Aria was originally from the now-defunct planet Cortez. She was the princess, but she fled after the Mad Titan and his minions destroyed her world, forcing her to travel the universe in search of freedom and a new family. When she was just fourteen...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN| danger ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
"SO WHAT do you reckon the bug is hiding?" Aria's raspy voice perked up as she spoke to her friend. Xenos raised an eyebrow, gave a small shrug, and turned to face the female.
"No idea." With a fierce sneer, Xenos gave the girl a confident look. He briefly believed he was talking about a genuine bug, but as soon as he discovered she was referring to Mantis, his eyes lit up. "Why're you so cautious?" As he shifted on his bed, he asked her, allowing his dark brown eyes to meet her clear blue ones.
When their gazes connected, Xenos detected a shift in the girl's aura. He remained silent, even though it seemed like no one had before asked her that question. In fact, he wasn't shocked at all. "Well, I'm not sure. I just always have been." Her answer to the question escaped. That was the one question that had been on her mind ever since her planet was destroyed, and even with the guardians, she was constantly reminded of it.
"Would you ever go back to your planet?" He was taken aback by Aria's question, just as she was by his. After giving his response some attention, he discovered that he had not considered that throughout his months of absence. "It hasn't occurred to me. Maybe?– I'm not sure; managing an entire planet doesn't sound like my kind of work." He acknowledges that breaking eye contact causes a sudden shift in body language.
"I'm sorry that was invasive." Aria apologises; for some strange reason, the language she chose made her think a little bit of home. She means before the guardians, don't get her wrong; her home was with them. Her native world.
"No, you're alright." He puts his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "Want to go out and check what everyone's up to?" She nods as he convinces her with his endearing smile. "Yeah, let's go."
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
By now, Aria and Xenos had run over a hundred times around the planet. They had encountered Drax and Mantis and started talking about utterly unrelated topics that they had completely forgotten. Aria expected to walk into Rocket but completely forgotten he stayed at the ship with Groot and Nebula working on repairs.
Now, as Aria and Xenos arrived at the location of Ego's dwelling castle, they observed Gamora and Peter dancing on the balcony. "Holy shit—" Aria squeals inwardly as Xenos looks at her bewildered. Grabbing his arm, she pulls him along with her. "We have to go see if Peter's 'Star-Lord charm' is working."
Despite his obvious confusion, Xenos said nothing more and let his companion to lead him along. Their dynamic was fun. Unbothered friend with an extremely energetic friend, twin flames, some would say.
When the two reached the door, they heard rising voices. One voice was confused, while the other was a little worried. The two teens looked at each other, squinting and furrowing their eyebrows.
"You're the one who wanted me to come here!" Peter raises his voice at Gamora, walking closer towards her, barely noticing the two teenagers peeking their eyes through the gap in the door.
"That girl, Mantis, she's afraid of something." Gamora tells him taking a seat on the chair in front of her.
"Why are you trying to take this away from me?" Peter complains, getting closer again. "I'm not trying." Gamora tries to defend herself.
"He's my father. He's blood." Gamora's blood went cold at that comment, but she jumped right back. "You have blood on Earth, and you never wanted to return there." She tells him, stuffing the communication device Rocket gave her days before in the bag.
"Again, you made me come here! And Earth is the place where my mother died in front of me." Peter argues, pointing her finger at the wall.
"No, it's because that place is real, and this is a fantasy." Gamora says this while mocking him by pointing to the wall and walking further away.
"This is real! I'm only half human, remember?"
"That's the half I'm worried about." Gamora grabs some stuff out of her bag.
"Oh, I get it. You're jealous, because I'm part-god, and you like when I'm the weak one." Aria grimaced from behind the doorframe at his childlike behaviour.
"You were insufferable to begin with. I haven't been able to reach Rocket. I'm gonna go outside, and I'm gonna try to get a signal."
"You know what? This is not Cheers after all! This is whatever the show is where one person is willing to open themselves up to a new possibility, and the other person is a jerk who doesn't trust anybody! It's a show that doesn't exist. That's why it would get zero ratings." Peter shouts, making an o with his hands.
"I don't know what Cheers is!" Gamora raises her voice, now facing him.
"I finally found my family. Don't you understand that?" Peter explains, his breath was almost like blood hitting Gamora in the face. Gamora hesitated before speaking again. "I thought you already had." She says, turning around.
"Shit, Xenos, we've gotta go." Aria advises the boy to try their best to make minimal sound running through the hallway. Gamora watched as the teenagers ran away, realising they had heard the whole conversation.
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
"Drax, Drax. Drax!" The kids heard Mantis shout, groaning at the sudden noise disturbing their sleep. They both sit up, looking at each other sleepily, then turn to Mantis. "Drax! We need to talk."
Aria looked at Xenos, hoping she was finally coming clean. "I'm sorry. But I like a woman with some meat on her bones."
"What?" She sits on her knees now, looking down at the man.
"I tried to let you down easily by telling you I found you disgusting." He attempted to reason.
"No, that's not what I..." Mantis then pauses, watching as Drax begins to retch. "What are you doing?"
"I'm imagining being with you physically." He continues.
"Drax, that's clearly not what she means." Xenos speaks up, walking over to his bed.
"I don't like you like that." Mantis tells him, causing his retching to stop. "I don't even like the type of thing you are."
"Hey! There's no need to get personal." Drax tries to defend himself by raising his hand. By now, Aria's standing beside Xenos, looking down at Drax.
"Listen! Ego's gotten exactly what he wanted. I should have told you earlier." Mantis blurts, and Aria's face turns to worry.
"What did he want?" She asked, hoping Mantis' answer would have nothing to do with Peter or the rest of the group.
