“And then we kissed all night,” Delilah said, a blush on her cheeks. The innocent girl then took a bite of the food pausing at probably the most embarrassing part of the story. 

“Uhhh,” I said, stares from the entire crew boring into me. Even Peter Quill had a disgusted look on his face. “Maybe we shouldn’t have asked in such a public-”

“No, I think this is a great time,” Jame said. Her haki said she was furious. I probably wouldn’t have asked if I had thought I made a move on the young girl. Finding her in a vat after being experimented on by some sinister freak, then seducing her over the next few days didn’t really put me in the best light, that was for sure. Tabi had said I slept with a lot of women, but past me sounded like a predator.

“It was great,” Delilah said with a sigh. “I learned so much from you.” Her haki radiated a lot of admiration and trust toward me, but honestly some love as well. I couldn’t help but force a smile, hoping the story didn’t get worse. 

“What happened next, honey?” Jame asked. Rocket and Groot around the table eating their own food, they didn’t seem to much care what was being said. My face was beet red from embarrassment, that was for sure. 

“We left England,” Delilah said, her finger on her chin as she thought about it. “I slept on Weston.” Jame glared at me. Our ‘will they won’t they’, definitely leaning toward won’t they. “And we got back to the school. After that I was in such a rush as some of the teachers tested me to learn what my academic capabilities were, that I was too busy to find you. By the time I heard that a lot of the teachers and Xavier himself were kidnapped, it was too late. No one knew what was going on, and the drama of me joining the school kind of went to the wayside as psychics and other mutants were brought in to find you all.” 

“So wait, this school is full of mutants?” Peter asked, fear infecting his haki. 

“Calm it down,” I said, wanting to hear the rest of the story now. Relieved I didn’t push myself on Delilah more. “You’re literally sitting next to a walking talking tree, and you are worried about mutants?”

“Groot,” Groot said with a nod. His voice like the slow movement of ancient tree limbs blown in the wind. 

“Oh right,” Peter said, as if reminded that fact wasn’t obvious. “Carry on.” He added with a nod. 

“That’s pretty much it,” Delilah said with a shrug. “I’ve been so busy with school, and my new mutant powers, and making friends that it all kind of became a blur. Oh my gosh, Kitty is going to be so jealous I got to go to space.” 

I couldn’t help but bark a laugh. Her haki was innocent and pure again. Unadulterated elation was all she felt as her eyes darted from Groot to Rocket. “And a cool racoon friend. That can talk? I don’t think this kidnapping could go any better.” She beamed me a smile, her freckled cheeks dimpling as her haki increased the amount of love. 

“Well thank you for the story, but uh we really should find a way to-” I said but Jame cut me off. The pink woman still fuming. 

“What are the consent laws on your world?” Jame asked. Delilah gave her a confused look. “What I am trying to ask is, how old are you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Delilah said with a shrug. “The classes at school kind of have mixed grades since most people aren’t at the same level. But a lot of the classes I am in are senior level, so they kind of guessed I was 17 or 18.”

“And how old are you exactly?” Jame asked, accusing me. 

I blushed, unsure of the answer. “I lost my memories,” I said with a shrug. 

“I hate when that happens,” Delilah said with a sigh. “But I’m pretty sure you said 18. I mean, you went to school before I did. I think Kitty said you tested out so you could join the X-Men.” 

I let out a relieved sigh. I really was worried I had taken advantage…then again I had the experience of a much older person so yeah, it was definitely not fair. I pushed that thought away though. “Ha!” Rocket laughed. Barely paying attention to our conversation. 

Jame looked stricken. Her face turning full on red. Her haki unsure what to do with the information that I was technically much younger than her. “We can ignore that,” I said, having been convinced I was at least in my 20s. Then again I was supposed to be in my 50s in DC world, but looked younger. Maybe my Viltrumite blood made me age to my prime. “Either way we need to find Earth.”

“Earth, Earth, Earth, that’s all you talk about,” Rocket said.

“I’ve brought it up twice,” I shot back. 

“Now three times,” he said, a small fork in his hand pointed at me. “As someone without a homeworld, I can assure you they are overrated. This life is so much better. Especially on Shippie. We have our own rooms and can go where we want. I vote we go to Ego, rest for a few days, let the heat die down, then surprise attack the Andromeda bitches again!” He stabbed the fork into a twisted tower of green noodles on his plate. 

“No, no, no,” Jame said, recovering from her own shock about my actual age. “I am not pissing off the Andromedas. When we signed up for this I specifically said I didn’t want to take on jobs where we died. You’ve heard the stories about their leader, right?”

“Ooooh,” Delilah said. “I haven’t, what did he do?” 

“Its actually what she did,” I corrected. “The Andromeda pirates are a full-female crew. Which is sooo overdone,” I said rolling my eyes. “They’re run by Nebula herself, or as most people call her, the Bluebitch.” 

“Why do they call her that?” Delilah asked. 

“Cus she’s blue,” Rocket said. “And a bitch. I think she is Kree or something. Either way it doesn’t matter. She showed up about 5 years ago. Almost a full fleet of bloodthirsty bitches ready to wreak hell on men. First big job they did was kill this emperor guy on his planet where women were kind of…”

“Enslaved,” I said. I had heard all these stories as I jumped stations before I joined the Ravagers. “The whole civilization was patriarchal focused. The Andromeda’s didn’t like that.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. Are they good pirates?” Delilah asked with a frown. 

“It wasn’t until the women were pissed that their emperor and men were being killed off. Nebula thought she was freeing slaves, but that was all the women knew. They fought against her. Which led to her slaughtering the entire capital city and taking all the riches,” Rocket laughed. “Oh oh, another time her crew was beseeched by these one people ruled by a queen. Who were they again?” 

“It was the Sovereign and she was their high priestess,” I said. “The priestess asked for help, the Andromeda’s decided to do it. Low and behold it was a double cross and the Sovereign people had another planet under their golden thumb thanks to the Andromedas. Then they tried to kill Nebula and all hell broke loose. Pretty sure the Bluebitch firebombed the new planet.” 

Every story of Nebula and the Andromeda Pirates was a tragedy. From afar she seemed like someone that wanted to help, but she was the opposite of the Straw Hats. Whatever she touched turned to shit, which probably coincided a little with the memories I had of her from the Avenger movies. 

“Either way, they are bad news. Even the Jux don’t mess with her,” Jame said. 

“The Jux don’t mess with anyone,” Rocket said. 

“Groot.” The tree man said with a nod.

“I hate to break it to you, Pinkie, but your people are small fry. There are a lot bigger and badder people out here,” Rocket said. 

“Like who?” Delilah asked, her eyes wide. 

“Again I gotta give the speech?” Rocket asked, turning to me. 

“You love it, and you know it,” I said. “He gave the same spiel to me back in the day.”

Rocket stood on his stool, coughing slightly as he drew everyone’s eyes. “Alright, just so I gotta say this once, I want to make sure you all listen. The universe is a big place.”

“No way,” Peter said, rolling his eyes.

“Shut it, newbie,” Rocket said. “The universe is big, but the galaxy is small. We are made up of only a few thousand stars and many more planets. Every so often these planets get some life on ‘em. Depending on their luck, they might make it to spaceflight, and get to join the wider galaxy. More often than not, that doesn’t happen, as people aren’t really that lucky.”

“Do you have popcorn?” Delilah asked, raising her hand.

I smiled, having thought the same thing when he first gave me his explanation of the galaxy as we knew it. Now I could see why old me liked her. The thought made me notice Jame’s glare at me. I gave her an apologetic smile and focused back on Rocket. 

“What really matters when it comes to achieving spaceflight is, who your neighbors are. If you’re lucky your planet was plopped near one of the Big Three. We got the Kree, which…” He eyed Peter, Delilah, and I, squinting his eyes. “You’re sure you’re not Kree?”

“We are sure,” I said with a nod.

“Well they look like you guys with that skin tone, but a lot of times they’re blue, so I wanted to make sure,” he said. “They own a corner of the galaxy, and from what I hear aren’t too bad. Then we got the Xandarian’s, they own another corner. They run the Star Corps, which typically stick around their territory, but they have an offshoot called the Nova Corps. Kind of their elites that venture out into the wider galaxy to pirate in a way they call taxation. They police a lot of the galaxy even though they don’t really have jurisdiction. They mostly just strut around and try to force people to follow their rules.” 

We had been hailed by Xandarian ships a few times, but Shippie was always able to get away. From what I heard, they liked to board ships, look for any contraband to confiscate, then charge a tariff for any goods you had. Which was basically a bribe.

“Last is the Shi’ar. Although they have been really quiet lately,” he added. 

“Did I have something to do with that?” I asked Delilah. I had come to the door just off of their planet. Though I didn’t have any memories, I did hear a lot of rumors during my travels.

“Yeah, pretty sure you did,” she said. “I heard you killed their emperor.”

“No fucking way,” Rocket said. “I heard their Majestor was killed by some gladiator. Fought the guy in their arena. Then his sister took over.” I looked to Delilah for an answer. 

“I do remember the others talking about some gladiator guy,” Delilah said. “But they were pretty confident you killed him. Then stole some ship and helped everyone escape.”

“See, I’m awesome,” I said.

Jame and Rocket rolled their eyes. “You have no idea how strong the Shi’ar are,” Jame said. “I’m not listening to any rumors. I want first hand accounts or it's all hearsay.”

“Bleh,” I said waving her off. I was actually pretty excited to get some proof that I had done something epic in this version of Marvel. Yet another reason I wanted my memories back. I wanted to find out how awesome I really was. 

“Either way, they’ve been quiet,” Rocket said. “Pretty sure the Kree restarted some old war with them again.”

“So those are the Big Three?” Peter asked. “Anyone else to worry about in space.”

“Hell yeah,” Rocket said. “Let’s see, there are the Skrull. They used to be on the list back when it was the Big Four. But the Kree mostly wiped them out. Those guys are green.”

“Look like tall goblins,” I explained further. I had seen one once. But they were mostly ostracized because they could change their form to resemble most anyone. Which was one major factor that made the Kree want to make them endangered.

“The Ravagers,” Rocket added with a nod. 

“Who are they? They sound dangerous,” Delilah asked wide eyed. 

“Eh, not so much,” I said.

“They very much are,” Rocket defended. “Probably the biggest non-government group that could challenge the Andromedas.”

“You’re biased, your dream was always to join up with them,” I said with a wave. “The Ravagers are the gray area. If the government is white and good, the pirates are dark and bad, then the Ravagers do all the stuff that could be seen either way. They’re basically the mercs of the space world.”

“Mercenaries is a ter…ribly good explanation,” Rocket said with anger that turned into a sigh. “Either way, don’t piss them off or you have a few hundred crews chasing after you.”

“Fair enough,” I said. I wasn’t too impressed with them since Rocket and I were stranded with the Jux because of one of their crew members. I still had to kill that guy, but it would have to wait. “The Brood too.” 

“Right,” Rocket said with the reminder. “You should always watch out for the Brood. They’re these big bugs that land on planets or attach themselves to ships to try to kill everyone. Pretty sure they use bodies as incubators for more of their spawn.”

“Like the face humpers?” Delilah asked.

Everyone gave her a weird look. “Face Huggers,” I corrected. “But yeah, like that.”  

“Damn, man, space is scary,” Peter said. His haki trying not to show the fear he felt. 

“Who else should you watch out for?” Rocket asked. “Oh right, the worst of them all. Thanos himself.”

“Who the hell is Thanos?” Delilah asked. 

“Groot.”

“You’re right, buddy,” I said. “Bad news. They call him a warlord, or tyrant. Honestly he would be the dark side of space. No one knows where he is. But when he shows up, people die. Sometimes he kills everyone on a planet, other times he kills exactly half, but rarely he just kills a couple and takes over the planet. Either way, the Kree, Shi’ar, and Nova Corps stay out of his way.” 

I had heard of more than a few horror stories about the guy. Seeing his ship was akin to seeing the Flying Dutchman back in the day, it only meant death. I wasn’t sure what his goal was, but based on what I remembered from movies and comics, he wanted the Infinity Gems, and was probably destined to kill half of everyone in existence. I couldn’t help but worry this would come to fruition in this version of Marvel as well. The only question was, would I get my memories back by that point? Part of me really hoped older me had a plan for Thanos, cus I sure as hell didn’t. 

“Captain, we are approaching Elsewhere,” Shippie said over the intercom. The crew all got up as one. Delilah and Peter joining after a moment of hesitation.

“What’s Elsewhere?” Delilah asked as she followed after us.

“Nowhere in particular,” Rocket said with a laugh as we headed to the bridge.