4660/That is NOT Zardu Hasselfrau

That is NOT Zardu Hasselfrau
Date of Scene:	15 June 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	While running errands for Cosmo, Star*Drake collects and delivers some things and people. Featuring the Hoff and ABBA
Cast of Characters:	StarDrake, Gamora, 87

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StarDrake has posed:
A confluence of cosmic events has occurred, so important that it requires the services of the galaxy's most ,,, what's the word? Confidential? Yes. The Galaxy's most confidential courier, Mikh Drakos, aka Star*Drake.

(You do have to pronounce the asterisk, but nobody knows how.)

So, earlier this galactic year, one Yondu Udonta failed utterly to deliver famed (and frequent Galactic Damsel, having been kidnapped before 42 of his last 43 performances) singer and performer Zardu Hasselfrau ... who was instead delivered by someone else. Yep.

And the person that Yondu THOUGHT was Hasselfrau has finally been unearthed from the Collector's collection, as it turns out he's only the exact genetic clone of Hasselfrau, and not really the right guy. This means he's not only not worth the cash the Collector paid for him, but Cosmo is peeved at him for messing with Earth. There are DOZENS of warnings against messing with Earth. There are regulations. Touching that planet can bring down empires. (Ask the Skrulls about that. Or don't. They don't want to talk about it.)

_So vhen you return dis guy bach to Earth, do me a favor_ Cosmo said to the robot who was trundling the stasis box along the corridor. Cosmo is, by the way, a Good Boy. He is an ordinary, quadrupedal, yellow dog resembling a labrador retriever, but possibly not. He's also one of the most powerful telepaths and telekinetics to have escaped being glommed by the Phoenix Force. Apparently it is the kind of bird that doesn't like dogs, or something.

"Yeah, sure, I'll get that for you," Mikh Drakos said,

_Oh, and Gamora is stranded on Omicron Ceti 4, and the galaxy needs her._

"Uh. OK."


A subjective week later (Star*Drake is FAST) the Earth is coming up on the left. Gamora is in the copilot seat. Mikh is in the pilot seat, except he's also the ship, don't ask. Hassel... not Frau... was thawed out of stasis a few minutes ago, and is slightly nervous.

"So. Mr. The Hoff. Where would you like to be delivered to?"

Oh, that other convergence? ABBA has released a new album. Mikh needs a copy so he can tease Quill about it.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora hadn't been too happy to get stranded with her personal transport out of fuel and too far removed from the Milano to get it gassed up with the ship its generally housed/docked with. She was more than happy to tget a ride from the Star*Drake... but this was certainly an unsual moment for her.

Earth? Without Quill?

"There it is." She says, nodding toward the left. "For a planet that is primarily water, I was shocked how few of the Earthlings I tossed into it had no idea how to swim." That part was muttered as she reaches over to adjust her gear that is resting on the side of a console... a leather satchel and her jacket. Gamora moves to stand up then and gather her stuff up, putting her satchel over her head.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
There were few pleasures that Tommy allowed himself nowadays. Music was definitely one of those. While most people preferred digital delivery nowadays, and had for quite a while, the cult of the audiophile had never abandoned the glistening, velvet-rich world of vinyl. The priests of high fidelity had held fast to their creed for generations now, and artists knew that it was a foolish mistake not to court such a dedicated fan-base.

"Oh heavens," Tommy, also known as Vorpal the Cheshire Cat, mutters to himself as he enters the store. Dedicated music stores had become a thing of the past in all but the most niche locations, their function being absorbed by bookstores and the like, but there were still thriving, though smaller, places that were dedicated, and where the cognoscenti assembled before a release like the throng awaiting for Moses to descend from the mountain with two heavy, shiny, newly-minted Long Plays.

Good Vibes (being one such music store) was positively stuffed. Full. Crowded. Vorpal sighs, trying to push his way to the back of the line ahead of the other arriving patrons.

"I Believe In You" was never meant to turn into an album. What started off as a lark of 'Let's record two new songs!' for the hologram-based reunon tour had quickly snowballed into full studio sessions, fevered nights at the piano with Benny and Bjorn, and finally the concept of a whole new album- the first original material in decades. The fact that it was releasing in Vinyl first before it was released in digital format meant two things:

Record and turntable makers could thank their lucky stars and set aside money for that new yahtch they were oggling, and
That Agnetha could finally purchase that second island she had been eyeing.

"Hey, don't shove!" Vorpal finds himself smooshed between two people trying to occupy the same space, which is physically impossible. "There should be enough here for everybody!"

And that's when the announcement is made, that the shipment was delayed and that, for at least the next three days or so, there would only be a very limited supply of the sought-after records.

"Oh criminey!" And that's when someone steps on his tail, heretofore rendered invisible by the human disguise he had illusioned over himself. And that's when the illusion breaks and he is left in all of his Cheshireness, for all to see. "...$#@!"

StarDrake has posed:
"Yep. You know I was born on Earth. Not that one. One that's very much like it though, in a parallel universe. Well. Not parallel ... same fractal section but different convolution."

The Peak signals Star*Drake, and there's a fast interchange of data. But, Mikh has not only SHIELD pass-codes (from two different versions of SHIELD and thus, perversely, sort of correct) but he also has been this way before, and even though the Alpha Flight monitoring (that's new) doesn't recognize him, the Legion tag gets him a courtesy pass for now. Also, he's returning a national treasure. Which means Abigail Brand can recall the slightly reskinned Nick Fury LMD that's been filling in for the missing performer. And doing a bang-up job it was.

"California it is. Sorry about the inconvenience. Your government-issued stand-in will fill you in on what's been happening while you were away," Mikh's second chassis says to the man, handing him an iced vanilla latte (which unfortunately is not XO brand, but it's close.) It earns him a puzzled look from the star, but really, it's not Mikh's job to protect the psyche of the space-napped. Besides, he's an actor, he's had much worse happen to him. Actor-SINGER even.

The Star*Drake doesn't land. It doesn't fit in a parking place. However, it has a runabout. Two of them actually.

"You want to get something to eat while we're on Earth?" Mikh-in-pilot-chair asks. "I need to stop at a couple stores. Quill insists on things being on tape..."

"ABBA released a new album," Mikh-with-coffee says to The Hoff, who looks intrigued.

"Can I come along for that?" he asks. "SURE" Mikh's other self says, and Mikh-the-ship (which is where Mikh's actual MIND was at that moment) says a curse word on a radio frequency not used by most Earthlings. That AI Mikg just glitched the hell out. Either his Nice was turne up too high, or the Fanboy triggered... Frell it, we're supposed to drop him off at home, not go shopping.

But, too late, the Hoff has entered the shuttle, Gamora has probably entered the shuttle, and Mikh's fanciest non-warbot chassis is already inside the shuttle... it'll take off while the ship is finishing its orbital insertion.

And the first place it's going to land is the park across from the music store. Which is not in California.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora has entered said shuttle and she's got her hood already up over her head. "I'm sure the planet is more palettable if you're from it. But I find those on it to be frustrating and small." She says, her eyes glancing at the others. "I'll roam around for a bit, but I shouldn't expose myself. I was told to tell people that I am going to 'A Con' whatever that means. But overall, the green skin gets me discriminated against on Earth."

Gamora picks up her blaster pistol off of her thigh and jams it into her leather satchel. "This is why want to smash as many of their faces in as I can." She shows a slight smile. "I'll restrain myself though. Probably."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"This is really not our best behavior, isn't-" Vorpal is trying to calm the crowds from pushing and shoving. It is as successful an effort as you'd imagine. Eventually, though, the crowd pays enough attention to see that this is no normal human teenager.

"Whoa, dude, what the f-"
"Is that the Black Panther?"
"He's pink"
"The *pink* panther?"
"I thought I saw him with the Teen Ti- You're Beast Boy, aren't you?"
"I thought he was GREEN?"
"Maybe he's sick?"
"Hey, can I get an autograph?"

Hell and damnation. Vorpal is quickly ganged upon by the mob who recognizes him as, basically, anybody else but him. This is not what he was hoping would happen. As he is tugged and pushed, he becomes more and more stressed, until-

"What! No? Let go! Why do- JUST BUZZ OFF!"

A blast of Chaos magic emerges from him, involuntarily summoned in his stress, and it expands through most of the store.

And that's when things get decidedly *weird*.

LPs start flowing out of their sleeves and flying *at* people. Parts of the furniture try to usher people this way and that. Music equipment starts going off in glitchy, NOISY ways, and soon everything is pandemonium.

Which wouldn't really be noticed by people who weren't in the store, if not for the stream of screaming, panicky people presently exiting the store in the most notable way.

Vorpal, in the meantime, is pinned between an eager stack of records trying to push him out, and a group of people pushing him in, trying to run away from the mannequins that had been dressed in the likeness of ABBA members, and which were now doing their best impression of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.'

StarDrake has posed:
THREE MINUTES EARLIER

The shuttle reaches the location of the most easily accessible store in New York that has both vinyl and the digital version, although Nikh has already set up a download of the digital form, paid of course. The shuttle is cloaked, hovering twelve feet above the ground, directly over the slide in the kiddy-play-area of the park.

NOW

Mikh, and his two companions, have crossed the street and walked to the door of the record store, just in time for CHAOS WAVE. Mikh glitches. If you've ever seen an ultra-advanced AI-capable nanomotile life model robotic chassis glitch, it looks a bit like ... his face falls. Off. He goes rigid, akimbo, and several weapons in his shoulders, back, lets, and hands deploy, but do not fire. A bit of smoke comes off him. And his eyeballs pop out, their retention springs keeping them from landing on the sidewalk and becoming a hazard. There is also a rather disturbing R2-D2 Meets Power Outlet noise.

This does not go unnoticed by people fleeing the store; a woman screams "ALIEN INVADERS!" ... though she's looking straight at The Hoff, who looks offended. "Me?"

In orbit, Mikh has lost his full-bandwidth feed from his chassis there, and he puts the Star*Drake into stationkeeping, and JUMPS to the damaged chassis. It will take him a moment to put the smoke back into the little ceramic bits. Please listen to some elevator music while he works.

//Oooooh, like a ship that's tossed upon the ocean ...// ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WpWonpXHvQ )

Gamora has posed:
Gamora has her hands on ehr satchel, her half gloves are not hiding her fingers from being seen in the full (beautiful) green shade, but her hood is doing a pretty good job of shading her green face from sight... though her pink/purple hair is still sticking out--but hair that color is pretty common these days on Earth isn't it?-- either way, Gamora's exhaling softly as they move toward the store.

"I hate tehse backwater worlds that aren't apart of the main stream of the galactic problems." She mutters. "They feel like their little isolated nonsense issues are so important..." She scowls at the people moving around the sidewalk. "Its like being surrounded by a million Quills."

When the woman screeches out that word, Gamora doesn't hesitate...

Her right hand comes up and she delivers a powerful punch to the bridge of the screaming woman's nose to silence her!

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Things aren't looking so hot for Vorpal right now. He is trying to control the crowd, but at this point the crowd has basically abandoned the idea of control and figured tht the 'free for all' model was much more attractive.

"Everybody leave in a calm and orderly way," he says, as a woman basically leapfrogs over a man who had stumbled, nimbly making a dash for one of the doors. The cry of alien invaders was not ignored, however, and some of the crowd had come to the realization that this was not, indeed, Beast Boy at all.

"Hey-" Vorpal pauses, looking in the direction of the entryway. He notices the green skin- but what is green skin to him? He practically dated a guy with green skin for a couple of months-

Not that he wants to think about that.

-and recognition dawns seeing one of Mikh's chassis. Whatever relief is felt by seeing a familiar face, though, takes a backseat as the Cheshire points towards the third member of Mikh's coterie: "Hey, isn't that Dav-"

One of those people who heard the cry of alien invaders? He happens to currently be behind Vorpal. Hidden by the mass of long plays flying through the air, the swing that he takes at the Cheshire cat with a folding chair isn't quite seen until the very last moment. With a metallic 'clang', the Cheshire cat goes down. Thud.

As hard it may be to believe, Tommy's consciousness was actually acting as a dampener for the chaos magic. Unfettered by such restraints, the Wave begins to act out. Several counters merge together, bits and bobs of furniture become attached to each other through the power of chaos to form a somewhat deformed torso, and multiple tentackles made of ever-floating, spinning records (which very quickly start becoming sharp *shards* of ex-records) converge from the body and begin to lash outwards from the now-anchored chaos locus.

The patrons aren't dumb. Panicky? Yes, but not completely dumb. The ones who had stopped to gawk now start making for the exit in a human avalanche. Right towards Mikh and Co.

StarDrake has posed:
The woman is a Roller Derby competitor, so accustomed to having her face punched in, but not with the amount of force that Gamora provides. Though, apparently, the Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy was aware of the fragility of humans and didn't use a blow that would have killed a Kree Warrior, because the woman's head does not explode into a red mist. She does go down, and people step over her and swarm around. One of the door-gawkers laughs at the punch.

"Serves you right flatscan!" he says, "Mutants Are People Too!" then disappears into thick air with a handful of (probably not paid for) square sleeves containing priceless vinyl.

Back at the shuttle, the AI copy of Mikh's mind is downloading Netflix. All of it. He considers Gamora's claim about a million Quills. Well, yes, but that's also true of most worlds really. He's seen Gamora on Knowhere, and she's punched a lot of people there too. It's possible that she learned her 'get out of the way' manners from Thanos.

AND then the thaumatonic flux kicks off and the cloak on the shuttle FLICKERS... allowing people to SEE it for a moment.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora definitely made it a punch to the Derby Woman's nose that would only deliver enough force to daze the weak little pink skinned princess, intention of silencing her! and nothing more.

She then shoots out a heavy exhale, but her eyes look up from out of her hood at the chaos that was rushing toward them. "What in the name of Heklan is going on here?" She asks then. "Can this world not function like a band of brainless Blood Mice?!" And anyone who rushes at Gamora and tries to knock her over gets summarily stone walled and sent flying... she won't be budged by these weaklings!

Gamora does however, reach down to offer her hand to the woman she punched to help her back to her feet so she is not stampeded. "Apologies, but that noise you were making was unbearable." Gam would then tell the woman she'd socked. "Move along now, with the rest of your pathetic people." And then she's sighing at herself and muttering again. "I've been around Drax too much..."

StarDrake has posed:
The cat is asleep, dreaming of small green tweety-birds ... wait, that's not a dream, there are small green tweety-birds -- apparently some sort of promotional item or collectible tzotchke. The galloping of displays is actually shoving people out the door too, but somehow the door is flexing open and spitting them out like watermelon seeds. The elegant figures of the members of ABBA move like the Greek Gods moved in the air over Troy, Agnetha reaching down to shoo away the birds and picking up the unconscious catboy.

"There, there," she says in Swedish.


The robot's face floats up from the ground and all the extruded weapons retract and his eyes pop back in, and everything settles into place, moving in reverse of the way it fell apart.

The woman is helped to her feet, and shakes her head. "Good hit," she says groggily, and heads away from the crowd, trying to catch up with three other broad-shouldered women.

Several people in the crowd see the spaceship in the park. Those who are from New York shrug, those who are from New Jersey go over to see if they can break into it.

Gamora has posed:
Gamora shakes her head and releases a heavy sigh. "I don't have the patience for this." She puts her eyes back onto The Hoff and reaches out to pat his shoulder. "Its been splendid meeting you. Thank you for the autograph, I will deliver it to my friend as soon as I see him next. He'll be giddy with joy, to the point where I'll likely have to avoid him for severl days... which I try to do anyway generally." She smirks then, her own style of Quill-humor.

Gam's eyes look back over her shoulder and she sees the people around their shuttle. "Uh... thats not good. We should deal with that." And without waiting to see if anyone follows her, Gamora turns and starts back toward the shuttle where the wierdos are swarming toward it.

StarDrake has posed:
The robot wakes up. Mikh is back online in this chassis. Let the bells ring out, let the people sing... wait. No. The store is basically empty. There are people swarmed around it. There are police-approaching noises, an intrusion of Law into the chaos-scape that triggers a reversion, and Agnetha steps through the door, handing the unconscious Vorpal to Mikh.

"Take this one to safety," she says in Swedish. Inside, the Chaos is now sorting all the contents of the store by color. Perversely, nothing is broken, but also, not everyone paid for their stuff.

Mikh sighs... "You gonna be OK, Mr. H?"

"I am NOT getting back on that shuttle," the Hoff answers. "Go. Tell ... whoever."

"Doing so," the robot says, and does a Vision-style lift into air while holding the cat in a Princess Carry.

"Move away from the ship," his amplified voice says, and the closest intruders get a light electric shock. The door opens in the air, so Gamora can get on board, and Mikh floatsin with the cat ... and with the cardboard sleeve and the vinyl. Next stop: Petco. Cosmo wants Milk Bones. A LOT of MIlk Bones.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"What on earth?" Vorpal says drowsily as he begins to regain consciousness. He is draoped over a mannequin, one that is carrying him. And it is moving.

"... I need to stop drinking from Colette's thermos," He mumbles to himself, as the reality of the situation (or the irreality thereof) hasn't quite dawned on him yet. And the headache does hint at a hangover, after all.

As he regains consciousness, things slowly return to normalcy. Vorpal is certain that being handed over to Mikh is nothing but a dream, but then reality begins to assert itself.

The Chaos wave begins to dissipate, and as it does so every animate thing becomes inanimate as the magic leves it. Agnetha falls unceremoniously on top of Benny, and whatever records were spinning in the air now begin to dovetail slowly to the ground.

"... Mikh?" Vorpal mutters, rubbing his head. "What the hell?..."

Gamora has posed:
Gamora rushes toward the shutlte now with her hood up, she's trying to appear like one of the crowd... until she gets close enough that she sudden darts toward it and boards it when she's able.

"I'm going to be inside." She says over her commlink. "No offense, this world is just not the place for me. I'm eager to get back... The Netflix Files will be enough of a gift for Quill. He has been raving about this Strangest Things performance and wishes to see the next chapter. Hopefully it is included."

Once inside the shuttle, Gamora is moving toward the controls, not to leave, but to do her part in making sure the ship is in good operating condition.

StarDrake has posed:
"It'll be in there," the ship-AI copy of Mikh says, cheerfully zapping another one of the people poking at him with a stick. They're moving away cloaked within seconds, moving upstate to where the Milk Bone factory for the area is located.

"So, ABBA album, can I scan that? I've already bought the digital copy," Mikh says to Vorpal. He also scans the cat to see whether he somehow got injured, given that he was unconscious. MRI image, using the shuttle body to focus and scan the cat.

No, this is not a CAT scan, but it IS a cat scan.