19042/Knowhere Knoir: Chapter 1

Knowhere Knoir: Chapter 1
Date of Scene:	09 September 2024
Location:	Knowhere
Synopsis:	While setting up shop on Knowhere, Rocket, Mantis, and Groot get an unexpected first customer: Cosmo the Spacedog!
Cast of Characters:	Rocket, Mantis

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Rocket has posed:
"She was a tall drink of fluid... in a very shapely fluid pouch. The kind of pouch you just want to poke your straw in and..."

Click!

Pressing the button on the somewhat outdated voice recorder, a world-weary investigator leans back in his chair and puts his feet up on his desk. But as he does so, his bare, furry feet activate the desk's holo display, bringing up an advertisement for next cycle's Lazo-Gladiator match between Murderin' Miss Mylquixl and Taserface. With a disgusted look on his face, the hirsute investigator flicks the holodisplay back off with one of his clawed toes.

"GARBAGE! Flarkin' garbage!"

The investigator looks as if he's about to throw the voice recorder across the room, when the tall wooden object in the corner pipes up with some helpful advice, proving once and for all that despite having a hat hanging off of one of his branches, he is not in fact a hat rack.

"I am Groot!"

The hairy little investigator calms down a bit, and tosses the voice recorder onto his desk instead. Gently. Rubbing his forehead, he growls softly for a few seconds before responding.

"Grrrrrrr! Yeah, I know gettin' frustrated won't help me come up with a better script for the ads. But we've been private investigators for almost three hours now, and we still ain't got no jobs! I got a mouth to feed, good buddy."

"I am Groot..."

"Yeah... and you got roots to moisturize. D'ast! We shoulda just gone back to bein' bounty hunters. The pay's better, you can make your own hours... uh..."

"I am Groot?"

"I don't know if I'd go that far."

Another couple of seconds go by, during which Rocket, hyper as always, begins pulling on his whiskers with both hands. Finally, he leaps up onto his desk, one of his eyes twitching in a way that suggests the beginnings of a stroke or a break from reality.

"GAAAAAH! I'm gonna check again..."

Squatting on his desk, Rocket presses the display, bringing up a holographic image of The Receptionist. The Receptionist which he will probably be unable to pay, if no new cases come in. But this doesn't stop him from having a rather strident tone as he inquires, through partially-gritted teeth.

"Any new calls?"

Mantis has posed:
A silhouette forms against the semi-translucent panel inset in the heavy door to the office as a figure approaches from the exterior hallway. The flowing curves mean one thing -- a proper dame, the kind who could make a man forget his name, deadly as any gun and just as likely to leave you cold and broken in her wake. At least, that's what she's trying to be. The door opens and there's Mantis. She wears a masterpiece of a dress, freely flowing yet tight in all the right places, crafted from a shimmering, emerald green silk that glides over the body with a liquid grace, catching the light with every subtle movement. The neckline plunges in a daring V, adorned with intricate beading and sequins that catch and scatter light like stars on a dark night, tracing a path down to a cinched waist. The dress isn't just clothing. It's a statement -- one of allure, power, and a hint of mystery, designed to captivate and command attention in an instant.

It's a pretty convincing hologram, too, though it's a cheaper model and, as a result, glitches out every once in a while, revealing Mantis' true outfit: her typical, everyday green and black martial arts outfit.

Mantis closes the door behind her, steps into the office, and awkwardly turns to position Groot and Rocket behind her so she can turn to look at them over her shoulder.

"I hear you boys are ones to see when trouble's got a name and a face," Mantis tells them with a slightly deeper than usual voice before taking a much-too-long pull from the cigarette tucked in a long, black holder sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

She immediately begins to cough and wheeze as the smoke exhales from her mouth and nostrils in choppy, ruddy pulses. Eventually, she regains herself well enough to apologize. "Sorry," she manages in her normal voice. "I'll be better."

Rocket has posed:
The image of The Receptionist doesn't appear to move at all, despite the fact that Rocket is paying extra for the Quantum-Boost High Definition package. But close observation reveals that the hand which is holding a nail file is in fact moving, just at a glacial pace. It's safe to say that the pink-skinned woman behind the receptionist's desk isn't any happier to be here than Groot is, but she's not quite as good at hiding it.

But Rocket's look of confusion is replaced with one of even greater confusion when he turns his head to see whose silhouette is darkening his doorway. It takes him a few seconds to catch that his mouth is hanging open, but fortunately it isn't quite so bad that he has to roll it back up. Groot, on the other hand, remains positively agape, but then he often walks around with his mouth hanging open, so perhaps it's unrelated. Either way, he's too dumbstruck to issue a witty comeback, not een a snappy 'I am Groot.'

But then the spell is broken, as the femme fatale morphs back into the more familiar girl next bulkhead.

Rocket turns, still standing barefoot on his desk, and clears his throat a couple of times before responding in as smooth a fashion as he can muster.

"Ahem-hem-hem... you've come to the right place, ma'am. When trouble's got a name and a face, we give it a nickname and a firm smack."

"I am Groot..."

The smug grin on Rocket's face starts to collapse almost immediately. Some people really know how to ruin the moment.

Finally, The Receptionist looks up from her partially-filed nails, and seems disappointed to see the image of her putative boss on her own desk in the lobby. Rolling her eyes, she stops chewing her gum and answers.

"Yeah... some lady's here."

Rocket turns back to look at the image of The Receptionist, and his eye begins twitching again.

"Thank... you... Bereet. Now, could you bring us some Gargle Blasters?"

"Yeah... I don't know how to make those."

"Well, just bring us some fluid packs then!"

Stomping on his desk with a fleshy thud and the clack of untrimmed claws, Rocket dispels the holographic image and returns his attention to the woman who may or may not actually be a customer.

"You know, I had a feeling you'd be coming here Mantis. Let me guess, you need us to help find your purpose in life?"

Mantis has posed:
Mantis gives Groot a smirk. "Do you always talk like that around a lady?" she asks, once again putting on her best version of that transatlantic accent made famous in every film noir detective serial ever made. How Mantis got access to those remains a mystery that not even the Rocket & Groot Detective Agency can solve.

She takes a few steps towards the large desk that dwarfs the rest of the furniture in the room, leaving a whispy ribbon of smoke from her cigarette holder as she crosses the floor. Mantis lifts herself with both hands and sits on the edge of the desk. One leg is slowly crossed over the other, forcing the hologram dress to materialize the skin of a bare thigh to complete the illusion.

"You have a sharp tongue, Mr. Rocket, but it's your purpose in life that I'm here for. I trust you're not the kind of man who thinks every case can be solved with a set of knuckles," Mantis continues. She leans backwards a little and extends a coy smile to Groot. "...Or a set of branches," she adds as she tilts her head forward and winks.

"It's my sister," Mantis explains, turning to face Rocket on the desk next to her. They all know Mantis has no sister. She has a brother, but they don't know that.

"The kind of trouble my sister's in, it does not wash off with soap and water! They say you've got a reputation for getting things done, no matter how deep the dirt."

Rocket has posed:
The smile that Rocket offers in return is clearly forced and awkward. Fidgeting with the collar of his orange Space Onesie, he seems to suddenly have trouble making eye contact with his teammate. Leaving him looking toward the door, out the window, even up at the ceiling as if frantically hoping to find something in the room to talk about. But here in this crummy office on Knowhere, the only scenery to be found outside the window is the rivers of Celestial Cerebral Fluid, and the occasional groups of drunken vagrants armed with knives.

So he clears his throat again, and just kind of leans into it, despite clearly not having seen anywhere near as many films of any sort as Mantis has. He's not likely to get an assist in the conversation from the other half of the Rocket & Groot Detective Agency, as he's still standing with his feet in a giant pot, mouth hanging ever more widely open by the second.

"Well... if your sister is in as much trouble as you say, I'm sure we'd be happy to bathe her. Or... uh... maybe a nice pressure wash? Ahem! A quick dip in acid... you know what... you get the idea."

Perhaps he's feeling a bit uncomfortable standing so close to this particular version of Mantis, or perhaps he's simply tired of standing on his desk like a crazy person. Either way, he hops down into his chair, and does his best to look like he's an actual professional with an actual job, not an amateur who just set up his shingle a couple of hours ago in the cheapest office on Knowhere. Putting his elbows up on the table, he clasps his little rodenty hands together, and steeples his two forefingers together, resting his chin upon his thumbs.

Tap tap tap, go the forefingers.

"Why don't we start at the beginning. You're telling me you had parents?"

Mantis has posed:
Mantis -- or, more accurately, the character she's pretending to be for the sake of this nonsense -- follows Rocket across the desk with an unyielding stare. She reaches up and tucks a dangling lock of hair behind her ear and sighs softly. "You could do that, Mr. Rocket, I bet she'd like that, my sister, but she's been missing for three cycles," Mantis tells him before taking another more careful pull from her cigarette through its long, shimmering holder. There's an instant of regret on her face, but she's quick to force the moment to pass and, to her credit, she remains in character.

Mantis releases the smoke from her mouth, swaying her head back and forth as she does, which has never been done in any pulp fiction style film, by anyone, ever, but she's been doing pretty well so far aside from that.

As soon as the smoke is gone, Mantis continues the act by bending forward and leaning across the desk towards Rocket. "My sister's entangements are a little more, let's say, entangled than most. She was digging into things that some folks would..."

Mantis reaches out for the neck lining of Rocket's one-piece, perhaps to mimic some actress straightening out the collar and neck tie belonging to the leading man of the movie. "...rather stay buried..."

She stops as soon as Rocket asks about her parents. Without meaning to, Mantis breaks character in an instant. She sits up, shoulders stiff and raised as she looks away and assumes her normal posture. "Oh, I do not wish to speak about my parents, Rocket," Mantis tells Rocket in her normal, soft, almost sing-songy voice.

Rocket has posed:
Typically, Rocket has the confidence and attitude of a man at least three times his size. But though this is almost exactly the sort of thing that he probably imagined when he decided to become an investigator, it's clear that he's out of his element. Despite this, he seems to be having fun. Nervous, jittery, awkward fun. As she gets closer, he leans back subtly in his chair, dropping his hands to the sides as she reaches for him. Whether he's just going for the bit or not, this is certainly the closest he's ever come to actually letting her pet him.

His head tilts as she suddenly breaks character, and his primary Twitching Eye seems to get slightly larger as the 'eyebrow' on that side raises reflexively. Opening his mouth to say something, he instead lurches back in an almost shocked fashion as there's a sudden beep, and Mantis' forward-bending form is partially engulfed by the holographic image of the cheapest receptionist that he could find on a mining station with no labor unions.

"Gah! What do you want, Bereet?"

"Yeah... so... there's another lady here to see you."

"Okay, I'll be with her in a minute."

"Yeah... so... I already told her to head back..."

There's a scratching at the door, very harsh-sounding as the claws of some sort of horrific alien grate against the metal. And then the door opens, revealing a lady who is so bad that she makes Mantis' femme fatale creation look positively church-going. Yes, it's clear from the moment she steps in that she's a Very Bad Girl.

Striding in on all fours, with her tail wagging anxiously, the spacesuit-wearing canine doesn't seem interested in playing any games, nor does she seem to register that the hijinks that Rocket and Mantis are up to at the moment are in any way abnormal. But then, they probably didn't have a lot of old detective movies in Russia back when she was on Earth...

"Cosmo?"

"I am Groot?"

The brown short-haired dog rushes toward the desk and partially leaps, picking herself up so that her paws are resting on the desk. Peering over, she looks positively frantic as she communicates with them via Soviet-accented telepathy.

"Da! Thank goodness the Guardians have returned! I am in big trouble, friends! You must help me!"

Mantis has posed:
Yeah, Mantis' past is about as storied and weird as anyone else's, but she's always maintained the same story: Ego found her as a baby and took raised her as his own on his personal planet and that's all. She's never mentioned her parents or any other family members. It was just Mantis and Ego her whole life, right? Still, the subject is enough to abruptly tug Mantis out of her effort to give Rocket and Groot a proper customer for their weird, pulpy detective agency.

Mantis' eyes dart back and forth between Rocket, Groot, and the holographic Bereet. "Who is it?" she wonders softly.

When the door swings open, Mantis fills with happiness, sending both of her antennae high into the air. "Cosmo!" she shrieks just about as loud as she can. In one smooth motion, Mantis deactivates her Knowhere Confidential holographic dress, slides off the desk, and drops to her knees to give a proper hug.

Rocket has posed:
Receiving attention from Mantis, Cosmo reciprocates in a friendly fashion, putting her paws on Mantis' chest and licking wildly at her face. But though she's happy to see Mantis, and easily distracted, it's clear from the energy she's giving off that something has her truly worried. Her greeting complete, she leaves the embrace, and runs around in a circle, once, twice, and then leaps up onto the desk entirely.

Rolling her eyes, Bereet, swipes away the image on her end, and her lovely holographic representation disappears from the room. But she's certainly still here in spirit. Times are tough on Knowhere for those who don't have a lot of interest in taking up mining work.

"Oh, we must hurry, please! There's no time to waste! Already they could be anywhere!"

Clearing his throat again, Rocket leans forward, not seeming quite as thrilled to have this lady on his desk as he was with its previous occupant. But he knows Cosmo well enough to not discount her concerns. If something's got her this worried, it must be bad.

"Alright, alright... look... we were just in the middle of something here Cosmo. Mantis here's got a whole..."

Cosmo's eyes begins glowing with a purple energy that crackles, causing the whole room to glow with its eerie light. The hat rack in the corner picks up one of his branches to shield his eyes.

"I AM GROOT!"

"It is urgent, I tell you! You see, my babies... they have gone missing!"