2013.10.24 - Hfffffwwwwwww

"Is it dead? I mean, is it moving anymore? I don't know if severed arms are, like, independently alive."

Princess Amethyst, magical blade in hand, stands in a clearing with Booster Gold, the Man From Tomorrow. This clearing was not here moments ago. It was, until they showed up, just another stretch of deep woods. Now, it is filled with upturned soil and blasted tree husks and sorcerous green vapors.

In the middle, laying limp in a crater, is Hitler's heiling arm. It also turned out to be his evil wizard arm. The eldritch blasts it hurled, manifestations of the hateful energy it soaked up saluting at rallies, could have been spotted from the sky. They did explode into swastikas, after all. Luckily, they're pretty far from civilization. Surely no one would be just flying around.

"Hold it down, I'm pretty sure it's that ring."

Amethyst's arcane blade disappears in a flash of light, leaving her with hands free. She approaches cautiously once Booster has the arm properly restrained, kneeling down. Her hands sparkle with purple, presumably diagnostic light.

"Yeah... that's an evil wizard ring, alright. I'm not even surprised, just sort of embarrassed."

"This is the reason I like having a full body costume, complete with gloves." Booster ends up doing what is, essentially, arm wrestling--although not really. Ultimately he ends up stepping down at where the elbow is, and gripping the wrist and the shoulder end of the arm with his hands. "Uh..." His nose wrinkles slightly. "If you're going to remove that, it's not going to... take the whole finger off with it, is it? I mean, if it does, then whatever, I just want to know so I can look away." Because a severed arm is perfectly okay, but pulling off or degloving a finger is horrifying.

A WHILE AGO

Meggan had been sailing above the green treetops, as she does at times. It's soothing, and sometimes she still has terror bursts after that fear-gassing incident in Gotham.

A swastika lights up the sky.

"Hfffffwwwwwww" Meggan half-gasps, half groans, eyes wide. A giant glowing sky swastika, she thinks. Oh this is horrible! If only Kurt - She frowns. Actually Kurt would probably just be worried by this. Brian of course would be too, and the others...

"Well, I shan't let this go unexamined," she resolves. Swoop!

NOW

Suddenly, a woman in a sundress whips out from the sky, landing hard enough to kick up dust and sliding out one arm in a flourish! Hot radiance glows from it as Meggan declares aloud, hair billowing before her, "If you think that you're going to stage some sort of North American second front while I have anything to -"

Her head tilts to the side. "Oh, Captain Booster!" she says, anger dissipating. As does the red glow on her arm. Looking towards Amethyst, she says brightly, "I'm /terribly/ sorry about that, I just made absolutely the wrong sort of assumption when I saw the giant glowing swastika in the sky!"

She pauses, looking down at the severed arm. Her nose wrinkles. "That's not yours, is it...?"

"Do I really look like I can't take a ring off of a finger?" Amethyst frowns and furrows her brow. "Actually, I guess cutting the finger off would be the most Conan way to go about it, right?"

She glances up at Booster while trying to wriggle the ring off. "Have you seen that movie? That's a good one, too. You should see it--WOAHNOW."

The princess falls backward onto her butt, scrambling backward on hands and feet until she finds enough footing to, in a single motion, stand upright and summon up her glimmering rapier. As quickly as she finds her en garde stance, the situation disappears. She deflates, shoulders slumping.

"Um, no. It's Hitler's. It's cool, we got it."

The princess grins. Just a bit. This place got carpet bombed by swastikas a moment ago, she has some respect. "Captain Booster? Really? How dashing."

Booster does look up when Meggan thumps into the clearing, but he does not seem startled; he recognizes her. "Oh, hey. Hi, Meggan." He releases his grip on the shoulder side of the arm, so he can wave at the elfin woman. He then explains, to Amethyst, "This is Meggan. Uh, well... I mean, I was captain of the football team, but..." He gives a one-armed shrug.

Looking back to Meggan, as he gestures towards Amethyst, he says, "This is Princess Amethyst. We were having an... issue. With this thing." His glance falls down to the trapped arm. "It's Hitler's arm, although I'm not sure if that makes this seem better or worse."

Meggan seems unoffended at the rapier brandishing. She steps closer, sinking downwards to seat herself on her heels, hugging herself loosely as she looks down at the menacing arm as it continues heiling.

"Oh, a princess! It's a pleasure to m-" She pauses at Booster's words.

She looks at the arm.

Back at Booster for a moment, with a look of perhaps forlorn uncertainty.

Then back to the limb. "... It's really the arm of Adolph Hitler?" she asks. "How did it get here?" The swastika powers, of course, she accepts implicitly.

Amethyst taps the gem at her belt. One sparkle laser later, the sword is in inventory again.

Her grin turns sheepish. She glances at Booster for some sort of cue but, well, she is the princess around here. "It's kind of a long story. Like, basically, we were in Hell--for a totally non-shady reason--and Hitler was there and was being Hitler, so..."

The princess purses her lips. "Nazi magic. It's here because of Nazi magic."

She returns to the crater, kneeling next to the arm again to work at the ring. It pops off and the arm truly does go limp.

"I accidentally ripped it off of him. It wasn't intentional, but it's a thing that happened." Booster waits a moment longer just to ensure the arm is inert, and then he stands up and brushes off his hands, perhaps not wanting Nazi cooties. "How are you, Meggan? I haven't seen you in a while. Did you do okay with your math thing?" Then, he explains to Amethyst, "I helped her with a math thing. She's a friend of a dude I know, who helped rescue me after I'd been kidnapped and taken to another dimension."

"That doesn't sound like a good sort of magic," Meggan opines, straightening up and saying with a small frown, "I can't imagine what that must have been like. Imagine being eternally damned to torment and then also having Hitler near you."

She nods in agreement with Booster's explanation. To him, she says, "Oh, it went quite nicely! I'm really catching up I think..."

To Amethyst, she smiles brilliantly then, stepping forwards to offer a hand. "And yes, hullo! Now that you've stopped Hitler's arm, I suppose we can be introduced - I have to say it's quite an honor to meet you, your highness; are you from this dimension?"

"Kidnapped in another dimension? Does that happen to everyone who hangs out with the Legion?"

Amethyst moves to tap one of her belt gems but hesitates. With another look at the ring (it has a silver skull with ruby swastika eyes), she drops it into the blasted soil, takes aim with a finger, and evaporates it with a beam of starlight. A little "nooooooo" floats up along with a poof of green smoke.

She stands, is infected by Meggan's smile, and shakes her hand. "Um. Thanks! Actually, I'm from Nilaa. It's... well, it's pretty much where most of the dragons and unicorns and wizards and junk from Earth went, which is why there aren't many here."

With regards to trans-dimensional kidnapping, Booster lifts his hands in a little shrug. "It happens, although it actually wasn't my Legion involvement that caused it. I was in the middle of doing a commercial, they wanted action oriented actors. It's uh, a long story." He clearly is not going to go into it, right now. "What should we do with this?" he wonders, gesturing at the arm. "I mean, I think we should keep it but maybe that's kind of... grim, keeping a human arm as a trophy. Even if it -is- Hitler's."

"Oh! Is it near Otherworld? I don't think we ever went to Nilaa," Meggan says. "I suppose we might've just not noticed it, of course-"

Booster speaks up, and she looks down at the arm again. She considers it for long moments.

"Well," she says finally, "couldn't someone make a clone, then? I mean of Hitler. It seems terribly risky..."

Always long stories. Amethyst files that away in her mental friendship folder.

"I have no idea," she says about Otherworld with honesty. Then, she joins everyone in staring silently at Hitler's arm. It is very flabby, with sparse hair.

"I kind of have this feeling that anyone who would want a Hitler clone probably has one," the princess says. She taps her chin. "Plus, this is technically Demon Hitler. Maybe it has different DNA."

Amethyst looks up to Meggan. "Who's 'we'?"

"Oh man. What if someone cloned demon Hitler, though." Booster does not say this in a joking manner; he seems concerned that this might happen. "We should encase it in lucite or something, and give it to Doctor Strange." The Doc would like a Hitler arm, wouldn't he? Really, who wouldn't like that as a gift.

Meggan frowns with displeasure. She doesn't want to deal with Demon Hitler.

"Oh, Doctor Strange," Meggan says, brightening. "He was terribly helpful when I was a vampire for a bit." To Amethyst, she explains, "Well my Brian and I and some friends had some problems with dimensional transit a while back, and it was quite a hike before we got back to our own Earth here."

She folds her hands behind her back, looking suddenly pensive. "I don't know how he would take that, really, we didn't get much chance to know each other..."

"Oh, okay." Meggan's explanation does not really sink in, but Amethyst is really getting used to being okay with not understanding things. Next topic: "Yeah, I guess Demon Hitler clones are another thing entirely."

The princess raises her hands over the arm like she's going to make it float into the air. Instead, there is a violent sound like glass snapping and Hitler's arm is encased in a large purple gem. It comes pre-cut, Radiant style.

She brushes her hands off with exaggerated care. "No, it's fine. I'm Doctor Strange's student. He's got, like, closets full of the weirdest stuff." Her eyes light up. "Hey, so, you're a superhero, right?"

"Well... that works too." Booster gestures at the engemmed arm, and relaxes a bit, resting his hands on his hips. "Doctor Strange is actually pretty cool. He's just... really busy. I mean when he helped you out he was probably really serious, because he had a job to do. I'm not saying I'd play a prank on him or anything, but he's friendly."

Meggan considers the question, and shifts from one bare foot to the other. "Well," she admits, "I suppose I am, when you put it like that. I'm really not the best, though."

To Booster, she considers. "I don't remember most of it, but from what Kurt had told me he'd had to work quite a bit on the matter, so I imagine he was just tired. Yes, that makes sense. And he /did/ make a house call all the way to England."

Towards Amethyst, she asks curiously, "That's quite a lovely gem, is that your power then? I mean if I can ask, I know it can be rude to pry."

"God, I know that feeling," Amethyst groans, in response to maybe being a hero and if so being a mediocre one.

As Booster and Meggan discuss Strange and vampires, the princess traces mystical patterns in the air. Nothing really happens, and Meggan has enough time to make an inquiry. "Oh, kinda?" Amethyst says, still making swooping, fey gestures. "I'm... well, I guess I can just say 'magic' and that pretty much explains it. What about you?"

The gem floats into the air, whirls around once, and then disappears. "'kay. Sent it to the Sanctum. Wong will know what to do with it, that guy's psychic." She waits a beat. "Not literally."

"I've been helping Princess Amethyst and Doctor Strange with stuff," Booster explains, to Meggan. "I mean, I'm still with the Legion of Super-Heroes of course, but part of being a superhero is like... helping people with stuff." He considers this, rubbing his chin with one index finger. "And thwarting villainy, of course. Defeating monsters. But I guess that all comes under the umbrella of helping people."

"You know, you put it in such a perfect sort of way," Meggan tells the Captain (Booster Gold) with some wistful admiration. "You've got a gift for language."

To Amethyst, she folds her hands behind her back. "Well, I will be honest with you that I am a mutant, and that is - Oh, did you mean what I can do?"

She sparkles.

Booster Gold #2 says, still sounding like Meggan (save for a slightly deeper bass line, due to a larger torso space), "Well this mostly."

Amethyst puts her hands to her cheeks, eyes wide and mouth open. "Ohmygod you sparkle too."

She glances over to Booster #1 with a dopey isn't-this-amazing look. All this shop talk has appealed to her half-dead hope that being a superhero is like being in a secret club. The princess rushes forward and takes one of Booster #2's hands in both of hers. "Meggan, I don't want to be too forward or anything, but I think having a second Booster Gold flying around and punching things would really help out with a bunch of problems."

"Well I can turn into other things too," Meggan says, sounding abashed.

The original Booster Gold tilts his head back a bit when Meggan transforms, as if he were mildly taken aback. Then his head tilts to one side, rather like a canine obvserving something curious. Finally, he lightly folds his arms and says, "Man. I am really good looking."

"But what sorts of problems do you mean?" Meggan says, becoming herself once more.

Amethyst lets go of Meggan's hand when she transforms back. It felt weird.

"It's--" don't say long story "--really complicated. Strange and I are trying to save the world from this guy--" don't say his name is Eclipso "--who used to be the Angel of Vengeance. We found out where he's trapped, it--" don't say in a lich's stronghold that has been breached by a dimension of weird soul eaters "--might get really dangerous. If the doc was alright with helping you before, I'm sure you'll do fine."

Meggan blinks several times, rather slowly.

She smiles, then. "Well, that sounds like the sort of thing I'd be quite glad to help you with, your highness. I'm sure it won't be as bad as all that, really!" The smile becomes positively radiant.

The princess smiles, too, and it is not a guilty smile at all. It should be. Her thoughts go to Rain, eager to help but existing in a state of mild terror during adventures. It helps to think of them as adventures, anyway.

"Okay," Amethyst reaches up to Meggan's forward, pauses to give her an 'is it alright?' look, and then uses the pad of her thumb to trace a symbol composed of several curves. "That will let you see the Sanctum Sanctorum. It's in Greenwich. You'll still have to knock, 'cause it's, uh, where Strange lives. Is there a place I can contact you?"

"Oh, cool," opines Booster, as Meggan seems to be getting draughted into things. "Oh..." He holds up a finger and says, to Meggan, "We've beat up angels, I'm mentioning this only because I guess some people might find that a problem. But they were really mean jerks, we tried to talk things out and they tried to smite us."

Meggan's eyes cross slightly as the sigil is traced on her forehead. It is adorable enough to make the cover of the Bugle.

And it may yet.

"Oh well certainly," she says, before shifting around and producing a late-model iphone, which she starts fiddling with. The question of where it was kept is one best left to mystery. "I'm staying on at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but my number's -"

She pauses, blinking at Booster. "Well they must have been bad, or not /really/ angels, or God would have smote you, and you can't win a fight with God," she says, as if making the logical chain herself. "Whatever did you fight with them over? - Anyway:" Digits are shared.

Amethyst shuts her mouth and does not contradict anything about angels. Saying 'it really sort of depends' does not help.

She does not have a phone of her own, but promises to remember and call Meggan from the Sanctum.

"Well," the princess remarks with a look back at the armless crater. "I totally don't have my unicorn nearby. Um, Booster? Give me a ride?" She smiles again at Meggan. "It was great meeting you! I am super excited that you're helping out."

The princess pauses. One of those weirdness waves hits her as she considers what they'll be doing the next time she sees Meggan.

"Well I mean they were -total jerks- and some of them tried to kill me, so." Booster makes a vague gesture with one hand. As far as he is concerned, they were not good people/supernatural entities. "You know... maybe you know Pete Wisdom?" Booster wonders, of Meggan. "He has SHIELD connections. And I know Doug did. So they may know each other, and you know Doug. Anyway, Pete is part of all..." the vague gesture again, although an all-encompassing one. Once that hand is done being vague, he holds it out to Amethyst, saying, "Sure, I'm always happy to help with a lift."

"Oh yes I think we've met!" Meggan says, brightly.

A pause.

"Is he a blond or a brunette? I may have gotten him mixed up with... well, it doesn't matter."

She clasps her hands together. "I'm terribly glad to be able to help out. I feel like Logan, almost! But anyway, yes, please don't hesitate to call. It was lovely to meet you, your highness!"

Amethyst takes Booster's hand, waving once more to the shapeshifter. And she knows Pete Wisdom! She really should just ask Pete for his friends list, it would make this team building thing way easier.

Once they are in the sky, Amethyst nudges Booster. "She called me your highness. Heh."

"Brunette," Booster answers Meggan. "See you around!" He waves as he takes off. You'd think Amethyst would just get dragged along by one arm, but something in his flight ring lets the princess ride along with a little more dignity than that. Booster is quiet at Amethyst's comment, and then he wonders with mild perplexity. "Am I supposed to call you that?" Well, maybe she is trying to drop a hint.

Meggan, meanwhile, streaks back towards the school. Hurrah, she thinks: I made friends!