Picking Up The Pieces

20. Meeting The Space Avengers... Sort Of

  It took all of my willpower to not scream in frustration. I had gone from being captive on a freaking alien ship to getting trapped in another. If that made things worse, I was in a smaller space than before. The vent went up, not out, so my legs were crammed against the cold metal. And my eye was throbbing; I needed to clean the cut. I was squirming slightly when I heard two voices arguing.

"Groot, there is nothing in the vents!" I heard a voice bark, his footsteps approaching.

"I am Groot," the other said stubbornly, its voice higher pitch yet somehow gravelly. A shadow came by the vent, it's tail swishing. Aliens have tails now, okay. I wanted to laugh, but the situation was anything but funny. I heard a long sniff, and I held my breath. "I am Groot."

"Stop being a baby, it's probably just a dead bug," the first voice groaned. The vent door started shaking slightly as the person on the other side was trying to rip it off. I grabbed the vent with my metal fingers. "Hang on buddy," the person muttered, and claws started to dig through the metal openings. The situation wasn't going to work well; I knew that. So what did I do? I let go of the vent, kicked it, and jumped out.

I heard a grunt, and I looked down to see the vent crushing the struggling alien, which looked just like a raccoon. "My god, I am going insane," I mumbled to myself as I watched the raccoon hiss at me. I turned around to see a baby tree staring at me in shock. I ran my fingers nervously through my hair. "Let me guess. A talking tree."

"I am Groot," he agreed with me in his high pitched voice, and I screamed. Groot, I guess that's his name, jumped back in terror and screamed at me. The little tree-person-alien threw his hands in the air and started to run down a hallway. "I am Groot! I am Groot!" he shouted.

"THE INVADER SCUM IS ON MY SHIP!" the voice from hours ago yelled. I heard a flurry of footsteps clanging against the metal floor. I looked down at the hallway the tree had run down, , the one with the loud alien's voice, then at the still struggling raccoon.

"I am so sorry about that," I apologized before running down a safe hallway. My heart pounded as I raced around the ship, trying to distance myself from the aliens. "Where's the Avengers when you need them?" I grumbled. As I turned a corner, something snagged my ankles and I tripped. A hand grabbed me roughly and pushed me up against the wall, leaving me face to face with a creepy looking mask. "Please don't kill me or make my death too painful," I begged as he pointed a double gun at me, turning my face away from him. I saw the gun lower out of the corner of my eye.

"You're human," he said softly through his mask as if in denial.

"I'm thankful someone isn't calling me Terran for a change," I joked in fear. Was he going to eat me or something? The alien slowly settled me back on the ground and retracted his hand shakily. "Just to be clear if you are gonna eat me or something because I don't know if I would feel better unaware or not." The alien chuckled. "Did I sound funny?"

"A little, yeah," he laughed, pressing a button against his helmet. The mask started to disappear, and I saw the alien's face. He was human. The man gave me a cocky smile. "I never thought I'd see another person from our planet ever again." He turned his head over to a hallway. "I found the invader!" he yelled out excitedly. "You gotta take a look at this!"

"Are you crazy?" I hissed at him. I pointed a metal finger out at a hallway. "One of your friends sounds like him killing me would be fun." I looked back at the man, who was now taking in account my metal arm. "What?"

"Do all humans have those now?" he grinned. Why was a metal arm so interesting to people? "Earth has flying cars, right?"

"What? No," I sighed. "Well, unless you're Phil Coulson, but no. We're not that advanced yet. Seriously, how long have you been here?" The man paused and did the math in his head.