Chapter Text
The whole ship shook with them in it as if they were the dry beans in a maraca. Explosions followed shortly, then it was a blur. A huge blur. There was a coward that sneaked behind him, but with the agitation of the crew, he had heard her too last second to get the time to react at all. The impact given by the Kree assailant resonated in his whole skull, loud and more deafening than the loudest thunderstrike and he quickly fell motionless.
The woman seized him and threw him on her shoulder with no single care in the world and took advantage of the chaos to take off with him. Her leader was clear, they needed a few prisoners to hold pressure in that war and to cover themselves from attack this way – their runaway targets were less likely to retaliate if they were worrying about the possibility to accidentally cause the death of one of their beloved members. Pathetic demonstration of weakness. “Ship had been neutralised as instructed. Neglectable loss on our side. I will be bringing a prisoner.” There was a voice within the static noise that answered in their communication implant. “He is small, fur and striped tail. Probably their mascot.” They walked carrying Rocket effortlessly, heading to the hacked teleporter to be transferred faster back to their stealth ship. “My mistake, Commander. Understood. Bringing him now.”
“C’mon… bleepin’…” He was having a nightmare that he was back to Halfworld, speaking with the Doctor to convince him he didn’t need an additional surgery. The nightmare somehow felt even more vivid than his usual ones. He groaned and twitched, his tail swishing between his legs and hitting a tray, metallic clinging sound of something thrown from it to the floor. It felt way too real right now. Or was it a trick of his mind?
Rocket woke up with the too familiar sharp burning sensation of a needle poking through his skin and he yelped. "Cut it out! I'm not—“ He frowned, deeply confused as he tried to move forward to sit, but he couldn’t, resistance met in the form of something heavy pressing over his collarbones. He slowly became aware that he couldn’t move his limbs at all, except his tail. Alerted, he frenetically looked around him, glowy red eyes full of terror and worry. His blurry vision progressively got clearer, it didn’t ease any the throbbing pain going on and off in his head. He realised he was in a lab, clearly not Halfworld’s one. There were several men in sterile suit around him, medical robots and device, a large screen right in front of him. “Oh scut!"
He started to thrash, panic beginning to settle in as he couldn’t make any sense of why he was here, yet could guess it wasn’t to invite him over a cup of tea to chit-chat about the lovely weather. "Wh-What are you doing? No, don't do this! Please!" His voice betrayed his fear, pleading shamelessly, hoping that perhaps those ones would be more receptive than the medical staff from Halfworld.
One of the men bluntly stated in Kree. "Dre kecimen sepal eake (The specimen is awake.)" One looked up at their holoscreen which was monitoring Rocket’s vitals and directly projecting a view of his innards from the monitor hooked on his ribcage plate, not even acknowledging him. "Drat sepal ilkirekind shiel utkira. Dre anekhetyl afil an wirk weip wen weip sormisil. (That is interesting in itself. The anesthetic did not work as well as surmised.)" Another man added. "Note fir dre recirdal -- submern canil Rocket afil an rekoln cirrernfir ali dre musoril anekhetyl. (Note for the records -- Subject called Rocket did not respond correctly to the measured anesthetic.)" One brought a medical machine closer. "Eipal'n nad ali kut ile ban ulnir. (We'll need to put him back under.)" A voice from the large frontal monitor cut them off their discussion. "An. Colkine weip yia wire. Drial sepal laba rere kecus, eipal tialk efamine eliryl anishe andle. (No. Continue as you were. This is a rare species, we should examine every unique facet.)"
The Halfworlder swallowed hard, ill at ease and doing his best to not totally freak about the situation he was in. He looked up to the large screen to notice a massive green face on it. Not a face that rang a bell in his mind, but he was sure an ugly one. He forced himself to stay as still as possible, considering each movement tugged on the wires and piercing bounds, sending painful stings through his whole body from the neural connection. "Please, I don't speak Kree."
He carefully moved his head to look behind him despite the cerebral scanner rubbing uncomfortably, his first concern wasn't for himself. "Where's-- Where's my team? Where are the other Guardians?" His mind raced even faster than his usual, restless thoughts. Where they also prisoners? Where they killed in the attack? He felt his eyes getting watery at the thought he could have lost all his friends, once more, but he refused to cry. He couldn’t. Not in front of those Krees, he wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.
A large face on a screen next to him answered after a brief moment of anxiogenic silence. "The Guardians of the Galaxy have been disbanded. Rocket, you are now property of the Kree Empire. I am The Supreme Intelligence, these are the members of my science conclave. We are looking forward to the answers your unique biology will supply us."
The cyborg started to breath faster, trying to not look at the numerous needles and blades, to ignore the pinging of his raising heartbeat, the clanking and rattling of the robot arms working on his open chest. "Please… Hey, c’mon... Don't do this... Don’t- Don't kill me." He despised so much to say that word, please, and as much in such a short time was probably more than he had said in years since he left his cursed birth planet. That word, it had proven to be pointless and mocked in so many attempts he had made to a different place, in a different time, while so nauseatingly similar. However, he couldn’t help it in his desperation.
The man-behind-the-screen replied to him in a cold voice. "We're not going to kill you. What can you tell us about your origin? Who did the initial bio-grafting to your form?"
Rocket ears flattened immediately at the interrogation. The terror that settled in almost lifted immediately, anger starting to boil in him, so sweeter and easier to feel than anything else. That was too much, how that wrinkly avocado face dared to even believe he would tell them anything. He would never allow them to make anyone else endure what he went through, at all cost. "I take it back, kill me! Because if you don't, I promise ya, I'm goin’ to kill all of you scumnards until there ain’t no more maxiflarkers to kill!"
The scientist side eyes each other unimpressed, searching to confirm if they could keep going now and stop listening to the annoying small alien that was wasting their time. A nod confirmed their silent question and one of them started to calibrate a laser, speaking to a colleague. "Let'al vina ban ali dre kinal imklalkal aln recalilate drose som lratth. (Let's go back to the spinal implants and recalibrate those from scratch.)" The other man cranked further open the Halfworlder’s ribcage before rotating his position on the hollow surgical table in a slightly upward position to give equal access to his exposed back. Rocket's scream was his only answer this time.
He wasn't sure if it lasted minutes or days when they dismantled him, dismembered him, probing and poking at him inside out as if he was the most fascinating to vivisect. The cyborg fainted on and off during the process, between begging to die and threatening to kill them, until he no longer had the will to speak nor scream at all, his lungs feeling on fire. Shutdown. His eyes were glazed, staring at nothingness, his mind blanking to refuse to acknowledge anymore what was happening to him. Learned helplessness, dissociation, a last resort to protect what was left of his sanity. Most would have lost sanity long ago, bless or curse to be so resilient.
It was as if he was back on Halfworld, but the work being done backward, where he had been torn apart to be rebuilt, the Kree were doing the opposite, removing to study, hooked to beeping machines to keep him alive before they put back the pieces where they belonged - he was a too precious subject to risk his life.
His ears twitched, the Kree talking over his scattered body parts were background noises by now, but a different voice got his attention and brought him out of the fog he put himself in, regardless that he missed most of their conversation from the time it took him to get back to himself. He weakly inquired, barely a croaky whisper. “Pete?” A small close-up of his head stuck between medical device appeared on the screen on what seemed to be a comm conversation between The Supreme Intelligence and his best friend. “…see for yourself, Rocket is alive.”
The voice on the monitor closed the call, amused by Quill’s foolish attempt to convince him to release the Halfworlder and addressed to his conclave. "The experiment is over. Your work is done. Put the specimen back together.” The lead scientist frowned and protested with forced politeness. “My apologies, Supreme Intelligence, but it was our understanding that this specimen was ours to keep.”
Those jerks were able to speak not in Kree. He bitterly thought as they only spoke Kree during the whole time, but couldn’t gather the energy to voice it loud.
“Things have suddenly changed. We have learned everything we need to learn here." The Supreme Intelligence was that, intelligent, while he didn’t feel any intimidated by Quill’s tentative to threaten him, the half-Spartoi had a point – some things he was doing as a leader of the empire could put in jeopardy his high status if it was to be known. He had to attempt to get forgiveness. “Reassemble him now.”
And his scientists did grudgingly, they reassembled him as if he was a broken puppet to repair for a spoiled child, fitting back the pieces together like a gruesome and twisted puzzle. Not any more care or thoughtfulness, they connected back his limbs where they belonged. Rocket wiggled vehemently and gasped, panting fast and heavy from the stress and pain it caused – not only physically, but as much psychologically. It was distressing to relive such thing once more. It was far from the first time, and the cynical part of him believed neither the last one. Everything faded off to black again after he felt a shock that made his whole body quiver, and he went limp.