because batman can never let us rest ever, he calls us to a mission briefing the second annabeth and i step foot through the zeta tubes.
rumaan harjavti, the elected president of qurac, allied himself with the dictator queen bee, leader of the neighboring country, bialya. the bee hasn't left her hive, so something else is controlling the president. we're supposed to figure out what.
as we fly over the quraci-bialyan border, tanks bulldoze the fences, sending the animals in the field stampeding. kid and superboy spot a woman and a small boy helping an injured animal, right in the line of fire of incoming bialyan forces.
in stealth, we swiftly take down the bialyans and save the sanctuary. upon identifying ourselves as young justice to the owner of the sanctuary and her son, garfield, the young boy singles out me and annabeth. "who are you guys? you don't look like any of the superheroes in the justice league."
i beam and crouch to his height. "i'm cyclone, that's athena. we just joined the team." he returns my smile with a toothy one of his own.
as garfield's mom talks to the others, it clicks. hello, megan! that's why she looks just like m'gann's human form. she must've co-opted her personality to assimilate to earth. a single glance with annabeth confirms my suspicions.
as we follow garfield and his mom back to their home, all hell breaks loose. bialyan planes shoot up the nearby gas tank, blowing the barn and garfield sky-high. fortunately, m'gann caught him before he hit the ground, though not before he blacked out.
with athena and artemis' help, m'gann sets up an emergency blood transfusion to bring garfield back. at the same time, m'gann and robin figure out psimon is behind everything; just like that, we have our mission.
on rob's signal, we secure harjavti in his office. bialyan guards walk in soon after, armed with apocalyptian weapons. m'gann finds and pursues psimon, leaving the four of us to protect the president, aside from annabeth, who had stayed behind to protect garfield and his mom at the sanctuary.
at the front lines, quraci guards block queen bee from seeing the president. from his balcony, he announces that qurac will never suffer from her tyrannical rule.
once the dust settles, we find ourselves back at the sanctuary doing one last check-in with garfield and his mom before we leave. wally is the one to address the elephant in the room, grabbing a vhs tape of hello, megan! and waving it in front of her face. "anything you'd like to tell us, megan?"
her cheeks flush, shoulders sagging in defeat as she launches into her story. "i suppose the cat is out of the bag. growing up on mars was not a happy time for me. but i started watching the broadcasts my uncle sent from earth to teach us about our sister planet. and when i saw hello, megan! something just clicked. maybe it was the similarities in our names, maybe it was the way all megan's problems could be solved in 22 minutes. all i know for sure is that megan helped me through a lonely childhood. so when i came to earth, and had to adopt a human form, i chose you," she says to garfield's mother, now bashful. the women hug, not another word spoken between them.
robin asks what she really looks like, to which m'gann sighs again. the hair on her entire head melts away, revealing the very same m'gann, only bald. i frown at this; she looks like any other human still, just bald and green. but i bite my tongue. i am no stranger to feeling different. before i came to terms with who, or what, i am, i would have given anything to be normal.
as a little treat, batman and black canary give us the night off of training. the team decides on yet another movie night, this time watching the disney hercules movie. annabeth and i laugh at the mistakes; obviously heracles' real story is nothing near kid-appropriate, but it's like they didn't even try.
call us pretentious, i don't care. inaccurate is inaccurate.
when the credits come rolling in, conner squints at us. "you two act like you knew the guy. it's just a movie, who cares if it's a little wrong?"
