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The two men that kidnapped you from your home release their iron grip on you once the three of you have come to a stop. You fall forward, catching yourself with your hands before your face hits the floor.
“Step aside,” a woman says. At least, you think it’s a woman. It sounds inhuman, robot-like, for lack of a better word. And it echoes around you.
You feel the ground vibrate very lightly, as if standing three floors above a giant engine. You don’t even want to look around you. You already know you’re not at home anymore, or anywhere near it. Not to mention everything is sore from all the dragging and shoving of your previously limp body after your kidnappers sedated you.
With that thought, you are pulled up onto your feet effortlessly. You are held up by a hand gripping your shirt tightly until you have balance. It’s then you decide that it’s time to see your captor’s face. Of all the things you expected to see, this woman’s face is not one of them.
Your captor is blue, literally blue, the sides of her head lighter than the strip going down the middle. There is some sort of metal plate on top of her clean, hairless head. The left side seems to be mechanical, reaching from behind her head and surrounding her eye. Her eyes are solid black, almost demonic if it hadn’t been for the white in their corners. She looks as though she was pieced together by someone, maybe a scientist for all you know, and the result came out…strangely beautiful.
“May I help you?” you ask tiredly. “Or is grabbing people threateningly a way of welcoming somebody around here?”
She looks you up and down, then looks directly at your face with a disgusted look. “I have no idea why he has such interest in a pathetic Terran like you.” She lets go of you and walks away.
You grit your teeth and roll your head around, working it out. You take this opportunity to look around the space. “How’d you know I’m pathetic?” you joke, but it’s more of mindless teasing. As you examine the area, you quickly realize you’re not even in the same country anymore. It doesn’t even look like you’re on Earth. There are no windows to reveal climate, culture, time of day, nothing. It’s just dark walls with even darker corners and faint echoes of footsteps, her footsteps. You look over to the men, but they’ve vanished. There wasn’t even a sound of their exit, but they’re gone. The Smurf-lady must’ve dismissed them, you tell yourself.
“I can’t even sense your worth. A weak, spineless, ungrateful, ridiculous waste of space. He claims you have the heart of a warrior, but you didn’t even bother to fight our men. Pitiful.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to get my hands up next time I lose complete and total feeling of my body. And I’m not ‘spineless’.” Even throughout all this, your natural rebellious attitude managed to stay intact. It’s not as though you’re in any real danger. You have a very strong gift of perception. You noticed how they treated you on the way to…whatever this is. They didn’t beat you, didn’t injure you (besides the heartlessly rough transport), they fed you and gave you water, and you’re still alive and well. Their intentions are clearly not to kill you. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to make sure you arrived in one piece. “Besides, you’re acting all tough after sending people to kidnap me. And I’m spineless.”
Before you know it, she’s a foot in front of you and slapping you painfully hard across the face. Your hand flies to your stinging cheek, clenching your jaw in anger. She really is a sight, rockin’ body and all, but she is really getting on your nerves. “How dare you speak with such disrespect? Choose your words carefully, Terran! I am not the one who wants you here. I can kill you.”
“Can, but won’t.” You straighten up to look her in the eye, not willing to play scared prisoner for one second. It’s just not in your nature. “I see how you say ‘can’, not ‘will’, implying that you don’t have the right to kill me. Someone slightly more powerful just sent you in to warm me up. And if you aren’t the one who sent for me, who did?”
“It is not your position to demand information.”
“It is not your position to tell me what to do.”
Her hand jumps to your throat and squeezes, leaving just the tiniest bit of space for breath. “Look here, harlot,” she spits the word in your face, “you are on the ship of the great Ronan, the most powerful being in the galaxy. You are nothing but a fragile trophy destined to live out your life here in a cell. I get to choose it, you know. And, right now, I see you rotting in a pile of bones and filth. Do not push me to tie you to the outside of this vessel.”
You glare at her even as she releases your throat and you collapse to the floor. You cough and struggle to catch your breath, but your mind can’t help but be proud. That’s one piece of information, you think. “Ship?” you manage to get out after panting. “As in battleship?” You look up at her.
She wanders off to the other end of the room. “Intelligence of a hunk of metal,” she comments without even hiding it. “Space. You are on the Dark Aster.”
Your pride quickly fades. No wonder she’s more than willing to reveal the location. You’re not even on the same planet anymore. There’s no use even trying to escape, and you don’t exactly get signal in space with a low-battery Sprint pre-paid. You’re screwed, whether you know your location or not. But you’re still kind of hell-bent on getting on this woman’s nerves. “I love how you say I have the intelligence of a hunk of metal when half your head could be dented with a rock.”
“You little…” She turns and advances toward you, every intent of breaking two hundred of your bones plain on her face.
“Nebula.”
The name echoes throughout the room, maybe even the entire ship. But it’s loud enough to stop the Smurf-lady, apparently Nebula, dead in her tracks. She glares at you with seething rage, her hands most likely aching to rip your heart out. She wouldn’t be the first to want to do that to you. You’re a reporter, very much infamous, or you were until all this crap happened.
A very large man clad in enough heavy-looking armor to protect the Hulk walks up behind Nebula, watching me. He wields some type of hammer likely to be taller than you, and it could probably kill Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with one blow. You know, without comparing it to Mjolnir. He’s blue, too, a slightly darker shade with rougher skin. He has black paint around his eyes and trailing down his face like really thick trails of tears, meeting and combining below his chin, down his neck, and disappearing under his armor at the collar bone. This man is built, from broad shoulders to a sculpted torso (from what you can see outside the outfit) and long, slender, muscled legs. This ship must be run by the most beautiful people. You study every bit of this man as subtly as possible. You’ve never seen someone so huge.
“Ronan, if I could just teach her one lesson—”
“Go,” he orders, his voice stern but his face emotionless. “You’re no longer needed here.”
Taking another second to burn holes in your face with her furious eyes, she turns around and does as she’s told.
Just as Ronan opens his mouth to say something, there’s a loud scream and the sound of a body slamming into the wall in the distance. Ronan closes his eyes, probably annoyed. “Go and watch her. I don’t need any men killed before battle.”
There must have been guards hidden, God knows where because there’s barely anything here to hide them, because a ton of footsteps flood the room and out the door, following Nebula the angry Smurf-lady. She wasn’t hugged as a child.
“Y/N,” Ronan says, a deep voice sounding robotic but less than Nebula’s. It’s so soothing, your name on his lips. You wonder why you’ve never heard of him. He circles you, studying your body from every angle with an emotionless face. He’s nothing like the other one. Although it’s clear he lives life with bad intent forever in his mind, you can’t tell what his intentions are at the moment. “Born and raised on Terra, Terran blood running through your veins, Terran structure and style, but…” He stops in front of you again, now looking you directly in the eyes. “…clearly made for something more.” His eyes are the most vibrant purple you’ve ever seen, pure purple. These people are clearly not human, but you don’t give much thought to that as you slowly fall victim to their beauty. But you snap yourself out of it. Now’s not the time to start swooning over shiz.
“Yeah, I used to tell myself that—”
“Do not speak if I have not asked you to!” he shouts, his voice not even faltering for a second.
“Okay. Damn.” You look at him as if he’s insane, but those hypnotic purple irises have you mesmerized once again. You fall silent and avoid eye contact as often as possible.
“You are quite strong for such a fragile looking creature. I watched you for a while, examined you from afar…”
Jeez. Stalker much?
“…and I must admit, you have fascinated me. Your strength is not in your bones, but in your mind. You’re quick, clever, devious, manipulative—”
“Okay, I’m not manipulative. I’m—”
“Silence!” he bellows.
You cringe away from him, arms up in defense, as though he’s going to hit you. You have a feeling his slap isn’t much like Nebula’s. “Jesus! Sorry!”
He raises his voice. “You obtain power over many, making you manipulative. You are fearless, brave. Your only fault is your lack of control over that damned tongue.”
“Maybe you should use it for other things,” you mutter under your breath.
“What?”
“What?” You cover up with an alert tone, but you know damn well that he heard it.
He steps up extremely close to you and gets in your face, invading every known rule or law of personal space. “Was that a sexual advance toward me, Terran?”
“No! I was kidding! Joking, of course!” The amount of panic he causes you is unrealistic. You seldom panic, but this man looks like he can kill you with a high-five.
He glances down at your lips, suddenly giving you a sense of some intense insecurity, then glares into your eyes. “Do not tempt me,” he says in what must be his crappy version of a whisper. He backs away.
“Wait, what?”
“I need a soldier like you. Intelligent, observant, tolerable, someone to work with me and my army. Someone to retrieve information when needed by any means necessary.”
“Hold up. You’re…recruiting me?”
“If that is the term for it, yes. I am…recruiting…you. Battle strategy is key when it comes to certain battles. And you have exceeded my expectations.”
You take this under heavy consideration. “Huh. I have no choice. Do I?”
“Of course, you do. You work by my side, or you will be killed. Which will it be?”
“A simple ‘no you don’t’ would’ve sufficed.” You purse your lips. There’s really no escaping as of right now, not when the leader of the freaking ship is standing right in front of you holding a strong-ass weapon. What more thinking do you need? Really? “Do I have to live in a cell?”
“No. My valuables do not rot with the captives. You get living quarters with whatever you need so long as you don’t betray me.”
“You guys got Frosted Flakes?” you ask jokingly.
He certainly doesn’t drop the act. He keeps a straight poker face as he answers you. “We’ll acquire…Frosted Flakes…for you when given the chance.”
“Y’all got WiFi?”
“Enough with the negotiations!” he snaps. You’ve pushed your limit. “Soldier or death?! Choose!”
“Fine! Soldier. Jeez, laugh a little. Soldier, consultant, fuckbuddy. Whatever you want.”
“I will have to take that last one into consideration.”
“Wait, what?”
“Guards!” he shouts.
Two guards enter the room from the right now. All these doors and no windows. Incredible.
“Escort Y/N to her quarters. She will be taking Gamora’s quarters. Make sure she is cleaned and dressed, and that she stays there until summoned.”
The guards nod respectfully.
You walk with confidence to hide the intimidation Ronan is filling you with as he stares at you, and you follow the guards out the room. You always hoped for a more interesting life, a job that really showed your true potential. To be honest, it couldn’t get any better than this, being held captive and turned into a soldier in not even an hour while on a giant spacecraft in space. Yet, at the same time, this little part of you can’t help but feel that you’re in deep trouble now. Deep trouble.