Observer POV:
Rocket cursed under his breath as another shower of sparks rained down over his fur. He shoved his goggles higher on his forehead and leaned deeper into the tangle of wires, his claws tightening on a wrench that was three sizes too big for him.
"Energy shields, my ass," he muttered, tugging on a hissing coil. "Half these parts don't exist in this galaxy. Who builds a shield generator that runs on mood swings-"
A shock jolted his paw. He yelped, jerked backward, and smacked his head on the underside of the console. The wrench clattered to the floor, echoing in the engine bay.
From the holographic table across the room, the Rhino watched calmly, the Warframe standing still.
"It's not mood swings," Rhino said, his voice flat as stone. "It's Void focus. Learn to direct it, and it will never fail."
Rocket spun on his heel, agitated. "Easy for Mister-Monk-in-a-Metal-Suit to say."
Rhino said nothing. The Warframe looking over the faceplate reflected the sparks still flickering on Rocket's workbench, as if silently judging.
Rocket grumbled and grabbed the wrench again. "Fine. You want to play holier-than-thou space ninja? Let's see if your fancy shield keeps Quill from getting stabbed."
Later, the Elector's common room had been cleared of bottles and clutter, the Ravagers and Guardians pressed close in a circle. The prototype shield generator hummed in the center, a squat box bristling with wires and plating that looked equal parts genius and disaster.
Quill eyed it like it might explode. "So... what, this thing makes us invincible?"
"Not invincible," Rhino said. "Just alive longer than without it."
Quill raised an eyebrow. "Comforting."
Rocket slapped a control node into Quill's chest. "Stand there and quit whining."
The device pulsed. A translucent dome of blue light snapped into existence, surrounding Quill like a body glove. Gasps rose from the Ravagers. The light shimmered with every breath he took.
"Whoa..." Quill's eyes widened. "Okay, this is... kinda coo-"
A dagger whistled through the air. It bounced off his head with a sizzle of sparks. Quill yelped and stumbled back.
"HEY! What the hell, man?!"
Drax stood a few paces away, chest puffed. "It was a test. You survived. Congratulations."
Quill threw his arms up. "What if it hadn't worked?"
Drax tilted his head. "Then you would be dead, and we would know the shield was a failure."
Rocket was practically dancing, claws flying across his datapad. "Not bad, huh? Running at half capacity, still shrugs off knives like toothpicks."
Gamora stepped forward, eyes sharp. She drew her blade in a single smooth motion and slashed. Sparks crackled across the dome. The shield rippled but held, Quill falling on his bum in shock.
"Resilient," she said, though suspicion lingered in her tone.
Rocket grinned wider. "Resilient? I prefer beautiful, I'm a genius."
Drax cracked his knuckles. "Allow me a turn."
Quill's eyes widened as he stood up again.
"No-"
Too late. Drax barreled forward, slamming a shoulder into the dome. The shield flashed bright, then launched him backward across the room. He landed on his back with a grunt, Ravagers roaring with laughter.
Groot toddled up and grew a branch into a makeshift spear. With surprising strength, he jabbed it down against the shield while Quill was already running away.
The dome flickered hard enough to make Rocket wince but stabilized.
"I am Groot!"
Rocket jabbed a claw at the readout. "See that? That was almost full overload! You little sapling just stress-tested my baby like a champ."
Quill scowled as he slowly came back, testing the waters. "Great. Glad to be everyone's crash test dummy."
Kraglin edged too close, trying to peer at the glow. The shield snapped and discharged with a pop, sending him sprawling into Drax. Both yelped as the shield vanished with a hiss of static.
Rocket threw his arms up. "Okay! Okay, I admit it, still needs tweaking."
Quill, lying on the ground, holding his chest in pain where the shield exploded, retorted, "You sure?"
After some more time of tweaking, they again met to watch the progress.
Rhino took the new and improved shield generator into his hand and looked at it, letting Ordis analyze the new blueprint.
He then nodded, gave the shield back, and went to the table.
The room quieted as Rhino stepped forward. He raised a hand and used the datapad, and new schematics shimmered into existence above the holotable. Holograms spun in place: blades, rifles, nodes of light, strange artistic designs no one ever saw anywhere.
The Ravagers leaned forward greedily. Aleta's eyes narrowed. "And what else is hiding in those blueprints of yours?"
The Tenno ignored her, speaking instead to the Guardians. "Your tactics are reckless. These will help."
The projections shifted, each one settling on a different holographic Guardian.
Before Gamora, a thin emitter clasped around her blade's hilt. Energy pulsed down the edge, sharpening it. She made a swing through the air, and the blade sang with power.
Before Drax, a circular glaive hovered. Its edges glowed faintly. He reached out, caught it in one massive hand, and hurled it across the room. It struck the far wall and curved back into his grasp.
Quill received a visor, sleeker than his battered mask. The view slipped over his eyes as tactical readouts flooded the vision.
"Okay, this makes me look like a dorky cyborg, " he said, looking at his holographic clone .
Rocket nearly drooled at the dual plasma pistols that spun into view, humming with energy. His twin was firing into the air. The capacitors hummed, recharging instantly. "Ohhh, mama. I'm in love, " he said, stars in his eyes.
The Guardians traded uneasy looks, caught between awe and suspicion.
"If these are like the shield prototype, this is either genius," Gamora said carefully, "or suicide."
Quill sighed, slipping the visor back off. "So basically our usual Tuesday."
Rocket studied the blueprints and nodded after some time. "I guess with my new knowledge about some workarounds of your tech here I could definitely make these" He said before everyone looked around.
That moment was broken with a buzz from the bridge console. A hologram flickered to life above the table: Korath, his steel-gray skin lit by Kree insignia, his face drawn tight.
"My dear clients." His voice was clipped, urgent. "The Kree are rotating vault security… ahead of schedule."
The room froze. Stakar straightened, jaw set. Aleta swore under her breath.
Korath's gaze looked hastily in the recorded message. "If you want your prize, you move now. Or not at all."
Rockets voice cut through the silence. "Then I guess we test these new toys in the field."
Varr'kesh's moon drifted above Pama Prime like a gemstone, its face laced with massive works of glittering cerulean veins that pulsed with a lifelike flush, as if pumping fuel into some monstrous behemoth underwater.
The ring stations revolved around it, gliding quietly, armed pylons, armored platforms, crystals of light. Kree construction allowed for no movement that was not necessary. Vault spires, hexagonal grids docking towers together, and ceremonial plazas bordered with diplomats and soldiers sculptures.
The Elector splashed through the surface traffic and dove into the concourse, her hull bearing the credentials of diplomacy, icons so old half the galaxy had forgotten the treaties they represented.
Docking clamps took hold with a groaning bite, metal jaws closing over her. A group of Kree Honor Guard awaited when the ramp dropped.
Stakar led, stiffness in his back, fists crunching. Aleta followed him, a sneer twisting like a blade at her lips. Charlie-27, standing at his side, loomed over him, a hulking figure next to Martinex's crystalline structure, distorting the station's lights into broken rainbows.
"Under Article Four of the Nova-Kree Armistice," the top officer said, his voice clipped short, " the diplomats will have ceremonial escort permitted. You will remain within your designated diplomatic boundaries."
Stakar's mouth curled into something close to a smile, but there was no passion in his eyes. "Ceremonial sounds great." He nodded as if taking a bow to a stage direction, but his eyes had already wandered. Past the latticework spires, he had already spotted the tower that mattered. The one that wasn't built for show. The one that held the vault.
The officer stiffened, his bones seeming to shiver in anger at the ridicule. "Any deviation will be recorded."
Aleta crouched low, her voice barely above a whisper into his ear. "Translation? Move one step to the side, and they'll bury us in lightfire with half the fleet."
Stakar's smile grew slightly. "Too bad we never get out of line."
Above, in the station's core, Korath worked. His gray skin glistened with the pale lights next to the vault, and he appeared fashioned from the same clean metals. His wristpad blazed with patrol diagrams, he redirected their routes, clipped at one strand of data here, turned another there.
He pulled out a claim chip from his pocket, stamped it against the drawer labeled Sentimental Artifacts, Tier: Omega. The lock gave a single servile beep for confirmation.
His gaze hovered beyond the maps folder, though. Beyond other sanctioned drawers.
The further locked part came up, inscribed in Kree and interstellar commerce script: Relic Reserve - Negative Zone Artefacts.
Something within finally felt free.
"So it really exists," he said quietly between his breaths.
High overhead, unseen, hovering over a maintenance spine, the Liset drifted like a specter against the glow of Varr'kesh. Inside, the Guardians of the Galaxy stood in close formation around the meditating Tenno.
Rocket tapped impatient claws on the scan feed. "This guy's as dense as a Xandarian tax code. I can hack a lot of doors, but I ain't bruteforcing a Kree bank with no window."
Ordis's voice came through the comms. "Nullifier sweep imminent. Total stealth mode activated. Suggestion: please do not breathe."
The Liset's systems died in an instant. Lights extinguished. Engines fell silent. Even air recycling shut down, slowly suffocating them.
A spark crossed the hull while they floated suspended in complete stealth mode. Groot's leaves locked stiff, his tentacles moving rigidly.
Eight seconds stretched into a lifetime. Then the airflow returned in a whoosh, lights turned back on, and Rocket coughed like he'd been holding his lungs the whole time.
Gamora pressed her palm against her blade like in prayer. "If that sweep touched us..."
"...we'd be cosmic confetti," Rocket completed her sentence, his voice shaking despite the grin.
The Holotable sprang to life, now glowing with a signal from within the vault. One was rhythmic, shining the bank's core systems themselves.
The Warframe in the back tilted its head, a golden ripple spreading across its chestplate. For a moment, it froze.
Quill scrunched up his eyes. "Uh... did your frame just jerk?"
Rhino's tone was flat. "Keep the focus on the signals." No one probed further.
By the end of the whole scout mission, the Guardians had the shape of the beast they were booked to rob :
Null-corridors that suppressed all energy weapons unless paired with exact system internal harmonics.
Custodian Sentinels that ramped from stun to kill based on their calculated threat index.
Quantum ledger cores coded to self-destruct the instant they were removed from the harmonic field of the vault.
Gamora studied the hologram in silence, arms folded, mind rattling. "This isn't just a bank. This is a fortress."
Drax's teeth flashed in agreement. "A fortress we will destroy."
"Correction," Rocket snapped, brushing the holo away with his claw. "A fortress we're gonna steal from. Big difference."
The Warframe did not say a word. Its gaze was not on the defenses but on the ghost signal, the one pulsating soft and golden in the darkness.
Stakar stood on the concourse holding aloft a ritual glass, his laughter echoing, false, in the ritual that surrounded him. Aleta leaned on a pillar, her lips curled as she enswathed a minister in the disguise of authority.
At the same time, the Guardians sat with their map of defenses, their plan slowly coming together.