〘 :*¨༺ 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 ༻¨*: 〙

"I'm sorry. I took it too far. I meant trash panda.

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯

all i can say is i was enchanted to meet you

"SHOWTIME A-HOLES!" Quill announced as he redied his guns at his sides. "It will be here any minute."

Ellie looked down as she checked her vest to make sure it was secure before reading into a fighting stance. A spark of electricity cracked through her eye. Groot stood upon her shoulder, grabbing onto the girl's ear for stability.

"Which will be its loss." Gamora adds as she cocks a large gun.

"I thought your thing was a sword?" Quill comments as he gestures to Gamora's new weapon.

"We've been hired to stop an interdimensional beast from feeding on those batteries, and I'm gonna stop it with a sword?" Gamora questioned.

"It's just, swords were your thing and guns were mine. But I guess we're both doing guns now. I just didn't know that." Quill shrugged.

Ellie's eyebrows furrowed as she spotted the lack of an aero-rig on Drax.

"Drax, why aren't you wearing one of Rocket's aero-rigs?" Ellie asked him.

"It hurts." Drax replied bluntly.

"It hurts?" Ellie questioned, her lips curling into a playful smirk.

"I have sensitive nipples." Drax said shortly. Ellie giggled, covering her mouth when Drax glared at her. Rocket laughed loudly while Groot laughed into Ellie's hair.

"My nipples hurt oh goodness me!" Rocket mocked as he laughed.

"What about him? What's he doing?" Drax asked, clearly offended as he gestured to what Rocket was working on.

"I'm finishing this so we can listen to tunes while we work." Rocket told him with a shrug.

"How is that a priority?" Drax asked.

"Blame Quill! He's the one who loves music so much." Rocket retorts.

"No, I actually agree with Drax on this. That's hardly important right now." Quill told Rocket.

"Oh, okay. Sure, Quill." Rocket said sarcastically while he tried to wink but he was closing both eyes.

"No, seriously, I side with Drax." Quill told him again seriously.

"No, I understand that. You're very serious right now." Rocket said as he continued to wink. Groot jumped off of Ellie's shoulder and chased small Orloni creatures.

"I can clearly see you winking." Drax exclaimed as he threw his arms out.

"Damn it. I'm using my left eye?" Rocket asked as he looked at Ellie.

"You've never been able to wink." Ellie told him before they were distracted by Groot trying to grab one of the Orloni before punching another one.

"Hey," Ellie called in confusion as to why Groot was punching the small creatures.

"I am Groot." He said as he kept his fists at his sides.

"They were not looking at you funny." Rocket and Ellie told him as they shook their heads. Beeping sound repeatedly from the Quill sensor before lights shot from the other side of the clouds. The clouds separated for a moment as the large creature squealed.

"Oh, boy." Ellie sighed.

"Well, that's intense." Rocket muttered.

The creature landed and the group immediately took action. Quill and Gamora blasted it with their guns, Ellie tried blasting balls of electricity at it, Rocket threw different types of small bombs, while Drax tried to stab and slice its thick skin. The aero-rigs allowed them to fly around the creature to get to the top of it.

Ellie stopped in front of Quill just as the creature was about to blast him with fire. She spread her arms out and produced a shield in front of herself, blocking Quill as well. Once Rocket shot at it a couple times, it turned around, Ellie bringing down her shield before firing at it some more.

She spotted Groot out of the corner of her eye. He was oblivious to the battle at hand as he danced to the music playing through Rocket's speakers.

"Groot!" She yelled before she was hit with one of the creature's tentacles, sending her flying to the ground. Its tentacle wrapped around her ankle and threw her around frantically, Ellie hitting against the ground as it did so. She landed on the ground for a second, seeing Groot in front of her. He turned to her as he shoved a bug in his mouth, a guilty expression on his face.

"Spit it out!" Ellie yelled before she was pulled away by the tentacle. "Rocket!" She yelled as she passed him. "Groot's got something-" She continued as she flew past him. "-in his mouth!" She finished as she passed him again. She reached to her hip where a short dagger sat in a leather holder. She pulled it from her hip and sent electricity through it before stabbing it into the tentacle. She twisted the dagger as the tentacle seized, hitting its nerve. The tentacle finally dropped her next to the speakers and he groaned as she rolled onto her side.

"I am Groot?" Groot asked as he stood in front of Ellie's face.

"I'm okay, Groot." Ellie said to him as he pulled on her fingers in a way of helping her sit up. Drax then landed near them, smashing the speakers with his back. Groot yelled in anger as he went to slap Drax on his back.

"The beast's hide is too thick to be pierced from the outside." Drax spoke as he stood up, Ellie standing up with him as Gamora shot at the creature from beside them. "I must cut through it from the inside." He finished.

"Huh?"

"What?" Gamora and Ellie asked at the same time as Drax laughed maniacally.

"No, no!" Ellie said quickly as she shook her head.

"Drax, wait a minute!" Gamora tried to stop him but he ran at the beast. Jumping just as it opened its mouth and Drax was swallowed whole.

"What is he doing?" Quill asked frantically as Ellie stared at the creature, eyes wide and her hands gripping her hair.

"He said the skin is too thick to be pierced from the outside, so he..." Gamora started.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Quill interrupted as he landed next to Gamora.

"I tried telling him that!" Gamora told him.

"Skin is the same level of thickness from the inside as from the outside!" Quill explained to them.

"Man you should have been here to explain that to him, cause we had no idea!" Ellie said sarcastically as she threw her hands against her legs. Quill made a face at her, to which copied back at him.

"There is a cut on its neck. Rocket, get it to look up." Quill explained before flying off, Ellie quickly followed him. The three of them fired multiple things at it, Ellie occasionally making a forcefield around herself and in front of others.

Finally the creature groaned in pain and squealed before flopping dead onto the platform.

Ellie cringed in disgust as Drax flopped out of the beasts cut from the stomach. Drax laughed as he raised his knives.

"Yes! I have single-handedly vanquished the beast!" Drax laughed before Groot threw a pebble at his face, stopping Drax's laugh. "What?" He asked.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

ELLIE CLICKED the button on the back of her aero-rig, causing it to shrink into a device for her to put in her jacket pocket.

"What are they called again?" Drax asked.

"Anulax batteries." Quill answered as he put on his jacket.

"Harbulary batteries." Drax mumbled.

"That's nothing like what I just said. But they're worth thousands of units a piece, which is why the Sovereign hired us to protect them." Quill explained as they started their way to the main building to talk to the High Priestess. "Careful what you say around these folks. They're easily offended. The cost of transgression is death."

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

"WE THANK YOU, Guardians, for putting your lives on the line. We could not risk the lives of our own Sovereign citizens. Every citizen is born exactly as designed by the community. Impeccable, both physically and mentally." The high priestess explained.

"I am Groot. (You're impeccably bitchy)" Groot muttered as he stood on Ellie's shoulder. Ellie bit hard on her lip to keep herself from laughing.

"We control the DNA of our progeny germinating them in birthing pods." She finished.

"I guess I prefer to make people the old-fashioned way." Quill commented.

"Perhaps someday, you could give me a history lesson...in the archain ways of our ancestors. For academic purposes." The high priestess said. Groot gagged.

"I would be honored, yes. In the name of research...I think that could be pretty, uh..." Quill's smirk was wiped off his face when he caught Gamora's gaze. "-repulsive. I'm ont into that kind of casual..."

"Oh, please." Gamora sighed as she stepped forward. "Your people promised something in exchange for our services. Bring it, and we shall gladly be on our way."

An echo sounded through the room as the door opened. Two guards pushing a cloaked prisoner. They pushed them to the ground before pulling back the hood, revealing Nebula, Gamora's sister.

"Family reunion. Yay." Quill said to try and lighten the mood. Little did he know that his own words would come back at him.

"I understand she is your sister." The high priestess said.

"She's worth no more to me than the bounty due for her on Xandar." Gamora said angrily before she roughly grabbed Gamora by the arm.

"We have another that we believe also belongs to you." The high priestess continued, the groups face contorting in confusion. Two more guards pushed a boy without a cloak on, handcuffed around his wrists.

"Hey, hey, hey, be gentle." The teen boy said as he pulled his arm out of the guard's grip.

"Blake?" Quill questioned as his brows knitted together.

The boy looked over and met eyes with Quill. "Oh, shit." He sighed heavily.

"He is your brother, yes?" The high priestess asked. The group's eyes went wide as they looked between the boy and Quill.

"You've gotta brother?!" Rocket exclaimed, saying what everyone else was thinking.

"I'm hurt Pete that you never told these..." Blake trailed off as he caught sight of Ellie, a smirk growing on his face. "-gorgeous people, anything about me." Drax gasped as he put his hand to his chest.

"I've never been called gorgeous before." Drax said to Ellie as he smiled.

"Our soldiers apprehended her attempting to steal the batteries. A couple days later, we caught him stealing our food. Do with them as you please." The high priestess explained as the boy walked over to Quill. Rocket watched Blake carefully as he nodded at Ellie with a smile. While the "gorgeous" comment earlier went completely over Ellie's head, Rocket knew who the boy's words were directed at.

"We thank you, High Priestess Ayesha." Quill spoke as he grabbed onto Blake's arm.

"What is your heritage, Mr. Quill?"

"Our mother is from Earth." Quill answered, taking a glance at Blake.

"And your father?"

"He ain't from Missouri. That's all I know." Quill chuckled.

"I see it within you," She continued. "An unorthodox genealogy. A hybrid that seems particularly...reckless."

Blake's eyebrows furrowed. He knew they came from different fathers, but he was confused as to why Peter's father somehow wasn't from Earth.

"You know they told me you people were concealed douchebags, but that isn't true at all." Rocket said, before making an obnoxious wink to Ellie and Quill.

The crowd gasped as a guard readied a gun in Rocket's direction. Ellie shushed at him through gritted teeth as shook her head. "Oh, shit. I'm using my wrong eye again, aren't I?"

"Oh my God." Ellie sighed as she rubbed her temple.

"I'm sorry." Rocket said as Drax grabbed him by his shirt, picking him up off the ground. "That was meant to be behind your back."

Groot kept hold of Ellie's ear and hair as she turned around and followed Quill and Blake back to the Milano.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

"YOU SURE WE shouldn't keep him in the back with the psycho robot?" Rocket asked Quill as they got into their seats on the ship.

"No, he's fine, completely harmless." Quill told him as buckled himself in. "No reason for him to be tied up back there."

Rocket turned in his seat looking back at Ellie. She was sitting in her usual spot in the second row of seats where her and Gamora sat. Groot was climbing up her chair and into her lap as she prepared the ship's coordinates for Xandar. Rocket grumbled in annoyance as he saw Blake staring at Ellie as he took one of the seats in the last row, the other seat being Drax's.

"I could think of a reason." Rocket mumbled as he turned back around.

"Coordinates are in." Ellie informed as Groot jumped out of her lap and went running to the back of the ship where he could see the city through a large window..

"All right, let's get baldy to Xandar and collect that bounty." Rocket announced as the craft took flight.

Ellie got up from her seat and left to grab snacks for her and Groot, Blake following after her.

She sighed tiredly as she made it to the box of sugary treats the group kept by the fridge. She opened the top as she heard footsteps approach her.

"This must be fun." Blake said as he looked around the room. "Flying around, kicking ass, taking names, making money."

"If you see it like that, sure." Ellie shrugged as she grabbed a snack for Groot before grabbing a bowl from a cabinet.

"What's your name?" He asked with a smile as he stepped next to her, taking the girl by surprise at their closeness.

"Why do you wanna know? You're probably not going to be here that long. You're gonna run away and you and I will never see each other again. So what's the point?" She asked as she poured chocolate candies into a small bowl for Groot.

"I'd just like to know the name of the prettiest girl I've ever seen in the galaxy." He smirked.

"Yikes, does that actually work?" Ellie asked as she cringed.

"I don't know, you tell me." He shrugged as he crossed his arms. Ellie sighed as she put the wrapper in the trash.

"Ellie," She said as she glanced up at him.

"Ellie...?" Blake dragged, wanting her last name.

"Rodriguez." She finished with a nod of her head as she grabbed a marshmallow treat for herself. "Happy now?" She asked as she walked past him.

"Very much." Blake replied with a smile before following after her.

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

"THIS IS WEIRD." Ellie said as she looked through the back camera. She now sat strapped to her seat. "We've got a Sovereign fleet approaching from the rear."

"Why would they do that?" Gamora asked as she sat down.

"Probably because Rocket stole some of their batteries." Drax muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Dude!" Rocket yelled, mad that Drax ratted him out.

"Rocket!" Ellie said, mimicking Rocket's tone.

"Right. He didn't steal some of those. I don't know why they're after us. What a mystery this is."

Gamora and Ellie yelled as the fleet started firing at the Milano.

Quill dipped down and dodged the fleet's blasts.

"What were you thinking?" Quill yelled at Rocket.

"Dude, they were really easy to steal!" Rocket explained.

"That's your defense?" Gamora asked as Ellie rolled her eyes.

"Oh come on! You saw how that High Priestess talked down to us. Now I'm teaching her a lesson!" Rocket justified.

"Oh, I didn't realize your motivation was altruism. It's really a shame the Sovereign have mistaken your intentions and they're trying to kill us." Quill stated sarcastically.

"Exactly!"

"I was being sarcastic!" Quill yelled at him.

"Oh, no, you're supposed to use a sarcastic voice! Now I look foolish!" Rocket yelled.

"Can we put the bickering on hold until after we survive this massive space battle?" Gamora stated as her and Ellie prepared the weapons and defenses.

"More incoming!" Quill and Ellie said at the same time as ships came more from all around them.

"Good!" Rocket exclaimed. "I wanna kill some guys." Rocket finished before he started yelling as he shot at the battle pods.

"You're not killing anyone. All those ships are remotely piloted." Gamora explained.

Ellie watched the back camera carefully. One ship got to close for comfort, and Ellie reached her hand over. She pressed her hand against the metal inside the ship, she focused her breathing and sent sparks to the back of the ship, making a quick shield around the back end of the ship just in time to block a fire that hit the Milano.

While the rest of the guardians were used to the blue sparks flashing from the girl's body as her hair stood up, as well as the flickers of light flashing past them as Ellie's electricity traveled through the ship. Blake was not used to this, having never seen it before in his life. His eyes were wide as he watched the girl's hair rise and fall as she let go of the wall.

"What's the nearest habitable planet?" Quill asked.

"It's called Berhert." Ellie said.

"How many jumps?" Quill then asked.

"Only one. But the access point is 47 clicks away. And you have to go through that quantum asteroid field." Ellie informed him as she typed in the coordinates, getting rid of the ones for Xandar.

"Quill, to make it through that you'd have to be the greatest pilot in the universe." Drax commented as they approached the asteroid field.

"Lucky for us..." Quill began with a smirk.

"I am." Rocket interrupted before switching the pilot controls from Quill's to his.

Rocket started diving and turning the ship around the droids, Ellie getting ready for having to make a shield. She couldn't hold a shield around the whole ship for too long or the whole ship could shut down with a power surge.

Quill switched the pilot controls back over to his.

"What are you doing?" Rocket asked.

"I've been flying this rig since I was 10 years old." Quill said as he spun through asteroids to avoid them.

"I was cybernetically engineered to pilot a spacecraft." Rocket shot back before switching the pilot controls again.

"You were cybernetically engineered to be a douchebag!" Quill yelled, switching the controls again.

Ellie rolled her eyes.

"Are they always like this?" Blake asked.

"Stop it." Gamora told two bickering pilots.

"Quill, later on tonight, you're gonna be laying down in your bed and there's gonna be something squishy in your pillow case. And you're gonna be like, "What's this?" And it's gonna be because I put a turn in there!" Rocket yelled, switching the controls.

"You put your turd in my bed, I shave you." Quill said. Ellie forced away her smile that crept up at the thought of Rocket being shaved.

"Oh, it won't be my turd. It will be Drax's." Rocket added.

Drax laughter boomed. "I have famously huge turds." Blake chuckled at the group's conversation.

"We're about to die, and this is what we're discussing?" Gamora said as Quill glared at Rocket.

"I'm with Gamora on that one." Ellie