Rediscovering Home

Schisms and Rifts

JJ's POV

Soon as we made it through the sparky portal, we were greeted by one of the guys who was marching around,

"Hey there folks! Welcome to the tropical Blazar HQ."

"Hey Jorge!" Dylan came up and bro hugged him before he asked him,

"Ship's ready?"

"Loaded and ready to go once the right rift opens within the hour so would you all like something to eat in the meanwhile?"

Almost on cue, a growling sound sounded and e'eryone looked at me and my face got hot as I snapped,

"What?!"

"Don't worry, we've got plenty to eat." Jorge winked at me before leadin' us to a long table where there was lots of plates of food.

Once we got some plates, everyone started grabbing stuff to eat and I was deciding between some spiky fruit, some kind of monster claws, or some fried-lookin' bits of stuff when Ash came up to me and asked,

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, why woul'nt I be?" I answered picking up one of the fried bits to take a bite as she told me,

"I could feel your unbelief from a mile away if I wanted to..."

"Somethin' just don' feel right here..."

"Like here here?" She asked using both hands to point downward at the ground.

"No, this whole travelin' back home thing. I really wanna believe we can bring it back but I can't shake the feelin' we don't know what we're gonna cause if we do."

"Is this about what Strange said about us being too powerful?"

I shrugged as I took another bite of the fried food, actually liking it, before asking Jorge,

"Mmm hey what's this stuff?"

"Oh those are fried gator bites." He told me and Ash grimaced while I kept eating and piled some more onto my plate as I commented,

"Hmm not bad..."

"Well every place has its own culinary tastes." Ash told herself as she grabbed some more of the yellow spiky fruit cubes and little, round orange fruits.

As we walked to the "kids table" where Groot and Xay were waitin' as he fed his mini dragon some of the little red monster claws, I playfully jabbed her side while asking,

"What? You a vegetarian or somethin'?"

"Yes." Ash answered with a raised brow as we sat and I went blank-faced as I muttered,

"Oh... OK then."

"Anyway back to before-" Ash tried to resume our convo from earlier until Groot saved me by yelling,

"I am Groot!" (You eat plants!) Scooting away from Ash and she threw her hands up defensively,

"Just the non-sentient ones!"

"I am Groot! I am Groot!" (That's even worse! They can't fight back!)

As Ash tried to argue back with Xay tryin' ta back her up, I just sat back and watched in amusement while tryin' not to think about the whole "power" thing...

You're not powerful enough... yet... but when you are.. you will win us our vengeance...

I shook my head at Skodor's voice at the reasoning he and the other Oajin scientists used for experimenting on me before stabbing another gator bite to shove into my mouth.