Guardians of the Galaxy: Collect Them All

by Corinne Duyvis

  “Even mixed,” Star-Lord said to Kiya, “you are the only Zen-Whoberian we know of aside from Gamora. No wonder the Collector wants you back so bad.”

  Kiya’s lips tightened. He might be realizing how many units they could get for her.

  “What did he do to you?” Gamora asked quietly.

  “Listen, Kiya, we won’t hurt you. What happened in your apartment earlier, that was…” Star-Lord glanced at Rocket.

  “She sold Groot,” Rocket spat.

  “It won’t happen again,” Star-Lord said resolutely to Kiya. “And we won’t let Tivan take you.”

  Taneleer. His voice in her mind sounded so amused. So pleased with himself. Tivan sounds far too impersonal. You can call me Taneleer, and I will call you—

  She shoved him out of her thoughts.

  “You were working with him.” Kiya tried to keep her voice steady, but it came out thin. “You said you had a deal.”

  “Past tense,” Gamora said.

  “Yeah, the whole fight should prove that.” Star-Lord jerked a thumb at nothing in particular.

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “Well! This has been a great talk! What a sparkling conversationalist!” Rocket said. “What exactly were you thinking bringing her aboard, Gamora?”

  “That she’d be safe.”

  Kiya smacked her iced hand on a thick bolt in the floor.

  Rocket snorted. “She seems real grateful.”

  “Look, I get that you don’t trust us,” Star-Lord said. “How about…do you want a shower? Steam, water, whatever you want. You can get the mud and ice off. And then we just want to talk. All right? We answer your questions, you answer ours.”

  So that was why they’d brought her on board: information. She didn’t want to cooperate; she wanted to fling this chunk of ice around her hand at his face, but—

  Getting rid of the ice would put her in a better position to fight.

  “Okay.”

  Gamora stood.

  Automatically, Kiya tried to snap into a fighting position. The ice pulled her off balance. She ended up on her back. Squirming, vulnerable. She gasped as pain surged through her body and thudded in her bones.

  “I am Groot,” said the the Groot who was helping her.

  If she didn’t know any better, Kiya would say it sounded worried.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Gamora said.

  Kiya managed to shove herself up into a half-sitting position, recovering her breath, and forced herself to look at Gamora. She’d survived being face-to-face with Gamora in her apartment. She could do this, too.

  She would play along until she found out what they wanted.

  Gamora took another step forward, then winced. One leg gave way for a moment before she caught herself.

  “Whoa, whoa, Gamora.” Star-Lord shot forward. “You okay?”

  Gamora paused, steadying herself. She looked down at Kiya, her lips pursed. “Quill. You should be the one to take her.”

  She swiveled and left the cargo bay.

  Something inside Kiya unclenched, unknotted. She released a shuddery breath of relief.

  “All right. You ready?” Star-Lord—Quill?—asked.

  No. Not for any of this, she thought, her eyes fixed on the exit Gamora had left through.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  14

  THE TAP-TAP-TAP of Rocket’s claws on the floor gave him away before he said a thing.

  “What was that about?” he said, catching up with Gamora in the hall. She didn’t slow her pace. “Are you trying to spare the girl’s feewings? Since when do you care? You know what she did to Groot.”

  “She’s a child, and she’s scared of me.” Gamora kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “No duh. You got a bit of a reputation, Gam, and you did choke her.”

  “And you shot her, and Quill chased and iced her. That isn’t the point.”

  Rocket squinted up, clearly not getting it. He was too absorbed with everything else—the Collector, the Groots, Kiya—to realize what all this meant. She couldn’t blame him.

  Gamora had seen a lot of frightened faces in her life, though. She knew the precise difference between fear of her reputation and fear of her.

  She stopped abruptly, even as it sent a bolt of pain through her back. “Don’t you wonder why the Collector had her in his collection?”

  “She’s Zen-Whoberian. She’s rare.”

  “Why did he cybernetically modify her?”

  “Yeah, that is kinda… Huh.”

  Gamora leaned against the wall, her head resting right beside one of Quill’s old-fashioned music speakers. The moment of rest was welcome. The Collector had done enough damage that her healing factor was taking its sweet time patching her up. Her vital organs had healed first. Surface cuts and scrapes had faded into clean skin. It was the deeper gashes, the ones that had shredded her skin and fractured her bones—the ones the Collector’s weapons had left all across her back and left side—that would take longer to heal.

  “Think about the questions the Collector has been asking,” Gamora said. She breathed around the pain. In, out. “His fawning over us. Growing Groot. Not simply any Flora colossus—Groot. And the Earth raccoon in the arboretum.”

  “Yeah?”

  The pain was bad.

  Voicing these thoughts aloud was worse.

  Gamora didn’t let either slow her down.

  “He’s remaking us.”

  “Wait, what now?” Then Rocket hissed through his teeth. “Ohhh, flark. You’re right.”

  “He’s copying the Guardians of the Galaxy.”

  He grimaced. “With Earth raccoons?”

  “Kiya’s training and implants. They’re meant to augment her, to make her abilities mimic mine. And she doesn’t know the rest of the team, but somehow she knows me well enough to be terrified. I think…” Gamora leaned her head into the speaker beside her, hating the sound of her next words, hating what they meant. “I think he showed her recordings of me in action. The kind that were made before I joined the Guardians.”

  When she was working with Thanos.

  When she’d been the monster—the weapon—that he’d turned her into after plucking her away from the massacre of her people.

  “All right,” Rocket said. “So we know what he’s doing, and it’s creepy as all get out.”

  She snorted inelegantly. “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t change what she did to Groot, Gamora.” He pulled up a corner of his mouth in a twisted smirk. “Her being Zen-Whoberian? Her being some kinda Gamora-lite? Doesn’t change anything.”

  Except it really, really did.

  PETER jogged through the ship. He’d left the Groot they’d found on Pirinida to guard Kiya by the shower.

  “Groot?” he called. His voice sounded harsh against the metal walls of the ship.

  A Grootling popped up by his side, the same height as Peter. “I am Groot?”

  He would need to get used to that. “The other one. The original?”

  “I am Groot.” He pointed toward the bridge.

  “Thanks. You, uh…” He stared at the Grootling.

  Groot had looked like that only two weeks ago. Now they had Groots in all shapes and sizes on the ship, from barely sprouted saplings to adults like their own.

  What on earth were they going to do with them all?

  He’d have to think about that, but not yet. “You guys don’t need me right now, do you? You’re all—I mean, you’re Groot. You have his memories. You know the ship. You know us.”

  The Grootling enthusiastically nodded. “I am Groot!”

  Peter held up his hand for a high-five. “I’m glad we found you, too.”

  As the Grootling had said, Groot was on the bridge. He sat silently on the floor between Drax, in the pilot’s seat, and Gamora, who was slouched in the navigator’s chair.

  Peter took a second to look past them, through the viewport at the stars ahead. They’d exited the planet’s atmosphere not long ago. It was goo
d to be back out in the black. The stars felt like coming home. He loved being planetbound, with both feet on solid ground and a problem to solve, but this was what made it all worth it.

  The stars around him, and his team beside him.

  He didn’t normally feel bad breaking the silence. For once, though—seeing the weariness that hung over his teammates like a tattered blanket, knowing the chaos they’d fled—he wanted to sit and join them.

  Couldn’t. He had a job to do.

  “There’s my favorite bruisers,” he said.

  “Star-Lord,” Drax acknowledged.

  “Where’s the girl?” Gamora stretched. Peter could almost hear her spine crack.

  “Groot’s waiting for her to finish her shower. Other Groot. I mean, the Grootling, the big one… This’ll get confusing.”

  “I am Groot,” Groot agreed.

  “How’re you holding up?” Peter crossed his arms lazily over the backrest of the gunner’s seat and peered at Groot.

  “I…am Groot?” He weighed his words, then shrugged sheepishly. “I am Groot.”

  “Can’t blame you there.” They were all overwhelmed. For Groot, it had to be worse. Much, much worse. “We’ll find a way to fix this. You know that, right?”

  “I am Groot.”

  His words said there wasn’t any doubt about it, but his tone hid a sliver of uncertainty, a tiny nagging fear beneath the surface.

  Groot smiled.

  Peter smiled back.

  He didn’t think either of them bought it.

  “Gamora? Drax? You two doing all right, or do you need medical help?”

  “We are well.”

  “We’ll heal. Don’t worry about us, Quill.”

  “You two fought an Elder of the Universe to a standstill. Of course I’m gonna worry.” He blew out some air. This time, his grin was genuine. “Not half bad.”

  “I enjoyed the challenge,” Drax admitted. “It has been some time since I fought such a worthy opponent. And with such a worthy partner.”

  “Yeah, but forgive me if I don’t do it again any time soon.” Gamora kicked the control panel, sending her chair spinning to face Peter. She draped herself languidly over the armrests as though she’d spent the day on the beach, instead of crisscrossing the galaxy and getting her ass thoroughly beat. “Quill,” she said. “I have a theory about the Collector and Kiya.”

  “Spill.”

  “And I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  THAT is the greatest thing,” Quill cackled.

  “Excuse me?” Gamora had been leading him toward the crew quarters, wanting to talk to him in private before they brought in the others. She abruptly stopped. He nearly bumped into her.

  “I mean…” He held up his hands as she turned. A mild panic crept into his eyes. “I mean, wow, that’s bad, really bad.”

  She blew a lock of hair from her face, not breaking eye contact.

  “Soooooo bad,” he said.

  “‘Greatest thing’?” she echoed.

  “I just meant that we have a fan! A billions-year-old creature is so impressed by us that he’s making a Guardians of the Galaxy tribute band.”

  She screwed up her face in puzzlement.

  “He’s just…doing it in…bad ways,” Quill finished. “What with the kidnapping and invasive surgery and holding people prisoner. Those are bad things. Which we will stop.”

  “Greatest. Thing.”

  He slumped. “Do you think he’s copying the rest of us, too?”

  She whirled back around. “I hope not. Another Quill would be a crime against the universe.”

  “I deserved that,” he mused.

  “Probably,” Rocket chimed in from overhead. A grate clattered open, and he hoisted himself down from the maintenance pipe. He dangled from the edge for a second, then dropped down and dusted off his suit. “What were we talking about? Never mind, don’t wanna know. Listen, I found three trackers the Collector must’ve left. We’re clean now. I triple-checked.”

  Quill nodded. “Good work. I’ll tell Drax to abandon the decoy course.”

  “So where are we really going?” Gamora asked.

  “That depends on the conversation we’re about to have with Kiya.”

  Rocket crossed his arms. “We’re not keeping her on the ship, are we?”

  “That’s going to depend, too.” Quill worked his way past Rocket and Gamora, picking up the pace.

  “I just think—”

  “I know what you think, Rocket,” he snapped. “You made that d’ast clear when you tried to blow her in half. You ignored the plan, you were stupidly reckless—you almost shot Gamora!—”

  “Almost is a strong word,” Gamora said. Rocket had been across the room when he fired his blaster—she’d had plenty of time.

  “—you endangered our deal with the Collector, who wanted Kiya alive, you shot at a teenage girl who posed no threat to us at the time, and for bonus points, you nearly killed what might’ve been the second-to-last Zen-Whoberian in the entire krutacking universe!”

  Rocket sputtered.

  “Tip?” Gamora said as she passed him. “Don’t respond.”

  15

  KIYA’S white hair hung in wet strings over her face, reaching slightly past her jaw. Water dripped down her skin, leaving dark green tracks. She wore clothes provided by Gamora, which were too long around her wrists and ankles and too tight everywhere else. She wouldn’t stop rubbing her previously frozen hand, which still looked a little paler green than the rest of her. One eye was starting to swell—a product of her tussle with Gamora, Peter guessed.

  She looked vulnerable, but that didn’t weaken her glare.

  “Fine,” she said, standing outside the shower stall. The team shared a handful of bathrooms adjoining their private quarters, leaving the larger, more industrial bathroom adjoining the cargo bay for guests and post-mission emergencies. (Some of those emergencies involved alien slime.)

  They didn’t clean this bathroom very often. Hopefully Kiya didn’t mind some grubbiness.

  Kiya didn’t take her eyes off Gamora, even as she addressed Peter. “Ask me your questions.”

  Peter clapped his hands. The sound bounced off the cold tiles. “So: Were you, or were you not, kidnapped, cybernetically modified, and possibly mildly brainwashed in order to turn you into Gamora two-point-oh as part of the Collector’s not-at-all-awesome scheme to make a Guardians tribute team?”

  After a long moment, she said: “He also dyed my hair to look like hers.” She plucked at her hair. “I cut it and dyed it back when I escaped.”

  Kiya was choosing her words carefully. In Peter’s experience, that meant she was leaving a lot unsaid. Baby steps, though. At least they’d moved past the two-syllable sentences stage.

  “Your parents—?” Gamora started.

  “I won’t answer you.” Kiya inhaled sharply, as though she couldn’t believe she’d said it.

  Gamora’s lips tightened, but she kept quiet.

  “Aw, harsh,” Rocket said.

  “I am Groot,” added the Grootling who’d guarded Kiya.

  “So, uh,” Peter said, “which of your parents is Zen-Whoberian?”

  “My dad. He happened to be on DiMave when the massacre happened. He decided to stay and pose as DiMavi. Once I was born, so did I. He’s dead. No, I don’t know any other Zen-Whoberians. Now can I go?” She lifted her chin in challenge.

  The room fell silent.

  “We don’t want to hold you against your will,” Peter told Kiya.

  She turned to him. He wished she’d kept staring at Gamora. The way Kiya looked at him, he felt she was less conversing with him and more analyzing his weak spots. He kept his hand casually by his side, his gun within reach.

  “You broke into my apartment, turned me into an ice cube, and kidnapped me onto your ship.”

  “That’s—a really good point,” he said. “But we don’t mean you any harm. Anymore. Now.”

  “It’s not safe to leave,” Gamora said.
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  “Well, we can’t hold her.”

  “She’s a child!”

  “She stayed out of the Collector’s hands this long.”

  “Yeah, until we started helping him out,” Rocket said.

  “Do I get a say in this?” Kiya asked.

  Peter tossed up his hands. “How about we don’t discuss this in the bathroom?”

  He set out with Gamora, Rocket, Kiya, and the Grootling in tow. If Kiya wouldn’t cooperate, he didn’t know what he’d do. With the Collector pissed off and Groot screwed up—maybe beyond repair—the last thing Peter needed was a homicidal teenager on his ship. The thought of letting her go made him bristle, though, and it didn’t look like Gamora was going to sign off on that idea, either.

  Another Zen-Whoberian.

  He hadn’t thought it was even possible.

  The group entered the leisure area—a big circular space, the wall lined with hatches to the crew quarters. “Leisure area” maybe sounded too fancy for what amounted to a spare room they’d decorated with some old couches and a mini-fridge, but it worked for them.

  Right now, the leisure area was—gently phrased—a circus.

  “I am Groot! I am Groot!” babbled a handful of Grootlings as they chased each other across the couches.

  “I am Grooooot!” a Grootling so small he must’ve just sprouted said in delight, watching the goings-on from the confines of his pot.

  “I am Groot?” An almost-grown Grootling leaned over a tray of dirt Peter had seen in Kiya’s apartment, poking experimentally at the transparent cover.

  “I am Groot—I am Groot,” others were saying.

  One Grootling nestled into his pot, happily sighing as his roots spread out in the dirt. “I am Groot.”

  “I am Groot!”

  “I am Groot!”

  “I am Groot! I am Groot!”

  “I am Groot!”

  “I have a headache,” Gamora said, staring.

  “I have a forest,” Peter said, “on my ship.”

  “I have an absolute buttload of friends all of a sudden,” Rocket said. “Who knew I was this popular?”

  Peter did a headcount. They had the Grootling from Pirinida standing by their side, blinking at the havoc in front of them. The original Groot was on the bridge, so all of these Grootlings were Kiya’s. He counted 13, not including those who might still sprout from the trays, or those roaming elsewhere in the ship.