2014.01.13 - Murphy's Lawl

Almost everyone looks in a mirror sometimes. For some vain diva-types, this happens hourly. For other more 'feral' creatures, it might the quite random moment they happen upon a reflective surface. Today, this moment, this reflective surface, is a trap. Through the looking glass indeed; this portal, this fishing line.

You see, deep in the recesses of the multi-verse, where the sun don't shine, where it tells God where the bad man touched it, lurks the creepers that your mom doesn't warn you about. This is either because she doesn't know about them, because she's paranoid the very concept might give innocents insta-PTSD, or because she's just a real bitch. Big, dopey, looming eyes peek out of The Milky Way's peephole, and watch Earth.

Let it be known that Earth is not where all the action is: Saturn has quite a few psychic ghost Scientologists, for example, each with the most hilarious of Dynasty-level melodramas. Mars has a buncha gimpy, slimy political wars. But Earth is special because those people are really easy to mess with. Our story’s antagonist creeper rubs together his plotty hands and gives a little chortle, and accidentally drools on himself. After some time, he has selected his hapless playthings of Earth, and with a whisk of his finger snap-snap, he casts his mirror traps.

Many of our Earth-bound targets at this very moment see something quite strange in their reflection: their "mirror" shows a stumpy, rotund, little old little man. He's wearing their clothes. And laughing. "C'mon!" he says, "It's fun times!"

With a bright flash of white light, our myriad of protagonists are whisked away into a small, dark, black room. Each are alone here, in this empty room. All that's there is an old, wooden door. The door says _The Little Earthlings Room_ and has a picture of an unhappy toilet, complete with frowny face.

Gabriel is at homes, walking around in his favorite cartoon owl covered boxers and eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs when he walks by the bathroom door and catches a glimpse of his reflection out of the corner of his eye. He almost walks by then freezes and leans back to do a double take. Seeing the stumpy, rotund, little old man version of himself he goes, "Awwww man! These random changes /have/ to stop!" And then its all blackness and sad toilets...

Garfield Logan has days where he can't even go near a mirror because he's gonna see green, and even if you're green, sometimes you get tired of it. This is not one of those days. He's just finished clothing himself in the most carefully uncaring of taught-Macklemore-how-to-dress hipster finery, complete with orange-and-brown plaid skinny-jeans, Robert Smith white hightops, pink embroidered cowboy shirt, faux-fur-trimmed pleather sleeveless jacket, mirrored aviator shades and 8-bit blue necktie, and my god but he is admiring himself. That's why it's all the more confusing when cleanshaven Gimli shows up in his mirror in his clothes and talks to him.

"Wait, wh--" FAAASSH. "--at?" Gar looks, suddenly, haunted by the day's fashion choices. He'd been planning on hitting up Williamsburg, not adventuring. And sudden relocation into someone's sad bathroom generally heralds an adventure. Not that the specifics are a repetition, but it's Not Normal. "Aw, man..."

But the Martian Manhunter is totally nice enough to let the Earthlings park in his garage. For free, even. Too bad Earthpeople are terrible at parking. And space driving. Two out of three Uranians agree: Earthlings are terrible parking in the front or back door. On a less cosmic, profound note, Lunair was - about to take a shower. And has a Sith bathrobe on. She looks a bit startled, holding a bar of body wash. "Uh." Awkward. "Wait, there's grue? And not some random dude? Thank goodness, leprechauns are terrifying. and also kinda stereotypical..." Ponder. Where are they... There's an empty room. And a little Earthlings room with an unhappy toilet. "Hey, I just bought TP. How much could-" Don't answer that question. It only leads to a SAN check. And everyone knows once your SAN rating starts going, it's only a matter of time before your mind gets broken by a Nightgaunt reading about Lady Gaga in the bathroom stalls. Time to open that door!

This is a fact that will be a surprise to no-one: Booster Gold looks in mirrors -all the time-. Despite what he insinuates to others, his hair does not get that good looking on its own. A metallic, skin-hugging costume is often more unforgiving than nudity and needs to be checked at least once daily to ensure one's body is not undergoing aesthetic failure. And, perhaps most importantly, effortless dynamic posing during battle actually has to be practiced--in front of a mirror.

It is this latter thing that Booster Gold is engaged in when his reflection becomes altered. He goes from trying a new style of mid-air righteous pointing to a brief moment of panic and clutching at his face and stomach just in case he's accidentally let himself go in the space of fractional seconds. "Oh, no! ... wait." After -that- scare, the black room is something of a relief. He hesitates, then politely knocks on the door.

Deadpool eyes the door suspiciously. We were /just thinking/ about dropping the kids off at the pool. "Yeah, after the twentieth chimichanga, I feel I ate molten lead instead of Meheecan deliciousness," Deadpool says aloud. He eyes the door some more. Pokes it. I fire an arrow at the gazebo! "Well, **** it, it's a door," Deadpool says. He takes two steps back, then with a badass quickstep, kicks the door open, and he steps through it with a swagger into the next room. "I'll play along for now. Quick, DM, I roll my Spot check! I search for secret doors! Is there a grue in here?!"

Doreen Green was washing her muddy hands in one of the less-than-sterile ponds smack in the middle of Central Park. Where, coincidentally, quite a few people were on smack. But not Doreen, who was usually high on life, and when she looked to her reflection in the pond below, she was quite distraught to see she was in fact a small man. "Dang! This water is pretty polluted," she thought to herself, before the creepy little dude zapped her into his janitor closet. Or whatever this place as was.

"Tippy-Toe?" Doreen asked the darkness, as her eyes began to glow redish, in response to the dark. Her ever-faithful little companion is nowhere to be seen. A rush of fear washes over Doreen. No, wait, that wasn't fear, it was grape juice. Why was it dropping from the ceiling? Doreen's hair gets covered in the stuff, and it's sticky and smelly. She moves out of the drip's way, and wanders ever-confusedly towards the door. She opens it, and sees the very same thing that everyone else sees: a giant, football field-size bathroom. But instead of toilets, it's a giant maze, where the stall-walls make up the walls of the maze.

Gabriel sticks his spoon in his mouth and holds his bowl of chocolaty goodness as far from danger as possible with one hand while opening the door just a sliver with the other and peering in, "Hulloooooo... anyone home? I need to borrow a mirror, make sure i'm not a dumpy, little man right now. I don't feel like one, but you never know. Whoooaaaa..." Opening the door all the way he steps into the maze. Putting another spoonful of cereal in his mouth he wanders in a few steps, looking around like a first-time tourist in New York. "Hewwwoooo. 'Ny oooon 'ommmm?" "hup. HUP!" Deadpoool stays on the ground for all of two seconds, then jumps up and balances on the edge of one of the stall walls, looking out into the maze. "LUNAIR! HEY, YOU HERE?" he bellows, cupping his hands around his mouth. Why /would/ she be here? Because she's our sidekick! "And a hero is never unaccompanied," Deadpool says with a sage nod. He jumps to another stall wall, moving above the maze with long-legged jumps. He does this for about a minute, shouting loudly for Lunair, then drops back to the ground with a frown.

"Ah! I know. In the movies, you're always searching for someone, then you back up and turn and stumble on them!" He snaps his fingers next to his head and starts pacing down the corridors like the ninja master he is, except every five steps he stops, takes two back, and then turns quickly in place. We need our own theme music! Na na nanana na na, na na na, na na na na na na nana, na nan naaaaaa!

"Is that the Banana song or the theme to Mission Impossible?"

Great. Off to face the cosmic horrors with some sort of spring scented body wash. At least she'll die /clean/. Lunair glances around. Well. At least no one's - wait, nope. 867-5309. Guess someone in the maze was an 80s person. Lunair is a bit loathe to climb on bathroom walls, but she's tall enough to at least hop up and peer around and over. Somehow, a portal with a basket of towels opens at that moment and she is now covered in a pile of towels. NO PEEKING OVER THE WALLS!

"Hey. Towels." Clean ones. She's prepared for the end of the world, intergalactic travel OR Cthulhu (if Cthulhu wants to sun bathe). But then, she hears a faint echo of a voice. A weird, tingly, plot forwarding feeling comes over her (because really, no one wants a Tom Cruise style montage and Oprah's never in range when she has the lightning gun out). Oh hey. Maybe the boss is here? Deadpool! Alrighty then. Slinging a dubstep gun over one shoulder and keeping a light saber in the other hand, she stards off towards the voice. Use your powers of having ears! ... except that's not a power at all. Whatever. E for Effort. Also, a poncho of towels. Because you don't just peek around here. Perv.

After carefully opening the door, peeking out, and seeing this unsettling maze, Booster rests his fists on his hips and tries to think about what is going on. Thanks to the aforementioned mirror posing practice, his posture is suitably heroic without any real effort. After a moment, he says, "Aw, man. Did I get dimension-shifted again? I'm not even going to speculate on what this dimension is called." Stepping out into the maze, Booster can hear someone or possibly just something and calls out, "Hello! Hallo, pardona! Ubi is te exito?" He pushes at a wall, but decides it would be rude to destroy things. Yet, anyway. "Man, forget this." Booster flies straight up. He is not the sort of person who has patience for things like mazes, at least not when he can take a shortcut.

Upon opening the door and squinting out into the interminable maze of bathroom stalls, the Changeling's eyes narrow. He bends over to look, upside-down, under the stall doors-- and sees a lot of stall doors and partitions and stall legs and an awful lot of tiles. No feet. Lots of empty bathroom stalls.

BUT IT'S A MAZE. What belongs in mazes?

A green rat scuttles out of Gar's door and into the football-field-sized bathroom, then freezes at Deadpool's yelling. There's so much echo. Where the hell did that come from? He picks a likely direction and runs, skittering over tiles with little rat claws and jumping over floor drains.

All of a sudden, there's a long, loud girly scream, worthy of the shriekiest of the Doctor's companions: not just the sound of someone being burst in on in a bathroom, but the sound of someone startled by a rat in the bathroom. "Sorry, sorry!" Gar squeaks at the Vogon writing poetry on the potty, running away even faster.

This isn't working. This whole 'underneath' thing isn't working. Mid-jump over a drain, the green rat turns into a green bee and bumbles up over the stall walls to have a better look. "Wake up, Gar," the bee tells itself. "This is the dumbest dream in a whi-- OH MY GOD." Sudden T-Rex, here, not caring at all that every step flattens part of the maze. His voice roars, "LYNETTE IF YOU'RE MESSING WITH ME AGAIN I AM SICCING LILITH ON YOU!"

Doreen Green's eyes momentarily stung a little, as she gazed up to the bright, florescent lights of the enormous Maze Bathroom World, as she stepped past the door. "This would be the worst waterpark ever," she thought to herself, and took it upon herself to slide under the first stall wall. She didn't even open the door properly, with the latch-lock! As she came up from the other side, she saw a long tunnel of bathroom stalls: possibly fifty or sixty lined up on both sides of a giant row, like an endless hallway of doors. For no particular reason, she decided to start running down this hallway, and after about three minutes of running, she stopped to take a breath. She looked up, and all of a sudden saw none other than Tony Stark standing in front of her. She'd never met him before, but dreamed of this moment her whole life. He was wearing granny glasses and pointing condescendingly at Doreen, sort of like a disapproving school teacher. All tsk-tsk.

In a completely Deadpool-proof room, far from here, a little man laughed about this. "Let's see what happens when...." he started, taking a breath to slop some Ice Cream & Burrito-flavor Cheetos into his mouth, "...they meet their greatest hero! Their inspiration! And they have to fight them! Ahahaha!" Well, that's really what he meant to say, but instead, because of the heaps of junkfood in his mouth, it sounded more like this: "Ghrghag, lhgkhfkassdh. Fghaffahah!." But you get the idea.

Well, Gabriel has been transported without his handy-dandy hero reference scrapbook. So until he finds someone he's stuck in his boxers. And his cereal is getting soggy. So he does what anyone in this kind of situation would and starts ambling down the hallway in front of him, munching away at the Cocoa Puffs that are slowly turning the milk in the bowl so, so chocolaty. Once in a while he calls out things along the lines of "Hey guuuuuys! I don't like this game anymore!"

As he turns a corner he see a figure he thought he'd never see. Because, want it as he might, he's not real. Spoon dropping from the corner of his mouth he whispers, "Robin? Robin Hood?" Deadpool hears a noise. He spins in place, then deliberately faces /away/ from the sound and starts backing towards. it.

Step... step...

Step....

And then Deadpool turns and /almost/ trips over Lunair. A wild Lunair appears! "Hey sidekick!" Deadpool says cheerily. "Boy, am I glad to see you. I think-" he stops and looks up as a giant T-rex starts crushing his way across the maze. "I didn't know T-rexes were green," Deadpool says, sounding a bit wondrous. A nebulous, shadowy figure starts to form in front of him.

"DEADPOOL. I AM THE INCARNATION OF YOUR- HEY, COME BACK HERE." Deadpool brushes the shadow off with a flutter of his hands, hissing, and walks on, completely ignoring the looming spectre of his interalized blah blah blah that's no fun, LET'S GO RIDE THAT T-REX!

"**** YEAH WE'RE GONNA RIDE THAT T-REX!" Deadpool hollers. He gets a running start and just as Gar crushes past, Deadpool leaps into the air and lands on his back.

Out of nowhere a leggy blonde appears behind him, clutching his waist. He also has a cowboy hat on his head, actual spurs, and a chimichanga and a rainbow crosses behind him while he fires missiles in every direction. It is literally that epic.

"HAH MULE! C'mon, Bessie!" he says, kicking Gar's skin repeatedly to spur him on.

"Lunair, get a picture!"

And she didn't even shake the grass patch yet! ... is that grass? Either way, she almost gets tripped over and Lunair sort of sidesteps. She beams up at Deadpool. She might be pretty loopy, but she knows a familiar face and Deadpool is her boss and BFF! Yay! "Hey!" She waves, with her free hand. Not the one with the bottle of body wash. "Yeah, I am glad to see you, too. I-" Pause. "Me, either." She admits, her eyes widening.

Who is Lunair's hero? Well, probably Deadpool and he's right here. Her mind is so shattered and really, most of what they do nearly gets someone or other killed /anyway/. It's almost a little sad in a way, to be so disconnected. But it's hard to be sad when there's a level 99 Deadpool AND his T-Rex pal are there. Both Lunair and whatever internal force she might do battle with shrug. The shadow passes over a digital camera. "Hey, thanks. Don't forget to buy our textbooks."

Because that's not gonna be scary! For now, she is totally in awe and OH MY GOD DEADPOOL AND A T-REX! Pants or no pants, this is the greatest day ever! "Okay!"

Because Lunair is TOTALLY getting that picture with the camera now. It's great! Rainbows! And pin up lady and all! Wooooooo. It's like Lunair's a ferret and she just ran through a field of opened pixie sticks, chugging the whole way. She just might go into shock at some point.

"What the..." Booster is trying to figure out what is going on, over there. A T-rex? Some weirdo riding a T-rex? There must be some Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy action going on across this vast room. He starts to fly that way, but a figure interposes, causing him to stop. Booster backs up, and says, "Oh, Diana... man, am I glad to see you."

Indeed, the figure floating before Booster is a fine one, because it belongs to Wonder Woman. She does not, however, seem pleased to see Booster. At seeing her frown, Booster says, "Er. What's wrong, Princess? You seem really... angry."

"I'm not angry," says the Amazon. "I'm just disappointed." When she swings a fist at the Man of Gold, it is a blur faster than most eyes could track.

The result of this expression of disappointment looks interesting and pretty from a distance. There is a bright flash of light at the initial contact, followed by a fiery streak of golden light, like a burning missile angled right towards the ground. As would be expected with a missle, there is something of an explosion, a great uprooting of walls and plumbing, and a little seismic activity. The big feathery green T-Rex roars again, because all of a sudden there's a Deadpool and a leggy blonde riding on his back, and Deadpool's kicking him. "DUDE!" the dinosaur yells, "QUIT KICKING ME!" He doesn't stop or try and shrug anyone off, though. And there's a girl with a camera! A little T-Rex hand gives the peace sign, pausing (because he's not stopping) and shows teeth, mugging for the picture, and then he calls over, "You can hop on too. Have you--"

NOW the dino stops, because he just looked ahead, and the fifty-foot woman is standing with her feet down in the stalls, glaring down at Gar and Deadpool and Lunair, and wearing a miniskirt and go-go boots. "Mom?" squeaks the big feathered reptile.

"You're taking too long in the bathroom, Garfield!" Elasti-Girl scolds.

"Oh, snap," whispers Gar.

A giant manicured hand comes down to do some mom-style smacking-down on dino-and-company; Gar yelps, "HANG ON!" and starts running willy-nilly in the direction of 'away'.

Squirrel Girl's heart starts racing. It's kind of like the feeling of falling in love. She eyes Tony, blushing. There's a long, slow silence. She decides she's going to tell him what an inspiration he is for her, and how every day she's dreamed about becoming an Avenger, and she doesn't know where they are right now, but she'd do everything in her power to protect him, and to get them out of here. This fake-Tony, who was created just to attack Doreen, doesn't have a chance to say anything, as he is crushed by a random toilet stall wall which collapsing. Doreen panics, jumping back, as a giant T-Rex foot stomps down. Doreen uses her Squirrel Agility, and jumps out of the way, screaming in a blood-curdling wail "Noooooo!!!!" Her voice echoes throughout the area.

Bouncing off a random bathroom stall that's still standing, she leaps behind Deadpool, landing on Gar's back, knocks the pin-up girl with a smack (who disappears instantly) and begins shouting at him, "You killed Tony Stark! You...jerk!" Tears stream down her cheeks. Suddenly, directly in front of the Gar & Co., appeared a giant, floor-engulfing water drain, hungrily gobbling up the cheap laminate floor tiles.

Gabriel is about to approach Robin Hood. and this isn't the Robin Hood from Men in Tights either. No pansy, foopy looking man this. He's tall, and unshaven, and dirty, and muscular, and drawing an arrow that he's aiming at Gabriel while he says, "Stand and deliver, cur! How dare you walk about in your small clothes with fair maidens around!" Gabriel eyes open wide as he realizes he's about to be shot through the brain pan by the most legendary archer of them all when a green T-Rex runs by, narrowly avoiding squashing Robin Hood. Which does the archer no good as he swatted flat by the hand of the giant woman chasing the T-Rex. "Noooo! Robiiiiin! Wait... He was about to kill me anyway... And, hello, T-Rex AND the fifty foot woman AND is that Deadpool??" He starts running after the whole parade of absurdity yelling, "DEADPOOL, HEY DEADPOOL! HOW'D I END UP IN YOUR BRAIN!?"

Yay! Pictures! Just like Deadpool asked. And the dinosaur is talking to Lunair in her Sith bathrobe. Her eyes widen. "Hi, Mr. Dino! Thank you!" And Lunair is going to TRY to hop onto the talking dinosaur's back. Though, it's worse than trying to play video games as a kid because apparently there's a squirrel lady here and suddenly this dinosaur is happening. Unlike a thwomp, other passengers do not rise and fall cyclically. "Umm. I'll just chill back here. Who's- there was a Tony Stark?" She looks so confused.

And considering Lunair's already somewhat splintered on a good day psyche, this is one serious look of confusion. Did a pipe just fly overhead? She just boggles, holding on to the camera. But she did get some nice pictures for dino and Deadpool! Thank goodness her inner demons seem mostly useful, aside from the laughing fits and eye tics and periodic murderfests. Which are GREAT at clearing the lines at the DMV. "Um. Hi!" She waves to Gabriel. "Watch out for traffic!" Helpful.

Laying in a wreckage nest, Booster gazes up at the ceiling, a little stunned both physically and mentally. "What..." he manages, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

"Did you really think you could conceal the truth from me?" Wonder Woman is saying, as she flies after Booster. "You're a criminal. A liar and a thief." She turns so she is plummeting down at him, feet first. Booster attempts to roll aside, but is not fast enough, and there is another explosion of the local scenery at the impact, as fragments of fragments go flying.

Not fragments of Booster Gold, however, because he is a lot tougher than he looks. Whether he is tough enough to withstand a sustained beating from someone like Wonder Woman is another matter--she's the last person he'd want to fight. That last attack must have driven him through whatever passes as a floor in this place, because he resurfaces many meters away, smashing up through an area of floor that has not yet been torn up. But now there's a T-rex running this way, and Booster is sensitive and his feelings are already hurt from the attack he's already suffered, so golden light is charging up around his fists because that dinosaur is going to get shot if it's hostile as well.

"Wait WAIT that CAN'T be my mom, she's DEAD--" yells the dinosaur, now with almost a full complement of riders and chasers; his little arms flap. "THE FLOOR. IT'S GONNA EAT US. Running dude and shooting star, look out, hungry floor!" And still he runs and runs and runs! Closer and closer to that terrifying drain, with Elasti-Girl thundering along behind them, having manifested a wooden spoon that's painted to jauntily match the pattern on her mod mini-dress.

And then green Tyrannosaur goes through millions of years of evolution in one leap, turning into a giant green roc just in time to soar over the drain, which proceeds to gobble up Rita Farr's go-go boots, AND over Booster's tragic head. Except all it's eating is those giant boots, because Elasti-Girl is quite suddenly as vanished as Tony or Robin Hood or (hopefully) Diana.

Gar wheels around to dive and scoop at Gabriel's shoulders with his giant talons, yelling, "BOOSTER GET OFF THE FLOOR!".

Gabriel yells at Lunair, "Icoming 50 foot woman, move!" But doesn't wait for her to actually move on her own. Instead he grabs her arm and tugs her after him. For someone in owl covered boxers Gabriel is actually stronger than he looks, especially since now he's holding Lunair by one arm as they're both soaring into the air when Gar grabs Gabriel. Who can only come up with the wittiest of "GACK!"s in response...

Ominous, sparkly lights begin to twinkle from the ever-engulfing, rapidly growing water drain, and soon everyone gathered would find themselves being pulled into the water, even those who were previously air-bound, undertow and all, because our God-like Dungeon Master-like figure totally cheats. A great flushing sound echoed throughout the land, and in the distance, cackling laughter.

The water was warm, and the force downward became ever-stronger, and within seconds had consumed the entire Bathroom World. The endless walls of stallhood being pulled below into some great vortex. And then there was a long flash of light, lasting ten seconds.

When vision was restored, everything was different. The heroes found themselves gathered in a Wal-Mart. A very large Wal-Mart. But this Wal-Mart also happened to be in the middle of the Amazon Forest, all the displays were constructed along the trees, bushes, and wildlife. A friendly, very plastic-looking robot woman smiled and waved at them. "Welcome to Wal-Mart!" she said in possibly the most forced-cheerful voice one could possibly imagine. The feint smell of burning wood and plastic haunted the air. There seems to be only one shopper here other than our new arrivals. It's a single mother with ten or eleven children, all under the age of five, running amok in one of the isles. "Better stock up," she says to Booster Gold idly, "It's the end of the world."

Well, okay. Lunair is trying to stay with the dinosaur when suddenly! "Eek!" Poor running dinosaur. Her eyes widen. And then she's grabbed by Gabriel in his owl covered boxers. And Lunair's equally stylish Sith bathrobe. At least the body wash is lost off somewhere since she still has the dubstep gun slung over her shoulder with a strap and she's carrying the camera. She is held by one arm, eyes widen. She looks lost for a reaction. This might explain why /her/ manifestation was vaguely confused. It's a long, lonely gulf and path she walks.

Nevertheless, she manages a confused, "Thank you." And she'll try to help poor Gabriel hang on, returning a hand. She puts the camera into her robe pocket and peers down at the robo woman. "... well, it would be nice to have some pants but these are probably scary interdimensional pants." And you never want interdimensional portals in your pants.

"Gar?" Booster wonders uncertainly, although at least he did not call him 'Beast Boy', or 'J'onn'. But then everything is being sucked down and into... what? Hell? No, Wal-Mart. Six of one, half-dozen of another. When Booster gets up, he does not seem mussed despite the beating he was taking, and then the deluge of water. As shiny and well-groomed as he still looks, his facial expression tells a different story. "What is going on?" he asks, an edge of hysteria in his voice.

The woman suggesting that Booster 'stock up' gets boggled at, and then the tall man looks around. He has shied away from shopping since coming to this era, because it is so alien to what he is used to. For all he knows, all Wal-Marts are exactly like this. He says, "Oh, rampant capitalism," and calms down slightly. He knows what that is. Jungle Wal-Mart. Gar, deciding that if he's going to get sucked down a drain, it'll be as a baby alligator rather than a roc because baby alligators have been known to survive the experience, is now unsure about this decision. It's like five confused seconds before he ditches the sudden pile of people and turns, all-unknowning, into a green squirrel and bounds over to Booster to climb up his side and perch on his shoulder. "Don't die in this dream, okay? It was pretty traumatic in the first go-round."

After Doreen got her bearings, she picked herself up and looked around. She immediately noticed Booster Gold, who she'd met a few days ago, and waved up to him. "Boooooo-ster!" she called up, not yet noticing Gar. All the chaos had taken her mind away from the sudden death of Tony Stark, her hero. She looked to her left and saw Lunair and Gabriel next. With a chirpy little bounce-step, she was quickly in front of them.

"Hi!" she said, "I'm Squirrel Girl!"--and as soon as she'd finished this short sentence, she was already on the move, muttering something about needing to find 'Tippy-Toe'. After only a minute's inspection, it soon became clear that this particular Wal-Mart only sold one of three products: duct tape, beer, and guns. There seemed to be no employees at all in eyeshot, however there was a commotion-sound, some inarticulate yelling, some twenty or twenty-one isles away. "Do you hear that?" Doreen said to everyone, still passively accepting all these random environmental changes as reality, "We'd better check that out!"

From his branch Gabriel sees Gar change into a squirrel and decides that, given the current environment, that's a perfectly reasonable shape to be in. After a quick, "Hi." to Doreen he turns into what looks like a giant, golden amoeba which quickly shrinks and resolves into the shape a green squirrel, an exact copy of Gar's current form. And because its just funny Green Squirrel #2 hops off the branch and scampers up Booster Gold's side to sit on his other shoulder.

"T-thanks." Hey, a friend is nice. She waves to Squirrel Girl. "Hi!" Then suddenly, Lunair is holding an amoebahand. She looks boggled. "... wait, don't you have flagella?" Freaking biology students. Oh well. She's minus a shapeshifter neighbor, but it is cute to see them both on Booster's shoulder. "awww." Then, the branch cracks ominously. The noise is akin to a deity slapping two wooden clappers together and stomping on a 2x4. That's really the only way to put it.

Lunair and her robe go flying towards the ground and while she manages to avert a 180 epic faceplant, she does sort of land with a FWOMP. "... there are a lot of squirrels. And beer. More squirrels. But beer." Mind. BOGGLED. "And um, yeah." Noise. Even Lunair's shattered, violence addled mind registers that an abnormality in an abnormal land might be a clue.

Booster reaches up to give Gar-squirrel a very gentle poke, as if to check for reality. Then again, Wonder Woman's fist felt pretty real, so this is not a conclusive test. Wearing matching squirrels as if he were the new Lord of Squirrels, he greets Doreen with an amicable, "Hi, Squirrel Girl. And you look familiar," he tells Lunair, "I'm sorry, I'm usually pretty good with names. Just... you know, for some reason, it's a little difficult to concentrate right now. Wait--" This is to Doreen when she turns towards that sound. "I'm not getting any reception on my Avengers communicator, or through my Legion ring. I think we've traveled into another dimension, or something like that." After a pause, he admits, "This happens to me regularly enough that it's not a big logic leap. Just saying, I don't think we should rush around before we get our bearings."

Gabriel puts a 'hand' on Booster's ear and sits up nice and straight, fluffy green tail twitching to help him keep his balance. After looking back and forth between Doreen and Booster for a moment he starts chittering away in squirrelese, *Then again, maybe the answer to all of our most burning questions is over there after all. Like where are we? And how did we get here? And what happened to my Cocoa Puffs!?*

Doreen nods to Booster like an obedient child, and ambles closer, suddenly noticing the two, green squirrels perched on his shoulders. Now, Doreen had never tried her powers on alien squirrels, nor had she tried them on shapechangers-who-were-now-squirrels, but she decides now is as good of a time as any. She gets as close to Booster Gold as she can, and she begins chittering and squawking and yammering in squirrely noises as fast as she can. This goes on and on for about a full minute. Doreen, of course, was assuming these creatures were Alien Squirrels and started telling them about Earth, the world from which she came, in squirrlese.

Lunair looks a little lost and out of it. She has no squirrel, nor shape changing powers. The squirrel cannon would probably not go over so well, either. But she does have a dubstep gun slung over her shoulder. Like a samurai. A REALLY DORKY ONE. She tilts her head to Booster. "Booster Gold. I go by Scarlet when I am on the job. Because people make fun of my codename. And I remember you weren't scared of me. That was nice. But um- I gotta check out that noise. If I die, burn their village and /avenge me/, okay?" She waves. "I'd pet your squirrels, but that seems kind of personal. And um, thanks squirrel dudes. One of you is - Gar? And I am not sure -" An apologetic look to Gabriel. She waves to Doreen and it is time to EXPLORE.

Booster seems fine with Doreen drawing close to his personal space, at least until she starts chittering. That makes him look faintly uneasy. Then, he points to the Gar-squirrel and informs her, "This one speaks English." Although, the other one was making actual squirrel noises, so maybe he does need to be told things by Doreen. He leaves her to it, his attention turning to Lunair, "Scarlet, I don't object to that, I just think we need to be cautious." He falls silent, and then says, mostly to himself, "I can't believe -I- am the one saying that to someone else." Walking after Lunair, he adds in a more conversational tone, "While I -am- an Avenger, I'd prefer it if we didn't let things come to that, so try not to die."

Gabriel is in a conversation with Doreen trying to explain that, yes, he's from earth just like her, so kows all about it. All of it in the chittering of Squirrelese. When the other girl approaches he actually waves at Lunair as she introduces herself and tries to return the favor but squirrels are, well, squirrels. So when he tries to introduce himself all that coes out is meaningless chittering. He does manage to chitter a version of 'tan-tan-taaaaaan!' as Lunair make to go off exploring on her own.

Doreen sniffs and a single tear streams down her cheek. "An Avenger has already died," she says, almost chocking on her words. "Oh Tony--" she sobs. "I'm sorry," the Gar-squirrel tells Doreen abashedly after a full minute of chittering chirping from the girl, "I don't speak squirrel. But I don't think that was really Mr. Stark. I mean, that wasn't really my mom, after all." Then he straightens up, tail twitching in a big poofy cloud of green, and tells Lunair cheerfully, "That's right! Gar Logan, the Changeling! And I'm really glad we're in another dimension, because man, if this were a dream that'd really suck. Booster can we go see what the noise is? It might be the way out."

"Tony was here?" Booster arches a brow, looking over to Doreen again. However, he has been thinking of his own encounter with Wonder Woman; now that he has had time to mull it over, he is pretty sure Diana would not attack someone without trying to talk things over with them first. "Did he have a glass of scotch in his hand? Because if he didn't, then it probably -wasn't- Tony Stark." But this is said with all respect; Booster likes his boss. He lets Lunair lead, however, because she seems to know what she is doing.

Gabriel still clining to Booster's ear GS2 raises its little arm over its head, ears twitching with excitement as it thrusts the arm back forward in the same motion a cavalry officer would use to signal the charge with his saber.

Pause. Lunair blinks at Doreen. "How would Tony die if Miss Potts didn't give death an appointment?" Lunair seems baffled. "I don't think he - could've - I mean, with the lasers and stuff." She rubs the back of her head. "But then if he..." Is Miss Pepper okay? She seems concerned, even if she's sort of - unstably sane on a good day. She shakes it off. It's considerably less funny when she's attempting business.

Lunair smiles to Booster. "Okay. And I am! I'll try not to, but - most people wouldn't feel too bad." It's alternately sad and a relief. Such is the life of a youthful assassin and mercenary. "Either way." Beam. "And um, chitter... chitter?" Lunair looks confused at Gabriel. "I am not fluent in squirrel." She frowns. But she does wave.

While the gathered heroes discuss things, the noises in the distance get louder and louder, and it is soon recognizable as voices, albeit extremely nasal-toned voices. After some concentration, it sounds like they're chanting the word "punishment!" over and over again. After a moment, a group of twenty or so human-sized, white-feathered Ducks march onto the scene, all of them wearing Wal-Mart t-shirts. This must be the employees. In the back of the group, two particularly strong looking ducks hold up a tree stump. On it stands a little man--the same one from the mirror! He was dressed in a snazzy purple suit, and had a little hat. "It is time," he proclaimed wildly to the Wal-Mart employees, "For the world to atone for its sins," he said menacingly, to which the crowd of duck soldiers roared and cheered, quacking here and there.

Gabriel perks up when he sees the little man and excitedly says, *Him! That's the guy in my mirror! Thank God I didn't turn into him! Ugly little bugger.* Of course, for anyone other than Doreen all that's happening is that there's a very excited green squirrel bouncing up and down on Booster's shoulder, tail twitching wildly as it goes, "SQUEAK! squeak squeaken squeak, squeaky squeaken squeak squeak!"

Booster does not understand squirrel-language, but the excited chittering gets the point across; if nothing else, Booster recognizes the mirror man as well. "Oh, it's the dude. He must have an agenda." This is preferable in Booster's mind, rather than thinking that someone powerful just felt like messing with them for fun. He flies up and forward, still resplendent with green squirrels and floats over the ducky crowd, hovering there in a pleasingly dynamic posture. Practice always pays off. "Greetings! I'm Booster Gold, me and my colleagues would like to know what you want of us. Did you bring us here in the hope that we would assist you and your people in a difficult task?" When he is proclaiming things in this sort of diplomatic tone, his voice takes on a timbre that is fuller and more... well, -heroic- sounding than his typical speaking voice. That, too, comes from a lot of practice.

Lunair looks confused by Gabriel's squeaking. She tilts her head. "I'll pet you later or bring you some cashews or something. Because I have no idea what you're saying. Still..." She nods. She pauses. "Hey yeah..." She saw that guy in the mirror. And while Lunair can't Booster hover, she does linger at the edge of the crowd, watching Booster do his thing. Never more has Lunair - wait, she does have a bread launcher. She's safe.

The little man dressed in purple smiled as his eyes met various members of the group of heroes. "Oh hai!" he said perkily to Booster Gold, "You're just in time for the great restitution!" he declared excitedly, in the same way a small child might brag about what they got for Christmas. "My name is--" he began, but he was RUDELY interrupted by Miss Doreen Green.

"Mister Mxyzptlk!" Squirrel Girl interjected, smug and proud of her recognition. In her hand she held up a trading card with his face and name on it. "Rogues of Superman expansion pack!" she said with a wink. "It's pronounced 'mazizzle-patumtum-palizzle-trik-trik'" he corrected with a scowl, and what might've been a gang sign. "Nunnayou are ever gettin' out of here," he continued, "Until this man dies." Gesturing behind him, two more ducks appeared carrying a small, squinty man, who upon closer inspection was the comedian Gilbert Gottfried. He was tied up and gagged. After a minute, another duck arrived carrying Deadpool, who was tied-up from head-to-toe think, orange yarn. Only his head stuck out, his mouth area of his mask wrapped in about five or six rolls of ductape. "This chump tried to kill him before I had my chance," he said disapproving.

Gabriel starts to chitter again then throws both his tiny little arms down in disgust. Hopping off Booster he lands on top of Gottfried and the whole amoeba act happens again, this time with the wobbly mass growing and transforming into a copy of Gottfried that says, "Well, we can't really let you do that... And what did he do to deserve being murdered anyway?" This has, in fact, gotten too weird. It took a lot, it really did, but-- first Booster loses one squirrel, and then Gar jumps off Booster's shoulder and turns into himself, in all his blinding Williamsburg Macklemore fashion statement glory. He pops his pink embroidered cowboy shirt collar and slides his mirrored aviators up on top of his head, then puts his hands on his hips and glares at Mxyzptlk. "I bet you think Stephen Colbert's actually a Republican!"

Then the green guy Macklemore’s himself over to Gilbert and Stillagain and gestures. "Here, gimme a hand untying him and whatever. Hey, bro, remember me? MTV MVAs two years ago, you had to wear sunglasses because I had that dayglo orange suit and was sitting next to you...? We'll get you out of here. Scarlet! Can you keep your boss from trying to kill him again if he manages to Houdini himself out? Booster, Squirrel Girl, can you keep the ducks off us?"

"Mmn... yeah," Booster gestures to ex-squirrel Gabriel, "What he said. I'm sorry, Mister M...azittle-pattle-tick. Uh... and sorry for wrecking your name just now... but I'm totally not okay with letting anyone get killed. It's double not-okay to force us to agree to that just so we can go home. It..." He pauses, and then brightens up as he tries this angle, "It's totally against our culture. It's kind of an imperialist mindset to try to force others into doing things that are against their culture."

Now that he has lost his squirrel posse, Booster lands, saying, "Sure, Gar, I'm good at defense. I really don't want to have to hurt anyone... which is kind of the point I'm making, here. No one ought to get physically harmed over any of this."

"Many a good name has been sullied by this man," Mxyzptlk says in a brief moment's of consideration regarding Gabriel's duplication stunt. "Guess I'll just have to put ya both down." With that, most of the duck soldiers turned to the two Gottfrieds and opened their duck bills. Large vampire-like fangs extended from the upper beak, and they let out a hissing sound, somehow in perfect unison.

While this was going on, Doreen had carefully stepped closer to Lunair and quietly informed her: "This card says that Superman would defeat Mxyzptlk by getting him to say or write his name backwards," she shrugged helplessly, her volume raising back to normal volume. "His powers are near God-like in our dimension," she concluded nervously. When she sees Gar taking command, a thought suddenly occurs to her, and she shouts it out: "But this *isn't* our dimension!"

Lunair pauses. She looks thoughtful. Well, she feels a little odd out as their plan seems to forget she exists. But on the other hand... On the other hand, this could be hilarious. A bread cannon. The dubstep gun lingers over her shoulder and she looks like a baker mashed with a ghostbuster in a bathrobe. And behold! Tremble low carb terrorists! Watch out for your thighs, - er, ehm. Well. As long as you don't eat it all...

Either way, one of the ducks is going to get covered in slices of bread. Wholesome, delicious BREAD. It's a big enough pile that he's safe, but Lunair - as Spiral once said - is touched by the Wild Ways. That's probably slang for 'is nuttier than a squirrel on speed on a peanut farm.'

Gabriel catches sight of Doreen's card and a look of immense relief passes over his features. Calling out to her while he helps untie Gottfried, /really/ hoping everyone else can hold off the vampire ducks of doom, he calls out,"Hey! What other cards are you carrying around!?'

Booster Gold steps between Gabriel and the trussed Gottfried, and the incoming ducks. He raises his hand and a translucent golden bubble pops up, a shield against harm. "Okay, but..." Booster says, in reasonable tones, ticking points off on his fingers as he says them, "You've now mentioned the method for defeating him aloud, so he might be alert to that now. And if not... secondly, his name is impossible to say -forwards-... forget anyone actually being able to say it backwards. I don't think HE could even do it!"

With bread, comes an unyielding, sudden frenzy of ducks, who had at once completely forgotten about Gilbert Gottfried, and began desperately flapping and hopping around in virtualy every direction, almost as if their numbers had suddenly doubled, the air around filling with a cloud of white feathers. Virtually all ability to see what the heck is going on has at once ceased. "Dangblastit!" Mxyzptlk hollered out, not expecting this type of confusion. "You're ruining a perfectly good execution," he said furiously.

Doreen, somewhere in the mess, is listing off famous superhero names in response to Gabriel's question, namedropping almost every member of The Avengers, The Justice League, and The Fantastic Four. The list of names, for whatever reason, seems to infuriate Mxyzptlk even more, and he screams out "Silence! SIIIILENCE!" Unfortunately, however, his words have no affect the rampaging, bread-thirsty ducks. Upon seeing this rage, Doreen decides to press her luck with this dastardly villain, and begins an OCD/Rainman-esque, straight-from-a-Wiki-site list of every superhero she's ever read about in her entire life. "And more importantly, do you have a trading card of -me-?" Gar calls over to Doreen, shifting mid-untie into a really large green raccoon. REALLY large, dexterous fingers, big tail, imposing bulk, glarey face. "GET OFF US we're BUSY--" he starts yelling at the ducks, then blinks, because bread out of nowhere. "Okay, that is SUPER-RAD," he tells Lunair, then focuses on untying as fast as his dextrous little hands can work, especially since Scarlet's taken care of the ducks and Booster's out-clevering Mxy and Squirrel Girl is driving him batshit and Deadpool's still tied up and therefore not trying to ride him.

"If that doesn't work, lemme know, I'll sit on him!" the green guy calls out.

DUCKS! "Wow." Lunair seems grateful for the others around her. "That's actually really impressive. Have we met before this...?" She asks Gabriel, confused. How many shapeshifters does she know? Can she know? She has no idea. Though, she smiles to Doreen and her cards. "Those are pretty cool." And she blushes at Gar's compliment. "Thank you." But she's going to keep the ducks busy with bread while Booster does his boosty thing (and being Booster, he has the authority on all things Booster). Lunair seems quietly impressed but right now, she is duck herding. With bread. How many drugs does one need to be on to deal with this?

"I guess my final opinion on the matter," Booster muses, waving aside his commentary on Mr. Mxyzptlk's name, as he tells him in a grave but helpful manner, "Is you may want to buy a vowel." Then, in an aside to Doreen he adds, "By the way, I majored in Superhero History in the 25th century. I'd like to see your cards and compare them to my data files."

Mxyzptlk had had enough of this. "Fine! You losers don't wanna have any fun," he yelled out, "So rude. I don't want ya! I don't NEED ya!" He breathed a sad little, deflated sigh and suddenly, with a wave of his hand, everyone was back where they were before this mess started. This time looking at their true reflection. Behind Gabriel, lying in his bathtub, was an unconscious but still alive Gilbert Gottfried, who had seen better days. Sort of.