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#1
NOV 12 |
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“Okay, Go!”
The room was dark. On the screen there was a hint of light and some mist swirling.
In a world in danger, in a time of great need...
Music started then, soft at first and building to a well-timed swell of motion. There were shots in slow motion of something happening to a city, with explosions and people diving for cover. Police personnel directed people away from harm and firefighters rushed in, only to have a massive explosion rip up the street before them.
When all hope seemed lost...
Several dark, angular jet-like vehicles zipped overhead of the huddled, grubby-faced masses who shuddered in their passing wake. The music built to a peak and then stopped. One of the black ships exploded! Everyone on the streets below looked up in time to see two streaks cut across the sky, one blue and one gold.
They came when the call was the greatest, to be our champions, to light our darkest times...
Clearly, any production effort and dollars were blown in the first thirty seconds there, as the video quality now took on a much more backyardy type feeling and, in fact, the person that this was being shown to knew that backyard well. It was his own.
On the screen the two figures 'landed' by jumping into place, and both were janitors at Kord Incorporated. There was Eddy, the thin young blonde who wore a bright yellow t-shirt, and the other was Sal, a near-retirement Ecuadoran with next to no hair and a giant beer belly, who wore a stained blue t-shirt. The footage continued, with very amateurish shots of the pair of janitors-would-be-heroes running down hallways and up flights of stairs, of scrambling over the hoods of cars in a parking lot and throwing punches at other members of the cleaning crew. It all built to the two of them turning to face Hector, the tallest of all the janitors who had his arms crossed and his face caked in a white-grey make-up. Eddy and Sal looked shocked as they gazed upon 'Darkseid'.
This is their story, the record of their deeds. These are your heroes, your bastions of might. These are.... BOOSTER GOLD AND BLUE BEETLE!
The logo, or rather a piece of paper with those two names written on it held up by Booster for the camera, came next.
Then the screen went dark.
The lights came on.
And Booster Gold was turned in his seat watching his pal, Blue Beetle, who watched what was being shared. Beetle was silent and honestly looked a little stunned. Booster, on the other hand, was beside himself with excitement.
“Did you like it?!”
Blue Beetle remained quiet for a minute. For a whole two minutes. Booster meanwhile bounced in his seat, anxious for an answer. Slowly, carefully, Beetle turned to meet Gold's ready grin. “I...”
“Yes? Yes?!? What did you think?!?”
Blue Beetle couldn't hold it in any longer. “I frakkin' loved it!”
Both of them cheered together.
They were going to do it; they were going to make a movie.
Chicago was a relatively quiet city, as far as cities went. Somewhere in the midst of many others, from Hub City to Midway, to Central City to Metropolis, Gotham to Keystone, it went about its business rather diligently. The peacefulness is what appealed to the town's self-appointed duo of defenders, who had come to enjoy the rather leisurely patrols, like the one they now found themselves on. The Bug was on auto-pilot, and zipped and zagged around skyscrapers before it settled into a buzzing loop around the Sears Tower, while in the cockpit Blue Beetle and Booster Gold chattered away excitedly.
“We should get Blue Devil to do all of our stunts!”
“Won't that...well, stand out? I mean, a big blue devil-y guy in our costumes. I mean, the horns will kind of stand out, unless we CGI them out or something...”
“No, doof,” Beetle sighed at Booster. “I mean coordinate them. He used to be a stuntman, you know. I bet we could even get him at a discount, since he's a friend.”
“Oh, yeah! Well, good. Who do we know that's musical, that could do the score?”
“I'm not sure, but wasn't there a Hawk and Dove where the Dove always had a guitar?”
“Ick, not hippy music,” Booster recoiled visibly. “Hey, I know,” he snapped his fingers as something just clicked. “What about Arsenal? I mean, he was in a band once.”
“Great Frog?” Blue Beetle smiled. “I have both their albums!” That seemed like a great idea, judging by the size of Ted's grin. “Man, this is coming together more-and-more by the moment,” to which Booster Gold nodded eagerly.
“I've also been thinking about actors for both of us, and I totally see me being played by Tim Muise.”
“Oh,” Booster made another face. “Really?” Clearly he disagreed. “I always saw you as more of a Bill Garnet type.”
“Come on,” groaned Blue. “What about Saul Tudd?”
“Hey, that'd work!” Booster beamed a smile. “Now, for me, I was thinking Tad Witt obviously, and...”
“Ahem, sirs,” intoned a voice from behind them.
Floating there in mid-air was Skeets, the football-sized sentient robot from the same future Booster Gold was from, and a constant companion now to the pair of heroic friends. He had idly listened to their banter long enough as now he cut them off. Both costumed men looked at the robot with mounting uncertainty. So Skeets glided lower and hovered next to the blinking red light that indicated that there was criminal activity nearby. “This has been going off for approximately the last seventy-four seconds and...”
“Well, why didn't you say so sooner!” Booster Gold looked aghast and turned to the monitors, which Blue Beetle flicked on as they both watched what had caused the alarm.
“A bank robbery,” Beetle pointed out as they watched masked men rush out of a downtown bank and then scrambled into a pair of vans that instantly took off. They busted through a police barricade and raced away. He then took the controls and piloted the Big towards the scene. “And fortunately we're close,” he pointed as he closed in on the pair of get-away vans.
“You'll want to dodge left,” Skeets offered but it was too late. From the rear van came a wide green blast of energy, one that jolted the Bug and caused it to go spinning in the air.
“What was that?” Booster Gold wanted to know.
“Something...Intergang-y,” Beetle noted as he swerved to avoid another shot. He looked at another monitor for a moment, one that was frozen on a still-shot analysis of the weapon the masked man fired out of the back of his van. “And there's a bunch more of them, according to the scanners, and...”
“Look out!”
Booster's warning came in time as Beetle dodged the next blast. “That's enough of that,” Blue put on his serious face. He punched the button that opened the rear hatch. “Get on out there, as this is a job for Blue Beetle and Booster Gold!”
Booster, however, didn't budge. A second later he cleared his throat. “I think you mean Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. I mean, you saw the promo I put together. Clearly, if we’re going to market the movie well we have to have some sense of continuity going into this thing and...”
“... but 'beetle' comes before 'booster' as I mean, that's just basic alphabeticalishness there.”
“That's not even a word. Besides, I'm clearly the front-liner of us.”
“Hah! I'm far more recognizable and, I mean, you fumbled on getting your name out there the first time!”
“People only remember you more for the giant gut and bacon-fed heart attacks thing. Besides, I'm the one that went toe-to-toe with Doomsday!”
“Guh, not that again! Why if it wasn't for me yo–...”
“SIRS!” Skeets cut in again and once more drifted towards something to indicate it. The monitor that had been showing the escaping criminal vans was now blank. The vehicles were just ...gone. Vanished. “It appears that they have gotten away.”
Booster Gold looked ready to say something but shut his mouth. He turned. “Well, now look what you did, Ted. If you'd just gone along with what I already had going...”
“But this just makes more sense, Michael!” They had escalated to full first names. “And it's not my fault they got away, I mean, I was getting us in there. If you weren't so egotistical to ...” Bettle silenced himself as he realized he'd gone too far.
“Come on, Skeets. This...” Booster Gold sighed, shook his head and kept from saying whatever it was he was about to say next. Instead, he leapt from the back of the Bug.
Skeets hovered there for a moment and then turned. “I'm sorry,” the robot gave. “He needs me,” and then he too darted out of the Bug to follow the golden streak that raced away.
“Well, I don't,” Beetle said to himself as he closed the rear hatch. He stewed as he took up the flight controls again. He huffed...and laid a hand on his stomach as he steered back towards Kord Tower.
“Doesn't he realize I was doing all this for him?” Booster Gold threw up his arms yet again, for approximately the fifth time in the last minute. He had lowered himself to the streets to where from the Bug he had last watched the pair of vans race along to. As he settled in over the speeding traffic below him, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Booster looked to his other friend and sighed. “No, of course he doesn't. He thinks I'm doing this all for me, but that's just...just...argh!” Up went the arms again.
Skeets darted along after the hero, only to zip out of the way to avoid those arms. “Might I remind you, I originally suggested that you title the movie project with his name first. It was only polite and besi–...”
“I could care less about the name thing, to be honest, Skeets. You know me,” the hero sighed as he randomly picked a direction and flew that way. The robot followed. “It's not that at all. It's more...well, he doesn't appreciate what I'm doing for him here.”
“What is that, sir?” Skeets kept a close distance but scooted up beside Gold as they flew when he spoke. “You're living with him rent free at Kord Enterprises. After your joint video game company was unfunded, it was rather nice of him to accept you as a tenant and even to share that floor with you as living quarters. To date, since that merger, he's purchased all of the groceries, done all of the laundry and even taken out all of the trash. Meanwhile...”
“I get it,” Booster sighed as he looked away from his little pal to the aimless direction he flew in. “But it's not like what I do for him is all that tangible. What? It's true. Without me he'd likely be three hundred pounds again and in some lab somewhere buried inside some machine...”
“... happy to be there...?”
“... miserable as could be,” Gold corrected. Together they swerved around a large cargo truck and then banked higher, turned and headed back toward the center of town. “He might seem happy with his head in a box, tinkering away, but that's not who he is.”
“You're right.”
The reply surprised Booster who came to a halt. “I am?” Skeets bobbed; a nod. Gold smiled. He was, wasn't he. “Thanks, pal,” he then grinned. “For listening.”
“It's what I am here for,” the robot gave.
“What we're both here for,” Booster considered. After the Justice League International had disbanded, having had their embassy blown up in their faces – quite literally – he had thought, briefly, about going home to his native time. After that, he wanted to join the Justice League and convinced Beetle to make a go of that. But, time was drawing even closer to 'The Date' and it felt like leaving Ted now of all times would be a waste.
“You're thinking about it, aren't you?”
“Hrm? Yeah,” Booster admitted. He knew it was pointless to dwell on such things, as he had learned that you couldn't escape history. “You know, that might be a part of it,” he then admitted aloud. He had pretty much been irrational in his snapping at his pal, Beetle, at least in his reasons for doing so. “Silly, huh, that I'm worried about our time left being spent arguing and then I go and create an argument out of what was really nothing.”
“Well...,” Skeets started, stopped, and then added, “You said it; I didn't.”
“True, I did.” Booster sighed and lowered himself toward the streets below. There was a hot dog food cart below him that he aimed for.
“So, you're going to apologize?” Skeets followed.
“In a way,” Gold nodded as he touched down. People kept this distance, though some pointed and others whispered. He ignored them as he got into line for a dog. “If we track down those goons from the bank, well, then he can punch them instead of me. So, that's win-win!”
“Good thinking,” Skeets had to admit. They then lapsed into silence until it was Booster's turn, who ordered one with the works and was kind enough to ask if Skeets wanted one too. Of course he didn't, but when the hero remembered he didn't have a wallet on his costume and had half the hot dog already stuffed in his face, Skeets gave his best recorded sigh. It was one Batman had made many, many times. Booster cringed, but Skeet's glass compartment slid open so that the vendor could retrieve his required eight dollars, which became ten after the tip.
After that, the pair were into the sky once more. Booster finished his quick meal and around the mouthful he asked if those were the apartment keys he saw in there among the various things Skeets was carrying. “Of course,” the robot gave. “You'd forget them otherwise.”
Blue Beetle threw down his wrench in frustration.
Above him, the Bug sat docked in the hanger wing of the makeshift apartment floor of Kord Tower. Where the floor had once been devoted to the video game development company he'd formed with Booster, the now defunct business had given way to a refitted living space. It had been Ted's idea, and doing, to turn 'Blue and Gold' into their posh new living space. He had converted the floor into a very spiffy (if he said so himself) complex for them both (and Skeets) and the thirteenth floor had become their home over the last three months. Beetle sighed and bent down to retrieve the wrench as he then reached up to absently, lovingly pet the dented surface above him. “Sorry girl, I'll keep working on you. It's not you, it's just....guh!”
Blue reached up and peeled back the cowl to his costume, so that now he looked at what he was working on without the goggles in the way. The energy blast from earlier had banged up the belly of the Bug and, with lack of anything better to do since Booster ran off on him, he was patching 'her' up.
Without anyone else to talk to, he spoke to the Bug as he tended to the bumps and dents. “I'm pretty sure he only hears or sees what he wants to,” Ted sighed. “It's just so frustrating. I mean, I give and give and give and all he ever does is take and take and take! He does it to others all the time, but to me, I don't know, I mean is it wrong to expect a little 'thank you' now and again?”
He looked up from his work and out of the workshop to the adjacent room, now empty, but one that housed what had been near a month of personal labor. It was an idea 'man-cave', with every wall (except one) being giant projection surfaces that had a constant feed of every sports channel on the planet, and some even from beyond. The wall that wasn't a screen had the two most comfortable, plush, automated service chairs in existence. Behind that a display case with a replica of Michael Carter's football trophies, and other duplications from the friends' heroic past.
Off that was the gym, complete with weight room and interactive sports court, capable of doing anything from handball to basketball to a batting cage to rapidly-altering jungle gym cage (Ted's favorite), and the wave-controlled swimming pods. There was the sprawling entertaining lobby that also doubled as the kitchen, where the self-preparing personalizing any-topping pizza maker was. The giant open bedrooms (and there was even one for Skeets), the spa-like joint bathroom, the karaoke bar-and-dance room...and more. Like the room that housed the unplugged time-bubble device that Booster insisted on keeping but yet never turning on. He had even shaved four feet off his already small workroom to add more space to the closet space for Michael's bedroom and, “Did he even notice, or say 'thank you'?! No, of course not, argh!”
Ted knew he was only getting himself worked up. He really wanted a cheeseburger. Or two. Maybe a bag full of Oreos, the minty ones. He knew that the fridge had several tubs of different kinds of ice cream. “No,” he sighed and took several deep breathes before he turned back to his work. He should be good.
“Why did I even agree to that stupid movie idea to begin with,” he fumed. Almost instantly, Beetle answered himself. “Because I thought it'd be fun. Because I thought, hey, maybe it could turn out to be a good thing.” And damnit, what was wrong with folks maybe getting the idea that he was a hero worthy of that kind of attention. “I'll never be Batman,” he continued to share his thoughts with Bug. “Or Superman, or Wonder Woman. Heck, even a Green Lantern and there are like forty of them from Earth, but... I'm worth it.” And it was great to have someone, a buddy, who felt that way too.
“Even if he's an egotistical jerk,” Blue frumped as he finished up his patching job. Yet, even as he said that he remembered something. He got to his feet and headed for the man-cave, found the remote and pushed several buttons. In a few seconds he'd called up the promo video Booster had showed him earlier, and Beetle fast forwarded to the parts where Eddy and Sal were running down hallways and jumping over boxes. “Well, damn,” he noted aloud as he saw what he only not realized had been there. Eddy was in a new yellow t-shirt, sure, and Sal's blue shirt was a little too small and stained but...Sal also had a make-shift Blue Beetle-like cowl and blue gloves, while Eddy had no extra flare at all.
“You were right!”
“Of course I was,” Skeets returned.
Booster Gold gave a snort and no further answer as he picked up the pace. He flew faster as he followed the trail that he could now clearly see. Skeets had pointed out that since the bank robbers had been Intergang then the likelihood that their advanced weaponry emitted energy waves akin to ones they'd faced before, he could scan the area in those frequencies. Also, since the twin vans had vanished, the probability that they had used cloaking devices was high. That meant shifts in the ambient radiation levels, or something. Booster had stopped listening to a lot of what Skeets said as he wanted for the robot to make the required adjustments to the scanners in his goggles. And then, bingo! There was the trail and they were off.
“You're one in a million, Skeets!”
“Actually, sir, I'm more li–...”
However, Skeets was cut off as Gold pulled up suddenly. They came to a quick stop over the busy and winding intersection of the I-94 and the Eisenhower Expressway. Booster pointed past the University of Illinois campus towards the student services building. “They're at it again!” Just like that he was off as he bee-lined for the National Republic Bank of Chicago. Skeets was forced to give chase.
As Booster neared, he saw that his rushed assessment had been correct. The pair of vans were backed up to the front of the building and masked armed men flanked the vehicles, poised and ready to keep everyone back. A quick audio-scan told Gold that there were hostages inside and the fact that the goons’ weapons were fully charged suggested they weren't willing to take on any more.
“Local authorities are en route, sir, but have been instructed to keep a respectable distance as they claim to have hostages,” reported Skeets as he caught up to Booster, who still surveyed the scene. “If anyone is spotted approaching the scene, the robbers have assured the police that no one will leave the bank alive.”
Booster chewed his bottom lip. He needed a plan and fast. “Give me a layout of the building, will you? There has to be some way inside.”
“Other than through force, I am not seeing anything,” Skeets regretfully gave.
“Well, there has to be something,” Booster stewed. He hated not knowing the options. “A back door, something.”
That was as far as he got, however, when a beam of energy pummeled him from above that drove him down to the highways under him. Cars screeched to a halt, some skidded and others collided, as a ring of pile-ups formed around Gold's 'landing spot'. “A little warning next time,” he groaned up to Skeets.
“Sorry sir, but they came out of nowhere. Quite literally.” Skeets ducked and weaved as move beams lanced down from above, as more-and-more of them peppered the broke concrete. There were eight armed men in masks wearing who also sported jetpacks, clearly Intergang goons.
Booster Gold got his power shield in time, took aim and fired a golden beam of his own from his hand, which took one of the flying men square in the chest. “Well, tell them I don't like them doing that!”
“If it's any consolation, I have isolated the radiation signature their cloaking device is using, meaning I can detect it and there are no other unrevealed entities in the area.”
“Great consolation,” Booster muttered as he fired another blast, which clipped his target. As the man spun, he picked off the goon with a better aimed shot. “I'd be more consoled if they surrendered.”
“I don't think they're inclined to do that, sir,” Skeets gave as he darted away from a volley of shots. “Maybe if you asked them nicely?”
“I'm not inclined to do that either,” Booster bit as he took flight. The continued shots got threateningly closer to the nearby vehicles, and Gold had no desire to see anyone innocent get hurt. As he rocketed upwards, he collided with another of the goons, pummeled him with several blows and then went higher. He was glad to see that the remaining five men did indeed follow him.
Booster turned and pitched the man he had battled at another so that they collided. He banked and rammed another. “You guys don't talk much. Not that I'm complaining, I mean, lugs like you never have anything interesting to say.” He wrenched the man he wrestled with around so that he took the shot meant for him, as another of the Intergang goons took a shot. “It's all just 'Die!' and 'Lord Mastermind sentences you to death!' So, like I said, never anything interesting.”
Despite his prodding, he got no responses. “Man, you guys aren't even giving me anything,” Booster sighed and he kept the banter up. Four left now and these were better odds. Far below now was the battered intersection he'd left behind and this was far enough. “End of the line, chumps,” he gave as he came to a halt, and quickly the jetpacked men surrounded him.
“Still the silent treatment? Guh! I bet you're all lousy boyfriends…that or devoted monks.” He'd had enough. Before they could shoot he extended his limbs and 'stretched' his forcefield. It snapped off him, a radiating bubble that wholloped the hovering men simultaneously in a golden spherical punch.
He gathered up the unconscious men as he headed back down again and laid them on the highway they had demolished, but then it was off and away as Booster Gold raced to the National Republic Bank of Chicago once more. He pulled up just in time to find the men that had gone inside emerge, one of them carrying a box. The rear of the second van slammed open as a masked man leaped out, a similar box in his hand and they bee-lined for one another. “Oh no you don't!” Gold swept his hands back and raced forward to try and make the intercept.
However, the air surged with a pulse of energy and the twin boxes hurled out of the hands of their carriers to slam together, like two powerful magnets brought close together. There was a crackle, a spark and then the boxes melted away as smaller, newly reformed box spun in the meeting place. Just as Booster reached it, there was a thunderous flare of sound and light, one that blew everyone back and shattered windows for several blocks.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The collapsing centric rings that marked the creation of a boom tube swirled before Booster Gold who made himself busy with picking himself up off the ground. Just then Skeets slipped back into view and buzzed around Booster. “There you are. Where did you disappear to?”
Skeets didn't answer, as instead a figure from above did. One that descended on a cable zipline that came from the belly of the Bug. A familiar one. “He was busy answering my call as to where you were,” Blue Beetle managed as he landed and drew his strobe pistol.
“What kept you?”
“I was trying to find this on my own. I thought if I isolated alterations in the ambient radiation levels...”
“... smart thinking,” Skeets complimented Beetle.
“Thanks. But then I figured, 'hey, Booster knows how to find trouble' and so I tracked Skeets' energy signature and, well, here I am.”
“Hrm,” Gold considered as they faced the spinning box and the swirly boom tube. “Still took you long enough. I had to take on like forty guys all by myself before you showed up.”
“It was eight,” Skeets corrected.
Beetle smiled. “So how do we shut this down? We don't want Darkseid coming through this thing.”
“Or Granny Goodness,” Booster shuddered. “I swear, she licked the ugly stick and then married it.” He shivered again. “Anyway, I don't know. You're the brains this operation. I'm busy being both the looks and the brawn.”
Before either of them could get out more, Skeets beeped an alarm and then they both saw it. A figure emerged, shadowed, who reached out to grab the spinning box, plainly seen now to be a mother box. The man that held it was in a rich gray pin-striped suit and wore a rather distinctive, sinister goatee. The cold eyes of Steppenwolf of Apokolips met the blank ones of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle.
“I, Steppenwolf, greatest hunter in existence, am returned! When last I stood on this planet, my quest was denied me, but never again! I have toiled, ventured to the reaches of universe, and brought back with the recombination of my mother box! Let this world fall before the might of Steppenwolf!”
The boom tube collapsed with a mighty suction of space and time, and in the silence that followed the dull roar the portal had maintained, all three (four with Skeets) remained quiet.
“To be honest, I was kind of hoping for Darkseid.”
Booster Gold managed to get that out fully before Steppenwolf snarled and raised his free hand. Energy arched from his mother box to the open hand and a crackling, double-bladed axe hummed into existence. It came down and cleaved the space between the pair of heroes as they scrambled out of the way.
“Sure, insult the bad guy, one with a whole planet of evil alien weaponry behind him.”
“Well, do you have a better idea, Blue? Because I'm all ears!”
“If you were the Atom, sure.”
“Well, I'm not okay. Besides, he's tiny and isn't this guy like super strong or something...tell me he's super strong and his only power isn't just to pull off that look. As gnarly as it is, that 'stache does work for him.”
“If you were the Atom,” Beetle explained, “then you could ride the photons from the flash of my strobe gun into his eyes, because no matter how invulnerable he might be he still has to see, right? So then you could just tapdance on his brain to leave him a drooling idiot.”
Steppenwolf looked between Booster and Beetle, who were posied on either side of him, and was clearly baffled. They prattled on as if he wasn't there.
“That's just silly,” Booster scoffed. “Say I could ride in there through his eyeballs or whatever, then that's assuming his brain is all mushy and soft like ours. Heck, that's even assuming he has a brain like ours. I mean, he's a god...god-thing...godling...right?” He actually looked to Steppenwolf for an answer, and the goateed, axe-swinging Apokaliptian nodded.
“God-thing,” Gold went on. “So, say his brain is like ours then you're assuming it's not all hard and not dense like the rest of him.”
“That's actually a good point,” Blue Beetle conceded.
“ENOUGH!” Steppenwolf roared as his patience evaporated.
“Now!” Booster took flight as he barked the command. Beetle had his gun up in an instant and fired, as he waited for this moment since their distracting babble started. There was a blinding *FLARE!* of light which caused Steppenwolf to stagger back, as he had no protective lenses to protect his eyes as Blue and Gold did. Booster followed that up with a swift uppercut to the New God's chin. “Nyuk nyuk,” he added as he poked Steppenwolf in the eyes as the god-thing's hand came away from his bearded face.
Steppenwolf roared again, this time in frustration and less so to do with pain, but as he staggered that's when Blue Beetle bounced in. Acrobatically, Blue tumbled in and then swept a kick low, which took Steppenwolf off his feet so that he landed on his back.
Blue bounced as he got to his feet and put up his dukes, as though he was ready to box. Gold looked smugly at the villain on his back at their feet. “We accept surrenders in little girl sobby tears or begging pleas for mercy,” Beetle grinned.
“Not today,” intoned Steppenwolf.
“Guys,” Skeets buzzed as he zoomed in. “The mother box, it's powering up and...!”
The axe Steppenwolf held onto disappeared with a *fzzst!* sound and then, alarmingly quick, his form wavered, flickered and then was gone.
“Is that a win?”
“I think so,” Beetle answered his friend. “Or at least he ran off scared because we beat him so easily.”
“Actually...” Skeets started.
“I think it had more to do with my arrival,” came a familiar voice from behind them.
Booster Gold and Blue Beetle turned together as they faced Martian Manhunter. The alien floated mid-air, arms folded over his chest and in general looked displeased -- something that the pair were infinitely familiar with.
“So...” The Manhunter let that hang for a moment.
Skeets scooted first, to explain for the pair that the Martian faced. Yet, Blue Beetle put out his hand and shoved the robot back. “No.”
J'onn raised one of his beetled brows.
“We don't need to explain or to apologize,” Blue asserted. He even puffed his chest a little. “Maybe this wasn't as clean as Batman would have done or as well as Superman would have, but we did handle this. In our own way, sure, we did take him down before you got her and,” he held up a finger to silence J'onn who looked ready to try and cut him off, “when he got back up, we would have knocked him down again.”
“Did you have a plan?”
“No,” Blue gave quickly and easily, “but Booster handled all those guys, getting them away from civilians and...look, no one got hurt except for the bad guys.”
Booster stepped in and decided to get to the quick about it. “We don't have to be like everyone else to still be good at this. We're going to do this our own way.” He turned and looked to his pal. “Together.”
Beetle nodded and smiled. They both looked up to the displeased Martian.
Silence.
In the background there was the building sound of sirens as police and ambulances made it to the site. There was a buzz of commotion as bank workers and bystanders started to mill about as well. The unconscious Intergang men remained motionless, but security guards were now brave enough to move away from the bank to secure them.
Finally, Martian Manhunter nodded. “Very well.” That was it as the Martian took to the sky, leaving Blue and Gold (and Skeets) to watch him leave.
“That went well,” Skeets offered as a means to break the ice.
“Does he have a part in the movie?” Beetle had to ask as they watched Manhunter vanish from sight.
“A small one. I mean, someone has to fill us in on the dangers and point us in the right direction, right?”
“Nyah,” Beetle grinned. “I think we can do that well enough all on our own.”
Booster agreed with a laugh, and then the two of them headed off to help clear up the mess that they had helped to avert.
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To Be Continued...
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