AN: So, after seeing Guardians 3... I wanted to give Lylla and co a happy ending... I had some ideas I was working with, but many thanks to Merc_Marten for coming up with the idea that really allowed me to tie this story in to the MCU proper. Likewise, many thanks to OceRydia for the fantastic little piece of cover artwork done for this story.

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The moon peeked through, its light managing to find the gaps in the low slung cloud cover, reflecting through the soft mist of drizzle falling down.

Not enough rain to even bring up a sound as it landed on the felt tiles, but enough to make it damp. Dripping down, flowing as it went, dampening up the otter pups pyjamas as she gazed longingly upwards.

Back against the roof, arms crossed, claws gripped tightly into her real fur and arms.

"Darling?"

She let out a little shocked squeak as she looked over, a brown face with a yellow bib peeked up over the gutter, frowning at first before relaxing somewhat.

"Daddy, I'm…"

"Shhhh Shhhh…" The pinemarten hushed, climbing up and walking over to her. She was far away from any edge of their house, not that it was much consolation.

Certainly nothing for her mother, but she didn't have to know.

He just knelt down, softly holding one of her paws. "Were you having one of those dreams again?"

She just nodded, his eyes drawn to her arms as she rubbed them. He leant down, placing a paw on the soft fur and looking over at her. "See, no skeleton arms."

"They… They were robot arms," she whispered off into the distance.

He gave a sad chuckle, walking up to her and trying to lift her up. She squirmed away though, a paw pointed up at the moon, just as it was hidden behind another set of clouds.

"Come on then, it's gone," he sighed. "Just some ugly clouds and…"

"No…"

"Lylla."

"It isn't ugly." She kept her paw pointed up at the sky. "It's beautiful… And forever. And me and my friends were meant to fly away into it."

Her father stood there, waiting for a second or two before sitting back down with her, asking about them and hearing the tales.

On and on until they faded, the little pup snoring softly once more. And with that he finally picked her up and walked her in, underneath the massive window and into the old storage cupboard beyond, the top half now boxed out as a kit's bedroom. Carrying her down to a chair, he pulled off the sodden clothing and instead just wrapped her up in towels before taking her to her bed and tucking her in.

She snuggled up, holding on to the duvet, soft prints of rocket ships printed on it. Always her first word, her favourite… Not for the conventional reasons though.

He turned to her wall, the scribbled out drawings pinned up amongst her photographs, spelling awards, adoption certificate and so on.

Always the same four.

The two monsters, as he thought of them, even as she insisted they were her friends. The walrus almost looked normal, a wheelchair beneath him… But the things she'd drawn around his eyes. And then there was the bunny…

It still made him shiver.

Her 'friends'. Them, and the raccoon. A scribbled-out drawing, complete with implants and robotic parts. She called him 'Rocket'.

When he asked why, she said she just remembered it was his choice. Just like hers had been Lylla.

As if the tiny kit that had been left at the hospital could have written that on her box.

His gaze lingered on a drawing of them, her with thin metal robo hands reaching through the bars of a cage, holding his. The words scribbled out below. 'Forever and ever.'

He left her room, sliding down the slide to the ground level and starting to turn back to his, only to pause. One tonne of cow stood towering above him. "Darling?" she asked.

"On the roof again," he sighed, "more dreams."

"She's… -She's okay isn't she?" his wife asked, leaning down to hold out a hoof for him to jump onto.

"For now, yes, but…"

"It's not harming her," she stressed.

"And how long until it does," he countered, pinching his brow. "How long until she starts remembering some of the terrible stuff that must have happened to her before we…"

"I'm not putting her on any drugs or anything," she said sternly, staring him down.

He shook his head. "I'm not…"

"Yes, you…"

"-I just think we should have her seeing her psychiatrist more, keep the therapy more on the pulse."

"So if something comes up you can…"

"Bova," he spoke. "If a medical professional says it's the right thing, I'll do it. Whatever it is. I just want the best for our daughter."

She turned away, sighing. "So do I. -But digging up more of what…"

"She's already digging it up herself, whatever the hell it was."

"So why help her and then pill her up to push it back down."

They kept quiet, the pine marten finally sighing. "I'll drop it…"

"-Thanks."

"-But only if you promise, that if she starts having truly bad dreams, if it starts hurting her, we'll get help. Promise?"

Bova held him there, the seconds ticking by. "Promise," she said.

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"Jub jub…"

"Hey there, easy little one, easy. You did good, you did good." Paws tapped along a keypad, a laser field pulling away as the captain walked into the anteroom to the cell, the child pulled in behind him on a gurney. A few taps, it went up again and he turned, silently staring at the figure beyond the next gate.

Through a cheap plastic mask the bitter eyes stared out.

Cold ones looked back. "So, in case you care she's started to experience power control issues. She gets locked on, they spin out of control, up, down, side to side you name it. It's happening. It needs fixing."

The eyes looked back, narrowing. "There's an easy fix of course, not that you'll use it PB…" He was cut off, choking, a snap of electricity coursing through him.

The small figure just crossed his arms, letting his brief smirk fade. "It's very easy you know, saying my name. But, as for the matter at hand… There's a hard fix too, the right fix. The fix that the species you so venerate would go for every single damn time because guess what pulp-face, it's right and they're not total narcissistic dick-wads like you are!" Teeth were bared, coarse breath pulling in and out.

"Even if I was so inclined," he said, shrugging. "I wouldn't do it for you."

A gob of split splattered on the floor. "Go figure."

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Water cascaded over her as her body rippled through it, spine twisting and feet kicking as she sailed along. Mouth up and out for a breath in, then down again, the streamlined torpedo touching the other end of the pool and kicking down, rolling and twisting over and shooting back the other way, sailing in between the lines and racing to the other end. It was with that that the whistle blew, the otter choosing to get in one last length before pulling herself up and out.

Her arms tired, she made her way back into the shower room, tearing off her goggles as she did so.

"Hey Lylla…"

She snapped her head around to see a familiar face. "Hey Sa…" She was cut off, hissing as a trickle of chlorination water lashed at her eyes, the otter blinking furiously.

Furry pads did their best to wipe them, her fat arms moving around and thin metal limbs… She froze for a second…

The scent of chlorine wiped out, replaced with stale air hanging with a miasma of filth. The ache of her muscles was cut out with a cold discomfort, the light tiles of the pool with dark cages and scared figures of monstrous friends looking in at her.

"-lla…"

She snapped back out of it, blinking again through blurred eyes as the otter girl in front of her came up with a hand-towel, offering it over.

"-Ha, no worries," she chirped, helping to clear it all off. "Good thing I was here, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Lylla agreed, smiling as her waitress friend finished and brought her into a fun little hug. "It's good to have friends." And with that she was spinning, spinning outside her cage, and she froze… The face of an imaginary friend of times long past looking back. Young, younger than she was by far, maybe not even in highschool yet… But worn, tired, yet hope and joy in that bandit masked face.

His lips moved, words seemed to come out, she could hear Sam awkwardly trying to laugh it off far away.

And then her back exploded with pain.

Cold pain, stabbing in, she felt herself falling, saw Rocket's face morph with horror, and saw the dark ceiling above light up.

The sky.

Beautiful.

The sky…

The sky…

Even as she sank down, fear and cold all around her, only to be shone in by a bright light.

She blinked.

She blinked again, trying to move her mouth only to find something tight above it. Restraints on her arms, the smell of antiseptic in the air.

Pain.

It was going to be pain.

More pain, more pain from the master. More experiments, more work done, more of her to take apart, more of her to…

"-the pen…"

-Put back together again, with metal, with pieces, with…

"-Follow the pen…"

And rebuilt and break down again and it was all for nothing. They weren't getting out…

"-Lylla, follow the pen."

And they… And they…

"-Follow the pen…"

Her gaze snapped to it, moving around in front of her. Was this a test? Did she have new eyes like Teef, or…

"There, come on, you can do it…"

She followed it along, the shapes around her slowly making it out. An ambulance. The back of an ambulance.

She…

A new fear flashed in her mind. "N-nighthowlers? Please, am I okay, am…"

"You're fine," the nurse said, soft paw on hers. "You had a panic attack at the pool, we think possibly a fit of some kind."

"A… fit?"

"A seizure, could be latent epilepsy." She smiled. "We'll take you to the hospital to have a look at it, but if there's…"

"-Please no." The nurse paused, looking on as Lylla shook her head. "Please no, I… I hate hospitals, ever since I was a kit, I… Don't take me somewhere where they just cut mammals up and put them back together again, please."

She was met with a sympathetic look. "Well, the specialist service is in an annex building, it's just an office block or something. It'll be okay, though in your own time you might want to work on that. A phobia of doctors and hospitals isn't one that usually works out."

Despite everything, Lylla managed a chuckle. And she rested back, trying to give herself some calming breaths through the mask. The nurse talked on about what might happen if it was epilepsy, about being barred from driving for the next year but getting a free public transit pass or something, support services… The otter didn't listen though.

Instead, she just looked up, the cold ceiling of the ambulance. Like that of the cage, with her… Rocket… The rabbit, Teef…

That was his name.

Teef.

They all had them, but his were the most prominent.

Teef…

How… How had she forgotten that?

She shook her head. No, how had she imagined that. It was all in her mind, all repressed trauma from her earliest years, before she could even remember, before she was dropped off and adopted by her family.

That was all it was.

She just laid back, eyes watching as she was wheeled out of the ambulance. The sky was a pure pale blue, with whisps of white and a slant cut-off of herringbone, intersected by the ruler straight contrails of jets flying past.

She closed her eyes and smiled as she was wheeled inside.

Beautiful.

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"I thought you'd like to know, I isolated the issue and built together a dampening implant. It seems to be working."

The figure remained silent, staring at him.

"-Oh, that's right. You hate it when your creations surpass you, isn't that right, huh?" A growl rang out. "You know, most organisms want their progeny to excel. I mean, for all you talked about how a species could survive, that's a pretty damn good way of doing it, huh? -Still, I think it just shows, it never worked because it was you. Always you."

…

"We managed to lift tens of thousands off counter earth by the way. Evacuate the outer cities, villages, you name it. Those not killed when you chose to lift off, literally blowing up the entire planet because it wasn't juuuusssstttt right"

"-It would have been easier," he said. "Wouldn't it?"

"Huh?"

"To just end me. Instead, here you are, trying to improve me. Trying to give me a chance to be better. You could have killed me and avenge your little freaks, but instead you had your companion carry me out just so I could lay in this cell, and what… Improve?"

"-You know, you are pretty smart sometimes."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Why should I?"

The mammal turned to walk away, only to pause. "I've seen a lot in my time. Enough that I'm no longer scared of death… Just sticking around with life as I've made a few friends, making the most of it until one day me and my first ones are reunited. -I don't know exactly what's on the other side. I just have enough bits of evidence to know that there's something, something other than a black oblivion of nothingness at least. -Who knows, maybe we're judged. Maybe every right against every wrong, or maybe accepting one of the lords words or whatever is enough to wipe the slate clean. I don't know, I'm not really into that mumbo jumbo unless I'm chilling with one of them, only… Whatever it is, you might as well try. Maybe that's the chance we're giving you, not that you care." He snorted. "Here I am, you probably think, talking about souls and stuff and religio bull…"

"-Souls exists."

The small figure turned, raising an eyebrow.

"In a universe where the soul stone exists, where gods exist, where magic exists, it is against all reasonable logic to presume there is not something intrinsic about us. Indeed, I tried to harness it."

"What?" Came a snort. "You tried to gain the soul stone."

"I did. I fed entire civilizations to that damn red skulled gateman, nothing was enough for him."

What started out as a laugh slowly morphed into a look of subdued horror. "Oh, those implications. But why huh? Why!? What could be possible worth…"

"-It's common in human chronicles and history to lament great minds killed too early. Or geniuses, whose bodies failed them." He paused, looking down. "Bereft of geniuses that could think for themselves, or those that could think for themselves who were geniuses, I searched for a solution. Your retrieval was the ultimate aim of that. Before that, I tried to bring in the greatest minds of the universe past. Drawing their souls from the ether, transplanting them into bodies… At first just projected copies, setting up one soul to rhyme with another. Then the actual process of drawing an entire soul into a new body." He snorted. "It could not work on those still alive, so I found out. I tried it on you… Even if your only redeeming features are the biochemistry I developed for your brain."

A muzzle pulled upwards.

"But those still dead… I have many test planets, running side by side with counter earth. Different selections of those animals to be uplifted. Different levels of morphological alteration. Different levels of involvement. From those who know I breathed them life, to those set up in a fast-time environment. One year on the outside for thirty or three-hundred on the inside. Developing their own belief in their own evolution. My hands off on their development, they think they were products of nature. All to see if that was the solution."

A snort came out. "And was it?"

"The results of some were… Interesting. So much similar, but all the more… independent. Some flaws plastered over, but of course others inevitably opened up. Stained and corrupted failures, their only grace from oblivion being the research value for the true utopia I was pursuing. The planet I chose to seed my soul implanting experiment on had reached a level of development of similar value to that on old earth, albeit culturally unique in its own ways. Free from all external influence, from me or other events. Being phased out of sync with the rest of the universe, like so many of my petri-dishes, I was able to protect them from both the expansion and the blip, preserving their scientific value."

"Ah look, he does care."

"Maybe I do," he said. "After all, you are failing to see the core issue of this experiment. The one, racing along so fast it may burn out and become irrelevant before you even have a chance to catch it."

"Which is?"

He was silent for seconds, minutes, it might have been nothing yet felt like it dragged on for hours. Finally, though, he spoke. "I did not want to ruin or contaminate precious intelligent souls on a first trial. Indeed, from my research it appears that though personalities and, in a highly repressed form, memories are carried over, you cannot simply use it to revive a genius as is, though naturally it seems deficiencies all too easily carry over."

"So what, you chose some unfortunates to be brought back, some new test subjects, huh?"

"Almost correct, but not quite. To assess the success of the transfer, I needed to compare it to the original."

The small figure stared at him for a second before his eyes went wide. "Old… Test subjects."

"Three, to be exact."

Small paws gripped onto the laser bars tight, even as they smoked and singed. "WHERE ARE THEY!?"

And with that he laughed, sitting back and smiling, lips sealed shut.

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Driving up to work, Lylla stepped out of her car, taking a moment to look out at the skyline off in the distance. The great towers of the city centre, lit up like the flowing ribbons of the clouds by the winter mornings sun rise.

It was only a slight ahem from a colleague that snapped Lylla back to attention, the otter walking past her into the small rows of buildings, passing a small sign as she went.

Zootopia Care in the Community Commission – Packshore Residential Centre.

Tagging in, the door locking shut behind her, she walked into the small kitchen area, quickly making her way to close the glass door to the fenced in garden.

"Don't want to let all the heat out," she smiled.

"Buh… But I like the cold," muttered an adult arctic fox vixen, white muzzle stained brown with canine-safe choco-pop cereal.

She smiled, walking up to her and wiping her muzzle clean. "I know Tabi, I know. And I tell you what, we're working on getting you transferred over to Tundra Town, where there's lots of snow…"

"-LOTSA A SNOW!"

"That's right," she chirped. "Lots of snow for you to play with. But here, other mammals don't like the cold as much. You can play in it as much as you want, but keep the door closed, others don't like it, understand?"

Slowly she nodded. "Think of others…"

"That's it," she smiled, cheering her on. "Clever girl."

She smiled too, only for a knock at the door to cut them off.

"Hello," another nurse introduced. "Lylla, Tabi, Maisy…" A silent, hunched over, copyu nodded. "-We have a new resident. Everyone, I'd like you to meet Fleur!"

She guided in a bouncing white bunny, who froze, paws on her hips as she stared up at her. "It's not Fleur, it's…"

"Floor," Lylla said, not knowing why. "Because…"

"I'm on the floor," they said together, the white bunny dropping to the ground. She giggled and laughed, a so familiar cold metallic version of it playing over in the otter's ears. She stepped back, body trembling, as the red eyes turned and looked on at her, widening with joy. "-Lylla! We together again! Friends back together!"