11182/How could Monitor Duty get any worse

How could Monitor Duty get any worse
Date of Scene:	16 May 2022
Location:	Monitor Hub - Watchtower
Synopsis:	Wally, Booster, and Diana try their best to make Power Girl just a little less grumpy. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. (It did not, for those who cannot handle the suspense.)
Cast of Characters:	Karen Starr, Booster Gold, Diana Prince, Wally West

---

Karen Starr has posed:
    Monitor Duty is one of the first things a member of the Justice League gets to do. It's relatively easy, incredibly important, and entirely safe. It was, of course also immeasurably boring. It isn't uncommon, then, for the more... lax of the League Members to accrue a backlog of Monitor shifts. When you miss one, of course someone picks up the slack- the things that Leaguers are out doing are important enough that nobody gets any gruff for just missing when it was their turn: But, trick is, you've got to make it up some day. Sure, shifts of duty are traded like a commodity sometimes- mostly as a payment for some favor of some kind. Karen doesn't do that, but others do.

    Primarily, Karen doesn't trade shifts because she's already in /massive/ debt, as it were. She skips almost every one of her shifts, and of course... That means that sometimes, she has to sit here, back to back, to back, to /back/, taking her turn of Monitor Duty otherwise Clark will find her and give her a stern but polite talking to about the nature of Responsibility.

    That's why, today, There sits the imposing form of Power Girl, blue-booted feet kicked up onto the console of the Monitor Hub and arms folded in a way that really shouldn't be allowed in the bylaws. Her eyes stare unblinking at the monitors as emergencies come up, but then are immediately tended by Earth's heroes. Worse still, there are currently no extra-terrestrial threats, despite that many might be looming on the horizon.

    This means that the blonde looks like at any moment she could physically die of boredom, unable to sleep through her shift because when you can juggle planets, for some reason people keep feeling like you need to have a higher order of responsibility.

    It's almost like she joined some kind of extremely responsible organization.

Booster Gold has posed:
Responsibility is one of the core values of the Justice League. That and great hair. It makes one wonder how it was that Booster Gold was able to make it onto the roster. The answer, my friends, is that is it a combined score, and his hair is just so magnificent it overcame his whopping zero in responsibility. (Ok, truth be told, it was a negative number, but Batman's program accidentally failed to account for that because he only deals in absolutes, so...

"What's going on?" asks Booster Gold, as he meanders into the monitor room. He had long since been 'excused' from monitor duty because after they tried to punish him with it, they realized they were only punishing themselves. "Oh, wow. How'd they snucker YOU into taking a shift?"

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana is back and forth from the Watchtower of late. Normally one to prefer Earth bound Watch duty from the Hall of Justice, she does have some measure of responsibility when it comes to making space-based appearances though.

Especially with her Starport project back on Earth in the Atlantic ocean...

Diana is arriving just a few steps behind Booster. She's just kinda 'there' shortly after he speaks, walking right past him. She offers him a smile, dressed in her Amazon armor.

"Peej. The Shi'ar ships are setting off again. I thought I would warn you in-person, before you see their vessels suddenly streaking across the skies..." The Princess notes as she walks closer to the monitors where Power Girl is lounging.

Diana stops there, and lets her eyes roam over the display, her leather wrapped hands at her sides.

Wally West has posed:
Wally is hanging about on the moonbase. it's his turn to be there too and well he wasnt doing much. Trying to decide where to kill time he zips around the moonbase looking for a comfy spot to nap or something to do.

Eventually he just goes to chat up Karen who is also on duty tonight and is more apt to actually be doing work. "Sooooo What's shaking PeeG? oh hey Booster whats up" Wally says surprised to see him there.

Karen Starr has posed:
    There are few ways for Power Girl's mood to instantly sour in a nonviolent situation. One of those ways just meandered himself into the room, and as soon as she hears him behind her chair, there is a small twitch of her eye. "They didn't sucker me into a shift. I just had a few missed, so I figured while it was calm, and slow," and while she was casually avoiding the spaceport so she didn't punch a Shi'ar ambassador or two- "that I'd start making up for lost time. Because I do my job." Admittedly, she's racked up three days of Monitor Duty in her rush to be /literally anywhere else/ doing /literally anything else./ Not, you know, three shifts: But three whole days' worth. Seventy-two plus hours of Monitor Duty, all with her name on it.

    She turns in the chair somewhat, taking her feet off of the controls, and remarks to Booster, "What do you want, Booster?" Her tone isn't entirely venomous, but as is common for Booster, she sounds like she's tired of him already. Of course, that's probably only provocation for the man to interact further.

    Diana enters, and she knows now that she cannot end this conflict- when did it become a conflict?- with Booster violently. She then gives Power Girl both good and bad news, and the blonde throws up her hands. "Oh. GREAT. So they're going to be in our airspace for a bit and you're going to tell me it would somehow be an interstellar incident if they just /happened/ to be mysteriously shot down and the wreckage hurled into the sun, aren't you?" she states, her expression this mix of irate and somehow even more irate.

    Then, of course, Wally arrives, and Karen can only respond with a not at all quiet and certainly not at all reasonable "Oh, great, now it's a /party./"

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana glances over at the flamboyant Power Girl, who gets a soft smile from the Princess. "You are doing a fine job up here. Let us not taint it with a new inter-stellar conflict, mm?" She says then back to the blonde, teasing just a little of course.

Her eyes then go to Wally who ran right past her. "Hello." She says to him then, her voice pleasantly calm as she steps over to one of the chairs only to lower down on to its edge.

With her back straight,a nd the glow of the monitors illuminating her profile, Diana looks to the others in the room.

"I find duty up here to be quite peaceful. Especially in observation mode. Watching the other planets swirling in the natural states... it is refreshing to me. Mesmerizing even..."

Wally West has posed:
Wally frowns at the sacrastic greeting from Power Girl. "I'm sorry"

"Hey Diana I um didnt see you there. Sorry" The Flash can sometimes be abscent minded thinking too fast for his mouth.

Karen Starr has posed:
    "Oh, yeah, not hard to do a fine job when the job is just sitting around and letting things happen and telling other people to take care of things. It's just /great./" she remarks, with a roll of her eyes that sees her turn her head back around towards the monitors themselves again. With a cock of her hips, she folds her arms, as a Shi'ar Cruiser leaves the atmosphere and appears on the sensors of the hub.

    For a moment, Karen regards this with a stern expression, eyes narrowed. "They'd damn well deserve it, and you know it." she finally remarks towards Diana- seemingly allowing the ship to leave. "Their whole empire showed up without question to murder one person and whoever got in their way, and sure there was a regime change, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before we hear 'new boss, same as the old boss' playing in our ears." Scoffing at that, Karen tilts her head to regard Wally.

    "No reason to be sorry. I just hate sitting up here and doing nothing. There are people down there that need help that our sensors can't hear, but /I/ can, and I'm stuck up here hoping that they've got a local that can stop whatever's going on." Clearly, it drives her nuts.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana's eyes rise up to look at the monitor focusing on the Shi'ar vessel as it makes its way further away from Earth. She listens to Power Girl while she makes her grumpy statements which eventually has Diana looking away back over to her. She shows the Kryptonian a sly grin before her eyes dart over to Wally.

"It is good to see you again, Wally." Diana says in her Themysciran accented voice. "I hope that all is well for you, and yours."

She looks back to Karen then who gets another sly grin. "You will be back at it in no time. This is just a ... measure of faith toward the teammates who also put in time to do this. After all, as you said, when 'bad things' do happen up here, they do tend to be very very bad. Imagine being here when that happened? You would save the day, most assuredly."

Diana spares a glance back toward the room's exit then.

"There are many civilians aboard the Watchtower too, in the science sections." She says, before looking back to Karen once again.

"You are here to protect them, too."

Wally West has posed:
Wally smiles and blushes. "things are as good and weird as ever my daughter whom isnt even born yet is already older than me." he shakes his head.

"Peeg i get how you feel but think about it, Supes is out there and Supergirl, and the titans and countless other heroes are down there right now. but someone needs to keep an eye out for super hight level threats. And its not forever its just a rotating shift." Wally says trying to ease Karen's annoyance and frustration.

Karen Starr has posed:
    "Yeah yeah yeah," Karen begins, dismissively, "I got the talk from Kal. It's important. I can't do everything myself. Someone has to be up here to make sure the civilians are safe, and all of that. I get it, I really do." She moves over, and drops herself into the chair, some small amount of care being taken to make sure that her half-cape stays under her when she does.

    "And I /have/ faith in the Titans, and the Avengers, and my cousin and sister down in Metropolis. I just feel like I'm watching a horror movie, and I'm helpless to do anything while I'm up here. It's /miserable./"

    She lets out a sigh, somewhat slumping onto one fist opposite the side of the chair that Diana's sitting on. "Thanks for the pep talk, though. I'm gonna be here a while."

    Grumpy as it may be, Karen is admitting at the very least that Wally and Diana are absolutely right. Apparently, that doesn't mean she's going to like it.

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana looks to Wally once more, and offers him a warm smile. "I have heard about the child situation. I hope for the best for that. I am sure it is very confusing, from a wide variety of angles..." She says before her gaze returns to Karen. Diana now shows a more broad grin toward the curmudgeony behavior from the Powerful Girl.

Wonder Woman stands up then, and places her right hand on Karen's shoulder. She pats it softly two times. "You are a force to be reckoned with. Not just in your strength, but also in your compassion, and willingness to play along with our boring, horrible, rules." She chides the other softly before she turns to leave back the way she'd come.

A look over her shoulder is given then. "I will be in the recreation area for a time before heading back down to the Starport. Should anything go sour, just reach out."

And with that, the tall Amazonian wanders back toward the main corridor of the Watchtower.