Alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy and as confused as ever, Ellie found herself in the reception chamber of the Sovereign Nation's most esteemed High Priestess. With Rocket on her left, Drax on her right and with Groot on her shoulder, she looked up at the throne that towered above them all, waiting for this High Priestess to receive them. I must say, I love this matriarchy they've got going on here.

"Okay," Rocket muttered up at her. "Run that by me again."

"Just what I said to you all earlier," Ellie muttered back, trying not to attract the attention of the very volatile, very armed looking Sovereign citizens. "I was doing some punches and flips and other cool stuff, and then I touched this yellow stone on a red guy's head and zap! Here I am."

"Even for you that's pretty weird," Rocket said.

"Yeah, well, they are the Avengers after all. Weird stuff can't help but happen."

"Avengers?" Rocket asked.

"Yeah. You know, a group of misfits with very special abilities who are thrown together through incredibly unlikely circumstances and at first don't work well together and hate each other's guts but have to figure out to operate as a team in order to save...wait, hang on just one minute-!"

"We thank you, Guardians, for putting your lives on the line." A powerful voice reverberated through the hall, effectively cutting Ellie off. Sitting high above the Guardians in a regal throne was the High Priestess of the Sovereign Nation, as golden as her people, her piercing eyes flitting between the people below. "We could not risk the lives of our own Sovereign citizens. Every citizen is born exactly as designed by the community. Impeccable, both physically and mentally. We control the DNA of our progeny...germinating them in birthing pods."

Ellie made no effort to hide her grimace. "So they're all pod people?"

Quill stepped forwards, smugness radiating from him.

"I guess I prefer to make people the old-fashioned way," he said, all but waggling his eyebrows.

"Perhaps someday, you could give me a history lesson...in the archaic ways of our ancestors," The High Priestess said. Below the high priestess, one of the sovereign number smirked. The High Priestess drummed her fingers. "For academic purposes," she added.

"I would be honored, yes. In the name of research...I think that could be pretty, uh..." Quill turned and caught Gamora's eye. "...pretty repulsive. I'm not into that kind of casual..."

"Oh please," Ellie said, not quietly enough. She did, however, hide a small smile. Quill the badass ravager: in love!

Ignoring Quill, Gamora stepped forward.

"Your people promised something in exchange for our services," she said. "Bring it...and we shall gladly be on our way."

The High Priestess considered Gamora for a long moment, her golden eyes emotionless, before raising a finger to one of her guards. With great ceremony a door to the side of the throne was thrown open, and two guards dragged a struggling figure into the room. It was wrapped in a dark and ancient robe, and was forced to its knees before Gamora. One golden hand tore back the fraying hood.

"Smurfette!" Ellie gasped. The mechanical eyes of Nebula found her, blazing with hatred. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I didn't kill your boyfriend in the end, remember?"

"Family reunion! Yay!" Quill said.

"I understand she is your sister," the High Priestess said to Gamora in that same monotone.

Gamora looked down at Nebula.

"She's worth no more to me than the bounty due for her on Xandar," she said without emotion. Nebula looked up at her venomously.

"Our soldiers apprehended her attempting to steal the batteries," High Priestess said as she stood up from her throne. "Do with her as you please."

"We thank you, High Priestess Ayesha," Quill said with a short bow. He turned to leave.

"What is your heritage, Mr. Quill?" The High Priestess's question rang out across the hall. The members of the sovereign nation stilled, looking to their leader, and then the Guardians. Quill stopped in his tracks. Ellie looked up at him as he turned back.

"My mother is from Earth," Quill said.

"And your father?" The High Priestess pressed.

"He ain't from Missouri. That's all I know."

"I see it within you," the High Priestess continued. "An unorthodox genealogy. A hybrid that seems particularly...reckless. And you." To Ellie's great surprise, the High Priestess turned to look at her with a calculating stare. "Your heritage?"

Ellie blinked. Under the stare of what seemed like the entire Sovereign nation, she looked to Quill for help. He looked down at her and shrugged. Groot looked worriedly at her face.

"Just your standard Terran here!" she said, spreading her arms and shrugging.

"Is that right?" The High Priestess said. Even Ellie didn't miss the condescending tone.

"Well, there has been some suggestion that I have a little elven blood in me somewhere. Or was it a unicorn? J R. R. Tolkein's genius can't have come from nowhere after all!"

The High Priestess looked down at Ellie for a long moment.

"It is possible that this Terra may benefit from controlling the DNA of their prodigy as we do," she said. "I must remember to send an ambassador to the region to offer our services."

"You know, they told me you people were conceited douchebags..." Rocket said loudly. The High Priestess's eyes jumped to him, distasteful. "- but that isn't true at all!" He turned to Ellie and winked. In the direction of the High Priestess and the Sovereign guard.

"Uh, Rocket -?" Ellie started. The Sovereign began to mutter among one another. One raised a gun.

"Oh, shit. I'm using my wrong eye again, aren't I? I'm sorry. That was meant to be behind your back!" He called to the High priestess.

"Let's hit the road, shall we?" Ellie said loudly as Drax began to haul Rocket away.

"Count yourself blessed they didn't kill you," Drax said.

"Forget that," Ellie said. "Count yourself blessed that they didn't shove you into one of their pods!"

"You're telling me," Rocket said. He tapped Ellie's hand and gestured down into his bag.

"You wanna buy some batteries?" Rocket asked, barely stifling his laughter.

"Oh man!" Ellie groaned.

Drax threw his head back and roared with a laughter that reverberated down the Sovereign Nation's halls.

"I see you've cleaned," was the first thing Ellie said when she stepped aboard Quill's Ravager ship. Drax lumbered to stand beside her, bewildered.

"Cleaned?" he asked. "This place smells like a vat of celestial spinal fluid."

"I was just... just kidding - it was, you know...sarcasm?" Ellie said. Drax looked at her blankly. "Oh right, I forgot."

"Forgot what?" Rocket asked as he went past.

"Nothing," Ellie said in a sing song voice. "Don't worry Drax, there's nothing wrong with my nose. This place is as filthy as I remember it. Sheesh, it's like a football team's locker room!"

"I am Groot," Groot said to her from her shoulder.

"He says he cleaned the top left-hand corner of the airlock," came Rocket's voice from the next room. "Needed a place to stash the candy."

Ellie raised her eyebrows, nodding slowly in approval. "I stand corrected." Groot's tiny face erupted into a wide grin.

After lowering Groot onto one of the control panels, Ellie began to explore. She sighed in the artificial glow of the many control panels. For the past months everything - the Guardians, space, Smurf the Accuser – had seemed like a dream, and yet all was exactly as she remembered it. She trailed a finger along the Ravager ship walls, feeling the cool metal and the thrum of the engines. This same lump of metal had spun her through the cosmos not some months ago: to Xandar, Knowhere, past countless systems and stars, past too many rainbow nebulas to name. I feel significantly less rattled than I did the last time I was zapped into a galaxy far far away...wait, wrong franchise. Maybe I really am getting used to this!

"So, where are we headed?" she asked.

"I am Groot."

"Yeah, we gotta collect the bounty on blue's head," said Rocket. "That ain't insignificant monies, believe me."

Ellie grinned before slumping down against the wall.

"This is probably getting really old, but...I don't suppose there's any chance of a lift?"

"I am Groot."

"Yeah," said Rocket. "What's the rush, blondie?"

"Well, I was just in the middle of a kick ass training session with infinity stone guy, and I kind of just vanished right in front of him...so yeah," Ellie yawned and leaned backwards. "I should probably be getting back."

"Infinity stone guy?" Rocket asked.

"Yeah, a guy called Vision: he's got a yellow one in his head."

"You know what? I don't want to know: I've had enough of those infinity stones to last a lifetime. Come on Groot, let's get this bucket fired up!"

"That stuff about my father," a voice said just around the corner. "Who does she think she is?"

Ellie's ears pricked up.

"I know you're sensitive about that," came Gamora's reply.

"I'm not sensitive about it, I just don't know who he is!" Quill said defensively. He cleared his throat. "Sorry if it seemed like I was flirting with the High Priestess. I wasn't."

"I don't care if you were," came Gamora's simple reply.

"Well, I feel like you do care," Quill said. Ellie inwardly cringed a little. "That's why I'm apologizing. So, sorry!"

Oh Quill, Ellie thought as Gamora strode past her. I'm going to have to lend you my copy of 'What Women Want.' Eager to make the recommendation, she pulled herself to her feet and dashed around the corner...

"He Quill dearest I was just thinking about your superiorly bad dating game and I think I have a solution to your – oof!"

...only to run straight into the imposing arm of Drax the Destroyer.

"Gamora is not the one for you, Quill," Drax said, putting Ellie back on her feet. "There are two types of beings in the universe...those who dance, and those who do not."

"Oh," Ellie said, still clinging to Drax's arm. "Is this an anecdote?"

"I first met my beloved at a war rally."

"Oh okay, it is."

"Oh, God," Quill groaned. Drax went on, unruffled.

"Everyone in the village flailed about, dancing. Except one woman. My Ovette." Drax's eyes shone at the memory. "I knew immediately she was the one for me. The most melodic song in the world could be playing. She wouldn't even tap her foot. Wouldn't move a muscle."

"Drax, it's very sweet you remember her like that." Ellie said.

"One might assume she was dead," Drax said.

"Ah," Ellie said just as Quill chimed in with "That does sound pretty hot."

"It would make my nether regions engorge."

"Whoa whoa, okay Drax ol' buddy! I think we get the general idea, wouldn't you say, Quill?"

"I think we got more than that."

Suddenly, a loud beeping resounded throughout the ship. Ellie's eyes widened as Quill dashed from the room with lightning speed, pulling himself up into the cockpit in record time. Red warning lights were flashing.

"This is weird," Quill said, tapping his control panel. "We've got a Sovereign fleet approaching from the rear."

"Why would they do that?" Gamora asked as she swung into her chair.

Ellie pulled herself up to the cockpit. Sure enough, there materialised behind them what looked like hundreds of space pods, glistening golden in the light of the nearby nebula. The ships alarms were all going off.

"I know that sound!" Ellie called. "That's a bad sound!"

"It's probably because Rocket stole some of their batteries," Drax said.

Rocket swung around in his chair.

"Dude!"

"Right. He didn't steal some of those. I don't know why they're after us. What a mystery this is."

The pods swung around and around in the void, their metal hides glinting, as they began to create a formidable formation. A battle formation.

Ellie managed to fasten herself into her seat just in time.

The attack began. What seemed like millions of pod ships descended upon them, bombarding them with laser fire. At the controls Quill and Rocket responded in kind, arming and firing the guns while simultaneously spinning the ship out of harm's way, deeper into space. Like a hunting party, the pods pursued.

"Holy moly, what were you thinking?" Ellie heard herself say.

"They were really easy to steal!" Rocket said.

"That's your defence?" Quill yelled.

"You saw how that High Priestess talked down to us. Now I'm teaching her a lesson!"

"Oh, I didn't realize your motivation was altruism," Quill said, laying it on thick. "It's really a shame the Sovereign have mistaken your intentions...and they're trying to kill us."

"Exactly!" Rocket said.

"I was being sarcastic!" Quill shouted.

"Oh, no! You're supposed to use a sarcastic voice! Now I look foolish!" Rocket punctuated his point by swinging the ship around to avoid yet another barrage of bullets, sending them spinning deeper into the nebula.

"Can we put the bickering on hold...until after we survive this massive space battle?" Gamora shouted.

"Uuugh, I think I'm going to be sick!" Ellie said, clinging to her seatbelt, willing last night's curry to stay down.

"More incoming!"

The battle raged, explosions lighting up the darkness of space left right and centre as the Sovereign pods popped out of existence in the gunfire. While the Ravager ship's hit rate was good, it was like cutting off the hydra's head. Every time Quill or Rocket destroyed one of those Sovereign ships, three more seemed to take its place. A series of shots hit one of the ship's wings. The impact reverberated around the ship.

"What's the nearest habitable planet?" Quill shouted.

"It's called Berhert."

Ellie laughed through her nausea. "I swear I met a bartender called that once."

"We have to go through that quantum asteroid field to get there."

"Asteroid field? Empire Strikes Back much?" Oh God, I'm going delirious... The asteroid field floated before them, huge and imposing.

"Quill," Drax said, leaning forward in his seat. "To make it through that... you'd have to be the greatest pilot in the universe."

Quill grinned, cracking his knuckles.

"Lucky for us, I..."

"I am," Rocket said with a grin. With a flick of a switch, sole control of the ship went over to Rocket's joystick. He began to manoeuvre the ship through the asteroid field. Ellie was tempted to check behind them for a Star Destroyer. The Ravagers ship spun gracefully through the field, avoiding the asteroids with ease, and Rocket howled with laughter as he watched Sovereign ships be consumed by the flying bodies.

Then there was a thrum of energy, and the ship juddered a little. Ellie raised her eyebrows. Quill had taken back control.

"What are you doing?" Rocket yelled. He flicked the control back to himself.

"I've been flying this rig since I was 10 years old!" Quill said, taking control back once more.

"I was cybernetically engineered to pilot a spacecraft!"

"You were cybernetically engineered to be a douchebag!"

"I'm sorry," Ellie butted in, "but who makes a ship with two sets of controls?"

"It's the latest Ravager technology, thank you very much!" Quill yelled over his shoulder.

Rocket growled as Quill once again took control of the ship.

"Later on tonight," he said, "you're gonna be laying down in your bed...and there's gonna be something squishy in your pillow case. And you're gonna be like, "What's this?" And it's gonna be because I put a turd in there!"

"You put your turd in my bed, I shave you."

"Oh, it won't be my turd. It will be Drax's."

Drax roared with laughter.

"I have famously huge turds."

Gamora was in despair. "We're about to die, and this is what we're discussing?" she asked.

"It could be worse," Ellie replied. "Did you hear the one about the guy who died mid-sen—"

Quill and Rocket fought over the controls.

"Son of a..."

"Dude! Seriously!"

"Hey! Let me..."

"Okay," Ellie said imperiously. "If you guys don't cut it out, I'm going to take over the flying, and trust me, no one want that -"

Quill turned around with a horrified look, before -

CRASH!

An asteroid met its mark on the ship. Ellie was thrown backwards in her seat as she squeezed her eyes shut at the impact. Opening her eyes, she saw the carnage. Red warnings flashed across all the screens. They had lost part of the hull.

"Uh, guys? I think we left half the ship back there!"

The ship span in the void as internal pressure was lost. Oh no, I don't want to die! I haven't finished season 5 of Brooklyn 99! In the nick of time, Quill slammed his hand on his control panel. The protective shields sprang up, sealing the holes the impact had left.

"Well, that's what you get when Quill flies!" Rocket yelled.

Ellie chanced a look at the control panel.

"We still have a Sovereign craft behind us! Just the one though!" She yelled, suddenly aware that she had contributed nothing in the past sequence. That single little ship was fighting hard, firing upon the hull like nobody's business. Compensating for something?

Drax got up from his seat, passing Groot to Ellie as he did so. He climbed down the ladder, disappearing from the cockpit.

"Our weapons are down!" Quill yelled.

"20 clicks to the jump!" Gamora yelled in reply.

The ship span through the atmosphere. Ellie clung to Groot as hard as she could. One of the Sovereign ship's bullets struck the surface of the ship. Ellie could smell burning.

"15 clicks to the jump!" Gamora shouted as part of the cockpit fell off the wall behind her.

"Come on!"

"Keep going!"

Ellie spotted something odd on the monitor.

"What's that behind us?" she yelled.

"Drax. Being resourceful," Rocket yelled in reply.

Ellie peered closer at the monitor, releasing that what she had thought was a piece of debris clinging to a steel cord at the back of the ship was in face a spacesuited and heavily armed Drax, dangling like a marionette. He yelled as he opened fire on the final Sovereign ship.

"Holy – he's like a Yo-Yo!"

"10 clicks!" came Gamora's yell.

The Sovereign ship exploded. Drax had hit his mark. Ellie laughed with relief.

"Five clicks!" Gamora called triumphantly.

Suddenly, Ellie could see space again. Oh, thank God that's over...

The ship exited the asteroid field in a flash of colour...only to suddenly be flanked by what looked like thousands of Sovereign pods.

"There's a little pee coming out of me right now!" Ellie said, feeling close to tears.

"Son of a..." Quill brought the ship to a stop. "They went around the field!"

Somewhere, far away, Ellie imagined could see the Sovereign High Priestess smiling in triumph.

The pods all opened fire. It was a bombardment unlike any that had followed before, without sport or quarter: they were firing to kill, to send them all flying into the cold void of space. The shots put deep gouges in the glass view screen. Groot hid in Ellie's hair.

"I just want you guys to know," Ellie said. "That you're the best friends a gal could-"

There was a thrum of energy. This is the end. Mum, I'm sorry I never cleaned my room when you told me to! A huge swell of blue energy seemed to take up the entirely of space, burning Ellie's eyeballs. She threw an arm across her eyes as the flashes of combustion lit up the ether, fire burning and boiling. It churned for a moment, and then died. A long moment passed. Ellie realised that she was still alive. She put her arm down and opened her eyes.

All the Sovereign ships had been extinguished at once.

Ellie and Quill looked at each other with the same shocked expression.

"One click!" Gamora called, hiding her confusion well.

"What just happened?" Ellie asked, not bothering to hide her confusion.

"What is that?" Rocket said. Ellie leaned forwards to see what she was talking about. A ship was cutting its way through space, through the graveyard that the Sovereign ships had created. Despite her lack of knowledge in the area, Ellie knew it was a strange ship. It's sleek whiteness spoke of technology advanced beyond what Ellie could barely imagine, and an intelligence that was just as impossible.

It looked new, but Ellie somehow knew it was ancient too.

"Who cares?" yelled Quill. "That's the jump point! Go!"

Ellie watched the ship as it passed them. Astride the top of the mystical vehicle, there was a man.

"It's a guy," Rocket said.

"How is he doing that?" Ellie wondered aloud.

"Jump point coming up!" Quill screamed, not listening.

As he passed them, the man raised one arm and waved.

With a thrum of the dying engines Quill's ship passed through the jump point, and the ship as good as exploded. The planet beneath them, Behert, loomed closer.

"Oh my God!" Ellie threw her arms over her head as flamed consumed the viewpoint. "I don't want to be extra crispy!"

A screaming could be heard from the outside. Gamora looked at the monitor to see Drax being dragged along behind the ship like a rag doll, just narrowly missing the flaming debris flying off the ship.

"Oh, my God, he's still out there?"

Gamora leapt from her seat and down the cockpit ladder. Ellie realised that Groot was no longer on her shoulder.

"Groot!" She called, looking frantically around, then she saw him in the seat next to her, tucking into his sweeties like he was watching a really good movie. "You gonna at least share?"

"I am Groot."

"Groot, put your seatbelt on!" Quill shouted. "Prepare for a really bad landing!"

With an ear-splitting crash, the Ravager ship met the treeline. Then, darkness.

Apologies for the long absence: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! - Sarah.