Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  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 armingly 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 gss that kept the vacuum at bay, and found hundreds of such asteroids, in fact, every sieroid to have some sort of lights on it, indig that it was being used and was inhabited.

  In the distahe red giant sun was casting a dim glow oeroids. The ship performed some sort of handshake with the local anisation and that led to his ship heading straight towards the biggest asteroid of them all, a circur 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 ehing 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 ass through him, and soon, he could see the thin translut 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 fiden the very thin amount of atmosphere proteg them from the UV.

  Not that he had any fears in that regard since he was the barrier inate but just something that art 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 scious as his barriers were more than enough to make himself rger 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 dispyed 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.

  “Atmospheriditions - suitable for humans and all carbon based life forms. Gravity - 1.3X of Terra”

  He read through the messages and once he was fident 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 cept oh, where each car was keyed to a key, pun intended, and that key alloerson to open the car. For some reason, in the world of advanced biometrics, retinal ss, Genome Ss, 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 w of spad who was he to test 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 fa a barrier that began taking in stored air from Xandar ah, that he had pressed 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 intergactic 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’rs.

  “Wele,” 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 ter on, when he was not on a quest to hunt down a group that prised of a Half Celestial, unpowered though, an empowered Ra, a Flora colossus, a daughter of Thanos, Drax, and whatsoever they had mao pick up along the way.

  He ehe huge sprawling plex 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 pletely 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 ih’s moon.

  His neck ed upwards as he walked forward, as he saw buildings dotting the ceiling of all pces.

  “So freaky,” he muttered as he realised that this pce had even used up that space, such must be the space ch, even though he could see that the ey of the space was not being utilised properly.

  There was a raised area, right in the tre, which glio 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 pce just wanted his air space to be free of other buildings.

  He snorted internally, as he went with the crowd, half expl the pce, half heading towards where the tracker st tracked Quill, realising that cssism revalent even in the far reaches of space.

  Good to know that Humanity was not the only species fucked up enough to e up with that vile thing.

  He whistled as he tried not to gawk at aliens that held a striking resembo humans, save for one or two little differences. Bipedal mammals must really be on across the universe or the evolution of bipedal mammals must gh a simir path, only differing minutely in the end produot 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, her strong nor sistent enough.

  No, they o evolve into some super race with simir features so that Humanity doesn’t self out of racism or just grow another brain to hold back all the intrusive thoughts that pgue Humanity as a whole.

  He s the weird ta his brain had taken and took a left turn as the hour had passed and Quill’s location dated that instant. His path led him to a bar that smelled.

  He sighed and shook his head, “Figures.”

  The bou the entrance looked at a s that probably had something to do with the huge ass ser installed right in front of the door, and theher bouncer let the ribbon away when the first bounodded. 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 Dog bays, being so close to the entry points.

  He was tempted to use his barriers to spread his awareness but this was a pletely fh no nising 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 flict.

  It was just that he was so used to the automatic method that searg 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 patable to a carbon based Human lifeform, and roamed the first level.

  The bartender was ly chatty and he did not feel the o tip him extravagant amounts of moo get something that his tracker would already find for him. Acc to his tracker, which should be accurate, uhis was some sort of weird prank that Irani Rael ulling on him, was telling him that he was right where Quill was.

  Hmm. Maybe, the tracker could not rack altitude ges 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 toug the stairs, the dispy of power not even drawing a sparing gnce from anyone around him, which was kind of refreshing to be ho until he eventually reached the sed level.

  It was noticeably more crowded here, with the bartender being someoh literally fming hair, p drinks after drinks which were then immediately swept away by waiting ers.

  His enhanced senses could find the sound of moans, grunts, and more from the ers 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 ehe level below, and the oer that, and the oer 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 the him pass, not stopping him at any point in time, right until he reached what felt like the final boss of the pce.

  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 ughter in the background.

  “Another!” The shout was followed by the sound of gss breaking on the ground. He had a weird sense of Deja Vu at the series of sounds.

  He turned around the er 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 Prince of Asgard, a fact that Thor seemed to ignore.

  Thor also seemed to ighe death gres the rest of the octs of the floor were shooting at their table, something that seemed to unhe rest of the Guardians, so much so that even Rocket was silent and not quipping some underhanded insult.

  Or a diresult 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 pace. It might be due to the sheer number of people he could seh his heightened senses in this pce 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 esc me here, Guardians of the Gaxy. I am gd 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 gss 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 log on his green form.

  “Hello, Thor. o see you again,” he said to Thor as he slid right into Quill’s seat, dislodging him and dropping him on his ass.

  Ah, o 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 Prihor’s crushing hugs, so much so that he could feel the impa 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 gy golderiever of an Asgardian.

  Word t - 2406

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