JJ's POV

After traveling through seven hundred jump points, all while Gora and I sat there watching everyone else change like some kind of messed up "funhouse" mirror Quill used to go on about until we arrived right outside of Ego's planet. Jerking to a stop, Rocket, Kraglin, and Yondu fell out of their seats and Groot was sent hurtling toward the wall before Gora caught him with her spines and he threw up glowing green barf right onto her head.

"Ewwwww..." I wrinkled my nose after Gora put Groot down and he started to try and climb back on her as she started to shake and clean herself off.

"What the hell are you doing, boy?!" Yondu yelled to Rocket,

"I could tell by how you talked about him this Ego is bad news. We're here to save Quill."

"For what? For 'honor'? For 'love'?"

"Pfft as if." I snorted as I picked Groot off of Gora so she could finish cleaning herself off from the glowing vomit and placed him on the console closest to Yondu.

"No! I don't care about those things! I want to save Quill so I can prove I'm better than him! I can lord this over him forever!"

Yondu started chuckling as he got back up again, making me say as I raised my eyebrow,

"It's official: he's lost it."

"I ain't the one who's lost." He pointed between me and Rocket before saying, "You two's are the ones who're lost."

"What?!" Rocket and I spoke at the same time.

"You can fool yourselves and everyone else but you can't fool me. I know who you both are."

"You don't know anything about us, loser." Rocket shot back

"I know everything about you. I know you play like the meanest and the hardest 'cause you're actually the most sacred of all."

"Shut up." Rocket growled.

"I know you steal batteries you don't need and you push away anyone who's willing to put up with you, 'cause just a little bit of love, even from your own kid, reminds you how big and empty that hole inside you actually is! And you follow his lead because you're scared that if you stray too far away you'll end up losing another family and you don't want to give up on this one like you did your last one."

"Cut it out!" I yelled.

"I said, shut up." Rocket snapped.

"I know the scientists what made you never gave a rat's a** about either o' you-"

"I'm serious, dude!" Rocket's stance began to falter as Yondu continued to shout,

"Just like my own damn parents, who sold me, their own little baby, into slavery! I know who you both are, because you're me."

Yondu stopped right in front of Rocket and the two of them looked at each other intensely before Rocket asked,

"What kind of trio are we?"

"The kind that's about to go fight a planet I reckon." Yondu answered as he stood back up and went to the front console.

"All right, okay, that's- Wait. Fight a what?" Rocket questioned and I was about to ask something before I felt a stinging in my head and my eyes blazed with heat and my conscious blacked out as it felt like something else was starting to control me.

3rd Person POV

"Kid?" Rocket cautiously drew out as JJ stood with her back to them, but sparks were starting to crackle around her hands.

"What's goin' on?" Kraglin questioned, starting to worry.

"Aw crap... frenzy!" Rocket shouted and JJ started to jump around trying to stick to the surfaces of the wall but kept slipping down and knocking things out of place.

"What's wrong with'er?" Yondu questioned as JJ stuck to the ceiling before falling back down to the floor painfully.

"I dunno, some kind of transformation deal."

JJ unleashed a pained scream and her hands went to her neck as she collapsed to the floor on her side and writhed in pain.

"Is'er neck s'posed to be glowing like that?" Kraglin questioned and they noticed a bright red light underneath her skin on the back of her neck.

"It's the power chip." Rocket started to explain.

"What?"

"I dunno, scientists put it in'er and it boosts her powers but too much and it'll melt right through."

At that, JJ caught sight of them and went on all fours, looking like she was about to charge at them like some kind of enraged bull before she was once again snared by Gora's spines.

"Take her below, there's less power to take down there." Yondu told Gora and she was about to do so when JJ sent a powerful shock through Gora's spines, sending her straight for a wall where she collided with it and fell unmoving to the floor with a painful *Bang*, allowing JJ to start drawing power from one of the consoles.

"If she takes too much, we'll go down before we even get to the battle." Kraglin informed them all right before JJ drained all the power, leaving the console she had been standing on blackened and shorted out before she started to randomly fire some bolts of energy at them, forcing them to seek shelter against the blasts.

"Ain't happenin', where's the auxiliary power cord on this junk heap?"

"Right underneath'er." Yondu pointed to a light gray panel underneath the console where JJ was currently draining the power from before leaving it fried like the first one.

"Of course it is..." Rocket grimaced before waiting until JJ stopped firing long enough to drain more power from another console before running toward the panel.

JJ's power siphoning sent a couple of streaks of electricity jump out of her to her surrounding, but Rocket continued toward the panel on all fours before he got to it and hurried to open it. JJ caught sight of him and was about to shoot him when she stopped suddenly and looked like she was fighting with all her willpower not to hurt him. Her hesitation gave Rocket enough time to get a hold of the power cable before ripping it out of place to connect the exposed end to the center of her torso, sending a surge of energy right for her core and expelling a shockwave that knocked them both back.

When Rocket got back up, he saw that JJ was on her hands and knees and, when she looked back up, her eyes were glowing the same scarlet red as the chip in her neck. She was about to lunge toward him when a whistle and a red streak crossed the back of her head, sending her back down to the floor as a gash on her neck started to trickle with her bright purple blood.

"Ugghhh..." JJ groaned as she picked herself back up and held a hand to her forehead before asking, "What happened?"

"You went Frenzy-mode again."

"So that's why my head feels like it got pummeled by a Rhinopus..." JJ raised her right hand to rub her forehead again when Rocket noticed new marks on her arm; three bright yellow triangles in a slightly bigger and more space out triangle. Just as he was about to bring it up though, JJ yelled,

"Gora!" Before running over to where Gora was laying with Groot hugging her head worriedly.

"I did this...?" JJ spoke in guilty disbelief.

"You and whatever kind of mind control this thing had in it." Yondu added while holding up his arrow that had the chip previously in JJ's neck impaled on its tip and dripping with some of her blood, but JJ wasn't listening as she tried to get Gora to wake up,

"C'mooon..." JJ held both of her hands over Gora's heart and closed her eyes, seconds later a dim light where her core was shone and sent small tendrils of light down her arms, lighting up the marks on her arm, before traveling down to her hands down to Gora, sending out ripples of bright yellow light. Right as the light dimmed back down, Gora's large eyes flickered opened before shakily using her spines to steady herself as she got back up.

"I Am Groot!" Groot shouted excitedly as he hugged Gora around her neck and she used her spines to pat him on the back before she extended one to wrap around JJ's wrist,

You've managed to unlock your true potential... Good...

"Thanks." JJ gave her a small smile.

"Glad to have ya back." Rocket started earnestly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, havin' to constantly avoid gettin' my fur fried got real old real quick."

"And I'm not sorry about it." JJ smirked at him, making him smile back before,

"I hate to interrupt this tender moment," Yondu interrupted, "but we do still have a battle to get to."

"Right."

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