Lines | Guardians of the Galaxy |

Chapter Sixteen

"Alright, idiots," Rocket calls. He's sitting at one of the two pilot seats and is grinning maniacally. "Let's do this."

"It's just shopping," Avenna says. "No need to get all worked up."

"And then we're handling a gang," Quill points out.

The fox scoffs. "Yeah. From what I heard, they're a bunch of loser nobodies who hardly know how to hack a bank properly."

"You've hacked a bank?" Rocket asks incredulously, looking over his shoulder. "And know how to do it properly?

"That's why I got put in the Kyln."

"So you got caught," Rocket turns back to the controls. His words weren't a question; they were a statement. "Disappointing. And not properly."

"I was drunk," she defends herself. "I didn't follow through with my usual safety precautions. At least I didn't call a frickin' army." Her gaze turns to Drax and she's grinning slightly.

"One time," her friend growls. "And I might do it again."

"Nobody is calling armies," Gamora shoots them down. "Or hacking banks."

"I'm still gonna end up hacking something," Avenna's tail flicks into a new position as she shifts in her seat. "At least let me trace the group and then scare them a bit."

"How?" Drax asks.

"I can give them some fun little pop-ups," the fox says and grins smugly. "Trust me, digital horror is absolutely amazing, especially when you're powerless and can only sit there while your device is slowly consumed and corrupted, buttons unresponsive as—"

"It sounds like you've either experienced that or done that before," Quill notes.

"Both!" Avenna calls cheerfully. "But either way, we'll probably wanna go and get in contact with the bank itself so that they know who's poking around trying to find the people taking the money."

"Quill, when are you going to land?" Drax demands.

"Just a minute, this docking port is tiny," he protests, but it only takes a minute or two more before they settle down in a spot.

"So is this planet," Rocket notes. "It's hardly more than a moon, its gravitational pull is barely enough for people to live here. It's just got a ton of heavy metals that have more reactive properties, which helps, I'll guess."

"This is a mining planet, right?" Gamora stands up, unbuckling herself from her seat.

"Yeah, they're known for—"

Avenna stands up, ignoring the conversation as she gets out of her own seat and steps over to where Groot is sitting on his table. He's watching them with his big eyes. "Groot," she starts. "We're gonna be gone for a few hours, okay? We'll leave some music on for you."

This new Groot loved dancing along to music with everything in him, but Drax didn't believe them. For some reason, he froze whenever the burly man tried to catch a glance of him doing so and genuinely believed that the whole of the Guardians were pulling some fat prank on him.

No, Groot was just funny.

The tree nods slightly, wriggling around in his pot.

"Alright, let's go," Avenna calls. "Stop being slow. I'm in a hurry. Who's got the list?"

"I do," Gamora says. She holds up her device, shaking it slightly. "I sent a copy to Quill, too."

Avenna nods, turns, and they leave the ship, Rocket being sure to leave music playing for Groot. She wanted to get her hands on one of the tablets that both Gamora and Rocket had; she'd been mostly unable to reach any device with a good programming capability for a while now, not since the one she stole from the Ravagers.