milliways_bar | First entrance

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First entrance

Dana's voice precedes her as the door opens--yeah, she's a loud cellphone talker, and the conversation has her distracted enough that she doesn't notice that the door hasn't exactly opened onto the contents of her closet, as she stands in the doorway in her pajamas (and her Wonderella tiara, of course. That never comes off).

"--yeah, so I told him I'm a superhero and anyway who the hell puts a parking ticket on an invisible blimp, but they were filming some show about parking cops and apparently saving the world isn't a good enough excuse... I know that and you know that, but this guy--"

A pause.

"Call you back, Ritagirl, there's a bar in my closet."

Pause.

"No, not that kind. Why would that be surpris--yeah, sure beats a hellmouth in the shower again... Ew, that was not a euphemism. Hanging up now."

And she slips her phone into her pocket, letting the door close behind her as she steps further in.

A bar. Just off her bedroom. It's like Santa and Jesus and the Easter Bunny and that damn leprechaun and the Tooth Fairy and whoever-the-hell-else all got together and finally got her a good present for once.

[tinytags: wonderella]

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People were right when they told her that time seemed to stand still outside of this place. She'd tested it several times over and decidedly ignored the strange glances some of the other female soldiers gave her when she would occasionally find herself back in the barracks.

Right now though, Sonya was actually in milliways, dressed in BDUs and using the time to catch up on reading case files and other intel.

She's not so absorbed that she doesn't hear what's going on around her, picking up part of the conversation.

"It's not really just your closet. The Bar," She pronounced the capital this time. "Likes to show up in the barracks as well."

It would explain the pajamas, but Sonya did find herself wondering a little as to why she hadn't removed the tiarra: she would've figured that was the first thing to go off.

A bar, with people in it! It can't be a figment of her imagination, if there's people in it.

Think, Dana. How do normal people behave? Normal people in a bar. Normal people in a bar in her closet--

In her closet.

"Oh God, is this a gay bar?" she asks, before turning her attention to the ceiling, because this is apparently how one addresses one's deities--just speak generally upward. "Are you trying to tell me something? Did I sell my soul again last night? 'Cause it doesn't count if I don't remember."

And turning her attention back to Sonya, she adds with a smile "You have great hair, though. I like it."

Okay...Sonya had a feeling that this woman had a long day-either that or she was a few bullets short of a full mag.

"More like a tavern than a bar, and no I don't think it's a 'gay one'-not flashy enough." She supposed so anyway, having never been to one.

She decided to ignore the other remarks...a bar showing up all of a sudden was bound to cause reactions.

The compliment of hair made her tilt her eyes up. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail, not a bun for once, but she couldn't see anything really special about it. "Uh, thanks. It's just basic shampoo wash."

Given the amount of time they had to get ready in the morning, there was very little time to get ready besides a simple brush and pin-up.

She's always like this, whether she's been working or not. Really, in her world it's around noon and she's only just gotten up--and the most tiring thing she'd done yesterday was carry the Chinese takeout from her door to the living room.

"Maybe it's a closeted gay bar. Maybe they look like every other bar--maybe every bar is closeted. Maybe--"

It's like she can see all the way to the center of the universe. Whoa. So much truth. Or maybe she spent too long watching Ancient Aliens.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that."

To an army schedule, any time past 9 am was consider oversleeping. Sonya herself was up at six in the morning for morning PT.

Listening to the woman's so called 'explanation', Sonya swore she could see her eyes glazing over.

"Right..." The notes were put aside. "Why don't we just 86 the 'gay' part and call it a bar."

She stood up from the sofa, a habit taken from always having to stand at attention when giving explanations.

"You're in a bar yes, but one that tends to show up at random. It's called Milliways and as far as I can tell doesn't work within the usual time frame, meaning that however long you remain in here, once you leave the door it'll be as though no time has past."

She was sure there was a more technical term for all this, but she always preferred the more 'straight to the point' explanation.

"...so you're saying I can drink all I want here, and it won't interfere with my life at home?"

It's like an alcoholic's dream.

Unless she's dreaming right now. Maybe she is. Or maybe they drugged her again and in a minute her mom and Rita and everybody is gonna jump out from behind a potted plant at the mall food court and it's all another cruel birthday trick.

But wait, her birthday's in August. And she's pretty sure it was just Halloween a little while ago. So that means...

Score. Happy Dana it is.

Oh for the love of.

Sonya suppressed a sigh. Of course she would find herself informing a possible alchoholic, she seemed to attract them.

"I don't know, but would you really want to risk showing up back home in the thralls of a hangover, or drinking all your money. You'll be allowed a tab I'm sure, but even that has limits."

"It's a little early to be drinking anyway, isn't it?" Looking at her state of dress.

Unless the woman was able to go to sleep, but then she did say that the bar was located in her closet and Sonya could easily deduce that it meant that she was getting ready to change 'out' of her pajamas.

"A hangover's never gotten in the way of my job yet," she says.

Granted, she doesn't always do her job, but being sober or hungover doesn't affect her decision to go to work. Some days she just doesn't feel like it, and it's not like they can fire her--that's the great thing about being a superhero.

"And when I need money, I just make some phone calls, slap my name and picture on some cheap plastic crap and go cash in my licensing fees. It's a really sweet deal. I don't know why everybody doesn't do it."

Sonya returned to her seat on the sofa, wondering at just what the hell sort of job this woman had. Part of her figured office worker-anything else would just scream 'bad news' if she arrived with a hangover.

Wait..

"Licensing fees? Isn't that like getting royalty checks or something?" As it happened, where she was stationed, there were a lot of 'american brand name knock offs'. They were easy to spot but Sonya and a few others figured that in parts of Germany, so long as it 'looked' American, than the actual quality of it didn't matter.

She grins and nods.

"I have a lawyer, and she makes these deals for me--they're always putting me on something, action figures or shot glasses or jewelry or whatever. I was this close to having my own beer once, but it was really shitty beer so I did turn that one down. A girl's got to have standards."

Very low standards, but she takes her beer seriously.

"Sometimes I get endorsement deals, too. But I actually have to work for those, show up and pretend I like whatever handgun or yogurt or whatever they're paying me to shill."

"So you're a celebrity then?" That got her a look: one that wasn't entirely impressed. She'd managed to see a few movies, and tv could only capture her attention for so long, but it was hard to get invested in pop culture when you moved around all the time.

The part about actually 'working' like it was a chore. Sonya could agree on that much, but if it wasn't the case then it wouldn't be called work.

"Whatever you say, lady. My job's not so light." She pulls her dog tags out from under her t-shirt. "Military-good benefits, lousy paychecks."

No one could deny that, not even her.

"I'm a superhero," she says, "so yeah, I'm kind of a big deal back home. But it's not like I had to interview for it or anything. My mom was the old Wonderella, and when she got old and retired I got stuck with it. It doesn't really pay anything, outside of whatever I can get for merchandizing and public appearance, but the benefits aren't too bad."

Well, "benefits." She ends up dead pretty often, but she always comes back pretty quickly, because that's how superheroes do it. She gets to meet God, though--is that a benefit? He wears socks with sandals. Even if he is God that is still weird.

As vague as Sonya was about movies, she actually had a good grasp of superheroes. Comics were easy to carry on road trips and she couldn't remember any of the enlisted guys that didn't even try to sneak in the occasional comic along with a dirty magazine.

The dirty magazines she ignored on the condition that she could read the comics-they made for easy brain candy.

This, however..didn't really register with what she knew about superheros.

"Such a big deal that you sell your image like that?" And why would she need to anyway, wasn't the whole point about a 'secret identity' being a way to raise money. "I thought the whole point of being a superhero was helping people, not using yourself as a brand name."

"and for the record, I've heard of Wonderwoman, but not 'Wonderella'."

"A girl's got to pay the bills somehow," she says. "And the gratitude of the people and the smiles of children are great, I guess, but my landlord won't take those. Believe me, I tried."

Maybe she should get a supervillain as a landlord. They seem to be gullible enough, and hey, she'd be willing to fight them instead of rent. But they'd probably end up putting traps or something in her apartment, or like an army of clones or something, and--does she still have those ninjas in her closet?

She glances around as though expecting to find them here. But then, duh, Dana. Ninjas. Of course she wouldn't see them.

"My mom was the first Wonderella, back in the golden age of Nazi-fighting. So we've been around for a while."

There is a superAgent at the bar, all dark shades and smart but nondescript suit and a (very small: he's not on duty, but he is on the helicarrier) drink.

When he sees her, and her appearance, his eyebrows shoot way up. "...Well."

She's used to attention--after all, she is totally hot. Just ask her, she'll tell you.

But the way he's dressed... wait, does the government have the power to put bars in people's bedrooms? Is it like that thing they used to do with the LSD or--is she on acid? Oh, man. This isn't good.

"You can't send me on a mission," she says. "I'm still in my civvies."

He holds up his free hand in a gesture of no power here, I come in peace.

"I can't send you on a mission here, civvies or not," he says. "It's against the rules."

He doesn't think she's even from his 'verse - certainly, he doesn't recognise her. But one thing at a time.

"Rules?" she asks, a little suspicious.

It's half 'There are no RULES in superheroing!' and half 'Whenever anybody mentions rules, they use them against me.'

Not that she minds that, much--she's Wonderella! What can anybody else do to her?--but it tends to get in the way of her Judge Judy time.

"It's a bar. It has rules."

Well. He gets to give the newbie spiel despite being a newbie himself? Well, it won't be the first time.

"No nudity or sex in the bar, no outside business, no violence to people who didn't start it."

That all seems reasonable--waaaait.

"Oh God OH GOD I am in a bar talking to an attractive guy in my pajamas," she says. "I know how this goes--you give me rules and I turn around and break them, all of a sudden I end up naked in front of everybody. I've had this dream before. Except usually I'm on TV."

She looks around, as though trying to spot the cameras.

Maybe it's a hidden camera show. But why would she dream a hidden camera show? Bad tacos?

He hides a smile. Attractive? Really? Well, you learn new things every day.

"If it's a hallucination, it's a shared one. And nudity would be in breach of the rules."

"Well, I am not getting hauled off naked in handcuffs," she says. "So if you have any control over this shared hallucination, you just hallucinate one of those lead aprons they put on you at the dentist or something."

Which would somehow be more resistant to dream-powers or... well, it made sense to her.

Clementine had the same look on her face when she found this place. It never gets old. "You can almost hear the angels, right?"

"If this is some kinda zoning change, that's government I can get behind," she says. "Not like that time my apartment got zoned as farmland. I didn't even grow any alcohol trees or... whatever the hell beer comes from."

She knows where beer comes from. She just chooses not to put the effort into using her brain right now.

There's a bar.

"Nope," Clem says happily. "Just the world ending in your apartment. Welcome to Milliways, first drink's on her." At the conclusion of her sentence, she points to the Bar herself.

Her gaze follows the pointing.

And that is another angelic choir or something, right there--like a beam of light direct from the heavens, or maybe that big window but that isn't important because it does not contain alcohol--not just a bar, but a bar that looks like it doesn't serve lousy drinks.

"...her?" she asks. "This isn't one of those weird places where they dress women up as furniture, is it? I went to one once by accident and oh man I had no idea those were not chairs."

"Nope. I've been to those places and they don't serve kids." She was a table, but she'll get to that later. "This is Milliways, your typical bar at the end of the world kind of deal."

"My home planet was destroyed," she says. "Must be one hell of a last-call. I hope they kick everybody out before then."

Or maybe not the sucky people she always seems to meet in bars, creeper guys and girls who can't hold their alcohol.

"Wait, they serve kids here? In a bar? Actual kids, not like circus midgets? Or little people or whatever I'm supposed to call them these days?"

"Honey, take it from me - nobody gets kicked out of this place. Unless they're some kind of terrorist or something like that." Oh Clem, how little you know - the bar's actually had terrorists in it before. "Yep, but I don't think she lets them drink...otherwise there'd be three-year-olds passed out by the lake. People raise their kids in this place." She's heard stories.

"I've never met a kid who could make a decent cosmo," she says. "Maybe if you start them young enough, they'll learn. That's what I should do--instead of that Baby Einstein shit, do Baby Bartender DVDs. And if they make 'em right, you probably wouldn't even notice that their barside chatter is dumber than usual. They'd need stilts, though."

Clearly, height is the only problem with this plan.

She shrugs. "With some of the people I've met here, I wouldn't be surprised," Clem shrugs. It's really none of her business. She chuckles. "The bar might even give them a few lessons for free."

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First entrance

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