Layla and Learning and Recruiting

It didn’t take him long to make sure Layla was okay. He’d gotten used to responding to her coughing fits; to the point he had a practiced routine for her. Especially if it was a bad one like today. Get her in bed, get her comfy and content, and get her something for her throat; after that just make sure Layla didn’t go running off even if she said she was feeling better. Layla tired that a few times only to relapse into a new attack.

It was best to just make sure she was fully content to sitting still. So Layla was in her bed, snuggled up with a blanket and stuffed toy, food and drink in her reach with one of her favorite movies playing one one the screens. Something about colorful talking horses. Zac couldn’t remember much about the series but Layla loved it. He spent some time watching with her before getting off the bed with a stretch.

“Alright.., need to go talk with Blackfire some more. See about our next steps, like how to get back home. You good here or can I get you something else?” He asked as he put a hand to her forehead. She didn't feel warm which was a good sign.

“I’m fine dad!” Layla said, moving is hand away as he gave her a look, “I know.., I’ll rest for a bit more. I’ll be okay… and if not I’ll push the ‘call’ button.” She finished as she held up a device.

It was something Zac had found while getting her movie set up. Small local communicator it seemed, about the size and shape of a mobile phone. It was rigged up to the ship and allowed for some minor control over it; like over the intercom and communication system. In a sense, it would let Layla call for help regardless of where Zac was on the ship.

“Just remember, emergency only.”

“I know…, I don’t want to annoy new mom too much.” Layla muttered, but she had a bit of a grin to her.

“She is not new mom.” He replied, folding his arms and taking a firm stance. The kind of 'I am in charge, you will listen' kind of dad stance for serious talks.

“But dad, I can be a princess…, or maybe a Step Princess? Wait how does that work…?” she said looking down in thought.

“I don’t know but…, I don’t think it’s going to work out between us. She’s a bit too much for me.” Zac said with a sigh. Why was he talking about this with his little girl?

“Mom’s a bit too much too…, at least this one hasn’t thrown anything.” she said with a bright look on her face.

Zac just coughed and turned his head a bit. Technically she hadn't; but Blackfire had tossed him... and throttled him. Thus far she hadn't shown a disregard for her surroundings to the point of destroying stuff. Just him. Was that really THAT much of an improvement?

“Right…, look sport, it's not as easy as you think it is. People don't just..., fall like that. Even your mother and I took like a few months before we were going steady.”

“But she seems nicer than she was on tv.”

“Look I just want her to be nice enough to get us home. After that she can go on doing her... space princess pirate thing all she wants. Just get us out of the way first.”

“Could you try? I can brag to my friends about having a super villain mom…, or at least having a Super mom.” Layla begged, her big eyes pleading.

Zac rolled his eyes at that. She wasn’t wrong about that though. She had confided in him about some of the things other kids she had been around had said about her mother. The kind of talk that could only be overheard by curious kids and spiteful chatty adults. Even her 'friends' didn't seem to like Elizabeth much, simply the money and clout she had. This rubbed off on the kids, to the point Layla hadn't been really liked much either by the small social circle of 'allowed' friends.

“Look Layla, I am...., sorry about how things worked out for you and Mom. There's some days I think us getting together was a mistake and a failure.” He reached out a hand to ruffle her hair before pulling her another hug, “You however aren’t, So don’t get any ideas about that okay?”

“Okay…, but why not make another mistake then and stay with Blackfire?” she asked.

“Cause I think that might be an even bigger mistake. And I don’t think I’ll get a good prize out of it like you hon.”

“Aw…”

“Well, I should go talk with her anyway. You sit in bed and recover. Ping me if you start feeling bad.” Zac said as he got back up again.

His daughter nodded as she turned her attention back to her movie. With a small smile, Zac left to find Blackfire.

It didn’t take him long to find her. She was in the bridge of the ship, just past the main habitat and kitchen block. The controls took up one side of the room, following the ‘v’ shaped wall. The large monitors above seemed to show the area in front of the bridge, with a few specialized into side or rear views. A few chairs were evenly placed about the consoles, with two larger ones at the front.

Blackfire stood at what Zac thought was the main controls. Given all the screen reacted to whatever buttons she pressed, it was a good guess. She had returned to her previous clothes, the mix of tight clothes and armored coverings. She was busy overlooking another holographic overlay of some kind, so she didn’t hear him approaching…, or care to.

“You know, for someone as strong as you, find it weird you wear protection like that.” He said as he drew closer, hoping to make small talk.

“Well, even with my strength, it is foolish to believe you are completely unstoppable.” Blackfire muttered, holding up an arm and tapping at the metal that covered her elbow.

“The armor helps to keep more damaging blows from getting through, along with repelling to a degree some energy attacks.”

“But your sis…” he started only to be cut off with a growl.

“Has. More. Physically ability. Than I do.” Blackfire spoke through gritted teeth, taking time to spit out each word.

“If that’s the case…” Zac started only for a snicker to stop him in his track. She had a skill for stopping his words in his throat.

“How can I beat her?” She chuckled, “Oh don’t look too shocked, it’s a common question from people I work with.” She held up a hand as she spoke.

A hand that was instantly covered in magenta energy. The low hum reminded Zac of fluorescent lightbulbs. She slowly clenched the hand into a fist, hard enough for the metal band around her palm to start groaning. If the metal was supposed to protect her from attacks; how STRONG was she? He pictured her just tearing the ship apart if she wanted to.

“Starfire is stronger than me physically as much as it bothers me. When we fight at our full potential with our powers as well though, I can and do surpass her. Now…, do you understand?” Blackfire asked, with a fold of her arms and cock of her hips.

“Maybe. Kinda. I don’t understand how your powers work myself, I just kinda see and get the end result.”

Blackfire rolled her eyes as she turned back to the hologram. Just like a human, only seeing the clear results in front of him. Couldn't process much more than simple things. Of all the races to get paired with..., well; maybe if he was akin to Nightwing or some other Hero. But no she was stuck with...,

“I think I kinda get what all this means though.”

He motioned to the hologram in front of them. It was another star map, one she had been busy trying to plot out different courses on before he came in. It was a maze of symbols and icons; enough to make it rather confusion as to when a star system started and the UI ended. Really now, what was he playing at? She gave a scoff.

“Oh what, you understand the intricacies of space travel?” Blackfire said, giving a short wave at him without looking, “Please you don’t….”

“Those are refill stations right?”

Blackfire snapped her head back to the man. He made a show of pointing at one lit up system on the display. He was right..., it WAS a refill station but..., how? How the devil did he know that? The symbols were in her language, and with that much bloated UI, how could he have figure it out.

“I told you, I worked supply. Well that makes it sound like I did paperwork and give out assignments. What I really did was be a trucker…, or I suppose for you, cargo hauler pilot.” Zac started to explain when he saw the befuddled look on her face.

“That…. Oddly explains the ship now. I wondered why they gave someone of my statue something like this.” She shrugged. The ship was a mix for them both after all. “So, how do you know they’re refill points?”

“Well I don’t get space travel, but on earth we have gas stations that are set up to support big rigs, and rest stops for us to sleep in. I just guessed even for advanced tech, you can only go so far before you run out of fuel…, or go crazy in your ship.” he started before pointing out the thick lines connecting some of the star systems, "So I guess rather than randomly jumping from system to system you'd not only would try for the shortest path but the easiest one to keep getting new supplies on."

“Lucky Guess.” Blackfire muttered, “Correct but lucky. If you’re so smart though, care to explain why the path isn’t just straight to Earth?”

He looked at the map some more. Sure enough, the path that Blackfire had been working on seemed to skirt around the the outer rim of the Galaxy. Far away from the glowing green star that was supposed to represent earth. Well if it worked on Earth..., why not in space?

“You’re the space expert. But on Earth a straight path isn’t always the fastest. Besides just the whole curved nature of the planet; stuff like poor road or traffic makes it so you can’t move as fast as you want even on a straight. Works the same way here I’m guessing. Maybe not with traffic but probably like... stellar threats or cosmic currents..., I'm babbling terms now aren't I?” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Something like that. By using certain routes and a couple… for lack of a better word to you, human, slipstreams to move us along; it’s a faster trip to my Planet than it is to yours. At least in this ship.” she explained.

She tapped a bit on the controls and pulled up two routes, one in purple one in green. She paused for a moment before giving an 'ugh' and flicked another button before the words on the display changed to English. If the display was right, and Zac really didn't have a reason to doubt Blackfire as why would she want to spend MORE time with him, the trip to Earth was going to take a little over three months. Her own planet though was down to about a month and a half.

“So the plan is we go on a long about route, refilling along the way, to my world. There we can get the resources we need to head to Earth. Complete with a faster ship which would make it about a week or so of travel. Once on Earth, we should be able to find my… Ugh, sister and her friends.” she spat out with roll of her eyes.

“Wait why go to your sister?” He asked. He found it weird she'd willingly seek out Starfire.

“Because,” She said with a flick of her hair, “My sister doesn’t trust me at all. But she can’t deny helping someone in trouble, namely you two. She’ll be more than willing to bury the hatchet for a while so long as it's the service of helping out an innocent man and daughter. It’s the rest of them that will doubt my motives so I hope you're a good speaker and can convince them.”

Having to get into a debate about if he was good or not, with a team that had at least one member trained by Batman...., Zac wasn't really enjoying that image in his head. Still.... they SHOULD be willing to at least hear him out... right?

“Still I know my sister keeps in touch with all sorts of Magic and other worldly entities. I figured she, or someone on Earth would know how to get you out of this contract and back to your world.” Blackfire finished as she turned to face him, leaning on the console behind her.

That all made a bit of sense…, just one problem. Okay more than one, but something was nagging at him. Enough to make him voice the question.

“So; this is clearly not my universe. That or there are aliens, and we just haven’t seen them yet. But question; how do you know it’s your universe?” Zac asked.

“What do you mean?” she scoffed.

“Well," Zac continued, “that station over there does look like something from your setting, maybe. I never really read much Super Hero books beyond the most famous and in passing; but deep space station sounds like it’d exist in a Super Man comic.”

“It just feels a little weird to think for as much power as this Cupid thing has, it would just move me and Layla to your universe, while also setting you out into the booines. Like how does that benifit YOU at all?”

“Hmm…,”

She hadn’t considered that. The tech of the ship looked familiar to her, though that could just be Cupid making things smoother. The alien did understand her with the translator. Meaning he had to have spoken a language that was already in the device. Unless Cupid had did something there too. There wasn't enough info here for her to work with, not without spinning her wheels in doubts and guesses.

“Uh Blackfire… your arm.”

She looked and rolled her eyes at the crackle of energy that was creeping up her arm. Seemed she was still build up power, more so when she was wound up. Odd that but she wasn't entirely worried. Should pass in a day or to, probably. Well, this presented a good enough excuse as any to get away from this man.

“Two birds I suppose.” She muttered with a shake of her arm.

“Eh, what’s up.” Zac asked, taking just a small step away from her.

“Simple,” Blackfire started, enjoying the slight worry she still instilled in the man, “I seem to be building up that energy again… and we need info as you so clearly put it.”

“So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go over to the station and burn off this juice as was the plan was before. However, the main goal is going to be trying to gain information…, perhaps some spending money too while I’m there. I'm not going out there to have a wild party night so put those fears behind you.”

“Please don’t rob anyone.” Zac thought about her just cleaving through some super advanced tech bank vault.

“Pleassse, I am above simple mugging." She spat back with a stomp of her foot, "No, in a station of that size it’s akin to a small city in itself. I’m sure I can find a quick task or job to do… hopefully involving knocking some heads around.”

“So what should I do? Cause I can…” he started, before she cut him off.

“Oh I know you can't come because of your daughter, yes yes. Though to be fair you wouldn’t be much help anyway….,” she trailed off as he looked him up and down. With a cup of her own chin she asked, “You said you worked in transport?”

“If you call driving a cargo truck around transportation; then yeah.” He explained as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Good enough.” Blackfire said as she pulled out a chair and gestured for him to sit.

Zac did so and took in the sights. Panels, keys, switches and levers all over the place and in easy reach of his hands. Did she really expect him to pilot this thing. The grin on her face was worrying as she pulled out a helmet from one of the storage containers. Luckily it looked more like a flight helmet of some kind rather than any kind of... weird techno thing.

“What is that?” He asked, trying not to have his voice shake a bit.

“By your tech, VR helmet.” She explained as she fiddled with the back of the device, “Simply put this on and you can experience all sorts of things. For you though, I am loading up an instruction course of how to control the ship.”

“Wait you’d trust me with the shi… Hey!” He was cut off when Blackfire **** the helmet on him.

The visor over his eyes started to fill with read outs and technical data. It looked to be far too advanced for him to understand but a flick of something on the back seemed to replace most the material with pictures. It even displayed outlines of where his hands should be placed. That was pretty handy, he'd always learned better by doing and with visuals rather than MILES of text.

“I trust you enough if only because I can’t both fly this AND fight at the same time. Should I need to do so, I believe you could do a better job than AI. It’s too predictable and lacks the intuition. Still it should help you enough when you take the controls.” Blackfire explained as she kept working at the controls of the helmet.

“Uh… okay? If this is just VR and I won’t crash the actual ship, I can give it a shot.” he said as he took up the controls, getting a feel for the different grips of the levers.

“Try it out. It’ll at least keep you busy. And as for your daughter well…. I set up a little warning system for her. The cameras will keep an eye on her and if she starts coughing, it'll ping you.”

“That’s handy… and thoughtful of you.” He said giving her a look. She could see the weird look of doubt on his face even through the visor.

“Well it’s that or have you panic all the time. Honestly should get her a sitter…. Hmmm there’s and idea…” Blackfire said as she spun on her heels.

“I mean could be useful but how would you hire someone? More so for the trip home?” Zac called after her.

“I have ideas. Just depends on what they have on the station. And in a backwater like this, might have what I need. Just let me have some fun and work while you train ‘dear. Later!” She left with a dismissing wave of he hand.

Blackfire grumbled to herself as she floated over to the station. It would be best to try and get some sort of help for the little one; if only to make sure SHE didn't have to spend time with her. ...Right? Right.

The problem was figuring out just who or what to recruit. And there had to be something on the station that could fulfill that need. After all, Cupid had taken care of basically everything else. Sure the accommodations were lesser than what she wanted or demanded, but it better than some ships she'd been on. The lack of a servant of any kind was jarring. Unless Cupid really expected HER to help the kid.

So perhaps there was something in reach to help them out.

"Excuse me..." Blackfire asked, swaying her way over to one of the dock workers, one of those sitting behind a desk to mark down visitors, "If I wanted to hire some for a long term crew voyage.... where would I go?"

"Oh... Crew..., err... hmmm." The blue strange mass muttered, Blackfire's Translator working on the alien's blubble like noises, "There's a couple crew loaners..., or just check a local bar.., well there ARE a few drone and droid sellers...., maybe those are what you're looking for?"

"Thank you." Blackfire chirped, putting on a cheery smile as she walked away.

Now it was just figuring out who or what she wanted to hire on?