Fun times at the JSA

Chapter 2
Things are weird all over

Chapter Description: Wonder Woman finds things at the JSA have changed.

Wonder Woman’s intuition, that little gut feeling or an itch you can’t scratch, nibbled at her psyche, making her nervous. What in the name of Hades had happened to the JSA? Every one of them was a teen like herself! Clark sported a skinny physique that screamed “nerd” at any who saw him. Bruce carried himself with the moody, Goth-like air of a juvenile delinquent a few steps past detention. The dark knight brooded by himself in a corner wrapped up in his cult of personality.

Diana Drake, the Black Canary, sported her usual black spiderweb stockings. But the bright pink lipstick, heavy mascara, and bright blue eyeliner coupled with a short blond bob-cut hair with light purple highlights said otherwise. She wore a tight leather low-cut cleavage top that insulted rather than emphasize her small teen breasts. What stood out, though, were her hoop earrings and cheap nose piercings, which spoke volumes about her lack of fashion sense.

She chewed a large cud of gum and blew bubbles both loudly and in the most annoying manner possible. That and the huge amount of zits that her makeup couldn’t cover up screamed “AVOID!” loudly to any that would hear.

Zatanna Zatara showed up today, Diana noticed. But the usually calm, collected, and very cool woman that she remembered had been replaced with a braces-wearing, acne-scarred, nervous, and uncertain skinny teen with an underdeveloped figure. She did her best to appear capable of her abilities, but her simple lack of confidence betrayed her.

“How’sh it going, Wonder Woman?” she asked. Her heavy metal braces made it hard for her to articulate. She worked hard on improving it and had some success, but still slurred from time to time.

“Oh, it’sh jusht fine, Zhee! Everythingsh jusht shuper!” Replied Diana, realizing that she needed some speech tips from Zee. The braces she wore majorly sucked!

The two talked about the JSA and Wonder Woman brought into the subject the fact that there might be something wrong with their world. Zee hadn’t noticed. Everyone here was their usual moody teen selves who sometimes won against the bad guys of the world. Fortunately, there had been no deaths or serious injuries so far!

Jay Merrick stopped by to see how the team fared. His softly handsome sixteen-year-old looks starkly contrasted with the younger, more gawky members, but then he was the oldest of the team, their mature leader, so to speak.

While he talked to the two girls, he scratched at a recently healed acne scar on his pock-marked face. Something else of his physically popped up because of his raging hormones during the conversation. He did his best to hide it with red-faced teen awkwardness.

“Excuse me, ladies. I have to see a man about something!” he excused himself and headed for the bathroom. As he wore tights instead of loose pants, his physical discomfort showed in the same way an annoying relative comes to visit: popping up unannounced.

The two girls snickered amongst themselves at what the “man” had to show him and what problem had “arisen” that he had to “rub out”.

As he came back to join them, smelling of something that one wouldn’t normally smell in a public restroom, Zee remarked, “That was fasht! No wonder they call you the Flash!” which resulted in the girls openly laughing, much to Jay’s discomfort and reddened face. He said nothing and sulked off to find something else to do.

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Wonder woman took a chug from her plastic Solo cup. This was wrong, but the rest of the team had outvoted her. Superman had brought out a bottle of cheap vodka and announced he’d snuck it from his old man’s cabinet. After taking a swig and passing it around, one of the group suggested they have a party.

Flash made a run to a local liquor store and bought several types of booze, a punch bowl, some juice, and the Solo cups. The round table became the center of this teen ritual, holding the punch bowl filled with various alcoholic beverages and juice. Everyone joined in by dipping their cups into the punch bowl and taking drinks.

A portable boom box made noise from some anti-establishment heavy metal group that specialized in teen angst. The singer’s gravelly voice rang out through the JSA headquarters, as more and more teens snuck in with various types of liquor to add to the punch bowl.

After a raucous night of revelry, puking, and destruction where the main event comprised a drunken flash making a pass at several of the ladies present and passing out after several strikeouts and a near-miss.

The group of teenagers awoke the next morning with painful hangovers, sickened to the point of repeat barfing as they paid for the crime of getting drunk.

“Well, at least the police didn’t pay us a visit!” remarked Black Canary. She still chewed her ever-present cud of bubblegum, but chewed it softly and quietly for a change. Her entire body ached from the amount of booze she’d drank and thrown back up several times the night before.

The team put forth a half-hearted effort to clean up their headquarters. Diana had to convince Black Canary that flipping a couch cushion wasn’t the way to clean a sofa. After several hours, the building looked clean enough to pass muster.

With no crime going on in the real world, not even a five-finger discount at a local store, the team nursed their hangovers and not much else. Diana, tired of doing nothing, went to visit Kendra Saunders, AKA “Hawkgirl”.

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She arrived at the arboretum portion of the brownstone to find Kendra by herself, as usual, in a quiet, isolated spot.

Kendra preferred her own company. She didn’t like social interaction. It made her nervous, and she didn’t like to explain herself to others. The mistakes that she’d made, the love/hate relationship she had with the current Hawkman, and that she’d recently paid a visit to her child, born of wedlock, would weigh heavily on her.

At least that’s what Wonder Woman thought until she came across a young girl of eight or nine playing happily by herself.

“Oh, Ken!” said the Barbie doll, “You’re home early! Did you have a good day at the office?”

“Yes, dear! Where’s my dinner?” barked back the Ken doll. Barbie hid her unhappiness at being treated as a domestic slave and hopped over to the kitchen to serve up their meal.

Kendra looked up from her dollies to see Wonder Woman watching as she played.

“Wondy!” yelled the happy child as she got up and hugged her. “Did you come to play with me?”

Diana sighed, “Yes, I suppose I have.”

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Back at the JLA, a grinning young man sat at the table with steepled fingers. The young agent of chaos with blue skin from an underground puritan society surveyed all his handiwork with satisfaction.

A cinnamon-striped tortoiseshell cat contentedly looked up from his lap and purred.

“Well, Teekle, I’d say that things are under my control at last! I now own the JSA and things will go according to my plans. What are they, the plans that is?”

Teekle looked at him with wonderment in her eyes. How could a chaos agent with such fantastical powers be so shortsighted?

“Meerrp!”

“Oh, you don’t know either? Either way, I’m bored! Let’s go find something else to do, shall we?”

He stood up with the cat transferred to his shoulder and walked off. His short attention span focused on his next bit of mischief as he teleported away.

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Kendra played house with her dollies and Diana. Being a child, she enjoyed herself immensely, Diana not so much.

“Do you remember being older, Kendra? Fighting the good fight? Overcoming evil?” Diana ventured.

The little girl stopped playing, sat back, and stared at Diana. Her happy features took on a more serious expression as her face took on a world-weary expression.

“Yeah, but what’s so good about being a grown-up, anyway? All I ever felt was sadness and depression.”

“So you remember!”

End Chapter two