Our Place In the Universe (RP 4 of 4)

Author's Note: Fuck me, I'm getting real bad at this. Twice in a row now, I can't even make deadline. Oh well, not like I had a match to worry about, though now I gotta go write one. Anyway, you know how we Guardians do by now; this is part 4, read the others first, or don't. Whatever.
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(Pt.1: "Out of Gas" - was originally intended to be written by Bonnie Blue , but circumstances prevented her from doing so. Please instead accept this rough outline of proposed events, and imagine it as awesome as Bonnie would have made it.)

  Our story opened with Grim cruising through space in the outer reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy, almost ready to make the jump to translight speeds so the Guardians could cross the vastness of "dead" space between galaxies. They passed through the tail end of a time-skipping nebula of some unknown sort that caused Grimmauld some pain and shorted out some of his technological components, which left the Guardians adrift in space. Bonnie, Omega, and Alex were on the bridge when this happened, and Omega quipped about this not being how he'd want to go... again. Grimmauld told Bonnie they weren't actually screwed, he just needed some raw materials to repair his techno-innards. Alex pointed out that there weren't any planets nearby, and the only things on board that counted as "raw materials" was the Guardians and their vehicles.

  The gang decided to go looking for Polar and Nightmare in order to discuss whose vehicle(s) might need to be sacrificed in order to get them home, and found the Unstable Elements ducked off somewhere out of the way with Nightmare still naked from the events of Rising Daran. Just as Bonnie mentioned that somebody might have to give up their ride, Grimmauld interrupted to tell her that he had just detected a comet that would pass "sort of" close by. It wasn't heading in quite the right direction, and it was a couple hundred thousand miles away, but there apparently was some time to figure out how to redirect it, as it wasn't going to pass the "optimal interception point" until the following day. Which was obviously a long enough time that Nightmare didn't want to be prancing about naked in front of a bunch of people, and said as much.

  Bonnie helped out by asking Grimmauld if there was any extra clothing on board, and he told her about some nifty liquid clothing, a feature designed to accommodate any species' modesty. Polar kicked out Omega and Alex while Bonnie made something for Nightmare to wear, then Bonnie, Polar, and Nightmare were to have a discussion about the prom photograph that Bonnie gave to Nightmare, also during the events of Rising Daran. There was no real resolution there, and as the conversation wound down, Bonnie left the couple alone. She went off to, I dunno, stargaze, or commune with Grimmauld, or possibly do both.


~Struggling to keep his craft steady, Jay Omega awaited the signal from fellow Guardian, Cameron Bankston Junior - better known as the Polar Phantasm - his weapon systems primed and ready. "Come on, man," Cam chided him, "We don't have a whole lot of time left to get this right, and you're still all over the place. I thought you were supposed to be good at shooting stuff." Jay made a face at the good-natured ribbing, and made a few adjustments with his maneuvering jets. "Sorry, dude," Jay apologized helplessly, "I'm doin' the best I can; the nano-tech ain't exactly finished repairing itself yet. To be honest, I'm amazed this fucking thing is even flying right now." Though he knew it to be true, Polar shook his head at Omega over the comms window. "That's no excuse; you should be able to compensate for that." He said with a grin.

  Jay arched an eyebrow and flipped him the bird. "Remind me again why I have to be the one who detonates the missile?" Cam sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then shot Omega a flat look. "How many missiles do you have left?" He asked Jay in a calm voice. Omega ran a quick glance over his instrument panels - most of which he still didn't understand - and located his ammo supply. "Uhh... two?" Jay said uncertainly, prompting Polar to nod. "That's why; we'd only have one shot to practice with, and that's not enough for me to be comfortable with." The video window displaying Omega's face shrank in size as Bonnie Blue joined the conversation. "What exactly are we practicin' for, Cam?" She asked as her window popped up, "Y'all didn't give us much to go on, just had us get to work blowin' up our own ammo." Again the video windows shrank, as both Alex Richards and Crystal Bankston - aka Nightmare - also joined in.

  "Not that I'm complaining about blowing shit up, but I would also like to know why we're wasting precious explosives." Alex didn't say anything, just blinked his eyes out of sync, then took a swig from a small flask. "Yeah, you right," Polar replied, then transmitted a separate group of coordinates to each of his teammates, "Here's the play; when we get word from Grimmauld that the comet is in range, everyone takes up their designated position. You'll have from the time the comet passes the first set of coordinates, until it passes the second set, in order to set off an explosion close enough to the object that the shockwave will shift its direction, but not so close that you blow it up." Jay and Crystal nodded in understanding, Richards once again drank from his small flask, but Bonnie fixed Cam with an expression of consternation. "And what if we miss?" The question caused Polar to suck in a breath through his teeth as he considered how best to answer.

  "Well, that depends. If you set the blast off too soon, or if you happen to miss completely," He said with a pointed look at Omega, "Then you probably won't shift the comet's path enough for the next person in line, and we'd be stuck out here for the rest of our very short lives." That seemed to have a sobering effect on the group, even Alex. A little. "But that would be a slightly better outcome than actually hitting the thing. A direct hit could cause the comet to shatter, and the last thing we need is razor sharp ice shards flying in every possible direction at ludicrous speeds." Grimmauld called out to them then, and everyone looked to Bonnie for a translation, though they surely knew what was up. "Grimmauld says it'll be here any... uh... minute now, so if'n we're gonna do this, we'd best be about it." Cameron nodded and turned the ARCTIC about, signaling the rest of the team to get into position. "All right, let's go steal us a comet."

  The Guardians moved to their designataed coordinates, though Alex had to be redirected twice. "Sorry, it's these damn display screens; the numbers are too blurry." Jay rolled his eyes, hardly surprised by the revelation. "Gee, I wonder why that is. You might be able to see better if you weren't constantly sauced, y'know. Probably wouldn't be as much fun, though." Richards chuckled and shook his head at Omega. "C'mon, don't you think Nicky knows me better than that? These screens have a reverse blur to them, so that they actually make sense when I'm hammered and get double - or even triple - vision. Problem is, I'm barely tipsy right now, and I can't see shit." That comment drew a frown from Polar, and he gave Alex a questioning look. "Wait, then how have you been scoring perfect hits all through this practice session?" He asked in confusion.

  "Oh, I actually already had some of my weapons preset to self destruct," Replied the Archduke, "Most places won't sell me fireworks anymore, so I had to get creative." Understanding dawned on Nightmare's face. "Well that explains why those first two missiles had confetti in them," She said as Alex nodded, "But why was that last one full of candy?" Richards gave a sheepish shrug. "That one was actually a pinata with a See-Four charge in it; my friend Steven's birthday is coming up, and I told him it would be a real blast, heh heh heh." Jay stared at him in wide-eyed horror over the video screen. "Dude! Not cool! A blast that size would have killed him! And probably me too, since I loves me some free candy." The Archduke gave an exaggerated shrug and looked away. "Yeah, well, no great loss." Nightmare snickered and Bonnie smirked, Omega gave them all one sour look, and Polar smoothed things over.

  "Come on people, stay focused. We all want to get out of here, which means this has to go off without a hitch. Bonnie, how we doing on the timeframe?" A moment of telepathic communication passed between Blue and their living starship before she responded. "He says I should have made visual contact alre-- oh damn, there it is!" Bonnie cried in surprise, "Holy mother of... that thing is huge!" The time of uncertainty had passed, and the moment of truth had arrived. Here and now the Guardians would either save themselves and their vehicles, or they would have to sacrifice their personal transportation, and suffer through a techno-babble laden tirade from Tesla upon return to Earth. Omega was uncertain about how the others might feel on the subject, but he thought it almost preferable to perish in the void than to face the anger of a certified mad scientist.

  A moment of very tense silence passed as the Guardians waited for the massive comet to pass within range of Bonnie's weapons. When finally the collection of ice and dust particles drew close enough, Blue targeted a section of clear space relatively close to the comet, and launched a missile along with high-calibre rounds from a forward-facing machine gun. A few moments later, a miniscule explosion fizzled in a small sphere; the burning material having no oxygen to consume. But the concussive force of the blast spread out in an ever-expanding sphere, the leading edge of which jostled Bonnie in the Ranchero; jouncing her about like a leaf in a whirlpool. The shockwave also seemed to have the desired effect, and had pushed the comet away from Bonnie, altering its course by several degrees. "All right! I think it's workin'!" She said in excitement, her eyes shining.

  The Archduke of Mass Confusion was next in the line, and as the comet passed within his target range, he achieved similar results, though the bulkier frame of the Strange Rover bucked less in the ensuing shockwave. What mattered was that they had managed to shift the comet's path by quite a bit now, and success was a highly likely end result. Crystal fired off her weapons almost as soon as the comet passed in front of the DREEM Machine, the tank-like craft hardly buffeting in the shockwave at all, due to superior compensating technology. Which left things in the unreliable hands of Jay Omega. Also the more capable hands of the Polar Phantasm, but let us not forget the damage suffered by the Omega Man's spacecraft. Or perhaps we can, as the damage didn't seem to be much of a factor any more. For when Polar lined up the shot and fired his missile, Jay's high-calibre rounds pierced the warhead at precisely the right location.

  Unfortunately, it seemed that Cameron's worries about his and Omega's vehicles being too lightly armed had been well founded, as the shockwave from the blast barely pushed the comet in the desired direction. Reacted quickly thanks to an inordinate amount of time playing video games, Jay quickly juked to the side in a barrel roll and fired off both his remaining missiles; cutting into them with bursts from his machine guns. However, even with these added concussive blasts, it was obvious the final pair hadn't been able to produce enough kinetic force to push the comet into the right trajectory. "Well shit." Polar said in frustration. "Looks like we're gonna have to draw straws when we get back; see who's going to have to give up their ride. Let's bring it in, Guardians." One by one, the team dejectedly acknowledged the orders. "Roger." Said Jay, as he vectored for Grimmauld. "Roger." Echoed Alex as he mirrored Omega's movements.

  "I don't give a fuck what straw I get, I'm not giving up my hovertank." Crystal declared petulantly. "Would you rather be stuck out here, babe? Besides, Tesla can build you another one." Nightmare put on a resolutely stubborn face. "Yeah, well, he can build you a new snowmobile. Or Jay a new whatever the fuck that's supposed to be. Or a new Ranchero for Bonnie." Cam raised a hand to stop her there. "I don't know about that; there's some crazy weird stuff in the Ranchero that Tesla didn't build in the first place, right Bonnie?" No answer came from the Daughter of Time, and Polar checked his display screen. The image of Bonnie seemed to have frozen, and there was a bar of static across her video window. Cameron suddenly felt strange; as though the air around him had become a thick gel. He could still move freely, it just felt as though he were slower than he should be.

  An emerald green streak shot past, swung out wide, then flew straight toward the comet, which was now several thousand miles distant. Polar immediately intuited what was going on; Bonnie had done something with her temporal manipulation in order to catch the speeding comet, and was now trying to ram it in one last ditch effort to shift it toward Grimmauld. "Bonnie, no!" Cam shouted, unsure if she could even hear him. What happened next was not at all what he was expecting. The gelatinous feeling of the air evaporated, and Bonnie's video screen unfroze as she presumably re-entered the normal flow of time. "Eight ball, corner pocket." She declared with a steely determination, then cranked the wheel of the Ranchero at the last possible moment. The tail end of the heavily armored vehicle slammed into the side of the comet with several thousand Newtons of force, breaking off a large chunk of ice.

  More importantly, the maneuver shunted the comet several degrees further, which put it almost perfectly in line with the desired direction. The Guardians watched with bated breath as the chunk of ice flew closer and closer toward their distant dragon-like friend. The five of them heaved simultaneous sighs of relief as they saw Grimmauld's maw open wide as the comet came within range. A tongue-like protrusion whipped out from Grimmauld's maw, wrapped around the passing comet, and pulled it into the cavernous interior of the living starship. "Okay then. I, uh, guess that means mission accomplished, right?" Once more, Bonnie took a moment to commune telepathically. "Yep; Grimmauld says he's got more than enough carbon molecules to effect repairs, so we should be on our way home in about... I think that translates to 'three shakes of a lamb's tail', but that sure wasn't a lamb I saw."

  "That's the best news I've heard all day," Alex interjected, "And I discovered I can become an invisible woman earlier." Omega shuddered as he recalled those particular events. "That reminds me; I'm gonna have to get you a collar with a bell, or have Nicky implant a tracking chip, or something. An invisible Alex Richards running around is equal parts hilarious and horrifying." Cam smiled to himself as the Guardians entered Grimmauld's "shuttle bay" area. He could hardly wait to get home, and these last twenty-four hours had made it clear the rest of the team felt the same way.~