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#2
FEB 13 |
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“Hey, Ladies!”
“We’re through.”
The figure that emerged from the portal was clad head-to-toe in a stylish crimson armor that left only the lower half of her face exposed, where bright scarlet lips turned into a satisfied smile. The armor was segmented, insectoid-like and marked across the chest with a black-lined symbol. Beside her was another newcomer to Chicago, an attractive long haired-blonde woman in a black bodysuit, with an ever-cascading display of golden stars. The partner to the red bug-woman adjusted the black visors over her eyes and then wrinkled her pretty nose as she hovered there, taking in the landscape.
“Ugh, so, like, we’re here, then?”
It was the middle of Soldier Field, stadium to the Chicago Bears, or what left of it anyway. The portal that they had appeared from had exploded into existence and thus a good chunk of the grounds were torn up and many of the seats were on fire. It was early in the morning with dawn on the horizon. Several of the flagpoles had been blown off as well, and one of the outer walls of the former stock car raceway had been knocked off, meaning that the stadium would need extensive renovations once again. Though the gap in the wall, Lake Michigan was evident, still and silent now as the portal fluctuated but remained open for several steady moments.
“Yes, Michela, this is the right world. Trust me.” The first turned to her blonde companion and held up the device for inspection, one that whizzed and whorled with a number of various readouts. “See? Besides, this better be it, otherwise we’d have no need to be wearing these,” she gestured to the white bracelet on Michela’s wrist while also indicating to her own matching one.
“Well, we didn’t blow up like ya’ said we would, Teddy. So, like, I wasn’t sure, okay?”
“Might,” Teddy corrected. “If these Collision Alter-Matter Regulator Emitters I whipped up didn’t work, just setting foot in this dimension would have generated a blast big enough to wipe out this whole state, with us at the epicenter of it,” she explained again, now on this side of the portal. “But they only have a six hour battery, so let’s get this done because I don’t want to go boom.”
To that, ‘Chela made a face. Clearly, she didn’t want to explode either.
“Besides, if we don’t get back soon,” Teddy reminded her friend, “then we run the risk of the boss discovering that it’s missing and then he’ll have our heads,” she scowled.
“Okay, Teddy, lay off, wilya’?! It’s not my fault, okay? He came and he stole it, so like, there’s not anything I could have done about that. Alright? We’ve been over it, like, scheesh, a million times.”
“Seeing as how you’re from the future, you’d think that you would have known this was coming,” Teddy smiled as she shot that out.
That only made Michela angrier though. “You know that, like, history was my worst subject! Besides, if like, your stupid security system actually worked instead of shorting out, like, all the time, then it would have, like, alerted us and stuff!”
She had her there and so Teddy kept quiet but gestured forward. What responded to her summons was the last thing through the portal; a two-man craft as deeply red as Teddy was but far more sinister in design, though still very insectoid. Once it was through, the craft took up a defensive position and hovered over the pair, as the portal they came through closed with a small ~pop~ sound. Silence once more fell over the empty (and ruined) Soldier Stadium.
“I just want to get this done and to get home, ‘Chela. I don’t like being here. From all the stories there’re too many heroes here. We’re vastly outnumbered and it makes me uncomfortable.”
“Well, we could, like, ditch the mission and go have some fun? Oh Teddy, how long has it been since we’ve had some fun, like, some real fun!” Here Michela brightened, her entire mood shifted in an instant from broody and mean to light and silly. “You know what I mean, like, a real girl’s night out rampage! We could slaughter meaninglessly and really paint the town red! Like, blood red! It’d be SO MUCH FUN! Oh, it feels like years since the Scarlet Scarab and Goldstar tore up a city! Like, literally!”
“Whoa, calm down there,” the Scarlet Scarab advised her friend, who had floated a little higher and was clutching her fists together like they were capable of getting ahold of the dreams Goldstar swept herself up in. “Let’s get what we came for and get out of here, before we have whole leagues and legions of heroes on us? Kay?”
“Party pooper,” huffed Goldstar as she came down to Earth again.
“Aw, I know what will cheer you up. There’s at least two people on this world that you can kill.”
Goldstar seethed now, her hidden eyes narrowing and her mouth twisting to a vengeful sneer. “That’s right,” she hissed. “I am going to kill them and then take back the Time Sphere that he stole from me!”
“Good,” soothed Scarlet Scarab as she laid a hand on Goldstar’s shoulder. Above the pair, twin openings appeared in the belly of the hovering red bug-ship. “Let’s board the Battlebug and go find them and do this.” Teddy pumped herself up for this, but truth-be-told she was itching for a fight and especially with the goofball who had shown up her security system. “I’ll even let you throw the first punch,” the Scarlet Scarab smiled wickedly.
“Oh goody!” Goldstar clapped and bounced, excited for that. “Just like old times!”
“Like old times,” Teddy promised as she quickly unholstered her plasma pistol, checked its gauge and then slid it back into place. It really had been a long time since the pair of them had cut loose, as ‘back home’ they had done a number on any resistance towards them, leaving them idle. Scarab was looking forward to this as a chance to get her groove back, as it were.
Goldstar was too and bounced excitedly. “Let’s get this show started!” She zipped upwards in a shower of glittering star-flakes. Scarlet Scarab gave a little chuckle and reached up for the cable line that extended down to her raised hand. Up they went to board the craft.
“Buckle up,” Teddy advised as she slid into the familiar pilot’s chair. “It’s about going to be a bloody ride…for them!” she tossed her head back and laughed gleefully.
‘Chela joined in with the ‘bwhah’ moment and laughed along with her friend, but then suddenly clapped her hands together and looked determined. “Right then,” smiled Goldstar as she took her co-pilot’s seat, pleased as mayhem and death were all but promised to her now. “Let’s, like, go kill this Blue Beetle and Booster Gold!”
“You put up the flyers, right?”
“Of course I did. Didn’t we do that, Skeets?”
“Ah,” the hovering robot stammered as it rotated and looked between Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. And then back again. And again. “Let...” Skeets petered out and both costumed men stood there looking at the flying drone. “Let me go check! That they’re still there!” Before he could be stopped, Skeets zipped away.
To complement that suspicious speedy exit, Booster gave Beetle a guilty look. “Always helpful, he is.”
Beetle just shook his head and thought better of arguing with Gold about the importance of prior notice. “Well, I am guessing it will take Skeets about...an hour...to ensure that all the flyers are up and so people know...”
“Something like that,” Booster let out the breath he had held in, as Blue didn’t seem upset with him. Blue Beetle kept shaking his head and settled in his seat at the table the pair had set out. Behind them was the Bug, parked and serving as the backdrop to the first auditions for the ‘Submit Working Title Here’ movie that the duo were determined to make. They had printed up a casting call, meant to have been spread all over Chicago, and set up shop here in the middle of Lincoln Park to do just that.
Lincoln Park was the second largest city-wide park in the nation, trumped only by New York’s Central Park. Even now with it barely past nine in the morning on a Saturday, there were people everywhere, out jogging or walking their dogs or even just generally enjoying the open air. Passersby took notice of the city’s self-appointed heroes, so Blue and Gold earned some stares, but so far no approaches. It was a slightly chilly morning, a little brisk but very comfortable.
Booster collected his cup of Cometcoins coffee as Beetle went for his and the two took a drink together, and Gold came around to Blue on the Bug-side of the table. “You sure about this? I mean, the whole open call thing? There’s no telling what we could get.”
“I am and that’s kinda the point,” Beetle pointed out as he pulled out Booster’s chair for him, so that they could sit together while they waited. “We’re just...us. We could be anyone, you know? Not hunky millionaires or chiseled handsome aliens.”
“You telling me something I should know about you, bud?”
“What, that I have a huge man-crush on the Holy Trinity, Bats and all? Nyah. It’s just...you know, it’s like we told J’onn: we do things in our own way, so why not allow ourselves to be surprised. Maybe there’s someone out there right under our noses that can impress us.”
“Fair enough,” Gold conceded, for the second time, just as he had when Ted approached him with the idea. He didn’t need re-convincing but he listened and played along. “You know I’m all for the homegrown thing, and besides, I’m all for someone getting their shot.”
“Precisely!”
“Glad we’re on the same page then,” Gold beamed. “I still think we should consider reaching out to Tad Witt, you know, in case he’s between shoots and...”
*THOOOOOOM!*
The back of the Bug exploded and the craft buckled, tipped forward, but held. Both heroes looked up at the trail from the missile that had struck their vehicle to follow it to the source, and both went wide-eyed to see the scarlet flying beetle-like craft speeding toward them. “Looks like something you might come up with,” Gold commented with a hint of a snort.
“Booster!” Beetle got to his feet and pointed as the red-bug fired a second missile towards them.
“Got it,” Gold replied and took to the sky, as beneath him Blue sped his way to the tipped Bug to climb aboard. Above, Booster raised his hands and energy flared and then burst from his hand as a bolt of energy took the projectile mid-flight for a harmless fiery explosion. “Like I said, got i—!”
He was cut off with a sharp, shrill, “Arrrrgh!” Something, or someone, tackled him about the midsection with such ferocity that only his suit’s forcefield spared him from injury from such a crushing blow. Booster was driven down to the ground and barely had the chance to realize that it was a woman that had tackled him before he brought his arms up to shield himself from the fury of punches she swung at him. “Thief! How dare you steal from me?!”
“Oh crud,” Booster swallowed as he realized who this was. Sparkles flew from where Goldstar’s shielded punches ricocheted off his raised arms, and beneath this Gold used his brief moment to shout a warning to his friend. “Get out of here, Blue! Go, get away, now!” With effort, Booster Gold threw the wild woman atop him off and staggered to his feet. “I’m not kidding, go!”
“Booster, what’s al—” That’s as far as Blue Beetle got, speaking from the cockpit of the Bug as he got the craft righted, before the nose of the ship was pounded down again. The Battlebug was on him, as retractable front claws were extended and tackled the blued Bug. Blue looked ahead and saw his counterpart in the cockpit of her craft and blinked. “Who are you?”
“OhnoOhnoOhnoOhnoOhnoOhno,” beeped a very nervous Skeets as he zoomed back into the scene, leaving a trail of casting call flyers as he zipped in. “Sir!” Skeets buzzed around Booster Gold. “Perhaps if you lead them away, they’ll leave Blue Beetle alone. He could then get behind them, or devise some sort of strategy to capture or contain them, or...”
“Good idea, pal,” Gold answered and was off in a shot before he could really stop to think about it. Booster raced up and away in a streak of golden light.
“Oh no you don’t!” Goldstar roared as she raced forward. “Like, get back here so I can kill you! Kill you so good!” The villainess raged as she found a startled Skeets and swatted the robot so hard that he dented as he spun away with a tribbling, beeping wail. “I’m not kidding! Get back here and die you coward!” Realizing that Gold was already getting away, she took off after him, but not before she howled in rage once more. “Raaargh!”
From the Bug, Blue Beetle saw all this and turned his attention to his feminine scarlet doppelganger and used the microphone to address her. “Ah, aren’t you going to go get him? He went that way.” Ted was kind enough to point in the direction that Booster had fled in.
“Oh no,” Scarlet Scarab sneered and leaned forward on her controls so that the Battlebug edged the Bug further down into the dirt. “I know better than to get in Goldie’s way. I’m staying, as the fun of spilling your blood is all mine!”
Booster Gold sped for the edges of Chicago and only spared a glance back once he was nearly there ensure that he was being followed. When he saw no one behind him, he came to a complete stop and looked rather bewildered. “Huh.” Booster was genuinely perplexed as he swore once they’d found him, both of them would have come after him. “Guess I better go back and make sure that Ted’s not dead...”
That’s precisely when Goldstar streaked into view, arms wide and fists balled, with glittering energy sparking from each. “There you are!” She did not sound happy to have found him, much more so the opposite. “I’m, like, so going to kill you!”
Booster braced himself, and figured if there was anywhere to fight this murderous woman, it was up here high in the sky over the city as there were no bystanders about. “I think you already mentioned something about that.” She fired on him, powerful golden blasts of crackling energy that fortunately his suit’s force shielding was able to withstand. “It’s not like you were using it anyway...”
“That’s not the point!” Goldstar raged as she cut him off and sent the hero tumbling backwards with a more powerful, well-aimed blast. As Booster spun in the air, she closed in on him and pounded him with a flurry of quick, shield-enhanced punches. “It was mine and you took it from me! I claimed it fair and square,” she hissed as she walloped him soundly so that he was driven back, away from her.
Booster used that space to collect himself, as he knew he only had a moment before she was on him again. “By killing your dimension’s version of Rip Hunter!”
“That time lord,” Goldstar seethed, “who came back from the future to try and change everything for his gain...that was, like, my idea! There was no way I was, like, going to let him steal my gig!” She fired on Booster twice more, but he easily dodged her anger-guided shots and zipped closer. “So yeah, I murdered him and good too! By rights, what was his became mine!”
“Even if you didn’t know how to use it once you had it!” Saying that only made Goldstar look angrier, but Booster Gold only smiled as he got that shot in, and then another as he blasted her with a beam of energy.
She tumbled back away from him but only briefly before she corrected her position and sneered back to him. “If you want to live, you’re gonna have to do better than that. You’ll have to, like, hit a girl and stuff, because when I get my hands on you, Booster Gold, I’m gonna’—”
“Kill me, yes, yes…you’ve said so a couple of times now.”
“And I mean it!”
“I’m sure you do. You seem very sincere.”
“That smug look of yours ain’t helping,” Goldstar scowled and rushed at Booster again. He attempted to dodge her sudden move but only got partially out of the way before she was able to grab his leg and yank him back down closer to her once more. “Allow me, to like, bash it off your face!”
Yet, before she could punch him again, Booster hauled off and slugged her across the face.
Immediately he backed away from her, hands to his face and Booster looked somewhat aghast. He blurted out, “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
Goldstar righted herself after that head turning punch and grinned happily. “Now we’re talkin!’
She came at him again and this time Booster was ready for her. They collided and spun, with Goldstar being able to bring a knee up into his gut. Fortunately, his forceshield held, but it was still driven into his stomach and left him winded a moment, which she followed by a downward joint-handed blow to his back. As Booster Gold rushed downward, she charged him with her fists out before her, but he spun and caught both hands as the cityscape came into view below them. They had been above the clouds, but now Goldstar had caused them to dip below and Chicago was under them.
“I don’t even know how you knew I had the thing,” she spat as they tussled for control.
“Hey, sometimes I know things.”
“Actually, I told him,” interrupted Skeets as he zoomed into the picture, but didn’t interfere as the two humans fought. Rather, he kept a slightly safe distance and addressed the pair rather casually.
“Ah, so this is your fault,” Goldstar snapped, as still she struggled with Booster but looked at the flying robot.
“I guess so,” Skeets chirped and sounded almost cheerful about it.
“Skoots, get him!”
As Goldstar said that, a small golden disk that had been on her back detached and unfolded, expanded and basically transformed into an attack drone. Skoots was easily quadruple Skeets’ size and, as this other robot continued to unpack itself, a variety of rather harmful weaponry extended from it from all sides. It was easily a flying, Swiss Army knife of commandable execution.
“Killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill,” Skoots intoned as it powered up and turned in Skeets direction.
“Eep!” And with that, Skeets darted away. Before it could be commanded otherwise, the overly-weaponized Skoots took off and gave chase.
Both Booster Gold and Goldstar were silent a moment after they had paused in their fighting to witness that exchange, but a second later they were at each other again. She elbowed him in the neck, he punched her in the shoulder. She kicked him in the leg, he struck her at her side. She headbutted him, he kicked and was finally able to push her away.
“Why’d you take it anyway?!” Fed up, Goldstar felt like she had to know.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Booster huffed, as he was winded. They were equally matched and equally geared, so their escalating slugfest was taking a toll on both their systems, in terms of them as users and also their futuristic suits. This wasn’t going to go anywhere with neither of them having an upper hand, and yet neither of them would give up, not without seeing this through.
“Try me.”
Michael thought about that for a second as, for the moment, both of them held their positions across from one another in the air, with matching shimmering shields of golden light and balled fists of energy ready to hurl. Maybe the one person that could understand him was himself, even if that ‘himself’ was him from another universe, evil, and for some reason also a girl. Finally, he decided ‘why not?’ and simply said, “For a friend.”
“Who? The robot?” Goldstar laughed, but that girlish mocking giggle came to a very sudden halt as she realized just who Booster Gold meant. It was her turn to fall silent in thought as he watched her, aware that she got it. At least he could be thankful for that. Goldie opened her mouth and then closed it, and finally opened it again as she spoke, “I still have to kill you. Like, sorry dude, but even for those reasons, I can’t been seen for letting this get away from me. The higher ups, they got plans for the Time Sphere, so I have to, like, deliver and stuff. It’s the way it’s gotta’ be.”
“I underst—!” Before Booster could finish, Goldstar was on him and punched him again. This time across the face.
They came at each other again, and then again, and still again. Exhausted, the limits of their suit’s barriers pushed to their limits, when they collided again they failed to come apart. The two, hero and villainess, became a tumbling, clutching, fighting golden ball of fisticuffs and resentment that fell from the sky. Their mid-air brawling took them on an angle away from Chicago, and with a *splash!* they went down into Lake Michigan together.
The Bug had to be abandoned, after the Battlebug had managed to rip the roof apart with its pincer arms, leaving it a rather vulnerable ride to stay in. Before Blue Beetle made his escape from his beloved craft, he was able to activate the electromagnetic pulse generator he had onboard, the result of which shorted out both vehicles. Now the hero somersaulted and cartwheeled through Lincoln Park as he narrowly avoided the bevy of shots and other attacks that came from behind him as Scarlet Scarab gave chase. Considering how busy the park generally was, people scattered in all directions, but Blue did his best to avoid them. He beelined for the closest line of trees.
He took quick aim behind himself with his flash gun and fired. The frustrated ‘argh!’ that followed told him the shot had been successful, but Blue didn’t wait around for further proof. His foe was temporarily blinded and to make sure she kept chase however, he gave her a vocal target to aim for. “Marco!”
“Not funny,” Scarlet yelled back and blindly took aim with her own pistol. There were a couple of soft ~pops~ and the air was split by thirty or forty swift shafts of air that whizzed just wide of Beetle.
“Whoa, a compressed air pellet, right? How did you handle the cycling issue to allow for that rapid of a succession? That was like an air-machine gun! I could never get the ratio right on intake modulation and...hey!”
Blue Beetle managed to dodge that shot and the tree that had been behind him splintered as Scarlet Scarab’s shot found its mark there. Her vision was coming back to her and Scarab corrected her aim. “Ah, thanks? And the intake was a cinch if you managed to get the oscillation calibrated through an electromagnetic inducer, so that it can self-regulate and...hey, stop distracting me!” She fired again.
Again another tree splintered and Blue Beetle dove behind yet another, where Scarlet Scarab lost him in the foliage. “Get back out here and fight, you coward! You and your buddy, both of you! Him the thief and you...the irritant!” Scarab reached to her waist and drew forth a small disk that she hurled in the general direction of the bushes Beetle hid in. “Speaking of irritants,” she sneered.
Beetle popped up and tossed something towards what she had thrown, his more the shape of a tiny capsule. Where they collided there was a small explosion and then a fizzling puff as her explosive detonated but was contained with a clumsy sphere of foam. As that hit the ground, it was Scarab’s turn to look startled. “Clever. A retardant to counteract explosives and I’m guessing it also serves as a thermal dampener?”
“Yeah, actually, that was the original intention. Burning buildings, fighting Heat Wave or something, you know. I also have these.” Blue held out his other hand where a similar capsule rested in his palm, though this one was red where the one he had hurled was blue. “A crystallizing cryno-gel that actually expands when in contact with radically lowered sub-thermal temperatures, to provide an immediate burst of containable heat.”
Scarab actually lowered her weapon and continued to look impressed. She stepped closer to examine the shared bit of technology with a bit of wonderment, what with Blue Beetle sticking out of the bushes and her marching on the trees she had just shot to pieces. “So, it regulates itself based on the ambient temperature, so that it doesn’t release unless there’s a sizable thermal difference, meaning that unless there is a manufactured variance in the setting it’s tossed into, it remains inert. Clever boy.” She even smiled.
“Thanks! I only got it past the prototype phase last week, as I was still trying to figure out the proper delivery system. With the crystalline gel, I found that it could both remain docile easily and yet expand rapidly when needed to be. Best thing is, the compound even has a bio-control mechanism, so that it stops as soon as the heat differential ends, so that it doesn’t expand beyond where it’s needed!”
Scarab looked ready to say something else but then shook her head, as if she only just then remembered where she was and why she was here. “Grhn,” she grunted and took a swing at Beetle, who saw the blow coming only at the last moment but was able to get an arm up to block it.
“Hey, I don’t mean to tell you your job here,” Blue gulped as he ducked low to avoid a nimble kick that just missed his lowered head, “but there’s got to be a better way to handle our differences than to fight about it! Whatever Booster did to your dimension, I’m su—”
“Universe! An anti-matter universe,” she interrupted him, determined to correct him. “Counter to yours in every way!”
“—universe then, but as I was saying, whatever he did surely we can make it right somehow. Omph!” He went silent as she managed to land a kick to his side, which caused Beetle to stumble sideways, right into a split tree and he leaned against it.
“The only way to make this right is to die, for me to dance on your corpse, and to take back the Time Portal that was stolen from us.” She brought up her pistol again.
“What if we were to just give it back?” It was either the offer or Blue’s smile that stalled her, and allowed him a brief second to make a grab for his own BB pistol. A high-powered, lethal barrage of air pellets tore up where he had just been, but he managed to dodge to the side and take his own shot. With a sharp *SPRANG!* the pistol in Scarlet’s hand when flying away.
As Beetle landed on his side, Scarab was on him and kicked once more, and again she found her mark as it was Blue’s turn to lose his weapon and it too went sailing into the underbrush as she knocked it from his grip. “Nothing in life comes that easy,” she hissed down at him and with a flick of her wrist, humming bladed protrusions extended from back of her palms, which she stabbed downwards at the downed hero.
Beetle reached up and grabbed her wrists just in time to prevent her from running him through. “Neato! Are those carbon-polymer retractable pulse-emitting blades? I thought of a design like that for Batman and his batarangs but I could never find the proper charge to run through them that wouldn’t melt the alloy!”
“Argh, I want to headbutt you! In the face! So bad,” seethed Scarlet Scarab as she tussled with Blue Beetle now in such close quarters. Together the two of them rolled together into the bushes, locked in an intense melee and an exchange of technological geekery.
A couple of hours later
Back at Kord Industries, the Battlebug was backed up to the thirteenth floor, where Scarlet Scarab was careful to wheel the Time Bubble onto her craft at the open docking bay. Overseeing her do that was Blue Beetle, who had let her in after all and helped her to load the device onto the hover skiff that she had used to move the machine from where he had it onto her idling craft. Neither of them could manage to make eye contact with the other, and a lasting silence had fallen over the bay.
That’s when Booster Gold strolled in, whistling as he strutted, and wore his mask but beneath that a fluffy robe embroidered with ‘Michael’ on the breast and a pair of comfortable golden slippers. Booster stopped, however, when he saw his friend and eyed Scarlet as he instead headed in Blue’s direction. He marched right up to his pal, who had drifted back toward the banged and bashed Bug in the far corner.
“So, I see you came to the same conclusion I did. Better to hand it over and avoid any unnecessary bloodshed.”
“That was kind of the idea,” Beetle said as he looked up from Gold and over to Scarab, but quickly glanced away as she turned to look in his direction. “I mean, no need to draw this out any more. Besides, seems like they were on a pretty tight deadline. Something about only having an hour left? Honestly, I didn’t catch all of that.”
“Yeah, the sooner they’re on their way, the better.”
“I agree,” Beetle nodded, but then had to ask something. “Why are you grinning like that?”
Before Gold could fumble up an excuse, Goldstar dashed into the room from the same doorway Booster had entered from almost exactly sixty seconds ago. She looked quite disheveled and did her best to straighten her hair as she rushed to her companion. Goldstar blushed and didn’t look back to either of the heroes, nor did she exactly meet Scarlet Scarab’s eyes, not that her crimson friend was in a rush to meet any gazes.
An awkward silence fell over the docking bay, with the only sounds coming from the pair of anti-matter universe villainesses securing the Time Bubble on the Battlebug. Once it was loaded and locked the women turned towards the men, and both sides seemed quite unsure what to say.
“So...” Beetle started.
However, all of that was interrupted by Skoots as the robot streaked into the docking bay and quickly headed for the Battlebug. It wobbled and sparks sputtered from her tail end as Skoots zigzagged toward and then up into the ship in a dash. “Killkillkillkillkillkillkillkillkill,” was all she intoned before she disappeared into the recesses of the Battlebug.
Wobbling himself, Skeets appeared in the doorway. “Call me sometime, babe!”
If the humans weren’t on edge before, they were now and all looked off in various directions. Scarlet Scarab was the first to speak. “So, we have got to be going.”
“Like, now,” Goldstar coughed.
Blue Beetle shuffled his feet but nodded. “Have a...safe flight?”
“You know,” Booster cut in before things got too awkward, “It never worked anyway. The Time Bubble thing. That’s why Ted and I didn’t have it plugged in.”
“That’s not what matters,” Scarab stated.
“Yeah,” chimed in Goldstar. “What matters to the bosses is that we have it and, like, the competition doesn’t.”
“Seems...logical,” Blue winced as that sounded as awkward as it felt.
“Well, we got it, and that’s all that anyone cares about,” Scarab cut in, nodded and turned. “Come on, Goldie. Time to go home.”
She thought about it, nodded herself and gave Booster a little wave and then Goldstar darted aboard the Battlebug along with Scarlet Scarab. The red ship sealed up, took off a moment later and moved away from Kord Industries, and then an instant later a portal opened before it and the craft exited into it. Once it was through, there was a soft ~pop!~ sound and it vanished.
For a moment afterwards, both Blue and Gold were silent.
“You gave them the decoy one that you built, right?” Booster had to ask.
“Of course,” smiled Beetle.
“See, I told you it would work, sirs. That someone from the anti-matter universe would come after it but that they didn’t really need it.” Skeets sounded so proud of himself.
Silence returned to the bay and, after several moments of that, Blue activated the exterior door. Even after it closed, the trio remained quiet for a long-lingering moment.
“Soooooooo,” Michael finally had to ask, “its like scratching your own back, right? Like...giving yourself a high-five?”
“Yeah,” Ted nodded. “Totally,” he agreed further the more he thought about it.
“Cool,” Booster breathed a sigh of relief and put his hand up high and for a moment Beetle considered completing the high-five. But, ultimately, he left his pal hanging.
“I think I’m going to go shower,” Ted quickly said.
“Ah, yeah, me too,” swallowed Gold. Both men took off in opposite directions for their own rooms, to get to those showers.
Left behind was Skeets, who bopped there and gave a soft sighing sound. “I sure hope she calls.”
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To Be Continued...
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