No one had expected the Sovereign, who had barged in and interrupted the final without warning, to be dealt with by an enthusiastic member of the audience.
So the engineering competition could continue after all. The problem for the organizers was that one of the five ships Rocket had repaired had been blasted to pieces by Sovereign gunfire.
To make up for the loss caused by the incident, President Winslow decided to give contestant Varina a chance. If she could repair another shuttle with the same level of damage within one hour, she would be awarded the championship.
The result was that this woman, who ran a repair shop and held a mid-level engineering license, still had not managed to get the engine working after two stumbling, miserable hours. Her hands were smeared with thick neutral-grade machine oil, the sweat on her face had turned her heavy makeup into a mess, and her big waves looked like she had stuck a finger in a socket.
In the end, Varina could not stand the boos from the audience any longer and ran off.
And just like that, the honor of champion fell to Jojani. People sighed over her good fortune, but they also had genuine respect for the skill she had shown.
Skyl listened as Tony excitedly announced that they needed to throw a celebration banquet for Jojani's victory. Everyone else on the Planeswalker agreed. And all of them also knew that once the celebration ended, it would be time for them to part with Xandar. They had not forgotten that the unlucky Star-Lord was still sitting in prison, miserably waiting for his friends to rescue him.
The first thing the girl did after receiving the prize money was offer to split it with Tony.
"You keep it. You earned that championship yourself."
"No, we split it."
After a brief silence, Jojani and Tony spoke at exactly the same time.
"You keep it!"
For Tony, making money through this competition had only ever been a bit of entertainment. Skyl and Moonshadow had already earned more than enough to cover expenses. Even Gali had gotten rich, some unnamed planet-eater had been secretly showering money on his daughter and granddaughter, so they spent their days eating, drinking, having fun, and casually picking up money hand over fist. Compared with the grind of building something from scratch, inheriting the family fortune was always easier.
Tony would rather admit he was the biggest failure among his companions. A billionaire back on Earth, yet out here among the stars he had hustled for half a month without making a single credit. That kind of humiliation did not bother him. What he did remember was that Jojani had said once she scraped together thirty thousand credits, she could qualify for a loan. If they split the winnings fifty-fifty, she would still need to come up with another thousand.
"So you should keep it." Tony grinned and rubbed the girl's head. "At least those ten years in the Time Chamber weren't wasted."
In the end, Jojani accepted only an extra thousand credits. That way, she could apply for the loan immediately and arrange her father's surgery.
Everything was going to get better.
The celebratory banquet after the competition was organized entirely by Kagaton. He prepared local Xandarian dishes for the guests, set out alcohol for the adults, and made sure his daughter Jojani had plenty of soda.
As the transportation hub for the surrounding several thousand light-years of space, Xandar sat atop a thriving and bustling trade port, so ingredients from many different worlds all converged there.
Just think of it, frozen cuts of alien beast meat and chunks of strange plant tubers crossing the vast, empty, bewildering cold of interplanetary space before finally reaching the tables of civilized people. Naturally, their value rose with the journey. Imported goods were all the same that way.
Skyl had traveled the starways and seen the food cultures of different civilizations, different peoples, and different regions. Very few menus could truly surprise him anymore.
After all, everyone was carbon-based life. No matter how exotic or bizarre the food sounded, how strange could it really get? At most, the novelty came from the ingredients. The cooking methods themselves were usually not that different from Earth's, and often were not even as varied or sophisticated as Earth cuisine.
He was especially fond of an alien plant called passion aloe. Once peeled, its root had the texture of jelly, crisp like pear, cool and sweet on the tongue, with a lingering unusual fragrance. It made for a wonderful snack. It was grown on a huge scale across the tropical peninsula of its homeworld, East Lu VI, where locals sold it dirt cheap. But by the time it reached Xandar, it cost as much as five thousand credits a pound.
Beaming with happiness, Kagaton had dipped into his savings to buy Skyl nearly half a pound of passion aloe, along with other expensive imported foods that everyone else liked. When Jojani found out, she burst into tears. She knew the money she had worked so hard to earn would no longer be enough after all.
At the banquet, everyone saw the spread of good food and raised their glasses with cheers. Only Jojani could manage nothing but a strained smile.
"Don't be sad." Kagaton winked at her. "My daughter, haven't you noticed? I'm not coughing anymore."
The Planeswalkers all laughed. Jojani cried and laughed at the same time before darting back into her bedroom.
That night, a thoroughly drunk Skyl and Tony leaned on each other all the way back to the ship. The Dark Elves had hurriedly prepared a palanquin, and several burly soldiers carried the drunken Lady Moonshadow back to her own transport. Jojani also knew the time for parting had come, so she pleaded for permission to stay one last night aboard the Planeswalker.
In the kitchen, Jojani boiled a kettle of water and made two hangover remedies for Tony and Skyl. As she passed the infirmary, she noticed the door was open. Groot sat blankly beside the bed, while Rocket Raccoon, shaved nearly bare, lay under the soft blankets. Most of his injuries had healed already. The new skin was pink and tender, but he seemed trapped in a nightmare, trembling without end.
"Lylla... Lylla... don't go..."
"Mr. Groot, Mr. Rocket." Jojani's voice broke the tree-being out of his thoughts.
Groot guiltily took Jojani's arm and saw that the bite mark he had left that day had already scabbed over. So ashamed that a huge cluster of pink roses bloomed right from the top of his head, he gently rubbed the wound and said, "I am Groot."
"I'm fine. Is Mr. Rocket okay?"
The tree-being nodded, and clear dew-like tears once again welled up in his eyes. He knew all too well that Rocket was tormented by nightmares. It was as if some hollow monster lived inside his friend, like a spider in his chest, forever chewing at his heart and leaving it riddled with holes. But Groot could do nothing about it.
Knock, knock. Someone rapped on the hatch, and Skyl walked in. The wizard had already drunk a hangover cure and looked refreshed.
He had come to check on Rocket.
"Mr. Skyl." Jojani greeted him brightly, then watched his every move with timid curiosity.
"Hello there, Jojani." Skyl answered with an easy smile, then began checking the raccoon's condition.
"Mr. Rocket seems to be having a nightmare."
"Yeah, that's right. Let me think of something."
He pulled back Rocket's eyelid. The raccoon's glossy dark eye, round and bright like a puppy's, was darting rapidly beneath it. Silver light shone in Skyl's eyes. He was using Legilimency, reading Rocket's thoughts and dreams.
Step by step, he moved deeper into the little monster's mind, drilling down into the black depths of his brain.
The first impression of the dream was the damp stench of disinfectant, followed by a blood smell like rust. The image was blurred. All he could really hear was the buzzing whine of a bone saw. The vibrations from above told him a skull was being cut open. Under the anesthetic, it did not hurt.
Skyl knew he had already reached Rocket's memories. Now he was experiencing, in the most direct way possible, everything the little monster had once suffered.
The cold light of an operating lamp shone down in front of him. He felt like a slab of raw meat, cut apart piece by piece with knives and forks, cold metal fitted into wounds and the gaps along his spine, before he was stitched back together like a rag doll.
Then he was thrown off the operating table. A researcher in a white coat grabbed him in one hand, carried him through a white corridor, rode an elevator downward, and arrived at a filthy flooded warehouse where the living specimens were stored.
During that process, the anesthetic gradually wore off. The pain flooding through his body came surging back, and the smell of blood seemed to crawl straight out of his own organs. Beyond the pain, what he felt most was the cold, a cold so intense it made his muscles spasm.
At last, he was tossed into a rusted steel animal cage. A little straw was scattered loosely across the bottom. It was still cold. The warehouse lighting was dim. Beyond his cage there were only more cages, and no noisy voices at all.
After the researcher walked away, several strange shadows crept up to the bars and studied the new test subject.
Young Rocket trembled without stopping and stared out through the bars in terror. He saw an otter, a walrus, and a rabbit.
"Don't be afraid, friend." The otter comforted him gently as she gripped the bars with her metal prosthetic hands.
Rocket finally saw the three animals clearly. Their bodies had all been mechanically modified, stuffed with steel like cloth dolls, all of them adorable little monsters.
"Friend..." Rocket sobbed. "It hurts so much..."
Skyl took a deep breath and pulled himself out of the dream.
Without a word, he turned and headed for the bridge. Jojani hurried after him and asked curiously, "Mr. Skyl, did you think of something?"
"Not yet," he said. "But right now I'm planning to find someone and beat the hell out of him."
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