Oh Darn
It was a normal day when it all started. The clouds were covering the sky in Portland and there was a light rain that was pouring down on the city. The roads had a thin covering of water that made the city reflect into the roads. The night air was chilled making me hug my body as walked drenched in the rain.
I was walking down the road towards my home after finishing my day at the local community college. That place was sucking me of my life and my finances. The education I, somehow, willingly signed up for was making me almost constantly exhausted.
As was aforementioned I was exhausted, tired and wet. I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings, the only thing I knew was that my home was about three minutes more of a walk. I was listening to music to pass the time. My phone was just playing random songs from my vast collection of pirated music. It was currently playing something from Blue Swede.
As my mind was drifting off at the time I didn't notice the box that I walked into that caused me to trip like a fucking idiot. I landed right in a puddle. The offending object lied next to my body. I pushed myself into a sitting position. The box was slightly damp from the rain and seemed to have some stuff in it.
I huffed. and for some stupid reason, I decided to take the box back to my home, the thoughts running through my head at the time was simple, and greedy, and they involved that idea that the items inside might be worth some money.
As my house came into sight I felt relieved. Because the rain and the puddle both made me dirty and wet. I wanted to hop into a warm shower and then look at the stuff that was inside the box. For all, I knew there could be something valuable in there. My mind went to a million different places of what could be inside of the box the most concerning one involved a cadaver and the black market.
I stepped onto the lot where my house was built. The lawn was in disrepair, it looked like no one had cared for it for years, and that was accurate because I had no idea how to use a lawnmower or the money to buy one. My house was in slightly better condition, it was a small house that was painted a deep shade of brown, with two windows that were small but allowed me to have a decent view of my neighborhood that was slightly rural for the Portland area. Even if it wasn’t perfect it was home.
I walked up the steps of the porch and searched through my pockets to find my key. After I successfully located the impossibly small metal piece of pure annoyance I slid it into my door and opened it. The home was dark and the only light source in the house was the street light that rested at the front of my house. I reached for the light switch and did the only thing I could do, I turned it on.
I put the box down went into my bathroom so I could dry off. I grabbed my only towel off the rack and I stripped off my shirt and my bra and patted myself down, I decided I was too lazy to take my pants off and grabbed a dirty shirt from my laundry hamper that didn't smell like complete garbage. I looked briefly in the mirror and realized that, just like always, my stupid face was there and I walked out.
The box was still by the door so I went to grab it. I tucked the box under my arms and carried it down the hall with a simple destination in mind, the kitchen. I plopped the box down on the tile counter.
For the first time that night I got a good look at the box. It was a simple cardboard box with something written on the side. I couldn’t read it at the time because the rain had washed the ink away to the point where the text was hard to make out. I could barely make out the first letter, it seemed to be an S.
Staring at the box was starting to get boring so I decided to open the piece of shit that made me wetter and dirtier than usual.
I opened the box and inside I found a bunch of random shit. On the top of the clusterfuck of seemingly random items, there was a sphere that was some sort of metal. I also found some weird looking ear piece and under that, there was a long red jacket, that looked slightly familiar to me. The jacket felt like it was made of some sort of leather. I picked the jacket up and put it on the counter. Underneath it all, I found two gun like things that sat next to a small leather rucksack and a belt. I froze in place staring at the guns and realized something important. That the objects in the box were a part of a costume.
I looked back at the items and sighed in recognition it was a costume from Guardians of the Galaxy. I smiled slightly because I really liked that movie. It was one of my favorites it was right up there with Back to the Future and Ghostbusters. Even if I did get wiped out by this box it was still a cool find.
I knew people online that would pay a small fortune for the costume. The money I could make off of it could actually allow me to buy food that wasn't top ramen for once.
Before I even took pictures to sell the thing I, in my infinite intelligence, decided to try the costume on at least once. After all, I was a huge fan of the movie I could not help myself. I put the items back in the box and went to the bathroom to put it all on.
The costume was extremely large on me. The jacket was obviously made for some on at least a foot taller than me. The belt was barely able to fit my tiny waist. The prop guns had holsters that were attached to the belt. I grabbed the brown rucksack and threw it over my back.
The costume looked almost ridiculous on me, I was practically swimming in it. It was obviously made for a man that was much taller than me. The jacket was touching the floor and the rucksack was almost falling off my back. The only thing that fit was the earpiece.
I grabbed the last item in the box, the orb. The orb looked just like it did in the movie and it was even made out of some sort of metal. There was a small seam going down the center of the orb. Being the complete fucking idiot I was I decided to try to unscrew the orb. I was curious to see if there was a prop stone in the thing. The orb started to give away to my amazing grip.
As I was about to finish opening the thing it gained a mind of its own and decided to finish opening itself. I was transfixed, as the orb started to emit a purple light that engulfed my whole vision. My arm started to burn and soon it felt like my entire body was on fire. It hurt like dicks man.
After that, I found myself in a garden or some shit, I wasn’t really paying attention to that. Because for some reason it was incredibly difficult to move my body. I started to panic as I tried harder and harder to get myself to move.
“Hey who’s that?” I heard someone say. I think he was talking to someone else because It wasn’t like he was talking to me.
I heard footsteps walking towards me. There was a golden light that seemingly lifted me off of the ground.
“Arrow?” The voice from earlier said.
“Yeah?” It was a new voice. It seemed to be shocked.
“Is that who I think it is? Or do I finally have a reason to declare my self-unfit for duty?” The first voice said.
“It really is him. Sir, we need to report this to the higher ups,” Arrow replied. He still seemed shocked. Arrow pulled out some sort of device and started talking into it in a hushed voice. Unfortunately, he was speaking way too quietly for me to hear.
Whatever was holding me up saw fit to move me to an angle where I could view the two men that seemingly apprehended me somehow.
If I had the ability to scream I would’ve, because the two dudes who were talking were two things, one, definitely not human, and two armed with some sort of weapons.
Whatever they were, they looked vaguely humanoid. They stood on two legs had two arms and human-ish faces. The similarities ended with the skin colors and the ears. The one called Arrow had teal skin and brown hair, instead of normal ears he had ears that resembled a dog maybe? Or a cat. I wasn’t too sure. I also didn’t really care. The other one whose name had not been mentioned yet had white skin, not caucasian skin, white like paper or white paint. His hair was platinum blonde.
The weapons they had were held firmly with their hands. The weapons looked like spears, really sharp spears with some sort of glowing gems at the tip of them. The unnamed man’s spear was glowing with more intensity than Arrow’s spear. I had brief thoughts involving the man making up for something with the brighter spear, but those thoughts were lost in my emotions, those emotions involved pure fear and confusion.
They both wore some sort of armor that looked like a mix of something you’d imagine that a knight would wear crossed with something straight out of Halo. The armor was a shiny golden hue that seemed to glow in the sunlight. It hurt my eyes to look at so I decided to do the best I could at looking away without moving my head.
“Officer Sparrow said to enact protocol Alpha-72,” Arrow spoke to his cohort in a hushed tone, I don’t think he meant for me to hear it.
“If the rumors are true we can’t be too careful I guess,” The unnamed guy said in a tone that was not hushed and it seemed to have a slight undertone of annoyance.
Arrow’s spear started to glow even brighter and he aimed it at my face. I felt a sense of dread building in my gut. I tried to form some sort of protest to whatever they were doing, but I still could not get my body to do anything. The spear glowed brighter and brighter and with a flash, I lost consciousness.
“That is all we can pick up with this spell Princess.” Interrogator Luminosity informed me as her spear ceased glowing.
I let a long sigh and rubbed my temples. It had been a fine day, a grand one even. The sun rose with no interruptions. My student had been engaged in today’s lesson. I even had a slice of cake for my morning meal.
Then this happened.
Privates Arrow and Shield captured the man known as Star-Lord. He had been on my planet before, the last time he was here he ransacked my old palace and injured numerous guards. He had committed one-third of the crimes for that year in two hours.
I prided myself on running this planet so efficiently that crime was a rarity and defiance was unheard of. It was nice. But he was annoying.
“He must have amazing mental defenses to produce such an obvious farce of a memory,” I could not for the world of me remember the name of that particular interrogator at the moment.
“Princess we await your orders on how to handle the prisoner,” The interrogator informed me with a prompt flat tone.
“Place him in a containment cell in the lower part of the castle, for now, I will need to think about what to do with him,” I replied in the soft but firm tone that I was known for.
It would be impossible to put the man on trial, after all, he was pardoned by the Nova Corps six standard months ago. I could hold him in confinement indefinitely as long as I, ‘forgot’ to inform the Nova Corps.
Two guards moved into the room and used their spears to levitate Star-Lord out of the interrogation chamber and into a confinement cell in the lower parts of the palace.
I had a feeling that today was not going to end well.