//------------------------------// // The one where They Crash // Story: The Road Trip of A-Holes! // by Sense of Humor //------------------------------// Ayesha narrowed her eyes, goring them into her subordinates beneath her. She watched all five hundred of them stationed in their holographic battle pods, closing in on their newfound enemy. She glared at the pinpoint that stood as a representation of a fleeing ship, with six weasely scoundrels aboard it. Her fingers tightened into fists at her sides the more she stared and she didn't notice anything else until her general suddenly spoke up beside her. "We are locked on to the target." He said in a dutiful tone. "Awaiting your orders." Ayesha relaxed her fists and drummed her fingers against her legs, her eyes still trained on the closet holographic image. "Despicable." She all but spat out. Her fingers drummed harder. "Every last one of them; despicable and nothing else." "Indeed, Ma'am." "Despicable wretches, all of them." She hissed like an angry animal under her breath. "I invite them to peace and friendship through their hired task. We pay them to handle our problem and they steal from us?!" She inhaled sharply, turning her nose upward in disgust. "This is a crime of the highest level. And they will be treated as criminals of such a level." Ayesha sneered at her general. "Give the order. Fire when ready." The general blinked worriedly. "Wait. Fire? The batteries are very costly and explosive! Are you sure you want to..." Given the look she gave him, he figured that she was very sure. "Oh. Very well." “Rocket, I know that...more than likely, you're usually a very stupid animal and all," Trixie sneered and levitated Quill's mask over to him before she aided Maud by handing her the asteroid gloves. "But didn't your brain say anything along the lines of Don't steal from the aliens you were hired by?!" Quill fired a few rounds of the ship's weapons at their attackers and only hit a small percentage of them. He pulled up on a cylindrical piece and the ship lurched upwards with a sudden force. " Oh, don't waste your breath on him. Like you said, stupid animal." "How am I stupid for stealing those batteries?!" Rocket jerked the ship left after pulling on a device similar to Quill's. When a trio of golden attackers hovered in their path, he shot them all into orange explosions. "Did you see them? No bodyguards, no laser cases--they didn't even have a password to get to them! I mean, come on! They deserved to be stolen, right?" "I am Groot!" "Groot's right. That's like saying," Maud paused to flick her front hooves together in a sudden clap, then directed them inwards towards her chest. A cluster of asteroids clashed together behind their ship on a group of gold pods and then rushed towards the rest of the swarm behind them. Job done for now, she continued. "That I can steal your tail just because you don't have a bodyguard for it. You're still stealing it, so its wrong." Gamora stared at the back of Rocket's head with an incredulous glare.  "Rocket, the ponies are making more sense than you. That’s a new low.” “I make sense to me, screw you very much.” Rocket jammed a thumb down on a fresh blue button belonging to her panel, then leaned done to a recently installed mic. “ Activate Disco Ball!” He winked at Quill. “You'll love this.” Plasma bolts in the form of sparkling zips of energy shot out from the back of the ship and clustered together to form a giant herd of sizzling light. The chaotic mass collided for only a split second, and they each reacted violently with each other in even less time. A series of blinding, colorful flashes erupted in the dark expanse of space and brightened everything as if the sun was right next to them. Blinking away the white spots in his vision, Quill smiled at the raccoon. “ Wow! You installed a new system when I told you not to and came up with a crappy flash bomb! Thanks, dude!” “Ya welcome!” “I was being sarcastic!” “What?! No, you weren't! You wink when you're being sarcastic! You're not playing by the rules, man! The RULES!” Derpy fluttered to the very front of the ship and glanced around from the dome shape of the glass. She squinted downwards as best as she could and shot backward second later.“They’re coming from below, Mr.Lord!” Starlord shifted the ship backward in a jarring lurch up and around, which narrowly dodged the gold pods as a result. He jammed forward on his control sticks and caused the ship to fly in a straight fall down towards a passing asteroid. He clicked his tongue and veered towards the right with a sharp yank; Maud pulled the asteroid up with a strained uplift of her arms at his command and the group of targets found themselves crushed by the heavy mass ramming into them. Rocket reached under his seat and recovered a very mechanical vest, before calling for a certain Pegasi. Derpy swallowed nervously as she wandered over to the woodland alien and accepted the strange wear. The moment she started to put it on, the belt connected automatically over her back. She squeaked and tensed her wings as something clicked into shape on her shoulder. When she realized it was, she cringed. “I thought you were crazy to send me out there period...but this is ridiculous! This gun is way too small!” “And it packs a big punch, so point it away from our ship, please.” Rocket punched a button that opened the bay doors of the ship and offered a polite gesture to it. “Off ya go, My little pony! Make me proud!” Gamora glared daggers at her ally from behind, shaking her head in disbelief. “Rocket, you’re going to get her killed with that stupid thing on! We can't just send her out there!” Derpy glanced between the two of them and swallowed a large lump. On one hoof, she could die by many things out there as opposed to remaining on the ship; suffocation or one of those laser bolt things for one. Of course, if she stayed there could also be the possibility of being in an exploding ship and that was never good. Probably worse than not breathing or having a huge hole in you, by Derpy’s strange standards. Before she could bring herself to think logically, she charged past Gamora. “I can do this! I can do this!” She couldn't do this. Not at first, anyway. At first, Derpy flailed about in the vacuum of space after leaping, her wings only doing so much to propel her forward. The gold pods zoomed at her after discovering the helpless pony very quickly, already firing a few shots at her. With a not-girlish shriek, she finally remembered to pat the vest and was instantly propelled between a few of the pods, who scraped against each other trying to turn back around. Her wings, for the first time in forever, worked like built-in rudders for a boat, helping to make swift changes in direction. She dipped this way and that in an increasingly fun way of tiring out the gold pods, and even invented new u-turn techniques. Derpy still didn't know how to work the gun though, and she suddenly wished that she hadn't left so fast. What could be the trigger for a mounted weapon? It couldn't be a voice command-- not in the vacuum of space. That wouldn't make sense. Maybe she needed to nudge it with a hoof and then pat it to fire? She reached up to her shoulder-- A trio of golden pods floated up into her direct path suddenly, taking advantage of her distracted thoughts. She gasped, arms out in front of her in a reflexive attempt to stop herself. A purple, crackling blur zipped over her shoulder and seemed to phase into the metal of the middle pod. Seconds later, purple electricity struck the other pods from the middle one, and they all exploded into mild clouds of orange dust. “Huh.” Testing it again, she held out her right arm after turning around to face another group. A hit landed on the pod closest to the right of them and like falling dominoes, they went out one by one. The debris left over from one of them even rocketed into a far away one. Derpy eyed the gun as best as she could and squealed to herself. “This is too Awesome!” The vibrations from other explosions reached Derpy at that point, the product of the twists and turns of Quill’s ship as it came under heavy fire. She flew after them and pursed her lips when the number of gold pods grew to nearly a hundred. Neither of them would keep this up for long, even with Derpy’s...Domino Gun. Heh. She liked that name. She zipped forward until she was side by side with the glass front of the ship, and that's when she noticed it above them. A close strip of migrating asteroids and meteors floated in a pack towards the right of outer space. A plan sprung to mind; it might not get rid of all of their pursuers, but it would cut them down to a manageable number. Derpy face-hoofed. “I'm fighting aliens because my raccoon friend stole their batteries. This’ll be quite the story back home.” The pegasi made sure to get her allies’ attention and pointed up at the asteroid belt. “Why is she performing a dance?” Drax muttered from inside the ship, resting an elbow on Gamora’s head. “And why is it one motion?” “You idiot,” Gamora shook her head free of the nuisance and smoothed out her hair again. “She’s pointing at something.” Quill pulled the ship up and nodded as Derpy shot off towards the distance. “Huh. That’d be the Galact Asteroid Belt...She wants us to go through it with her, and Maud can use those giant rocks to her advantage! I like her spunk!” Gamora squinted at something on her screen and smirked. “She’s got the right idea! Berherts the closest habitable planet, and going through that belt will put us in range for a jump!” “Through that? Why Quill,” Drax crossed his arms and watched with growing curiosity. “Only the greatest pilot could get through a tangled mess of rocks like that!” Trixie nudged a grinning Starlord and used her performer’s voice. “Indeed, Drax. It occurs to Trixie that we’ll need a Great and Powerful pilot to get us out of this! The most precise, accurate pilot in all of this galaxy! And luckily for us--” “I'm right here!” Trixie nodded enthusiastically and pointed a hoof at the speaker. “Exactly. Only Rocket is capable of--wait. I wasn’t--” The ship shot to the right to avoid crashing into the first asteroid, and the one to thank for such a jarring movement was none other than the ship’s crazy raccoon. The woodland warrior didn't give his teammates any time to peel their faces off of the ground, for the ship zipped up in seconds and then crashed down again. Given the vibrations from behind them, it was safe to say that the plan was working to an extent. Regardless, Quill overrode the controls for the ship manually and took over from Rocket. Naturally, Rocket was not pleased with this. “Hey, jerk! What are you doing?” “Jerk?!Who’s name is on this ship, stupid?!” Quill fired seventeen rounds at a cluster of pods when the ship made a 180° turn before he continued in the intended direction. “Who’s the one who bought this?! Who’s been flying this ship for ten years?!” Rocket yanked back the controls from him and made a wild u-turn as his first act. A grey blur skidded across the windshield of the ship and Gamora threw a metal bolt at the back of the raccoon. “Careful! You almost hit Derpy!” “I am Groot!” Groot worriedly pointed at the pegasus outside. Ignoring them both, he pulled the ship in a reverse motion and smashed their way through another cluster. He leaned back as an asteroid, courtesy of Maud, sandwiched a herd rushing towards them. “I was cybernetically engineered to fly ships three times this toy.” Trixie hmmphed aloud and turned her snout upwards. “Cybernetically engineered to be a pain in our flanks, maybe.” Starlord laughed a whooping laugh and pointed at a grumpy raccoon. “Apply ice to the burn, man! Gimme some, Trix!” He bumped his fist with her hoof. “Alright, b!tch,” Rocket snarled and squeezed the trigger hard enough to bend the plastic slightly. Light flashed in huge clusters outside, the product of several rounds emptying into his enemies. “ Later on tonight, I'm gonna give you a pillow to sleep on, and there's gonna be something big and squishy in it, and you're gonna go, Gee, what’s this weird stinky thing and it’ll be because I dropped a TURD in it!” Trixie took a step towards him, eyes narrowed to deadly slits. “You poop in my pillow,” She growled. “And I'll turn you into a teacup. A teacup so tiny that it would be all too easy to step on you.” “Well, it won't be my turd. It'll be Drax’s!” “AH HAHAHAAA!” The previously mentioned Guardian chortled at the top of his lungs and slapped Trixie on the back. Hard. “You are in great luck, Horse of Tricks! My turds are famous for their size!” Nebula, sick and tired of pinching the bridge of her nose, cast a pleading look at the gang. “Somebody please kill me.” No one in the ship killed the poor, tortured woman, unfortunately. Quill and Rocket made the ship turn this way and that in their quarrels, tossing around everyone in the ship and no doubt damaging several pricey items. The chaos only went on until the ship flew out of the other side of the belt and Derpy fluttered in front of the ship, waving her arms frantically. Quill racked his brain for any way of deciphering the physical message given to them.“Wait. What’s she saying? And how close are we to the jump?” “10 clicks….She’s…” Gamora narrowed her eyes at Derpy. “...mouthing something. I think it starts with a ‘th’.” “Hmm...There be whales here?” Drax suggested. “These are not the droids you’re looking for?” Rocket questioned. “I am Groot?” “Ew, no. It can’t be that.” Trixie poked Quill’s leg. “Just let her in, so she can stop doing all that moving and tell us.” It was as if she zipped inside as soon as the bay doors opened up, coming to a halt on her face. Derpy stood to her shaky hooves and gasped for breath, for enough oxygen to say something very important. But Rocket beat her to it when a flash of gold caught his attention. “Oh crap! They went around the belt!” He pointed at the hundreds of ships curling around from a far distance, closing in to form a tight sphere around their vessel. “Derpy, why didn't you say that before?!” Derpy stared at him. "5 clicks! We won't make it! " Gamora announced, just before a barrage of golden bolts slammed into their ship from all sides. The heavy fire grew in number as the golden pods put everything they had into it. The glass of Quill's ship cracked and splintered in a growing threat to give way and the hull didn't sound like it would last much longer under the powerful assault. Gamora searched the shaky ship for a certain unicorn. "Trixie! I don't know what you did before with the Abelisk, but you have to do it now! Trixie buried her head under her forelegs and all but shrieked. “ I can’t! Nothing is happening!” “You have to, or we’re all gonna die!” Gamora urged her. “I’m sorry!” Trixie wailed. And then all of the golden pods promptly exploded into a million pieces. “ Someone destroyed all of our ships!” The general exclaimed to the gruesome sight of his troops losing each of their old feeds. The troops all groaned and cursed aloud at their misfortune, every single one of them. “All of them: blown up! Even Zylak! WHY ZYLAK?! WHY?!” “Yeah, you suck, Zylak!” “Typical Zylak!” Ayesha trembled with rage but spoke quietly. “Someone destroyed our ships?... Who?” The ship, barely intact and even less likely to remain moving, was entirely silent. The Guardians and ponies exchanged looks of confusion and relief, but they all flinched at a high pitched beep. Gamora looked down at her screen and instantly flicked a switch upwards. “ We’re at the jump!” “Do it!” Quill barked. “Wait...what’s that?” Rocket glanced out of the ship’s cracked windows and curiously stared at a passing ship. It's white, egg-shaped hull stood out against the black portrait of space,  but the truly surprising image was that of a figure standing on top of the ship. Tiny thanks to the distance, he waved a minuscule hand at them as they passed. Rocket cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, that's a guy. Does anyone else--” “Everybody hang on to something!” Gamora commanded before Groot promptly latched onto her neck and hugged tight enough to choke her. “Ack! Groot...not that much…!” Everything else literally became a blur after that. The ship seemed to enter a much brighter landscape than the depths of space--bright enough to blind them in fact. White clouds zipped by in a blue sky and the faintest rim of green was painted on the very bottom of the windows. Air rushed through their hair and aggressively pulled on their bodies as they plummeted further and further down. The sounds of startled avians could be heard as whispers above the roar of-- “THE BAY DOORS ARE STILL OPEN?!” Gamora’s voice cracked as she tried to yell over the roar of rushing wind. This explained the air trying to suck them backwards, and why Nebula had been screaming very vulgar things for the past thirty seconds. “I THOUGHT YOU IDIOTS CLOSED THEM!!!” “DON’T WORRY! I’LL HANDLE THIS!!!” Drax heroically marched backwards and instantly fell off of his feet. The air had no trouble sucking him back out if the ship entirely, even while kicking and screaming. “AAAAAAAAAUGH!!!” Trixie whirled around and used her horn to catch him around the waist, tethering him by the bond of a levitation spell. “FEAR NOT! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE WILL SAVE Y--EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” “DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF?!” The green woman lunged for Trixie just as the pony blurred past. While she managed to snake a hand around a hind hoof, the speed Trixie was flying at didn't slow down. Gamora managed to latch her free hand onto a bar protruding from the ceiling and nearly dislocated her shoulder in the process. Screaming in agony, Gamora somehow maintained her grip on Trixie. In return, Trixie kept her grip on Drax. Apparently this planet had trees, and a whole lot of them. Everyone quickly noticed this when they were thrashed like rag dolls as the hull battered through the towers of bark. Deafening noise accompanied the chaos of movement, the more they descended towards the ground below. Glass splintered around them like fireworks, appliances in the ship exploded and left smoke to stream out of the bay doors. Drax screamed at the top of his lungs as his body was slammed and rammed through every tree on the way down, chopping the thinner ones in half as if were an ax. If he bounced off one of the larger specimens, another was there to try breaking his spine. Trixie's hold on him lengthened the closer they came to the ground, but didn't let up one bit. Gamora was seconds away from releasing her hold, however, as her fingers threatened to break at the joints and-- The ship finally scraped to an uneasy halt and gravity resumed its hold on their bodies. Gamora and Trixie crumpled to the ground instantly, panting and joining everyone else in their chorus of paned groans. The pegasus was probably the first to stand to her shaky hooves and look around with a relieved smile. “Well!” She sighed deeply. “At least nopony got hurt, right?” A screaming Drax, still carried forward by the momentum of the crash, speared his way through the ship and out of the hull. An audible thunk signaled his sudden stop. “MY LEG!” Gamora’s teeth threatened to break, given all of the grinding they did as she surveyed the almost completely destroyed ship. She whirled around the crew and prisoner, and somehow gnashed harder. “Look at this! This ship isnt even habitable  anymore, let alone air-worthy! Its destroyed junk now!” Quill narrowed his eyes as he looked it over again. “Yeah! This thing cost me so many units! No one could fix this heap of trash now!” “Either one of you could have gotten us out of there without a scratch!” Gamora paced back and forth angrily. “But nooo--You just had to fly with your d!cks instead of your brains!” Quill raised a finger to object to that. “Actually, if my d!ck had a hand on it, I would have flown us outta of that problem backwards! And upside down.” His green lady friend stopped and stared at him incredulously. “Peter, we almost died because of you!” Trixie gave an offended, highly sarcastic gasp to Quill and held a hoof to her chest. “So Quill was the one who stole the Anulax batteries this whole time and got us in danger? I feel so betrayed.” Drax hmmphed at her. “They’re called Harbulary Batteries, Horse of Tricks!” Maud, still strangely monotone, sighed. “No, they’re not.” Rocket took an aggressive step towards Trixie with balled up fists and bared teeth. “Okay! You wanna know why I stole ‘em, b!tch?!” “Is that the only insult you know?” She sneered. “I did it for the sole reason of wanting to! So there! Nyeh!” When all the horse did was scoff at him, he continued by shifting the subject. “Are we all just gonna ignore the fact that a tiny dude saved us and blew up all the ships?!” “Tiny?” Nebula muttered robotically. “What do you mean, tiny?” “I don't know. He was like, one inch or something. Like an ant. An Ant-man or something like that.” Gamora skeptically stared at him. “So you're saying a tiny Ant-man saved us from certain death?” The animal shrugged and crossed his arms. “Sure. Yeah...I mean...If were close up to him, then maybe he would have been bigger.” Trixie pretended to inspect her hoof, leaning back to sit on her haunches. “That’s kiiinda how eyesight is meant to work, Raccoon.” “Call me a Raccoon again, I dare ya! Do it!” Rocket snarled viciously. Stepping in quickly, Quill held out a hand to calm him down and offered a disapproving look to his pony pal. “Rocket, calm down! She's sorry! She didn't mean that.” Before the mare could ask him any confused questions, he cracked a smirk. “She meant Trash Panda.” Silence(littered with stiffled giggles) stretched on after that. Rocket scratched his head and searched for anyone to inquire, Derpy being the one he selected. “...Is that better…?” Derpy bit her hoof a few times and settled for shrugging. “Never really... heard of that before. Trixie?” “It’s worse.” The unicorn confirmed with an open laugh. “Probably THE worst.” That was all Rocket needed to hear, for his red eyes instantly latched onto the ship leader. “YOUSONOFA--!!!” He leapt forward in an attempt to latch some teeth onto Quill’s arm, only for the laughing human to dodge harmlessly. “Hold still, ya little punk! I've had it with you!” “Hey, Rocket! “ Derpy was staring up into the sky. “Was that guy you were talking about riding an egg?” Everyone else instantly found their gazes drawn up to the sky where a large egg shaped vessel floated down out of the sky. The Guardians jumped into a defensive circle suddenly, and the ponies awkwardly followed them. Nebula nudged Maud with her ankle. “Beast, you must free me.” “She doesn't even have the key, Nebula.” Gamora scoffed. “And even if she did--” “She could be helpful.” Maud interrupted. Gamora glare down at the pony. “You can not be this gullible. She would try to kill the moment she was free.” Nebula swallowed. “Er, no I wouldn't.” Maud’s eyes widened slightly at the cyborg. “Wow. You are a really bad liar.” By that point, the egg shaped vessel landed with its bulbous side jutting towards them, glowing an unearthly white shade.  The Gaurdians and their equestrian allies watched with growing wonder as a large door opened on the ship and revealed even brighter insides of white structures. A man stepped out of the ship dressed in grey attire and a silver cape beard rustling in the gentle breeze. Where his aged face was set with relieved joy, the odd woman with antennae behind him seemed to be apprehensive and worried about facing the heroes. The old man walked to the base of his ship’s steps and nodded warmly. “Is he staring at me?” Quill asked. “After all of these years of searching and days of hardship...I've done it.” The old man seemed on the verge of tears, from the joy growing within him. “I’ve found you, Peter.” “Uh, how do you know me?” Starlord asked, skeptical and ready to blast if needed. “Who are you?” “Hmm. I thought my rugged good looks might answer that.” The man laughed softly and raised his arms, as if presenting some amazing gift to them all. “ I am Ego..The Great Celestial...and your father, Peter Quill.” The Gaurdians and ponies all gasped. Quill wore an expression of surprise, then confusion and finally shocked confusion. His mind struggled to process the news and in turn brought about different emotions to him. Trixie seemed surprised, but only because of the old man’s choice for his title. “I...Ego...The Celestial?” The new being smiled wider. “Yes, young Trixie.” She winced inwardly. “...Daddy?” The old man’s smile dropped instantly. “Ew, no.” Trixie sighed in relief.