Galactic Surge

Battle Cries and Groot Goodbyes

JJ's POV

"Alright, no more playing nice..." I growled before I flipped onto my feet and activated the magnetic function of my gloves. Grabbing Nebula's metal arm, I wrenched her off of Gamora as she was tasing her with her staff.

"The whole electric thing is my deal." I gritted my teeth as I used both my hands and planted my feet with my boots sticking to the surface of the floor to toss Nebula toward the hole that was blasted into the side of the Dark Aster from the Ravagers just as Gamora pulled out the cords for the security door's power.

"No!" Gamora yelled as she ran over to where Nebula was dangling from the side of the ship.

"What're you doin'?!" I shouted to her as she leaned over to reach her hand out to Nebula, who turned out to be hanging on by her wrist being caught between two metal frame wires.

"Sister, help us fight Ronin. You know he's crazy." She pleaded before Nebula looked at us with her dark eyes and responded with,

"I know you're both crazy." Before cutting off her own hand to release her to the air below.

"No!" Gamora screamed before I stopped her from jumping after her shouting,

"What're you insane?! We have to go catch up with the others!" I let go of her before using my powers to blast a hole right above us, clearing the way for Gamora to jump up while I used my boots to magnetically repel myself upwards.

Drax had finished bashing a few guards in when Quill prepared the Hadron Enforcer to fire at Ronin, who was standing right in front of us with his freaky purple glowing hammer and eyes before the whole room was blasted with a bright white light, making us all turn to shield our eyes.

When the light went down, the dust was starting to kick up when Drax cheered,

"You did it!"

"Nice shootin'!" I hit Quill's arm lightly until I saw his smile fade and we all turned to see that Ronin was still in one piece.

"Aw crap..." I muttered to myself before he brought his hammer up and used it to send a shockwave of energy that forced us back. Gasping, I looked to see that a light was shining from below my neck and it felt like a hot knife was being driven into my chest as ice was being forced in.

Grabbing at the light, my vision began to dim as I felt myself being lifted up by course arms right before being knocked down as something crashed into the room. When my eyes focused again, I saw that Quill was on top of Groot as he was shielding us from the ship that Rocket crashed into Ronin.

"Rocket!" I bolted up to yank at the straps holding him in place in the seat before Quill placed a hand on my arm and helped me to gently pull him out of the wreckage. Gamora was dragging Drax over to where we were gathering around Groot as we realized that the ship was destabilizing and we would be crashing to Xandar's surface soon, an impact even I wouldn't be able to survive.

I closed my eyes to avoid looking at everyone's devastated faces when I heard some snapping noises coming from behind me and looked to see that Groot was growing out his branches to surrounded us in a leafy cocoon. From the outside, we could feel the explosions and shaking from the ship, but inside everyone was secured in place with Groot's vines being lit up with the glow seeds.

"Groot, we can find another way without you dyin'!" I pleaded with tears gathering in my eyes from what I realized Groot was trying to do for us.

"Why are you doing this? Why?" Rocket questioned as Groot extended out a vine to pat the side of Rocket's face and to brush a stray strand of hair out of my face before he spoke,

"We are Groot." His big brown eyes were the last thing I saw before everything went white from impact.

Groaning in pain from the crash, I found myself surrounded by rubble from the ship as a faint song was being played through the air. Forcing myself to my scrapped hands, I looked around to see Rocket clutching one of Groot's stick remains while whispering,

"I called him an idiot..."

I was pushing myself to my feet when I saw a purple glow coming from the remains of the Dark Aster and Ronin was the source.

"You killed Groot!" Rocket yelled before trying to charge at Ronin and being thrown back with a flick of his hammer.

"No!" I limped over to Rocket where I found him furiously working on the remains of the Hadron Enforcer as Ronin began his monologue,

"Behold! Your guardians of the galaxy. What fruit have they wrought?"

I stopped paying attention as I helped Rocket to fix what was left of the weapon before Quill started distracting him with some weird Earth dance before handing the weapon to Drax to prepare to fire it.

"It's gonna need a charge before I hotwire it so be ready." Rocket whispered to me and I prepared my gloves as Ronin demanded,

"What are you doing?"

"I'm distracting you, you big turd blossom." Quill grinned as Ronin turned to see Drax with the weapon, me with a crackling hand on it, and Rocket hotwire it, firing one last projectile to his hammer, releasing the Power Stone from inside. Just before Ronin could get his hands on it, Quill jumped forward to grab the stone with his bare hand, creating a swirling vortex of dirt and purple lights, like from Carina's encounter with the Stone.

"No!" Gamora yelled before she forced her way through the swirling power vortex to get to Quill, as his body started to crumble apart with purple cracks.

Gamora held out her hand to Quill and he grabbed it just before the power started to go through Gamora too and Drax when he placed a hand on Quill's shoulder and through Rocket and me when Rocket grabbed a hold of Drax's finger and I held onto Rocket's hand. The light from before shone again from my chest as the light shining from the five of us dimmed and the winds from the vortex became calmer as the power from the stone became more focused.

"You're mortal! How?" Ronin demanded as Quill told him,

"You said it yourself, b**ch. We're the Guardians of the Galaxy."

Just as Ronin was about to swing his hammer to hit us, Quill opened up his hand and light beamed out from me to hit Ronin with enough power to disintegrate him into purple ashes. Just as the stone was intaking more energy, Gamora slammed a containment orb over it, making the vortex die down before I passed out from the energy drain.

3rd Person POV

After Peter swiped the real Power Stone from Yondu, Rocket sat down next to where JJ's body lay on the ground clutching one of Groot's branches. Drax went over, grimacing as he held his side in pain from sitting down as he saw that Rocket was holding in his sobs with a concerned look for JJ.

"I-I can't lose her too..." Rocket's cries started again as he held the branch even closer to his heart with one hand before laying the other on JJ's cheek before Drax cautiously held out a hand to gently stroke the top of Rocket's head. He stopped crying abruptly before accepting the feeling of comfort from the motions before Drax murmured,

"She will be fine, they both will be..."

1260 Words