Scorpio

THIRTY THREE - Preparation

Estella's training grew more intense by the day. The Dora Milaje, female warriors of Wakanda, taught her how to use and craft weapons out of her surroundings - hence Estella's newfound love for lamps and increasing trepidation of shoes. Shuri was hard at work inventing a whole new arsenal of gadgets, with Alycs introducing each new one to the stealth division. One of the gadgets was a glowing blue sphere he dubbed 'the Snooker'. After a countdown of ten seconds, it would explode in a cloud of tear gas and raucous automated giggling until its battery ran down. Estella found it horrifying.

Alycs absolutely loved it.

Speaking of Alycs, it seemed he had decidedly taken up an act of charity in the form of a watchful eye. Vision could seldom be seen without Alycs in the vicinity, and more often than not Estella saw Alycs simply chatting to him - quiet tones, which was a bit uncharacteristic for him, but always about projects and experiments, which was not. Vision didn't seem too interested in speaking back, though it never seemed to bother the persistent teen, and the android seemed content just to stand and listen anyways.

Maisoabre, miraculously, didn't seem too crowded - even with the addition of several new inhabitants. There was a group of aliens who called themselves 'Guardians of the Galaxy', and although Groot and Rocket were alright, Estella was pretty sure all the other aliens have never seen a kid before. Then there were the two Asgardians - Thor, "an Avenger!" as Alycs reminded her, and Lady Sif, an elite female warrior with an eye for battle tactics. Sif brought her battle plans up routinely after dinner with a consistency even the captain seemed impressed with.

"Guardians, what can you tell us about Thanos?"

"Well, he's got a big ship." The Quill guy. Alycs called him a bit of a prick, though the younger teen wasn't quite sure what it meant.

"Like a BIG big ship?" Shuri, on one of the increasingly common occasions she sat around the same table as the rest of them for dinner.

"Yeah, it's like-" Quill paused for a second. "-the size of this tree?"

Thor made a weird noise, and Quill turned on him, defensive. "What?"

Gamora released her forehead from her palm. "That ship is just his reconnaissance plane. He's got a mothership, and it's..."

"The size of Hawaii?" Alycs offered. Thor pointed at him.

"Precisely."

Estella suddenly imagined a great purple man storming down to Africa with a couple of pink and yellow flower necklaces around his neck. Oddly enough, it didn't strike her as shocking.

Throughout the week, Sif drilled them on several more elements in regards to their incoming enemy, his goals, his resources, their own retaliation means and their own powers. Apparently, there were these things called 'infinity stones' -

"Powerful pebbles," Rocket insisted, pulling his nose out of his jollof rice. He elbowed Estella's side and leaned over, curling a shape with his claws. "They're literally, like, that big. Everyone just likes'ta put fancy names over things that make them sound a lot crazier than they actually are."

Infinity pebbles, then. There was a bad guy coming who really wanted them: an alien 'titan' called Thanos who was supposedly tall, kinda purple, with a scrotum sack for a chin. Estella didn't know her human anatomy well enough yet, but she supposed it meant something inappropriate by the way the men in the room began giggling while the women only shook their heads. Estella blankly eyed her companions, wanting an in on the joke but at the same time knowing Alycs would tell her it was something she didn't want to know.

Anyhow.

Thanos had himself a pretty gigantic military force, but the Avengers had a few tricks up their sleeves, too. The Wakandans had a sizeable army willing to fight for their world. Thor received note Asgardian spaceships had begun landing in Norway, and he came back quite proudly with a handful of fighters. A week after the Guardians' arrival, a blonde 'motorcycle chick', as Groot dubbed her in his language, knocked on the doors of Wakanda and said Director Fury had sent her with an old walkie-talkie thing. She brought a small shipful of aliens with her - 'Skrulls', she called them. Pacifists, really, but true fighters when it came to their families and worlds.

Maisoabre now had a little forest of tents all around its base. Estella loved peering out her window from her room at each colourful culturized cluster down below, divided with makeshift streets strung with little ornaments and fairy lights. She was also pretty sure she saw Alycs' telltale teleporting light flash in the tents one night and had teasingly asked him if he was seeing anyone. He had made a face in reply, but Estella was certain the tips of his ears were flushing.

Estella loved it here. Maisoabre - the people, the superheroes, and how those superheroes were people, too - everything had a dreamlike quality about it that made her never want to leave. She would have brothers - Peter and Alycs - and she would have sisters, too, like Shuri and Wanda. The captain expected her to follow her orders and contribute like her dad would, while...she guessed Wanda would double as her mom. They were almost like family.

Almost.