Chapter Text
Like the vast majority of Rocket's misadventures, it all began with a prison break.
It was funny; Sometimes the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Despite the fact that he had helped save the universe half a dozen times, at the end of every cycle he and the rest of the Guardians still found themselves having to scrape together units for basic necessities like fuel, spare parts and ammunition. And despite the fact that he was no longer committing (a large number of) petty crimes, Rocket was still getting locked up at what felt an awful lot like his usual rate; Turns out being a hero to one half of the galaxy made you a villain to the other half! Who knew?
So when he heard about a job on Prison Asteroid K-37, that was oh-so-conveniently located in a part of the galaxy he technically wasn't a Guardian of, Rocket had been all too eager to 'borrow' the ship of an old bounty hunter 'friend' of his and set out on what promised to be a massive payday.
The gist of it was some schmuck had gotten caught doing crime, couldn't do the time and couldn't break themselves out without outside help. It was a line of work the raccoon was very familiar with and accounted for roughly half of his impressive number of prison breaks.
In his experience, the process generally boiled down to three easy steps.
Step One: Commit a crime in the relevant quadrant that guaranteed him free passage into the prison housing his client.
Step Two: Figure out a way to get out of the prison and ditch any efforts of pursuit.
Step Three: Break out and get payed.
Of course, Rocket had been at this line of work long enough to know that things never went that smoothly; either his client tried to double cross him, or there was a third party at play he hadn't been informed of, or whatever security system he had to contend with was a lot more impressive than he'd been lead to assume.
In this case, it was a mix of all three.
He'd been lead to believe K-37 was a run-down, out of the way backwater, instead of a state of the art, nigh impregnable penitentiary.
He'd been led to believe that his client was a low-value convict noone would even notice was missing, instead of a megalomaniac with intergalactic ambitions who's escape set alarm bells off throughout the entire quadrant.
And as for his client…
Rocket gave the long-eared, white-furred rodent in the passenger seat beside him a quick once over. Instead of a prison uniform, they wore a cape that matched the red of their eyes and a golden brooch shaped like the Terran letter 'H'. Currently, they were clutching the tufted tip of their long tail and blaming the raccoon for the half-a-dozen ships rapidly gaining on them.
"You small-minded, sorry excuse for a bushy-tailed bounty hunter! I thought you said you were professional!"
Well, at least they hadn't tried to double cross him yet, which was about the only good thing Rocket had to say about Dr. Jacques Von Hämsterviel.
"And you said they'd stop chasing us once we got out of the asteroid belt!" Rocket snarled, his ears flicking irritably as all around them the ship's alarms blared. "Hey Groot, remind me again what's stopping us from throwing gerbil-brains over here out the airlock?"
"I am Groot," Groot shrugged in that infuriatingly indifferent manner he had adopted since hitting adolescence.
"You would never dare do such a thing!" Hämsterviel shrieked in his signature outrageous and (to a raccoon that had never watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail) implacable accent. "And do not call me a gerbil again you freakish, bio-mechanically altered abomination!"
Rocket grit his teeth, mentally weighing the pros and cons of dumping his current cargo and calling it a day. Deciding he still wanted a payday, he instead settled for a question that had been on his mind since his first meeting with the pudgy little drama queen. "Aren't cricetian's meant to be tall?"
There was a brief moment of silence.
Rocket smirked, knowing he'd struck a nerve.
And then Hämsterviel could no longer hold back his temper and was hopping on the spot in futile fury.
"I will put you in a test tube, you oversized lab rat! And then I will have you dissected and your brain returned to it's natural state of being as a lower life form!"
The threats might have struck a nerve in turn, but coming from someone who stood a full head shorter than him, Rocket mostly found them amusing.
"Hey, I'm just asking," the raccoon shrugged, delighted by the rare opportunity to pick on someone his own size. "Most of the ones I've met are tall. And not so much on the fat side either."
"How dare you suggest me to be overweight! I will have you stuffed and placed in the museum of cybernetic advancement you procyon peasant! I am not fa-"
Narrowly ducking under an overhead missile, Rocket hit the brakes hard, which had the bonus effect of smashing his passenger's face into the control board and cutting off the rest of Hämsterviel's protests.
"You should get one of those wheel thingies they have for pets to exercise," Rocket suggested, as fat stars circled the groaning Hämsterviel's head. "Might make your next breakout easier."
"There will not be a next breakout! By this time next week I will have finally taken my place as the rightful ruler of the entire cosmos!"
Rocket and Groot shared a look.
"I am Groot?"
"Yup, sounds like brain damage."
"How dare you mock my intelligence! I graduated from Evil Genius University at the top of my class! My brain processes two dozen bits per second! It is impervious to damage!"
"Good to know!" With a roll of his eyes, the raccoon hit the brakes; reintroducing the hamster's face to the dashboard and managing to avoid flying into a pair of frigates that had circled around to catch them in a pincer movement.
"You did that on purpose!" Hämsterviel shrieked, now sporting a bloody nose.
"How many bits did it take you to figure that out?" Before the wannabe supervillain could reply, Rocket tossed a pawful of spare nanotech into the hamster's face, where it immediately remodeled itself into a crude but effective gag. "Do me a favour and shut up for a minute, will you?"
Unable to verbalise his indignation, Hämsterviel was forced to settle for muffled complaints and death threats.
"Thanks. I just need a minute to figure out how we're gonna get out of this. Because at this rate, your next breakout's happening tomorrow. And getting past security a second time is gonna cost you extra."
The volume of muffled complaints spontaneously quadrupled.
"Hey, not my fault they didn't teach prison breaks at Evil Genius University. You'd think that'd come in handy."
Turning his full attention to the crisis at hand, Rocket threw the ship into a sudden dive while he went through his options.
While still fairly confident in his ability to outpilot anyone, he was outnumbered, outgunned, and deep in territory he wasn't particularly familiar with. At this point, he wasn't sure the payday was worth the potential of Nova Corps involvement and the future lecture Gamora would inevitably subject him to.
He supposed if it really came down to it, he could probably just throw the hamster into a spacesuit and out the airlock. He doubted K-37's security would pursue him as diligently if they got their prisoner back. And while Rocket had probably come too far to quit now, it would almost be worth it just for the look on Hämsterviel's face…
He was about to seriously consider going through with it, when Groot wrenched him from his thoughts.
"I am Groot?"
"A Joyful Meal!? Groot! We're about to be blown to bits!"
"I am Groot?"
" 'So!?' So now is not the time for a fly-through!"
"I am Groot," muttered Groot, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You wanna say that a little louder?" Rocket challenged, eyes narrowing dangerously.
"I am Groot!" the young flora colossus shot back, with rebellious conviction.
"Gamora would let you-!? No she would not! She hates junk food more than the rest of us put together! Now if you'd said Quill, maybe you'd have an argument but even he knows MacKrogan's is a rip-off. Especially when we have-"
"I am Groot," the teenage tree grunted, in a crude imitation of Rocket's own voice.
"Food at home!" the raccoon growled in unison. "And for the record, you didn't sound a thing like me!"
"I am-"
"Groot! Groot! Groot!" Hämsterviel shrieked, finally managing to tear off his nanogag and subjecting the pair to more of his high-pitched whinging. "You have made that exceptionally clear!" Turning to Rocket, he jabbed a fat little finger in the tree's direction. "Tell this overly garrulous botanical fool that I find his limited vocabulary to be very annoying!"
"Yanno he still understands you, right?"
As Hämsterviel blinked stupidly in realization of this truth, Groot interjected with some choice words of his own.
Rocket gasped.
"What?" demanded Hämsterviel, desperately glancing from tree to raccoon. "What did he say?"
Rocket could only offer sympathetic a grimace as he shook his head.
"Say it! I demand a translation!"
"Nah-ah, I ain't repeating that."
Smart enough to know he was being insulted, even if the specifics eluded him, the hamster's simmering rage finally tipped past boiling point as he threw himself at the treenager with murderous intent. "I will have you turned into furniture, you disrespectful piece of adolescent soon-to-be firewood!"
As the two tumbled in the back of the cockpit in a very one-sided, flora-favoured slapfest, Rocket continued to serve as the interpreter of their verbal duel.
"I am Groot?"
"He wants to know what kind of furniture."
"A chair! Specifically the kind that goes next to a cozy fireplace, so that when I have turned your patchy-furred cybernetic companion into a pillow you can both continue to serve me as-"
"I am Groot," Groot swore, grabbing the hamster by the cape and proceeding to give him a slightly less extreme version of the Hulk and Loki Ragdoll.
"Hold on." Catching a glimpse of the closest opposing pilot (the one most adept at seeing through Rocket's evasive maneuvers), Rocket found the smallest inklings of an escape plan beginning to form. "Are we being chased by Raptoselli?"
"I am Groot," said Groot, holding the hamster upside down at the raccoon's eye level so that he could answer.
"Of course we are! The majority of K-37's security force is made up of those wallnut-brained, freakishly-toed dinosaurs that cannot decide whether they're supposed to have feathers or scales! How could this possibly come as a suprise to you!?"
"Hey, it's not my fault the guy who arrested me was a Protoplaxin!" Rocket shook his head. "You really couldn't have mentioned that a little earlier!?"
"I don't see how the species of our pursuer's is relevant when it's their ships we are trying to outrun?"
"Mammalian bodies can handle about fifty jumps at a time," explained Rocket, giving the ship's jump-drive a literal kick to get it to start running. "That number halves for reptiloids. You see where I'm going with this or do you need me to spell it out for you?"
Hämsterviel scowled. "I have heard of your galaxy's oh-so-convenient neural teleportation network, but ours never invested in that kind of infrastructure!"
"Not an official one, sure, but all we really need is something with a strong enough gravitational pull to anchor ourselves to. A moon or…" An unnamed and unexplored planet, though one clearly marked as habitable, popped up on the navigation screen and without thinking any further, Rocket selected it as their destination. "That'll do!"
"What happens now?" asked Hämsterviel, who had never gone through a jump point before and now found himself uncharacteristically timid.
The raccoon leaned back in his chair with his feet on the dash, and sighed a contented sigh as he heard the familiar bubbly warble of a wormhole cutting through the space-time continuum. "Now you thank me for a job well done. And you get my units ready."
What had once been a high speed chase through the cosmos; with impressive aerial maneuvers and daring feats of piloting that occasionally broke the laws of physics; quickly became a game of pinball; with Rocket's borrowed ship haphazardly plunging through the wormholes as they formed and his pursuers desperately trying to follow in his wake.
The most dogged and relentless of the Raptoselli tapped out before they'd even hit the twenties.
Cackling victoriously, Rocket offered a high-five, but Groot was too busy being angsty and brooding, and Hämsterviel had been reduced to a dazed heap on the floor of the cockpit at some point around jump four.
Coughing awkwardly, Rocket did his best to make it seem like he'd only been stretching and waited for them to reach the anchor world.
Emerging from the final wormhole, the trio found themselves facing a small (by intergalactic standards) blue planet that reminded the raccoon somewhat of Xandar, though this one only orbited a single star and didn't seem to possess more than one moon.
"Is it over?" Hämsterviel groaned, picking himself off the ground and leaning heavily against the dash for support.
"Yeah, this place doesn't seem to have a station of any kind so I'm just docking into orbit," Rocket replied, carefully parking the ship deep enough in the planet's gravitational pull to be held in place, but not deep enough to have to worry about landing.
"So now it truly begins!" And recovering completely from the rather chaotic nature of his escape, Hämsterviel burst into uncontrollable malevolent laughter. "HAHAHAHAHA! No longer will I be held against my will in the Galactic Council's pitiful excuse for a correctional facility! And soon, it is I who shall be doing the correcting! HAHAHAHAHA!"
"Yup. You're a free cricetian now." Until you're caught and arrested again sometime next week, because with subtlelty like yours? You ain't lasting any longer than that. But Rocket was too much of a professional to say that part out loud.
Sensing that his hired guns were rather shy of awestruck, Hämsterviel cleared his throat and straightened out his cape. "The coordinates of my secret lair are strictly confidential. So once our business here has been conducted, I shall be departing on my own."
"Works for me," Rocket shrugged. "No offense, but you're not exactly pleasant company." Hämsterviel bristled. "But, first thing's first." Grinning, Rocket rubbed two fingers together in the universal symbol for 'payment'.
"Of course. Two hundred thousand units is a fair price for someone of my status and a mere drop in the ocean of intergalactic wealth that shall soon be mine! Despite singularly unpleasant customer service," Hämsterviel frowned at Rocket and shot Groot a withering glare. "You did manage to successfully evade those raptoselli fossils that should have gone extinct no less than sixty-five million years ago along with the rest of their related species!"
Whipping out a red card with golden highlights that must have been custom-made to match the megalomaniac hamster's entire aesthetic, Hämsterviel swiped it along the ship's receiver.
The card was declined with an antagonistic buzz.
Chuckling nervously, the hamster flipped it over and tried sliding it the other way.
For a moment, the payment seemed to have gone through and both parties managed a small sigh of relief.
Then the buzzer sounded again and Rocket's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Alright, Groot. Tie this idiot up. We're going straight back to K-37."
"I am Groot?"
Rocket bristled. "No, we are not getting MacKrogan's on the way back either."
"I am Groot!" the treenager complained, crossing his arms over his chest and turning towards the wall.
"Groot, I'm not asking!"
"I am Groot!"
"Listen here you little- no you no what? Be like that! Sulk more! It suits you!"
"I do not understand. I checked my funds this morning!" Hämsterviel whined, frantically typing his account details into the ship's computer system. "I had been saving for months! And I still had-" he cut himself off with a gasp, finding to his horror that a student loan payment had come in exactly five minutes ago and emptied the units he'd managed to scrape together doing odd jobs for the other prisoners of K-37.
"Evil Genius University," Rocket growled, staring at the screen from over the hamster's shoulder. "Reeeeeeeeally living up to it's name."
"Wait! Wait! Let us not do anything drastic!" The critecian pleaded, backing away from the raccoon. "I may still be able to-" Reaching a paw into the same inner pocket of his cape he'd drawn the card from, Hämsterviel proceeded to whip out a collapsible laser-sword. "OUTSMART YOU! HAHAHAHAHA!"
And there's the double cross, Rocket scowled, completely and utterly unimpressed by the pulsing beam of bright red energy pointed at his throat.
"You may be a moderately exceptional pilot, but I am an evil genius of cosmic proportions and a champion laser sword duelist!" Hämsterviel gloated, confident he now had the upper hand in all matters of negotiation. "In fact, I represented my homeworld in the Intergalactic Championship of X-27!"
"I am Groot?
"He's guessing it was the featherweight division?"
A pin-drop silence followed, marred only by the hum of the laser.
Hämsterviel scowled, eye twitching in indignation as he struggled to find an appropriate response. Generally people fearing for their lives did not respond with wit and sarcasm, and the people held at his mercy usually feared for their lives, so the entire exchange left him at a bit of a loss for words.
Of course, eventually (as it always did) his temper won out and he stopped thinking entirely. "I was going to let you keep your pathetic and pitiful lives in exchange for this ship, but I think I'm just going to kill you now! You have insulted the great Dr. Jacques Von Hämsterviel for the last time racc-Ow!"
As Hämsterviel reeled from Rocket's lightning-fast jab to his nose, the raccoon proceeded to wrench the laser-sword's handle out of the critecian's grip. For good measure he followed it up with a kick to the hamster's doughy middle that sent the wannabe supervillain sprawling.
"Guess they didn't teach backstabbing at Evil Genius University either. From one asshole to another, here's a little tip for you. Next time you've got someone at gunpoint- metaphorical or otherwise-" Rocket gave the laser sword an experimental twirl and decided he would not be returning it. "Just frickin' shoot."
"I am Groot?"
Rocket's own temper was as wild and untamed as Hämsterviel's and having gotten absolutely nothing of value out of his high-stakes prison raid, he was not in the mood to hear any more about Groot's treenage 'dietary needs'. "If you ask me one more time, I swear to flark I'm blowing up the entire fast food industry!"
Recovering faster than anyone would expect, Hämsterviel threw himself to his feet before Groot could reply. "You will pay for every insult and injury you have hurled my way, a thousandfold!" Whipping out a second laser-sword he haphazardly swung it at the raccoon, accidentally bisecting the ship's ignition and jamming it at full-throttle.
Still wearing his seatbelt (the one act of adolescent rebellion he had been too well-raised to adopt), Groot was unaffected by the sudden turbulence. The same could not be said for Rocket, who was flung into the side of the cockpit, and Hämsterviel, who was flung into Rocket.
A moment later, the ship's artificial gravity kicked in allowing the pair to slide to the floor in a tangled heap. Not having had a pudgy critecian thrown at him, Hämsterviel was the first to recover, reigniting his blade and going straight for the raccoon's neck- only to find a growth of vines wrapping around the base of his tail and giving it a sharp twist.
By the time the howling Hämsterviel managed to cut himself loose, Rocket had recovered enough to parry the cricetian's overhead blow and retaliate with a mean left hook.
"I am Groot?"
"Against this chump? Nah, Groot that'd be overkill. I've got this."
"In your dreams, you misshapen trash panda!"
Despite the fact that blades of any kind were not Rocket's weapon of choice, he found it fairly easy to keep up with the hamster. Both by virtue of being much more physically impressive than his opponent (which was very rarely the case where Rocket was concerned) and having spent enough time around Drax and Gamora to know enough of the basics of melee combat.
"You have - huff - clearly been fitted with the - huff - latest in illegal dueling - huff - technology!" Hämsterviel panted, his own much more cushy lifestyle rendering him a rather poor match for a raccoon who'd essentially taught himself everything there was to know about being a hired gun. "I very much look forward to reverse-engineering it - huff - once I have you strapped to a - huff - what was I saying again? Ah yes, but no amount of cybernetic advancement is a match for my - huff - natural talent!"
Rocket weaved to the side of a particularly fancy thrust, sorely lamenting the fact he'd had to abandon his blaster back on K-37.
Annoyed that his signature riposte had been countered so easily, Hämsterviel tried for a spinning attack that had been a favourite of the judges back at the Championship of X-27. Unfortunately the practicality of turning your back on an opponent who had long since learned to fight dirty was nonexistent and earned the hamster a sharp kick to the hindquarters.
"I am Groot."
"Yeah, this is like Star Wars!" Rocket agreed, sidestepping the hamster's retaliatory swing and wishing he'd brought his 'Unlimited Power' Stun-Glove, as he doubted there would ever be a more appropriate time to use it.
"I am Groot."
"Quill really is missing out!"
"I am Groot!"
Sensing a trap, Rocket's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "If this is you trying to butter me up-"
"I am Groot!" denied Groot, but Rocket could see right through him.
"Yeah right!" the raccoon scoffed. "You think I don't know what flattery looks like? Why the flark do you even want MacKrogan's so bad?"
"I am Groot."
"Well why didn't you say they were having a two-for-one special!?"
"I am Groot?"
"Nah actually you're right, it wouldn't have made a difference."
Having managed to catch Hämsterviel in a sideways bladelock, Rocket grabbed the hamster by the back of the neck and proceeded to slam his face into the control board with extreme prejudice.
Unfortunately he hadn't been paying attention to the control board in question, a fact he soon came to regret when an alluring, feminine voice came in through the ship's speaker system.
'Self-destruct sequence initiated.'
"... Flark me…" Rocket groaned, as the alarm system screamed back to life.
"W-why do you have a self-destruct sequence!?" Hämsterviel shrieked, eyes bulging with panic as all around them the cockpit flashed red. "You should never have them installed! That is Evil Genius 101!"
"I-I don't know!" The raccoon shot back, shouting to be heard over the blaring sirens. "This isn't my ship!"
'Self-destructing in three…'
" And why is it set to three seconds!?"
'...two…'
"Not my ship!" Rocket reiterated, tossing a portable bubble shield at the scowling Groot (who was muttering something about how this wouldn't have happened if they'd gone to MacKrogan's like he'd wanted), strapping one to his belt and after a millisecond of hesitation, throwing a third at the panicking hamster, who's stark white fur had somehow lost even more of it's colour.
'...one!'
The starship spontaneously disintegrated into shimmering rays of bright light, leaving it's three occupants- each wrapped in a pulsing yellow shield that resembled a kind of hi-tech hamster ball- helplessly falling towards the strange new world below…
It was a crisp, cloudless night in what was to be known as the Summer Of The Falling Rock, and the sky was bright and full of stars. A halfmoon cast its light over Mossflower Woods, where not a creature stirred. The beasts of Redwall Abbey lay in their cots; sucking at thumbs, nursing full bellies and snoring like bears; completely oblivious to anything but the sweetness of their dreams.
Wishing they could join their peers in the blissful land of sleep below, were a pawful of mismatched young creatures who stood in line atop the abbey walls.
As was his nature, Abbot Bimbondo had decided on a whim to rouse the Abbey novices for a rare chance to study the constellations. The elderly hedgehog seemed more alert and attentive now in the small hours of the morning than he ever did past sunrise, and grinning from ear to ear he struck a comical contrast to the beasts beside him; who were biting back yawns, rubbing sleep out of their eyes or otherwise leaning against each other in a half-hearted attempt at catching some shut-eye.
"And you see that set that looks a little bit like a foxbrush?" he asked in an excitable chitter. "That is the Foxbrush! Though some call it the Squirrel-tail on account of it's bushyness." He passed a copper spyglass down the line of snoozing beasts, who took turns glancing through either the wrong end of it ("Huh, it's a lot smaller than I thought it'd be") or in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to be looking ("It honestly looks more like a horse to me." "What's a- yaaaaaaaaawn- horse, wot? Can we eat it? I'm hungry…")
While the rest had long since given up on being anything other than sleep-deprived and semi-lucid, Lyles was still doing his very best to seem just as enthralled and enthusiastic as the abbot. The young otter had lost his grandfather a few seasons ago and knew better than the rest that where the elderly were concerned, it was important to cherish the moments that were given, for there would not always be time for more.
"And do you think it looks more like a foxbrush or a squirrel-tail, father Abbot sir?" he asked, holding the telescope in place for the dormouse beside him who did not seem awake enough to do so himself.
"The former of course," Bimbondo scoffed, pointing up at the heavens. "It has no curl, no twist and you see those three stars over there? They line up perfectly with where the tailtip would be!"
"I thiiiiiiink I see what you mean…" said Lyles, scratching the top of his head and finding that the more he looked at it, the less it looked like either.
"Of course you do! Now stop hogging that spyglass! I want to show you all the next one before the morning comes, you know! It's not often we get a night as clear as this!"
With many a muttered grumble, the novices slowly went about returning the spyglass down the line.
"Now you see, this one is an old favourite of mine!" Bimbondo continued, but before he could say why the Little Badger was dear to him, a light brighter than the moon suddenly burst into the center of their view.
"A shooting star!" cried the mouse Gumbalo, who just as suddenly found his enthusiasm for stargazing. "Quick! Everybeast make a wish! And nobeast else wish for true love!"
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I know! I know! I wish for a thousand- no no! Two thousand wot!- Cherry and meadow cream pies, with j-just as many flagons of elderberry syrup! And for dessert-" began one Pimpolodoo Scofferton (a hare more commonly referred to as 'Scoffer', which just so happened to be his profession of choice) who proceeded to list ludicrous quantities of half a dozen of his favourite recipes.
"I wish I was in bed," muttered the dormouse Rufus.
Lyles was tempted to agree, but figured an opportunity as rare as this warranted something a little more meaningful. Before he could think of anything, however, the star cut through the horizon and the opportunity vanished with it.
"Nooooo!" Scofferton groaned. "I didn't get to ask for any vegetables. My auntie's going to be bloomin' flippin' cross."
"At least you got to make a wish! Though try not to eat everything in one sitting if it does come true." Bimbondo and a few other novices chuckled as the hare grew red and bashful. "Bet now you're all glad I dragged you up here!"
Rufus made a noise of disagreement, though the rest of the beasts present, now much more intrigued by what the heavens had to offer, chorused their gratitude with much enthusiasm.
Smiling knowingly, the Abbot gave his spyglass a twirl and put it to his eye with a great deal of unnecessary dramatic flair. "Now, where was I?"
"You were talking about the Little Badger," Lyles reminded him, leaning over the line of smaller beasts to ever-so-gently guide the abbot's spyglass in the right direction.
"Ah yes, thank you Lyles. You see, my family and I once lived in the Lands of Ice and Snow-"
"There it is again!" interrupted the squirrel Holyberry, who had been far too sleepy to make a wish the first time around and had been desperately searching the heavens for another opportunity.
"Two in one night!" Gumbalo clapped his paws together in excitement. "I hope my true love is kind-hearted as well as good-looking! Nobeast else wish for my wish!"
"It's the same star," Rufus pointed out, with his usual lack of enthusiasm.
"No it's…" Gumbalo cut himself off as the star vanished over one end of the horizon only to appear again on the other side after a momentary delay.
"Father Abbot sir? Is that… meant to do that?" asked Lyles, giving voice to the question on everybeast's mind as the star rushed across the horizon for a fourth time.
"I don't - I have… never seen that before," Bimbondo admitted, thoroughly puzzled by what he was witnessing. Adjusting his spectacles, the hedgehog could do nothing but share in the wonder and fascination of his novices as the star rushed from one end of the sky to the other, burning brighter and faster until, on it's eighth round, it burst in a blinding flash of white light.
Even Rufus, who was rarely impressed by anything, found his jaw hanging slack in amazement as they watched a set of golden orbs trail out of the explosion and gently drift towards the ground.
The first to overcome his initial astonishment was the Abbot, and in it's place he found a wild fervour more befitting a beast half his age. "We really should do this more often!" he cried, in a voice that threatened to wake anybeast in a three mile radius. "Same time tomorrow! And we'll bring the entire abbey!"
Bimbondo and his novices were not the only beasts who witnessed the strange, cosmic phenomena. In the deeper, darker parts of Mossflower Wood, where good and honest creatures were too scared to tread, Rezna Fatesbane saw it too.
At first she had laughed, for she was above such petty superstitions and childish wishful thinking.
The stoat had been warned long ago, by a seer of some renown, that should she walk the path of a warlord she would one day face a sudden, brutal demise. She had laughed in his face then, and was still laughing now, a full decade later.
Ten long years she had spent looting, plundering and slaughtering her way through the pages of history. She had slit the throats of cut-throats, assassinated assassins and massacred both kings and innocents. She had amassed a great warband of like-minded creatures, who enjoyed the thrill of a good murder, the smell of a burning village and the wails of shattered dreams almost as much as she did. And through her grizzly career she had come to know a simple truth:
The stars held no sway over her life, no more than fate did. And as long as she knew this to be true, no harm could come to her.
Yet as the star crossed the sky for a third time, she could not help but feel that it was meant for her…
Feeling rather silly and giggling like a misbehaving dibbun doing something they weren't supposed to, Rezna wished for the death of all her enemies.
The wishing star returned, asking for something else.
The stoat supposed it made sense. What few enemies she had left were hers to hunt down and hers alone. No beast or fate could keep them from her blade.
So instead she wished for a thousand loyal and devoted hordebeasts.
But once again, the star was not pleased.
Rezna supposed her warband were more than willing to die for her already, which was far more loyalty than most vermin showed.
Content with her lot, the stoat simply wished for a skin of red cherry wine, but as the star flew past, Rezna found no such beverage in her paw or mouth and snarled.
Yet just as suddenly as her temper turned, the star shattered into a thousand, brilliant pieces and cast a blinding light over the surrounding woodland.
Only then did Rezna realise what it truly meant.
She had heard many times that somewhere in the heart of Mossflower Country, there was an ancient fortress. She had come south seeking it, and now saw it for the first time, illuminated by the light of the shattered star.
Rezna smiled. There was no point in wishing for a lavish palace or any number of slaves- doing so would deprive her of the joy of tearing such things away from the beasts who cherished and cared for them.
The star had not come to deny her her pleasure. It had only shown her the way.
With a short, sharp whistle Rezna stood. Her warband, always lurking in the shadows behind her, followed.
Footnote: Grey, why are you starting a new story when you haven't finished any of your other stories yet, you ask?
Because, dear beloved reader, I kinda need to kick my writing drive into gear and sometimes the easiest way to do that is to start fresh. So here we are! New and exciting story that's been on my list for a while. Hopefully not gonna grow outrageously long as my stories have a tendency to do but I have a lot of fun stuff planned and a new routine in place to hopefully carry over into the rest of my writing that will hopefully allow me to deliver on some of my commitments.
Due to the timeline of my other Rocket fic, I likely wasn't going to get a chance to write the angsty and brooding treenage version of Groot there, so I was kinda glad to get that opportunity here. And that goes double for Hämsterviel who I've always liked but didn't really have a place to fold into until now.
Hope you enjoyed, tell me what you think and stay tuned for more! The next chapter's shaping up to be a fun one!