2012-10-16 A Magical Storm Of Current Events

It is a quiet evening at the Halls of Justice. There has been little to do as a team lately, but the rules of the League still request members to spend some time at the building in the case emergencies require super-human law agents. Firestorm spends here much of his time, since he has almost no life outside being a super-hero. Probably too much time, when Zatanna arrives to the meeting room he finds a few odd things: it is way too hot, the AC is working at full power and it is still too hot. There is the unpleasant stench of burning plastic in the air. And Firestorm has apparently fallen asleep on his chair. The fire-detection sensors are designed to ignore his presence, so they have not fired any alarm.

Is it a quiet evening, or have things been slow a bit as of late...? I mean sure The Zombots are still out there, somewhere, but no one&apos;s really seen them for a little bit. And sure there&apos;s stuff brewing with &apos;Registration&apos;. And let&apos;s not forget what&apos;s going on with The Titans....

But lets face it, there hasn&apos;t really been much, if anything, that The Justice League itself has been called out for as of late.

But anyways, as Zatanna ends up in the JLA Meeting room, she frowns. The temperature thing doesn&apos;t bother her. She&apos;s use to working under spotlights after all. And she knows all too well that things have been set up to &apos;ignore&apos; Firestorm. But at the same time, she knows all to well that things here have their limits, and the fact that melting plastic can be smelled indicates how close to them things might be in here. hence the Mistress of Magic does use a single, little spell.

"Looc moor."

That should cool things off to a &apos;safe&apos; temperature. Right?

The spell works and the temperature drops to the standard 78 F right away. Firestorm wakes up hearing Zatanna&apos;s voice, blinking a few times, then starting, "damnit!" He looks around and then winces seeing the sorceress at the door. "The coffee was not strong enough," he explains, maybe complains. There is a half-melted pen on the table, as well as several damaged plasticized folders. He frowns and waves at them, repairing the damage while lowering his body temperature down to human levels.

Unable to help herself, Zatanna quirks an eyebrow at what Firestorm says and does, before shaking her head gently.

"Considering what you do, and how you do it, I&apos;ll admit that I&apos;m surprised to hear you say that..."

"Er... I am not good at making up excuses just waking up," admits Firestorm, rubbing his eyes. A completely unnecessary gesture since they are working perfectly. "Not that I sleep much," he adds more quietly. "But nevermind that, what brings you here, Zatanna?"

"The usual." Zatanna admits as she moves over to pour a cup of coffee, before in turn heading towards, and taking a seat at &apos;The Table&apos;.

"I&apos;ve got a day of down time between shows. So I figured I&apos;d drop by here for at least a little bit to check up on things and all that. You?"

"The usual," replies Firestorm with a faint smile. "I spend here most of the time, looking for situations where I can help, gathering information or working in some... things. The truth is since my transformation I don&apos;t interact much normal folks."

There is a pause at that. To be honest, Zatanna does understand what Firestorm is saying, but still...

"If you wanted to, there could be ways for you to do that. But even if you didn&apos;t want to go through doing what would probably have to be done then, you could still spend time with others like us if you wanted..."

"I am not sure what you mean. We must be the most eclectic group in Earth!" Firestorm notes, "two aliens, from different planets. A sorceress. An Amazon. A mutant. Fathom is... from some race of underwater humans, but not from Atlantis, I think. Green Arrow and Green Lantern are humans that use weapons. I am not sure about Tas and Black Canary. And then there is me, I am now more alien than Superman, my biology makes no sense. You know something funny? Magik believes I am a magical being."

With a slight smile, Zatanna admits, "There is a saying about sufficiently advanced science being indistinguishable from magic. So that might be true, after a fashion."

All though, since he did mention Magik...

"Yes, but if you want company, I&apos;m sure there are members of The League, and Titans that probably wouldn&apos;t mind hanging around with you, thus giving you something akin to &apos;normal human interaction&apos;."

"Oh sure, I do that," accepts Firestorm. "And there are people here too I talk with often. That is not a big deal, but it is not normal, and I was very normal before the accident that gave me my powers. I suppose I am still trying to adapt"

"You&apos;re forgetting the fact that there isn&apos;t really such a thing as &apos;normal&apos;, no matter how you look at it." is said before Zatanna says, "Puc fo artxe gnorts eeffoc raeppa rof mrotserif!"

Before a cup of hot black liquid appears in front of the molecular hero.

"Not everyone can do something like that. More and more people with powers are appearing every day. Some scientists are saying that mutants could completely replace humanity within as few as two or three generations, and considering the wide variety of forms and powers mutants have, I highly doubt many of them would consider a situation like yours abnormal."

"So instead look at it like you&apos;re ahead of the curve."

Yeah, he can do something like that. Coffee is just a bunch of molecules floating on water, caffeine is just C8-H10-N4-O2 organized in a certain patter. It has no effects on him, his metabolism is too resistant to drugs. "Good points. But I still would draw a good deal of unwanted attention if I go to a coffee house or a club. Being ahead of the curve is not helping me to return to what was a familiar, comfortable situation. Bah, I just need to get used to be... me. I am lucky to be alive, after all."

With a faint smile, Zatanna says, "Oh really? Try going to a &apos;Mutant Club&apos; sometime, and see what happens. And yes, there are &apos;Mutant Clubs&apos;, and &apos;Mutant Bars&apos; out there."

Then though her smile falters.

"To be honest though, I&apos;m not sure what else to tell you right now that could help."

"Don&apos;t worry about it, it is not a serious problem," replies Firestorm. "I miss some parts of my old life, but I wouldn&apos;t go back if given a choice, I can do incredible things now. I can fly, even go to space, I am probably going to live forever. Oh, and turning lead into gold seems like a simple thing. Making good coffee, much harder." He takes the mug and drinks.

There is a smile at that as Zatanna nods. And while she does have some doubts about that &apos;living forever&apos; bit, she doesn&apos;t let that haunt her smile.

"Exactly. All though I might suggest you try and sleep elsewhere. No insult meant, but it didn&apos;t loo too comfortable for you when I came in, and if you&apos;d had to rush off without repairing everything like you did..."

"Oh yeah," there is still the scent of burnt plastic in the air. That won&apos;t do. Firestorm concentrates a few seconds to hunt down those floating molecules and turn them into regular nitrogen and oxygen. The smell disappears. "I can&apos;t control the heat when I sleep," he mentions. "I will be more careful."

With a nod, there&apos;s a slight, "Thank you." before the mistress of magic makes another slight offer.

"And if you need your room reinforced, I can help with that, so you have less to worry about when you sleep."

"Oh, I did that when I got here the first days," otherwise there would have been some fires in the Hall already! "But thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. I don&apos;t usually fall asleep in odd places, really. I was just... too involved in this project. Seems the laptop is still working. Good."

There&apos;s a nod at that as Zatanna tries not to say too much. After all, she could easilly point out that others around here could help in other ways, and all that but...

"All right. But if you want help, you just have to ask." is said as the mistress of magic finishes her coffee.

"And I hate to do this, but I probably should check some other things. It might be a day off from my actual show, but..."