Chapter 13.
THIS IS IT, CHAPTER 13! SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT! Had a lot on my plate going on. Hope you enjoy it.
Oh, and to my Balto readers, I still haven't fully decided whether or not to do a Balto sequel, and I'm not really sure how it (the plot/the story) would work out, and I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, plus this story to finish, so please be patient.
Happy Christmas!
Mark kept his eyes on the giant ship they approached, good music blaring, as see stepped away from the structure and moved leftwards to Quill's seat, watching move his right arm down towards a panel to the right of his controls, pulled the panel down, revealing a grey lever, which he then pulled upwards. Mark heard whirring sounds as he stepped to the right-side rear of Quill's seat and grabbed the back of the seat with both front paws, his suggested plan was put into motion, as the bridge doors behind them closed, and the bridge then detached from the rest of the ship and moved forwards, looking leftwards to see one of the two small vehicles detach and fly besides them, the he looked rightwards and saw the second one on the other side. Then he looked forwards again. "Wait. Wait." Quill ordered, looking rightwards then forwards again. Mark kept his eyes on the ship, which then started to move towards them. "Knowhere must be here." He thought in his head, as they kept moving towards it. Half a minute later, he saw a load of debris flying out from the other side of the ship towards the side of the ship they were heading to. "Spaceport, wide open, Cap'n, but that old missile's all we had." Kraglin's voice spoke over the comms. "That's helped us enough, Kraglin. Now hold your position, and await further orders." Mark ordered into the comms. "Rocket, Groot, go, go! Get inside that spaceport." Quill ordered. After that, the two vehicles then speed of ahead of them, but they were close behind, entered the floating debris and evaded them. As they got closer, Mark then noticed loads of small objects coming out of four newly opened doors on the ship, and as they got closer, he noticed they were thousands of creatures like those half animals, half machine security guards on Counter Earth. "Um…" He spoke, his eyes widening and his mouth gaping open, his mind going empty, realising they were so outnumbered. Quill fired the bridge guns, which made him snap out of it, destroying those that came in front of them. Then he realised that most of them were flying past them. Then he noticed something else flying in front of them in a half circle, creating a gold trail and it flew towards them. "Aw, come on!" Quill groaned, just before Mark realised that it was the Golden Guy again, seeing him approached, and seemed to be holding a small animal in his left arm. Then he smashed through the glass, the glass instantly flying out into space with now visible streams of flowing grey air. The suction took Mark off his hind-paws, pulled him up into the air, still holding the rear of Quill's seat, gripping tighter, which caused to spin around to face the rear wall, seeing the man moving towards the sealed door, his fur blowing with the suction which then caused him to let go of the rear of Quills seat, and he flew out towards the hole, the yellow shield coming on and stopping the flow just before he was about to reached the smashed window and be sucked out into space. He hit the shield on his back and then fell onto the floor, his hind-legs and front arms bent and held out towards/against the floor and he faced downwards, as he laid there, catching his breath, having almost died, feeling the bridge going round and round.
After he'd catched his breath, he turned his head rightwards to see the golden guy stepping towards them. He then narrowed his eyes on got up on his hind legs, narrowed his eyes, growled (for they had enough enemies to fight already and they didn't need another one) and felt energy in his body flow towards his eyes, the red circles forming in his eyes and then he knew what he had to do. With a yell, he fired his laser eyes and they impacted the guy and pushed him back to the door. He got up on his feet and stepped towards them again with a yell. But before Mark could fire again, Gamora stood in front of him, and saw she was holding the creature he'd brought in her left arm, his limbs moving around. "One more step and this weird thing gets it!" Gamora warned, which stopped the man. "Don't be rash." The man said back. He then saw in the corner of his eyes Quill pulling one of the control yokes up, which caused the bridge to move, and from the way it suddenly jolted, must have hit something, which caused his to fall back, and when he came upon the hole in the viewport, he saw the shield was down meaning they were in the spaceport. As quick as a flash, he moved his front arms upwards and grabbed the grey beam above him with both paw-hands, holding on tightly as Gamora fell towards the window and grabbed the beam as well with her left hand, she being just right of him and they both held on. From the sounds he heard around him, he realised they were sliding along the floor. He then saw Quill ahead of them before he then sprinted towards them and grabbed the two of them, Mark's left front paw/arm wrapping around the right side of Quill's back. They all fell onto the floor, the impact being on Mark's back, making him wince, as the bridge sliding away from them, as they came to a stop, Mark letting go of Quill's back and let himself lie/drop down on the floor, just to the left of Gamora, the creature, and Quill, then a second later turned his head leftwards to see the ship the spaceport wall. A few seconds later, he saw the man struggle to move among the wreckage. "What were you programming?" He heard Gamora ask, as Mark moved his upper body upwards with his front arms spread outwards. "A self-destruction code." Quill answered, just before a whirring sound came from the bridge and then it blew up. Mark then closed his eyes and let his upper body down to the floor again and shut his eyes for a second, processing what just happened. But he refused to dwell on that since they were still in the action and he need to thoughts, so he cleared his thoughts. Then he heard the sound of a ship approaching, looked rightwards to see Rocket and Groot putting their vehicles down on the floor and letting them slide to a stop.
A few seconds later, Mark got up on his hind-paws, turned rightwards and followed Quill over towards Rocket and Groot. "Attention, all personal. Intruders have boarded the ship. Head to the starboard spaceport. Get me 89P13, and kill the rest." The High Evolutionary's voice spoke over the PA. Mark, knowing that meant they were gonna have company shortly, ignored the threat and kept walking, hearing Gamora walk behind him, then suddenly heard a song he really liked over Quill's Zune. Quill then came to a stop, so Mark stepped over to Quill's left, Gamora coming up on his left. "We go in there, we get Mantis, Nebula, and Drax. We move in, we get 'em, and we get out." Quill ordered, staring and pointing to the left, making Mark turn his head leftwards to see the white lighted doors down the room. Just as he finished, Mark's ears were filled with a rumbling sound coming from their right, so he did a small jump forward, in between Quill and Rocket, planted his hind-paws on the ground, his body facing the direction the sounds were coming from, clenched his paw-hands into fists, pointed them downwards, his Dogs arms straight-parallel, his face moved forwards a little, letting the energy in him flow to his eyes and the circles formed again, ready to fire. The red wall before them crumbled and broke down to reveal three Abilisks, with Mantis, Drax and Nebula sitting on top of them! Mark reduced the circles in his eyes and unclenched his Paw-hands as his eyes gaped open in shock, as the three creatures came upon them and stopped, their rides sliding down their fronts and onto the floor (Mark seeing in the corner of his eyes Quill putting down his Quad-Blasters. "Did that look cool?" Mantis asked with a smile. "Okay, new game plan. We get the hell out of here now." Quill ordered, as he started to walk away from where he was standing, Mark standing where he was. "There are thousands of creatures on this ship." Nebula spoke as she and the others came up to them, Quill stopping and turning around rightwards. "Many of them are children." Mantis added. "And we need to be good Joob-joob." Drax added, which confused Mark. "Huh?" Quill asked, also confused. "It means friends." Drax answered. "If we wanna live, we have to leave now. This whole rig is gonna go down any second." Gamora spoke. "They will all die if we don't help them." Nebula said back. Mark then droned out of their conversation, and looked downwards at the floor. In his mind, he was fighting. Gamora was right, the ship was soon gonna blow up, but Mantis, Drax, and Nebula were also right, that there were children on the ship and they would die if they left. But if they didn't, their chances of surviving were reduced. He didn't know which route to take Then he suddenly remembered more of his parents' memories and saying, specifically, of telling to do the right thing, do what was right, even if it hurts. And in that moment, he knew right then and there what he was gonna do. The right thing. "I'm done running'." He heard Rocket as he got his head back in the moment, looked slightly leftwards to see Rocket holding up his gun walking towards the doors. Without a moment's though Mark, turned leftwards and started walking towards, hearing Groot's footsteps, followed by Nebula, then Quill, then Mantis, then Drax's footsteps following. Mark then looked over his right shoulder to see Gamora roll her eyes and then met his. Mark grinned and gestured his head forwards, saying to come. She then shut her eyes for a second and looked at the group, and then started walking with them. Mark moved his head to look forwards again, then heard the sound of another, no, two sets of limbs moving behind them. He then looked over his left shoulder to see the small creature coming with them. He did a quick snicker then looked forwards again, taking notice the group, the Guardians, were now walking together as one (him in front/between Groot and Nebula) towards the grey doors. As they came upon the doors, Drax moved ahead of everyone and then with both hands, pulled the doors open, revealing the High Evolutionary's creatures and guards filling the corridor before them. "Time to fight like hell." Mark thought in his head with a grin.
And then the fight started. Mark, taking a step rightwards to be Rocket's left, raised his left Paw-hand and fired a Paw-Blast at the guard standing before him, then moved his left arm down and fired his laser eyes at the creature before the guard, the whole happening just in a second, and in the corner of his eye, he Rocket move forwards a little and Groot swipe some creatures with an extended vine, then then saw a laser shot fired by a creature ahead of him, coming towards him. Mark then jumped to the left the shot hitting the floor where he just stood, saw in the corner of his eyes, Gamora and Drax charge forwards, then he ran forwards behind Nebula, jut as she shot a guard besides her. He then saw the creature who shot him, with three other creatures, appearing to be arranged in a near rhombus. So he charged towards them, and just before the lead one was about to shoot at him, he went down, bending his right hind leg and moving his left hind leg forwards, and slid on his back across the floor between the robotic legs, the tip of his muzzle just an inch or two away from its skin, then stopped sliding in the space in the middle of the creatures and then jumped himself up to the creatures heads, and, making himself spin around in a full circle, fired his lasers at the creatures heads with a laugh, killed all four of them, and landed one his hind legs in the centre again with a whoop. "I love this job! This is where I belong!" He thought in his head, enjoying the action. It was becoming clear he was now fully in control of the laser eye thing, as he jumped over body before him, ran rightwards and slide down past the space in between Nebula and Quill, who were standing before each other, and slide a few feet forwards before he stopped in between two guards and before they could aim their guns at him, he raised both arms and fired a Paw-Blast at then, knocked them back away from him in both directions. He bent his body over to the right and got up on hind-legs, just as the little creature came up to him from the right, holding one of Drax's knives in it's mouth, which it then opened with it's face facing towards him, the knife flying up to the him and he caught it with his right Paw-hand, and held it up to his eyes, staring at it for a second or two before his eyes narrowed and turned around/leftwards, facing a creature coming towards him. He then held out his left paw-Hand forwards towards the creature, his Paw-fingers also pointing outwards, while moving his right Dog-arm backwards, the knife just pointing forwards. And then he then extended his right Dog-arm forwards, bringing his left Paw-arm backwards, the knife stabbing into the creature's body, and then he clenched his left paw-hand into a fist and punched the creature's body to the left of where the knife impacted. The punch caused the creature to stumble back, the blade coming back of him, so Mark moved his right Dog arm downwards and fired his laser eyes at the creature, just as it was aiming its weapon arm at him, making it fall down to the floor. He started panting a little as he looked rightwards to see a large creature's body fall to the ground, Gamora standing before it, his ears only registering the sounds of the others panting as the sounds of battle had ended. Then he looked forwards to see the end of the hallway and the T-junction before them.
After picking which direction to go down, the group then began running down the passageway. Mark was currently running in between Quill and Gamora. "That thing with your eyes, Mark. How'd you do it?" Rocket asked, looking leftwards towards him. "You missed a lot. Tell you later." Mark replied, having turned his head rightwards when Rocket asked him, then he looked forwards again. "There's a big hole up in the deck. If we can connect that to Knowhere, we can lead the survivors to safety." Quill spoke. "Rocket, Nebula, head for the cockpit and pilot the ship. The rest of us will find the children." Mark ordered, looking rightwards/upwards, as they came upon another T-Junction, Rocket and Nebula then ran down the right passage. Just as Mark turned to go down the left passage, Quill turned around leftwards and leaned downwards towards Mark and held downwards his right arm, stopping Mark from moving further. "What are you doing?" Quill asked him. "Doing what?" Mark asked, confused. "This. Giving orders, being authoritive. What are you playing at?" Quill asked. Mark shrugged. "Nothing. I was just making suggestions to the already made plan or a strategy for the plan that could work. Can we have this conversation later? We got children to save." Mark said back before ran past Quill's left and ran down the hallway. Truth be told, he was a bit unsure about him giving orders or suggestions. He wondered if having to save Rocket and all that had happened recently had brought out a new side of him. He then put those thoughts aside for now. They still had a job to do.
And that's chapter 13 done! Hope you enjoyed it! Hope the hallway fight (which is cool) scene stuff for Mark was ok. Will try to get the next chapter out before the New Year.
I just want to get this out of my system; PLEASE DON'T CRITICISE ME FOR SAYING THIS, I'M JUST SAYING MY OPINION! I may not be American (I'm from the U.K., I'm British), but I have been paying a lot of attention to the U.S. Presidential election next year. Btw, I've learned a lot more about politics since the last one in 2020. And I'm a quite concerned/scared about it, as I don't fancy at all a rematch between Biden and Trump, (whom I deeply dislike, or maybe even hate)! Him running again is absurd! Honestly, sometimes I wish (and dream) that something would happen to him, like a sudden death or something that prevents him from running. I do prefer Joe Biden, but I do agree with what people are saying about how old America's politicians are becoming. I've seen the series "Designated Survivor", the fictional election in the 3rd season, which seems to resemble this one at the moment, with a former President, a Democrat, and an independent running. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the series. And believe it or not, I have been paying a lot of attention to Nikki Haley, whom I am interested in, even if I am not American and a person who could be called a liberal (I support liberal views) and hates right wing conservatives. Honestly, I'd quite prefer (and quite like) seeing her as the Republican nominee, not for the political stuff, which I don't agree with, but she seems interesting, and seems to have been gaining influential support. And I think it's about time America had a female President! Please don't judge me for saying all this!
ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE… MERRY CHRISTMAS!