Marvel owns the X-men and the Guardians of the Galaxy, no profit is to be made from this work.
-=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=-
Roaring his frustration, Rocket let his blaster reciprocate just how pissed off he was in the only language the Shi'ar needed to know, high velocity tungsten rounds. The kid was going out of her way to impress him, dodging and weaving through traffic, vehicular or pedestrian alike.
"Hold on!" Jubilee screamed, skidding out for a turn and finding traction just as soon as the Harley finished burning rubber.
The Shi'ar had been chasing her and his furry tail ever since they'd gotten heavy handed back at the kid's house, what they wanted with the kid he didn't know, because one thing he knew as that he had no outstanding warrants with the Shi'ar. Holding onto the kid with one paw and aiming with his free one, Rocket grinned and gave it to the prim tech of this rock, sometimes simple was better. Antigrav could be pushed so hard for only so long, the field had to be kept tight and narrow when it had much too mass around it if it didn't want to shred the scenery.
Flying through the buildings of this backwater rock, whoever was on their tail had real talent at the stick, but physics was physics. Drifting through the narrow opening, the pilot of the small pursuit craft had a lot of things running through their mind, course, thrust, lift, and hardest of them all...trying to guess just wherever the kid was running.
Grinning and hoping they had him in focus, Rocket sub-vocalized a command for his blaster to cycle from the tungsten pellets that packed a punch at the right velocity, switching to the few slugs he had loaded. Leading his shot, he squeezed the trigger on an empty breath and watched magic happen. Shields blackened and without a doubt the onboard AI took over, the ship pulling a stunt no being in their right mind would try, not without knowing they had a good doctor waiting for them back at the carrier.
"Ward of the Scoin of Corsair! Surrender, further resistance is futile!"
Knowing a mod hack when he heard one, namely because he had hacked his share in his short life, Rocket realized he wasn't alone. The proclamation played over every bit of prim tech, from car radio to cellphone for blocks. The Shi'ar sure wanted to get their message across, as every vidscreen...television his translation mod supplied, stood a face he hadn't expected to see that put aside any doubt that they meant that Corsair.
"They're after Scott's dad?!" Jubilee cried above the throaty roar of the Harley, "Why're aliens after Scott's dad?!"
"Who's Scott?" Rocket asked, thinking he heard the name thrown around somewhere before everything had gone frelling wrong.
It was a question that had to wait as a new pursuit craft banked through the intersection ahead and threw standard protocol out the window, proving their threat that resistance was futile wasn't them just preening their feathers. Windows shattered and cars were forced out of the ever expanding antigrav field, tumbling and rolling as flotsam against the unseen swell. Knowing a stun charge by how it made his fur stand on end, Rocket gritted his teeth and let his feral side run wild as the craft steadied for a shot.
Wasting another precious tungsten slug on a storefront, though only if his gamble didn't pay off, he had time enough between the hurried few beats of his heart to get his furry tail, Groot, and the kid to safety. Proving again just how nimble he could be, time tested and true in all the bar fights him and Groot had gotten into, he scampered up front of the Harley and wrestled for control against Jubilee. Screaming the whole way as she lost that fight, Rocket joined her in a worried yelp as the Harley spun out against the shattered glass and debris.
-=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=-
"Fucking...ow..." Jubilee cried, whimpering and curling against herself as if it would help with the pain.
She knew road rash and cuts as old friends introduced through her hobbies, skateboarding a sport where one wore their badges of honour in blood, scabs and casts. Worse by far than any she had suffered before, Jubilee wished for Jean's gentle touch to take away her pain.
"Get up, get up, get up..." It was a mantra that had kept her safe long before she met Logan, "Get up and run!"
Her world was changing again right before her eyes, she wasn't normal so why should her life be anything but the abnormal? She could do things other people couldn't and that made her a freak of nature, an urban legend hiding in plain sight, a mutant. The world spun as she found her footing, lurching with the floor as it seemingly shifted and slide beneath her shaky feet. Chili for dinner was a regret seen in full HD hindsight. This wasn't supposed to be happening to her, she was supposed to be safe with the Summers...Logan trusted them.
"Surrender!"
Falling to her knees and blaming the crash for her tears, men such as she had seen in an awful dream stood before her pointing what had to be guns, serious men with grim expressions that painted them as soldiers who had no qualms about their orders. Jean had tried to warn her, she had reached out and forcibly shared her memories in one desperate act before the darkness had taken her. Now it was just another useless gesture, the world too big and mean for them to fight against.
Scanning the ruin of wherever she was, Rocket was nowhere to be seen and Scott's bike lay toppled and wrecked, the muffler singing a tinkling song as the sprinklers rained down on it. It was strange to notice only then that she was truly a soaked and a bloody mess, shaking her head against the spray and blinking again to clear her teary eyes.
"Rocket?" Jubilee asked as the men, these soldiers advanced on her, "Rocket?!"
A gentle touch brushed her hand, feeling soothing and promising her to make everything better, but as she looked there it was only a stick, her heart sinking in defeat until she saw the impossible again for the first time. Sobbing aloud and looking past the soldiers that advanced upon her, a laugh found her to shake her chest as she looked into the twisting shadows to see a strangely familiar form take shape, a shadow with dark soulful eyes that met her own.
"Sticky?" Feeling foolish as her voice broke, Jubilee remembered his name and found a smile for him.
"I...am...Groot!"
-=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=-
"You said it pal." Rocket chuckled from his shadowy perch.
He didn't know if Groot had needed that long to rest up, or just maybe he needed the right motivation to pull himself together, either way it didn't matter. What mattered was that he was back, the kid had been out cold after the crash and it sure as hell wasn't like the Shi'ar were gonna give them five to catch their breath. Thinking it was going to be him against an army, or whatever the Shi'ar called the boots they had on the ground, Rocket had been just as happy to see Groot pulling himself together as the kid obviously was what with how loud she laughed down there as Groot introduced himself.
"That's it, just keep listening to all the screaming playing over your comms..."
Laughing low and thinking again raccoons had a bad rap on this rock, the city was lousy with them and that wasn't a bad thing. Hidden away and taking his time with his shot, he was just another raccoon doing raccoon things as far as the IR scans went. Squeezing the trigger, it didn't matter how powerful the AI running aboard the pursuit craft was, he was too close for it to spend every zettaflop or extra cycle it had to produce an evasive manoeuver that didn't break a few programmed laws about killing the boots on the ground.
-=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=-
"Holy shit!"
Screaming because that was what people did when the world around them exploded, Jubilee held tight to Groot as he did the running for the both of them. He cradled her tender and careful, feeling of soft pine boughs instead of the stiff wood that hammered the pavement as he ran.
"Rocket? Rocket!" Jubilee shouted, her mind catching up with reality as it had deigned to reveal itself.
"What?!" Rocket barked, sounding hurried and angry.
To see his face peek over Groot's shoulder was enough, looking surly and just a little too much like Logan than was good for her. His irritable snort was heard somewhere beyond her tightly clenched eyes, curling up into the welcoming arms that promised to keep her safe. Police sirens and fire trucks were a distant thunder of the passing storm.
"We gotta save Scott and Jean! Logan, I gotta find him, he'll..." Jubilee cried, stumbling over sputtered words and gulped breaths.
"Unless this Logan's got a ship that can track a Shi'ar Carrier kid then he ain't gonna be much help."
"But...!" Jubilee croaked, her stomach tight and her heart skipping a beat.
She lost her family once, taken in a car accident that had destroyed her world. Logan had filled that hole that all the foster parents and group homes hadn't. A life on the road together as partners and friends all up until one night they had stopped off to visit some old friends of his. He stayed just long enough to know something she hadn't wanted to admit for all the months since that day, that she was tired of the road and wanted a home again. Clenching her eyes tight and wailing at having that home stolen from her again, Jubilee let herself be hugged by Groot just as she had longed to hug him not so very long ago.
"But I just might happen to know a guy who knows a guy, and that guy just might happen to know where we can go finding Corsair to tell him his kid got snatched."
"Really!?" Jubilee blurted out, snapping open her eyes to see Rocket looking strangely awkward.
"I am Groot." Surprised and wondering why Groot was going about introducing himself again, Jubilee looked between her two saviours for answers.
"So what if Pete pulled a fast one on Yondu? You think he actually went and opened it?" Rocket countered, throwing a wary glance behind them as a police car raced past.
"I am Groot." Subdued yet imploring understanding, Groot looked to his friend who simply shrugged in reply.
"Who's Yondu?" Jubilee asked, caught in the middle of the conversation and clearly confused.
"Save it for the ship kid. Ah, what is it with this rock!? Who would have thought Corsair was a Humie?"
"I am Groot."
"I know right, he even left behind a kid that just got snatched?! Hah, wait till Starlord gets a load of this."
Growing more confused as she listened to the odd conversation made up mostly of Rocket, Jubilee let the fatigue numb her against the pain. She didn't know why, whether it was his gruff attitude and rough edges, but she felt like she could trust him to do just what he said. He was friends with Groot after all, and all it took to earn his trust had been that first moment she had stared deeply into those soulful eyes, utterly guileless and looking so lonely. Thinking to rest her eyes, so sore after all the smoke and tears, sleep took her as the world drifted away into the dark night.
-=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=–=+=-