welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day;
you learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play...

- guns n' roses
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FOR HOURS AFTER the crash, the ruins of the Milano smoldered. Great, black billows of smoke stretched up to the sky from which the ship had fallen from like sickly fingertips. The sun had set since the crash, and stars were peeking out from behind their dark blue curtain to greet the newest members of the strange planet.

There was a giant scar in the forest where the ship had crashed. Trees surrounded the wreckage, and trunks were snapped in half where there had been impact. Bugs chirped innocently, unaware of the incident. Ashes drifted down from the sky like a light snow.

Gamora was the first to open her eyes. Her lungs burned from inhaling the smoke, and her head felt as if someone was pressing a boot to her temple. The green woman winced as a sharp pain stabbed behind her eyes. Make that a steel toed boot to the temple.

Tenderly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Ash and debris tumbled from her body, and a cough rattled her lungs. The assassin's entire body ached and her throat was dry and painful, but she immediately thought of what was most important to her: Peter.

Gamora frantically began to survey the rubble, eyes moving at a mile a minute. They had been sitting close together when the Milano crashed, so they should have landed near each other in theory, right?

There!

She spotted his brown curls first, and even in the panic of the situation, she smiled faintly with relief. He was okay.

Gingerly, Gamora pressed onto her feet with a wince, noting the pain in her hip. She pressed her palm to the nuisance and began to limp towards Quill. She saw his chest rising and falling, and he paused for a second to choke on the obnoxious smoke.

She hovered over him for a moment and surveyed the damage. He looked to be remarkably okay for having crashed his ship. His limbs weren't splayed at any awkward angles and there didn't seem to be any bones jutting out. Quill did have a serious looking gash on his right cheek that would cause discomfort, but she was overall grateful for his survival.

"Peter," she prompted softly, predicting he would have a thumping headache to match hers. Gamora touched his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "Come back to me, Peter."

His brow furrowed at her touch, and after a few more seconds of her gentle cooing, Quill's murky eyes fluttered open. He seemed confused at first, and then the icy panic gripped him. He gasped and shot up to a sitting position all too quickly, blackening out his vision.

"Gamora," he called out frantically, grasping for her hand due to his temporary vision loss. His head was swimming and his cheek stung irritably.

His sweetheart fit her hand into his and helped hoist him to his feet. Quill's vision dripped back and he looked at the wreckage of his home. The Milano - his precious ship - was nothing but smoking ashes. His eyes flickered around the rubble as he spotted all his possessions.

The massive stereos were nothing but broken sheet of metal, all the mechanics within completely destroyed. Quill flicked his eyes to a bundle of clothing on fire; a pile of ashes with a blaster poking out; the toaster's blackened chrome. At his feet was his shattered Walkman and the smoking copy of Fifty Shades.

Gamora could see the emotion on his face. Utter loss, destructive rage. His hands were balled into fists, and his indignant lip quivered threateningly. "Hey, hey," she cooed softly, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his forehead down to meet hers. She closed her eyes and felt Peter's hands instinctively fall to their place on her waist. If she pretended enough, she could almost imagine they were on the Milano, holding each other as they had many times before.

"It's not fair," Quill nearly whimpered, his throat tight with emotion. The Milano was his home, his life - and now it was nothing but rubble. This damned mission had cost them everything. And his kid sister had planned it.

At the thought of his sister, Peter's eyes opened. He pulled away from Gamora who opened her eyes to look at her captain. His eyes were tumultuous and fiery.

After a moment of searching, he honed in on her. Amada was sitting near the perimeter of the Milano's remains. She was coughing and wiping dried blood away from her busted lip. The mere sight of her caused Peter to go tearing off in her direction, ready to rip her a new one.

When Amada saw her brother, she first read the expression on his face as concern. Of course, she expected her brother to worry about her after the crash. That was what brothers did.

"I'm fine, Peter," she croaked, waving him away with a swipe of her hand.

But as Peter drew closer, she knew she had misread his demeanor. His furrowed brow was crunched in anger, not concern. His downturned mouth wasn't a hardset grimace, but almost a snarl. He was going to kill her, Amada realized, and she scrambled to her feet much to the protest of her creaking bones. She almost slipped on the debris underneath her, but she eventually righted herself just as her brother arrived on her toes.

"I know what you're going to say," Amada stammered, backing away as her brother pressed towards her to keep the small distance between them. It was just enough space to avoid Peter's reach if he decided to swing on his little sister, which she wouldn't put past him in this moment.

"You have no fucking clue how dead you are to me, Amada Celino," Peter spat, his words like poison and sharp as a knife. Amada winced. He never called her by her full name. Her last name was the only reminder that her and Peter were only half siblings, related only by the dead and gone Ego.

Misreading her reaction, Peter thought Amada was reacting to the word 'dead', and he laughed a harsh bark.

"Dead," he repeated with a sickly, disapproving smirk. Peter shook his head and took his ember eyes off his target, only momentarily. He seemed to be thinking over his words, but he snapped his eyes back to Amada and took a few more slow steps towards his sister. "It should have been you, not Mantis," Peter growled, jabbing a finger into Amada's chest.

Amada recoiled as if she had been slapped, biting her lip to conceal the quiver. Her eyes instantly swelled with tears, and she kept her gaze on the ground in front of her. Normally, she would have had some witty comeback, but not this time. She agreed. It should have been her.

But Peter wasn't done yet. "All she did was love, Amada, and all you do is consume," he accused hotly, taking another step towards her. Amada was no longer backing away physically, but she was retreating mentally. She looked like a shell of herself as her brother's words eroded her like a wave on a cliff.

"Was this all part of your plan, huh? The plan you fucking hid from everyone?" Peter kicked a piece of debris, and Amada flinched.

There was silence as Peter brooded, pacing in a small circle with his hands on his hips. the only noise was the crackling fire licking over the remains of the Milano. "How am I supposed to deal with this? There's a hole right here," Peter tapped his torn jacket over his heart, providing emphasis, "that six feet of dirt can't fill."

Her lack of responses only seemed to make him more irate. Peter wanted to tear her shitty defenses to shreds and drive the blame home, but she only took it, meaning she knew how bad the plan was and executed it anyways.

"Look me in the eyes, Amada!" He bellowed, grabbing her by the chin and leveling her eyes with his. He saw the panicked tears in her eyes, but he held his gaze. "You destroyed this family! What do we do?"

"Peter!" Gamora intervened curtly from across the wreckage. During the entire scene, she had been helping Groot, Rocket, and Drax recover. She had intended to let them slug it out, but he was crossing too many lines. When Peter shifted his lunatic gaze her way, she she shrank back and skirted her eyes, bending down to pick up little Groot.

Peter looked back to his sister, seemingly quelled, but his eyes were leaking a look of disgust. "Hope it was worth it. Loki is long gone, Mantis is dead, the Milano is ashes, and it should have been you."

As quickly as he came, he skulked off to go angrily scavenge through the rubble, leaving Amada alone. She put her shaking, dirty hand over her mouth to quiet the pathetic whimpers that escaped her lips, and she allowed the tears to fall onto her cheeks. Her chest felt too heavy to breath, so she collapsed back into a sitting position and hugged her knees to her chest.

Loki, the only thing that could have possibly redeemed the mission, was probably scampering around in the cosmos somewhere, free as the wind without a stain on his conscience. The Milano was a mountain of scrap metal, and Mantis...

When she closed her eyes, Amada could see her dead eyes and open mouth. She could practically taste the coppery blood in the air. The blood had been squirting like a kinked hose, creating a nightmare that Amada would have for years to come.

Eyes closed, she saw Mantis. Eyes open, she saw the wreck. Both were impossible to look at. Both caused her chest unspeakable pain as she tried to suck in air. Both were her fault.

Her sobs were becoming a repeated motion of shuddering whimpers followed by gasps to attempt to fill her lungs. She wished it had been her.

As each member of the Guardians processed the last hours, they were unaware of the hundreds of footsteps closing around them like a noose. The wreck had been sending up plumes of black smoke for a couple hours, and troops had been deployed to investigate.

It was only when the natives appeared out of the tree line that Rocket noticed them. They were completely surrounded by armed men and women.

These men and women didn't look like you or me. No, they were quite strange to behold. Every man was distinctly identified with purple skin and green hair, the length varying from individual to individual. The women were slender with yellowish skin and blue hair. All of them were wearing black attire and pointing menacing weapons at the scattered Guardians.

"Uhhhh, guys!" Rocket called out to his teammates. "I don't mean to scare anyone, but you should really look...everywhere."

As the trapped, injured survivors looked at their surroundings, their hearts sank. None of the Guardians has their weapons on them, and they were grossly out numbered.

A man, more muscular than the rest, stepped forwards. His skin was such a dark purple that it almost seemed black in the darkness of the night. He cleared his throat, and in a deep voice, bellowed, "If you do not raise weapons to us, we promise to treat you with the granted respect of the captured. Surrender yourselves now, and the next few hours will be painless and you will walk Granter again one day. Defy us...you will be dead before you can raise a fist."

The dejected and misplaced travelers looked to their leader who simply swore under his breath. They would stand down, it seemed.

Representatives of the natives ran forwards and restrained each Guardian, slapping on an array of chains and restrictions.

Just twenty four hours earlier, the Guardians had been joking on the Milano with full tummies and excited hearts. Now they were prisoners of war on a planet they couldn't even identify.

People died, people escaped, and lives were destroyed in just twenty four measly hours.