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Xandar [June 2015]
–Jack Sullivan–
His eyes blinked in order to get rid of the spots in his vision as he looked at the huge number of asteroids that filled his vision. The Jump Point was alarmingly close to a number of smaller, fast revolving asteroids, just glittering with pimped out lights.
His gaze swivelled across the view that was afforded to him through the glass that kept the vacuum at bay, and found hundreds of such asteroids, in fact, every single asteroid to have some sort of lights on it, indicating that it was being used and was inhabited.
In the distance, the red giant sun was casting a dim glow on the asteroids. The ship performed some sort of handshake with the local organisation and that led to his ship heading straight towards the biggest asteroid of them all, a circular asteroid that was filled with artificial bays on all sides, with spaceships of all walks parked around it.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the myriad species walking around the parking bays without any oxygen masks, even though the entire thing was subjected to the cold vacuum. His unasked question was unanswered as soon as his ship went closer, to the point where he felt a small wave pass through him, and soon, he could see the thin translucent barrier littered with hexagonal blocks that probably kept the air inside.
The only question was if the air was suitable for humans or not? And what about the gravity? Any trace radiation levels? Because the sun was right there, and he did not feel any confidence in the very thin amount of atmosphere protecting them from the UV.
Not that he had any fears in that regard since he was the barrier incarnate but just something that was part of his idle curiosity.
His gaze went to the many ships that were in the process of being docked or being taken out of the docks, with most of them being bigger, much bigger than his own ship but that was not enough to make him self conscious as his barriers were more than enough to make himself larger than all the ships present in the multiple bays.
He looked at the ship being guided by the AI, and a small attendant with a single arm that came straight out of their chest, which was…odd but nothing in the vast scheme of space.
As soon as the ship docked with the bay, with a slight jerk, the engine's background noise died out and a series of notifications were displayed on the captain's dashboard.
"Reached System Mk-221, The Broker" It read and he had no freaking clue as to what it was. Most probably some obscure part of the Marvel lore that he didn't bother reading in his past life, or something that did not make it to the minds of Stan Lee and his fellow creators but existed in the universe all the same.
"Atmospheric conditions - suitable for humans and all carbon based life forms. Gravity - 1.3X of Terra"
He read through the messages and once he was confident that there was ont much he could grain through the ship anymore, he asked the ship, "Ship? The key?"
He was, ofcourse, referring to the key of the ship. A pedestrian concept on Earth, where each car was keyed to a key, pun intended, and that key allowed any person to open the car. For some reason, in the world of advanced biometrics, retinal scans, Genome Scans, and more, even the spaceship industry utilised the same tool and assigned a "key" to each spaceship.
He was utterly stupefied at the stupidity but it was the law of space and who was he to contest it?
He stepped out of the bay and took in a deep breath, and almost immediately gagged as so many smells hit him all at once, he had to reflexively cover his face in a barrier that began taking in stored air from Xandar and Earth, that he had compressed down to very minute volumes, just in case,
He could not predict if some Celestial or something attacked him out of nowhere and dumped him out of his Jump Gate, without air or a spaceship. It would be very hard for him to get air and more importantly, teleport anywhere because the normal sling rings don't do intergalactic Portals.
They need special shit for that, and unfortunately, he did not have it. Only the Sorcerer Supreme does.
It would prove that Stephen Strange, as the future Sorcerer Supreme, made the executive decision to distribute the incredibly dangerous tools to his fellow Masters just so that the final army could be gathered to create that one Last, United, Stand against Thanos, Son of A'lars.
"Welcome," He was greeted with a robotic greeting and had to sign a few things on a piece of paper that was floated to him by a robot before he could leave the bay area. Apparently, even in the vastness of space, they somehow found a way of utilising one of the rarest forms of material, wood, just for administrative purposes.
Or was the paper made of stone, which space had plenty of?
He shook his head, questions for later on, when he was not on a quest to hunt down a group that comprised of a Half Celestial, unpowered though, an empowered Racoon, a Flora colossus, a daughter of Thanos, Drax, and whatsoever they had managed to pick up along the way.
He entered the huge sprawling complex that greeted him once he exited the bays. It was nothing like he had expected it to be. The Asteroid was roughly the size of Earth's moon and it would seem like it was completely hollowed out from the inside because the sheer number of buildings and just the overall city he was seeing from his point of view looked more than it would fit even in Earth's moon.
His neck craned upwards as he walked forward, as he saw buildings dotting the ceiling of all places.
"So freaky," he muttered as he realised that this place had even used up that space, such must be the space crunch, even though he could see that the entirety of the space was not being utilised properly.
There was a raised area, right in the centre, which glinted to his eyes, even this far away, and it was just a single huge castle with no buildings on top of it as if the owner of that place just wanted his air space to be free of other buildings.
He snorted internally, as he went with the crowd, half exploring the place, half heading towards where the tracker last tracked Quill, realising that classism was prevalent even in the far reaches of space.
Good to know that Humanity was not the only species fucked up enough to come up with that vile thing.
He whistled as he tried not to gawk at aliens that held a striking resemblance to humans, save for one or two little differences. Bipedal mammals must really be common across the universe or the evolution of bipedal mammals must go through a similar path, only differing minutely in the end product, not that he believed Humans to be the end of the evolutionary path.
No, sir. That would be the height of foolishness and would also destroy his faith in the evolutionary process because beings like humans should not be the end point of an evolutionary cycle.
Not even the Inhumans, or the Mutants were the end because they were not dominant enough, neither strong nor consistent enough.
No, they needed to evolve into some super race with similar features so that Humanity doesn't nuke itself out of racism or just grow another brain to hold back all the intrusive thoughts that plague Humanity as a whole.
He snorted at the weird tangent his brain had taken and took a left turn as the hour had passed and Quill's location was updated that instant. His path led him to a bar that smelled.
He sighed and shook his head, "Figures."
The bouncer at the entrance looked at a screen that probably had something to do with the huge ass scanner installed right in front of the door, and then the other bouncer let the ribbon away when the first bouncer nodded. He pointedly avoided looking at their very tentacle-y feet that kept them upright and nodded in thanks.
Entering the bar, he was immediately assaulted by the smell of sweat, cheap booze, oil, and vomit.
Ugh, curse his enhanced senses. He immediately regretted letting the bar up to see if the establishment had any way of filtering the smell and it most definitely did not. In fact, he believed that the bar actually added to the filthy smell that pervaded most of the Docking bays, being so close to the entry points.
He was tempted to use his barriers to spread his awareness but this was a completely foreign place with no one recognising him. In a way, that hampered him because he would have to do some real damage before they took him seriously and also because he did not actually want to create a conflict.
It was just that he was so used to the automatic method that searching for the Guardians manually seemed just a chore to him. Still, he looked around the bar, bought the cheapest alcohol they had that would be palatable to a carbon based Human lifeform, and roamed the first level.
The bartender was not exactly chatty and he did not feel the need to tip him extravagant amounts of money to get something that his tracker would already find for him. According to his tracker, which should be accurate, unless this was some sort of weird prank that Irani Rael was pulling on him, was telling him that he was right where Quill was.
Hmm. Maybe, the tracker could not rack altitude changes then, which was weird because it could track Quill across space but not locate his exact height.
Shrugging at the abnormality, he slowly floated down, his feet not touching the stairs, the display of power not even drawing a sparing glance from anyone around him, which was kind of refreshing to be honest until he eventually reached the second level.
It was noticeably more crowded here, with the bartender being someone with literally flaming hair, pouring drinks after drinks which were then immediately swept away by waiting customers.
His enhanced senses could find the sound of moans, grunts, and more from the corners of the floor, and even though some of the doors that probably led to the bathrooms.
Ugh.
Taking a quick look around, he couldn't spot anyone, so he just resolved to go deeper. He had a hunch that the deeper he went, the cheaper it would be, the more crowded, the more smelly, and the more dirty it would be.
Unfortunately, he had a hunch that Quill, along with his ragtag ground would indeed be in the levels below.
So, with a long suffering sigh, he entered the level below, and the one after that, and the one after that, until eventually, he reached the lowest level, which was, thankfully, not quite what he expected it to be.
The lower he went, the more the security increased. He could actually feel the power levels of the guards the lower he went. At each level, they just looked at him and then let him pass, not stopping him at any point in time, right until he reached what felt like the final boss of the place.
That door was ornate and seemed to glow. He looked at the one bouncer who gestured at him to enter and he did.
His eyes widened as he heard a very familiar laughter in the background.
"Another!" The shout was followed by the sound of glass breaking on the ground. He had a weird sense of Deja Vu at the series of sounds.
He turned around the corner and was stilled on the spot as he saw Thor Odinson, drinking with Peter Quill and the rest as they sat all around a table, with a series of other people, who were noticeably more silent than the Crown Prince of Asgard, a fact that Thor seemed to ignore.
Thor also seemed to ignore the death glares the rest of the occupants of the floor were shooting at their table, something that seemed to unnerve the rest of the Guardians, so much so that even Rocket was silent and not quipping some underhanded insult.
Or a direct insult to someone's face, either one was Rocket's style.
His entry went unnoticed by all but the drinking Royal Asgardoian, with Peter's face showing relief at his presence.
Huh, maybe Quill was feeling threatened by the people in this palace. It might be due to the sheer number of people he could sense with his heightened senses in this place but could only see a few dozen.
Standing guard just outside the walls then, he realised.
"Ah, I had so much fun today. Thank you for escorting me here, Guardians of the Galaxy. I am glad to meet a human after so long. You know, you should meet the Avengers, they are some of the greatest *Hiccup* warriors I know," Thor told them as he was about to throw the glass as well but his barrier stopped it in time, something that drew eyes from every person in the room.
Some of them had more than a dozen eyes all at once locking on his green form.
"Hello, Thor. Nice to see you again," he said to Thor as he slid right into Quill's seat, dislodging him and dropping him on his ass.
Ah, nice to troll the Half Celestial.
Thor's eyes peered at his form before his entire being brightened and he suddenly found himself subjected to one of Prince Thor's crushing hugs, so much so that he could feel the impact on his barriers, which was startlingly rare.
"Ah, there, There," he patted Thor's back as he was lifted off the ground and shook like a ragdoll.
Stupid Clingy golden retriever of an Asgardian.
Word Count - 2406
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