Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(Rocket Science! Front cover displayed above)

Warm.

Warmth is what rocket feels as he sees white all around him. No shapes or objects to be seen, no vague metal cages reminding him of his past, nothing but the feeling of being like in a tepid bath, the kind that can seek into your bones not to burn you—but to give you a pleasant and soothing sensation.

Looking down at himself, he sees the first color since waking up in this blank space, a shade ashy brown—the hue of his rough but comforting fur, details a bit blurry. No clothes on his person, no trusty belt equipped with his explosives, not even his ion powered firearm in sight, just your plain old naked Rocket.

This dreamlike experience, he has experienced something like this before—not from normal sleep, but from a comatose state. Back when he and the old Guardians was fighting the high evolutionary, when he was nearing his expiration date, his end.

The space is completely barren of anything, just white and the vague concept of a floor. Wandering this empty space, he wonders if he’s in a coma again.

He and the Guardians was just going to bed after a tiring day of securing an artifact that was going to be used by a tyrannical ex-general from Xandar, planning on using it as an energy source on a weapon for destroying an enemy planet, he’s kind of like Ronan but from the opposite side of the war.

Fighting the veteran was easy since his fellow radicalistic goons were inexperienced when it comes to any form of combat, and he was also not good with a gun due to old age terribly worsening his eyesight (he had glasses on but that didn’t seem to help much).

The greying leader was only able to hit Groot one time and that was just because the tree was distracted by a bird on one of his branches—the gun didn’t even do any damage due to it being a cheap knockoff.

They defeated him and secured the artifact before it was even used. They’ll probably sell it somewhere though, after testing its power levels—turns out it can’t even power one of his weakest guns! How was it supposed to even destroy a planet if it can’t power even his electrified pellet gun?

What a total rip off, at least it looks cool though—kind of like the tesseract but made from shiny gold instead of whatever the flark that cube was made of.

All in all, a pretty exhausting but somewhat simple mission, probably not good for training the guardians though considering how easy it was.

Having made up his mind in this desolate wasteland, he picks a random direction and marches forward hoping to find something, or someone to wake him up from this dreamscape. In the past, Lylla was the one to greet him—if she was still here that is. Hopefully he sees her again, Rocket misses her dearly.

Looking on ahead, he sees a figure slowly morph from the white emptiness. A weasel-like figure he thinks. Soft looking short fur, and a long fluffy tail—all being white, not a dull and cold white, but a warm white like a marshmallow above a bonfire. A dark but shiny metal rectangular plate on their back protruding out a little.

One of their hands seem to be a different color from their pale coat, a silver and bronze blob, resembling a prosthesis he thinks—Rocket can’t make out specific details due to everything still being a bit blurry.

As he approaches, he sees the figure turn around. However, just as fast as they appeared to him, they suddenly vanished. The mysterious figure now suddenly turning into the cybernetically augmented otter he’s familiar with, Lylla. Now that he thinks about it, the figure did kind of look like Lylla, except for the fur—she has mostly brown fur on her back, and prosthetics for arms.

As she sees him approach, her signature smile is plastered on her face—seemingly happy to see him. Now only three feet away from each other, he releases a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding, nerves probably.

“Hello, Rocket.” She said, still smiling.

“Hi Lylla. I—” He gazes in her eyes and sees his reflection in them. He feels tears building up on his own, making them look shiny and glossy; oh, how much he missed her.

His first friend, the one who he considers his first love—the one he thought he’ll never have the chance to witness again, is now in front of him once more.

“—I… I thought I’ll never see you again, especially since last tim—” He remembers the time he was in this state, where he watched his previous life flash before him in chronological order—sort of like a biographical movie.

One of her robotic arms suddenly went up from where it was resting on her side, placing them softly on his cheek. Rocket acting like a domesticated puppy, leaned to her touch—it feels cold, but he likes it as it reminds him of her, cold but still warm.

“Oh friend, I’ll never leave you… We, your dear friends, will always be by your side.” Ah, even in death he’s still only her dear friend. Not that he’s complaining, he’s happy that the spirit (or whatever she is now) form of his old crush still values him, just not the way that he was hoping for. He should get over it, she’s long dead after all.

“Why am I here? I only go here when I am about to die or somethin’, right? Am I dying Lylla?” A panicked stricken look suddenly overtook his previous expression. He doesn’t want his life to end, not now. “No, I can’t—I can’t die! The Guardians, I can’t leave them behind! Groot, Kraglin, Adam, Cosmo—They’re still learning on becoming a true Guardian on their own right… They need someone—someone to guide them. and Phyla—She’s still too young, who’ll take care of her when I’m—" His shaking body and rapidly moving mouth from his panic was stopped when a second mechanical arm was placed on his shoulder, acting as a grounding force on his chaotic and spiraling mind.

“Easy Rocket, Easy… No one is dying today, especially you dear friend.” She suddenly pulled away her comforting arms previously placed on his body, to reach for something behind her. Momentarily after, a glowing and floating yellow stone was presented to him from her hands, emanating ambient energy.

If his memory serves him right, this was one of the infinity stones, the reality—no, this one was the mind stone. The same stone that was on vision’s head. Why was this being shown to him by Lylla of all people?

Rocket remembers creating the nano-gauntlet with Tony and Bruce, which was used to reverse the decimation of the universe. He also remembers the time he fought for said gauntlet. Those two were the only times he recounts having ever interacted with the mind stone.

“Wha—Why do you have the mind stone?” He felt something compel him to touch the rock, as if someone is whispering to him. Giving into it—he reaches out to the stone, yellow aura blowing in his direction as if reaching out to him as well.

Just before she could reply, his hands made contact with the stone by the tip of his finger, the scenery flashed from blank white to a dark cavern of some sort.

Looking to Lylla—what he sees in front of him isn’t Lylla, but the figure from before. They are similar to her, but not the same, with the fact that their ears are placed higher on their head, fur being completely white, and being a little taller than her. The thing that struck Rocket the most (except for their silver-bronze hand and metal back) are their eyes, a captivating scarlet. He can’t take his eyes away, it’s as if their red eyes are hypnotizing him, looking in them could get Rocket lost for hours.

Saving himself from being submerged by those crimson eyes, he quickly pivots his eyes away to look down at the stone before him. A different hued stone greets him, a red stone, the same color as the persons eyes; How peculiar…

Finger sliding out of the stones grasp, it flashes to its original golden yellow, the background returning to the whiteness of before, and the figure back to his Lylla. Weird. Putting his finger on the stone again doesn’t activate whatever that was for a second time.

“What was that?” He asked. She knows the answer, guessing from her face that says she’s somehow omniscient of the thing before.

She replied to his inquiry with a hesitant tone, “I can’t tell you that, I don’t want to spoil your whole life for you Rocket… I want you to experience it all for yourself. but I could give you a small hint of what’s to come.”

She paused briefly, as if building up to something, “There will be a person arriving to your life soon. Foe, friend, or even something else that is to be determined by you. They are so like you, yet so different. They’ll need you, as much as you’ll need them.”

She then gestures to the stone floating between them. “I want you to protect this stone, as this will be important to the future of you, the Guardians, and that person; I can’t tell you why—you will just have to trust me old friend.”

Bridging the gap between them, she hugs Rocket. Both of her arms over his shoulders. Rocket a bit slow, mind still catching up with the info dump she just gave him, returned the gesture by wrapping his arms below her arms pits, arms crossing over the small of her back.

“It’s been nice chatting with you Rocket. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give you more. I can tell you though is that while you’ll face certain hardships, it will all pay off at the end so just be patient, especially with the arrival of this individual. I wish you a good luck on your adventure to come… I hope we’ll see each other someday, but for now, I shall bid you a farewell. Floor and Theefs says goodbye as well.”

He suddenly felt her let go. He sees her moving away from him, even though she doesn’t appear to be walking backwards, it’s as if she’s an image that is being zoomed out, the speed of which is accelerating rapidly.

Attempting to catch up to her, stationary legs starting to move to a sprint, he screams her name. “Lylla! What do you mean?! How do you know all this! Who is this person you’re talking about? And why is the stone Important!?”

It’s no use, she’s already gone, body already blending in with the whiteness. And just like that, she leaves him again huh.

He falls into a kneeling position, doubled over like he’s exhausted from a heavy weight—which he is. The things she said all sounded important. His mind just can’t stop thinking about what she said, he doesn’t understand what she wants of him, and who even is the person she’s talking about? He’s so confused, and so tired.

How can she even know this stuff? Last time he checked the female otter wasn’t a clairvoyant or a seer. Did her death give her extraordinary powers? Or do dead people can just see into the future? Maybe it’s all actually just a dream and whatever she said is just his mind tricking him, and all of this doesn’t even matter. He doesn’t know anymore.

Feeling a presence in front him, he takes a glance ahead and sees a pair of white pinkish colored paws.

Standing up from his previous lower position, he sees the same mysterious figure from before. Striking red eyes greatly contrasting the white of their fur and the blankness of their surroundings. Was this the person that Lylla was talking about, the important person he’s soon to meet?

He can’t recall anyone that fits the description of the person in front of him. A closer look at this person makes it pretty obvious that they are completely different from Lylla, it’s just that both of their bodies look similar in how they are shaped.

“Who are you?” He asked the white otter-looking mammal.

The mysterious figure slowly opened their mouth to respond, it makes Rocket feel warmer somehow, he doesn’t know why but it just does.

However, before they could even utter a peep of a word. Everything, transformed into his room, with the first thing he sees is his arm wrapped around his comfy pillows. Sensation like waking up from a dream.

He’s still naked though, Rocket likes to sleep that way since he can get itchy if he wears clothing to bed. The amount of fur he has on his body also makes him run hotter than most of the other Guardians which is why he mostly sleeps that way.

Rising from his comfy bed, he feels the instinctual urge to stretch his arms—of which he does.

Taking a look around his surroundings, yep—it’s his room alright. Dark orange sheets, cyan blanket and pillows, copper shaded bed frame, and a dark metal nightstand. His favorite colors.

Workstation fastened to the wall to his right—giant circular window above it allows Rocket to have a view of Knowhere while tinkering with his tech, a large silver mechanical sliding door positioned to his left providing access to the room. A wardrobe also in front of his bed holding his uniform and some of his other casual clothes.

Swinging his legs to the edge of the bed, facing the door. He looks to his bedside table and sees two picture frames, a smaller one contains the old Guardians, while a larger one has the new team. The gifted Zune from Quill was also beside the picture frames, he was listening to a song called ‘Warm’ before sleeping—probably the reason why his dream also felt like that.

Looking at the picture frames, Rocket can’t help but reminisce the past.

A picture of the old Guardians, Quill, Gamora, Drax, and Groot surrounding Rocket holding a plate of birthday cake—which was just a large loaf of bread with sugar covering the top, a cake regardless he thought. Rocket was also seen wearing a coned hat of some sort on his head, his face seeming to be on the verge of tears.

Rocket remembers this moment; this was the first time they celebrated his birthday. He was working on upgrading one of his guns when they suddenly entered his room back on the Milano and surprised him with the cake, all of them greeted him with a cheery ‘Happy Birthday!’.

The first version of Groot and he used to go shopping for guns and explosives as a treat on his birthday. The date of which was based on the day he escaped Homeworld, the day he considers himself to truly became Rocket. They somehow knew Rocket’s birthday by reading his old arrest files, what a bunch of creeps for doing that he thought, he still was very appreciative though.

Apart from Groot, no one has ever done something like this for him before, which was why he was so close to tears and so moved by it. When asked by Drax why he was so close to bursting into tears, Rocket yelled a ‘Shut up! Mind you own damn business!’ before covering his face with his little hands, wiping stray tears away, the others laughed at this. They understood him more than anyone else ever, and that made rocket at the time, feel odd; he now knows that the feeling was the love from being part of the group, ‘familial love’ describes it best he thinks. Such fond memories.

Moving on from his recollection, the raccoon looks to the larger picture next to it. It was a group photo of the new guardians, starting from the left going to the right it was Groot, Kraglin, Rocket, Phyla, Cosmo, and Adam with Blerp on his arms. All of them adorning their uniform with various smirks and smiles on their faces.

Phyla insisted on having a group photo of them as proof that there are ‘New Guardians in town’. He didn’t understand why they needed something like that at the time—probably for publicity’s sake? Seemed like a stupid reason to him, but he was grateful now; gives him something to look at whenever he wants to see their faces, he’s very fond of his team.

Looking next to the frames. He sees a digital clock with ‘5:19 AM’ written in standard galactic on it. They’re late, they were supposed to leave Knowhere at 4:30 AM! Looks like his alarm didn’t go off or maybe he’s a heavy sleeper, the latter being a rare case.

The weird dream probably had something to do with his current problem. Hopefully the time that they arrive over there is morning since their job would be more difficult at night—people can escape more easily due to light being scarcer.

Approaching his dresser, he opens the door to see his signature red and blue Guardian uniform hanged beside other dissimilar clothing on a metal pole inside the wooden cabinet. He puts it on and closes the closet door before he approaches the mirror beside the closet.

What he sees is the new leader of The Guardians of The Galaxy, pelt a bit disheveled due to just waking up moments ago.

To fix his messy appearance, he marches to his workbench, and he picks up a hairbrush lying there and returns to the mirror—to have vision of himself as he brushes his coat. He skims through his fur to remove some tangles and smoothen the stray ends, removing evidence of his slumber. Makes him look more presentable now.

Seeming satisfied with his appearance, he walks to his door and pushes a button on one of its hinges to open it. It slides open with a ‘whoosh’.

What greets him is another door, same design as his except for a floormat with a different name and design just below it.

Stepping out of his room, looking to his left he sees yet another enormous window, this time shaped into a square. Rocket is a big fan of natural lighting, the light from the skull and the city in it provides enough to illuminate the hallway.

It’s perfect for Rocket, but not for his teammates since they can’t see as clearly as he can in the dark, forcing him to install lights. The lights he installed however are not like those lights found on the bright districts of Knowhere, they are dimmer—similar to night lights but you can actually still see with it; that way, everybody is satisfied.

Head turning right, he sees the same styled doors lined up face to face and side to side along the long dark grey hallway. His and Groot’s are facing each other, and next to them are Adam and Phyla’s. Cosmo’s and Kraglin’s are still under construction which is why the two doors on the end of the corridor have black and yellow striped tape crossed over it.

Even though they’ve been a team for almost a year, they’ve only recently built this headquarter. Rocket wanted a new one, a change of scenery he supposed would be a good start for his team; with the old one now being repurposed as a school and living space for Drax’s kindergarten.

The money they’ve earned throughout the months since they first formed was mostly being used for their various equipment, leading to delays in the construction of the base. Building expenses are also high on the skull since materials are few in between; Labor fees are a bit hefty since workers here are often stingy about money, making you sometimes pay for double the common price; Land space availability is very low with the number of buildings standing on Knowhere, requiring them to save up thousands of units for buying their two acre plot.

Looking to the floor of the hallway, he can see the floormats that were made by Phyla as identifiers to which room is who's, all designed taking inspiration from their personalities, tastes, and physical appearance. She’s still learning standard galactic which is why some of the letters are a little wonky, it’s still readable though.

Gazing to his feet, he can see himself standing on his own mat made by her, he can’t help himself but smile at Phyla for creating a masterpiece such as this just for him.

Rocket’s is essentially his fur in a rectangle shape with his name written in black—as well as cartoony images of gears and bolts sewed in for effect, the fur thankfully not from his actual coat but instead bought from a store down in the shopping district (he made sure to carefully check and read the label so that he knows that the fur was synthetic and ethically made, which it thankfully was).

Groot’s was designed like a tree, flat rectangular in shape with dark lines representing the rough bark of trees, name written in green with leaf motifs.

Adam’s mat was colored gold, this time oblong in shape, a paler laser beam shoots horizontally and written on it is Adam’s name in different hues like a rainbow, a little miniature drawing of Blurp is on the beam signifying that room as also Blurp’s room.

The artist herself made her own mat very starlike, shaped like a rectangle still, it has the image of stars and galaxies on it, when he asked why she designed it like that she said it was because she’s a ‘child of the stars’, which was very accurate he thought.

The number of units it took to get the materials such as the yarn, anti-slip base,  and sewing kit, was a lot—but definitely well worth it.

Gaze returning to the door in front, he walks up to Groot’s door and knocks while yelling, “Hey Groot! Wake up bud! We’re going to go for that ex-ravager bounty we saw yesterday! we’ll eat breakfast first before we go though!” He hears some shuffling in the tree’s room, signaling that the Flora colossus is waking up.

He does the same thing for the others but also adding that they wear their uniform. Groot is the only one who doesn’t wear it since his body, depending on the situation, can act like a shield or morph into something else, ripping any clothing in the process—also he’s gigantic, that’s also another factor to why he doesn’t wear one.

Since Kraglin and Cosmo don’t have their rooms yet, they are currently not living in the Guardian base, so he’ll have to send a message or call them to meet up here.

Pulling up his communicator, he sends a message to Kraglin to rendezvous at their place, and to also inform Cosmo, since both the Xandarian and the space dog live at the same place somewhere downtown.

An ‘already walking there boss! Cosmo was busy chasing a squirrel which was why we are late, sorry about that captain!’ was what he received from the man, he quickly replied with an ‘Its fine Kraglin. I also happen to wake up later than usual’. He puts his communicator back in his pocket.

Arriving to their living room, he can see a metal square table at the center and various chairs surrounding it. The table was mainly used for their meetings but also serves a double purpose as their dining table, the food of which he should work on preparing.

The living room has the kitchen just beside it, making the process of delivering the food to their table faster. Pulling a chair from the table to use as a makeshift stool, he positions said seat in front of their kitchen counter. 

First preparing the ingredients, he grabs a pack of bacon strips and six eggs from their fridge, thankfully lower in stature to make up for his height.

A quick bacon n’ eggs should do the trick, it’s a Teran recipe that Quill taught him when he was on one of his visits to earth. He said that if you want a quick but plentiful breakfast, this is the one to cook. Putting them up on the counter before climbing the stool, he turns on the stove and puts a pan just above the fire, he also places six plates on the side of the stove.

Just before putting the eggs on the pan, Groot appears from the hallway and bids him an “I am Groot!” (Good morning dad!) as he approaches his side. Amidst the sizzling of eggs, Rocket said while cooking “Good mornin’ too Groot, have you finished your homework?”

Groot just like Phylla, has been learning how to read and write in standard galactic—unlike her though, his level is more advanced, essays and reports of their missions guised as homework are his training to have mastery in his penmanship.

“I am—Groot!” (Yes dad, finished them all yesterday! Gotta say though, that thesaurus you gave me comes very handy for finding synonyms for words… Now I know that instead of ‘however’ I could use ‘nevertheless’ for more variety!).

“That’s good, glad that the book came in handy bud.” He spoke with a smirk as he places the eggs on six plates. Opening the pack of bacon, he starts to cook them. He then hears a set of footsteps coming from the hallway.

Phylla while holding Blerp, enters the room with Adam in tow, all wearing their uniforms except for the little brown F’saki in her arms. The star child appears to be tired, guessing from the way her ‘good morning’ sounded a little slurred.

“When are we going to get a coffee machine Rocket?” She asked groggily as she leans over the counter to his left, Blerp in front of her, Adam to Rocket’s right,

“When you’re older starlight.” The raccoon flips the brown bacon, revealing its pink and uncooked underside.

“Ugh but that’s going to take forever! Why can Sipala drink coffee already and I don’t!” she spoke with exasperation in her tone.

“Because she probably has bad parents. I was considering on getting us one, but the clerk said it’s bad for children since they’re much more susceptible to the effects of caffeine, causing them sleeplessness he said… Won’t want to be half awake for our missions, would you?” He questioned her. “I guess not…” was her retort as she snuggles with the F’saki.

“Why are you so drowsy—did you play with that handheld again? I really should confiscate that thing if it’s making you this sleepy in the morning.” He looks to the white-haired girl, her face having the signature ‘flark how’d he know?’ plastered all over it.

“It wasn’t because of that—” she suddenly points an accusatory finger to the wooden giant beside her who was washing the dishes of yesterday’s dinner. “It actually was his fault I slept late last night! He was streaming Twenight at two AM again!”

A gasp from the accused was heard. “I am Groot!” (I wasn’t! I told my fans I was going to be away a while because of our busy schedule!) was his defense.

“I highly doubt that… I know even now you are itching to play and stream that new DLC they released a few days ago. Just admit it!” The girl said with a screech of a whiney child. The tree put off a deep growl of frustration at her, of which she matched with her own (albeit quieter and higher in pitch).

Already sensing the growing tension and the upcoming headache that this would cause their leader in fur, Adam quickly pivots the conversation to another topic. “Smelling good captain, what are we having for breakfast?”

Phylla perked up at that and decided to let go of the argument for now and looked at what he’s fixing up. “Bacon n’ Eggs, just a little something I learned from Tera… Hey Phylla, can you prepare Blerps food? There should still be some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Aye aye, captain” she says as she grabs Blerp and places him down on the floor, before opening the fridge and finding the cold pet food.

“Huncher meat again? Wouldn’t Blerp get tired of eating the same thing?” She says as she pulls out the packed meat from the refrigerator, that animal meat is a cheaper and less tasteful version of more expensive meats such as Reskas and Sheswein.

Looking to the F’saki, he seems to be trying to climb her to eat the cold meat—which he couldn’t do since Adam abruptly grabbed the little pet by the back.

“I was going to buy Sheswein meat—but Rocket said, ‘go buy the cheaper one, he wouldn’t notice it.’” The yellow man spoke with the F’saki in his arms—of which now has a sad look of betrayal on his small face. “Rocket how could you?” She says as she shakes her head, disappointment apparent in her tone.

“Oh come on don’t say it to his little face! We’re saving money, aren’t we? How are we supposed to pay for construction if we just spoil the furball rotten!” He defends himself. Looking at the F’saki, the raccoon throws him a piece of bacon, a cut from the captain’s portion—of which the little one was happy to consume, face now returning to its original gleeful smile.

“And plus, he could eat all the Sheswein he wants once we get this bounty; the reward is a ton of units… Could even be enough to pay for the two rooms.” He informs them as he continues to cook their meal.

Looking to the pink meat on her hands “Should I heat this up or?” She asked him, to which he answered, “No need bud, Blerp likes his food cold dontcha?” Glancing to the side, he can see the F’saki doing a little nod.

“Adam, can you get the utensils? Groot help me with setting these up on the table, will you?” He orders as he adds the bacon slices beside the eggs, ‘understood captain’ and ‘I am groot’ was heard as he picks up two plates before jumping down the stool and approaching their table.

Placing them on top of the table, he can see Groot doing the same for the other plates—thanks to his large hands, he was able to bring the last four. Adam sets Blerp on the ground before going to their cupboard for the four pairs of forks and spoons, grabbing them, he sets those up meticulously adjacent to the plates. Cosmo doesn’t use utensils since her arms aren’t made for it, and Groot can just eat it all in one gulp, so he doesn't need it either; Rocket is thankful that the yellow adolescent remembers the eating preferences of his fellow Guardians.

“When will Cosmo and Kraglin arrive?” Phylla asked as she sits down, already done with putting food on Blerp’s bowl, to which the little furball was happily munching on. “Don’t know bud. Kraglin said that they're near so they should be arriving soon—"

Right as he was about to sit down, the front door that is similar to the room doors but bigger, marking the entrance of their base—opens to a mohawk hair styled Ravager and a brown Russian dog, both in their uniform and both wearing their usual happy expression—smiles and tail wags.

“—Looks like they just arrived for breakfast. Heard you were catching a squirrel Cosmo; did you capture it?” The dog’s smile disappeared; a spiteful one overtakes it. She retorted with “Sadly not captain, I was so close on catching it before the one next to me became a distraction.” She told with venom in her tone, side eyeing the perpetrator of her discontent.

The man beside her gasped at that. “What was I supposed to do? Go against captain’s orders? He explicitly said to meet at 4:30! I was looking everywhere for you—and it turned out you were just chasing some rodent!”

“Will the both of you just calm down and come eat breakfast with us! Look it’s fine that you two were late since I woke up later than usual, but make sure to not be tardy next time alright?” He looks to the hound.

“I know it’s hard to fight instincts Cosmo—heck my habit of scavenging is something I can’t seem to get rid of no matter how hard I try… Just make sure it doesn’t get in the way of a mission next time, alright?” He remembers the time he stole batteries from the Sovereign, could’ve saved them a lot of trouble on Ego’s planet if he didn’t do that. But then again, they probably wouldn’t have been able to defeat that bastard of a heavenly body if they didn’t have it, instincts are a double edge sword then Rocket thinks.

“I’m sorry captain, wouldn’t happen again” The Russian dog apologized.

He gives her a nod of appreciation before looking to the Xandarian in the room. “Hey Kraglin, can you get us all a glass of water from the cupboard over there. Groot assist him please” The both of them already set off to their task. Rocket lowers a plate to the ground for Cosmo to eat, which she happily does.

With the group eating he quickly go overs the plan for capturing their bounty “Ok team listen up, this will be a relatively simple mission, but we still need to be on the lookout for anything unexpected… I’ve heard that this planet is mostly peaceful… but we never know what can happen yeah?” Everyone nodding to that, he continues, “The target is an ex-ravager named ‘Faa-un’. Kraglin have you heard of him?”

Kraglin, having placed the cups filled water on the table, sits down and ponders, “I don’t think so, name doesn’t ring a bell. Maybe he left before I became a ravager myself?”

“Hmm an old member maybe… anyways. The planet we’ll be going to is named Pedrua, on the other side of the galaxy, he is currently supposed to be there; info we got thanks to one of my sources” he touches a button on his communicator to turn it into a projector, which shows details regarding their bounty and the planet itself as a hologram above them.

“It says here that the planet sells precious gemstones such as diamonds and emeralds, but due to most of those being mined out as the time passes; they’ve been forced to gradually switch their exports to something else, the clothing industry.” He zooms in on a city in the planet by touching a button on the communicator, “our bounty has set up shop in this part of the planets central city” Rocket points to a building on the map, doing so gives him a pop up of the establishment’s address. “His shop is disguised as a shoe shop, but he actually sells illegal animal parts, such as skulls, meat, fur, that sort of stuff. The Nova corps set up a bounty for him recently worth 35,000 thousand units.” He focuses on a mugshot of the guy, a blue skinned Kree guy with no hair and a monocle on his face.

“Our plan is to ambush him at his shop when there are no customers to avoid any bystander getting hurt, unless of course they’re buying from his illegal business—then a little beating shouldn’t hurt right?” He says as he finishes his breakfast; after downing his water in one gulp he stands on his chair—overlooking everybody. He turns of the projector and places it back on his person “I know we are all still a little tired from our previous mission, this is the first time we took up another quest after another—but we need that money.” He motions to the dog and Xandarian, “especially as additional funds for the room of both of yous.”

Having just finished her meal, the Russian said, “Of course captain, no need to explain why we are going on this mission. The Guardians are strong and resilient; we can go on many missions before being tired.”

Sounds of agreement were heard from Groot, Adam, Phylla, and Kraglin. Rocket, grateful for his team—answered with, “Thanks guys, I know I could count on you all… If you lot are finished eating, we can go.” He looks to the only one who hasn’t finished eating yet, Phylla—who was rubbing Blerp’s tummy. Hearing him, she stopped her previous action and ate her food quickly.

A ‘slow down and drink some water’ was thrown to her from Rocket and a whine of disappointment from the F’saki for the disappearance of her touch on his tummy. “Done!” She says as she slams her untensils down before picking them up with her plate and putting them on the sink, everyone does the same.

Done with their breakfast and the clean up, they exit the building to the chill air of Knowhere. Body running on autopilot, Rocket strolls to their ship—parked on their yard just a few feet from their headquarters.

“How long is the journey to the planet going to be captain?” Kraglin asks.

“Probably a few minutes give or take. Thankfully this planet is near a jump point so it shouldn’t take too long” Rocket replied as he pushes a button on his suit to open the door to their spaceship. The sounds of whirring could be heard as the entrance opens, and a platform is lowered down to them.

After hiking up the ramp, they enter the ‘living room’ of the ship, which has various sized boxes as chairs and a central table like the one at their headquarters—the arrangement of the room reminds him of the Milano in way. This room just like the one on their base, is also used as a dining room.

Walking past it, he heads for the bridge of the spacecraft—just past the living room. “If y’all are still hungry, there are some food left on the fridge.” He yells back to them as he takes his seat on the captain’s chair.

Warm air greets him as he takes a deep breath. The ship is a newer model of the old Milano—which is why some of the controls, layout, and parts are still the same, only with little differences such as a larger living space, additional guns installed on the sides, and brand-new AI system to name a few. Rocket is happy that the new AI isn’t overbearing and annoying compared to previous models that he had tried before, it isn’t ancient either just like what the Milano had so that’s good.

His team enters the room and takes their respective seats. Kraglin (with a bag of chips on hand) and Groot (lap filled with bags of cheesepuffs) takes the right and left seats beside him, while Adam (holding Blerp) and Phylla (chewing on some gum) are seated just behind him; they haven’t installed a third seat yet on the second row which is why Cosmo is seated beside Phylla.

A ‘clink’ was heard as they all respectively buckle their seatbelts.

“Everyone ready?” He asks.

“Ready captain.”, “Aye Aya, captain.”, “I am groot!” (Ready!), “Let’s go captain!”, “On your word captain.” They all said their affirmatives.

Rocket nodding, he presses a button on the control panel to jump start the ship, he steers his ship upwards for take-off. Rattling sounds of various screws, tools, and their automatic vacuum, left on the ground were heard as the ship goes upwards. He sees the cityscape moving past him as he exits Knowhere from one of its eye holes.

Now outside of the crowded skull, they are now in the vastness of space. Specks and splashes of color from galaxies, stars, and nebulae, can be seen lighting up the darkness of the sky. Averting his eyes from the bright expanse of the universe—he looks to the touchpad just in front of him, he enters the planet Pedrua on the slippery panel and pushes another button to open up a jump on the universal neural teleportation network.

A portal opens a few yards in front of the ship, the group sees the planet through it—a bluish moss green ball littered with brown and grey craters, orbiting a yellow sun. Punching the acceleration, the stars of the cosmos then compress into lines akin to that of comets as they rapidly speed up; they then enter the rip in space to their new adventure.

Chapter Text

“Rocket Science” is what people call things that are difficult to tackle and understand, a term used when you need a higher degree of comprehension. Often needing specific knowledge that may come with being a scientist, doctor, and other similar labels for smart people.

That kind of situation is what “Rocket Raccoon”, ironically finds himself in. Most people would stagger at problems like these, but for Rocket—it is easy as fixing a new centralized ion-powered AC system!

The Guardians, with members new and old, were on their way to collect a bounty for an estranged Kree ravager named “Faa-un”, who has been selling parts of exotic animals to various buyers across the galaxy. The Nova Corps, being the goody two shoes they are, put up a bounty for the man when the news of an illegal seller finally reached their headquarters.

The Guardians got some intel from one of Rocket’s trusted sources that Faa-un would be setting up shop in a planet called “Pedrua”, just outside of one of the galaxy’s outer arms. A planet known for selling the newest fashion and shiny gemstones, an odd place for selling animal insides Rocket thought.

Why it took the corps so long to hear about this is still up to debate, since this guy allegedly has been in the trade for 10 years. You would think that would have been busted sooner rather than later by the corps, no unauthorized business this old and seemingly widespread should be able to survive this long without some help. Maybe his fellow estranged ravagers helped him to keep the business protected for a part of the profit? That could be it, he guesses.

Not Rocket’s problem though, the only thing he cares about is their units going up. Taking care of a fish child, a still growing talking tree, and his ship requires some serious money, not to mention their headquarters back in Knowhere still needs some work done to it. After living on a ship for months on end back in the day—he couldn’t let the new guardians experience the same thing.

This brings us to our current predicament; the ship can’t flarkin’ fly!

Apparently, after leaving the ship to capture their bounty, some thief stole the accelerator of the Bowie. Getting the part shouldn’t be a problem if the part wasn’t manufactured in only one specific planet that is 30,000 light years away! Flying is essentially impossible without it because acceleration (the thing that the part provides) is what you need to go fast. Can’t exactly exit the planet’s gravity without decent acceleration.

This leaves him with only two choices, buy a new accelerator, or find the thief and either fight for the part or threaten them for it; given that this planet doesn’t really sell ship parts it would seem like choice #2 is the one he should execute.

No one was left behind to guard the ship, reason being that the ship was parked in a secluded area underneath the shade of a large and old tree, very deep in the forest and relatively far away from the city. Couldn’t blame Rocket for thinking that the ship was safe since no one in their right mind would go this far just to steal some part.

Catching the bounty was the easy part (with him being completely unguarded in his shop), the hard part is leaving this tacky planet with their part missing.

He got pulled out suddenly from his thoughts as he felt something cold bump his leg. Looking below, he sees their robovac—a flattened pancake sized metal cylinder, ramming itself to his leg repeatedly. They only got it because nobody wanted to do cleaning duty, and he didn't feel like creating a robot just for said task. what a flarkin lazy bunch they are (him included).

He should’ve bought a newer and smarter version with cameras so that they could’ve seen the thieves, or maybe he could upgrade the thing himself if he had the time, energy, and resources, for it.

Speaking of which, he should just check their ship video surveillance system to find out who the perpetuators are.

Kicking the vacuum to push it to another direction for it to continue its occupational cleaning, he pulls up his communicator (which is like a phone at this point)—to check their surveillance cameras.

Entering the time they got out of the ship on it, it displayed a video of the engine room still with the accelerator intact. He presses the fast-forward button so that the video runs five times the normal speed, it suddenly cuts out at a point. This raised one of the raccoon’s eyebrows.

Pausing on the interval before the cut, he can see a red light flashing just beside the accelerator—kind of like starts that are glimmering in the night sky. The sparkling light then explodes as a beam directly aimed for the camera that results in it being turned offline. Changing channels and looking at the other cameras littered around the ship didn’t amount to anything since they also got cut out before he could even see the burglars.

Looking above where their surveillance should be, on the corner of the room in the ceiling, it appears to be completely broken; Lens shattered with mechanical wires dangling about. Flark that’s definitely going to cause him some money.

Sighing, he decides to fix that later and instead walk out to the living room where the guardians and the bounty (who Kraglin had tied to the wall) are currently residing. They’re waiting for their leader to further discuss what to do with the current situation.

Head turning to their handcuffed prisoner, Rocket interrogated him with his arm crossed, “Did you have anything to do with our accelerator disappearing?”

Sprouting a surprised look, the bounty replied, “I am not responsible in any shape or form for whatever that has happened to your ship! I was just minding my own perfectly legal business when you scoundrels decided to abduct me! I’ll have you know that this is intolerable, and I wish to speak to my lawyer!”

A quick glance at the corner of the room confirms that the camera there was also busted. To not raise suspicions, he quickly looks back to the rope bound Kree in his front. “Your business isn’t legal pal, and you know it, have ya seen the posters with your face plastered all over town? Your popularity here can even rival my own back when I was a criminal.”

He seems to be taken aback by that, a look in his face evidently screaming ‘guilty’ rather than ‘innocent’, “Well... I still desire to speak to my lawye—”

Kraglin then butted in, “No can do man. You as a previous ravager, should know that bounties don’t get lawyers, plus whatever they do to you once we hand you to the Nova Corps. Should still be pretty lawful, those people are nothin’ but laws” Said most likely from previous experience with the corps.

Rocket seemingly done with the conversation turned to his team and addressed them, “Alright listen up Guardians, I want you all to stay and guard the ship, while I—” he points a thumb to himself ”Go to the city and look for any possible leads to where our pesky thief may be, a ship part that big would require multiple people to carry it meaning they most likely wouldn’t be working alone”

Everyone nodded affirmative to the command of their leader, all except for one Star Child “I don’t want to stay here and just do nothing! I want to be helpful and join you to do detective work!” Phyla said with a pleading look.

A look of understanding washed over Rocket’s face. While he doesn’t intend for his team to be idle, he also does not want them to face any danger that can seriously harm them. Who knows what could be on this planet? All their previous missions, he had previous knowledge on the enemies that they would face and made the appropriate preparations for it, such as debriefing his team on the enemies’ power level and plans on how to take them down.

This one though—He must do it alone. There are too many unknown variables. He doesn’t know much about this planet, let alone this part of the galaxy, all he knows is that rich people go here for pretty stones and the newest fashion.

Holding a reassuring gaze he looked her straight in the eyes and took hold of her shoulder—he squeezed gently, “I know Phyla, but staying here isn’t doing nothing, it is to protect the ship for any enemy that may come and also to watch over our prisoner, so that he doesn’t just waltz on out of here and escape.” Rocket said with one of the softest tone he can muster, having already experienced some parenting with Groot.

Phyla, albeit skeptical, reluctantly agreed with his statement “Ugh—fine. Just remember to call for us when you need help! You don’t have to always play the lone wolf on these missions; you need to understand that you can depend on us too...”

Kraglin a bit touched by the domestic moment between the two of them, said, “Listen to the kid boss. We are The GUARDIAN’S of the Galaxy, not The GUARDIAN of the Galaxy!”

Eyes darting between the two of them, Rocket felt both touched and annoyed by their irritating but blatantly true observations of him, he replied with arms raised, admitting defeat, “ok—Fine-Fine! I’ll holler when I need something alright? Make sure to leave the channel on so all of you can hear me, got it?” A mixture of ‘alright captain’ and ‘Aye aye, captain!’ were heard in the room.

Before the group dispersed to do whatever they were doing, Rocket approached Adam and Kraglin and called for their attention, “Hey you two… I am counting on the both yous to hold the fort while I’m away—be sure to keep those dunderheads in check alright? And have someone always watch the prisoner, can’t let him escape—we need that money ya hear?”

Ever ready, the golden boy responded with, “Affirmative captain, you can count on us to guard the space vessel and our prisoner. As for the ‘dunderheads'—” The three of them took a glance to one of the corners of the room to observe Groot inspecting what seems to be an electric toothbrush.

After he presses a button on the brush, it suddenly vibrated. The unexpected sound and sensation surprised the tree which caused him to throw it across the room—narrowly missing Phyla in the head. she retaliated by throwing the closest throwable thing near her, that being Cosmo’s bone—at the tree while shouting ‘Watch where you’re throwing your stuff you butthead!’ resulting in screams of frustration and objects flying all over the room from both ends.

Cosmo and Blurp, oblivious to the chaos—was busy chasing each other in circles.” We’ll try our best...” Adam continued with a grimaced look on his face.

“Atta boy! I’ll leave yous to it, I have a little thief to catch” Rocket replied. No necessary preparations were needed for this expedition since they haven’t put away all their gear yet, having only arrived just moments prior to the discovery that their ship can’t fly. This means that all his guns, explosives, and tech, are still being on his person.

Turning his gun plastered back to them, he made his way to the back of the ship to press the switch for opening the entrance, the mechanical sounds of gears turning were heard as the door gradually unfolded itself—letting in the crisp cool air of the forest and the light of this solar system’s sun into the spacecraft. A ramp unsheathed itself from inside serving as a walkway between the ship and the planet’s dirt, the ship is slightly elevated to protect its floors from possible hazards on the ground. A hard ‘thump’ was heard as both the door and the ramp have completely unraveled themselves.

Just prior to reaching the ramp, Kraglin bid him a “Be careful out there, boss!” Rocket—grateful for the enthusiasm, turned his head back and replied with a quick “Sure will” before marching on to continue his primary objective—finding that troublesome thief.

The plan that he had constructed in his head are as follows:

1. Search for clues around town for the thief’s whereabouts.

His prior knowledge on how spacecraft part theft works and how to sell them should be helpful on finding the burglars. Raccoons are famous for being ‘trash pandas’ which means something like a scavenger according to Quill, it is in his nature to ‘burrow’ things from other people; He doesn’t really care if they get mad at him, just as long as they don’t aim a gun directly at his face.

Joining the guardians didn’t exactly change that—but it did lessen his tendencies somehow, probably because his morals and situation changed from ‘I steal because I need money’ to becoming ‘I have some money (thanks shared guardian finances), so I only steal from bad people now’.

2. Steal back the accelerator.

Which could be proven difficult given his size, meaning he needs assistance from his team. He does not want to do that, as doing so may endanger them; especially because of the high chance that this burglar is not singular but instead plural (The part is heavy, if they are a Kree or something they would need the help from 2 people at least).

If push ever comes to shove, he’ll just shoot the thieves if they resist and call for his team to help return the ship part to their spacecraft. He still needs to work this part of the plan.

All of this sounds easier said than done but he is THE Rocket Racoon, nothing is really ‘Rocket science’ when he just puts his mind into it.

Setting foot on the dirty ground, Rocket couldn’t help but inhale the plentiful cool and fresh air of his surroundings again. Don’t get him wrong—he absolutely adores his ship; he won’t replace it for any other ship in the whole wide universe! but it does get stuffy in there quickly, no matter how chill and strong the air conditioner is—the air always stays hot and humid inside.

This air though, it reminds him of cool summer nights he spent on Terra back when he was visiting Quill and his family, although it seems to be midday on this planet in particular—it still gives of the same chill. It leaves him feeling cold, but not as overbearing thanks in large to his mostly brown fur.

The forest also reminds him of the deep green forests on earth, the only difference is rather than the leaves and grass being a murky green, the color is more of a dark seafoam green here. Gives a chiller vibe to the already brisk atmosphere. The journey from their parked ship to the large town should only take about 30 minutes, judging from how long it took for them earlier when fetching their bounty Faa-un.

Walking towards the direction of the city, rocket ponders what he should do once he finds the perpetuator/s. Knocking them out should do if things do get violent. Other than his usual explosives, he also has a stun mode on his gun for situations that require a more pacifistic approach; if that doesn’t work, just shooting them with lasers and bullets would do. Rocket wants to practice ‘no casualties’ as much as possible, especially now that there are children on his team.

.

.

.

After what he thinks is half an hour of walking, the trees and grass gradually vanish as he gets closer to the city, greenery making way to grey concrete buildings. Shops and stands selling clothes and jewelry along the pavement and surrounding architecture. Blinding neon lights scattered both high and low all throughout the town—the light is so blinding that he had to shield his eyes for a few seconds when he entered the city so they could properly adjust. He should’ve brought his sunglasses with him.

The setting reminds Rocket of Knowhere in a way, but filled with more establishments selling stuff, mostly jewelry from what he can see. The amount of light pollution is crazy even though it’s the middle of the day, makes it hard to see anything when looking up—they should really consider lessening their use of LEDs and utilize more natural light coming from their sun.

After looking around his environment, he spots one of the few shops with no customers on it, making that store an easy target for his mission. Glancing upwards to a large neon sign just above said shop, he reads that the establishment is named ‘Rowna’s Jewelry’, written in bold standard galactic. Inscribed next to it, a logo of an eye with a gemstone inside.

As Rocket approaches, he sees that the shop does in fact, sell jewelry, judging from the various rings, bracelets, and necklaces displayed on its shelves bedazzled with in his opinion—dull colored gems. He also sees a salesperson observing him as he approaches.

The salesperson seems to be a purple octopus, their face (or their body?) is littered with dinner plate sized yellow-whitish eyes with deep blue pupils in them, their mouth is just under their largest eye at the center. They look to be wearing a yellow shirt, with the logo of the shop in one of its pockets—confirming that they do work here, or that they’re the owner.

The amount of gaze/s staring him down, it’s like having an audience of a whole crowd rather than one person—he won’t want to see this creature in the dead of the night that’s for sure. Rocket however is used to species like this one, so he doesn’t fret much.

The dullness of the stones, and the fact that the clerk is a little creepy, are the probable reasons why this shop is unpopular, especially compared to the others who seem to be getting an influx of customers

Walking up the stair dividing the shop and the sidewalk, he chooses to look at the largest eye. He knows from experience that the bigger the eye and the more centered it is, the more important it becomes.

“Ugh—why do rats always come to my shop? If you want to steal from me, it’ll be best that you don’t, I have a gun just under the shelves and I ain’t hesitatin’ on using it. Now scram!” Add that to the list of why this shop is unpopular—unpleasant customer service.

Equipped with the patience of a saint, he replied to the saleswoman (gender judged from the aliens higher pitched voice) calmly rather than entertaining his much more violent thought of pulling his gun out and shooting her in face, “I am not here to steal anything—not that there is anything here worth here to steal but that’s beside the point. I want to know if there are any news of ship parts being stolen around ‘ere?”

The clerk, seemingly offended with Rockets statement from the way her eyes are now glaring daggers at him “Well, I certainly won’t give you any info with that attitude of yours” Oh, oops…

“How about I give you some coin hm?” Reaching for his pocket, his paws pulled out 15 coins. Having to go in his tippy toes to put them on the counter.

“This is not enough for the information you are asking for” Rocket annoyingly rolled his eyes from the stinginess of this woman, and added 35 more coins to the previous amount, again needing to tiptoe just to reach.

"There, ya happy?" The raccoon asks the purple jeweler.

The octopus seemed satisfied with the amount as she scooped up the coins with one of her tentacles and stored them in a box behind the counter, from what he can see—the few amounts of money in it suggests that her business is not doing too well; Rocket wonders why she still hasn’t closed yet. “My buddy— his name’s Bizolok, he is an Achernonian and he’s my supplier for the gemstones I use in my shop. He recently told me that his ship’s accelerator got stolen making him unable to leave the planet. Forcing to compromise with less brilliant, and more dull gems commonly found here in Pedrua, the vibrant gems I used to put on my merchandise are extracted from a different planet” She looks down at the items on her shelves with solemn eyes “I should cancel my contract with him and look for a new supplier before my business shuts down for bankruptcy”

That’s strange, it seems as if the thieves are only stealing accelerators. It could be a coincidence, but it seems unlikely since accelerators are relatively easy to manufacture. Unless this guy’s accelerator is the same as Rockets?

“Do you happen to know what type of accelerator the guy lost?” he asked, to which she replied with, “I don’t know, I didn’t even know he had a ship in the first place, thought he got them delivered here but it seems like he gets the stones himself”

“Do you know where the guy might be?” He asked. Eyes returning to Rocket, she says “Head east from here, when you see a food stand selling fried fish next to Buho’s beauty salon, head south—walk for 10 minutes ‘till you see a shop with a caricature of an Achernonian with gems on his palms, his workshop is open today so he should still be there right now”

“Alrighty, thanks for the info miss—” he looks for any sort of identification on her shirt, which he finds none “umm, I’ll be going straight to his shop and ask for him about his ship part, maybe with his help we can find the thieves and take back what they stole—meaning you wouldn’t have to cancel your contract after all”

“I hope so, he’s a nice guy after all. It would be a shame to call him of. The names Rowna by the way” She looks behind him, as if she’s expecting a customer to enter her store “Now scram, I don’t want you to dirty my floors with your filthy shoes” For the record, he did recently clean them! It’s probably because of the planet’s more dirty than usual dirt that made his shoes look like he just came out of a construction site.

“Alright- im leavin’ now… Jeez”

Reentering the streets, he starts to head east—just as Rowna instructed. The road and pavement are a little crowded, but thankfully, most people are on the shops alongside the path—giving him some leeway to pass on through.

It doesn't take him long to find the landmark she mentioned. A fried fish stand next to a beauty salon. From there he walks to the road facing south.

As he treads down the path, he can feel the crowd diminish—until there were only a handful of people every few minutes. When he sees the shop, there were only 3 people left on the road. There are no stands other than his destination that he can see on the immediate area, seems like this place is mostly residential judging from how the buildings are designed. Multiple cloudy windows reflecting the sun, front entrances with shut iron doors, and lack of flashing neon signs to be seen.

The height of the buildings casts shadows on the path, making the ground appear darker than usual. Resulting in a different atmosphere to the bustling city he was just in moments prior.

Bizolok’s shop sticks out like a bright star among the vast blackness of space, with it being the only building with blinding lights emitting from the sign above the shop—significantly contrasting the gloomy background surrounding it. If Rocket was still an active robber, he would without a doubt rob this place.

Entering the shop, he puts his hands in front of face to protect him from the curtain made of beads serving as a door. As he enters, he notices that there is no light source inside, no windows in the room either, leaving it to be pitch black, excluding the light coming from the way he came which is casting his elongated shadow underneath him.

Thanks to his night vision however, he can see still see. Rowna said earlier that he should be open today so why does it seem that’s not the case? The sign on the doorframe above even said the shop is open so what gives? Stealing a glance to the side, he can see that the doorframe has two buttons, triangles pointing up and down respectively, that means the door is a roller door, and that it was left open. Maybe a burglary happened here?

Looking around, his suspicions were confirmed. Either a burglary or a fight of some sort occurred here.

Pulling his gun out he surveys the area, the nuzzle pointed everywhere he looks. It is best to be cautious since this shop doesn’t seem closed but rather abandoned, or maybe whoever robbed this place is still here—could even be the same people who stole his accelerator.

The room appeared to be trashed, various gems thrown all over the place, cracked pieces of glass on the floor, and a shelf laying on its side, suggesting a struggle took place. Walking to the shelf that appears to be the counter of the shop, he looks behind it, finding nothing noteworthy, checking the room behind the counter produced the same result, just a storage room of sorts. The room is filled with empty shelves and several opened and closed carton boxes all having trays of gems on it—all being dull in hue, whoever that wanted to steal from here didn’t take anything, maybe because they found that nothing here was worth anything.

The guy he’s looking for is long gone—he should get going and report this to Rowna, maybe she can have a search party for the guy while he looks for clues somewhere else.

Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly hears a sound from one of the closed boxes at the corner of the room. What’s weird is that this specific box has the word ‘open’ in black bold letters, a fact that he didn’t notice at his first scan of the room. His vision worsening with his age most likely

As he approaches with his gun aimed, he can hear whimpers coming from inside. Could it be the owner? Opening the carton, he sees an Achernonian man, wrist and feet tied together making him completely immobile. If it weren’t for Rocket being here, this guy would’ve probably been stuck here for ages. Looks like this guy is the owner. He disarms and straps his gun to his back.

Knife pulled out from his holster belt, he begins work on cutting the rope holding the man. A few swift cuts here and there, sets the man free from his uncomfortable captivity, the man then abruptly stands and does some stretching. After stepping out of the box, he seemed relieved to be liberated from his prison, he looks at his furry hero.

The man is taller than rocket (which is a low bar but still), his height seems to be close to Kraglins. He sports pinkish skin, gold eyes, and a bold head, all traits common to his species, a very human like species albeit more reptilian-esque. He is wearing a grey cloak, the front of which are closed over one another like a suit—tied on the waist by a holster belt holding tools specific to his occupation. Chocolate colored pants and black working boots are what can be seen below his torso.

“Oh thank the gods I was saved! You little man—I am very grateful for your kind service! And as such—you shall receive this plate of gems as a token of gratitude for saving me!”  Bizolok is now handing him a tray of gems from one of the boxes beside him. Rocket fighting the urge to grimace at the sight of dull gems once more, tried to hold back on negatively commenting on their quality again, that didn’t work well earlier with that octopus alien.

“Oh um, no thanks, I am just here to investigate. Heard that your accelerator got stolen? I was thinking that maybe, just maybe—our thieves are one and the same.” Rocket said as he pushed the tray away, Bizolok understood the gesture and returned it to the same container.

“Oh, right yeah, my gems are kind of unsellable right now. I can’t really get better ones without asking my competitors for their share of imports, which I would be caught dead before I even do.” He then had a surprised look as if he forgot something important, “Oh right! Where are my manners! My name’s Bizolok, I work as a seller for gemtones here in Pedrua. I’m assuming you saw the signs outside and investigated due to your wish to buy gems? Sorry about the mess hehe”

“No, I kind of told you the reason earlier. I came here because one of your buyers, Rowna, told me about that your accelerator is missing. By the way—” Rocket points to the entrance of the room, “—what exactly happened here? You got robbed or somethin’?”

Bizolok’s gaze following the finger to the door, “Oh, she mentioned me? anyway—No, I didn’t get robbed, but I was attacked instead by the exact people that stole the accelerator from me!”

Rocket irked an eyebrow to that, “How’d you know it was the same people?”

Gaze returning to Rocket, “Because they said that they have my accelerator! And they were also the guys that rented my ship before it disappeared! I offer ship rentals as a side hustle you see, and when they returned the ship to my garage—turned out they stole it's Micro-Quasinum accelerator!” Same accelerator type as his, plenty powerful for powering up spaceships and similar technologies.

Hold on—a ship rental? Those aren’t popular in Knowhere and other adjacent places since that’s just a hotspot for parts and ship thievery. This side of the galaxy does not seem to have that problem it looks like—until now.

He continues, interrupting the raccoon from his thoughts. “They told me that once someone named ‘Rocket’ agrees to work with them, they’ll return it to me. I don’t know who that guy is, but I’m not just going to let some losers be the boss of me, so I threatened them that if they don’t give my accelerator now, I’ll beat them to a pulp, I am an expert martial artist—learned Northern Pedrua fist style when I was younger. They declined my offer however, so I tried to attack them—”

Already guessing ahead of the story—this guy doesn’t look like he knows how to fight, Rocket interrupted “You got beaten to a pulp instead?”

“Well—I wouldn’t put it like that, but yes, I did unfortunately lose.” Bizolok said with disappointed tone.

Rocket doesn’t really remember making new enemies, all his old ones are dead, in prison, or turned ally somehow. Unless he missed someone? “Do you know what they looked like?”

Bizolok seemed to ponder it for a moment “I don’t know, I only heard their voices. They had hoods over their heads, masks covering their faces, and they wore long sleeves. One thing for certain though, is they all were different species with the way some of them are shaped. Two of them is the same size as you, one almost the size of me, and one in between.” Alright, so they are probably a group who hated him and decided to band together, why would they need him to work for them? That’s a bit odd.

“Why did they come back though? And why did they put you in a box?” The Raccoon gestures to the box beside the man.

“It’s because they forgot to give me something. And I got trapped there because I threatened to call the cops on them when I got beat, they knocked me out and put me there so that they have the time to escape… Oh, before I forget. They did ask me to give this—” a piece of parchment, detailing a printed map with scribbles on it, was presented to Rocket from the man. “—map, just before tying me up. Said that I should give this to that guy ‘Rocket’ and tell him that he should meet them there.” Bizolok points to an ‘X’ on map. The raccoon takes the map from the guy’s hand, earning him a confused hum from the man.

“News flash buddy, I’m that guy named Rocket.” Ignoring the shocked look on the guy’s face from his statement, he continues speaking while looking at the parchment. ”I’ll get to the bottom of whatever this is. Sounds like they are using you as a bait to draw me out. Judging from how far this destination is from the city—seems bait-like to me.”

The thieves’ plan would’ve been inefficient if he didn’t ask Rowna first for information; how could have he found Bizolok and his map? Maybe they didn’t steal only his and Bizolok’s accelerator, but also from other people’s? In that case he got lucky that the first one he inquired on had the information he needed.

“You better! Because I’m going to need my accelerator back for me to earn a living!” Bizolok exclaimed.

Rocket having already headed for the door said offhandedly “Yeah-yeah, you’ll have yours back in no time” Glancing back for a moment, he can see that the guy was already starting to arrange the boxes, putting them on the empty shelves littered around the dark room. Rocket turned the lights on the room so that the guy could see. Bizolok should really install some windows on this place. A quick thanks was heard coming from the Achernonian man in the room.

Stepping over broken glass, he finally managed to leave the shop and come face to face with the familiar cold air of Pedrua.

Using his GPS that was stored yet again on his handy dandy holster belt, he scanned the map given to him. The GPS made a ‘ding!’ noise showing the coordinates of the mark, it also shows the displacement from his current position to the destination, based on that and how quickly he walks, it should take approximately 15 minutes till he arrives. He quickly sets of on that direction to not waste any time, they still need to hand over their bounty to the corps after all.

Using the communicator on the back of his hand, he conveyed to the rest of the guardians. “Hey, this is your captain speaking. I’ve found where the thieves are, I’ll leave the mic on so if at any point I sound like I’m in distress or I called for assistance—rendezvous at the location that I sent. I want Phyla and Kraglin to guard our prisoner alright—everyone else follow my previous instruction.” He pushed the ‘send to others’ button on the GPS, sending them his location and destination.

A feminine voice with a thick accent was heard “Affirmative kapitan, GPS location received.” Cosmo acknowledged.

“Good girl, I’ll see you and the team there.” Screams were heard on Cosmo’s side, as well as the sounds of heavy thumps and rapid footsteps—and heavy panting? Are they running away from something?

“Is everything alright over there?” Rocket asked, worried that they were maybe fighting something.

Adam’s voice spoke “Yes captain we are fine—” suddenly a screaming voice interrupted and yelled ‘You’re not taking me alive!’. Then, the sound of laser beams was heard, along with the sound of explosions. “—well as fine as we can be. You see captain, we—”

“—Lost the bounty and now he’s running away!!” A childlike voice butted in hastily.

Already rubbing his temples, what he thought was a peaceful walk until he reaches the target location was suddenly flipped on its head. Rocket replied with annoyance “How the flark did our prisoner escape?! And who’s staying behind to guard the ship?!”

“We don’t know boss, he escaped while me and Adam were switching watch... When I was about to go sit down and relax, he suddenly ran to the room and screamed at me saying the guy was not on his cell!” Kraglin replied out of breath, looks like he’s part of the chase too.

“Oh, and Groot is back guarding the ship, we were going to leave Phyla behind as well, but her power to fly is just way too handy for chasing the guy, more people on the sky the better.” They brought Phyla too?! Rocket is going to have a word with Kraglin and Adam later. Now Rocket is more worried.

“Phyla! Remember to just knock the guy out alright? And if it seems like he can overpower and hurt you, just stand back, ok? It’s not worth it.” Rocket warned her.

“I’ll be fine Rocket, I’ll be fine!” gusts of wind are heard through her side of the microphone. Suddenly though, the sounds stopped “Guys! I found him!” she proclaimed excitedly.

A stronger howl of the wind was suddenly heard, and the sound of screaming getting louder and louder—as if its approaching. Then a ‘Wham’ was heard. The windy sounds stopping along with it, falling into silence.

“Alright guys, I knocked him down!” Phyla announced to the communicator. Applauses, cheers, dog barks, and various congratulatory words were heard from the device as the team praises Phyla for her good work.

Rocket feels proud of her. “Good job Phyla! you did great work out there.”

“Thanks da—uhh I mean Rocket! Yeah thanks Rocket. You can always count on me!” da—what? Was she meaning to say dad? Oh! that’s new, the word coming from her—it makes him feel weird inside, a familiar feeling he had with Groot before when he said those magic words. He’ll have to unpack that later.

Refocusing and moving on from whatever that was, he announced to them, “Alright team I’ll put my speaker on silent mode to not blow my cover. Whoever these thieves are, can’t let them know I have backup. Bring the prisoner back and do my previous instruction, make sure he doesn’t escape again”

Affirmatives were heard from his team as he puts the communicator on deaf mode. He’s grateful that they recovered their bounty, if they didn’t—he’s going to be really disappointed if they went all the way out here on the other side of the galaxy just to receive no coin, not to mention this weird situation with the accelerator. Rocket still doesn’t have any idea what they needed from him.

Focusing on that path ahead, he sees one that seemed to enter deep into the gloomy forest, that follows the direction his GPS is pointing. He walks that road, gray buildings morphing into dark oak and murky blue-greenery.

Hopefully whoever these thieves are, they don’t put much of a fight—he doesn’t want blood on his hands, or the guardians being hurt badly.

Chapter Text

Somber is the word that Rocket would use to describe this part of the forest. Little rays of light passing through the trees’ thick foliage producing spots on Pedrua’s ground, were the only source of light this passage offers. Juxtaposed to the other section of the woodland, where their spacecraft is currently parked—Light there are in surplus.

While that place was not completely basked in sunlight, few places there produced enough shade to hide their spaceship, which made finding the right spot to hide it surprisingly time consuming, if he had known that there was a part of the forest that formed this much shade—he would’ve parked it here instead.

Then again, the thieves wanted to meet him in this region of the forest, so maybe parking here wouldn’t be a good idea—he could be walking to their base here for all he knows! Putting a ship that close would be the biggest payday these burglars would ever have, since they still have artifacts that haven’t been sold and are worth a ton of units on board. If they found his relatively hidden ship on the other side of town, finding it on their own turf would be an easy piece of cake. He takes back what he said about their parking, that spot is good probably.

As he feels the winds start to pickup, a single sea green leaf falls from the trees above, others like it soon follow and drizzle down to the murky floor—Rocket tries his best to remove the ones that got on his fur. The steadily growing gale and the rustling sounds of the leaves does not help to quell his overall uneasiness of this place.

Getting antsy, he checks his GPS; it says that he has 5 minutes left on his ETA, that is when he suddenly felt a pair of eyes watching him from above. He turns off the device and exerts his hearing to listen for possible enemies near his vicinity, of which he hears no one. What a silent fella.

Growing up with thievery himself, it was a necessary skill to have a third sense for things like this, you could never know if the people you are stealing from have actually gone shopping downtown, or in the shadows waiting to strike you with their golf clubs and walking sticks.

Ears currently failing him, he instead takes a short peek above as to not alarm his stalker. He sees an empty branch where he thought the stare could’ve come from. A second closer look confirms that the twig does not indeed have anyone on it… That’s weird, his senses are 100% accurate most of the time, does this have to do with his age again? Come on! he’s only like 30 or something years old, he’s not that old he thinks. What was the life expectancy of raccoons again? 5-20 years old? He’s not your average raccoon though, so maybe that range doesn’t apply to him.

Looking at all the possible nook and crevice of the tree and the others adjacent to it that he can see, he doesn’t find anyone hiding. Great, either this person is somehow invisible or he’s growing senile. Or maybe it was just a random bird—he hears chirping sounds from above so it was maybe just that.

Being attentive to his surroundings, he continues to march to his destination. Whoever this stalker is, they probably are part of the group of thieves he’s been chasing, they probably wouldn’t hurt him if they wanted something from him, not yet at least.

A bright and spacious clearing, void of any trees above to minimize the sun’s light, is what he can observe ahead of him. The sunlight painting the ground beneath it a warm green. This is the place they wanted to meet him huh? Reading his GPS device confirms that that is the case, with the mark being on the center of the expanse. Pulling out his gun from his back for the second time today, he walks out to the radiant clearing.

Even if he’s outnumbered, he can shoot at least two of the guys to leave them injured before escaping, then return with his team to follow their enemies to their base—so that they can heal up or something, they wouldn’t just leave their comrades injured right? Again, he hates subjecting himself and his team with unknown variables.

Positioning himself to the center of the clearing is a bad idea, as it makes all his escape options equally as far away. That would mean he’ll just have to either run or fly from the way he came from or to some random direction.

Waiting a few seconds on the side proves futile. Seems like they really want him to be in the center after all.

Rocket marches forward, until he is at the very center of expanse. That is when he suddenly hears rustling from the trees coming from all directions on the edges of the clearing, one specifically on the way he came from.

Leaves falling, came along various humanoid shaped shadows, they ran on all fours to the clearing exposing their dark brown hoods, with masks adorned on their faces.

All of them dispersed to surround him, cutting him off from his escape routes. He’ll have to somehow dig underground or fly with his jetpack to escape, which would be easy if it were not for one of the cloaked figures having a gun aimed directly at his face. Dodging is a skill Rocket was good at; he wouldn’t want to risk it though since this guy is so close to him that a bad shot could still maybe hurt him.

The group trapping him are the thieves he’s been after, Bizolok’s description matches their appearance. Two his size—both being shorter than him with one of them almost matching his height, one who is large—probably Adam’s size if he slouches, and one in between—taller than Rocket by an inch or two.

They seem to be bipedal when standing like this, compared to when they were running earlier on all fours earlier, maybe they do it because its faster? Rocket does that too sometimes.

Their Builds also resembled him in a way. The shortest one resembles him the most—almost like a smaller version of him; their main difference is that the cloaked figure has larger ears and a smaller tail, the former being a brownish beige white, the latter being a darker version of the same color.

The other slightly short one is built kind of like an elongated sock, with their neck matching the width of their body and short little ears on top of their head covered by a hood. Rocket can also see a semblance of a furry tail protruding out their cloak, covered by pale white it looks like. Their shape reminds him of Lylla in a way, except for maybe the arms—one of which has a gun on their hand. Other than the Lylla comparison, the person does look a little familiar…

The largest of the group is the most different from him, his description earlier still fits—Adam but slouched over. Their head is shaped weirdly though, due to their snout being very long. Torso, including the arms, are the largest parts of them, they also have the biggest and the only scaley tail out of the group.

The cloak doesn’t fit them well, making it so that most parts of their frame still visible, like the lower half of their body—he can see that they are wearing a brown colored leather overshirt and a black holster belt holding up their pants. A long tail with big and sharp keratin like scales hangs a few inches over the ground.

Last of the group, is the closest in him in size—same height as him probably. Their body is wider in length compared to him; their head shape is also a little fatter. They also have a weird tail, scaley (in texture only, it does not seem to have actual scales) and oval shaped, kind of like a giant flower seed.

All of them are wearing plain white masks, with poked holes for them to see through. Their brown cloak hides most of their body except for their feet and the end part of their arms, the former revealing shoes and the latter exposing brown sleeves—the hands are not hidden though.

He sees that the person holding the gun—the one shorter than him by a little, has white fur on their paws. The largest with the strange head has long pearl colored claws. He can’t see the other two’s hands since their cloak covers everything from their torso to their feet.

“We’ve been expecting you.” Said the guy with the oval tail. A rough voice the guy has. Hand in an open gesture pointed in Rocket’s direction.

“What do you want?” Rocket retorted.

“Not much, just a little chat, come—let us talk somewhere else. Somewhere safer from prying eyes.” The guy says looking to the side, maybe looking for ‘prying eyes’ or whatever the flark.

“What prying eyes? The authorities? We are too far to be seen from the city.” Rocket takes a glance past the guy, to the direction he came from. Yep, he can only just make out the highest building over there, not that you can see much of anything from atop those buildings with the number of lights the city below has anyways.

“What? No! from other eyes I mean—!” He screamed, seeming frustrated for whatever reason.

The person holding the gun interrupted him and said in a much calmer tone. “Look, we aren’t going to explain why we need to talk to you in private. You just have to understand that this is highly classified information that no one, not even the other Guardians—should know about.” A softer and higher voice this one has, a bit nasally, but not the annoying kind Rocket thinks.

“You know about the us—The Guardians?” The raccoon turned to him and asked.

The man replied with “Of course! How could anyone not? Your group has gone to many adventures, saved planets, and defeated armies! How could anyone not know abou—” A loud “Ehem” was heard from the angry guy earlier.

Seems like this guy is a big fan of them, maybe that’ll help Rocket in this situation—something he can use against them.

The guy, looking surprised that he babbled based on his body language—continued with his explanation from earlier. “Oh! Right, sorry—getting back on track. We’ll escort you back to our base and discuss what we need you for”

“Which is?” Rocket asked.

“That part is strictly confidential, you just have to know that we can’t do what is needed without your assistance” Hmm, a thing that only he can do? What could that be?

“And what do I get in return if I cooperate?” Money? Please say money.

“Units. We’ve accumulated 50,000 units as payment for your service” Bingo! Now that’s the magic word he’s been waiting for, and worth a ton too. He still needs to be cautious though, the money sounds too good to be true; these people could still be lying from him, he needs a fail-safe.

“What will happen if I refuse to go with you?” Rocket asked. Then suddenly a ‘clink’ was heard to his left. Turning that direction with his blaster aimed, he now sees the shortest with a blade attached to their arm, their whole-body low to the ground readied in a pose that looks prepared to strike at any moment.

Rocket can see that their forearm, has blades attached to them—the edge of the blade is glowing a neon yellow indicating that it is energy powered, that type of blade could cut to pretty much anything, good for hordes of thick-skinned enemies but needs hours of charging only for just a few hours of use. The action also revealed their pawlike hands, brown bordering on white fur acts as its coat.

A buzzing sound was then heard on his right. Eyes pivoting but weapon and body still facing the cloaked person with the energy blade. His eyes see the muzzle of the gun aimed at him by the shorter guy earlier, now closer to his face more than ever. Previously black glass-like parts of the gun are now glowing red, various portions and mechanisms of the weapon have now moved in a way that makes the gun look ready to fire.

Rocket thought the guy's firearm was just a normal gun that shoots bullets, but now he guesses that this is another energy powered weapon. A clink was heard momentarily after, seemingly signifying that the gun is completely charged up. That’s odd, where’s the power source?

Looking at the guy’s hand, he can see that it is a prosthesis. The energy seems to be coming from there since a glass bulb on the back of his hand is also glowing the same neon color from the gun. He can also see white fur on the dude’s arms, which he couldn’t see before because he wasn’t this close to Rocket.

This dude, from the start looked familiar—what was it? Brows deep in concentration trying to remember. Oh he knows! The mysterious figure from his dream earlier. The same prosthetic, fur, and everything! Now he just needs to see this guy’s eyes, that’ll definitely confirm it.

“Hey jackass, I have a weird but strangely relevant question; can you enter people’s dreams?” He says to the guy. He received a confused ‘huh?’ from said person.

“I… what? No, I can’t do whatever you said. But regarding your inquiry earlier, we’ll have to incapacitate you. I don’t think we need you conscious for this.” The guy seemed totally puzzled by what Rocket has said.

“Ok I’ll come with you” he says as he lowers his gun, the shortest one lowers their glowing yellow blades.

“But in exchange, I want to add another thing as payment” Gaze not leaving the marshmallow hued coated figure in front of him, body turning as well to face him. The guy looked unnerved by the raccoon’s undivided attention guessing from the man's body language.

“I want to know about your prosthetic hand and that metal plate on your back, are you by chance created by that egotistical bastard?” He asked. The group surrounding him seeming taken back by what he said, now has their weapons aimed at him.

The angry guy earlier now has a sling shot with a low energy string of some sort, a metal ball pulled back with the tip his fingers—digits of which are brown in color; the largest has a giant hammer hiding behind their cloak that is now in front of them, extended to its fullest—Rocket is certain that if he gets smashed by that thing, he’s dead; the smallest pulled the same stance with the same weapon as earlier, they should really conserve their blades’ battery.

“Whoa—HEY! What’s the big idea!?” Rocket exclaimed alarmingly with his gun at the ready, aim moving rapidly between the four hostiles.

A deep feminine voice was heard from the smallest with the arm blades “How did you know about his back? You spied on us or something?”

“Wha—NO! This guy was in my dream for some reason! He was showing me a red stone or something I think, I don’t know it was all a little fuzzy.” He retorted as he pointed a finger to the white furred guy.

“A red stone? No, the hue is supposed to be different, it should be yello—” The white furred guy was interrupted again by the angry brunet. “Did you show him the STONE!?”

“No, I have not! I just said I couldn’t enter other people’s dreams didn’t I! Let alone show him something so detrimental to our mission!” Was this a yelling contest or something? Can’t they just talk calmly?

“Fellas. What if we chill out and—” Rocket gets interrupted by the brownie; he just loves cutting people off it seems like. “Let’s just shoot him, he knows too much—things he couldn’t and shouldn’t even know about.” He says as he pulls his slingshot even further back, aiming directly for his raccoon head.

“What?! Let’s hear him out and talk about this calmly—” The white furred man was interrupted again, not by the world’s most impatient man, but by the sound of a giant rock being hurled at them.

The snow-colored man removes his aim on Rocket and maneuvers it instead to the rock, the size of which can easily crush six Rockets in one. Pulling the trigger, a red beam of light shoots from the energy powered firearm, hitting the stone directly on its center—causing it to explode into many different pieces like a pinata. The blast reminds him of his old ion cannon… D’ast he misses that thing.

Thanks to the distraction, he takes the opportunity and flies above them with his jetpack before a single metal ball from the slingshot could even hit him. He pulls up his communicator and turns up its volume, while evading laser blasts and fast-moving iron marbles. “Don’t kill these targets, we need them alive for interrogation.” He said to the device.

“You got it captain!” Was the feedback he received as Adam suddenly flies past Rocket.

Fists aimed at the big person with the hammer, the teenager lands before them and punches their long snouted face upwards like an uppercut with medium force, strong enough to knock someone out but not enough to kill.

What he thought would send the masked figure on their back instead just caused them to momentarily stagger, causing Adam to be hit by their hammer on the side and sending him flying. The hammer turns out to have active rocket-boosters on its side propelling it and making the hit extra hard, Rocket winces a little at the impact.

Ever to the rescue, Cosmo with Groot behind her—arrives to slow down Adam’s trajectory with her powers, while running towards the direction of the four thieves. Three rocks, she picked up on the way are each thrown towards them one after another. With them distracted by the rocks, he aims his gun (in stun mode) to the one with the hand prosthetic and fires; the guy after shooting the three boulders saw that he was being targeted by him  and promptly disappears into thin air before his bullet could even collide—causing it to electrocute no one but the grass.

Was that invisibility or teleportation? If it was the former, then that would explain why he felt like he was being watched earlier.

Rocket being surprised by this, was almost hit by a silver bead, now aware of that he goes on to dodge the guy’s bullets with proficiency. Blasts from his own firearm is what the easily irritated brown man received, of which he has trouble dodging. 

Groot now entering the scene, a little late due to helping Adam up, runs for the hammer person that was being subdued by Cosmo’s telekinesis. But before he could get close to help, the tree was interrupted by pain on his body. A shallow but painful cut on his cheek and arms was what the tree felt before he realized he was being attacked. Hearing the sound of small feet landing behind, he turns around to see the thief with the arm blades. Groot raised his fist and winded up a punch for the enemy—however she quickly dodges it like lightning and with a scream tries to cut his arm, which failed miserably due to her energy blade suddenly turning off (probably because it ran out of battery) and is now stuck on Groot’s thankfully very strong bark. Noticing this, he flashes her a quick smile before slamming her to the ground hard enough to knock her out. Standing above her, he tries to take of the mask on her face—but before he could do that.

Smoldering hot pain was what Groot felt as he was being shot from behind. The alabaster man now shooting a red laser to the Flora colossus, after a few seconds of the continues beam it explodes on his back causing him to be blown a few feet away from his recently beaten unconscious enemy. The burn from the ray and the blast now made him unable to pick himself of the ground due to pain, so he lies there while looking at his shooter.

The gunman hurriedly rushes to his knocked-out comrade and tries to open a weird looking med pack, before it was sequentially knocked out of his paw by a yellow ray from above. Quickly looking at the origin point, they can see that it was Adam who shot the beam. Steady aim locked to the sovereign; the thief pulls the trigger to shoot another continuous beam of neon crimson, which was matched by Adam as he shoots sunlike beams from his two hands. The two beams in opposition collide in the middle to create a dichromatic center of light, sparks and bolts of energy emanating from the core as the two persisting blasts duke it out.

On the other side of the battlefield. The cosmonaut is still currently subduing the giant with her telekinetic powers, this required her full concentration, leading her to not notice the hammer wielder opening their very small mouth. A long tongue bursts out of the little opening to grab the dog by one of her hind legs. Cosmo whined in surprise by this, momentarily weakened her powers and giving the giant the opportunity to throw the Russian a couple of feet away with their lengthy pink appendage. Utilizing her telekinesis to cushion her fall, she skids a for a few seconds causing little bruises on her sides. Before the brown dog could stand up, the shadow of her enemy is already here—but before they could bring the hammer down to where she was laying, they were suddenly electrocuted. Body convulsing for a few moments from the shock before falling to their side, seeming unconscious. The talking dog looking behind them, she can see Rocket with his gun aimed at their direction—it appears that he shot the long snouted mammoth.

Rocket being distracted from his fight with the oblong tailed man by saving his teammate, was hit on the jaw by a bullet from said man—leading rocket to yelp in pain and in shock, causing him to involuntarily flip on the air with his jetpack. He can taste a little bit of iron in his mouth, probably because of the small bleeding in his mandible due to the impact—He'll have to check that out later.

Recovering from his blunder, he dodges a few more shots from the slinger, he shoots a few blasts back which the enemy dodged in turn. His opponent barked in surprise as he was suddenly on all fours, looking like he’s trying to do a push up with the weight of a heavy ship anchor on his back.

Cosmo now being close in range allowed her to restrain him, Rocket nodding at this—shot the quelled man to knock him unconscious. The man convulsed in pain as he was electrocuted till he passed out.

Looking further on the field, the raccoon can see the white furred man still shooting his laser gun and the yellow skinned Guardian doing the same but with his hands, both aimed at one another—of which Mallows seems to be losing.

He and Cosmo make their way to help, but before they could arrive, something happens. It appears that the cybernetic handed fella was able to suddenly turn the tides by adding more energy to his gun and beat the teenagers beam, red gradually beating gold until it reaches the opposite end—causing an explosion on the receiving party which flung the Guardian a couple meters away on the bright seafoam colored grass.

High up and with firearm aimed downwards, Rocket quickly shoots his signature electric shocker to their enemy, the man a few ways below him in turn attempts to dodge but was mitigated thanks to the Russian dog on all fours. Just before it could hit, the man strugglingly puts up their arms in front of him and shoots the bullet, which produced an explosion that limited the Raccoons vision.

Rocket quickly flies to the left to have vision of their enemy. The masked man then changed his target to the dog and tries to shoot a beam, but because of her telekinesis, he misses and instead shoots the ground next to her. With him distracted and currently rooted in place, Rocket takes another shot and finally hits the thief—shocking him with light blue electricity

The odd thing though is that the continues shock didn’t incapacitate him, he was able to somehow tolerate it—as if he’s soaking the current all up. Electricity fully absorbed and out of the bullet’s clutches, he aims for Rocket again but was subdued again by a stronger force from Cosmo—causing him to also lose his gun from his grip. Now in all fours and seemingly unable to lift his arms to shoot, Rocket flies to him and quickly handcuffs him, hands moving hastily.

It was good that he moved fast when putting Mallows in handcuffs because if he didn’t, he would’ve been electrocuted! The man just discharged the total amount of energy (which is red for some reason) that his stun bullet had in just one moment when he got close. Could’ve probably killed him if he didn’t let go at that interval. His bullets were designed to have high electricity so that it can shock someone longer—to ensure knocking them out, but if the charge was all used up in just a short moment, it could cause serious harm. He can still feel static in the air.

Rocket makes a move to confiscate the enemy’s firearm on the ground, wouldn’t want him to turn invisible again and use the gun against them.

“Can we just talk?! I thought we were supposed to be civil, but you wannabe Thor almost killed me with you flarkin' electricity!” The raccoon screams at the man in cuffs.

“Oh! Sorry I—that was supposed to just knock you out rather than to kill you, sorry about that haha...” The cloud furred man looked apologetically at him, then his demeaner suddenly changed from that to a very angry one.

“Wait a second, you guys attacked us first! I’m not going to apologize for anything since what I just did—it was to protect my friends!” He shrieked to the raccoon, his ears going flat on the sides due to his apparent rage.

“We wouldn’t have attacked if your team didn’t suddenly act so hostile! Couldn’t really blame us for being a little cautious when coming face to face with would be kidnappers.” The raccoon looks at his surroundings. Burn marks on floor due to smoldering lasers, Adam and Groot having a limp on their walk due to their injuries, and three of their enemies knocked out on the ground, Cosmo in her signature ‘I am using my telekinesis’ pose.

“Look—since I can’t really get too close to you without being fried to death… How about you try to not disappear and run away from us hmm? We could still discuss this ‘partnership’ or whatever of yours, just on my terms, and on my ship.” He gestures to a vague direction, not sure if it was the ship’s.

“I am not going to escape, Rocket; you have my teammates—I can’t exactly leave them behind, they’re important to me. If anything happens to them, I'll never forgive myself.” The cloud furred man said with determination in his voice.

The sentiment hits Rocket with relatability, it reminds him of his attitude when it comes to enemies and obstacles posing danger to his comrades—them being important to him, a strong desire to protect always fills him.

“We’re not going to hurt your friends. You know us—we’re The Guardians of The Galaxy! We try to be the pinnacle of justice, goodness, and righteousness. Speaking of which, should probably return the accelerators your little group of mischiefs stole.” His statement caused a look of relief from the white furred man. Grateful that the rumors he heard regarding The Guardians were true.

“Alright… Ill lead you to our base—that is where we stored the accelerators. If you truly desire to not harm them, then I trust you, captain of The Guardians.” He tries to stand up but was withheld by Cosmo leading him to stagger back to his kneeling position.

“Cosmo, you can let him go now, he’s not gonna run away.” He said as walks to the injured tree.

“ponyal, captain” she says as she lets her powers dissipate from its hold. The man now set free, stands up and flexes his fingers.

“You can uhh—remove these too as well, I told you I’m not going to bolt.” He said as he gestures to the metal handcuffs by extending his arm in front of him.

“I know you’re not going to. But you could still turn on us and use your freaky ass powers to shoot us with your gun. I’m not risking it.” The raccoon said while pointing to the gun currently on his holster belt. Attention now focused on Groot.

“You alright there buddy?” He says as he checks Groot’s wounds. A large scorch mark could be found on his back, charcoal black in a circular shape of the blast radius.

“I am Groot!” (I am fine captain, nothing a few droplets of aloe vera couldn’t fix!) The plant said with a cheery face, hoping to not worry his furry guardian. The tree stands up and heads for the lithe girl and the angry man a few meters away from them.

He isn't sure if they had enough of the ointment to actually heal the burn on the tree's back, meaning he'll have to buy some more (which leads to subjecting the tree to prolong pain). The Flora Colosus can heal himself of course, but burns typically are the only ones he has trouble regenerating from—taking him hours or even days for them to completely disappear depending on the severity. Medpaks unfortunately don't work on him since he's not made of muscles and flesh. 

With a small, worried and doubtful look on the raccoon’s face, he pivots his head to look at Adam instead who was sitting on the ground a few feet away—a disappointed and angry look apparent in the face of the gold teenager.

The warlock looks to him as his captain approached, and then he diverts his gaze away again to return into his sulking. “I can’t believe that I, Adam Warlock—was beaten by a dwarven ogre and a midget with a toy gun.”

“Don’t undermine yourself kid. You got beaten by a hulk with a giant hammer and a laser shooting squirrel with invisibility powers. It’s still somewhat impressive you know, that you were able to hold them off on your own.” He says as he checks the injuries of his teammate. Looks like a large blast mark on his chest revealing crisp skin underneath the uniform and a few other bruises on his gold skin, in time it should heal, or if he wants—a med pack can instantly remove the abrasions once they get back on the bowie. He suddenly felt a warm presence on his back, making him somewhat agitated.

“Uhh… Im not actually a squirrel, I’m a fer—" The handcuffed man’s sentence was disrupted by the irritated raccoon. The nerve of this guy.

“Yeah who cares! How about you stay right there and focus more on showing us the way rather than being a nerdy sounding dimwit who doesn't know any personal space!” He turns around and screams at the man who was looking over Rocket’s shoulder, his blaster now aimed at the man. too close for comfort.

The white furred man takes a few steps back with his hands opened in a ‘I surrender!’ kind of way, which he has a little trouble doing with his hands bound together. “Ok fine sorry, dude relax… Look I was just going to offer a little help. I have one of my med packs here in my coat pocket, it can check for any form of damage and can heal the whole body, so it should fix up everything on him. Not sure if it would work on your tree friend though.”

A skeptical look appears on Rocket’s face. “No thanks. How would I know your med pack isn’t some sort of insta-kill device? Just point us to the direction where we need to go and we’ll head on there. No funny business alright? Or your friends will get it.” He threatens the man in front of him. To which the man hastily nodded affirmatively.

“What would they get exactly?” Adam asked.

“A nasty beat up, that’s what they’re going to get.” He turns and looks at the teenager behind him, who now has an ‘oh’ expression on his face.

“You and Groot will carry the thieves to the ship while me and Cosmo follow Mallows here to their base for the accelerators. I’ll then send our location to the communicator so that you and the others can meet us there by flying the Bowie to the place. Be sure to get yourselves healed up. Am I understood?” He announces to his team.

“You got it captain.”, “understood captain.”, “I am Groot.” (Aye aye, captain).

“Mallows? Did you just give me a nickname?” Rocket hears chuckling near on his right again, a little further this time.

“That I did. Care giving me your actual name though? Since we’re supposed to be workin’ together now. Kinda unfair that you know mine but I don't know yours” He looks to the man next to him, who appears to be observing his fallen comrades.

“Uhh—I’ll still need to discuss with my team regarding that…” The man responded while scratching his chin below his mask.

The Raccoon is a bit taken back by that. “Thought you were the leader? Since you seemed to be the most talkative and democratic of the bunch. Ya’ll need a democratic vote as a group or something?”

Mallows shakes his head. “None of the above actually… The man from earlier, the one who spoke with you first—the ‘angry’ one, he’s our leader.”

“Right…” Rocket removes his gaze from him and instead focuses it on his team.

He can see Adam lifting himself from the ground and strolling to the unconscious previously hooded somewhat enormous figure that now Rocket realizes, has their hood down—revealing short ears on the sides of their skull. The adolescent guardian then picks them up and puts them on his shoulder, their head facing backwards, muddy tail facing them. Groot walks to them with the two other out cold burglars on his two wooden shoulders.

“Do both of yous know the way back to the ship?” Rocket asks. Adam then looks to his GPS device to find it broken, the glass display appearing to be shattered. Trying to turn it on, the screen remains black signifying the battery might be broken too. The captain looks to the tree, eyebrows raised as if questioning if the tree has his. Groot shakes his head, meaning he probably forgot the device on their ship. Looking between the two of them, Rocket sighs.

“Alright… Here have this.” He gives his own GPS to the sovereign.

“Oh, uhh… But how will we know where to find you?” The warlock asks as he takes the small rectangular device.

“We’re going to use Cosmo’s GPS instead, assuming it also didn't got itself wrecked in the fight?” Rocket looks to the Guardian in all fours.

“Nyet Kapitan, I still have mine in perfect condition” The space canine replied, as she pulls out her device from the pocket off her uniform with her muzzle. Device now fully covered by dog drool. Yikes.

“Hold on to it. You two go on your way, we’ll send the coordinates right away once we arrive.” The two loaded with people nod at their captain before Adam fiddles with the device and walks to what presumably is the direction of the Bowie. Cosmo returns the device to her uniform pocket.

“Ok thief, come and point us to your base.” The man in question nods in acknowledgment at that and looks around for a few moments, seeming to be looking for something. Appearing to have found what he’s looking for; the pearl furred man now starts to walk—past Rocket and towards the opposite direction of the bright city.

“This way.” He said as he passed by the Raccoon. Rocket looks to his teammate and they both share a look as they both start to turn around and begin to trail behind the salt furred man.

.

.

.

Leaving the bright clearing, they start to enter the gloomy forest. The same scenery as before, with different but all too similar shadowy trees greet him. Looking at the walking shade dimmed man they are currently following, he can see the top of the hood bopping up and down, probably involuntary ear movements due to itchiness on it.

The man in question seemed to be trying to scratch his ears, he appeared to be uncomfortable with the hood he has on.

"So mind telling me how you were able to turn invisible and somehow absorb the electricity of my stun-gun?"

Mallows looks back to him for a moment before returning his gaze back to the path.

"I could do that, but I think it would be more efficient if we wait for us to group with your team before I disseminate information in order to save us time. Meaning I won't have to explain it over and over again."

"So... You're not going to tell me who you all are and why'd you all want me for this weird and stupid mission of yours 'till later?

"Precisely. And for the record, this is not a stupid mission because my team really needs this... I—uh—I'll explain it to you later."

Fed up with the man's fidgeting, he pulls down the hood of the guy earning him a suppressed yelp from Mallows. The snow tinted man rotates his whole body and looks to Rocket, expression unknowable due to the mask still being adorned on his face. Looking to the top of Mallows’ head, he can see a set of twitching little white ears; reminds him of again a squirrel, or maybe even a weasel.

This practically confirms that this guy was the one from his dream, the ears being the same—he’ll still need to see the man’s face though, he wants to see those pretty eyes again…— Wait what? Those were totally creepy eyes Rocket and not some ‘beautiful red orbs.’ Get yourself together you d’ast raccoon!

“What is it, why did you pull my hood down?” The polecat-like man asked, removing rocket from his stupor.

“I’ve noticed that you seem rather uhh… itchy. Y’know—from the hood on your head. Is your mask also troubling you? want us to remove it?”

“Oh? Sure, why not. We’ll unmask later anyways; Just don’t take a picture of me though… You see I work as a doctor, and if word gets out that I stole 10 accelerators—that wouldn’t turn out well for my occupation, would it now? Although I could just say to them that it was a long-lost twin brother or something haha…” Mallows then rotates his head to the left to reveal the tie holding his mask. ‘Woah his neck is really flexible’ Rocket thought as he gestures for Cosmo to untie the knot of the rope.

“Hold on, you stole how many accelerators? 10? Why did y’all got out of your way just to get that many? Could’ve only just stolen mine and I would’ve still made the effort to chase you and your group.” Rocket argued as the tie is undone by the cosmonaut with her powers, revealing a short pink snout and those crimson eyes—although a bit dimmer compared to his dream.

He notices that the man wore glasses underneath the mask—kept up on his face by tape on the sides of his head. If Rocket remembers correctly from his biology class back in Halfworld, red eyes usually mean that whoever has them has bad eyesight (if the glasses weren’t a dead giveaway), that and his white fur are tell-tale signs that this dude might be an albino of his species.

“We weren’t sure if you were going to investigate for the part or you would just rent a ship and leave yours behind. We wanted an issue that you and the Guardians wouldn’t disregard, a sudden disappearance of accelerators we thought would suffice as a problem that you guys can’t ignore. Also, that’s why we mostly stole from people who offer ship rentals, and other similar services; to eliminate the chances of you leaving” Seeing the mouth—that is so similar to his although a bit smaller, is a little nerve wracking but intriguing at the same time.

“Don’t underestimate our leader belka. The captain wouldn’t just leave the Bowie behind; he’ll find a way make it fly again—right captain?” The dog asking for confirmation from the raccoon with her head tilted a little to the side.

“That’s correct Cosmo, I’ll never do that to the Bowie… Still though, why didn’t you just leave a note where to find you? Could’ve saved stealing all those parts.” He asks as the man steps over a root; he and Cosmo does the same as it reaches them.

“Again, you might rent a vehicle instead of finding the part… and we did leave a note behind, complete with a map and a ‘Captain Rocket only, bring no one else.’ written on it” He looks back at them while saying, an opening on the tree tops casted a light spot on his glasses, causing it to flash white for just a moment before returning to its normal transparency showcasing the man’s scarlet eyes.

Deep in thought, Rocket then remembers something. “Was the note… the same size as the one you gave Bizolok?”

“Who?” The man in front of him inquired, ostensibly confused.

“The gem seller you stole from, the one who tried to beat y’all up?” Rocket asks, hoping that this guy would remember.

The guy ahead now in thought himself, lighted up like a light bulb as he seemingly now remembers.

“Oh right! The one with the cheap gems! We probably wouldn’t have stolen the ship part from him if we knew that it would affect his business that much. His ship happened to be near us at the time, so we thought about stealing the accelerator just because of how convenient it is you know? And to answer your question—yes, the note was the same size as the map given to our other victims.” He admitted shyly to the two Guardians behind him.

“If that’s the case, then that means the note was probably small enough to be swallowed by our automatic vacuum cleaner.” Rocket professed to the man; Annoyed at himself for forgetting to check the plate sized device.

“So… you're telling me you could’ve saved going to the city and head straight for us if you guys' robovac didn’t suck up the note?” He questions sarcastically.

“You would be correct on that… But hey! How did you know that I was at Pedrua city?” The raccoon asked a bit shocked at the man for knowing that information, were they observing him from afar this whole time?

“I spied on you of course. We wanted you to be completely alone for what we wanted you for, having other people with you would have been inconvenient, just like we said earlier. By the way, how were you able to—Wait…” The man suddenly stood in place, forward movement turning into a complete halt.

White mammalian head quickly moving left and right, previously stationary ears now rapidly changing their direction trying to hear from all over—it’s as if he’s in complete alert and searching for something.

Straining his ears himself, he tries to survey their surroundings by attempting to hear whatever the man in front picked up. That is when he hears a slight sound originating from their northwest, resembling a thumping noise, as if coming from a large animal—comparable to the rhythm of a horse galloping, that is quickly moving to their direction evidently because of how the sound is getting louder and louder. The three of them snap their head that way.

“You hear that Cosmo? Sounds like something’s coming.” He asks the dog as he pulls up his signature firearm, turning off the safety feature and aiming it to where the sound is coming from.

The canine going to her signature pose, she looks ready to pounce; already telepathically picking up a few pieces of stone littered on the ground—she says in reply, “Da captain. It seems to be pretty big in size, probably larger than Groot.”

The man looks to him with a pleading gaze. “You have to let me out of these. I can help.” Mallows then tries to get closer, furry digits reaching for his gun under Rocket’s possession.

The raccoon quickly steps a few ways back, a hand on his gun moves from it to the currently non-active electric powered firearm on his belt—intending on protecting it from milk colored man.

“Not happening. You should hide while me and this bitch over here handle this.” Rocket says as he strolls past the man to the gap between the trees, where the direction of the sound is originating from.

The ivory man sighs frustratingly before a flash of opaque red starts from his feet—immediately moving up to the tip of the man’s ears, the light promptly turning him completely invisible. That would be such a convenient power for stealing Anulax batteries Rocket thinks.

“What did you just refer to me as captain?” The Russian hound asks.

“It means a female dog.” Looking to the ground beneath him, he sees the idle grey rocks uncontrolled by Cosmo, that are on Pedrua’s ground—bouncing up to the rhythm of the increasingly louder stumps. Whatever it is… it's getting close.

Gun now being held up by his two fuzzy hands, he powers up the cannon, ready to blast. Whatever this creature is, if it wants to fight—a fight it’s gonna get.