A Bunch of A-Holes

“You must be joking.  Seriously.  Different dimensions?  That’s like, totally fantasy shit,” A human male with brown hair glanced down at the golden orb in his hand, “There’s no way this could possibly take me to another dimension.”

“It will.  In fact, it will take as many as you have holding on to you when you go.  Last time I used it, I took two of my servants with.  They fled from me before we returned, though, and I was unable to bring them back.”

“You didn’t go look for them?”

“It has a time limit.”

“You didn’t just use it a second time?”

“It refused to let me.  I can’t even touch it,” the white-haired man reached for the sphere, shrugging as the object pushed itself away from his hand, forcing the human’s hand back.

The human smiled, “Alright, so what do I do with it then?  And how long do I have to loot?”

“You just focus on activating it, and it’ll give you five creature-hours.  That’s five hours by yourself, or one hour for each of the five of your gang.”

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to get you at least half the loot I grab,” the human started walking out the door, ignoring the last words of the Collector.  Why he had gone back to the white-haired alien after that incident with the Infinity Gem, he’d never know.  But the Collector had sworn that Thanos was in another dimension, and that this stupid sphere could take his crew there.  Five hours was plenty of time for Drax to find and kill the tyrant.  And for him, Rocket, and Groot to loot everything that wasn’t tied down.

He held the sphere up as he stepped onto the Milano, “Yo, Rocket!  I got the thing from the guy!  You got that doohickey set up?”

The raccoon-like alien stuck his head up through a moved floor-panel, “It is NOT a ‘doohickey’,” his fingers surrounded the words, “This is a ‘Trans-dimensional Multi-phase Tracking array’ with an Asgardian Stabilizer matrix.”

“Exactly, a doohickey.  Is it ready?”

The raccoon sighed, “Yes.  Give me the orb,” he took the gold sphere and ducked back into the belly of the ship, settling it into the device wired into the ship, “Get the others together.  We’ll need to work fast.”

“Yeah, he said we have five hours.  I think that’s enough,” the human walked up the stairs into the lounge area of the ship, “Hey, guys, Gamora, we’re just about ready.  Drax, you’ll finally get your chance.”

“Of course.  When do we leave.”

“As soon as we get you down to the ramp.  We’ll have five hours on the other side.”

Drax the Destroyer stood, towering over the human as he stomped down to the ramp, two knives already in hand.  As soon as the ship flipped to the other dimension, he would be stepping off and going into combat.  Gamora, the green-skinned female, only female on the ship, followed him.  As a trained assassin, she could easily have his back.  Rocket was important to keep the ship running, and to supervise the doohickey.  Groot, well, the tree was useful to back up Gamora and Drax, if he wasn’t already doing something for Rocket.

__

Drax reached the top of the sealed ramp and pressed the communicator button, “Quill, I am in position.  Rodent, are you ready?”

The echo from below the deck emphasized the raccoon’s dislike of the term, along with his readiness, “I AM NOT A RODENT!”

Gamora pressed the button, “I am in position as well.  Rocket, please start up the system.”

__

The orb began to fragment and spin, glowing with an ethereal light that Rocket had to look away from.  It wasn’t quite enough before everything went entirely white, then entirely dark.  Rocket went to turn on his head-lamp, remembering at the last second that it was sitting in his room.  “GROOT!  I NEED SOME LIGHT IN HERE!”

__

Peter Quill, Star-Lord, stared out the viewport, past his hooves.  Hooves.  Where were his hands.  “AAAAAHHH!!!”

__

Gamora, assassin, stared at her knives, lying on the deck between a pair of green hooves, wrapped in black leather bands, “ROCKET!”

__

Drax stared at the door impassively, ignoring the yelling.  This dimension was twisting his sight enough, but his knives were securely strapped to his forearms, ready to skewer Thanos as soon as the hatch opened, “Are we there?”  He ignored the pressure on his wrists as his knives pressed into the deck.  It wasn’t important right now.

__

Groot stared, slightly amused, at the paw-like protrusions where his hands had been moments before, “Am I Groot?”

__

Staring at his hooves, Peter lost focus on keeping the Milano going in a straight line.  It started heating up as it sank into the atmosphere of a nearby planet.  He barely noticed the shouts of horror from the rest of the occupants as the Ravager vessel spun tip-over-tail through the fireball it was the center of.  Groot busted the door open and grabbed the controls in several little tendrils, twisting them to bring the ship back under control just in time to smear it along a pair of hills, gouging out chunks from two or three before it came to a halt on the edge of a creek.

Peter rolled to his hooves, falling naturally into a quadrupedal gait he had often found himself in while drunk.  Staggering out to the main corridor, he tripped and tumbled down the stairs, into a heap of limbs and leather, upside down, “How high am I?”  Before him stood a lime green Unicorn, and a giant-ass blue horse covered in familiar red markings, “Drax?  Gamora?  Rocket, am I really high?”

__

A purplish glow appeared beside Rocket’s head, and he sighed, “Thanks Groot,” he glanced around, noticing the lack of golden orb,

“Hey, Groot, can you help me find the orb?”

At the lack of response, he turned, and found himself staring into the purple eyes of a purple horse.  A horse with a frickin horn.  He stumbled back across the machinery in the belly of the ship and started feeling around for his gun, “GROOOOT!!”

__

Groot sprinted out of the cockpit, balancing smoothly on four limbs as he rolled around the corner and dove down the ladder.  His tendrils extended into the decking, ripping it open to reveal Rocket, sitting on his back, purple Unicorn pointing its horn at him.  Groot grabbed the Unicorn and yanked it up, the smell not registering as one of his companions.  He glared into its eyes, “I AM GROOOT!”

The Unicorn started scrabbling on air, trying to get a grip on the nonexistent surface, in order to break free, even as its horn started growing brighter.  It vanished in a puff of light, and the ship was plunged into the dim red emergency lighting.

Peter sighed, whacking his hoof against his face, then wincing at the new hoof-shaped bruise, “Great.  Groot scared away our first possible contact here.”

“Rocket, where are we?”

The raccoon looked around him, at the colorful horses, “I don’t know.  And I lost the orb,” he looked at his watch, “We should have about four and a half hours left though, after that crash.  I’ll find it.  You go find Thanos and kill him.”

__

Peter trotted up to the front hatch and pushed on the button.  Nothing happened.  He tried again.  Still nothing.  “Right, no power.  ROCKET!  GET THE POWER BACK ON!”

“I’M BUSY!  DO IT YOURSELF!”

He frowned and started up the stairs, stomping on every step on his way up.  At the top, he turned and stormed into the cockpit, crunching glass under his booted hooves, “I hate crashes.  Always have to replace all my glass.”  He stepped up onto the console and tapped the controls for his jet boots, launching him into the air, then into an entirely inelegant backflip as something sticking out of his back stopped him roughly.  He reached behind him, slightly surprised that his arms were still flexible enough to do that, and felt for the offending bits of coat.  Which turned out to not be coat, and were made of feathers that hurt when he pulled on them.  Wings.  His wings.  He looked over his shoulder and poked at one of the red-brown appendages.  It flicked out and brushed his nose, “That’s new,” he focused on tucking them close to his coat so they wouldn’t get caught, and fired his boot-jets again, launching himself out the broken glass, and down to the river flowing past the front.  The emergency release would only open the door if the debris was cleared out, so he started shoveling.  The door began to creak open, and he saw Drax’s scarred blue hoof pushing the panels apart.  After what seemed like hours, but his clock said was only minutes, the brutish pony tore through the gap, and the two spun around, backs to the ship.

That was when Peter really took the time to look at the world they were on.  Standing there on four limbs, in the body of a winged horse, the sight of the idyllic pastures was too much for him.  “Fucker.”

__

Rocket popped his head up out of the belly of the ship, holding the orb in his paw, and glanced at his watch, “Have you found Thanos yet?”

His radio buzzed back, “Rocket, you’ve gotta check this out.”

“I am Groot,” Groot trotted out the half-open hatch and stopped on the grass, sinking vine tendrils into the soft dirt, “Iiii am Groooot…”

Rocket joined his companions, holding the orb in his paw, “You know we’ve only got like, an hour left, right?”

Drax turned to Rocket, “That is plenty of time.”

Rocket scowled, “And what the hell is up with you guys?  You’re not even in your right bodies, but you don’t even care,” he tugged on Gamora’s vest, “Quit gawking at the scenery and let’s go see if anybody in that little town can at least point us in the right direction.”

Peter looked down at him, “Right.  How long did you say was left?”

“Of five hours, we’ve got, like fifty minutes.  Move it.”

The five climbed out of the river and started for the town, Drax being the only one not at all nimble in his new position, unlike the others who had at some point at least practiced a quadrupedal gait.  As they did, a bright pink creature trotted up to them.  It stopped, looked at the five with wide eyes, then let out a gasp that left Peter’s head ringing before shooting off like a rocket, towards the town.

“Continuing on.  We’ll figure out what the hell that was when we get there.  Maybe one of those two creatures we’ve already seen.  They seem moderately intelligent.”

Drax scoffed, “So do Terrans, but yet you continue to surprise me with your foolishness.”