5664/Comet at me bro

Comet at me bro
Date of Scene:	21 March 2021
Location:	Maxima's Flagship
Synopsis:	Karen catches Scott alone stroking his eel in space and gives him a disapproving look.
Cast of Characters:	Scott Lang, Karen Starr

---

Scott Lang has posed:
"One small step for man, one giant..."

"Just get out of the airlock already!"

Scott mutters quietly under his breath as he's hurried along. Very few of anyone else on the ship seemed to be all that interested in the fact they were in SPACE. But when the warship dropped out of hyperspace for a couple hours to recharge and recalibrate on the long trip Scott saw his chance and took it, begging his way into a trip outside. The Ant-Man suit was perfectly suited for the task, made to take all sorts of extremes, and it hadn't taken much to equip a couple of magnets to the boot soles thanks to the fabricator onboard. So he clomps out onto the hull, a million billion stars glistening overhead in completely unknown constellations, bursts of color here and there from far off nebulas or the Milky Way itself. Scott gasps at the beauty of it all and then, his father tourism instincts kick in.

"I need to take a picture," he mutters, the airlock door sealing behind him with a hiss as he fumbles to retrieve his phone from one of the suit pouches.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen has been... Okay on the ship. Most of the time she does her best to avoid the Guardians, a group of people best described as Space Rogues that Power Girl is just not comfortable with. Like it or not, Maxima may be what she is, but at the very least she isn't entirely duplicitous. It might end up in a fight were something to come down to it- but Power Girl is fairly certain she can take the woman.

    Judging by her attitude, you'd think she was alone out here. Sadly, however, her thoughts aren't visible to prying eyes. The way Karen is shouldering as much of the responsibility as physically possible can only be assumed.

    In one hand is a mug, steaming with the results of her learning- the automated fabricators can now make a long lost Kryptonian beverage, akin in some ways to tea. It might surprise others to learn that someone who looks like she does- and, frankly, acts like she does- has memorized the exact molecular composition of... Anything, really. Only Kara and Kal at all know that both Karas were guaranteed entry into the Kryptonian Science League.

    She takes a sip as she stares out of one of the portside windows, idly watching Scott fumble for his phone. "Oh boy." she states to herself, half-muttering that as she waits patiently for, well, things to go wrong. It isn't anything about Scott, as an aside: She trusts that his suit is made for things like this, and despite the fumbling, she knows he can muster enough competence to do whatever he needs to at any point in time.

    It's just that things always go wrong.

Scott Lang has posed:
"There we go, man I wish I could videochat from out here. We'll just record something to watch later," Scott decides, feeling strangely light and awkward, the magnets adhering him to the ship but his body still coming with a sense of weightlessness all the same. He snaps a few shots of the, well is it still sky if that's all there is? Whatever the case he takes a number of photos that would make astronomers back on Earth fight to the death for, and at least twice as many selfies featuring his shiny helmeted head blocking the heavenly alien views before he turns on the video record.

"Hey Peanut. Guess where your Dad is? I'm in freaking outer space! Daddy's an astroanut now! We're almost to our first alien planet too, I'll have lots more pictures to take. Alright? I love you sweetie I...what's that?" Scott's sign-off interrupted as something glittery catches his eye.

Those who did a lot of intergalactic travel probably know full well space is never as empty as it seems. The creatures coming at Scott now had been picked up in the hyperspace wake of sorts, dragged along many lightyears. They resembled if anything crystalline snakes waggling through deep space, dozens of them, semi-translucent and wiggling along now no longer propelled by the craft they drifted around. Starlight glistened off their hides, each creatures a good twelve to twenty feet long but slender and delicate looking, and space near and around them seemed wavy and strange giving them an altogether dreamy quality.

"Sweetie? Sweetie do you see this?! Space eels!" Scott whispers as if Cassie is actually on the line as he films them, the creatures seeming to take little notice of the out of his depth man. That is, until one drifts close enough to tempt Scott to reach out with a gloved hand. Pet the wild animal. He would never make it as a park ranger. The second his glove comes in contact with the wavy space around the creature a powerful gravitational field nabs hold of him. For a moment he can feel himself being stretched by his magnet locked boots, and his grav-locked arm...and then the arm wins as his boots detach and Scott begins to flail wildly, being hauled in tow with the flock/school of space eels off into deep space.

"Uh, guys? Anyone still monitoring this frequency? Hello? Help? Anyone? I know I said I wanted 15 minutes but, GUYS?!" Scott's voice becoming increasingly frantic. Unfortunately whatever bored Guardians he had roped into letting him out the airlock hadn't deigned to stick around to actually monitor the situation, let the stupid human play outside for a while and let it back in later. You don't have to watch it.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Karen actually smiles to herself. Cassie's going to love the photos, and as long as they don't have to punch the entire Green Lantern Corps, Oa will provide so much beautiful scenery in jade that she'll flip as soon as they all get back.

    They just have to get back first. Idly, Karen sips at her mug while Scott encounters some local space wildlife, and her brow raises. "They travel by-" she states, to nobody in particular. It's a lesson that Scott learns personally, though.

    Popping off of the hull of the ship, Scott's sudden transition from spacewalk to spacefloat has her attention. Kidnapped by space eels is one hell of a way to go, but nobody would believe her that that's how Scott died- least of which Maxima, who Karen figures would be upset enough over it that she might blame Karen or someone else, and start a fight. That'd be bad.

    Scott rotates in space enough to see Power Girl in the window, and she quietly presses a button, and a shutter begins rolling down in front of her. She's staring out of it as it does, and it slowly eclipses her form, allowing Scott to watch as his hope of rescue literally closes the blinds on him.

    Of course, that morbid joke finished, Karen burns rubber, setting the mug down before booking it through the ship fast enough that there is a rush of air going past multiple people, a pink blur being all they can see.

    She only stops when she gets to the airlock, tapping at it and going through the motions to depressurize and open the outer doors, floating off into the black and taking a moment to get her bearings. Sure, it's probably not especially reassuring to see a Kryptonian space herself to your rescue, but it soon becomes apparent that she isn't having any trouble with the change in pressure or lack of air.

    Because of /course/ they don't need a suit to travel into space.

    After a moment's pause, she suddenly lurches forward, charging off towards the school of eels and catching up with it, to float alongside Scott for a moment. It's visible now that her Avengers earpiece is in, so she'll be able to hear him when he speaks on that communicator.

    Idly, she just folds her arms.

Scott Lang has posed:
"Power Girl? Power Girl can you see me?! Power Girl come in I...don't. Don't do that," Scott's voice going from frantic hopefulness to a sort of dejected whimper that brings to mind a puppy that someone has accidentally kicked without seeing it as Scott watches the space shutters close. He's still fairly sure she wouldn't let him die, at least in the logical part of his brain. but there's still that momentary brief bit of nagging doubt that makes his ridiculous situation all that much more worse.

He at least attempts to help himself first though during the couple of minutes between Power Girl's inevitable betrayal and her triumphant return, setting his phone back away and then twisting his body. If he could just get his feet planted maybe...and now they were stuck also, Scott hunched over, not quite touching the eel but rather some invisible field a few inches away from it. It was a strange phenonmenon, a powerful hard edge of gravity, not the way most natural fields gradually weaken with distance. Spock would no doubt find it fascinating.

"Dammit!" Scott hollers when, well it wasn't precisely a shadow in deep space. Just a sense of something dangerous looming behind him. Judging. Scott peers over his shoulder to find Power Girl calmly floating along staring at him. His face was hidden by the metal helmet, only his eyes truly visible which flick back and forth between his trapped limbs and her several times.

"This isn't as bad as it looks," he tries.

Karen Starr has posed:
    Power Girl can't sigh in space, but she can roll her eyes. Rocking her head back slightly, she reaches forward, and takes a hold of his suit around the chest. She has to apply reverse pressure, in order to detach him from the eels- but they can't argue with her strength, and his suit is designed for punishment.

    It might not /feel/ great, but it never was going to. This was some sort of space finger trap, and while it probably isn't going to dislocate his shoulder, but there's going to be a tug. Frankly, Power Girl /does/ find it interesting, but there is little she can do to stop and study the eels. She's not about to disrupt their (usually) harmless migration patterns.

    When Scott finally dislodges- probably with more complaints than it needs, but that's to be expected even for people who aren't Scott- Karen detaches from the school of eels and starts flying gently back to the ship, to set Scott back down on his feet- inside the airlock.

    The accompanying rush of air and hiss of the closing doors allows her to finally speak to him. "Probably best not to go on any unattended space walks. Ship could've broke light while you were out, and even if the eels hadn't gotten you, that would've sucked."

Scott Lang has posed:
"Ow, ow, ow, owowowow, PeeGee can we maybe try..." Scott gets as far into his complaints before he pops out of the miniaturized gravity well like a cork from a champagne bottle though the Kryptonian grip keeps him from flying off into space at far high velocities. Looking rather more deflated than when he started this whole ordeal, Scott almost falls on his butt in the airlock as artificial gravity returns alongside the oxygen, slumping against a wall to catch himself as his body grows used to the feeling again, tapping at the button on his helmet causing it to collapse back revealing his face looking a fair bit sweaty, one imagines more from stress than the heat of deep space.

"I wasn't unattended. I mean, nobody was watching me at the time but, the Guardians were supposed to come open the airlock back up in like...five minutes ago," Scott confirms checking the time on his phone and then pursing his lips. He was starting to suspect reliability wasn't one of their strong suits. "Alright so maybe there was some unneccessary risk. But come on, did you see it out there?! I don't get how you can just sit in your room and not act like this is incredible!" Scott's tone that of every father who has dragged their children to the Grand Canyon only to watch them play on their phones.

Karen Starr has posed:
    /Now/ there's the sigh.

    "Yeah, we didn't hire them because they were the most dependable source of space travel we could find. They were one of two options and, as you can see, we felt the need to hedge our bets. Not sure if I trust them at all, but so far they haven't done anything egregious. Just... Don't expect them to be the most vigilant. I don't think they're bad people, just... Not the kind to be a crutch to people on the outside."

    Shaking her head for a moment, she sets her hands on her hips. "Did you get enough pictures out there? There'll be plenty to send back to Cassie, I'm sure. Just... Be more careful. It's only going to get more dangerous from here. Oa /should/ be safe, but I have no idea how that's going to go. It could get really, really ugly, and you'll need to be ready to run. And, maybe, punch some people. I hope we won't have to."

Scott Lang has posed:
"Well I mean, they're not all bad. Couple of them like my card tricks at least," Scott at least trying to find a silver lining, see the best in everyone and all that. He straightens off the wall and gives his shoulder a few shrugs up and down, still throbbing from the pressures it had gone through, fairly certain he had Power Girl's fingerprints as bruises on his arm under the suit.

"And yeah I got plenty of pictures. Have to find her a proper souvenier yet to bring her back. Don't think a rock will cut it. Maybe find a shop on Oa," he muses, the talk of possibly running and punching seeming not to phase him at all. What mission had he been on where that hadn't been a possibility? And even when it was a low possiblity, well, the odds never seemed in his favor on those matters.

His other hand comes up to rest on his sore shoulder and rub at it as he refocuses on Power Girl and his mouth screws up a bit. He wasn't the most prideful Avenger by far but..."Thanks for helping me out again by the way. If you ever actually need my help instead for a change don't be afraid to ask. Not that uh, I can think of anything you can't do already. Or that you're afraid of anything for that matter much less when it comes to asking," he finally rambles out.

The airlock by now is done cycling, the door into the ship sliding open with a final whoosh and not a Guardian in sight about to man the controls.

Karen Starr has posed:
    "Yeah I don't think Oa has a gift shop." she remarks, taking those first few steps off into the ship proper. "You don't need to thank me. Just don't pet the wildlife." she states, waving over her shoulder for a moment as she continues on in front of him. She doesn't seem to have to rub at anything that's sore herself- which, frankly, is par for the course. She probably could've gone for a space-swim alongside those things if she wanted to. It's just not /fair./

    "In all seriousness, everything we're going to meet has evolved to survive in the cold of space or in the boot camps of Oa. I don't think there's such a thing as nonhostile lifeforms out here. That said, it could've been worse. You only got a little unlucky, and honestly? Dangerous or not, that was a once in a lifetime experience, meeting those. Probably ought to hold onto that."

    Turning to face him, and lifting off of the ground to float backwards because it's easier than walking, Karen offers a bit of a shrug. "I'm sure there are plenty of things you can do that I might need one day. I can't shrink, and I can't guilt Pym into doing anything, so you've got uses. Don't sell yourself short. You're Ant-Man for a reason. Just... Try not to bite off more than you can chew, and I swear if I hear any complaints about someone sleight of handing a Lantern's ring off of their hand, I will probably hit you depending on the context."

Scott Lang has posed:
"I am going to find a t-shirt on Oa purely to see the look on your face, just watch if I don't," Scott counters with deadly seriousness even as Karen proceeds to casually show off by floating in front of him while being taller, stronger, faster, able to survive in the cold depths of space...he shakes his head to clear away the little demon of jealousy trying to take hold. "But yea, it'll all make a great story to tell when we get back at least," Scott agrees as he stops in front of his room's door and lets out a long sigh of his own this time. "For now though I'm taking a long hot shower and see if the matter fabricator on this ship can produce Aleve and not something that will knock me out for four days straight and leave me blind. Thanks PeeGee, you need someone tiny to get the remote out from under the sofa or something come knock on my door," Scott informs her. Was he really calling her PeeGee now?

Alas she doesn't get a chance to nip this awful nickname in the bud before Scott vanishes into his room, the door whooshing shut behind. Though Power Girl is afforded a brief glimpse of a cabin much like her's, but done up in bachelor pad decor. Scott had REALLY been spending a lot of time with that fabricator judging by the beanbags, basketball hoop mounted on a wall, and what appeared to be a number of magic props strewn across the floor haphazardly.