls us," I smiled a little ruefully before it fell as I continued, "but other than that, it gets a little lonely with just the two of us and all the issues we're trying to work through together…"

"Bleugh! The life of a hero sounds like toooortuuuure!" JJ whined dramatically while leaning against me, making me laugh at her antics before asking,

"Oh come on, aren't you and your team like intergalactic heroes?"

"Nah.. all of us together, sure, on my own, most heroic thing I ever did was basically tell Kryjer to piss off when he tried to corner us back on our planet few years back, meanwhile you were a hero twice today."

"OK technically that second time doesn't count cause it wasn't really me calling the shots."

"Whaddya mean?" JJ tilted her head to the side in questioning.

"This staff has some kind of special crystal that can contain Core energies of past wielders and sometimes they.. possess me or something like that?" I tried to explain without making it seem bad but I failed as JJ asked incredulously,

"And yer OK with that?!"

"This is only the second time it's happened and both times they protected me and others!"

"But still! Don't that mean that we can possess each other or some crap like that?"

"I don't think that's how it works."

"And how do you- know…" JJ suddenly halted and trailed off making me stop as well while holding my staff to the side to signal the others to stop as a prickly feeling started to grow between the two of us at the scenery in front of us; still ashy ground and piles of rocks, but there were also what looked like charred tree trunks with glowing green and blue mosses growing on them and a few fern looking plants with bright white flowers growing from the center of the base.

"Girls?" Dad questioned before Rocket asked,

"What's goin' on?"

"Something's not right here…" I murmured before bringing my staff back to my side, accidentally bumping JJ in the arm with the top.

"Sorr-huh?" I started to apologize when I noticed that the crystal flashed green when it made contact with her and went out when it moved away from her.

"JJ take this."

"What?" She hissed a bit before I held it out to her with an urgent look on my face as I motioned to the others with my eyes and she rolled her eyes before grabbing it and the crystal glowed green again.

"Woah…" She awed before her face snapped to look forward as her irises glowed the same green color.

"JJ?" I waved my hand in her face but she remained unresponsive so I looked back at the others and asked,

"Is this what it's like when I go under?"

"Yeah pretty much." Dad told me before I felt JJ's partially gloved hand grab my wrist and I snapped forward too.

When I blinked, it was like my line of sight had changed to being in a dark space with a watery floor and JJ by my side.

"OK and now yer here too?" She raised an eyebrow at the position we found ourselves in.

'The bond has been forged… Seek the complimentary counterparts…' We heard something like a hundred voices speaking all at once around us before a view of the outside of our bodies showed up in front of us like we were watching it through a movie screen as our parents got in front of us, trying to snap us out of our trances but we couldn't hear them all that well, like a window was dividing us.

"OK that's freaky…" I murmured and JJ spoke up,

"Uhh Ash?"

And I looked over and saw her marks on her arm were glowing a bright yellow and a warmth over my eye made me look down at the watery ground to see that my marks were glowing brightly as well.

"What is happening?!" JJ hissed, panicked before we turned our attention back to the "window" and saw streaks of green and red going through the ground under our feet like thermal vision.

"You seein' this?"

"Definitely…"

Right before those streaks started vibrating to where even we could feel it in our "mental space."

3rd Person POV on the Outside

"Ash!"

"JJ!"

"I am Groot!"

Bruce, Rocket, and Groot yelled out for their daughters/sister trying everything they could to snap them awake, patting their faces, pinching their arms, flicking their foreheads, snapping in front of their eyes, and shaking them by the shoulders, before they felt the ground rumble from beneath them.

*KRRAAUUWWWRG!* A piercing shriek sounded from all around them before large plant tendrils, some with dark red thorns followed by closed buds that opened up to reveal black and red eyes on stalks burst up from the ground, turning the empty plain into a minefield of large plant creatures.

"Bacut!" Zaruk shouted, making Bruce and Groot move to grab Ash and JJ to get them out of the way of an incoming thorned tendril when suddenly they moved on their own.

JJ used her orbs to jump into the air with Ash's staff still in her hand, swinging it in an arc to send a wave of energy to deflect the tendril that was aiming for them before, making the creature shriek in rage before throwing it back to Ash so she could stab the end of it into the ground to burn several paths forward through the Bacut field that they all ran through.

"What the hell are these things?!" Dylan shouted as he avoided getting decapitated by a flailing tendril that Ash severed with her staff before tossing it up for JJ to catch and continue as she took to the air as well to draw most of the heads' attentions to partially clear the way for the others on the ground.

"They're called Bacut!" Zaruk started to explain as they used their own staffs to cut through any tendrils that got too close to them, "Carnivorous plants whose sole purpose is to feed on Chrysinthean energies and anything that moves. They shouldn't be here though!"

"Well clearly no one told them that!" Rocket snarked as he ran on all fours before hopping onto Groot's shoulder before a non-thorned tendril managed to snag his arm.

"I. Am. Groooooot!" (Get off me!) Groot shouted making him and Rocket fall behind from the others as he tried to pull away but the tendril held fast.

Just as he was about to chop the tendril off his arm, he didn't notice a thorned tendril behind him poised to strike.

"Look out!" Xay pushed them out of the way and he was hit with the thorns the tendril shot instead.

"Aagh!" He yelled out as they embedded themselves in his ribs, chest, and neck before he dropped to the ground, spasming painfully.

With him immobilized, one of the thornless tendrils quickly wrapped around Xay's feet and lifted him up into the air, preparing to drop him into the "mouth" of the Bacut which was a gaping pit at the base of the eye stalks in the middle of the "petals" even as Wickity squawked and pecked at Xay's head to try and snap him out of his paralysis.

"Kid!" Rocket shouted before declaring, "Alright! These weeds need a good whackin'!"

Pulling out his dual blasters he rapidly aimed and fired two shots; one to free Xay and one to free Groot from the tendrils that captured each and they both hit dead on, freeing them both.

Groot managed to stretch his now-freed arm out to catch Xay and Wickity in midfall before throwing him over his shoulder so the three of them could continue running down a different path while avoiding any more paralyzing thorns that were shot their way.

Zaruk meanwhile was still with Bruce, Dylan, and Gora as they continued running forward before they looked behind them and questioned,

"Where are the others?!"

"I swear they were right behind uuuuus!" Bruce started to say before another Bacut, the biggest one of all with red markings on its stem and leaves, burst out of the ground from right under him forcing him to grab ahold of one of the eye stalks to avoid falling.

"Bruce!" Zaruk and Dylan yelled out and Zaruk was about to fly up to help him down but had to stay on the ground to protect Dylan from more tendrils and they had to keep running forward to avoid getting caught.

"Oh boy!" Bruce was doing his best to secure himself to the eye stalk with his one good arm and both legs.

*MRAOW!* (I'm coming!) Gora yowled and she ran up the flailing tendrils, avoiding the thorns, and occasionally using her spines to swing her up toward him.

As soon as she made it to the part where the petal-like eye-stalk coverings were, she latched on like a cat to a scratching post and it seemed to cause the lead Bacut pain as it started swinging around while trying to throw and swat Gora off with more tendrils but she used her free spines to divert them away as she continued trying to reach Bruce.

Seeing how it was hurt, Bruce looked to the other Bacut nearby recoiling in pain, realized they all must be connected to this leader and that his current position might actually help them.

Wincing as he used his bad arm to dig into his pocket, he managed to find his favorite pen he always kept with him, handed it off to his good arm and, when the Bacut stopped waving around after entrapping Gora, he raised his good arm up and shouted with uncertainty,

"Take this?!"

Right before stabbing the pen as hard as he could into the stalk of the main eye and it let out a screech before it waved around more furiously trying to dislodge its attackers, but it seemed like the other Bacut were affected by its pain as they screeched and stopped trying to swat at the others just as Bruce predicted.

"Haha yes!" He cheered before, in a split second, he was shaken off and began falling toward the rapidly approaching ground.

"Aaahh-oof!"

Luckily, Gora managed to use her spines to grab him around his torso and upper arms to haul him along as she jumped down the limping tendrils back to the ground.

"Thanks.. for.. that…" Bruce managed to stutter out between panting breaths after being put down and Gora kept one spine around his good wrist to talk to him,

'You're welcome, now we should really move to the side.' She pulled him to the side just as a thorned tendril fell to the ground right where they'd had been seconds before.

"Alright let's find the others!" Bruce told her and she nodded in agreement as they ran forward.

Meanwhile, with Zaruk and Dylan they had managed to reach the other side of the Bacut field where the observation outpost with its crystalline–adjacent structure was waiting alongside the large greenhouse that led to smaller wilted rows of plants from years of neglect.

"Where are the others?"

They looked behind them and saw that the Bacut were starting to limp down but a few persistent ones were starting to push through the ashy ground to grow closer to the post.

"There!" Dylan pointed and they both saw from the thicket Gora and Bruce and Rocket and Groot carrying an unconscious Xay and Wickity running to make it to the post with a few tendrils still following, albeit a bit more slowly because of Bruce's attack on their leader.

"Where are the girls?!" Zaruk questioned the others as they reached the post.

"We thought they were here already!" Bruce told them and Rocket snapped,

"Well they better hurry it up and get here 'r else we're sittin' dry!"

Right on cue, two bolts of light flew over the Bacut and zipped down to the ground to reveal Ash and JJ, eyes still glowing and their seemingly powered-up state still going on between the two of them.

They landed on the ground in front of the post and Ash raised her staff to whirl it above her head before slamming it down to the ground to make a line of red light spread out in a straight line on either side of the impact and, just as some Bacut were about to reach them, she used a hand to mimic pulling something up from the ground and a whole line of fan branch coral-like plants burst up from the ground, edges aflame to repel the tendrils back as they screeched before finally fully retreating back under the ground.

As soon as the last one drilled under, the branches dimmed before crumbling into embers and the lights went out in Ash and JJ's eyes.

"Woah.. that was-" JJ shook her head and noted before Ash tried to finish for her,

"Unexpectedly exhilarating?"

"I was gonna say 'crazy' but yeah sure that too…"

"Wait, you're both still conscious?" Dylan observed and Bruce hypothesized,

"This time seems different from the last couple of times you've powered up on your own Ash, maybe being connected with your sister distributes the power boost between the two of you and makes it less overwhelming."

"That sorta makes sense." Ash looked down at her staff before making it shift to armband mode as she noticed Xay over Groot's shoulder and exclaimed,

"Xay!"

"He got hit with a couple o' those spikes." Rocket told her as Groot lowered him to the ground and Zaruk took the thorns out of him before assuring everyone, Ash in particular,

"He'll be alright, Bacut toxins usually wear off after a few hours, no more than a day."

"Good…" Ash sighed in relief before perking up as she spoke optimistically, "At least we made it to the outpost, where's the beam platform?"

"It should be further inside." Zaruk answered as they motioned for the others to follow them, Groot picking Xay back up before following.

They all walked through the darkened hallways, unlit until Zaruk placed a hand against the smooth wall and a trail of green light spiraled out and down the hall from where they touched, causing Ash and JJ to wonder if they could do it too and from where they touched the wall, reddish-orange and lilac-tinged yellow lights branched out and lit the way.

"Is this natural bioluminescence from the crystal?" Dylan questioned and Zaruk bobbed their head in a "sorta" motion as they explained,

"In a way. Because the Orinix is so deeply ingrained into the planet, any resources from it can resonate with our Core energies as long as it exists within us."

Once they made it to a large room where in the center there was a hexagonal-shaped raised platform that looked to be made of transparently metallic-sheened crystal, they all saw the signs of a struggle from blast marks on the floor and walls to pieces of the walls and tech spread across the floor but thankfully no bodies.

"I'm guessin' somethin' went down here?" Rocket kicked aside a piece of machinery that looked to be made more of glass than metal.

Zaruk went to a console and brushed off some rubble from the top before examining and declaring with relief,

"Luckily the main control console has only minor damage and should be easily repaired. Rocket?"

"Yeah Imma comin'." He jumped down from Groot's shoulder and joined Zaruk at the console along with Gora to help them fix it, leaving the others to explore the room.

As had been tracing a burn on the wall when JJ sidled up next to her and told her while smirking,

"Y'know my dad saved your boyfriend."

"Again he's not my boyfriend." Ash huffed impatiently, turning to her sister to cross her arms and give her a half-lidded glare.

"Why not?"

"Why do a boy and a girl who are really good friends have to be considered boyfriend and girlfriend?" She argued back and that made JJ side nod,

"OK fair point."

Their conversation was cut off when the lights suddenly came on, the platform lit up, and the console displayed a holographic screen with Chrysinthean writing and images of various places on the planet represented through pictographs as Rocket declared,

"And we're online! That level of biotechnology was impressive but also real easy to hack." Rocket gloated and Zaruk smirked while telling him,

"That's because you had me helping you, you wouldn't have been able to even turn it on on your own."

"Yeah yeah 'connected with your energy' and all that hippie crap."

"What's a hippie?"

*Mraow…* (I couldn't explain even if I tried…) Gora meowed to them as she shook her head in exasperation and Zaruk used the holoscreen to look through all the places they could all beam down to and reported,

"So it looks like most of the beam platforms are either offline or destroyed but I think the one at Centriva, or the central cavern hub of the planet where you can beam to other parts of the plant, might still be operational if I can connect to it and…" Zaruk typed some more commands as the image of a triangle with a circle on top and two slanted rectangles on either side of the circle appeared in red before it turned green.

"The link's been established so now we just step onto the platform and let it do the rest." Zaruk told everyone before gesturing to the platform and Dylan asked,

"Wait all at once?"

"Unfortunately yes, the component that handles the navigation system was damaged and will only be able to regulate the landing for one more trip before burning out."

"Aww man…"

A few seconds later, they were all jammed together on top of the platform as the countdown for transport was counting down in the background.

"Stop pushing!"

"I'm not pushing, Groot's pushing!"

"I am Grooot!" (I'm just trying to stay away from the edge!)

"It's all edge!"

"There's a twig in my spleen!"

"Can you please watch the arm?"

*Mrooow?!* (Who's on my tail?!)

Everyone was complaining at once before they were surrounded by light and they felt their feet leave the ground before they were sent zooming through a tunnel of light through the stars similar to the Bifrost but not as colorful or spacious.

After a few seconds, they all landed in a heap of tangled limbs and bodies on a metallic floor in a dark room.

"Owww get off!"

"That's my arm!"

"Gora your spine's around my neck!"

"I am Groot?" (Actually that's mine?)

Once everyone untangled themselves from each other, they all stood up looking into the darkness around them.

"When ya said the hub was in a cavern, I didn' think ya meant a cave cave…" Rocket noted before Ash sighed,

"At least we made it to the planet."

"I would rethink that if I were you…." An echoing voice sounded from around them and a light turned on over their heads to reveal they were surrounded on all sides by Oajin soldiers on the bridge of a giant spaceship that was situated just outside of Chrysinthea's atmosphere.

*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*

They all raised their blasters forcing everyone to raise their hands in surrender as the voice from before spoke again from behind them,

"Hello girls…" Making them look up to see a being, half obscured by shadows, sitting in a throne as he told Ash and JJ in a condescending tone, "Well this has been a meeting looong overdue…"

AN- Extra long chapter to make up for two week wait again ^^;

Starting to get closer to the points in the story I've had planned out for years I'm beginning to shake myself out of the creative block I've been in for a little while but with all the classes, work shifts, homework, and extracurriculars I've been doing so far this semester, I've had little free time to be able to sit and write these chapters.

Plus I've been working on some new OC Files to be posted in the book for them over on my Wattpad account and going to be publishing it on Quotev too. I'm also working on possibly republishing my Mini Moments book on both accounts so anyone who would like to see a specific moment from the fandom an OC is from with the OC involved, I can post some of the moments I've already got written and even take requests for other moments to write.

Another side project I've been thinking is making short stories of other Chrysinthean OC's and their lives in the world, in Wakanda, and later in "New Chrysinthea" and I'd like to know if anyone would be interested in reading those if I decide to make any.

Welp until the next chapter, Bye!