Chapter 5- The Collector
Valkyrie felt sick as she walked into The Collector's lair and climbed up some steps. Rectangular cube-like boxes held different species. The first box to Valkyries left held some sort of alien, that Valkyrie had never seen before, with armor on. The one on the right held some sort of animal wearing a space helmet with four letters CCCP written on the clothing the animal was wearing.
Valkyrie felt someone grab her hand and squeeze it. Puzzled, she looked up at Quill who was looking at her, concerned. Valkyrie noticed that Quill looked a little pale. 'So he does have some morals.' Valkyrie thought as she pulled her hand out of Quill's grip.
Quill looked offended for a second before Valkyrie gave him a soft smile and a slight nod.
"Okay, this isn't creepy at all." Rocket commented as he looked around.
Valkyrie swallowed some bile that had crept up into her mouth, "This is disgusting."
The pink lady, whom Valkyrie strongly suspected was a slave, started speaking, "We hold the galaxy's largest collection of fauna, relics, and species of all manner." Valkyrie bit her lip. This sounded rehearsed. The lady showed the group into a wide area with tables and different things on them. The pink lady turned around, lifted her hands up, "I present to you, Taneleer Tivan, The Collector."
The Collector, who had his back to the group, turned around. He had white hair and a cloak made out of some type of wool. He wore weird type glasses and a royal red vest with black underneath and dark blue pants. The Collector removed his glasses as the group continued to move forward. Quill, Rocket, Groot and Valkyrie stopped and Gamora walked forward to meet The Collector.
"Oh, my dear Gamora." The Collector said. Out of the corner of Valkyrie's eye, she saw Quill reach his hand for his gun but only hovered his hand over it. The Collector grabbed Gamora's hand and slowly brought it up to his lips, "How wonderful to meet in the flesh." The Collector kissed her hand and brought it slowly back down.
"Let's skip the formalities, Tivan." Gamora said impatiently, "We have what we discussed."
The Collector's eyes drifted upwards, looking past Gamora, "What is that thing there?"
Gamora turned around and Groot answered, "I am Groot."
The Collector walked forward. "I'd never thought I'd meet a Groot. Sir, you must allow me to pay you now so that I may own your carcass. At the moment of your death, of course."
"I am Groot."
"Why, so he can turn you into a frickin' chair?" Rocket growled.
"That's your pet?"
"His WHAT?" Rocket yelled, taking out his gun.
"Tivan." Gamor cut in, grabbing The Collector's arm. "We have been halfway around the galaxy retrieving this orb."
"Very well, then." The Collector replied, turning a bit to Gamora, "Let us see what you have brought."
Gamora looked at Quill who went into his bag and pulled out the orb, put it in his right hand, proceeded to drop it on the floor, pick it up and hand it out to The Collector.
Valkyrie and the others conjugated around a table while The Collector looked at the orb which was now held in place by a device on a table, "Oh, my new friends. Before creation itself, there were six singularities." The Collector pulled down a small switch which spun the orb open. Purple energy spread through the device on the table. Then purple rings appeared in mid-air.
"Then the universe exploded into existence," As The Collector said this, stars appeared in the purple circles, moving fast as if flying past while looking out of a window in a spaceship. "And the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots." In one of the purple rings it showed six stones of different colors, blue, red, yellow, orange, green and purple. "Infinity stones."
Valkyrie's eyes widened. 'But that was just a myth,' she thought to herself, not wanting to interrupt. As The Collector talked the orb was slowly opening, it seemed to be containing something, though if the current topic of discussion was any clue, Valkyrie guessed that whatever was inside the orb was related to or was an infinity stone.
"These stones, it seems, can only be brandished, by beings of extraordinary strength." The Collector continued. Rocket huffed and readjusted his position of his head being in the palm of his hand. "Observe." The Collector raised his hand out in front and pointed to the purple screen behind Gamora and Quill. They turned around to see a scene of a huge metal man holding a staff that glowed purple at the top. Civilians were running away screaming while the giant metal man stood in the ruins of a city.
"The carriers can use this stone to mow down an entire civilizations," The mettle man brought down his staff to the ground and seemingly disintegrated everyone with a blast of purple smoke. "Like wheat in a field." The projections zooms out to a planet showing water and green which turned into purple.
"There's a little pee coming out of me right now." Quill commented quietly, but since it was said in the middle of a break in words, everyone heard it.
The Collector eyed Quill then went back to tell the story, "Once for a moment, a group was able to share the energy amongst themselves," The projector now showed a group of cloaked individuals who looked to be hooked together by wire that glowed purple. Then it showed them being consumed by purple energy, "But even they were quickly destroyed by it."
At last the device that was trying to open the orb finally did so to reveal a purple stone, much like the stone that was shown next to the other infinity stones. The Collector lifted his arms up dramatically and brought them in front of him, clenching his fists and shaking in excitement. Valkyrie rolled her eyes at this.
"Beautiful." The Collector said, opening his hands so that the palm of his hand was facing outward and brought them down to the table, shaking. "Beyond compare."
Rocket sighed, "Blah, blah, blah. We're all very fascinated, whitey. But we'd like to get paid."
At Rocket's rather rude interruption the purple circles that showed projections disappeared and The Collector turned away from the stone to Rocket and asked in a bored tone, "How would you like to get paid?"
"What do you think, fancy man? Units!" Rocket said, almost growling impatiently.
Gamora and Quill turn around and face The Collector and step forward a bit. Groot turns his head and Valkyrie, still near the table, turns and faces The Collector, arms crossed.
The Collector uses his left hand and pulls out a draw from the table, "Very well, then." He reached into the draw for the Units and he lifted his head to see the pink girl walking slowly toward the stone, as if mesmerized, "Carina." The Collector said in a short tone. "Stand back."
Carina took a deep and angry breath, "I will no longer be your slave!" She yelled.
"No!" The Collector yelled as Carina reached out with her left hand and grabbed the stone. Valkyrie stood, frozen as she watched the purple stone explode some kind of energy. Valkyrie ducked down to avoid being hit by a blast and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Quill knock Gamora out of the way.
Glass shattered as the blasts flew through the room and it knocked down The Collector as well. Suddenly Valkyrie heard screaming and looked up, from her position on the floor, and saw Carina with her mouth wide open, purple corsed through her veins and shown through her open mouth. Parts of her skin peeled off revealing black and purple underneath. Valkyrie stared at her, open mouthed, in horror.
The next thing she knew was Quill grabbing her and started dragging her away. Valkyrie cleared her head enough that she was able to move after a bit and brought her to an section of the floor that was lower than the one that the Carina was on so we had some cover. Gamora was already there. Valkyrie crouched down and covered her head while Quill and Gamora did the same.
Then an explosion sounded, which caused more glass to explode and huge boom like sounds echoed throughout the building. Then it stopped.
"What in the galaxy was that?" Valkyrie panted through the silence.
Quill, Gamora and Valkyrie poked their heads up and looked at the destruction around them, "What the ffffff-" Quill stated in shock.
Valkyrie went and sprinted for the stone, Quill and Gamora following close behind and closed the orb with the stone inside. "This is a weapon." Valkyrie stated. "A very, very dangerous weapon."
"No shit!" Quill said, staring at Valkyrie.
Gamora grabbed the orb and stalked away towards the door. Quill and Valkyrie glanced at each other and ran after her, "How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was in this orb." Gamora said, frustrated with herself as the group walked out into the street.
Rocket walked up to Gamora, put his hands over his eyes, "What do you still have it for?!" Rocket cried, exasperated, bringing his hands down below his eyes.
"What are we going to do, leave it in there?" Quill asked.
"I can't believe you had that in your purse!" Rocket groaned, pointing at the orb.
Quill turned from Gamora to face Rocket, "It's not a purse, its a knapsack!"
"We have to bring this to the Nova Corps." Gamora said, surprising Valkyrie, "There's a chance they can contain it."
Valkyrie crossed her arms, "You're damn right you should have. No one should be in possession of the thing. Certainly not The Collector and certainly not you guys!"
"Can they contain it?" Quill asked Valkyrie. Valkyrie was supriesed that when she looked at him, he seemed to have a genuine concern.
Valkyrie bit her lip, "I would have to talk to my superiors, after you have given me back. And if you hand over the orb, I can try to wave the kidnapping charges."
"Are you kidding me?!" Rocket cried, "We're wanted by the Nova Corps. And we kidnapped one of their officers, do you think they will let that slide?! Just give it to Ronan!"
"Hell no." Valkyrie spat, stepping forward, arms by her sides in fists. "Don't you dare." Valkyrie said in a dangerously low tone.
Quill agreed with Valkyrie, "So he could destroy the galaxy?!"
"What, are you some saint all of the sudden?" Rocket asked, "What has the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you want to save it?"
Quill yelled, "Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"
Gamora grabbed Quills left shoulder, "Peter, listen to me. We can not allow the stone to fall into Ronan's hands. We have to go back to your ship and deliver it to Nova. Along with the girl."
Quill closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Right, right, okay." Quill opened his eyes, "I think your right. Or we could give it to somebody who's not going to arrest us, who's really nice, for a whole lot of money." Gamora brought her hand, that was holding the orb close into herself, "I think it's a really good balance between both of your points of view."
"You're despicable." Gamora said. "Dishonorable. Faithless!" Gamora said and stalked away, "Oh no." She said as she got a couple feet and stopped.
Valkyrie, Quill, Rocket and Groot turned to stare at what Gamora was looking at.
There was Drax, standing out in the middle of the street, holding two knives and hovering in front of him was a tone of small, one or two manned, ships, "At last!" Drax laughed, "I shall meet my foe and destroy him!"
Quill stepped forward, "You called Ronan?!" Quill yelled, exasperated.
As the ship turned around and started to land, a guy in blue came out of a side street and spotted us, "Quill! Don't you move, boy!" He yelled.
Quill, Gamora and Valkyrie all shared a look and sprinted off to the left, running to what looked like mining ships. 'I really am having a shitty day' Valkyrie thought to herself as she ran with Gamora and the outlaw Quill from Ronan the Accuser and a group of mercenaries looking for vengeance with Quill while they basically had a weapon that could destroy the galaxy in Quill's purse. 'How could anything get worse than this?' She thought desperately.
Thank you to who Favorited this Story: TheOkWriter, Yusuke Kurosaki, Sugar007, teensuprnatural7
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whitewolf7410: Thanks for the review! Hmm, well the first question i'll put under the category of character development (don't want to give away too much). And to the second question: definitely.
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