Owner	Pose
Ted Kord	"STOP THE PRESSES!" Blue Beetle's voice rings out over the phone, his tone urgent. "Sir, we do everything online these days. There's no money in journalism. But, at any rate, there are no presses to stop. What's the emergency?" "The world needs to know--the Superbuddies are having auditions!" "Sir, please don't waste my time again." The woman on the other end hangs up the phone. MEANWHILE, AT THE SAME TIME... Messages go out to the recent acquaintances of Blue Beetle & Booster Gold. Messages of great import! Those messages? 'meet me @ giant eagle in hackensack 911 asap xoxo booster' At that very instant, Booster Gold--and his eternal companion Blue Beetle--put down paperweights on the folding table they've set up in a parking lot of a Giant Eagle grocery store. "My cousin manages this place," Beetle says. "We should be fine. I just hope it doesn't get too crowded."
Dragonfly	Dragonfly thunders in from the sky, a distant sonic boom showing how seriously she took the summons. The fact that it is distant showing that she's learned to stop breaking windows.     "What is it?" she asks, looking around for a threat or a crime or, well, anything except a folding table with paperweights. "Is there some kind of a crisis? Mole-men? Not that I had anything to do with that incident! Robbery? You got some dirt on a villain?"     She looks at Booster, then at Blue. "So, c'mon, spit it out. What's up?"
Booster Gold	"It's TRYOUTS!" Booster tells Nancy. Resplendent in blue and obnoxious gold plating, he spreads his hands, grinning at her. "Well, formal ones. I mean, SOME people are already lookin' pretty good for the team," he says, with a cheeky wink and grin, snappointing at her. "But, like, we figured we should do this formally. You know?" There's a line. It's a long line. And it's a motly crew of Z-list heroes that look like they took fifth place at a cosplay convention. The Bic shows up, a lighter in each hand. Captain Corelli's Mandolin-- a man with a stringed guitar that he claims can cause mild headaches. As far as anyone can tell, it is true. The Flash, who insists that he came up with the name first; and who tops out a blistering thirty-five miles per hour. Booster takes his seat next to Ted. "Who's first, Tedd-- I mean, Blue Beetle?" he says, dropping his voice to an authoritarian pitch.
Ted Kord	Giving an annoyed look to his colleague, the Blue Beetle sighs and looks at his clipboard. "First up is ... let's see ... 'Vomit Johnson'." A large man walks up and pukes into a bucket he's brought with him. "Is it, like, acid vomit?" the Beetle asks. "No. But the stench will knock out ANYONE in a matter of minutes," Johnson replies. "Sounds /great/," Blue Beetle says, clearly unconvinced. "Should we work in Dragonfly?" he asks, turning to Booster. "Hey!" someone in the line shouts. "No cuts, no butts, no coconuts!"
Dragonfly	"Oh fer...!" Dragonfly is fuming, and it's not clear if this is because of the waste of time the whole "tryouts" thing represents or if it's because some Z-grade types think they could stop her from cutting into line. The line she doesn't even want to be a part of.     Stupid pride wins the day.     "OK, get out of my way," she says, walking from the back of the line forward, gently lifting people aside and depositing them out of her path. Except for the icky ones like Vomit Johnson or Mucilage Man who get carefully lifted out of the way mentally. "Look, if I'm going to be wasting my time here, let's at least waste as little of it as possible! What am I trying out for and why would I want to?" she asks as she reaches the head.     She spins to look at someone who put up too loud a protest. "SHUT UP AND STAY BEHIND ME!" she bawls.     Yep. Stupid pride for the win. Emphasis on stupid.
Booster Gold	"Well, the who-- uhoh, she's comin'," Booster mutters back at Ted, behind one hand. She looks piiiiisssed. He gets to his feet, holding his hands up for calm and to absolutely no effect. Her question, though, is the sort of prompt Booster loves, and he floats six feet into the air (to a chorus of 'woah' and 'nice' and 'Hey, she cutted!') "Ladies. Gentlemen. You're here today, because-- well-- you love justice. You love America. Or, Canada," Booster concedes. "But you want to protect the innocent. Help people! Make a difference!" he says, the crowd muttering asset as he speaks. "You want to rise up and be part of the SOLUTION! Part of a TEAM! And maybe make SIX PERCENT MERCHANDISING!" he shouts, ringing his voice around. A few fists go up, but mostly people go 'huh?' "...GO SUPERBUDDIES!" Booster shouts, to sporadic and confused applause. "Hi. Ken Tremendous," the next participant says, walking past Dragonfly and up to Beetle. He runs his hand through his amazing head of hair. "I can fit an entire hockey puck in my mouth."
Plastic Man	There are times when even the darkest night must feel the burn. The burn of a new dawn. A new age. A new something that probably shouldn't be considered something to pay attention to but whatever... it's certainly going to make a bit of an entrance. When one of those aforementioned and barely paid attention to, but just enough screen time to have been glimpsed by the eagle-eyed, paperweights leaps up and off the table, that's probably cause for some sort of an alarm. An alarm that actually appears in the air as the paperweight unfolds into the classic hammer and bell alarm that clangs loudly to get everyone's attention. As gravity takes over and the descent towards the ground happens, the alarm turns into a bullhorn and proceeds to announce: "Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Squirrels! Women, Children and Loch Ness Monsters... BEHOLD! The last loser you'll ever need to see! The only one worth his weight in mold! The Pliable! The Punctual!" Dramatic Pause. "PLASTIC MAN!" The bullhorn turns the rubbery hero as he lands on the ground and throws his arms open nice and wide, buffing his chest out with dramatic flair! Across his massive chest is the APPLAUSE word that's pulsating with each beat of his heart that doesn't exist anymore! Oh boy.
Ted Kord	"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Blue Beetle hisses through gritted teeth, cringing as Dragonfly approaches. "Thanks, Tremendous Ken," he says to the poor sod who's placed himself between the two recruiters and the angry superheroine. "You're on a short list, for sure." Attempting to look past Dragonfly, Beetle swallows a lump in his throat and checks his clipboard again. "Is there a, ah ... Kickpuncher here? Please? ... I hope?" His questions are asked more and more quietly. "Hiiiii ... Dragonfly," the gadgeteer groans. "Please don't murder me--" His words are cut off by the sudden and, thankfully, loud arrival of Plastic Man. Eyes wide, Ted looks to Booster. "Thank god," he mouthes silently.
Dragonfly	Dragonfly is momentarily taken aback by Plastic Man's arrival, an arrival that interrupts what was apparently going to be her attempt to prove that Tremendous Ken could fit far more than a single hockey puck in his mouth if only he tried hard enough. Instead the man with incredible hair is gracelessly tossed backward out of the way behind Dragonfly as she gapes at Plastic Man.     "Now see?" she says, looking over her shoulder, "that's two people now who outclass you so badly you're barely visible from their rarefied heights."     She follows the advice on the sign, slow-clapping ironically, but not hostilely, at the entrance.     "Man, you've GOT to show me how to do entrances like that," she says to the newcomer. "I mean my role models have been pretty lousy up to now. And, worse, they've sometimes been Booster Gold."     She just had to dig in, didn't she?     "Dragonfly," she says, extending her hand for a handshake. "I fly, break things, and can't be broken. I'm not with them." That last with a vague gesture Booster Gold's and Blue Beetle's way with her off hand.
Booster Gold	Well. Color Booster *expletive deleted* impressed. Following the stunned silence, he breaks into applause. "WOW! That is AWESOME!" he hoots, clapping his gloves together. As soon as Eel produces a hand, Booster shakes it vigorously. "That-- MAN! Wow! What a great superpower! Shapeshifting, huh? That's crazy! Full on shape shifting, WOW. Ted! Ted! Didja see that? Man, put him on the TOP of the list!" Booster says, to a chorus of envious grumbles from the remaining applicants in line. "This is Dragonfly, she's sort of our 'hanger-on'," Booster tells Plastic Man, jerking a thumb at Dragonfly. "She's pretty good in a fight, but she keeps acting like she doesn't wanna BE on the Superbuddies-- and yet, she keeps showing up at emergencies!" "'tween you and me, she's got a little crush on the Brazilian Speedster, who's at home sleeping off a cold one. But I think it's because she's not over me," he tells Plastic, speaking with a hand behind his mouth.
Ted Kord	"Oh, it's totally impressive," Blue Beetle nods, a pained smile on his face. He lifts a hand to his mouth and leans over to Booster. "What about Alph-Ray and Usan-Say?" he whispers, perhaps a bit too audibly. Then, he clears his throat. "Dragonfly, I'm glad that you responded to the audition call, but I'm just not sure it's fair to everyone if you stomp to the front of the line like this. I mean, you've got ... promising? ... up-and-comers like The Grater or Trash Collector here." Beetle tries to smile again, although it's even more clearly forced. "And you don't want to take that away from them ... right?" He raises his hands, shrugging, a real 'what can you do?' gesture.
Plastic Man	Plastic Man's chest turns into a t-shirt that reads I'm With Stupider and a giant arrow pointing up to his head. A head that now says 'Stupider' across the expanded forehead that Plastic Man is sporting right now. He doesn't seem to be bothered by any of the changes he's making as it's always better to know his limits than to be worried about being impressive. There's enough hands to go around as Dragonfly, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle all get a Mickey Mouse Gloved handshake at the same time. All the while a couple of arms extend from his back with hands that are making the 'Shoo!' motion towards everyone else that has decided to come and try to try out. He knows he just killed this audition and so the moment those handshakes are done, he's spinning off to the side for another performance. Standing on the folding table now, Plastic Man's in a long red gown that looks like it belongs on Jessica Rabbit. In fact, he looks like Jessica Rabbit... holding an Oscar that looks like Booster Gold. "Thank you, thank you. Um." Jessica Plastic starts to tear up as she works on her speech. "First of all, I'd like to thank the man upstairs. He always let me know just how loud I was singing by stomping on his floor and caving my ceiling in. I'd also like to thank Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen for providing this dress I'm wearing. Osh Kosh Bagosh this is amazing!" He's all tears of joy and a huge rack as he finishes his speech. "I'd like to dedicate this Goldie to everybody that says they'll never amount to anything. You're right. Until you buy a calculator. Then you can amount to anything you want! Thank you! Thank you so much!" Another whirlwind of red, yellow and black and Plastic Man is a giant heart behind Booster Gold and Dragonfly. His face pops right out of the center of the heart to speak. "Next time on Love Connection... these two crazy kids do the only thing they know how to do. Date...." Dramatic Pause Again. "OTHER PEOPLE!" Plastic Man leaps from behind them and throws himself back into his normal(ish) shape and poses once again. "So. Questions. Do I get the part? How much does it pay? Are we /sold/ on Superbuddies or can I pitch other names? Also, I don't do windows and I need every other weekend off to spend time with my kid. Deal? Deal." Mobster Plastic Man pops up out of nowhere. "FUGGEDDABBOUDIT!" God. He never stops.
Dragonfly	"Look, let's get this little sham over with so the people wearing grown-up's undies can talk."     Dragonfly looks around the parking lot and the building it's next to. She spots a pair of dumpsters in the distance and gestures. One of them comes sailing toward the tryouts, hovering in the air a moment before landing with a loud clang on the ground. She turns and faces the line behind her.     "OK, this is how it's going to work," she says...     Her train of thought is derailed by Plastic Man's octopus-like handshake and subsequent antics which she observes with slack-jawed amazement. Her mouth closes with an audible clack.     "This is how it's going to work," she says again, after shaking her head and trying to focus. "See this dumpster here?" She picks it up. "It's a regular dumpster. Pretty normal in every regard." She crumples it up into a ball roughly the size of two beach balls. "Anybody who wants to get in this lineup ahead of me just has to try. It'll be your tryout. You try to get ahead of me. I try to put you into this dumpster." Which dumpster? The other one that has just come sailing to crash in front of her. The one she tosses the remains of the first dumpster into.     "I know what you're thinking," she says. "You're thinking, 'hey, worst thing that happens is I get put into a dumpster', right? Wrong. 'Cause once I'm finished, I'm going to do to this second dumpster what I did to the first. While. You're. Inside."     She faces the crowd, her face dead serious. Her sunglasses come off, revealing her insect-like compound eyes. Her other hand rests in a fist on her hip.     "Who wants to try out now?"
Booster Gold	Booster is silent. Ted is silent. Everyone is silent. A twelve year old girl walks up to Dragonfly. She is tiny and precious, with straight black hair and deep brown eyes. Her round cheeks fill out clear Asiatic features. She's wearing coveralls over a Dora the Explorer shirt. She stares up at Dragonfly fearlessly. "Me!" she says, jabbing a thumb at herself. "They call me The Mighty Hic!" she explains, with an adorably fierce expression that is just as terrifying as it is heart melting. She has a stuffed Wonder Woman doll under one arm. "Oh man, Ted, this is bad," Booster mutters. "I've seen enough movies to know that it never works out when a little kid shows up and picks a fight. Prepare for imminent cheesing." The Mighty Hic narrows her eyes at Dragonfly even more. "You're a /bully/," she says. A loooot of the local heroes back up five paces. Most of them look genuinely concerned at her words. "Hic... sweetie... m-maby this--" The little girl whips her head around and glaaaaares at The Milkman, who apologizes and fades carefully back into the crowd.
Ted Kord	The Blue Beetle responds to the escalating situation by slowly sliding behind Booster Gold. "Your force field can protect us both, right? I'm too young to die, B.G.," he whispers. Meanwhile, a grocery store employee bisects the audition queue by maneuvering a line of shopping carts back toward the store. "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me," he repeats a dozen times. "Anyone who takes on The Mighty Hic will also have to take on Papi Chulo!" a hulking man in a lucha mask says, smashing one fist into the palm of his other hand. Someone in the tryout line coughs awkwardly.
Plastic Man	Plastic Man is sitting next to Booster Gold and Blue Beetle with his best Simon Cowell on. "Brilliant. Bloody Brilliant." And then he's gone again. How is he doing that so damn fast. Kirk Douglas pops up in the line. "I Am Plasticus." Further down the line appears, "Ah, I am... Plasticus, yeah." Christopher Walken. Back up near the front of the line? "I'm Plasticus, see? Nyeah!" Cagney? Lacey? One of them. "I am The Plasitcus, see! Filth-flarn-filk!" Bill Cosby. Too soon. And one more for the road, "Plasticus, am I." Yoda. With this done, Plastic Man pops back over to the table with Booster and Beetle and squeezes himself into the middle with a bucket of popcorn. He's at a grocery store. PROPS, man! "This is getting so good. Are you guys filming this? Somebody should be filming this." Munchnomcrunch.
Dragonfly	"And there we go," Dragonfly says. "The only one of you with the guts to be in even Booster Gold's outfit is a little girl."     She turns to Blue Beetle. "Sign her up. She can't go on jobs yet; child labour laws and all that. But she's got the spirit to be a super."     She kneels down before the little girl with a genuine-seeming smile. "So, Mighty Hic, what is it you do? And why do you want to do it with Booster Gold of all people?" she asks. She looks up at Papi Chulo, then glances over at the dumpster meaningfully. "I'll give you a free shot," she says, "then it's the dumpster." She turns back to the Mighty Hic. "Can you fly? Jump really far? Or do you just have the courage of ten thousand? I mean if it's just the courage thing, don't worry! Loads of heroes have no powers and are heroes because of courage, like the Batman! I think courage is more important, in fact."     A dismissive gesture at the 'heroes' behind the girl. "Those guys, except for Papi Chulo there? They're terrible as heroes not because of powers. They're terrible because they're scared. You're not scared. You're AWESOME!"     A grin Plastic Man's way.     "Of course some are awesome on sheer style as well."
Booster Gold	Everyone starts trying to wave Dragonfly off, but it's too late. "I don't need YOU to tell me I got guts!" the little girl tells Dragonfly. "I wanna be a superhero, but my MAMI won't let me, because SHE'S a hero," Hic remarks. "But she knows gongfu, and she taught me!" Hic balls up her fist and pokes Dragonfly in the stomach. Once. "There! Mebbe you'll let everyone ELSE try out." She turns around and walks away, and all the aspirants clear a path-- even Papi Chulo, who was quick to back her. She lunges at him, and he flinches away. "Well, okay, cool, that... could have been worse," Booster says, nodding at Plastic Man and Booster. "Uh, okay, let's see, who's next-- Flapjack!" he says, looking at a fellow who walks out with frying pan armor on and a pair of cast iron skillets in his hands. Dragonfly hiccoughs. Then again. Then again. Then again. "The Mighty Hic strikes again," someone says, mournfully.
Ted Kord	Stepping out from behind Booster Gold, the Blue Beetle wipes at his costumed forehead. "No kiddin', pal." He feels his mask. "Man, I need to invest in a moisture-wicking fabric. This is basically a sponge..." Returning to his seat at the folding table, Beetle clears his throat. "Alright, alright. So, Dragonfly. Let's not draw this out much longer: what are you bringing to the table? Figuratively speaking, that is, although it's obviously literal in this case, too," he adds, gesturing to the table. "If you're no more than half as bizarre as Plastic Man, personality-wise, you're basically a shoo-in. And if you're not going to try and kick me in the groin, I'll make sure you pass the cut."
Plastic Man	As for Plastic Man, he's on the table again but this time he's not himself. Not that he's ever himself. He's a huge clipboard with giant piece of lined poster board held in his clip. He's also using his arm for a giant pen. That better be his arm. "Please, sign in. We'll need your name, address, how many pets you own and your favorite television show from the 1980s and 90s. These are crucial to our selection process! CRUCIAL!" "... if you liked Small Wonder you pass. Anyway!" Plastic Man takes the time to extend his neck and wink, personally, at Beetle, Booster and Dragonfly.
Dragonfly	*hic*     "OK," Dragonfly sighs. "I'll sign up if... *hic* ...you just end this charade." A bit of gas escapes her lips as a belch. "Damn! What did I have for lunch?"     I mean no kid could make her hiccough away like that, right?     *hic*     "Just send the delusional ones home, OK?"     *hic*     *hic* *hic* *hic*     "And anyway, Beetle, I'd never kick you in the groin. I reserve that ... *hic* ... for when Booster is being a pig."
Booster Gold	It's about an hour of work to get through them all. It's a bit of a stretch (hah!) to work through it, and Ted spends most of his time shepherding Booster and keeping the blone and gold star from wandering off, or getting distracted, or sleeping, or whatever. Booster's attention span is not great. At the end, Dragonfly's been hiccoughing uncontrollably the entire time, and it's walking down her side into a pretty good runner's stitch. No amount of breath holding, water sipping, or jumpscares seems to work. Mucile Man, The Carbureator, Commander Cool, and one more who is censored because he's a pun on marijuana are, unfortunately, the best of the bunch by far. As they're packing up to leave, a woman walks up, hauling Mighty Hic along by one hand. She has the serene expression of a master tiger mom, and Hic looks furious and chastised all at once. "Hello. I'm Colleen Wing," the woman says, nodding slightly. "I understand my daughter /Alissa/ had a disagreement with you, and misused her talents," she says, jerking Hic's arm once. Hic looks at Dragonfly, with a surly expression. "msry," she mutters. Colleen yanks Hic's ear. "OW! I said I'M SORRY," she growls, clapping a hand to her head. She walks up to Dragonfly, and jabs three nerve clusters. The hiccoughs stop instantly. "There. Many apologies, young heroes. I wish you the best of luck," the woman says, taking Hic's hand in hers and walking away. She gets in a van driven by a talle woman with a thick afro, and it putters off. Silence reigns. "So like, what, six years? She's eligible for the team?" Booster asks the quarter.