I followed swiftly behind the unusual group through the prison, so silently and stealthily that my SHIELD mentors, Tasha, and Clint, would be so proud. Man, I wish they were here. This would be so much more fun with them here. As I followed the group I made sure to keep out of sight, hiding behind a few choice walls and various other spots. Though I did this mostly out of caution, as it seemed that this group did not care if they were followed. They didn't glance back once to check if any highly trained seventeen-year-olds were coming up behind them.
It only seemed to be by chance that we managed to pass by the guy sleeping area, and I managed to glance in for just a moment to meet the startled gaze of Quill. I paused in front of the door glancing between the escaping group and the outlaw. I shrugged helplessly gesturing after Gamora and her abductors. He stared at me in disbelief for a moment before he leaped to his feet and rushed forward, apparently joining me on the 'Save Gamora' quest.
It was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one with a heart around here.
I stepped forward to follow him only for someone much shorter than me, with claws, grabbed onto my wrist and pulled me to a stop with a startling amount of strength. Tensing on impulse I turned back ready for a fight, only to freeze surprise to find Rocket clutching my wrist. He seemed to have just woken up, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. And I would also like to note that half his face seemed to be covered in drool.
Aw man, I wish I had a camera. That would make great blackmail material for later!
"You stay here, girlie." The raccoon order, his voice far too groggy to reach the level of commanding he wished. Also, he was a raccoon, so he was fluffy and therefore sorta adorable.
"I beg your pardon?" I demanded not in the least bit distracted by his fluffiness. I glanced back just in time to see Quill dipping around the corner continuing the hunt. I moved to follow after him only to be pulled back once again by the increasingly annoying Rocket.
"Are you deaf?" Rocket snapped sounding a little more awake.
"No, but I do hope you recognize the stupid that just came out of your mouth," I argued moving to set my free hand on my hip.
"Really, just go get Groot up, will ya?" Rocket hissed agitated. And I do mean hiss. While Rocket may deny it later, his ears bent back like an angry cat. Yeah, I will use that a lot in the future.
"What is your problem, small furry psycho?" I demanded agitated by the smaller figures suggestions. Quickly I nodded back to the sleeping area snapping dismissively, "You can wake him up!"
"No, I need to keep Quill alive!" Rocket argued equally dismissive.
"Quill can keep himself alive!" I argued loudly. We both stood there for a moment as that settled in. Slouching slightly I admitted hesitantly, "Okay, I see you're point."
Rocket rolled his eyes and abruptly released my wrist. For one foolish moment I actually thought he was gonna let me go, only for him to shove me with a surprising amount of force back into the room. If not for my SHIELD training I would have toppled over onto a man who looked suspiciously like a demon.
Silently thanking Clint for his relentless training I shifted to my full height. Frowning steely I spun around ready to give the pushy raccoon a piece of my mind. Rocket turned out to not only be surprisingly strong but also incredibly fast. The speedy little bugger was also running around the corner, his tail just disappearing behind the corner when I turned to look.
Grumbling angrily under my breath to avoid screaming after the raccoon and telling him exactly what I felt about being pushed, I turned back towards the room. At the very least I had something to do after all Groot seemed like a reasonable guy. So maybe he'd help me save Gamora, or maybe I could convince him to punch Rocket in the face for me. Of course, before he did I would have to wake him up. Glancing over the sleeping criminals I found a surprisingly empty area, where a tree appeared to be molding himself into the wall.
"Why am I in charge of the tree?"
You would think that waking up a tree would be a pretty easy, simple thing to do.
You would think wrong!
I could not even begin to fathom how Groot managed to sleep so unbelievably in a prison surrounded by numerous convicted criminals. Some of which were very willing to become murders if they weren't already. I myself couldn't even close my eyes, but here was the walking tree! Ironically sleeping like a rock!
At it seemed that no amount of shaking, knocking, whisper-shouting, or any combination of the three seemed to be able to pull him from his sweet land of dreams. Were all the trees on Earth just sleeping, hibernating until the day they finally rose and took vengeance on us humans for our hand in ruining the planet?
I continued to muse on the possibility of all the trees on Earth becoming sentient, even when I did eventually give up. Dejectedly I plopped down next to the never waking tree at a loss. At least on the bright side Groot seemed to have scared all the prisoners so much that they wouldn't even go near him in sleep. So that left me with plenty of rooms to sit cross-legged on the ground, my cheeks resting on my fists and my elbows resting on my knees. Still I found myself considering new and more creative ways to wake up the tree while at the same time keeping the over convicts asleep.
So far most of them involved fire in some way or another, sadly one of the goals of my plan was to keep him alive so most were thrown out the window. I did now have a number of plans in case the trees did rise up, you know just in case.
"-Could care less whether you live or you die."
Wow, that's a great starter there Quill, really doing good-wait a minute. My eyes snapped open and my head lifted in surprise as I registered who I was hearing. It was definitely Quill, but what was he doing? Oh wait, now I remember. Gamora was being murdered. Hopping to my feet I cautiously made my way over toward the exit of the room, nearly tripping over a pair of incredibly content looking brightly colors men.
Hiding just inside the room I listened carefully hoping to get some background before I rushed into anything here. All the while I heard Gamora demand, "Then why stop the big guy?"
Oh, good she was alive. At least Quill did something right.
"Simple, you know where to sell my orb," Quill replied smoothly sounding surprising like a businessman.
Oh right, the seemingly useless metal paperweight, why was it still relevant? And why was everyone obsessing over an object that seemed, as I said, totally useless? Maybe it was like treasure planet, and it was like a map or something to space pirate treasure.
"How are we gonna sell it when we and it are still here?" Gamora snapped back not in the least bit convinced by Quill's explanation. Suddenly realizing it didn't really matter if I was hiding or note I moved around the corner to lean against the doorway casually.
The four of them stood in the dimly lit halls, most of them looking basically unscathed, looking incredibly serious. They were all so engrossed they didn't even notice me. Quill continued to speak with an air of confidence that I would normally associate with a board member at Stark Industries, "My friend Rocket here, has escaped 22 prisons."
Well Quill surprises me again, he actually does pay attention to the world around him. Wish he could have exercised it earlier though.
"Oh we're getting out of here," Rocket nodded his arms crossed, "And then we're heading straight to Yondu to retrieve you're bounty."
Unable to keep myself quiet I chuckled nonchalantly startling everyone in the room, "Which actually works out great. Because I totally missed a consultation with him."
"Oh, right." Rocket realized unfazed by my appearance, "Phoenix's is with us took."
"Hello again." I greeted waving.
Quill seemed to be taken back for a moment before quickly forcing himself back. Shaking his head he turned his attention back to the conversation to ask Gamora, "How much was your buyer willing to pay for that orb?"
Gamora hesitated for a moment, probably mulling it over in her head as she looked us over again. I had assumed that she would say something along the lines of 10 million units or something. So the real number was more than a little shocking, "5 billion units."
The strange choking device that I made was not unlike a dying squirrel of some kind as I bit back a shout.
"Holy shit." Quill gasped sounding just as shocked as I was. To me it wasn't really the money itself that was so surprisingly, but the value of the orb. Honestly what was it? And who in their right mind would pay over a billion units for it?
"That orb is my opportunity to get away from Thanos and Ronan," Gamora paused for a moment looking over us once more before she seemed to come to a decision, "If you free us… I'll split the profit between the four of us."
"I am Groot."
I almost jumped out of my skin when the deep voice rang out directly behind me. Before I managed to trip over my own two feet a wooden hand managed to catch my shoulder steading me. His help did nothing to quell the annoyance I felt when I looked back to see Groot standing behind me wide awake and literally fresh as daises.
Pulling my shoulder out of his grip I shot him a heated glare as I hissed, "You cannot be serious! I just wasted twenty minutes trying to get you up!"
"Five of us," Rocket corrected unfazed once again by his partners appearance, "Asleep for the danger and awake for the cash, as per frickin' usual."
"I want to punch you." I bluntly informed the grinning tree. Taking a deep breath I struggled to settle myself down before I looked to the rest of the group to announce, "Now that that's sorted out, and Gamora is not dead, I going to be getting some sleep. I'll see you in the morning, ya bunch of lunatics. Oh and if you even think about leaving me behind I shall give you a personal demonstration of what being mummified feels like."
Without waiting for any kind of response I made my way back to the sleeping area hoping that I could get some sleep. My hopes were quickly dashed when I came back and found that like quicksand my original spot had been overwhelmed by the girl inmates.
Slouching my shoulders and sighing dejectedly I shook my head, my life sucked. Only for me to be surprised when Gamora suddenly appeared next to me tapping my shoulder. Too annoyed to be surprised I turned to her without a word, with my attention the green woman nodded towards a largish space on the floor. Just big enough for two more people.
Shooting her a thankful look, I moved forward quickly before the space could also be taken over. As I settled myself down I made sure to be as small as possible so there would be enough room for Gamora too. Honestly I didn't think much of having her next to me, but somehow I found it just a tiny bit easier to fall asleep knowing that somebody I sort of knew was nearby.
I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep until my eyes opened and found the room mostly empty. Looks like I was the last one up.
Grumbling under my breath I forced myself up in hope of finding something to eat. They better not have left me behind, or I would blow their stupid ship out of the sky. I had been hoping that there would be some kind of breakfast, only to be mildly disappointed when I got some kind of gray slop that may have possible been alive.
Not willing to risk eating it I skipped breakfast this morning; hopefully we'd get out of this dreadful place before I died of starvation or decided to try eating an alien. I mean it wasn't cannibalism if we were the same species right? I abandoned my tray at a table, where an excited looking blue alien quickly snatched it up. Shivering in disgust I turned back to the room trying to find a member of my fellowship. I was a Tolkien fan, don't judge.
Maybe I should teach these guys about the buddy system when we had the times, this was incredibly frustrating.
Thankfully it wasn't that hard to find Groot, but I wouldn't say I actually spotted him at first. I was making another loop around the watchtower when I found that I was incredibly lucky today. I paused for a moment to get my bearings only for the walking guy directly to my left was abruptly knocked unconscious by some kind of flying projectile.
With a surprising level of calm I turned around to look where the projectile had come for. It was then that I found Groot by the guard tower. He had grown his legs up so he could reach a metal box that was much higher on the tower. Was he messing with the watch tower wiring?
Curiosity overwhelming me I made my way over to the other side of the tower, hoping to get a better angle so I could see what exactly he was doing. I stood there for a moment as I watched the event, it was then that somebody stopped right next to me alarmingly close.
Almost jumping in surprise, I turned to see who had invaded my personal bubble. I only seemed to come up to his shoulder, and he was probably double my size with all his muscles. His skin was a sort of grayish blue with various red tattoos covering his body, he was also shirtless.
"Hi," I greeted hesitantly.
He turned to me with mild interest and in a deep voice rumbled, "Greetings."
Well, alright then. I didn't even attempt to engage in anymore conversation with this man, instead choosing to watch Groot once again. I titled my head curiously when I saw Groot removing the quarnix batter from the tower.
I'll admit I wasn't an expert in watch towers but I did know a few things about batteries like these, if he pulled it out completely everything would slam into emergency mode. Which would make it incredibly difficult for us to escape. Concerned I began looking around once more for more members of the fellowship, because this was gonna get really bad really fast in a moment.
I managed to spot Rocket, Quill, and Gamora settled down at one of the tables appearing to have a very serious conversation. So was this crap part of the plan then, or what?
My mouth opened, Groot's name on the tip of my tongue only for the words to die in my throat as Groot violently yanked out the battery. Carelessly wrenching it free from the wires that connected it to the tower. When he did finally free the battery… well everything totally hit the fan. The lights shut down for a moment plunging the room into complete darkness for a second. The room was quiet and completely still before the room was once again lit up. Only this time it was by flashing red lights, with loud alarms on the side.
Groot did not seem concerned or even the least bit affected by any of this, he only smiled as he turned around holding out the battery to a shocked Rocket.
Suddenly realizing what had happened the group at the table quickly wrapped up their business and rushed in different directions. Quill just happened to rush past me, but before he could I managed to catch his arm. Looking around in confusion I asked, "Is this a part of the plan?
Quill glanced around at the room that seemed to have descended into some form of anarchy. He nodded with a wince, "Yeah…"
"This is a horrible plan." I stressed as armed guards began pouring into the room.
"Not the best, no." Quill agreed as I released his arm allowing him to go do whatever it was that he needed to. He started to leave only to hesitate for a moment about a foot away from me to call over the chaos one last piece of advice, "Try not to get killed!"
"Thank you, for your words of wisdom!" I shouted after him sarcastically as he sent me a thumbs-up. Suddenly angered I shouted after him over the crowd, "SUPER HELPFUL!"
Setting my hands on my hips I looked around again, the blue man had abandoned me at some point during the confusion and panicked prisoners who had no idea what was happening jumped around like startled sheep. Guards and robots loomed around shouting threats and orders over the madness sending some prisoners in hysteria. It was in that moment that I retracted my previous statement. Because not only was this the worst plan ever, this was also the real hell.