The saying that the idea of going to the Whitebound brothers to ask them for the aid in taking Gregor down sparked a long discussion between the Guardians was the understamenent of the century. Everyone had their minds if going to the Whitebound to ask them for help was a good idea and Gamora wasn't nervous to voice her concern about coorperating with the three bandit brothers, because of what they were doing for years and Y/N couldn't blame her for having second thoughts. He wasn't a big fan of these three too.

Ultimately Gamora ended up deciding to give this idea a shot. The Whitebound brothers might have been responsible for many questionable things, which were mostly related to robbery and murder, but there were a few good things that you could say about them. One of those things was that they were always willing to listen what the people they liked had to say to them. The three brothers always liked Y/N, Rocket and Groot because they always got whatever job they had given them done.

It was how Y/N, Rocket, Quill, Gamora, Nebula, Drax, Mantis and Groot found themselves standing in front of the Whitebound tribe's current headquarters. The three brothers didn't like to stay in one place for long. Their current headquarters happened to be an abandoned settlement which was surrounded by tall walls.  

Y/N and Rocket who were the ones that were the closest with the three brothers stood in front of the group, with Groot sitting on Rocket's shoulder. The group of eight was staring ahead at the gate which was leading into the settlement. Y/N and Rocket already had a small conversation with Elyza, one of the best members that the tribe had and informed her that they wanted to talk with her bosses to which she replied that they will need to wait for someone to exit the settlement.

"Remember." Y/N whispered to his friends who were unfamiliar with working with the Whitebound brothers. He gestured towards one red haired woman who was standing on the guard, "Don't do anything suspicious that could make Elyza think that we're not here to talk."

Drax turned his gaze towards him, "Why should we be worried about angering her? She is the only person those bandits have on guard. We should make it back to our ship without any troubles."

"Because we've seen her do her work with her sniper-rifle a few times." Rocket began his explanation, "She is able to hit the smallest coin in the galaxy from over 100 meters."

"What? Are you serious." Quill titled his head towards Rocket, suprised which was soon replaced with awe when Rocket nodded in confirmation, "...Wow." 

Y/N let out a chuckle, "Had the same reaction when I saw her do her work."

"Where did she learned that?" Gamora asked, curious where Elyza aquired her shooting skills. She didn't came across people with such skills very often.

"On her homeplanet. She was a soldier there, before she left it along with the help of Osgar." Y/N explained, deciding to cut the part that Elyza was placed in the military at the very young age when her talent for shooting long distance guns was discovered. This topic wasn't something that the red haired woman was comfortable sharing with the people she didn't knew.

Everyone were silenced when the sound of the gate opening rang through their ears. They turned their complete attention towards it and saw the group of a few Whitebound tribe members walking out. A large man grenade launcher wielding man that had most of his face covered by a helmet was walking in the front of the group.

The helmet wearing man walked over to the Guardians and stopped in front of him, his gaze set on Rocket and Y/N, "Rocket and Y/N and Groot. It's been a while since you the three of you decided to pay us a visit."

"We were busy." Rocket explained, "We had better stuff to do than visiting your bosses."

"Aye. I can tell." Osgar nodded his head, "The last time you came here was a few days before you saved Xandar from Ronan. Can't say I'm going to miss the bastard. He got what was coming to him. Why did you come here because I don't think you came here for no reason." 

He didn't had to wait long for response as Y/N spoke up, "We want to talk with your bosses." 

"Why?" Osgar wanted to know.

"There is something we need to discuss with them." Gamora explained from the back of the group, "We believe we may end up helping each other."

"You can help each other?" Osgar rubbed his chin, as the lower part of his head was uncovered, "You can color me intrigued."

One of the bandits that stood behind him spoke up, "Should we let them in?"

"Aye. I  know that they're not going to try anything." Osgar nodded his head, trusting Y/N's and Rocket's group. He turned away from them, now looking at the entrance to the settlement where he was currently staying, "Let's go. I'll take you to Jon's, Rickon's and Robb's house. It shouldn't take us long to get there."

The Guardians pushed themselves into walk and followed Osgar into the settlement. They reached the gate several seconds later and stepped right through it. Osgar looked up at Elyza who looked down at him and offered her a quick wave to which the red haired woman waved in return. He and Elyza were close friends with each other, in fact, they knew each other before joining the Whitebound tribe.

Osgar shifted his attention towards the Guardians again and motioned for them to follow him. The group of eight followed him through the gate, making sure to eye their surroundings. The settlement they were making their way through was in a pretty bad shape and it was easy for them to say that this place was abandoned a long time ago because they doubted that someone lived in here before the Whitebound tribe decided to use it as their temporary camp.

A lot of the houses were destroyed, with only a few of them left standing, and even the ones that were left standing were looking like they were going to collaps in a few seconds. It only made everyone wonder for how long this settlement was abandoned. The lack of houses to live in caused the members of the Whitebound tribe to live in tents which were scattered all over the settlement.

 The bandits didn't seem to mind that though, because they were all doing whatever they were doing. Of course a lot of them stopped what they were doing to take a look at the Guardians the moment they entered their current place to live, with the ones who did whispering among themselves about the sudden arrival of the Guardians, but there some members that paid no attention to them at all, just minding their own business.

"Look at what Orloni dragged in." It was when a familiar voice to Y/N and Rocket rang through everyone's ears. They turned in the direction of out and saw a brown haired man walking towards them, "Our favourite talking animal and his terran partner..."

"I am Groot." Groot cut Lambert off, not wanting to be excluded, still sitting on Rocket's shoulder.

"Let's not forget about their talking stick companion." Lambert rolled his eyes, making Groot glare at him because of how the brown haired man called him, "It's been a while you three."

Rocket crossed his arms, "Great to see you too, bastard."

"Why did you come here anyway?" Lambert wanted to know, ignoring the insult Rocket threw his way because he received it pretty often, "I don't think you're in a need of job, considering you're the planet saving heroes now."

"They want to talk with Rickon, Robb and Jon." Osgar answered for Rocket and Y/N as Lambert turned his gaze towards his assiociate, "There is something they want to discuss with them."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Lambert asked him as he turned around and started making his way towards the Whitebound brothers personal house, "We don't have all day."

Y/N shook his head, and whispered to his friends, as he followed Lambert, "I still can't believe that he is Sydney's brother."

"Me too." Rocket nodded in agreement, following Lambert with his friends.

Much to everyone's suprise, Osgar added his part to the conversation, "That makes us three, lads. I've known him for years and sometimes I'm still having hard time believing that he and Sydney are blood brothers."

Mantis titled her head in a curious manner, "Why?" 

"They're complete opposites of each other." Y/N explained, "Lambert is a cold bastard for most of the time, and Sydney is well, just like I said, something completely opposite of a cold bastard."

"It doesn't change the fact that he has caring side that shows from time to time." Osgar pointed out, referring to Lambert, "You can call Lambert however you want, but there is one good thing about him that is he in never trying to hide, no matter what. It's his love for his younger brother, even though he is annoyed by him and his antics pretty often."

Gamora exchanged a look with her sister at the mention of Lambert, despise being described as the cold bastard,  had a softer side inside him which was related to his younger brother. They continued to walk through the camp for a few more moments before a badly looking house appeared in their view. 

This must have been the place where Jon, Rickon and Robb were residing during their stay in this settlement. Y/N turned to look at Osgar who nodded his head at him at his friends, confirming their suspicion.

They made their way over to the house but a man who was leaning against the entrance to it stopped them from entering it. He held up a voice recorder and pressed a button, "Hello."

Rocket nodded his head at him, greeting him back, "Diavul."

"How is our favourite fire loving maniac doing?" Y/N asked him. Out of all people from the Wbitebound tribe, he liked Diavul the most, despise finding him a bit creepy with his unhealthy obsession with fire and burning things.

Quill, Gamora, Drax, Mantis and Nebula looked at Diavul in suprise, mostly because of the way the man communicated with their friends. This man must have been born without ability to speak or lost it at some point of his life if this was the way was communicating with the others.

"I'm doing well...Thank you for asking..." Diavul responded to Y/N's question with a nod of his head, clicked his voice recorder once again which was followed by it saying, "...What a lovely day, right?"

Rocket shrugged, "If you say so. For me, a day like any other."

"Move out of the way, Diavul." Lambert told Diavul who nodded his head at Rocket's response, not wanting to keep this conversation going, "They came here to talk with Jon, Rickon and Robb. We don't have time to play with your voice recorder."

Diavul rolled his eyes and moved out of the way, making sure to click his voice recorder, "Then why didn't you say so?"

Lambert glared at Diavul who smiled sheepishly at him. He grabbed the handle of the doors and pushed them open. He entered the house and Osgar, Y/N, Rocket, Groot, Quill, Nebula, Gamora, Drax, Mantis and Diavul followed him, the Guardians giving themselves a pretty good look at the condition of the house where the leaders of the Whitebound tribe were residing at the moment.

The condition of the house was bad just like they excepted. The walls were cracked, and old furnitues were laying on the dirty floor, probably knocked over by the current residents of the house to leave some place for the stuff they brought with themselves. The only one furniture that wasn't laying on the floor, at least in this section of this house was an on table.

Everyone's attention was quickly shifted from the table to the four guys who were gathered around it. One of them was Lambert's younger brother Sydney, who offered the Guardians a friendly smile a greeting wave of his hand, giving them the exactly opposite greeting than his brother and the other three happened to be Jon, Robb, and Rickon, the Whitebound brothers themselves.

Jon who was leaning against the wall gave them the cocky smile that Y/N and Rocket were very familiar with as he greeted them, "Rocket! Y/N! How lovely it is to see you again!"

"I'd be lying if I said that I was excepting to see you pay us a visit." Rickon was the second brother to speak up to the Guardians.

"Can you blame them, though, brother?" Robb folded his arms and smirked, "I would have never excepted things to turn out the way they did after my little meeting with Y/N."

"Don't you remember what that old man said to us when we were staying on Matoks? Life writes most interesting scenarios." Sydney reminded the three brothers the words that an old man they came across said to them when they were staying on Matoks, despise the planet being not the best place to live. He came over to Rocket, and set his gaze on Groot, extending his hand towards the little guy with a friendly smile on his lips, "Hi there, little fella. Name's Sydney."

Groot looked at Rocket who shrugged his shoulders. Although he was a bit hesitant, Groot grew his arm out towards Sydney's hand and shook it, "I am Groot."

Sydney let go off Groot's hand, his friendly smile not leaving his lips, "Knew you were going to say this."

Lambert placed his hand on his forehead, shaking his head, muttering, "Sydney..." to his younger brother.

Sydney turned his gaze towards his older brother and saw the look he was giving him, "What?" 

"Don't waste our time...." Lambert was interrupted in the middle of the sentence.

Sydney placed his hand on his chest, shaking his head dramatically, interrupting his brother, already knowing what Lambert was going to say to him, "Oh, brother, brother. What's so wrong about greeting our guests? Point out one situation that being nice to someone ended badly for me."

Lambert gave him a look that said "Are you serious?" before responding to his brother's words, "Remember that one woman from Lakrot? Remember how you returned to our camp and locked yourself in your room for a few days, with nothing but your gun in your hands after she invited you into her home?"

Sydney crossed his arms and turned his gaze away from Lambert, shivering at the memories that flew through his head, "We promised to not talk about this."

Robb cleared his throat, silencing Lambert and Sydney, "Save your argument for later you two."

"That's right." Jon nodded in agreement, "Our friends here didn't came here to hear you two argue about nothing important."

Rocket crossed his palms when he heard Jon's words, "Friends?"

"We're not friends, Jon." Y/N told him, "We were just taking jobs from you rom time to time."

"Your words are hurting my heart." Jon placed his hand over his heart only to remove it a second later, "You two always say that everytime when I call you our friends, but we always liked you. We never had to worry about you failing to do your job, because you always got it done."

"Why did you came here for?" Rickon wanted to know, deciding to go straight to the point because he doubted that the Guardians came here just to hang out with them, especially that most of them didn't know them. 

"We came here to offer you a deal." Y/N explained.

Robb titled his head to the side, "A deal?"

"Yes." Rocket confirmed with a nod of his head as he reached into his bag and pulled out his tablet. He turned it on, and the picture of Gregor appeared on the screen. He held it out, making sure that everyone in the room was going to see it, "You know who it is?"

"Of course we do." Rickon nodded, glare forming on his facial features when he saw the person on the tablet, "Gregor Conall."

"Why are you showing this to us?" Jon wanted to know.

Gamora stepped forward, as she was the one who was going to do the talking, "Because we want you to help us in taking him down."

"You want us to help you take him down?" Robb repeated what Gamora just said, wanting to be sure if he didn't misheard it, to which Gamora nodded in confirmation. He crossed his arms, "Okay, you can color me interested."

Lambert snorted. He crossed his arms, as he leaned against the wall, "What makes you even think they will agree to help you?"

"Because Rocket and Y/N told us that your bosses have an unpleasant past with Gregor back when they were younger and less experienced." Gamora explained, shifting her gaze from Lambert towards Jon, Rickon and Robb, "He set you up which almost resulted in you getting caught by the authorities back when you were working with him before you formed your own tribe. Am I right?"

Jon scowled, his usual cocky smile replaced with a frown, "Don't remind me."

"Can't believe we trusted that bastard." Robb shook his head, "It's a miracle that we weren't caught after he left us behind. It was when we decided to form our own tribe to make sure it wasn't going to happen again to us."

Gamora remained silent for a few seconds, to make sure she could continue before speaking up again, "We did a little research on Gregor before coming here and we learned that that he likes to come to the "Pascal Stadium" on Tarok every year during the during the annual championship and watch the fights between the contestants."

"Likes?" Jon said as one memory of the time when he and his brothers were working for Gregor flew through his mind, "That's a gentle way of putting it. You should have seen how angry he was when his favourite contestant didn't won the championship. He was absolutely furious and almost beat up one of his people to death."

Rickon sighed, shaking his head, "Poor Cobalt. What happened to him is one of the main reasons why we always treat the members of our tribe with respect."

"That is why we think sneaking into the stadium during the championship which are going to happen in a few days is how we want to take care of him." Gamora continued, "He is going to be focused on watching the fights and it will give us a good opportunity to catch him and hand him over to the authorities."

"This why I instantly thought about you three when we've been offered this job." Y/N added, "I know that you three hate his guts and would love to see him locked up. We want you three to help us get inside."

Quill decided to add his part as well as he spoke up, "If this plan will work, you're going get your revenge on him for selling you out to the authorities and we're going to get this job done. Everyone's a winner in this deal, except maybe Gregor."

"So, are you in or not?" Rocket asked right after his friends finished explaining their offer to the Whitebounds, "Because if you're not, we can always come up with something else. A few days is a plenty of time."

Rickon exchanged a look with his brothers before rubbing his hands together and pointing at Rocket and Y/N, "Rocket, Y/N, come with me and my brothers. There is something we want to discuss with both of you in private. Then we will make our choice."

Y/N looked down at Rocket and the two friends exchanged a look with each other before following Jon, Robb and Rickon into another room in this house, intending to talk with them about whatever they wanted to discuss with them.

----

Three days later, the group consisting of several people from the Guardians and the Whitebound tribe stood gathered around a single table where everything that they needed to plan to take down Gregor was laying on the table. Rocket and Y/N eventually managed to convice the Whitebound brothers to help them take down Gregor, on one condition. The two of them were going to help them when the Whitebounds were going to need it, promising them that it wasn't going to be anything severe.

Even though they were a bit hesitant about accepting this part of the deal, Y/N and Rocket ultimately decided to agree because while the Whitebound brothers were many things, they always kept their word.

Now it was time for one of the most important parts of their deal which was coming up with a plan how they were going to get this job done. Attacking Gregor during his beloved championships was a perfect opportunity to take him down and they were going to do their best to not screw this up.

Star-Lord moved the map of the "Pascal Stadium" which was provided to them by Sydney across the table, "We've got only shot at this and we can't screw this up. We need to make sure everyone is going to know their role in this job."

"Mantis and Drax." Gamora called out to Mantis and Drax who turned their gaze towards her, "You're will sit in the stand among the other people who came to the stadium to watch the fights. We want you to keep your eye on the watchers and inform us whenever Gregor is going to show up."

"You're not going to be alone." Rickon added, "Lambert and Diavul are going to join you."

Lambert nodded, "Got it."

Diavul clicked his voice recorder, "Understood... This is going to be so much fun..."

"I have to agree with the quiet man." Drax agreed with Diavul, "In this position I might not get my hands on Gregor but watching those people fight each other for the prize is going to be quite entertaining."

"There's one more thing I need to mention." Rickon said as Sydney pulled out a darkened glasses, "We know that spotting Gregor among the other people is not going to be easy, considering how many people will come to watch the fights, this is why we want you to take Sydney's toy. It should help you find Gregor among the people the moment you will set your eyes on him."

"Just don't break them, brother." Sydney told his brother, handing the glasses to his brother, " "You know how much I love to play with those glasses and those things aren't cheap, you know?"

Lambert rolled his eyes, taking the glasses from his brother, "Do you really need to remind me everytime when I borrow them? I already know that."

 "How are we going to get in?" Mantis spoke up, staring at the map of the stadium where she and the rest were going to track down Gregor and catch him, "From what I've heard so far about that place, I assume that sneaking into it is not going to be an easy task, especially with a group as large as ours.

"Don't worry, girl. I already took care of that." Sydney spoke up, throwing a box with a few wristbands inside on the table, "I hacked into the stadium and made sure to borrow a few wristbands. You should get inside without any problem with them. The bouncers are going to think that you just came there to watch the fights."

"What about the rest of us?" Elyza spoke up as she stood in the back of the room, "What do you want us to do?"

"You're going to stay with me outside of the stadium." Sydney explained as Elyza titled her head towards him, wanting to heard everything he had to say to her, "I'm going to keep my eye on the map and tell the others where they should head through the comms once they will be inside. Someone has to watch my back in case if something is not going to go according to our plan and who is better for that than our favourite sharpshooter."

Elyza nodded her head when she heard her part of the plan, "Got it. You can count on me and my rifle. Not a single person is going to get close to you."

Sydney smiled at her, "Oh, I know that."

"Now let's talk about how are we going to stop him from fleeing if he'll somehow finds out about us" Robb declared as he shifted his gaze between Rocket and Osgar "Rocket. Osgar. This part of the plan belongs to you."

Osgar looked at his boss, "Yes?"

"What did you planned for us?" Rocket wanted to know, his arms folded.

"We want you two to blow up Gregor's ship." Quill explained, "The bomb that your arms dealer from Xandar gave you is going to do the job."

Osgar grinned at the thought of Rocket's bomb blowing up Gregor's ship, "I'm looking foward to see this baby in work."

Elyza turned to look at Osgar and send her close friend a grin, "You always wanted to see it work, right?" 

Osgar nodded in confirmation, his grin not leaving his lips, "Aye, lass." 

It was when Gamora started moving her hand around the map in a circles, beginning the explanation of another part of the plan, "The rest of us will split into three groups. We learned that the stadium has special rooms for the people that paid enough units to watch the fights from them, with certain additions that are reserved for the people who watch the fights from these rooms."

The green skinned woman pointed at one spot on the map, as she continued her explanation, "This is why we're splitting up into three groups. There is a posibility that Gregor might be in one of these rooms during the fights and our job will be to find out if our suspicions will turn out to be correct. Peter and I already decided to take this part of the stadium"

"That's right." Quill nodded his head as he pointed at another area on the map, "Y/N and Nebula will take care of this area. There a bar there which may led you to finding out where our target might be staying. We don't think Gregor is going to be nice enough to invite all of his people to party with him so some of them might be there."

"Got it." Y/N said as Nebula offered a silent nod of her head, understanding her part of the plan.

Robb then pointed at the last area of the map, "Me and my brothers will take care of this area. I don't really think I need to say more about it."

"There's one thing we need to discuss." Rocket pointed out, unfolding his arms. He hopped onto the table and pointed at the entrance to the stadium, "How are you going to get inside without getting your guns taken away? They're not letting anyone with guns or even knives inside the stadium, unless you're participating in the championships or paid the bouncers enough units to let you in with your guns. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not a fan of spending my units on some morons who were "

"I will take care of it  along with my brothers." Rickon assured him, "We're going to enter the stadium a bit earlier and smuggle all of our weapons inside."

"We're going to hand your weapons over to you once we'll met in the hallway here." Jon added, pointing at one spot on the map, telling the others where they will wait for them with their weapons, "After that we'll split up and make our way towards our positions."

Rocket crossed his arms, "You better not fail because I can't really see this plan work with you defensless."

Rickon gave him an assuring nod, "Don't worry about that. Me and my brothers will do our best to smuggle everyone's weapons inside."

Rocket nodded his head as he got himself off the table, landing between Y/N and Nebula as Gamora spoke up, "This is everything we wanted to share with you. Let's get ready. Tommorow we will implement this plan."

Groot grew him arm out towards the table and slowly got himself on top of it, earning everyone's attention, "I am Groot."

"What?" Rocket asked him.

Groot turned his gaze towards him and Y/N, "I am Groot."

"You want to go with Mantis, Drax, Diavul and Lambert and watch the fights with them?" Y/N asked.

"I am Groot." Groot nodded in confirmation.

"Forget it." Rocket shook his head, making Groot cross his arms, with an angry frown forming on his face.

"It's too dangerous for you." Y/N pointed out, "You're going to stay on our ship during this job."

Groot unfolded his arms as his angry frown was replaced with a bright smile when an idea how to convice Y/N and Rocket to let him go appeared in his mind. He set his gaze on Rocket and Y/N and clasped his hands together, with pleading look starting to form in his eyes.

Rocket shook his head with a sigh leaving his lungs, knowing where this was going, "Oh, no. Don't start with this crap again."

"It's not going to work us, Groot." Y/N said, his expression stern, as he crossed his arms, doing his best to not make Groot's trick work on him.

Groot acted as if he didn't heard what they just said and didn't stop. In fact he pulled another trick from his sleever because his lips started trembling. Rocket and Y/N made sure to keep their faces cold, to show Groot that his trick was not going to work on them.

They were not going to fall for this trick again...

----

Groot smiled to himself, feeling so proud of himself as he sat on top of Mantis' shoulder, with Y/N and Rocket letting out groans, knowing that Groot's usual trick which he used on them to get what he wants worked on them again. Ho honestly lost the count of how many times either Y/N or Rocket was telling him that his trick was not going to work on them, only for it to work a few moments later.

He turned his gaze towards Lambert who stood behind him and Mantis, hearing him curse under his breath how the line was so long and how it was going to take them forever to get to the entrance. Groot nodded his head, agreeing with him. He came here to watch the fight, not to stand in the line. They were standing in it for a few minutes now and they weren't even close to the entrance to the stadium.

He shook his head, with worry growing on his facial features. It was going to take them forever to get into the stadium. What if they were going to miss the fights? He didn't want to miss them. He was really excited for this event. He was looking forward to see the contestants fight over the prize the winner was getting.

Fortunely for him, the scenario he was fearing the most was not going to happen. He could feel a massive wave of relief overcoming his body when he and the rest reached the entrance to the stadium several minutes later. He was not going to miss the fights after all! He could feel how excitement was overcoming his entire body, once again.

The bouncers stopped Quill and Gamora who stood in front of the group, preventing them from entering the stadium and asked them to show him their wristbands. The duo did what they were told to and showed him the wristbands which were provided by Sydney, showing him that they "bought" the tickets for this event. The bouncer nodded his head and let them into the stadium.

The rest of the group followed. Y/N, Nebula, Mantis, Drax, Groot and Lambert made their way into the stadium without any problem, but unfortunely a small complication appeared after the bouncer stopped Diavul after the mute man showed him his wristband. At first he seemed to be a little suspicious of him, but those worries were washed away when he motioned to his fellow bouncers to let him in. Diavul let out a relieved sigh as he joined the others in the stadium.

He exchanged a look with his group as they started making their way through the hallway towards the room where they were going to met up with the Whitebounds who were going to hand over their weapons to them. The walk wasn't a long one. Making their way into the room took them only a few minutes.

The first thing they heard upon entering it was Rickon saying, "There you are."

"Took your damn time." Jon stated, leaning against the wall.

Y/N rolled his eyes at Jon's comment, "It's easy for you to say. You came here earlier when the line wasn't that long."

"Good point." Jon nodded his head to that.

"Do you have our weapons?" Gamora asked the Whitebounds.

"Sure thing." Robb nodded his head in response, pointing at the box behind him where he and his brothers put everyone's weapons, "Take everything you need. We need to be ready if we want to take this bastard down."

Rickon headed towards the exit, "You get ready. I'm going to watch over the exit. I'll let you know if anyone is going to be heading in the direction of this room."

Everyone nodded their heads. Some random person coming into this room was the last thing they needed right now. Everyone walked over to the box and started pulling out their weapons.  Y/N pulled out his blaster and sword which was given to him Hunter a few days ago. Unfortunely his shotgun had to stay in the Milano because it was too big to smuggle it into the stadium without anyone noticing.

He wasn't the only one that had to leave his main weapon out of this job. Diavul's flamethrower had to stay in the Whitebound's camp because just like Y/N's shotgun, it would be hard to smuggle it into the stadium without anyone noticing and it would even harder to hide it from all the people who came here to watch the fights.

The human placed his blaster in it's holster and turned to look at Nebula who just like him had just finished putting her weapons on herself, "You ready?"

Nebula looked at him and nodded, "Yes."

"Let's go." Y/N nodded in return, beginning to walk towards the exit from the room. Nebula gave him another nod of her head as she followed him out of the room. They walked past Rickon and started making their way towards the area to which they were assigned.

Gamora sheathed her sword as she looked around the people around her, "Remember that our intention is to catch Gregor alive, unless we'll find ourselves in a situation where we'll have no other choice but to kill him."

"Remember to keep your comms turned on." Quill reminded every person in the room, "We'll have to stay in contact with each other. Who knows what may happen to either us or the people outside the stadium."

Robb placed his hand on his comms, before calling out for Sydney, "Sydney. Elyza. Are you there? Can you hear us?"

"I am." Sydney's voice confirmed it through the comms, "Don't worry. Everything is working exactly the way it's supposed to. Right now I'm looking at Y/N and Nebula walking together through the hallway."

"I can hear you." Elyza's voice sounded through everyone's ears, "I'm in my position and ready for whatever may happen if something goes wrong."

Gamora touched her comms, "Nebula. Y/N. Can you hear me?"

Her sister's response was short and quick, "Yes."

"No problems here, Gamora." Y/N added as his voice sounded in everyone's comms.

"Rocket?" Quill called Rocket through his comms, wanting to be sure if Rocket and Osgar were hearing them properly.

Rocket responded with, "Yeah, yeah. I'm here and so is Osgar." 

"We'll on our way to Gregor's ship." Osgar added, "There will be nothing left of his ship once we'll get our hands on it."

"Remember to not blow it up once you'll plant your explosives on it." Rickon reminded them, "We don't want to allert Gregor that someone might be hunting him down."

"We know." Rocket responded, "You don't need to remind us."

After making sure that everyone's comms were working, the group was ready to head out and get their job done. They made sure that all of their weapons were properly hidden, not wanting anyone to spot that they had weapons on themselves, especially if that person would turn out to be one of Gregor's men becuase this would only make this job harder for them and would leave Gregor with his guard up.

They all exited the room shorty after that, making sure to not leave anything suspicious in there beforeentering the hallway. Star-Lord and Gamora separated from the rest of the group right after and started walking through the hallway towards their position as Drax, Mantis, Groot, Lambert, Diavul, Jon, Robb and Rickon walked together for a few minutes and split up after they reached the entrace to the stands.

Drax, Mantis, Groot, Lambert and Diavul started walking up the stairs which were leading to the stands as the Whitebound brothers proceede to walk through the hallway towards their position. The group of five eventually reached the top of the staircase and their eyes were greeted by the view of hundreds people of all kinds sitting on their seats, patiently waiting for the championships to begin.

Lambert, Drax, Mantis and Groot started making their way towards their seats as Diavul separated himself from the group for a second to buy himself something to eat during the fights, assuring them that he'll return in a minute or two. Mantis glanced down at her wristband which had her seats number written on it. It took them a few moments to get to their seats, mostly because they had go through all of the people that arrived at their seats before they did.

Mantis sat down on her seat and stared downards at the area in the center of the stadium, with Lambert and Drax taking their seats too. Groot jumped down from her shoulder and landed on her knees. He leaned his back against her stomach, looking at the area and waiting for someone to announce the start of the championships.

The wristbands Sydney provided the group of five a day earlier gave them seats which gave them a pretty good view at the area and everything else around them. With the help of Sydney's glasses, spotting Gregor shouldn't be hard if he appeared on the stands.

"What are you doing, Kedin?" A man sitting behind them spoke up as he turned to look at his friend who was chewing on a snack he stole from him, "I wanted to you buy some when we entered the stadium and you said you didn't want to!"

"Don't be angry, Miran." Kedin shook his head, his voice a bit muffled because of the popcorn-like food in his mouth, "I didn't ate that much."

"Oh, really?" Miran asked, not believing him, "Open your mouth, then and we'll see."

Kedin sighed and opened his mouth, letting out a very muffled, "See?"

Miran narrowed his eyes. He was not going to fall for this trick, not again, "Lift up your tongue."

Kedin sighed, knowing that Miran was not going to fall for his trick and did as he was told to. He lifted his tongue up, giving Miran's a good look at what was under it, causing his friend to glare at him even worse than before.

"I freaking knew it." He shook his head and held his hand out to his friend, wanting to get his food back, "Spit it out, now."

Lambert shook his heard when he heard the conversation between the two men behind him as he put his brother's glasses on. He didn't had to worry about forgetting to turn the feature which would help him spot Gregor among the people on because his brother had already taken care of that. Now all he needed to do was for his target to appear in his view.

"I'm back..." The sound of Diavul's voice recorder rang through Mantis', Drax's, Groot's and Lambert's ears, as the group of four turned to look the mute man and saw him sitting down on his seat next to Drax, carrying a bucket of a popcorn-like snack in his right hand. He placed his snack on his knees and set his gaze on the area, awaiting for the first contestants to step into it.

"I wonder who is going to be the first one to fight." Drax wondered.

Diavul titled his head towards him and clicked his voice recorder, "You don't know?..."

"No." Drax shook his head, "I haven't had a chance to check the pairs which were drawn at random."

Diavul smiled at him, giving him the look which was saying, "You're about to find out."

It was when a loud male voice sounded all over the stadium, "Hello, my friends! I'd like to welcome you on another annual fighting championships of Tarok! Tell me, are you excited to see your favourites and bunch of a new faces spar for the great prize and the title of this year's champion!?

The crowd responded by erupting into cheers, making the person speaking to them chuckle. Lambert let out a small snort, a bit amused by how excited people were as Mantis, Drax, Groot and Diavul remained silent, though Diavul and Groot were seconds away from showing how excited they were to watch the fights.

"Our first fight is probably a pair you all been looking forward to since it's been announced that these two people will fight each other!"

The crowd started cheering even louder when the speaker mentioned the first pair that was going to fight for this year's championship. Diavul felt how an excited smirk formed on his lips when the speaker mentioned the first pair, because it was the fight he was looking forward the most at the start of this championships becacuse two of the crowds favourites were selected to be one of the first fights at this year's championships.

"Our first contestant is someone who stole our hearts a long time ago! Not only with her friendly personality towards her fans and opponents but with her fighting skills! You know who it is! You all know and love her! Our two time champion! Yonah Lancaster!"

The gate on the left side of the area slowly and out stepped a platinum haired woman. She raised her blades in the air as she made her way through the area, smilling as the crowd erupted into cheers. She stopped in the middle of the area and set her blades in the dirt, awaiting for her opponent to step into the area.

"Our second contestant is someone who suprised us a three years ago when he appeared out of nowhere three years ago and almost won a championship, only to win it a year later. You know who it is, my friends! An underdog that stole our hearts with his charming personality! Karma Shiota!"

The gate on the right side of the area opened and out stepped a dark haired man with red stripes. He set his cane in the dirt with each step he took towards Yonah as the crowd once again erupted into cheers. He stopped in front of Yonah and offered her a respectful bow to which Yonah bowed back, with the same amount of respect.

"May the best one win!" Yonah offered her opponent a friendly smile, taking her blades out of the dirt.

Karma returned her smile as he unsheathed his blade which was hidden in his cane, "I wish you good luck."

The two opponents backed away from each other, and started circling around their side of the area, making sure to keep their gaze on the person on the opposite side, tightening their grips around their blades, awaiting for the fight between them to begun.

Diavul and Drax glanced at each other, exchanging excited grins with each other as Groot started clapping his hands, looking quite excited to see Yonah and Karma fight while Mantis leaned her head forward, her hands clasped together. She never had a chance to watch such a thing and esd looking forward to see where it was going.

Lambert adjusted his brothers glasses, making sure to eye his surroundings just in case if Gregor was going to appear which could have happen at any moment. At the same time, he made sure to pay attention to the area. If he was going to watch the fights on the Pascal Stadium, then he might have as well watch all of the fights and enjoy his time in here, right?

-----

Y/N and Nebula stepped into the area of the stadium's bar, reaching their destination. The bar didn't really stand out from any other bars Y/N has seen in his life. Several people were split up around the place, sitting around the tables either by themselves or with their friends. A few large screens were hung up on the wall, allowing the people who were in the bar at the moment to watch the fights.

Y/N glanced at one of the screens, watching how a platinum haired woman and a dark haired man stared into each other's eyes, readying to clash with each other, with the intention of defeating their opponent and reaching further step in the competition.

He started making his way towards the bar with Nebula following him, hearing how the bartender called out to the armored masked man walking away from him with a drink in his hand, "Remember to remove your helmet, pal and to return the glass!"

"What's wrong with him?" Y/N wanted to know, stopping in front of the bar as the masked man stepped out of the bar. He probably wanted to enjoy his drink in silence.

The bartender shrugged, "He comes here every year to watch the championships and always refuses to remove his helmet around other people."

Y/N exchanged a confused look with Nebula before asking, "Why?"

"Don't know. Don't care." The bartender replied, "I'm just here to sell drinks to other people. What do you two want?"

"I'll go with the regular type of drink here." Y/N explained. He didn't want to drink, but him and Nebula coming here without at least one of them buying themselves a drink would definitely come off as suspicious.

The bartender nodded as he shifted his gaze to Nebula, "What about you?"

Nebula shook her head, "Nothing for me."

"Alright." The bartended once again nodded as he reached under his counter and pulled out a bottle and a glass. He poured the liquor into the glass and handed it over to Y/N, "Here you go."

Y/N placed a few units on the counter, paying for the drink which he probably wasn't to drink anyway and took it from the bartender. He and Nebula turned away from him and made their way towards the free table in the corner of the bar. Y/N set his drink down on the table and sat down on his seat as Nebula sat down on the seat in front of him.

He turned his gaze towards the screens when he heard how the speaker declared, "...Now let the fight which all you've been waiting for begin!"

A few of the people around Y/N and Nebula started cheering for either Karma and Yonah as he watched how the two opponents charged at each other and began exchanging blows, starting their fight. From the way they moved and exchanged one blow after another, Y/N could easily say that Yonah and Karma were experienced warriors and could understand why so many people waited for the fight between them.

"I wonder who is going to win." He said, turning to look at Nebula to which Nebula shrugged her shoulders, not really paying attention to what was happening on the screen.

He turned his gaze towards the screen and for the next few minutes watched the fight in silence, not really exchanging words with Nebula which eventually grew into an awkward silence between them. He shifted his gaze from the screen towards Nebula and saw her looking at the screen, watching the fight between Yonah and Karma just like everyone else around them.

It wouldn't hurt him if he started small a talk with her to break the awkward silence, right? 

"Nebula." He called out to her, breaking the silence between them.

Nebula looked at him, "Yes?"

"There was one thing that was on my mind since our visit on Xandar." The human began, motioning downards to his hidden sword, "It's related to the sword that I got from Hunter. I saw the looks you, Gamora and Drax gave me when I showed it to you and the way how you reacted to it was bugging me ever since."

"The sword Hunter has given you is a very rare one." Nebula began her explanation, "It was forged on Pontropis."

Y/N titled his head to the side, "Pontropis? Never heard of that place before."

"I'm not suprised. Many people forgot about it's existance." Nebula continued, "Pontropis was once known for forging one of the strongest swords in the galaxy."

"Once?" Y/N asked, "I assume that the golden years of that place are over."

"Yes. They are long gone." Nebula nodded in confirmation, "The years went by and the planet ran out of the resources which were the only reason why the people, mostly the blacksmiths,  were choosing to live on that planet. After it happened, they all just left to find another place to live. The planet now stands abandoned and the remaining swords are splattered across the galaxy and are very rare to find, especially when you want to buy one for yourself."

Y/N could feel how his eye widened in suprise when he heard Nebula's explanation about the origins of his sword, "Are you serious?"

"I am." Nebula gave him another nod of her head, "Just like I said, the sword that your arms dealer has given you in a very rare one and I'm not suprised that you haven't heard of it before. Many people have forgotten about Pontropis because it was long before either of us was born when it was abandoned." She paused for a second, before muttering to herself, quietly, so that Y/N wouldn't hear, "I always wanted to see a sword they forged in there, but never had the opportunity until now..."

The last part went unheard by Y/N just like she hoped, as the human rested his head on his hand, letting his mind process what Nebula just told him. He was starting to understand why Hunter waited so long to give them their "Thank You" gifts for saving Xandar from Ronan's wrath.  If finding the bomb that he has given to Rocket took him a while, then how long it took him to find this sword and how much units he has actually spend on both of these things?

It was when the human realized how much Hunter was grateful for what he and Rocket did for Xandar if he really searched this long to find his sword and Rocket's bomb...

"...Hey, Nebula." He called out to Nebula, causing her to look at him again, "Could you teach me how to fight with a sword. It would be good if I knew how to use it properly, at least a little bit."

Nebula remained unresponsive for a moment, allowing her mind to process what she just heard from Y/N. He was asking her to train him how to fight with a sword. He really wanted her to train him? This question was a new for her. No one has ever asked her to train them.

She responded after a moment with, "...I'll think about it."

"Okay." Y/N nodded, offering her a smile, turning to look at the screen again, "Who do you think is going to win? Yonah or Karma?"

"I'm not exactly sure." Nebula replied as she turned to look at the screen too, "They've been fighting for a few minutes now and they both are experienced warriors. I think it might take a while for this fight to end."

Y/N shrugged, "Personally I think that the person who will get tired sooner will lose."

"Hey, Y/N, Nebula." Quill's voice sounded in their comms, "How are things in your area?"

Y/N touched his comms, replying, "Nothing here, Quill. Just a few people enjoying their drinks and company of their friends and the fight between this Karma and Yonah. What about you and Gamora?"

"Nothing here too." Gamora responded.

"Just a few people passed by. I'm starting to regret that I didn't brought my zune." Quill added before calling out to Y/N, "Hey, Y/N. I've been thinking, which song would you like to hear while getting this job done if I brought my zune with myself?"

Y/N placed his hand in his chin before answering with, "I would definitely pick Carry on Wayward Son." 

There was a short silence before Quill responded with, "Why this one?"

"Because I love this song." Y/N smiled, "It gives me mood of wanting to slay demons."

"Why?" Quill asked, curious by his friends word. Y/N could already imagine him exchanging a confused look with Gamora.

"This song appeared in a TV show about two brothers who are dealing with bunch of supernatural stuff. A friend of mine introduced me to it a few years ago and I've been following it ever since." Y/N explained, "It's a really good show. You should watch it when we will visit the Earth."

"I'll add it to the list." Even though Y/N couldn't see Quill, he could tell that his fellow human was smilling, "But at first you need to tell me the title."

The two humans continued their conversation, talking about their usual stuff, and noting everything that was happening around them, with either Nebula or Gamora adding something to the conversation. 

The human and the blue skinned woman were unaware that two men who at the first glance seemed to be completely normal regular people who just came here to watch the fights were giving them a look, clearly suspicious of them. The two men eventually stood from their seats, and walked out of the bar, whispering among themselves that they had to talk with someone...

-----

Rocket and Osgar walked together through the streets of Tarok, making their way towards their destination which was the place where Gregor parked his ship, intending to set their explosives on it and blow it into pieces, which would prevent Gregor from fleeing Tarok if he found out that some people are intending to hunt him down and take him to the authorities.

The raccoon glanced at his tablet which was showing him and Osgar the way to the location where Gregor parked his ship. The information of where Gregor left his ship before entering the stadium was provided by Sydney who browsed through some of the local cameras in search of Gregor's ship after all of the split up to do the job they've been assigned to.

Unfortunely for them a problem arose when they reached their destination and noticed that Gregor left some of his men behind, presumably to watch over the ship while he and the others were enjoying the championships. They counted at least five of them, but they couldn't be sure if those were all of the people guarding the ship. There could have been more of them inside.

Osgar took a quick peek out of the cover behind a stony wall where he and Rocket hid when they spotted that some people were guarding Gregor's ship. He could hear Gregor's men cursing under their breaths and whining how much they hated the jobs they've been assigned to do by their boss and how much they would like to be with him at the stadium and watch the fights, considering this was the reason why the came to Tarok in the first place.

"Can you spot more of them?" Rocket asked him, adjusting his bag.

Osgar shifted his attention from the guards to Rocket and shook his head, "Nah. These five is all I can see, lad. At least at this moment. Someone can join them in a minute or two."

"I know, but waiting to be sure will only waste our time." Rocket stated, "We need to hurry if we want to have enough time to plant explosives on his ship."

"Aye." Osgar nodded his head in agreement, "Who knows when the rest will call us and tell us to detonate the explosives. Good thing you have this bomb of yours because setting an amount of explosives that would blow the entire ship into pieces would take us a long time."

Rocket nodded his head, sending his bag where the bomb was hidden a quick look, "Now the question is how are we going to take them out without giving them enough time to allert their boss."

"...I think I have an idea." Osgar declared after a moment of silence between him and the raccoon, setting his grenade lancher on the ground and taking off his bag from his shoulder, "Wait here for my signal. I'll go to talk to them and lower their guard down a bit."

"How am I supposed to know when to attack without them noticing me?" Rocket wanted to know, "In case if you didn't notice, I'd have to lean out of this cover for a bit longer that you did and it would give them a pretty good view at me."

Osgar tapped his chin, trying to came up with the words he should say to Gregor's men that would let Rocket know that it was time to attack, "...Just wait until I'll say "This place could really use some explosions!". After I'll say those words, we'll take them down. They won't be excepting anyone to attack them."

Rocket nodded his head, undestanding Osgar's plan as he set his bag down on the ground and reached into it before pulling out his rifle. He looked up at Osgar another nod of his head, telling him that he was ready to do it without saying any words to him. Osgar nodded in return as he took his helmet off, showing his bearded face to Rocket. He reached into his own bag, and pulled out his flask.

"Let's do this." He said to Rocket, sending the raccoon a quick look before stepping out of their cover, making sure to make a loud noise while doing so, wanting to earn Gregor's men attention.

It worked exactly the way he wanted it to because one of Gregor's men was alarmed by the sound of someone walking towards him and his buddies and turned his gaze towards Osgar who was stumbling towards him and the rest, pretending to drunk and completely harmless, as if he didn't had a blaster hidden in it's holster, ready to use it at any second and someone with a machine rifle waiting for his signal behind the cover.

The man who noticed him instantly demanded to know from him, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Don't mind me, lad!" Osgar continued approaching them, before taking a small sip from his flask, "I'm just a simple man that came here to watch the championships."

The man exchanged a look with his buddies who just like him turned to look at Osgar before asking, "Then what the hell are you doing here if you came here to watch the championships? Don't you know where the stadium is?"

Osgar offered him a quick thumbs up in response, taking one small step after another, "Oh, I know that, you don't need to about that." 

"If you know that, then what are you doing here?" The bandit asked, repeating his previous question to which Osgar sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, "Get the hell outta here and don't waste our time."

"Relax, Emil." One of Emil's buddies spoke up, "Can't you see that the guy is drunk? They must have kicked him out for behaving the way he did."

"This is exactly what happened." Osgar pointed at the one of the bandits that just spoke up, "Can you imagine how badly they threat fine people out here? You're watching the fight, simply enjoying your time the next thing you know is that you need to leave because you may have had started a fight after your favourite contestant lose."

One of Emil's friends titled his head to the side, interested a bit in finding out who won, unaware that Osgar was going to lie to him, "Oh, who won?"

Osgar smiled internally. Good thing he memorized the first pair of contestants, just in case if something like that happened, "Karma. I can't believe. I came here all the way through the galaxy to watch Yonah win another championships and now here I am! Drunk and miserable, talking with a few people I don't even know! I wish I could blow something up right now! This place could really use some explosions!"

Rocket's head shot upwards. This was his signal. He got himself on top of the stony wall and aimed his rifle in the direction of Gregor's bandits, with the intention of taking them out as fast as possible. 

Emil was the first one from his group to notice Rocket's presence as he looked over Osgar's shoulder and saw the raccon standing on the stony wall, with his rifle in ready, "What the..."

He never got to finish this sentence as Osgar pulled his blaster out of it's holster and shot him in the head, killing him immediately. His friends of course quickly responded to this sudden attack and death of their friend and aimed their weapons at Osgar, but just like Emil, they never had a chance to do anything as Osgar ducked down, allowing Rocket to open fire. It was just a matter of seconds before all of them laid on the ground next to Emil's body, dead.

Osgar got himself back on his feet, holstering his blaster and looked at the corpses behind him before turning around to see Rocket approaching him with his bag slouched over his shoulder.

"Your acting skills better than I thought. They really believed that you were drunk." Rocket said, stopping next to Osgar, "I was ready to come out of the cover at any moment to save your butt if it didn't work."

"You know that a while ago I used to have a problem with drinking too much alcohol, right?" Osgar asked to which Rocket nodded in confirmation, "Acting like a drunk person was nothing difficult for me. Good thing I got rid of this problem after I met Elyza."

"You helped her get out of the hellhole that was her planet." Rocket pointed out, "Helping you get rid of this problem was the least she could do."

"You can say. I'm glad she decided to stick around and help me. Who knows where I would be right now if she didn't." Osgar nodded his head to that, coming over to the hatch to the ship and opening it. Once it was opened he turned his gaze back towards Rocket, "Come on."

Rocket responded by reaching into his bag and pulling out a bomb that Hunter has given him a few days ago. He threw it over to Osgar who caught it without any problem, "Go inside his ship and plant the bomb somewhere in there. I'll wait here. It would be better if one of us stayed here on the guard."

Osgar nodded in understanding, "I'll be back as quick as I can."

Rocket nodded in return as Osgar walked up the hatch, entering Gregor's ship. Rocket watched how the large man slowly disappered from his view. The raccoon turned his gaze towards the bodies of Emil and his friends. Not wanting anyone to spot the bodies, he gently placed his rifle on the ground before walking over to Emil's body. He grabbed him by his feet and started dragging his body into the ship, starting to regret that Osgar went into the ship instead of him.

It took him a few moments to finish dragging Emil's body into the ship. He wiped his palms on his clothes as he walked over to another body, wanting to be done with it as fast as possible. After dragging three bodies into the ship, Osgar returned to him, informing him that he had planted the bomb inside before handing the detonator to him. Rocket let go off the body he was currently dragging and walked over to his bag, placing the detonator inside.

He returned to what he was doing and dragged the body into Gregor's ship. He turned away from it to look at the exit from the ship and saw Osgar dragging the last body into it. They walked down the hatch of the ship and closed it down, no seeing any reason to leave it open. They got picked up all of their stuff from the ground and walked away from it, watching Gregor's ship from the distance now, not wanting be close to it when they will have to detonate the bomb that Osgar planted inside.

It wasn't long before a familiar voice of Star-Lord rang through their comms, with the sound of blasters and machine guns being fired in the background, "Rocket! Osgar! Please tell me you have already planted the explosives on Gregor's ship."

Rocket touched his comms and confirmed it, "We did it a few minutes ago."

"Good!" Quill said, "You need to detonate the explosives now!"

"Now?" Rocket wanted to be sure, keeping his palm on his comms.

"We've been spotted! Gregor knows we're here for him!" Quill explained, "Blow his ship up now!"

"Will do." Osgar responded as Rocket reached into his bag and pulled out a detonator. Osgar looked down at him and smiled, "The honor should be yours, lad. It's your bomb after all."

Rocket glanced ahead of him, setting his gaze on Gregor's ship and so did Osgar. The raccoon pressed the detonator and the bomb Osgar planted somwhere inside it exploded. Gregor's ship was engulfed in explosions, with some of it's burning debris going flying and landing in various places away from the ship. It was just a matter of seconds before there was nothing but burning remains left of Gregor's ship, making Rocket understand why Osgar was really excited about having a chance to see this bomb do it's work.

He turned his gaze away from the burning remains of Gregor's ship and looked up at Osgar who was tearing up, "Are you crying?" 

"Don't mind me, lad. I'm just appreciating the art." Osgar wiped a tear going down his cheek, before pulling out his flask and taking a small sip from it. He held it out towards Rocket, asking him, "You want a sip?"

"Oh, what the hell." Rocket shrugged, taking the flask from Osgar, "One sip is not going to kill me."

-----

A few minutes earlier...

Nebula and Y/N continued to sit around their table and watch over their surroundings, waiting fo anyone from their group to give them information that they spotted something that could lead them to Gregor, but unfortunely, so far their target was nowhere to be seen. The duo eventually took a quick peek at one of the screens to see what was happening right now at the area, as another pair of contestant was about to begin their fight. 

The fight betwen Yonah and Karma ended a few minutes ago and it ended up with Yonah defeating Karma after a long and tense fight, resulting in the cheers of the people who were for rooting for Yonah and groans from the people who were rooting for Karma. Karma himself wasn't too angry that he lost. In fact he held his head high and promised Yonah that he'll win if they willl ever fight again to which Yonah cheerfuly replied that she is looking forward to it.

Y/N looked around himself, not spotting anyone suspicious around him and Nebula before touching his comms, "Still nothing with me and Nebula. How about you guys? Any luck?"

"Nothing here too." Lambert's voice sounded in the comms, "I keep looking around the area and this guy is nowhere to be seen."

"Maybe they're not turned on?" Sydney suggested, "Perharps you did something to turn them off?"

Y/N could imagine Lambert rolling his eyes when he replied to his brother's words, "Of course they're turned on, Sydney. Do you take me for an idiot when it comes to your stuff?"

"Oh, brother." Sydney let out a nervous laugh, "Do you really want to know the answer and as for me, I keep browsing the cameras and can't find anything, at least right now."

"Nothing here with me and Peter too." Gamora responded.

"What about the last group? DId you guys saw something that may help us?" Sydney called out for the Whitebound brothers but received no answer from them, "...Boss?..."  He was met with silence, "...Can you hear me?..." Again, complete silence, "...Can any of you hear me?..."

"Guys!" One of the Whitebound brothers, Jon to be exact answered as someone firing their gun could be heard in the background, "They know we're here and why came here for!"

"What?!" Lambert exclaimed right after hearing this revelation, suprise evident in his tone.

"How do they know why we're here?" Drax's voice wanted to know, voicing the question that went through everyone's minds.

"I don't know!" Rickon was the second brother to speak up, "A few of his men just came and started shooting at us! Good thing we smuggled our weapons in here because we'd be dead if we didn't have them!"

"Prepare yourself!" Robb declared, "There might be some of his men heading towards you right now!"

"Guys!" Sydney called out for everyone's attention, "It's Gregor! I can see him walking through the hallway on the cameras!" 

"Where is he going?" Quill wanted to know, "If he's heading towards the exit, then we must tell Rocket and Osgar to blow up his ship!"

Y/N and Nebula could have sworn they heard Sydney whisper "Oh, no..." under his breath before answering, "Y/N! Nebula! He is heading right towards you two!"

"Wha..." Y/N's eyes snapped open at the revelation. His words died in his throat when he heard how a few people stepped into the bar. He and Nebula turned their attention towards the few people that just stepped into the bar and saw them standing in the entrance to it. 

He instantly set his eyes on Gregor who stood in the middle of his people, his yellow eyes glancing at him and Nebula. The people who were in the bar with them at moment turned their attention towards Gregor and his men, but the bandits didn't pay much attention to them, not seeing them as a treat.

"Well, well, well, what do we have." Gregor spoke up, ignoring the terrified looks the people were his way as Nebula slowly stood up from her seat, joining Y/N's side, "A terran hanging out with the daughter of the Mad Titan in the bar. Now I've seen everything."

Y/N titled his head to the side in a confused manner, at least he tried to make it look like one, "Who are you?"

Gregor let out an amused chuckle, "Don't pretend like you haven't heard of me before."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Y/N lied, standing up from his seat, slowly moving his hand towards his holstered blaster, "Me and my friend here just came here to watch the championships. We decided to come here because she is not a fan of big crowds."

"Exactly." Nebula nodded, going along with what Y/N was saying to their target.

"Don't bullshit me, you two." Gregor rolled his eyes, not buying Y/N's lie, "I know you came here for me. I know that those three foolish boys I tried to get rid of a long time ago came here with you and I know you're close with Xandarians who were chasing after my ass for a while now."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Y/N could see the bartender slowly reaching under the counter for something as he continued his conversation with Gregor. He let out a sigh, "I see. There's no point in lying, then."

"I have to say one thing, thogh, coming here to get me during my beloved championships was kind of sneaky." Gregor admitted, "Too bad you didn't think of the possibility that I'll have my people placed around the stadium, dressed as the civilians just in case if someone like you came here and try to either kill me or catch me."

Y/N shrugged his shoulders, trying to look as calm as he could, placing his hand on his holstered blaster, "What can I say? We made a mistake by not thinking of it until now. We'll make sure to do better next time."

Gregor responded by pulling out his blaster, "Too bad this mistake costed you more than just this job."

"Rocket! Osgar!" Quill's voice called out for Osgar and Rocket, as someone firing their gun could be heard in the background. Gregor's bandits must have gotten to him and Gamora, "Please tell me you have already planted the explosives on Gregor's ship."

He didn't had to wait long for response as Rocket spoke up through the comms, "We did it a few minutes ago."

"Good!" Quill said, "You need to detonate the explosives now!"

"Now?" Rocket wanted to be sure.

"We've been spotted! Gregor knows we're here for him!" Quill explained, "Blow his ship up now!"

Osgar's answer was quick and short, "Will do."

It was just a few seconds before the sound of a large explosion ran through everyone's ears. Gregor's attention was shifted from Y/N and Nebula to the explosion, and so did his men's. Y/N and Nebula instantly saw this as their opportunity to do something. Y/N knocked over the table to the other side, as Nebula pulled out her blaster before the duo hid behind it, using it as their cover from Gregor's and his men.

The bartender saw this as his opportunity to do something as well. He pulled out a rifle from under the counter of his bar and fired his weapons in Gregor's direction, managing to kill one of his men. Gregor instantly saw what happened to one of his people and quickly reacted to that. He fired his blaster and killed the bartender with a simple shot to his head. The bartender's lifeless body collapsed on the floor, with his rifle joining him on the ground shorty after.

"Shit." Gregor shook his head, as he turned around at the two men standing behind him, "You two with me. We'll join the rest. The rest of you take care of these two and join us later."

His men nodded in understanding. Gregor moved past his men, and exited the bar, with the two of his men following him. The rest of his men who were ordered to get rid of Nebula and Y/N didn't waste time and opened fire at the duo, earning terrified screams and yelps from the people who just came here to watch the championships. Y/N gritted his teeth, feeling how the shots were hitting his and Nebula's cover.

They knew they had to act fast because it was just a matter of seconds before the table would fall apart into pieces, resulting in leaving them out in the open. He slightly leaned his head out of the cover and saw that Gregor left at least six people in the bar to take care of them. He pulled his blaster out from his holster and turned to Nebula, exchanging a look with her, knowing what they should do next.

They stood up from their kneeling positions and returned fire at Gregor's men, not spotting the armored masked man from earlier returning to the bar, only to be greeted by the view of two sides exchanging fire and terrified civilians laying on the ground, not wanting to get shot by either of the sides. He knelt down and started slowly sneaking his way into the fight, not wanting to get spotted by anyone, at least for now.

One of Gregor's men collpased on the floor with a hole in his forehead as one of the shots fired by Nebula hit him in there, killing him instantly. She shared a quick look with Y/N who nodded his head at her, as he figured out what she was asking him when she looked at him. She moved a bit to the side, stopping in front of a free table. She knocked it over to the other side, making it her own cover as Y/N got rid of another bandit, leaving only four more of them left to take care of.

It was when everyone's attention in the bar was turned towards the bar as the armored masked man rised up from his cover, revealing his presence to everyone who was in the bar at this moment, wielding the bartender's rifle. He used the fact that Gregor's men was taken off the guard by his sudden appearence to his advantage and started shooting at them, getting rid of one of the bandits.

Y/N and Nebula quickly returned from what they were doing after realizing that the armored masked man was not one of Gregor's men in disguise. It was just a matter of seconds before two more of Gregor's bandits laid on the floor, dead, leaving only one of them left alive. The last living bandit was aware that the odds were against him and quickly realized that fighting all three of them by himself was pretty much a death sentence for him. He quickly ran out of the bar, fleeing from the fight he had started with his boss.

"Go after him!" The armored masked man told them, "I'll make sure to keep these people if more of them will come here!"

It was all they needed to hear. They pushed themselves into run and started chasing after the bandit that just ran out of the bar, hoping that he was going to lead them straight to his boss. They doubted that the man they were chasing had any other options right now than running back to his boss and the bandits who were with him.

Y/N kept running when he touched his comms, "Sydney! I and Nebula made it out alive from the ambush! We're chasing after one of Gregor's men right now! Give us directions where is he going! We don't want to lose him because he can take us to his boss!"

"Don't worry, Y/N. I was already following him through the cameras!" Sydney assured the human, "He just turned to the right on the next corner."

"Understood!" Y/N nodded his head in understanding, knowing where he and Nebula should turn on the next corner.

Y/N and Nebula continued to run through the hallways, following the intructions Sydney was giving them through their comms because they didn't want to lose the bandit they were chasing after. After a few moments of chasing after the bandit they heard how he shut the door to some room in the middle of the hallway they just ran into with a loud thud, clearly wanting to find himself inside it as quickly as possiblee.

"Sydney." Y/N touched his comms and called out for Sydney, running over to the doors with Nebula, "He just ran into a room in the hallway."

"I already know that." Sydney explained as Y/N and Nebula stopped in front of the doors that the bandit just ran through, "I can see you two through the camera right now."

Y/N looked at the camera at the end of the hallway and nodded, "Can you tell us what is inside this room?"

"Unfortunely I won't be able to help you from now on." Sydney informed them, "The camera in the stadium aren't showing me what is in there."

"It must be one of those special rooms that we talked out yesterday." Nebula stated, her dark eyes set on the doors.

"Yeah." Y/N nodded in agreement before once again calling out for Sydney, intending to inform him about something, "Sydney, we're going in. We'll let you know if Gregor is in there when we'll spot him."

"Alright." Sydney said, "I'll let the others know if you'll find him in there."

Y/N removed his hand from his comms and turned to look at Nebula, sharing a quick look with her,  before the latter slowly placed her free hand on the handle and opened the doors, making sure to not allert the bandit and whoever was inside with him. They slowly stepped into the room, leaving the door open, not wanting to waste time on locking them and more importantly not wanting to risk making enough noise which could have lead the bandit to finding out that they followed him into this room.

The first thing they spotted after stepping through the doors was a small hallway which was leading to the doorway. Y/N gripped his blaster, wishing that he had his shotgun right now because it would be more useful right now as he slowly made his way to the doorway, with Nebula walking closely behind him. He slightly leaned his out, wanting to take a quick peek at what was on the other side and saw that the bandit was not in there.

He motioned to Nebula that it was safe to move further to which she nodded. They entered the room and looked around it. Y/N could understand why this room along with a few others were considered to be "Special". It had all kinds of expensive stuff that would make the time of the people in it during the championships better. A question popped into Y/N's mind when he looked around the room. Did Gregor bought the access to it or threatened people to give him one?

He quickly took his mind off this question and returned to looking around himself, noticing that most of the stuff in the room was clearly used by a large amount which meant one thing. Gregor and his men were definitely staying in here before they've been informed that some people might have come here to deal with their boss.

He set his gaze on the large screen which was hanging in the middle of the room. The once filled stands were completely empty right now, and the people who came here to watch the championships were nowhere to be seen. They were definitely forced to leave after they heard him and the rest fighting off Gregor's men.

It was when Nebula patted him on his shoulder. He looked at her and saw his fellow Guardian looking at another doors which was followed by the sound of someone shutting the doors on the other side of them. They instantly reacted to that and quickly made their way into part of the special room, making sure to be as careful as before. This room was empty, like the one they had just visited but they didn't had time to look around it as something rang through their ears. 

"Dion. You're back! Did you take care of these two?" Gregor's voice rang through their ears. He was presumably talking to the bandit that led Y/N and Nebula to this room, "Where's the rest?"

Y/N and Nebula approached the doors, with the latter reaching out for her meele weapon as Dion responded to his boss' question, "No. They killed the rest. I had to flee. I barely made it out alive."

"What?" Gregor asked, anger starting to show in his voice, "I left a few of you to take care of two, I repeat, two people and you're telling me they killed the rest and forced you to flee from the fight?"

Y/N placed his hand on the handle and slightly opened the doors, before taking a quick peek inside to see Gregor in the room, talking with the bandit he and Nebula chased after and at least dozen other men surrounding them. He turned to look at Nebula and nodded his head at her, confirming that their target was there.

"Yes." Dion confirmed what his boss just said, making him growl in response, "Someone sneaked his way behind the bar and took the bartender's rifle. He took us by suprise and the other two used it to their advantage."

"How did you not notice him?" Gregor demanded to know.

Y/N placed his hand on his comms, quietly  informing Sydney that he and Nebula found just Gregor, while making sure to listen what was happening inside.

"I don't know. He could have been already hiding there, or we were too fucused on our targets to notice him." Dion responded, "Either way he just appeared out of nowhere."

Gregor placed his hand on his forehead and let out a frustated sigh, "I gave you and the rest a simple job. Take out whoever came here for me, and so far all you failed."

"I know you're angry boss, but please, we can talk about it later. We need to get out of here. The might be heading here right now." Dion stated, "We need to call Emil and the rest and tell them to ready the ship."

"What do you think I've been trying to do here, you moron?" Gregor asked him, looking at Dion as if he had just asked him the most obvious question in history, "We've been calling Emil and the rest for the past few minutes but got no answer from any of them."

"Boss." One of the bandits called out for Gregor.

Gregor turned look at him, "What?"

The bandit responded by pointing at something ahead of him. Gregor looked in the direction one of his men was pointing at and saw that the doors to the room which were closed just a moment ago were slightly opened now. He nodded his head at him, and motioned to his men to ready their guns. They did exactly as their boss told them to, readying either their rifles or blades for the possible fight.

Y/N and Nebula started backing away from the doors, aware of the fact that Gregor knew about their presence. The only thing they could do right now was to prepare themselves to fight back. Nebula took a small cover behind something, ready to move out of it to attack at any second as Y/N knocked over the table the same way in the similiar way he did back in the bar, the human tightening his grip around blaster.

It was just a few seconds before the doors were fully opened by one of Gregor's men, which was followed by him and four other bandits stepping into the room. Y/N knew there wasn't much he could do, because he and Nebula were going to be spotted by them sooner or later so he leaned out of his cover and fired his blaster at one of Gregor's bandits before opening fire, killing the bandit he focused his attention on.

It alarmed the other bandits who turned their attention towards Y/N and started firing at the human. Only one of them didn't do anything becuase he unlike his fellow bandits was wielding a blade instead of a rifle and instantly decided to use his weapon when he saw Nebula leaning out of her cover to kill them. He charged at her and Nebula instantly spotted it. She dropped her blaster on the floor,  and readied her Electroshock batons for the fight between her and him.

The bandit swung her blade at him, with only one intention in his mind as Nebula easily defended herself from the blow. They continued exchanging blows with each other but the fight between them ended as quickly as it begun because of Nebula being a much better fighter than him. The moment his blade fell out of his grasp, Nebula placed her Electroshock batons against the bandit's chest, sending waves of electrocity through his bandit. The bandit let out a  loud scream of pain as Nebula's Electroshock batons were practically grilling his insides.

After a few seconds, the bandit closed his eyes for the last time and never opened them again as his lifeless body collapsed on the floor, which was followed by the sound of another, third body hitting the floor. She turned her attention towards Y/N to see how he was doing but had to shift her attention away from him when she saw Gregor, Dion and the other five bandits entering the room, with the obvious intention in their minds. They knew that escape was not going to work with Y/N and Nebula alive because they could easily follow them, just like they did with Dion.

They came over to the two bandits who were left alive when they stepped into this room and split up in two equal groups. One group was going to take care of Y/N and the other one was going to take care of Nebula. Y/N eyes widened when he saw Dion charging right at him. The human didn't had a chance to kill him as Dion crashed into him, making him stumble backwards.

Y/N could fell how his blaster fell out of his grasp in the exact moment when Dion crashed into him. He knew he didn't had time to pick it up because Dion would of course use it to his advantage. Dion swung his fist at his as Y/N dodged it without a problem. It was when a an emptiy glass bottle which was laying on the floor caught his attention. He could have use it to defeat one of the bandits attacking him. All he needed to do was to get his hands on it.

He quickly got the answer to the question of how he was going to do it as one of Dion's friends punched him in the face, making him stumble towards the bottle. Y/N could see it getting closer and closer to him and when he was inches away from it, he got himself on his knee, pretending that this punch was too much for him. Dion started approaching him and when the bandit was in front of Y/N, he grabbed the bottle before slamming Dion right in the face with it, with as much force as he could. It fortunely worked as Dion was knocked unconsciouss, his unmoving body falling on the floor.

Y/N got himself back on his feet from his kneeling position but didn't had any time to catch breath as the same bandit that knocked him closer to the bottle slammed himself into him and pressed him against the wall. He pressed his wrist against Y/N's throat, causing the human to gasp for a breath. Y/N knew that freeing himself from his grasp was going to take too much time. He unsheathed his blade and stabbed the bandit right in the stomach with it. The bandit let out a painful gasp as Y/N's sword penetrated his stomach.

The bandit let go off Y/N who slided down the wall, landing on his knees and gasping for a breath. The bandit collapsed on the floor, holding his bleeding stomach as Y/N got himself back on his feet and stabbed him in the head, ending his life. Y/N turned his gaze away from the dead bandit when he heard one of his buddies charging towards him, his knife out and ready for fight which didn't last long as Y/N got rid of him by placing the tip of sword in his stomach.

The new problem arose for the human when Gregor himself charged at him. Y/N knew that fighting him off wasn't going to be easy and he was quickly confirmed to be right. Gregor proceeded to swing his own blade at Y/N who did his best to block all of them, but unfortunely was forced to take a step backwards with each blow he blocked. Gregor's swings were simply too strong for him.

He knew he had to strike because he was getting closer to the wall and it was obvious for him that standing against it would leave him pinned. He swung his sword at Gregor, which was followed by a few other swings but Gregor managed to dodge all of them, before deciding that it was his turn to strike back. He swung his blade at Y/N who moved his sword to the side to block it, barely succeeding at doing so.

The two opponents continued exchanging blows for the next several seconds but unfortunely it was becoming quite obvious who was going to win. Despise having a better weapon than the bandit leader, Y/N  was overpowered by him because the bandit was a much more experienced and better fighter than he.

It was just a matter of time before Y/N collapsed on the floor, and Gregor kicked his sword away from him. Gregor glared down at him and was about to bring his blade down on the human, but his plans were ruined when someone came in Y/N's aid.

Nebula pressed one of her Electroshock Batons against Gregor's side. The bandit leader could feel how the electrocity started going across his entire body. He goaned in pain before collapsing on the floor, still alive and consciouss, just wounded.

"Thanks." Y/N thanked her for saving his butt from getting either injured or killed by Gregor.

Nebula nodded her head at him before holding her hand out to him. Y/N grabbed it and allowed her to bring him back on his feet, "It's done. We got him."

"What about the rest of his men?" Y/N asked her, "The ones who you were fighting with?"

"Two of them lost their consciousness when I hit them during the fight." Nebula replied, referring to the two unconsciouss bandits laying behind her on the floor, "I killed the rest."

Y/N nodded his head, "At least this bastard is going to have some friends with him when he'll be locked in prison on Xandar."

"Bastard?" Gregor let out a chuckle when he heard Y/N call him like that, looking up at the duo from the floor, "That's funny coming from you, considering the company you're keeping."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Y/N wanted to know, turning to look at Gregor.

"How many people has your friend killed to make her daddy proud?" Gregor asked as Nebula froze where she stood at the mention of her father. Gregor turned his gaze towards her and continued, "You pretend to have changed by hanging out with your sisters new friends, but these people that died because you wanted to make your daddy proud of you are a part of you, and they will never go away. You will always be a mons..."

He never got to finish this sentence as Y/N kicked him right in the head, causing him to lost his conciousness, "Bastard."

"He was right." Y/N's titled Nebula when he heard her say it, "I'm a monster."

"What?" Y/N asked, worry evident in his voice, coming closer to Nebula.

"I'm a monster, Y/N." Nebula told him, "I've killed so many people when I was serving my father..."

"Nebula, you're not a monster." Y/N cut her off but Nebula seemed to be unconviced by his words. He placed his hands on her shoulders, making sure he was going to listen to her, "Do you wish you could take it back? All of the stuff you did when you serving Thanos?"

Nebula was silent for a few seconds before responding with a nod of her head, "...Everyday."

"See? If you were a monster, then you wouldn't be regretting that. A monster wouldn't want to take it back. A monster would continue doin those things." Y/N told her, "You may have done terrible things Nebula, but so have I since I left the Earth and so did everyone else in our crew, and yet you don't consider us to be monsters."

Nebula remained silent, still unconviced by Y/N's words.

"If you were a monster then I wouldn't be standing here with you now." He continued, "You could have leave just let that freak with a funny name kill me and Rocket back then but you stepped in and stopped from him doing so which gave us enough time to escape later on. You helped us save the universe from Ego. You put yourself in pain when you used yourself as a freaking battery to save us from those golden freaks. A monster wouldn't do all of those things."

Her kept his gaze on Nebula, wanting to see how she was going. She seemed to have calmed down after hearing his words, but he wasn't sure about it, yet.

"You feel better now?" He wanted to be sure if his fellow Guardian was feeling better to which Nebula gave him a nod of confirmation. He smiled at her, "Good. Let's get outta of here and bring this bastard to Xandarians."

It was when they heard someone entering the room. They turned to the source of it and saw Quill, Gamora, Lambert, Diavul, Drax, Mantis, Groot, Jon, Robb and Rickon joining them in the room. All of them clearly had to fight off a lot of Gregor's bandits to get here.

"Oh." Y/N crossed his arms, "Nice of you to show up after we already took care of the job."

"We tried to get here as fast as we could, Y/N." Gamora told him, "But Gregor's bandits were keeping us busy."

"I know. I'm just messing with you." Y/N assured her before pointing at Gregor's unconsciouss body, "He and his men gave us a pretty good fight but we didn't kill him if you're wondering. We managed to just knock him down."

"We need to get out of here." Jon declared, "The authorities are going to be here at any moment and I don't know about you guys but I don't want to deal with them."

Everyone agreed with him. They had to get out of the stadium as fast as they could. Gamora and Mantis placed handcuffs on Gregor's, Dion's, and the other two unconsciouuss bandits wrists, to ae sure they were not going to try anything if they'll woke up in a few minutes. They lifted up their unconsciouss prisoners and headed out of the room, but before that happened the Whitebounds made sure to kick Gregor's unconscious body a few times, wishing that he woke up as they did so, but he didn't.

Getting out of the stadium wasn't an easy task, considering how many authorities were called after what happened in there, but ultimately the group made it out of the stadium without having to deal with the authorities and met up with Rocket, Osgar, Elyza and Sydney who were waiting for them outside.

The group made their way to their ships and split up. The Whitebounds along with Lambert, Sydney, Diavul, Osgar and Elyza headed off back to where the rest of the Whitebounds tribe was staying, the three brothers reminding Rocket and Y/N that they were going to call them when they were going to need their help before boarding their ship, while the Guardians headed off towards Xandar with the intention of bringing Gregor to Nova and getting the payment she promised them.

The Guardians split up into two groups when the Milano left Tarok. Quill, Gamora, Groot and Mantis stayed in the front of the ship, with the former two piloting it as Y/N, Nebula, Rocket and Drax were watching over their prisoners.

"Y/N." A familiar voice which Y/N recognized as Nebula's called out for him.

Y/N turned to look at her, "Yes?"

"Thank you." Nebula thanked him, "For what you said earlier."

Y/N smiled at her, "That's what friends are for, right?"

Nebula returned his smile. He had never seen her smile this much and he had to admit it. Her smile was kind of pretty.

He turned his gaze back towards their unconsciouss prisoners, intending to make sure that Gregor, Dion and the other two weren't going to try anything before the Milano will reach Xandar.

This job might have not gone like they originally planned, but at least they got it done and no one got hurt in the process and that's what mattered.

------

Me - "I'll take a small break from this story in January."

May - "Hello there."

Me - "Oh..."

Phew, It's finally done! To be honest I was excepting this chapter to be one of the longer ones in this story but I wasn't excepting it to be this long.

I apologize for the wait, I wanted to take a small break from this story which lasted way longer than I thought and I when started writing this chapter I had some problems with it. I knew what I wanted to happen in it, but had trouble with putting it into words, plus NieR: Replicant and Resident Evil Village came out (both of which are great) and those games took a lot of my free time. 

The next chapter should be out sooner than six months.

I'm also glad I got to use some of my OC's, like Elyza, Osgar, Diavul, Lambert and Sydney because I've been wanting to use for a while now, but never had the opportunity to do so until now.