STARGIRL

thirty-eight.

Peter started to blast music from his Zune.

"Oh, yeah, Dad," Eleanor said, as Beastie Boys, No Sleep Till Brooklyn started to play, "This is really kick-ass music."

He gave a short-lasting smile and then became all serious again, "We go in there," he pointed to the door on his left, "We get Mantis, Nebula, and Drax. We move in, we get 'em, and we get out."

A loud banging noise caused the group to immediately turn to the door on the left. Eleanor pulled out her guns, and her breathing became heavy as the banging continued. Something was trying to break down the door. An abilisk roared as the door broke down, and two more followed after it. Peter went to shoot the person controlling the first one, but his arm slowly lowered as he spotted that it was Mantis, with Nebula and Drax right behind her on the other two. Mantis chuckled as she slid down its face and landed on her feet on the ground, "Did that look cool?"

Peter nodded with his jaw still slightly open from shock, "Okay, new game plan. We get the hell out of here now." he started to walk away.

"There are thousands of creatures on the ship." argued Nebula, causing Peter to turn around.

"Many of them are children." Mantis added.

"And we need to be good joob joob." said Drax.

"Huh?" Peter and Eleanor looked at him confused.

"It means friends."

"If we wanna live, we have to leave now," Gamora interrupted, "This whole rig is gonna go down any second."

Nebula yelled angrily, "They will all die if we don't help them!"

"I'm done runnin'." Rocket muttered, preparing his gun and he started to walk towards the other door. Groot watched him and started to walk after him with Eleanor only a second behind. Nebula started to walk and Peter joined her, and the two walked side-by-side with Groot and Eleanor. Mantis, Drax and the weird furry thing followed behind those four. Gamora stared at them all with a look of disbelief, rolling her eyes massively, and then she decided to follow after them.

Drax pushed past Peter, and he pulled open the door to reveal a mixture of humans and weird-looking animals waiting for them. The music continued to blast as Eleanor pulled out her guns, and spun them in her hands before she started to shoot at the oncoming army. She slowly made her way down the corridor as the rest of the Guardians fought alongside her.

She felt Rocket leap onto her shoulder and the two spun, shooting at the creatures. He stayed there for a little bit, and then when he eyed up his next victim, he jumped off Eleanor's shoulder to attack him.

Peter dove over a body and rolled over to Eleanor. He stood up, pressing his back against hers and the two started to shoot again. Nebula came over and shot an advancing creature. She electrocuted a person, and the three broke up going their own ways.

Once all of the enemies were down, Eleanor breathed out tiredly as everyone else panted. They all looked towards the hallway the army had come from.

"There's a big hole up in the deck," Peter yelled as the Guardians ran through the hallways, "If we can connect that to Knowhere, we can lead the survivors to safety."

"Nebs and me will pilot the ship," said Rocket, "You guys save all the higher life forms." and he and Nebula ran down the right hand passage as the others went down the left hand.

Drax and Mantis led them to the cages where multiple little hamster children were being kept. Eleanor's heart broke for them. They all looked so afraid. She shot at the lock on one of the cages, and opened the door, "Follow the others! Let's go!" The children started to file out of the cages, following after their friends who were all running down the hallways.

Eleanor opened more cages and more children ran out. Even though Eleanor couldn't understand their language, it sounded like they were thanking her as they all ran. She stayed near the exit, but also made sure that she could point the children in the right direction as more ran. She followed after Nebula, both with one child on their back and the others ran beside them.

"You are so slow!" Nebula yelled to the running children, and Eleanor rolled her eyes, hitching the one on her back further up as she ran along.

Peter turned to them, "Where's Rocket?"

"Huh?" Nebula asked, and the two turned around hoping to see the raccoon but he wasn't there.

"He's the one this crazy man's after and we left him?" yelled Eleanor, slowly putting the kid on the ground and watching as he managed to get over the border safely.

"For once I agree with her," Peter replied, making his daughter stick her tongue out at him, "We need to go and get our friend."

Leaving the adults of Knowhere in charge of making sure all of the hamster children got safely onto the planet, the Guardians ran back into the exploding ship. They heard yelling and Rocket's voice coming from a room on their right and Peter decided to split up and attack from all angles.

Eleanor ran behind Peter and the two shot at the man, causing him to go flying away. The father-daughter duo quickly high-fived before running into the room to properly join the fight. Gamora stabbed the man and grabbed him by the neck as she pulled the knife out from him.

A little bit of the skin on his head had peeled off and it was flapping against the man's head armour. Gamora grabbed it and started to peel the skin from his face as he fell backward slamming into the floor.

"His face came off!" Drax announced, sounding surprisingly happy.

"It's a mask." Rocket said, standing over the man with his gun pointed at him.

Eleanor gagged quietly as she looked down at the man. His face had been torn apart and it was still bloody and scarred. One eye looked a lot bigger than the other, and it was all red apart from his enlarged pupil. His nose was no longer there - it had been torn right down to the bone. Parts of his mouth was missing. "Look what you did to me," the man said, looking at Rocket, "For what? All I wanted to do was to make things perfect."

"You didn't wanna make things perfect," Rocket replied sadly, "You just hated things the way they are."

"Kill him." said Drax, and this time nobody argued with him.

Rocket dropped the gun into one hand and stared sadly at the man, but he didn't kill him.

"Why?" Drax asked, looking at Rocket.

"Because I'm a freaking Guardian of the Galaxy."

An explosion behind them made them all look. "We have to get outta here now." demanded Gamora.

The others apart from Rocket started to walk away. He stared at them, "We have to save them." he said.

"We've got all the kids on board." replied Peter.

"No, Pete," Rocket said, "The rest of them."

Rocket showed them to the other cages were all the animals were before they had been experimented on stayed. Eleanor's heart broke again at the sad, pitiful wails of the trapped animals.