2013.05.11 - Twin Talk

"But I thought you were complaining just the other day that you might put on weight, sir?" Skeets, the little golden robot, is hovering attentively around and behind Booster Gold, who is standing there as he peruses the Commissary's automat array.
"I was talking about current-era food, Skeets. It's unpredictable, I mean, they take some of it right out of animals. Animal chunks! That seems to invite inconsistency." Booster finally pushes a button, and a sandwich happens. He makes a small, quiet sound of delight as he takes it, as if he were finding a long lost but cherished item. "You're a cruel and unforgiving trainer when I'm in the gym, Skeets, allow me to have at least one or two pleasures in life."
Although it's kind of an off time for the commissary to be particularly busy, Ayla Ranzz doesn't really keep what would be considered 'regular hours' yet. She stays up late, gets up early, sleeps at odd times. Maybe it's time travel lag? Whatever it is, right now she's finding her way to the food, floating in just a bit off the ground. Yeah, she could just walk, but when you can fly.... why? 
 
The little football-ish robot is the first thing that catches her attention, the shiny drawing her over before she consciously changes course. It gets her curious regard until she's near enough to see the sandwich, and she queries without preamble, "What kinda sandwich ya got?" 
 
She's not wearing her uniform, so wouldn't be immediately identified with Garth, unless the resemblance gives her away. But since she's much cuter than him, that might not happen. 
"Uh, sandwich type," answers Booster, who was clearly not particular as to what it should contain. It could be a sandwich between two further slices of bread. He starts to peek into it, then stops and puts the little plate on top of Skeets, so as to free his hands, dusting them off. "Hello! I'm Booster Gold!" With a bright and beaming smile, he extends a hand to Ayla for a handshake. "Reservist member. We haven't met, yet!"
Ayla lets her sneaker covered feet settle to the floor, putting her quite a few inches beneath the tall man, and a smile is directed up at him as she takes the offered hand. "Ayla Ranzz, Lightning Lass," she supplies, with a delicate but not mushy shake. "It's nice to meetcha, Booster Gold." There's a glance toward the hovering 'bot, "And who's your shiny friend?" 
"This is Skeets, my assistant," Booster gestures to his companionable floating sandwich holder.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ranzz," Skeets chirps politely, apparently not fussed about having to hold his boss's food.
"I've met Lightning Lad. Are you siblings?" wonders Booster. He pushes his goggles and cowl back and off; there is no reason to be 'masked' in here. "I don't know anyone too well, yet. I've only talked to a couple of members socially so far. It's interesting to see the..." glancing up wards, he gestures vaguely with both hands. "Team dynamics? Superheroes don't exist in my native era, so there sure weren't any teams."
For a moment, the sandwich holder gets Ayla's full attention. "Hello, Skeets, nice to meet you, too. Call me Ayla." She looks back to Booster, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial level, "He's very polite." 
 
Her grin is approving, and it grows broader at the topic of Garth, coming with a nod, "Twins. Try not to hold that against me." The joke holds a fondness she doesn't attempt to mask. "Hey, why don't you grab a table and I'll get some food and join you?" Whatever his plans were, she's only too happy to include herself in them. 
"Oh yeah, he's very polite," Booster says, looking back at Skeets. "That's why I pay him so much."
"You don't pay me at all, sir," Skeets replies placidly.
"Well, if you keep up this level of service, I might start. Someday." Booster gives the droid a playful but light poke, which it compensates for adroitly. He heads for a table as he says to Ayla, "Oh, it's okay. I understand. Actually, I have a twin sister... not here, though. She's back in our native era... 25th century, actually."
The back and forth between man and machine only serves to amuse Ayla more, blue eyes dancing with merriment. Rising off the floor again, she drifts to the nearest automat, as she continues their conversation, "Oh yeah? I'm sorry to hear that." Indeed, there's a dimming of her grin before she murmurs aside to the machine what she wants to eat. She shows up at the table with a gigantic salad crammed with everything but the kitchen sink, and slips into the chair across from Booster. "Garth got here before me, and it was about ten years before I managed to get here too. And that was by accident. So maybe she'll be here soon?" she adds hopefully. 
"Wow, so you hadn't seen him for ten years and then boom, reunion?" Booster looks surprised, but interested. "Ah... mm, I dunno about whether my sister would come here. I mean..." Once the tall man is settled, he takes his plate off of Skeets, putting it on the table instead. Skeets hovers nearby, somewhat over a chair, as if he were gamely attempting to occupy it.
"My sister and I weren't on great terms when I left. And I'm honestly not sure how she'd get here, she's a school bus pilot." Booster takes off his shiny blue gloves, briefly removing his Legion ring to do so. He looks thoughtful as he does this. Finally, he says, "I mean, it'd be nice to see her again, I think. Maybe we could talk some things out."
Again, Ayla's head bobs in an agreeable nod, "That's about the size of it. When he left, I was nine..." She pauses to interject, "Loooooong story behind that one, but when I got here he was the same as when I'd last seen him." Slender shoulders shrug beneath a simple blue t-shirt, "This time stuff is wacky. But at least I've caught up again. Silver lining," she quips, before attacking the salad with a fork. 
 
She spears an assortment of bits, looking up before she stuffs it into her mouth, frown deeper, "Aw, I'm really sorry to hear that, Booster. But I got here kinda by accident, maybe she will too. Then you can patch things up. Nothing worse than being on the outs with a twin." 
"..wow. That... would be really strange," Booster agrees, a little haltingly, as he tries to wrap his mind around that kind of time-foolery. "Although... yeah. It kind of makes sense to me. As if you were in synch in a way..." He picks up half of his sandwich, which seems to contain lettuce amongst other things, since it sticks out like a green ruffle from between the bread slices. "And yeah, it's kind of a strain. I don't have any other brothers or sisters, so I don't know what it's like to get estranged from a non-twin. But even when Michelle and I drove each other crazy, we were still close, at least until the end." Booster looks faintly sad for a moment, but shrugs. "Although maybe I didn't allow for enough time to work stuff out, before I left. And now I can't go back, if I did, I'd be in ... well, a lot of trouble."
Ayla blinks, stopping in mid chew as Booster hits on a point she hadn't really considered, but now... it makes perfect sense. She finishes chewing, swallows hastily, "Like, maybe there was a purpose to that, so we could catch back up before I came here too." This is considered for a moment with a thoughtful frown, before she sums it up with, "Huh." She takes another bite, this one smaller, before she adds to the conversation. "We have an older brother, Mekt." Sadness enters her eyes as her thoughts drift for a moment, but she pushes them away, focuses back on her companion. "I hope she makes it here, or you make it back." More spearing is done as she asks, "Trouble? What for?" 
"Well, maybe it's silly mysticism to talk about twin-bonds but you'd probably agree with me that there is one." Booster picks up his sandwich again, gesturing it with it vaguely while he speaks. "It's why I'm wondering if the bond you two had allowed you to ... snap together? I don't really have the vocabulary for this, sorry. But I've been thinking about it lately, especially now that I know that some of you Legionnaires aren't from the same uh... reality? When I was traveling here, I could see all these bright colors and like..." his blue eyes unfocus as he traces unseen shapes in the air with the index finger of his free hand. "Lines and stuff. And sometimes, flickers of stuff..." 
Booster falls silent, takes a bite of his sandwich, and then after chewing for a moment says in a slightly muffled voice, "I may as well be honest. My ring, my suit and stuff, I got them from a museum in my time. The era I'm from, they do not take lawbreaking lightly."
There's a gentle smile as Booster brings up the bond of twins. "I absolutely agree. I never felt Garth was gone. He just wasn't where I happened to be at the time. Now things just feel... right again. Whole." Ayla's eyes widen slightly, "You saw stuff? I don't remember anything but just being there and then being here." She watches him as he eats, a curious study, and she has more salad herself in the silence. His admission of thievery garners a cocked head and a sharpening to the previously casual study. Again, there's a soft, "Huh." Then silence again for a beat. "So what made ya do that?" There's curiosity in the inquiry, and a distinct lack of outward judgment. 
"I wish I could describe it all better, I just remember seeing sort of a web. Although that's not a good word for it, either. But some things seemed really connected and some things didn't." Booster shrugs again, mild disappointment in his own lack of vocabulary for this situation. Putting down his sandwich, he dusts his hands and sits back. "Okay, so. I've told this to some of the others. In my era there are no superheroes... there are people who might have special powers but they're not supposed to use them. The police system is very strict about that, and about... well, about a lot of things. I was a night watchman in a museum in Metropolis and it was full of stuff regarding superheroes of the 20th and 21st century, as well as various artifacts that had been dug up. The stuff on display was supposed to be inert."
Booster then points to the Legion ring on his hand. "This was in a display case, and was considered an inert artifact. I'd get bored at night and spend a lot of time in that area of the museum and I was thinking about what this ring could be and it actually flew out of its case... I mean it smashed a little hole through it... and into my hand."
Ayla's keen interest in the conversation is apparent in the slight squint as she listens, and a lean forward. While the 'web' gets some consideration, the story of his misadventures in museum security really captures her attention. She reaches over, gently claiming his hand and drawing it forward so she can get a better look at it. Hopefully he can handle his sandwich in one hand. Her eyes lift to him, brows arched. "So, technically, that's not really stealing. It came to you." She has a logic that can be non-concurrent with that of traditional law enforcement. 
"Arguably," Booster concedes, allowing Ayla to take his hand. The ring he wears looks like most other golden Legion rings. "It acted like it belonged to me. It's when I started opening up other displays that it really crosses over into criminal activity." He grins faintly, slightly sheepish. "I don't have any powers, I'm just a regular guy. This suit I'm wearing, a lot of it is from that museum and Skeets here helped me modify and kind of aggregate it."
"I'm also from the museum, where I worked as a docent," Skeets supplies, "But I find that it's far more interesting to work for Booster."
"So yeah, I technically stole this stuff, and then I time traveled. Basically, if I return to my era, they'll just catch me and execute me." Booster rolls his eyes a little and says, "I was actually worried that some of you were police that'd come to hunt me down, but no."
"Ok," Ayla concedes, letting go of Booster's hand. Her own was warmer than most, the electricity she can call up kicking her temperature up a degree or two past normal. "Maybe some of it was technically stealing. But, what's the good of stuff like that sitting in a display? I'd assume you're using it to help people, or else you wouldn't be here in the first place. That's what it's for." That light frown is back, clouding her brow. 
"Exactly my thought. Even if I could have gotten away with taking this stuff out of the displays, it would have been illegal for me to ..." Booster sits back and gestures at himself, or at least at the shiny blue and gold costume he is wearing. "You know, do all this. My life was crap, so why not start anew and be a real hero this time? That was the plan, at least. The superhero gig is a lot more challenging than I expected, but saving people is way more gratifying than I thought it could ever be." Booster takes another bite of sandwich, and once he has swallowed that, he adds, "So now you know at least some of my 'secret origin'." He makes ironic air quotes as he says this, then gives Ayla a wink.
Since a smile comes much more naturally to her, Ayla easily gives up the frown in its favor. "It is, isn't it? Making a difference. Helping people. It's a rush, plain and simple." For a fairly little thing, she's managed to mow through that salad in short order, very little left on her plate but a few crumbles of cheese. "I think it's better for that stuff to be doing good with you, Booster, than sitting in a museum gathering dust." The wink brings a soft laugh and dimples as her smile widens. "Next time, I'll tell you my 'secret origin'," she says, imitating his quotes. "I used to be a normal kid. So was Garth." Beat. "Well, as normal as Garth got, anyway," she amends with a giggle. She pushes to her feet, "I need to go find him, speaking of. It was great to meet you, hope we see more of each other." Her eyes focus on Skeet, not forgetting him, "Skeet, we'll talk. I bet you have interesting stories." She brushes off her jeans absently, then picks up her dirty plate to put it... wherever the dirty dishes go. 
"Thank you, Ayla, I am a very interesting robot," Skeets agrees. He bobs a little in the air when Booster sets his own empty plate on top of the golden droid.
"I'm glad you agree, I was kind of worried that I'd get booted off the team for being a criminal. But I also figured I shouldn't lie about it, it is what it is." Booster takes his ring off, setting it on the table while he pulls his blue gloves back on. "And I'm interested in knowing what makes you tick... er, please don't take that in some creepy way. When I was still in college, I majored in Superhero History." He holds his hand out, and the ring zips up from the tabletop and lands on his palm. He puts it back on.
Ayla laughs, "No, that hardly sounded creepy at all, Booster." She watches the ring lift, then looks up to the man's face. "Yeah, you're kinda meant to have that, I think." She smirks as she says this, but the words are sincere. A step and her plate is stashed away, before she lifts into the air. "Talk soon, guys!" she chirps. She flies over to the tube, and is off in search of Garth. 
Category:Log