Application: Brenda Amparo (Blue Beetle III comic)

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Mrs. Reyes, are you sure I can't help -"

A thin girl with carrot-red hair and freckles turns around, school uniform skirt swirling around as she does. She's startled to find a stone wall behind her rather than the kitchen door she was expecting.

"Oh brother. C'mon, I didn't even pick up a weird alien artifact this time or anything!" She walks

Comments

[tako_time]

An octopus in a bucket hopped into the room and read the application.

"Oooh, spicy!" he said. "You know, I've got some recipes that will really knock your socks off." He leaned over the edge of the bucket to take a peek at her shoes. "Are you wearing socks?"

((Re-posted because I can stick to one tense in a post, really!))

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Uhh, yeah, usually." She stuck out a sneakered foot to show a sock slouching around her ankle while she tried to think. Okay. Talking octopus. Relax, Brenda. You've seen weirder.

"Cool. Or, um, hot. Any of those recipes vegetarian? 'Cause I don't eat anything that has -" she looked at the grinning octopus and winced, ever so slightly, "- a face."

[tako_time]

"How does curry sound? I've got some great vegetable curry dishes that will really make your mouth water! Or possibly explode in fiery pain. But either way, it should be fun!" He rubbed his tentacles together. "So, when can I make that for you?"

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Mmm, curry. Now you're talking my language. Anytime you like."

She bit the bullet. "Speaking of talking, umm, how's it happen you can talk?"

[bantersucks]

Jaime had been bio-tracking Brenda the afternoon she'd found out about her aunt - in fact, ever since that afternoon. He'd never asked the scarab to stop, and since she was nowhere in the vicinity of Hogwarts had completely forgotten about that standing order.

He remembered, though, when the scarab informed him that a familiar genetic signature had popped up in the Sorting Room. "What? Where?" Dropping everything (literally, if the pile of books on his floor were any indication), he bolted out of his room and dashed out of Gryffindor at a dead run, heedless of obstacles or people in his way and having a close call with the staircases en route.

Which was why he burst into the Sorting Room rather out of breath and out of sorts. He stood there for a second, trying to catch his breath and just staring in shock. Despite the scarab's confirmation, he still wasn't sure he was just imagining this. "Brenda?"

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Jaime!" Brenda lit up, then remembered she was still mad at him and damped it down. "Okaaaay. What super-weirdness have we gotten into this time?"

[bantersucks]

He caught the shift in expression and shifted uncomfortably. Of course she was still mad. Why wouldn't she be?

"Uh, you remember when I disappeared for five minutes and insisted I'd been gone a month at some magic school?" It was as much a question as an answer - after the talk he'd had with Steph about alternate universes, you never knew.

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Yeah, what about -" She stopped, shifted her eyes from Jaime to the stone walls and back. "This? This is the magic school? I just figured it was another dimension-shift thing like when you came home that time...but then what the heck am I doing here? I mean, I don't shift!"

[fiercefluffy]

"Do you think that Hera married for love?" Octavian genuinely wants to know.

He's not so sure he wants to know what a Mother Box is, but he'll probably be asking about that too.

[ibrokeaplanet]

Brenda blinked in surprise. It's not a question she's ever considered, and - wonder of wonders coming from a guy about her age - it's an interesting one.

"I think - just gut instinct, but I think marriage to the King of the Gods would probably be an arranged thing. Or a political thing, like if you're the most powerful god you keep the most powerful goddess in check by marrying her. Aphrodite married for love at least once, maybe twice, and that always sounded like the exception to the rule to me."

She shrugged. "In the legends it was always just The Way Things Were, you know? Zeus and Hera, married. But I'm sure she'd have hoped to be loved in her marriage, or at the very least respected by her husband. And I can't think of a single legend I've heard where they're working together as a couple, all the myths have Zeus cheating on her, or helping his children get the better of her. Can't blame her for being bitter."

[fiercefluffy]

"No one arranged it," said the widely-read (and sometimes pedantic) Octavian. "Zeus had loved her, some say as long as three hundred years, and she would not relent. Finally he turned himself into a cuckoo to trick her into embracing him. On what happened next there are differing opinions."

He used the Greek names rather than the Roman because these were stories he had read in Greek, and because Brenda had used Hera rather than Juno, so it was natural to follow suit

[ibrokeaplanet]

"I hadn't read that one," she admitted, which was a bit of a blow; usually she's the one who reads ahead of the class.

"All the stories I remember they were long since established as married. Probably the thing to keep in mind is that these are gods, not mortals, and they've to operate on a whole different scale. I mean, in mortal terms Zeus kind of sounds like someone who jumped into a marriage based on youthful infatuation and grew up to regret it. And Hera, I'm thinking as a god respect would come first for her. Love is what the gods have worshippers for if they wish it, right? If she refused Zeus for three hundred years, then I'd guess there was a matter of pride there."

[makeminemayday]

((Couldn't resist.))

For the heck of it, May had been out patrolling the rooftops, needing to get some air time after being cooped up for so long. So she was therefore in full costume when she came in through a window and was only mildly surprised to find herself in the Sorting Room.

Oh well, it wasn't like she couldn't find her way from here. She jumped nimbly to the ground and picked up a copy of the application. As she read the Hufflepuff answer, she grinned beneath her mask. "Hey, helping out the caped set? Let me tell you, that's the definition of useful right there." She shrugged. "Not knocking the driver's license either. Driver's Ed can be an ordeal in itself." This might have been influenced by learning to drive in New York, of course, but still.

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Um. Hi." Brenda waved. "I'm thinkin' you're the voice of experience there. Justice League? Outsiders? Or d'you just work solo?"

[makeminemayday]

"That obvious, huh?" May said, glancing down at the red-and-blue spandex. "Never heard of them. Avengers reserve, but I work solo most of the time." She cocked her head. "This is one of those alternate universe things again, isn't it?"

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Yeah, unless Mexican wrestling's gotten really strange." She grinned. "Sounds like it. Wait, what - again?"

[soggynotecards]

Demyx shrugged. "Hey, helping superheroes is cool. Wish I'd gotten to. All I got was these things I'm pretty sure are aliens hanging around. Are there any superheroes out in Hawaii? 'Cause I never ran into one." He was obviously having one of those "rapid thought process" days.

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Umm, I've never been to Hawaii. I wish. Kansas's as far East as I've gotten." She blinked. "Aliens? What kind?"

[soggynotecards]

"That's the weird part; they were all basically this sort of shape like a really weird dog, but kinda twisted and stretched in different ways. Except for the one with the Russian accent." He stopped dead and once again jumped to an entirely new train of thought. "I'm Demyx, by the way."

[ibrokeaplanet]

"Hi. Brenda." She waved. "My aliens were cute fuzzy little guys. Well, they were cute until they started trying to drink my blood. That was kind of a buzzkill. Turned out to not be such bad guys though, once we got past that little misunderstanding."