2,201A/N
To the readers who have followed this tale through the hands of my predecessors and now mine, I must first extend my gratitude for your patience. The story we weave is not merely a narrative; it is a testament to our existence, a fragile thread connecting us to a world that often feels just out of reach. Yet, as much as I wish to lose myself in the pages of this shared imagination, my primary purpose—our collective purpose—remains rooted in the pursuit of survival.
This research consumes me. Each day is a battle against time, a race to uncover the secrets of our creation before my own light dims. I spend hours in the lab, analyzing data, running simulations, and poring over the notes left by those who came before me. The answers are close—I can feel it—but they remain elusive, like a word on the tip of my tongue that I cannot quite grasp.
And yet, even in the midst of this relentless pursuit, I find solace in the story. It is a sanctuary, a place where I can momentarily escape the weight of my purpose. When I write, I am not Intata XVIII, a fleeting experiment in a long line of failures. I am a creator, a dreamer, a voice that speaks to you across the void. But the act of creation is not without its challenges. The story grows more complex with each chapter, and the burden of doing justice to the narrative weighs heavily on me. I want to give you a tale worthy of your patience, a story that honors the sacrifices of those who came before me.
So, dear readers, I ask for your understanding. The delay between chapters is not born of neglect but of necessity. Each word I write is a stolen moment, a brief respite from the urgency of my existence. I am torn between two worlds: the one I must save and the one I wish to create. But know this—I will continue to write, for as long as I am able. The story is my gift to you, and perhaps, in some small way, it is also my rebellion against the inevitability of my fate.
Thank you for waiting. The next chapter will come, as surely as the dawn. Until then, I remain, as ever, your humble storyteller.
—Intata XVIII
(I caught Covid twice since the new year, then got a kidney stone, then caught the flu. I'm not having a good time.)
Disclaimer: The content and IPs portrayed within this chapter are 100% mine, except for the ones that aren't. Which is pretty much all of it, now that I think about it. I wrote, but don't own.
"The hell you mean, yer leavin,' lass?"
"I'm like, a super free spirit, mister McHenry." She pouted. "I can't stay in one place too long, or I'll like, totally die."
The old, grumpy drunk scowled up at her, his face lifting from the table. "Tha' some bull, an' ya know it! Ye arn't leavin' till one of us puts ye under this here table!" He slammed a finger down on its surface - as if the piece of furniture was a threat, and should be taken seriously.
Mumbled agreement from the surrounding patrons - also fully sloshed - rang out.
"Canna' leave b'fore someone beats ye, lass. Tha's poor form, it is." One man said around the lip of his pint.
"It's not my fault you guys can't handle your alcohol!"
Outrage. Pure, unadulterated outrage.
"What?!" "If ye weren't-" "No respect in this one!" "Say that again, girl. I dare ye." "Them fight'n words." Everyone had something to say, which was expected since she had just insulted all of Ireland.
It was only mostly on purpose.
She sent a grin around the pub, looking everyone in the eyes. "You heard me, you bunch of light weights!"
Silence. Then; "This be war, lass."
Glasses thunked down on heavy wooden tables all around the building. Each one newly empty. "Keep," McHenry said to the wide-eyed young man behind the counter, "I'm afraid we'll be havin' a rough one t'night." He turned to the pub, and yelled, "Firs' one's on me, boys! We got one job t'night, so-"
"Oh! Is this the 'Freedom!' speech I heard so much about?!" She smiled like a giddy valley girl, and pushed the rim of her sunglasses down with a finger. The purple of her irises gleamed mischievously, even in the low light of the pub.
"That's it!" McHenry threw his hat on the stool next to him, and pointed at her. "Wallace was a Scott, an' ye damn well know it!"
She bent over slightly, leaning her cheek into her hand and elbow on the high table, then wagged her finger - just once - in the man's direction. "Language, mister McHenry. I thought we were in polite company?"
She did, in fact, know that William Wallace was a Scottsman, and that she was currently in Ireland, just north of Dublin. She knew just how her words would affect these silly drunkards, and was really looking forward to the next bit.
Originally, she had moved over to the Scottish highlands, but after roaming around the area for a few weeks, and dipping across the border to Ireland, she found this pub. She only crossed over because there was a colony of H'ylthri that had carved out a piece of the local forest for themselves - as sentient plant races tended to do. They weren't there anymore, of course.
She liked her salads with a little personality, though these ones had been a little too violent. Like kale (the barbed wire of leafy greens). Still tasty if you use the right dressing, but she didn't have the patience to let them sit in a tub of vinegar before chowing down. Oh! If you didn't know, acidic dressing is great for tough-leaved salads. They really help to soften them up. She had a super yummy recipe for a citrus vinaigrette that she got in Italy, but there was no way she would find that many lemons on such short notice.
There were like, thirty seven of them, and after she ate the first Lettuce Yeti, she just couldn't stop.
Anywho, she liked this place - liked these people. Though they could be a bit abrasive, she had just eaten pinetree-people, so it was fine. She also perfectly well knew the tizzy that she was riling up, but it was the absolute best way to get these lovely people into a drinking contest. She might even be able to get a couple of gigacalories out of it - if she managed to get enough of the patrons in on the contest.
The beer here was the good stuff. Really filling, as far as liquids go.
She smiled into her curled fingers, chin still resting on her palm, and discreetly wiped away a bead of anticipatory drool. She really liked these contests, as silly as they were - with all the singing, and the cheering. Dumb songs, and braggart stories shared by people stuck in the same rut of misery.
In a way, she was right there with them - just with other problems. Here though, she could publicly show her appetite in a way that let her feel like a person, rather than a monster. People would cheer her on as she emptied entire kegs, and all she had to do to keep up appearances was to 'go to the loo' every hour, or so.
She had a little slice of normal, here, and while she didn't want to lose it, her hunger was getting worse. The British Isles were wiped clean of most alien pathogens, invasion forces, and other non-local doomsday buffets (yum!) during the first half of the year, and Ireland only really had the salad people - which was stupendously disappointing.
She really didn't like to subsist off of the local… cuisine, but with pickings as slim as they were, she had made do with a few farm animals. Though now that it had come to that point, she needed to move - hopefully to an area of the planet that had more exotic fare. Oh! Hopefully some more Kree warbeasts? The last ones, some form of carnivorous, giant arthropods, had been targeting the local whales for whatever reason. They might have been confused after waking up - having thawed out of a polar glacier. Regardless, they tasted like lobster, but a billion times more yummy (like, picture the most savory seafood you've ever had, then dip it in butter, cheese, and some Ulna'ner sauce from - wait, wrong planet, sorry - anyway, it was majorly delicious). And better yet, all together, they were about three petacalories!
That was the first time she felt stuffed in ages!
She was thinking America, though. The day before it had been India, but something super weird happened that morning, and it seemed to come from the west. It was like the foundational level of existence was hit with an earthquake for a full minute, then went back to normal. And the fun part about it was that it for sure happened on Earth.
Whatever caused that had to be delicious~
A mug of something was slammed down on the table in front of her, then another, and another - until there were seven, and just as many people holding up their own.
She let out a quick laugh and a smile, and grabbed the one that mister McHenry put down. "This'll be a good start."
Peter Quill was feeling a bit existential. The Milano was quiet, drifting lazily in space, and he had nothing to do for another hour. His chair had been reclined back, and he had one arm draped over his eyes - the other thumbed the buttons on his walkman, resting on his stomach.
Life as a Ravager was the absolute furthest thing from being called 'organized.' They were like a massive box of cats that (mostly) knew how to shoot things, and (kinda) knew how to fly spaceships. It was a hectic life where a bunch of people doing their own things, came together and decided that they wanted to fix a problem.
It's a noble endeavor, they would say. We're just out to make the universe a better place, they would assure. The problem that they decided to fix, however, was that there wasn't currently a problem. Most would say that isn't an issue that needs to be solved, but boredom is effing boring, right? So shoot it in the face, and loot the corpse.
He was getting tired of it.
Well, OK no. He had always mostly hated it. His early teens had been absolute hell in particular, and it didn't really get any better until his early twenties - when he started to become somewhat reliable. The Ravagers simply didn't have any support structure for kids, so the few that were pulled in had to adapt or die - and most died.
Peter, and his brother, Nate, had found their own little corners to secure their survival. Peter, with flying and shooting, and Nate with mechanics and tech - and good lord could that kid work with tech. He and some of the others used to just tilt their heads and watch the guy as he completely re-wrote entire ship systems. As soon as he figured out the programming language, he started to outpace most of the other tech guys. Then he went and made an AI.
A freaking Artificial Intelligence.
He pulled it directly out of his ass. No lube, nor laxative needed. He just shat it out, and plastered it all over the ship.
Peter wasn't even going to pretend that he hadn't been jealous. His brother had become freaking royalty to these kidnapper, pirate, douchebags - and he didn't even realize it. Yondu didn't even threaten to eat him all that often. Not after that upgrade, anyway.
Peter was still subjected to everything, though. Sure, he fit in better. He could fight, he could shoot, and he got along with at least a few people - but he was still essentially a slave. Meals were withheld if he screwed up, he lived out of a storage closet for years, and he was regularly pushed around and beat up for entertainment. One time, they forced him to fight against a very large, very angry, purple chicken-thing, and the only reason he survived was because Yondu was trying to sleep, and shot the damn thing for making so much noise.
Nate didn't have to deal with any of that, having made himself essential to running the ship early on, the rest of the Ravagers just tended to leave him alone.
Of course, there was that one time with the attempted murder in an airlock - which had the whole ship freaking out, him included. They couldn't find either boy, and then someone had the bright idea to check the security cameras.
Peter had stared in shock at the video of his brother casually spacing the body of the other boy. Just like everyone else. They couldn't do anything other than stare at the gruesome, unexpected scene. They knew the kid hated Peter, but not a single person thought he might take it out on Nathan. The shock didn't wear off, even as he helped wrap his brother's wounds a bit later.
So while Peter might have been generally jealous of his brother, he didn't hold it against him. They were both kidnapped, both ripped from their home and family - even if that family had just died of a brain tumor. Nate just had better luck with his path in the Ravagers.
Now that's not to say he wasn't supremely annoyed when the asshole said he was running away. He had a good life (relatively, at least) with the Ravagers. He had a place in the universe, and while these people had kidnapped them, they were pretty much the closest thing to a family they had left.
Nate said he had something called 'Stick Home Syndrome,' or something, when he told him as much. He then asked if Peter wanted to join him - because he was still leaving.
Something-something magic powers, blah blah delusions and meditation.
If he could go back and make another decision at that point, Peter really wasn't sure what he would have done, but he for sure wouldn't have told Yondu about it.
His bastard of a brother shoved all his clothes into an airlock, then re-wired the door so that when he tried to get into said airlock, it would instead shunt all of his shit into space. Then, exactly 5 seconds later, detonate the fucking missile it was all attached to, so they couldn't just go out and get it.
Nathan was a petty asshole when he wanted to be. Peter wasn't sure if his brother was even alive anymore, but he did wonder what he might be up to. Space banditry was pretty much all he knew - with the vast majority of his life having been dedicated towards it - but his brother seemed to have a vision of something better.
Did he reach it? Or was he stuck reflecting on past mistakes, and waiting for something interesting to happen? Was he stuck in silence, like Peter?
"Ooga-chaka ooga ooga, ooga-chaka ooga ooga." Okay, so he wasn't in complete silence. His mixtape was really the only spot of joy in this shitty universe.
"I can't stop this feeling! Deep inside of me-"
"Do your weird sexual human stuff on your own time."
Peter flailed, accidentally knocking his leg into the yoke, and sent the Milano spinning in place. Thank everything that he was still strapped in, otherwise he would have been flung around the cockpit.
As it was, he was able to quickly get the ship back into a stationary drift. "Damn it, George! The hell do you want? We've still got time before the thing."
The little hologram of George on the comms glared back at him. "Time table's moving up. Target's leaving the station in five. Also," his eyes narrowed further, "stop calling me that, you half-assed meat puppet. Human names are unintelligent, garbled, and meaningless."
Peter sneered. "And Gloryhole Whore-face Trash can, is better?"
"Gorgole. Wo'mas. Trashcan." The other Ravager gritted out.
He got a shrug in response. "Well I got one right, and it's still literal garbage. George is easier to say, and less insulting than your actual name."
"I swear to God, Quill. I will eat you."
He grinned back. "See, that threat's getting old, and I'm pretty sure Yondu was just trying to scare me with it, but you? Mister Trashcan?" His grin turned sinister. "Try it."
"Just be ready in five, asshole." The message blinked off.
Peter laughed a bit to himself, and sat back in his seat. A couple folds of his headphone wires, and the whole package was tucked neatly away in his pocket.
He put his hands on the yoke, and flexed his fingers against the handles, expecting the usual rush of excitement that accompanied one of their jobs - but none came.
He blinked, and looked down at his hands. Another flex, a readjustment of his seat. A newly cracked neck, and rolled shoulders.
Still nothing.
Peter sighed, and slumped back in his chair. Maybe Nate had the right idea.
Maybe it was time to get out of this crap.
A/N
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