Booster Gold and Blue Beetle sat slumped behind the long table once more. Beetle flopped
backwards in his chair and stared at the intricately carved cathedral ceiling stretching above
him while Booster leaned heavily on the table, each gloved hand gripping a tangle of blonde
hair as he stared fixedly at the huge oak door through which Majesty and her entourage had
disappeared.
A constant murmur of voices, some angry, some interested, buzzed around them, but surprisingly all of the ponies were keeping their distance. Even Flare was only murmuring back and forth with Blue Moon rather than gloating over Veracity's devastating revelations, and Skydancer had simply nodded amiably at the humans and left. Maybe it was just that no one wanted to be too close to Booster in case he lost more of his breakfast. Majesty's dragon attendant obviously didn't want a repeat performance, judging by the glares he shot at Booster as he scrubbed up the mess in front of the dais.
"So how are you feeling?" Blue Beetle asked after a few minutes.
"Huh?" Booster looked up. "Oh . . . okay. Better."
"Well, that figures."
"What?"
"You throw up and then you don't even have the common courtesy to actually be sick," Beetle razzed half-heartedly.
"It's not my fault; it's stress," Booster said defensively, not taking his eyes from the door. "Like that time in the Bug," he added, referring to Blue Beetle's insectoid airship.
"I thought that was motion sickness."
"Nah, stress."
Beetle raised his head a fraction and asked in a mystified voice, "What's so stressful about the Bug?"
"You were flying it," Booster said.
"Ha ha ha. You're a laugh riot." Beetle let his head drop back. "I suppose we should get some sort of plan together . . ."
"Okay, how's this sound? They decide to trample us or poison us or whatever delightful manner of death they prefer and then we die."
Beetle raised his head again, this time in surprise, only to discover that Booster was now flopped face-forward on the table with his shock of yellow hair spilling over his crossed arms, clearly reliving his worst moments as a defendant in the harsh courtrooms of the 25th century.
"C'mon, Booster, don't go all manic-depressive on me," Blue Beetle said. Booster didn't move. "Hey, if worse comes to worse we'll fight our way out."
Booster did straighten at that remark, but only to roll his eyes. "Helloooooo, earth to bug-boy! Do the words 'no working tech' mean anything to you? No flight ring, no force fields, no infrared goggles with quantitative shielding--"
"You always forget to use the goggles anyway."
"I do not. I just . . . choose not to," Booster said. "Anyway, the point is that without my suit and your gadgets, we're just two guys wearing primary colors!"
"Maybe you're just a guy in primary colors, but I'm a guy in primary colors who knows half a dozen forms of martial arts," Beetle said, sounding slightly indignant.
"So how well does karate work against two hundred ponies? Or three hundred? Or four hundred? We're not in a Bruce Lee movie, Ted!"
"Sheesh, listen to Captain Negativity! He takes on killer robots without blinking, but face him with a few hundred measly ponies, and . . ."
"I would appreciate it if you would not refer to us as 'measly'," came a voice from the side. Beetle looked over to see Wind Whistler still in her chair, although a safe distance from the two heroes.
"Oh, so you're still here?" Beetle said. "You know, where we come from defense attorneys actually defend their clients. Crazy concept, I know."
"I told you my position here was largely ceremonial. Besides, I gave you all the advice you needed. I told you to tell the truth--"
"--in a concise manner," Blue Beetle finished. "To which I say 'Pot, kettle, black.' And thanks for not telling us why you were dropping that particular tidbit of wisdom, by the way."
"It wouldn't have mattered why I was giving it if you had followed it," Wind Whistler said testily. "Although considering what the true version of your story is likely to be, it seems rather obvious why you did not."
"Meaning . . . ?" Booster asked.
"You're guilty. If you hadn't committed the heinous crime, why were you not straightforward with Majesty? Clearly you did not want to admit your true activities because you had caused the conflagration."
"We didn't mean to start any fire, and that's the truth. If we . . . elaborated a little, it's because the truth was so bizarre that we didn't think anyone would believe it!"
"You thought." Booster crossed his arms.
Beetle raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, oh ye of little memory, that the whole cock and cow story we told was your idea."
"Excuse me? I don't recall telling you to spontaneously invent an alien invasion!"
"Since YOU simultaneously invented an imaginary busload of imaginary schoolchildren being attacked by imaginary crocodiles, I don't think you're one to talk!"
"The crocodiles were YOUR idea! And it wasn't exactly a lie; I mean, we must have saved a busload of schoolchildren at some point . . . Not right then, necessarily, but at some point . . ."
"What about your 'recording device', huh? Got a pithy explanation for THAT?"
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know how to explain a solar gun to a bunch of pastel . . . Wait a minute, why am I apologizing? You tossed me out a seventeenth story WINDOW!"
"I didn't TOSS you anywhere! I put my butt on the line to try to rescue you, Mr. Gratitude! It's not my fault my stupid flight ring wasn't working!"
"Maybe if you had an ounce of common sense, you would've FIGURED OUT that it wasn't working, since every OTHER piece of equipment we had wasn't working!"
Booster huffed, "Oh, so it's my fault our tech doesn't work now, is it?"
"I didn't say tha--"
"I suppose it's my fault that we got transported here too, huh?"
"Booster, I never--"
"How about the fire? I suppose that's my fault too."
Blue Beetle goggled at him for a minute. "YES, that was your fault, Booster. You smacked a torch into a pile of books!"
"See??" A few ponies near the front of the courtroom looked up, surprised by Booster's raised voice. "This is what I'm talking about! I take the blame despite the fact that Ted Kord, boy genius, is the one who can't even figure out a way to get us home!"
"Boy genius?? At least I was old enough to vote in the last election,* Booster!"
"I was born in 2440. That makes me older by over four hundred years."
"It does not!"
"Sure it does." He crossed his arms.
"Okay . . . first of all, the fact that you're from the future would actually make me older than you by four centuries--"
"Pfft."
"--and second of all . . . age just doesn't work that way!"
"Oh, listen to the expert! The Fearless Physicsmaster has spoken!"
"At least I have some credentials in physics," replied Beetle, his voice rising. The ponies drawing near seemed as interested in the flat stare that Booster gave Blue Beetle as they had been in Beetle's remark.
"That was low, Ted," Booster said at last. "Just because I was a sanitation specialist before I came to the 20th century--"
If Blue Beetle had seen the expression on Booster Gold's face just then, he might have apologized, but he was turning in his chair, distracted by the ponies gathering to his right, as he replied. "You were a janitor, Booster."
"So? We can't all be born with millionaire dads to mooch off of, Ted!"
Beetle looked at him, surprised. "Geez, isn't SOMEONE touchy about certain issues! No wonder you have half a dozen taglines . . ."
"What's that supposed to mean??"
"The word of the day is 'overcompensation', Corporate Crusader."
The crowd's murmuring increased as Booster's eyes narrowed behind his orange goggles. "At least my taglines make sense."
Blue Beetle raised his eyebrows behind his own goggles. "Meaning?"
"Oh, come on . . . 'the Azure Avenger'?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Who have you ever avenged? Who have you ever needed to avenge?"
"What a good question. Hmm, let me think . . ." Beetle tilted his head to one side in mock thought. "OH! I've got it! Maybe Dan Garrett, the original Blue Beetle! Remember him, Booster? Remember how he died?"
"Yeah, I do remember how he died. It was in a landslide, wasn't it? How do you avenge that, exactly? Hire a backhoe and teach the ground a lesson it won't soon forget?"
"The landslide wouldn't have killed him if he hadn't been wounded by my uncle--"
" . . . who blew himself up when his crazy super-robots or whatever they were exploded. It's not avenging if your enemies accidently detonate themselves, Ted. Geez, I should have your luck! I wish those stupid Manhunter robots I had to deal with had blown themselves to smithereens--"
Beetle's face closed abruptly. "Don't you EVER tell me that was lucky. My friend died."
"Who's being touchy now?"
"I'm SERIOUS, Booster!"
"Well, so am I," Booster snapped, starting to stand. "But if you want to turn all broody and angsty and . . . and . . . and Batman-y about it, you can do it by yourself--"
Booster caught his foot on the leg of the table as he was standing, lost his balance, and stumbled backwards. He instinctively tried to clutch the edge of the table as he fell, but only succeeded in clipping Beetle across the ear. Later, the ponies who'd been near Booster agreed that it was clearly an accident.
From Blue Beetle's perspective, things weren't quite that clearcut.
"OW!!!" Beetle rocked under the full momentum of Booster's clenched fist. He raised a hand to his head in indignity and disbelief. "You . . . you . . . YOU HIT ME!!!"
"Uh?" Booster looked up from where he'd fallen, with one leg over the arm of his now-overturned chair. "No, wait, it was an--!"
But Beetle wasn't waiting for any more explanations. He launched himself at Booster, sending both of them skidding across the floor. The circle of ponies tightened as they fought for the best view of the two heroes.
"Well . . ." Blue Moon paused. "At least they're not trying to escape, right Flare?"
Flare grunted as he watched Booster trying to kick Blue Beetle off and get in some punches of his own.
"This . . . this is shocking behavior," Wind Whistler said, her eyes wide. "I . . . I just don't know what to say!"
"I do," grinned one of the unicorns (Sparkler to be exact.) "Skydancer is soooooo gonna regret leaving early."
Footnotes:
* [ The election to which Blue Beetle's referring to would be in 1980, Ronald Reagan vs.
Jimmy Carter. (Reagan won.) The current year is 1982, with Booster
currently a youthful twenty-two to Blue Beetle's twenty-four. ]
