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"Delusional minds of stupidity"

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Author's POV: Outside the bar...

Rocket woke up from Groot's arms after the Collector's place exploded. He noticed that someone else was with them; it was an unconscious Rachel, and Rocket immediately got worried by telling his friend to put them down on the ground: 

"C'mon, Rachel! Get up right now." He shakes her shoulders to wake her up. When Groot notices the female raccoon's leg bleeding, he tells Rocket, "I am Groot. (Her leg is bleeding.)" "Her leg?" Groot nods before smearing a bit of Aloe vera plant on Rachel's injury to prevent it from getting infected. This makes Rocket panic, and he quickly searches for something to stop the bleeding. 

His eyes land on a clean blue scarf that is on a dead man's body, and he takes the opportunity to snatch it and wrap Rachel's leg with it, "There, that should do the trick." Rocket calmed down a bit when a familiar groan echoed, making the male raccoon lift her in his arms to ensure she was comfortable. When her orange eyes opened up to meet Rocket's brown ones so closely that their noses were touching: "R-Rocket?" 

"No, it's the whitey. Of course, I'm Rocket!" Rocket snapped. As he sat her up while holding her, which was noticed by Rachel, she hissed a bit when she spotted her leg wrapped up: "W-What happened?" She asked, trying to push him off but feeling comfortable until they were interrupted when they both heard Gamora angrily stomping her way toward them: "How could I think Tivan could contain whatever was within the orb?" 

Rocket rushed towards the fearless assassin: "What do you still have it for?" The greedy raccoon asks, pulling on the bottom lids of his eyes in shock after what has happened, "What are we gonna do? Leave it in there?" Peter asks Rocket, slightly pissed by that suggestion. "I can't believe you had that in your purse!" The raccoon looks at him, who was also pissed. 

"It's not a purse; it's a knapsack!" 

"Technically, Peter. It is considered a purse for women AND men in fashion sense." Rachel elaborated, by supporting herself on Groot's leg, "Not helping-Wait, what the hell happened to your leg?" Peter panics, which earned him a slap on his hand from her metal paw: 

"None your business! Still, we need to take it somewhere else?!" Gamora nodded, "Rachel is correct. We have to take this to the Nova Corps. There's a chance they can contain it." Hearing her say Rachel's name without any nicknames was nice, but she still didn't trust her... yet: "Are you kidding me? We're wanted by the Nova Corps! Just give it to Ronan!" Rocket angrily added.

Peter Quill exclaims, "So, he can destroy the galaxy?" "What are you, some Saint all of a sudden? What has the galaxy ever done for you? Why would you wanna save it?" Rocket questioned him. Rachel answered for her human friend: "Because he's one of the idiots who lives in it!" Gamora gets in between Peter and the two raccoons from arguing with one another, "Peter, listen to me." She practically begs him: "We cannot allow the stone to fall into Ronan's hands. We have to return to your ship and deliver it to Nova."

After a little 'thinking' in Peter Quill's point of view, he nods by looking down: "Right, right, okay. I think you're right. Or! We could give it to somebody who's NOT going to arrest us, who's nice for a lot of money. I think it's a good balance between both of your points of view." Rachel shakes her head in anger and deadpans, "You're despicable."

Peter Quill tries to defend himself, "I..." Gamora continues, "Dishonorable. Faithless!" She turns around with Rachel behind her and starts walking off together when they notice Ronan and his crew arriving at their ships, "Oh, no." "Crap." The female raccoon cursed while Drax happily cheered with his daggers up in the air, "At last! Ha-ha-ha! I shall meet my foe and destroy him!"

"You called Ronan?!" Rachel angrily yells at Drax's stupidity, whereas Yondu and the Ravagers show up on their ship, comlinking through the ship's speakers, "QUILL! RACHEL! Don't you move, boy/pet!" Rachel watches as Peter and Gamora run away, scratching the back of her head in stress. She notices that Rocket and Groot did not join them on the spaceship but instead stayed behind. 

Confused, Rachel turns to Rocket and tells him her plan: "Why are you both standing there for? Go to the Milano ship. Peter and Gamora need to escape!" 

"Are you out of your mind?" Rocket shouted, with worry in his voice, "I ain't gonna leave you here to fight with Ronan; he'll kill you!" 

"So what? I lived long enough to have good memories!" Rachel tells him, but Rocket doesn't want that to happen to her because he secretly doesn't want to lose more people/animals like before, so he's scared: "No! Not happening, sweetheart!" "Rocket, if you want to protect me, then do as I tell you; go to the ship and protect the Orb that Gamora and Peter have in their hands. Can you do that for me?" 

It took a while for the male raccoon to decide and slowly looked down, "Ok...but one more thing," "What?" "You get hurt, I'll slap you." Rocket's warning made Rachel question why he cares about her. It's not like he would be soft around, but will it make a difference if they end up as friends? 

Rachel was unsure, and she never felt warm about someone caring about her like that, which is why she softly smiled before she rolled her orange eyes and left to fight Ronan with Drax: "Ronan the Accuser!" Drax shouts. "You are the one who transmitted the message?" Ronan questioned darkly at him, "You killed my wife. You killed my daughter!" Rachel heard something flying and noticed the three mining pods had taken off. She thought: 'Oh, by the stars, please protect Rocket.' She was interrupted by a blue woman next to Ronan, who turned to him. "It is Gamora. She is escaping with the orb," 

Ronan and Nebula turn to leave, but Drax stops them. "No!" he begins to charge Ronan. "Nebula, retrieve the orb," Ronan tells her. She takes off in a necrocraft, along with some Sakaaran soldiers. Drax, on the other hand, charges first while Rachel takes out her blasters to shoot at Ronan at the right moment, who defeats her newfound friend effortlessly, holding him by the throat: 

"I don't recall killing your family. I doubt I'll remember killing you, either." Before he could kill Drax, Rachel snarls by pointing at her blasters at him, "HEY, YOU BIG UGLY B*TCH! Take on someone your size!" Rachel smirked before blasting Ronan in the face with every blaster she got, which made Ronan and her duel for a long while, but soon enough, he managed to swing his long hammer by hitting her straight in the stomach. 

Making her gasp and cough out blood, a bit of her ribs cracked as Rachel was thrown towards the wall and passed out. With that, she starts losing herself, and the last thing she sees is Groot walking towards her, and everything goes black.

time skip~

"Blasted idiots. They're all idiots! Quill just got himself captured!" Rocket turns to Drax, who was healed and saved by Groot from drowning in the yellow liquid pool, and sits beside him while Rachel is in Groot's arms, fully injured and unconscious, "Groot, what the heck happened to her?" Rocket angrily asked, "I am Groot. (Rachel began fighting to protect Drax when she was hit in the stomach by Ronan's long hammer that threw her to the wall)." Groot explained what happened to her, and the news made Rocket freak out and pull Groot's arms so he could get a good look at Rachel.

Her fur was alright, but her right arm was damaged, and her breathing was struggling because of the impact; Rocket didn't like it and was scared to death but was for full of rage that he began scolding Drax stupid idea for calling Ronan and his goons to find them: "None of this ever would have happened if you didn't try to single-handedly take on a frickin' army! Look at Rachel; she's hurt because of your brain-head that you didn't think about first!" There was silence, and no one spoke except Rachel's struggling breathing noise until Drax looked away from Rocket.

"You're right. I was a fool. All the anger, all the rage, was to cover my loss." He said, making Rocket fakes his sympathy over Drax's, "Oh, boo-hoo-hoo. My wife and child are dead." 

Groot gasped in shock at Rocket's callousness, who said, "Oh, I don't care if it's mean! Everybody's got dead people! That's no excuse to get everybody else dead along the way! Come on, Groot. Ronan has the stone. The only chance we have is to get to the other side of the universe as fast as we can, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live full lives before that whack-job ever gets there." 

Groot didn't like this and thought of an idea, "I am Groot. (Why don't we save Quill and Gamora?)" 

"Save them? How?" Rocket asked him. 

"I am Groot. (I don't know, but they're the only friends we ever had.)" Groot replied, then Rocket explained, "I know they're the only friends we ever had, but there's an army of Ravagers around them. And there's only two of us!" "Four," Drax adds, pulling himself to his feet. At this point, Rocket is mad and starts beating up the grass, "You're making... me... beat... up... grass!"