Observer POV:
Rhino motioned Rocket to head towards the sofa, in the middle of the room, where the girls were already sitting, „Will be there in a second, Let me just park him in the corner," he stated, before heading towards said position.
Rocket snickered while turning around, „You really have to get your shit together man, this is starting to get real annoying," he quarrelled, while Tenno appeared next to him.
As they settled down, they barged into Wanda narrating a story to which Gamora and Mantis listened spellbound, "So there we were, on a City Midair, heading straight for orbit, while a gigantic amalgamation of robots in the form of one giant Mega-Bot came rushing for our position, ready to plunge the city down at the surface, to extinguish the whole Planet…" as Mantis interrupted, "Sorry, one question, what is an Orbit?"
Wanda looked at her in astonishment, "You are a bunch of star-faring civilizations, and you don't know what an orbit is?"
Gamora set a hand on Mantis's shoulder, while putting on an apologetic smile and explained, "She lived most of her life in captivity, she doesn't know a lot of things," getting an acknowledging nod from Mantis, before she thought about what was said and tried to correct said statement, but Thor interrupted.
"Next thing we know, I fly straight at it and smash its head right in, with the power of lightning," he exaggerated, leaving out the part completely, where he, in fact, did not hit the giant robot in the head, but plummeted right into the ground and then had to be rescued by the whole team.
Quill, who followed him together with Drax from the bar, chimed in, refusing to back down in their little pissing contest, "You know, I once brawled with a living planet, and won."
Thor looked at him, accepting the challenge before retaliating, "And I once smashed the rainbow bridge, an ancient construct made of material only found in dying stars, which connected the Asgardian realms."
Rocket looked at him in astonishment, "The legendary Bifröst exists, the only theorized way of FTL, other than Jump points, and you destroyed it?"
Thor looked a little flustered before explaining, "Well, it was targeted at one of the nine realms and would have destroyed it if I hadn't done it. It subsequently led to a civil war between the nine realms, till we rebuilt it, but that's all settled now."
Quill's eyes lit up in triumph at the fumble of his adversary, then sprouted, "I once held an Infinity Stone," the trump card he had kept until the very end, but he only got hit in the shoulder by Gamora as he settled down next to her.
"We all held it together, don't ever forget that," she corrected him, before leaning into his shoulder and kissing his cheek, erasing any smoldering sense of insecurity he had towards Thor, whom he then looked at victoriously.
Thor coughed once, masking a chuckle behind his arm, witnessing the display of just how firmly Gamora had him wrapped around her fingers, before changing the topic, "But that's precisely why we're here, well, at least why I'm here. Earth has been home to an unusual number of Infinity Stones over the last few millennia, and as our common friend Tenno here told me, you guys have quite a history with these stones. You should know, I have taken on the mission of finding out more about these stones, while simultaneously appeasing the hunch that someone is pulling the strings from behind the scenes."
The guardians looked at each other for some time before Quill decided to break the silence by speaking up, „We have encountered one stone in person, which is now locked away on Xandar, while the other instance, we came across one of their paths, was pretty recently." He looked over at Tenno, but he just nodded, leading to Quill continuing his story, „Tenno was there as well. We got a job from the Collector, to steal a map that supposedly led to one of the stones locations. We didn't know if it was up to date, as they change locations quite frequently, but after retreating it, we sold it and headed our way."
Thor looked over at Tenno in frustration, „If you were there as it happened, you could have just told me on earth instead of dragging me all the way out here, for them to tell me the same thing, or am I wrong?"
„I wasn't exactly present at the time we were in possession of the map. Only after we had already been paid I had come back, and at that point, I saw no point in asking about it, as I already got what I wanted. You still haven't asked them what was on the map though, a question I also really would like to be answered." He responded.
Thor looked over at the Guardians, who again looked uncertainly at each other, as this time Gamora spoke up, „It wasn't really a map in the usual sense. It was more like a relic, or a very old key to something greater, which would supposedly then lead to the stone."
Thor signed, dropped his head and closed his eyes. „Ok, so all you guys know is that whatever you stole might or might not be the map to one of the stones."
Quill responded agitated, „And the location of the Power stone. It isn't really a fact that everyone knows of. It's probably rather a state secret of the Xandarian empire. Most people rather think Yondu sold it after the Ronen incident to some anonymous buyer."
Thor lifted a hand apologetically and looked up, „I'm sorry ok, you're right, the subject is just very infuriating altogether, that's all. I thought I finally had a lead on the soul stone. You have to know that no one has seen it in a very long time. And if I can't find it before whoever is orchestrating all of this does, a lot of very bad things are probably going to happen."
While Thor was rambling about the situation, Tenno let his gaze wander around, and caught a glimpse of Gamoras visage falling for a second at the mention of the soul stone, but didn't gave it a second thought, as he spoke up right after Thor was finished apologizing, "And we are here to help him on this journey, or at least help him find the first lead. But now it's your guys' turn to explain your situation, what are the Guardians of the Galaxy doing in a megacity? I never thought outlaws like you would ever even dream about living here, not even talking about being allowed around here."
Drax laughed and punched Rocket in the shoulder, receiving an annoyed side glance before explaining, "He got sentimental," which only led to further confusion.
Rocket scratched the back of his head, as the very instant Groot came rushing in, carrying what seemed to be a ball of some kind, followed by the pack of Kubrows, which made him smile, "This is the place where Groot and I originally met, me and the past Groot to be precise." The nostalgia could clearly be heard from his voice as he watched the young tree lord run around the room in circles, laughing with the joy only a child could carry. "Believe it or not, Groot and I actually met in a prison," he said, grinning. "Who would have guessed?" Drax dryly stated before Rocket continued. "He was in here together with a friend of his, who helped him escape from traffickers, who in turn had him from a shitty galactic-side zoo."
They watched together as Groot had finally been caught by the pack, before getting dragged out of the room again. "The friend of his was a security guard on this station, and they were in there because he supposedly got framed. I just wanted out, so we helped each other escape the prison, marking our first of many escapes together. But Frank, that was the friend's name, decided to stay behind to clean his name. A feat he supposedly accomplished, as we received a notification of his death in the line of duty only a few years after our escape."
Thor came back from the bar and put down his new glass on the table, already empty again. "So you've come here for a funeral then?" He questioned, but Rocket shook his head in denial.
"The funeral was years ago. I already had my doubts about his death back then. Still, the information we received only recently seemed to support my conspiracy, so we came here to investigate ourselves," he responded, before typing away on his holo pad.
Tenno looked over his shoulder, watching him pull up an old photo of him, old Groot, and a guy who was probably Frank. He then activated a face recognition program and started a video of a person, suspiciously crouching next to a container, until it stopped at a specific angle where Frank's face could vaguely be seen.
Thor had also come over to them and was as perplexed as Tenno seemed to be, "So you want to tell me that this Guard who managed to clean his record and work again as security, faked his death in duty to become a criminal? That seems very unlikely to me."
"Exactly," Rocket responded, "And it's definitely him?" Tenno questioned, zooming in on the face, as Rocket responded.
"Definitely. No one in the sector is as good at hacking as he is, and his way of working is pretty unique." Rocked tapped play on the pad, and they continued watching the video, which now showed Frank pulling a cable from within his wrist and plugging it into the security port of the unit, before the video stopped moving and only static remained.
"These kinds of implants are not legal around here. It had taken him quite a bit of effort to keep them in his line of work, but eventually the higher-ups seemed to make an exception for him and updated his clearance. No one else in the city could walk around with something like that, they would have immediately been caught by the scanners at the docs."
Wanda looked uncomfortable at the mention of scanners, „So you wanna tell me we've been probed without us knowing?" she questioned, looking at Tenno.
„It's just a scan for things it knows to look for, your privacy is safe, if that's what you're worried about," Rocket explained with an eye roll, before continuing, leaving a slightly agitated Wanda at a loss for words.
„So we're basically here to speak to him and find out what he got himself into. He's not the guy to break the law so easily. He loved his job way too much to even think about that in the first place, but I also haven't heard from him in a while, so who knows what might have happened," he concluded, while deactivating the holo pad.
Thor stood up and took his glass. „I find this quest of yours quite honorable. May we find your friend and unravel this intricate mystery?" He said as he lifted his glass to a toast, only to realize it was again empty, gazing at it as if it had just betrayed him deeply.
Suddenly Quill spoke up, „Don't misunderstand me Thor, we would love to have you around," he tried to convey, leading Gamora to roll her eyes behind his back, „but don't you have more important matters to attend to?"
Thor looked at him with a happy smile on his face, placing his free hand on his shoulder while making him quite uncomfortable, "I'm honored that you see the bigger picture here my friend, but a deal is a deal, and you have given me Information. Now I repay you with my invaluable presence and expertise."
Quill looked at Thor in astonishment, for a little to long before he tried to say, "No you really don't have to…," but got Interupted by Drax, who came over, and shook hands with the Asgardian, "It's settled then, if you stay a bit longer anyway, we might as well find out who of us is the strongest," the warmonger stated, leading to a staring contest.
"I suppose that might as well occur," Thor responded grinning, as sparks began to fly between the two bundles of Testosteron.
Gamora only sighed in defeat, while Rocket slapped a hand against his face asTenno leaned over to him and whispered, "This is going to be a looong night," as once again the two Knuckleheads headed for the bar.