"Okay Guardians, we land on Arima in about an hour," Quill informed us. I leaned against the wall with Groot sitting on my shoulder, fixing up the purple jacket I was wearing. With a quiet yawn, I stuck one of my legs out and stretched it, surprisingly comfortable in dark navy leather pants. I had done a couple of jobs with the team, and I had made some pretty close bonds already. Gamora was just like Nat; strong, independent at times, and overall a great person to fight with. Quill, he reminded me a bit of my father, except he didn't have a metal suit and was a lot younger. Drax, maybe similar to Thor when I knew him. That left Rocket. He'd forgiven me, or at least now he did...
____________________________________________________________
Two hours earlier...
I sat up from in my small bunk, actually happy that I had gotten a better night of sleep. I had been thinking of Hugonyn a lot recently. I never realized until now how much he had given me. I could actually sleep! I laid back down on my bed in contentment, looking around my small room. Quill had been nice enough to provide a place for me to stay when I first arrived.
I reached for my hair to let my braid loose when I realized my hair wasn't in a braid, but actually all out on my back. I felt my eyebrows furrow. Did I not braid it last night before I went to sleep? Still a little groggy, I let it slide. That was until I walked by a mirror.
"Rocket!" I yelled angrily, stomping through the ship to Rocket's room. The raccoon looked at me in amusement, lifting his head up from a book.
"Morning, sunshine!" he greeted me sarcastically, giving me a funny look. "Why the anger?" I grabbed the ends of my hair and showed him the cyans, blues, and purples now peaking out of it.
"What. Did. You. Do," I seethed. Rocket fell back on his bed in laughter. When he sat up, I threw a soft snowball at his snout.
"Jesus!" he cried out in pain. "That's fucking cold!"
"Language," I commented snarkily.
"Hypocrite!" Rockeet shot back, kicking his hind legs at me. I blocked them with my metal arm. "Damn, I want one of those," he grumbled before raising his voice again. "Listen, you dropped a vent on me. I'm not allowed to have a little revenge?"
"A little?" I repeated, my voice shrieking a little. I jerked my head a little so my hair could fall on my back. "A little?!? Do you know how long hair takes to grow?" Rocket shrugged. "A long time!" I told him. "A really long time!" Rocket huffed in annoyance, and I set my hands on my hips. "I'm gonna get you for this."
"Sure thing," Rocket joked, not believing my threat.
____________________________________________________________
Back to present time...
"It's a simple mission," Quill explained to all of us. I was starting to zone out, and Groot snoring softly on my shoulder wasn't helping. "Rocket, Groot, Drax, and Gamora are going as diplomats to a small kingdom for weapons. Isabel and I will be close by at a trading market." When Quill said my name, I came to my senses.
"Wait, why am I going with you?" I asked him. Groot woke up when he heard me speak. The group looked at me in surprise for not knowing.
"Almost the entire planet is underwater," Gamora said. "You told us about your powers. Can you breathe underwater?"
"Yes," I said slowly. "But I've seen that water suit you guys have. Can't Quill go down there alone?"
"Two things, sweetheart," Rocket told me in his sarcastic tone. "First, nobody goes alone, including special Starboy."
"Starlord!" Quill corrected him, not amused. Rocket waved a hand to shush him.
"And two," he continued, "The old fart under the sea told us that he won't tell us nothing if we don't have a Kree. Imagine the shock we got when we heard one was being held captive by a pirate crew." Hugonyn. That's why they hopped on the space craft. Technically, he was a Frost Giant-Kree mix, but I guess he fit the standard. That meant I did too.
"Okay, but you're not selling me, are you?" I asked Quill nervously. Groot gasped at the idea of it and glared at Quill as if that question had already been answered.
"God, no!" Quill exclaimed, holding a hand to his chest as if he had been hurt. Gamora rolled her eyes at his action. "He just wants to meet you. That's it." I wish I could believe those words. Nobody ever wanted to only meet a person.
____________________________________________________________
I looked down at the slightly grey water by my feet, my reflection showing. It was hard to breathe with the atmosphere's density. Luckily, it had a lot more water in it, allowing me air. I could hear Quill's soft breaths from the suit he was wearing.
"Our guy is down there?" I asked him, wading to my ankles. Before we had left the ship, Gamora had shown me a few chemicals that could keep my clothes dry while being underwater. "I'm guessing he's far away."
"Just a little less under a mile," Quill assured me. "But for us, we just have to get to the outskirts of the city. That's about 800 yards."
"Yay," I said to myself sarcastically. It felt so weird, being on a planet that was almost completely water. All the power around me was giving me a boost as if I had drank twelve cups of coffee. "Well, let's get to it then." Peter waded in beside me, and the two of us dove under once we felt the ground beneath us disappear. I was expecting it to be very dark, but the entire area was lit up with bioluminescent lights. Peter took charge; setting a propeller off in his suit so he could swim faster. I used my powers to create a small current following him.
The trip was silent as we swam. I couldn't help but look around in awe at the plant life around us. Small kelp gardens with colored rocks kept appearing, but as we went, some of the aliens living on the planet started to appear close by them. They looked human except for their grey skin with scales and gills. Centaurians, I think they were called? One that looked like little girl waved at me eagerly, and I waved back. Quill tapped my shoulder and pointed at a male Centaurian coming towards us. The two of us stopped in our place.
"Mr Quill," he greeted nonchalantly. "Mr Azulan didn't expect to see you so soon."
"Well," Quill sighed, the suit making his voice sound a little clouded, "tell him I have the item he wants." I glared at him. If he called me item a second time, that suit was going to be crushed into a tin can. The Centaurian nodded and motioned for us to follow him. As we passed by buildings, it reminded me of the summer feudalism project I had helped Peter on. My heart clenched, and I continued on. This was the second to last mission left. I was finally going to get to see him. "I know that look," Quill said quietly to me.
"What look?" I questioned him, giving a small smile. My voice sounded a little weird underwater, but it wasn't in a bad way. I never tried speaking in water, but it sounded so... angelical.
"The look of wanting to be with someone," Quill chuckled. "I'm guessing you have someone waiting back home?"
"Not really," I sighed. "I mean, I have someone I miss, but I don't think he misses me the way I miss him. Everything is just weird."
"Elaborate on that." I made sure we were still behind the Centaurian. Several others of his kind stopped to gawk at us. The city seemed similar to Queens with the milling people, but as if Queens was in the Renaissance.
"Well," I started. "I first met him a few months ago. There was a big fight between a bunch of superheroes, and I was fighting against Spider-Man and my father."
"Ouch," Quill commented.
"Captain America, or Steve as I know him, was our leader in this. He caught Spider-Man off guard and trapped him. My job was to keep him there. He said a few things without knowing the damage they would create, and I nearly killed him with a tidal wave." I left out the part of me doing mouth-to-mouth. "Speed up to a month later, and I'm falling out of the sky. I almost died, but Spider-Man saved me."
"That's the scars on your back," Quill realized. The Centaurian leading us came to a halt.
"Stay here," he told us before swimming off. I waited for him to leave before I lifted up the back of my shirt so Quill could see the scars properly, causing him to gag.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" I joked, letting my shirt go. "Spider-Man kept me alive and helped me heal. I got to know him a lot better during my time with him. We even went on a trip together." I heard screams echo through my head as I remembered that horrible night. "I found him interesting at the start, and as I got to know him, he became my best friend."
"Sounds like he's an important guy," Quill mused. "I'm not the best for dating information, having that I hooked up with a lot of women..." I rolled my eyes at him. Just like my dad. "...but the thing is that I have someone now that I really care for. If this guy's as great as you make him seem, telling him how you feel will be the best thing you do."
I let his words settle in my brain. Did I really like Peter? Yes! So why did this thought, this idea of confessing my feelings seem so awkward? Quill was right though. When I got home, that was the first thing I was going to do. I was about to reply when the Centaurian that found us swam toward us in a hurry.
"Mr Azulan is ready to see her," he told us. He reached for my arm, but I yanked it away.
"Hang on!" I stopped him. "Why isn't Quill coming?"
"Mr Azulan wants to see you first," the Centaurian explained. I looked back at Quill nervously, but he gave me a small nod of affirmation. I sighed and let the Centaurian lead me into a building. Bioluminescent lights flickered in different colors, and I could help but look around in awe. It was all so... so...
"Beautiful, isn't it?" a voice asked. A Centaurian swam out of the shadows, his scales sometimes changing to different colors of blue when they caught like. I guess that was why his name was Azulan. "Marnin, that will be all," he said with a curt nod, and the other Centaurian swam back outside, shutting the door. Azulan motioned for me to come forward. "So you're my Kree I asked for. You don't have blue skin."
"I'm kinda a half-breed," I said defensively. Azulan led me to a table, and I sat down on a chair. "Inhuman."
"Even better," Azulan said with a wide grin. "I've never worked on a Terran before." He swam to a bookshelf and pulled out a large book. When he slammed it on the table, I braced myself for disgusting experiments only to look at tattoos, henna, and sketches.
"You're... you're an artist," I realized out loud. Azulan laughed and swam away to some shelves by the ceiling of the room.
"What did you think I was?" he chuckled. "Some sort of mad scientist? Actually, don't answer that question, but yes I'm an artist." He came back to the table with paint brushes, pencils, and some small bags of different colored squid ink. "My people," he said a little sadly, rubbing his webbed fingers against each other. "They aren't like me. Most of them hide away and work. Just work, no fun! We only had pale and dull colors, nothing fun. I started small, creating bioluminescent lamps that I placed in the gardens. Then, I created those beautiful flags for our bridges! Why we even have bridges, I don't know, but it gave a beautiful touch." I gingerly traced one of his drawings with my hand.
"Why do you stay in here?" I asked him. "You created something beautiful, why hide away?" Azulan looked a little hurt when I brought this up. He lifted his arm up, and the bioluminescent lights caught on his scales.
"I have a... a... conditon," he mumbled, twisting his arm around to look at the colors. "The natural lights outside burn me. Last time I went outside..." His voice trailed off. He bent his arm downward, showing me his veins. Some of them had turned pure black. "I can only go out at night. That's why I started with the lights, so I could see color in the darkness." Azulan gave his head a quick shake. "Enough about me though! The reason we are meeting is for you!"
"Pardon?" I blinked. Azulan looked eagerly at me.
"I've done art for many others, but never for a Terran or a Kree!" he exclaimed. "This is going to be perfect. Do you have any ideas?" I bit my lip.
"I'm not the most artsy person," I said slowly. One of the bioluminescent lights twinkled, catching my attention. I pointed to the orbs creating the light. "You think you can do anything like that?" Azulan's face literally lit up. I'm serious. His face glowed a light aqua in excitement.
"A bioluminescent!" he gasped. He swam in circles around me, trying to view me in a good angle. "Oh, this will be perfect! Not here, not here, that area restricts me, how about that?" It took me a bit to catch up on his words until I saw him pointing at my back.
"Um," I said anxiously. "That might not be the best area." I took my jacket off and lifted the back of my shirt. The scars didn't even faze him. "I mean, it's kind of an ugly part of-"
"They're beautiful," Azulan breathed in awe. I looked at him over my shoulder in confusion. "I can incorporate them in my design! It's up to you though." He was suggesting my back, my scarred back. Azulan was suggesting making it beautiful.
"What do I have to lose?" I shrugged, feeling a smile appear on my face. Azulan led me to a place where I could change, and I looked into the small mirror. At my eyes. The small scar over the right one. My dyed hair. So much had changed within the past two months. Some for the worst, and some for the better. "I'm coming Peter; just wait a little longer."
**********************************************************************************
Back on Earth
Peter's PoV
I sat outside of Isabel's apartment, staring out at the traffic passing below. It had been twenty-seven days since she was captured, and I felt helpless. I couldn't do anything about it. She could be hurt, or enslaved, or... or... No, I couldn't think that! I would know if she was dead, I'd feel something, right?
I'd tried to call her Mr Stark on day twenty, but as usual he didn't respond and the call went to voicemail. Whatever, he must have been doing something important, but isn't Isabel's life more important?
A dog barked on the street, knocking me out of my thoughts. I looked down at it, annoyed, only to see it looking up at me happily. It was a blue Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy. How did I know that? Isabel was looking at an adoption page a few days before those... those things took her. The dog barked at me, wagging its nub of a tail. I couldn't help but smile. I carefully climbed down from the small balcony to the sidewalk.
"Hi, buddy," I greeted it, crouching down a little. The dog rubbed its face against my leg. "Where's your owners?"
"She doesn't have one." I looked over to my right, slightly startled, to see an old man looking at me. "That dog's been causing trouble on the street for weeks. The pound's went after her twice, but she always managed to escape." The dog whined and plopped down next to me, setting her head in my lap. "She's never usually this calm."
"So she doesn't have anywhere to go?" I asked the man, who nodded.
"The mutt seems to like you though," he chuckled. I looked down at her, and she gave me what looked like a smile.
"I have a friend who would love you," I told her, scratching behind her ear. "You want to meet her?" The dog barked as if replying. "I'll take that as a yes." She was a troublemaker, so she needed a name to fit it. "Maybe I'll call you Harley."
Chapter question: If you were transported into the Marvel world, would you rather be an Avenger or a Guardian of the Galaxy?