The words 'SANCTUARY: Domain of Thanos.' appeared on the screen. Meteorites and debris floated everywhere.
Everyone stiffened and stared at the television suspiciously; they traded anxious glances.
"With all due respect, Thanos, your daughter made this mess, and yet you summon me." Ronan growled. He was standing in the middle of a large circle and a chair was hovering in the background with it's back facing Ronan.
Nebula was sitting casually off to the side.
"I would lower my voice, Accuser." The Other snapped.
"First, she lost a battle with some primitive." Ronan said.
"Thanos put Gamora under your charge." The Other said.
"Then she was apprehended by the Nova Corps." Ronan said.
Nebula was fiddling with the wiring in her arm, her eyes only drifting upward to acknowledge them when they mentioned Gamora.
"You are the one here with nothing to show for it." The Other growled.
"Your sources say that she meant to betray us the whole time!" Ronan yelled.
"Lower your tone!" The Other shouted. Ronan lifted his hammer and sent a powerful blast towards the Other, twisting his neck and killing him immediately.
"YES!" Loki yelled and threw his hands in the air. Everyone jumped back in surprise.
"Brother." Thor said warningly.
"Oh, I despised that guy." Loki said with a grin on his face.
"Mr. Loki, it's not very nice to be excited when someone else dies." Peter scolded.
"My hatred for him is entirely warranted." Loki said.
"But-" Peter said.
"However I am a little disappointed that his death was so quick." Loki said.
"Mr. Loki!" Peter said.
"Why do you hate that guy so much?" Tony asked.
"He was one of the people who worked behind the scenes when I attacked your pitiful planet." Loki said. Everyone stiffened slightly. "That's all I'm going to say on the matter."
Thor shot Loki a look that said 'we are going to talk about this later'. Loki ignored him.
Nebula tilted her head curiously, but she didn't say anything.
"I only ask that you take this matter seriously." Ronan said to the floating chair. Nebulas eyes nervously darted between the two.
"The only matter I do not take seriously, boy, is you." The chair turned to face Ronan, revealing Thanos glowering at Ronan.
Everyone glared at Thanos angrily.
Tony crossed his arms and muttered something that no one heard but Peter. Peter patted him on the back comfortingly.
"Your politics bore me. Your demeanor is that of a pouty child. And, apparently, you alienated my favorite daughter, Gamora."
Nebulas face fell downcast.
"Aww." Peter said. "That was so mean."
"He literally wiped out half the universe." Tony said. "What did you expect? A+ parenting?"
"He should have treated Miss Nebula better." Peter said.
"Dont call me Miss Nebula." Nebula said.
"Miss Nebula. Miss Nebula. Miss Nebula." Gamora whispered. Nebula glowered at her angrily.
"Dont." Nebula said bluntly.
"Hehehehe." Gamora said. "Miss Nebula."
"I will stab you if you dont stop." Nebula warned.
"You can't stab people! Thats wrong." Peter said.
"I disagree." Loki shrugged. "There is nothing wrong with stabbing your sibling if they're annoying you."
"Loki no." Thor said.
"Loki yes." Loki responded with an innocent smile.
"I actually agree with the smaller, less charismatic, weaker, less cool Peter." Quill said.
"You could've just said 'the other Peter'," Tony said.
"I liked the description Quill gave of the kid." Bucky shrugged. He and Sam high fived.
"Hey!" Peter whined.
"You can't just stab people." Quill said.
"It's not like it'll be life threatening." Nebula said. "Plus, she deserves it."
"Stab me and I'll stab you back." Gamora said.
"Bring it on." Nebula hissed.
"This is not how we resolve conflicts!" Quill groaned.
"Yes it is." Rocket said. Quill groaned dramatically and sunk into his chair.
"I shall honor our agreement, Kree, if you bring me the Orb. But return to me again empty-handed, and I will bathe the starways in your blood."
"Thanks, Dad. Sounds fair." Nebula said as she got to her feet. She sashayed past Ronan and smirked at him. "This is one fight you won't win. Let's head to the Kyln."
A few people glared at Nebula. She completely ignored them and focused on the tv screen.
Back at the Kyln Gamora, Rocket, Peter, and Groot were all sitting at the tables eating lunch.
"If we're gonna get out of here, we're gonna need to get into that watchtower." Rocket said and pointed to the main tower in the center of the prison. "And to do that, I'm gonna need a few things. The guards wear security bands to control their ins and outs. I need one."
"Leave it to me." Gamora nodded.
"That dude, there." Rocket pointed to someone with a metal leg sitting at the other table. "I need his prosthetic leg."
"His leg?" Peter asked.
"Yeah. God knows I don't need the rest of him. Look at him, he's useless." Rocket smirked.
"Alright…." Peter nodded.
"And finally, on the wall back there is a black panel. Blinky yellow light. Do you see it?" Rocket asked. Peter, Gamora, and Groot looked over at the control panel.
"Yeah." Peter nodded.
"There's a quarnyx battery behind it. Purplish box, green wires. To get into that watchtower, I definitely need it."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Gamora asked, turning back to Rocket.
"Look, it's 20 feet up in the air, and it's in the middle of the most heavily-guarded part of the prison. It's impossible to get up there without being seen." Peter explained.
"I got one plan, and that plan requires a frickin' quarnyx battery, so figure it out!" Rocket screamed.
"You have quite the temper." Wanda remarked.
"Says the lady who blew up an entire building 'cause she lost control of her powers." Rocket snarled.
Everyone started yelling at once. Wanda had to hold Vision back.
"Hey!" Steve said and pointed a finger at Rocket. "Watch your mouth."
"It wasn't Wanda's fault." Clint said with a scowl.
"Even I know that's uncalled for." Tony said.
"Not cool, Rocket." Quill said and shook his head.
Rocket scowled and leaned back in his chair. "Whatever." he grumbled. Everyone was quiet for a few seconds.
"How do you even know about that?" Peter asked after a moment. Rocket pretended not to hear him.
Behind them Groot had gotten up and tossed his food away. He walked over to the control panel and grew his legs until he was face to face with it. He swung the panel open and began to look for the battery.
Drax paused next to him and looked up at what he was doing. He then looked over at Gamora, Rocket, and Peter (who were oblivious to what Groot was doing), before turning back to watch Groot work.
"Oh, no." Nat said.
"Can I get back to the plan? Thanks." Rocket said sarcastically. "Now, this is important. Once the battery is removed, everything is gonna slam into emergency mode. Once we have it, we gotta move quickly, so you definitely need to get that last."
Groot yanked the battery out of the control panel, causing the room to go dark and alarms to ring. Gamora, Peter, and Rocket turned to see Groot holding up the battery triumphantly with a big, dumb grin on his face.
Everyone laughed.
"I am Groot." Groot said with a small laugh.
"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up!" Rocket said. "It's not like we had to fight for our lives or something. Oh wait, that's exactly what we did!"
"Rocket, calm down." Quill said. "Looking back, it's actually pretty funny."
"No one listened to me, then we almost die." Rocket said. "How is that pretty funny?"
"Oh boy." Quill groaned.
"No, enlighten me, Quill, how was it funny?" Rocket said.
"You should listen to your captain." Thor pointed out.
"Yeah!" Rocket said. "Listen to your captain, Quill!"
"He is not the captain!" Quill said. "I am the captain! Okay? Gamora, back me up here."
"Peter's the captain." she said nonchalantly.
"Thank you, Gamora. Thank you." Quill said. "I'm the captain."
"Mr. America is a captain, too." Peter said.
"That's… not my name…" Steve sighed and shook his head as he spoke.
"'Mr. America'. I'm totally using that." Bucky said. Steve shot him a small glare.
"Or we could just get it first and improvise." Rocket sighed.
"I'll get the armband." Gamora said and ran off.
"Leg." Peter said and ran in the opposite direction. Rocket groaned and rubbed his face with his hands.
Multiple small drones with large guns attached started circling Groot.
"Prisoner, drop the device immediately and retreat to your cell, or we will open fire." A guard said over the intercom. Groot glared at the drones and growled.
"I... am... GROOT!" Groot screamed.
"Fire!" the guard shouted.
The drones started shooting Groot, but all they did was annoy him. Groot raised his arms and swung them around, destroying many of the machines.
"All prisoners return to your sleeping areas." the intercom announced.
Rocket ran over to Groot and scurried up him, sitting on his shoulder.
"You idiot!" Rocket screamed as Groot protected them with a makeshift shield. "How am I supposed to fight these things without my stuff?"
A group of guards ran towards Groot and raised their guns. "The animal is in control." the leader yelled. "Fire on my command!"
They were about to shoot when Drax tossed one of them aside. He threw a gun at another one, knocking them unconscious, and kicked one in the chest. Drax laughed gleefully as he flipped another one on their back. One of the guards punched Drax in the face. Unfazed, Drax grinned and headbutted him while incapacitating two more guards.
"You look way too happy to be beating people up." Shuri said.
"Violence is amusing." Drax said.
"N-no." Quill said and shook his head. "Drax, we talked about this. Many, many times."
"Oh, right." Drax said with a nod. "Violence against people who have wronged me is amusing."
"No!" Quill said. "Thats… thats not what I said."
"I agree with Drax." Rocket said.
"If you're fighting people you really hate, it's kinda fun." Gamora shrugged.
"No..." Quill said. "Just… no."
"All violence is amusing." Nebula said. Drax nodded in agreement.
"No!" Quill said.
"Hurting people is not fun!" Mantis said.
"Thank you, Mantis." Quill said.
"Instead of killing people you can just make them go to sleep forever or bring up their deepest darkest memories so they're too busy to do any harm." Mantis said.
Quill went dead silent and stared at Mantis with a blank expression on his face.
He didn't move for a long time.
"Is he okay?" Peter whispered to Shuri. She shrugged her shoulders.
Quill buried his face in his hands and shook his head very slowly.
"Are you okay?" Peter whispered.
Quill took a very long and loud breath in before letting it all out. Otherwise he didn't move.
"Mr. Star Lord, sir?" Peter whispered.
"Just play the movie." Quill groaned, his voice extremely muffled.
"Creepy little beast!" Drax yelled, catching Rockets attention. Drax tossed one of the guards guns towards him.
"Oh... yeah." Rocket purred as he caught the gun that was twice as big as him.
He yelled and started rapid firing the gun as Groot spun him in a circle, taking down many, many guards.
Back in the cells Peter was leaning on the wall casually next to the guy with the prosthetic leg.
"You need my what?" the man asked.
"Seems like you weren't doing any of the hard work." Sam said to Quill.
"I transfered that guy a lot of money for his leg, okay?" Quill said, his face still buried in his hands and his voice muffled. "If that's not hard work, then I dont know what is."
"You clearly dont." Sam said.
Gamora sprinted down the hallway as pieces of the building came crashing down around her. She jumped over the railing and ran down another path. She dodged bullets and shoved a few guards over a railing. Two more guards rushed towards her. She swept her leg around one of their necks and kneed them with her other leg, causing him to collapse. She turned and twisted the other ones arm, causing him to drop his weapon.
"I'll need this." Gamora smirked and tapped his security band.
"Good luck." The guard laughed. "It's internally wired."
"I'll figure something out." Gamora smiled mischievously.
The screen went black. There was a cracking noise of someone's arm breaking followed by a scream.
"Ow." Peter said and wrinkled his nose. "That's gotta hurt."
Gamora rolled her eyes.