JJ's POV

"It's not ripe." I took the bowl of fruit out of Nebula's reach after she tried to reach for them again as I gathered some tools from around the workshop.

After that I headed back up to the cockpit where I started to help Rocket with repairs to the ship.

"OK, I managed to get the ship's navigation system back online." I reported after a little while to Rocket as he was working on the steering system.

"Alright, we just need to fix the ship's thruster and build a whole new wing and then we can get off this planet."

"Thank the Orinix..." Gora spoke up from where she was sitting and Groot was burying himself in her bushy tail.

"The what?" Rocket arched a furry brow in question before he remembered, "Oh yeah, the big glowy power source of your old planet."

"It is much more than that, but in short yes the 'b-b-big-g-g g-g-g-looooooowyyyyyyy '." Gora shook her head and pawed at the device resting on her forehead that translated her thoughts into speech as it started to malfunction.

"Oh greeeaat..." Rocket leaped off the console to get the device off as it started to spark up in his paws so he tossed it to me and I caught it with one hand. Closing my hand to form a fist around the device, smoke started to leak through my fingers so I opened my fist back up to show that the power had been drained out of it to stop any more damage being done to the device.

"Power's been drained, should be safe to fix now." I tossed it back to Rocket as he started to open it up to see what was wrong with it.

"Keep the console stabilized while I fix this thing."

"On it." I walked over to the open panel with wires waiting to be plugged into their positions when I felt a burning pain in my head and I seized my head with both hands as they sparked up, giving a shout when the pain doubled and through a bright light I was seeing, I could see the panel and wires in front of me sparking up.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I could hear Rocket's voice somewhere behind me but when I turned to look at him I only saw red outlines in the shape of Rocket and Gora next to him.

Suddenly, I felt angry and defensive as a snarl ripped its way out of my mouth and I pounced toward them. Luckily, Gora managed to keep me hanging in the air with her spines before the headache went away and I was left dangling in the air as I rubbed my forehead tiredly and spat out something in my mouth that landed on the metal ground with a loud sizzle and glowed a bright blue.

"W-what happened?" I asked as I was let down to the ground with Rocket and Gora looking at me with concern and Groot looked scared.

"You goin' all zap crazy and almost roasting us alive is what happened." Rocket snarked, but I could tell he was just hiding the fact that he was freaked out.

"Gora?" I turned to her as she held out a spine and I took it to hear what she had to say,

I still don't understand how you can be experiencing it so young... She thought and was looking away as I listened and Rocket grabbed the spine linking us to listen in.

"Experiencing what?" He demanded to know.

"Like Terrans, all adolescent Chrysintheans undergo a transformation of sorts where they will be able to tap into their core abilities with more ease and gain their marks."

"English please." Rocket gave Gora a bored, half-lidded gaze before I thought out loud,

"I'll get new powers and... marks?"

Yes, but before that happens, over time, you'll begin to lose control of yourself and your abilities. You'll become aggressive toward anything and anyone.

"Great so I'll basically become an unstoppable hyper-charged monster?" I cheered sarcastically.

Not exactly, once you reach peak unruliness, all that is required to bring you back is to subject you to a powerful electrical charge.

"So you'll be gettin' a taste o' your own medicine." Rocket smiled evilly as he clapped and rubbed his paws together.

"Greeeaat..." I mumbled before asking, "When will my next... frenzy be?"

It's hard to predict... It could range from a few hours to a few weeks...

"Again I say, greeeeaaat..." I sat down in one of the seats and put my face in my hands at the thought of attacking them until I felt a small paw pat my shoulder and I looked up to see Rocket standing there.

"Relax, next time it happens, we'll just use the negative charge concussion bomb to knock ya out."

"Gee thanks." I smirked gratefully and walked away out of the ship to get some fresh air, barely noticing the glare that Nebula sent my way before I left.

*Boom!*

Sucking air in through my teeth I realized I didn't stabilize the console and ran into the forest to avoid Rocket yelling.

Later at Night

3rd Person POV

As the four moons rose over the planet, Rocket's hums to a song that was playing echoed throughout the ship and out into the forest, where a group of Ravagers was stealthily making their way to the fallen ship.

One group made its way toward the ship but a tripped pedal activated a trap that launched dozens of darts to the group and knocked them out. One Ravager's weapon was fired as they collapsed, sending its bullets into the sky and alerting the occupants of the ship; waking Nebula from where she was resting and catching Gora and Groot's attention from where they were looking out the window into the forest as a speaker lay near them conveying the hums being heard from the outside.

JJ's location is unknown while Rocket is sitting in a tree right above another approaching group of scouts with a walkie talkie in his paws as he hummed the tune before stopping to scamper across the branches.

"There!"

The Ravagers blasted at Rocket as he hopped from tree to tree and bullets whizz past him before he leads them to right where he wants them.

He stopped and hid behind a trunk before he pulled out and pressed a button on a device that activated a percussive bomb to launch the groups up into the sky repeatedly as he snickered with each button press.

With another group they walk carefully through the trees and Rocket sits on a branch watching them as he pulls out an armful of little metal discs. Leaping nimbly across the Ravagers, he sticks all the discs onto their heads before going back up into the trees to press a button on his wrist to activate the electric shock function that sent a current coursing through each of the disks to send then convulsing unto unconsciousness.

Leaping off the trees and landing on the dirt in a crouched position and sniffed the air to detect two scouts trying to surround him.

"Ain't so tough now without all your toys, are you?" One of the Scouts taunts before Rocket leaps onto his shoulders and punches him in the throat to where he couldn't breathe.

The other scout was about to shoot him when a bright blue blur shot toward him and knocked him to the ground, a vicious shriek sounding in addition to the scout's screams before they fell silent. Rocket jumped off from the scout he took out to see JJ hunched over the other fallen scout with more glowing blue fluid dripping from the corner of her mouth and her eyes blank and glowing the same color.

"Kid..." Rocket held up his paws in a nonthreatening manner as Frenzy JJ let out a wail and shocked the scout she tackled down after he tried to get back up.

"You need to calm the frick down before I have to make you." As he spoke he used one paw to rummage through the pouches on his belt to look for the bomb that would knock her out, only to find it wasn't there.

"Crap..." He muttered right before JJ fired a shot at him that he barely managed to duck. Just as she was getting ready to fire another blast, she dipped her head down and clutched it with both hands, falling to her knees before starting to gasp for air as her eyes dimmed back down to normal.

"R-rocket...?" She whispered as the pain in her head started to die down a little bit at a time before she noticed the fallen Ravager behind her to smile ruefully and say, "I went Frenzy again, didn't I?"

"Yeah yeah you did..."

The moment was ruined when a whistle sounded in the forest and, before either of them could process it, a familiar, flying red arrow zipped over to JJ and hovered right in front of her face.

"Crap." Rocket mumbled while JJ tried not to freak out with the deadly weapon mere centimeters from her face.

Out of the brush around them came the main group of Ravagers led by Yondu as he chuckled and greeted,

"Hey there, rat."

"How's it going, you blue idiot?" Rocket snarked as he held up his paws in surrender and motioned to JJ to do the same.

"Eh, not so bad. We got a pretty good gig. A golden gal with quite a high opinion of herself offered us a large sum to deliver you and your pals to her, so she can kill y'all. 'Specially you, Sparky."

"Yeah I figured as much..." JJ deadpanned with a half-lidded glare.

"I'll tell ya it was pretty easy to find you, we put a tracer on your ship back during the war over Xandar."

"Give me your word you won't hurt JJ and Groot, and... I'll tell you where the batteries are." Rocket bargained with Yondu, who laughed and responded with,

"Lucky for you my word doesn't mean squat. Otherwise I'd actually hand you over."

"Otherwise you'd what?!" One of the Ravagers yelled in disbelief.

"We'll take them batteries. They're worth what a... quarter mil on the open market?"

"That priestess offered us a million! A quarter is only one-third of that!" The same Ravager from before argued.

"A quarter ain't one-third."

"A quarter is twenty-five. We can't even buy a pair of boots with twenty-five units!" Another Ravager with yellow goggles disagreed causing everyone to start arguing again until Yondu cut them off with,

"Enough! The point is, we ain't stupid enough to help kill the Guardians of the Galaxy. We'd have the whole dang Nova Corps on us."

"That ain't right." Kraglin asserted into the conversation with, "I just gotta say it this one time, Cap'n. No matter how many times Quill betrays you, you protect him, like none of the rest of us much matter.I'm the one what sticks up for you, me and Tullk."

"Damn straight, lad. You're right he's gone soft. S'pose it's time for a change in leadership!"

Everyone started yelling and arguing with weapons raising from everyone to everyone even when Rocket tried to reason,

"Woah! Woah! There's gotta be some sort of peaceful resolution to this fellas! Or even a violent one, where the kid and I're standin' over there."

Yondu glares at the Ravager who was questioning his leadership prepared to fire his arrow at him were it not for the blast that blew the top of his fin off and made him collapse onto the ground to reveal that the person who took the shot was none other than Nebula.

"Crap..."

She shot Rocket next with an electric dart and threw a sphere toward JJ that knocked her down and weakened her with the wave of energy that emitted from it.

"Well, hello, boys." She greeted the group before taking a bite out of a Yaro root and spitting it back out, trying to casually cover it up with, "It's not ripe."

"We tried to tell ya..." JJ mumbled before she fully passed out.

1963 Words