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It's a small, small (superheroine) world (For BRR & MMRS)

"Well, at the very least, just close the door again as fast as you can and reverse the process. I just hope we don't do anything that's going to cost someone in another universe years of therapy," Zatanna quipped.

"So, Dr. Swann," Zatanna said, a sarcastic note easily heard in her voice (despite her diminished size), "Which experiment will you conduct first?"
 
"Yeah, here's hoping," Leo said. Eventually, he decided that it would be best to gather more information before summoning their expert. So he grabbed the statue of the Powerpuff Girls and put them in the cabinet. Then, he closed the door, waited a few seconds, gave a look to Zatanna, and opened it.
 
The figurine remained a figurine.

"Which means that perhaps they have to be separated," Zatanna observed, "Or they don't correspond to another universe. Or possibly both."
 
Leo grimaced at this. Deciding that experimentation was more important that preserving their value, he took them over to the table. Very carefully, he seperated the three figures from the stand and each other. Now with theee unique figurines, he took them back to the cabinet and placed them inside. Once again, he closed the door, waited, and opened it up.
 
And still nothing happened.

"Well, I guess that answers that question," Zatanna mused. She almost added something, then stopped herself short.
 
He took them out and set them aside amongst the rest. "That does bring interesting questions to light and it does give us some answers," he said. He was a little disappointed, but also relieved. It was a strange feeling. "Is there something you wanted to add?" he asked as he took both Invisible Woman and Wonder Woman off the shelf and took them to the cabinet.
 
"Well, I was going to make a suggestion, but I didn't know how advanced the technology was in your universe, or, um...what your financial situation was like," Zatanna added with an embarrassed cough. "Back in my world, we have 3-D printers. It's like a normal printer, but you can create three dimension objects with them. The industrial ones can make complicated machinery, artificial limbs, you name it. But you can buy a 3D printer for two to three hundred dollars that can create figurines. If you had access to something like that, it might be easier and quicker to create models to put into the curio cabinet, rather than going out and trying to find action figures that will work. That would give us a theoretically bigger pool of people to draw from, to help solve this mystery of yours," Zatanna concluded.
 
He paused. He hadn't considered a 3D printer. It was so obvious that he felt like an idiot for overlooking it. And while he didn't have a fortune to spend, he did have money saved up from his relatively generous and mostly untouched allowances. "We do have them. That's a great idea. I'll put the order in tonight," he said with a smile. However, for now he wanted to talk to more people. So he put Sue and Diana in the cabinet, closed it, and opened it again.
 
"But the fact that your Powerpuff Girls didn't come alive is comforting, in a way," Zatanna added. "It's further proof, at least to you, that this cabinet doesn't animate figures, but acts as a doorway to other worlds. Me," Zatanna said with a grin, "I was already convinced!"
 
"You had convinced me before, but this does show one thing I was wrong about," he answered. "I was under the impression that while there is a finite number of realities, they were functionally infinite to the point where anything a human could possibly conceive of existed somewhere. This shows that either that isn't the case, or the cabinet is limited in its reach. Either way, it means we can't get literally anything we want from it. But I'm guessing you already knew that," he said with a knowing smile.
 
"Well, as Mick Jagger would say, you can't always get what you want," Zatanna said with a smile, "But if you try real hard, you just might find, you get what you need. So, speaking of what we need, you want to talk to this Sue Storm. You said she's been to other dimensions, right?" Zatanna paused before adding, "Please tell me your world has the Rolling Stones."
 
"Don't worry, we do," he replied, placing Sue and Diana in the cabinet. He closed it and reopened it, wondering what sort of revelations awaited them.
 
Sue Storm had been in the middle of a discussion with Reed about what effect "the storm" had had on the suits they had been wearing on Victor's space station when suddenly everything changed, literally in the blink of an eye. One minute, she had been talking with Reed, Ben and Johnny, the next she found herself standing next to a statuesque brunette wearing a garish costume made up of primary colors with a...

Was that a yellow rope on her belt?

Sue's initial response was to turn invisible and project a force field around herself, but that didn't work.

With a sigh, she said, "What have you done now, Reed?"

Diana was initially confused as well. She had the day off as well, in her position as Petty Officer Diana Prince, and had been taking care of the mundane chores around her apartment, when she found herself in the guise of Wonder Woman. And once again, she found herself in the habitat of the giant who had brought her to his domicile a while ago.

Diana was brought out of her reverie by a slender blonde wearing a blue costume standing next to her, who had muttered "What have you done now, Reed?"

"His name is Lee, not Reed," Diana answered, pointing to the giant. "And he and that brunette probably can explain what's happening better than whoever Reed is could."

"Your show, Leo," Zatanna told her giant friend.
 
"Umm, hello again Diana," he started, "and it's nice to meet you Sue. I'm Leo." Okay, not a great start, but this wasn't exactly a normal situation. "Sorry to pull you away from what you're doing, but we were hoping the two of you could help us." He proceeded to explain all about the cabinet and its ability to pull consciousness from other dimensions as well as his and Zatanna's findings so far. It took some time, but he did his best to be comprehensive.

"So that's basically what we've been able to do with it," he finished. "We chose to bring you two in because of Diana's knowledge of artifacts and Sue's familiarity of inter dimensional travel. Any chance you two could help?"
 
It was almost comical the confused look the two women shared, even considering the fact that they were strangers to each other.

"I'm not sure where you got your information, by the only other dimension I've ever been to is this one. Assuming everything you've told me is correct," Sue said. "And until Reed and Victor convinced me to participate in that experiment of theirs on Victor's space station, I hadn't even been off the planet."

"I know the belt and the lasso and the bracelets I wear," Diana added, "But only what my mother told me, when I left Paradise Island to accompany Steve to fight the Nazis."

"Are these the droids we're looking for?" Zatanna asked Leo. "Because I have a feeling this Sue and Diana aren't the ones either one of us was expecting."
 
Well, Leo felt like an idiot, but at least it seems Zatanna was mistaken as well. Still, they had come this far. He might as well try to salvage the situation. "Sorry," he told the two women sheepishly. "I know I may be imposingly, but would you mind looking at what we have? We need a new perspective since the two of us our stuck." He really hoped they could figure this out, and he was prepared to summon all the girls if that was what it took.
 
Zatanna purposely kept her mouth shut, not wanting to prejudice the other two women, but the other two women were of no help.

"I'm a geneticist, but I don't think even two generalist like Reed or Victor could make heads or tails out of this," Sue responded.

"There might be a few women on Paradise Island who have been trained in such studies," Diana added, "But I didn't receive any training along those lines."
 
"Ah, I'm sorry to bother," he said, panicking with embarrassment before closing the cabinet again. Then he waited a few seconds, opened it up, and took out the figures. "Well that did not go as planned," he told his partner as the figures were returned to the shelf.
 
"It does pose some interesting questions, though," Zatanna mused. "If this is a repository universe, it hints that there might be multiple versions of...well, you and me. You know, one version where you got this cabinet from a relative, another where you got socks," she added with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

"One solution would be for you to send me back to my own world, I seal up the cabinet from my end of things, and that's that. But it still wouldn't solve what exactly this curio cabinet is meant for and, if one person can open up a multiworld portal in your world, so can another. So the more I understand, the better."

Zatanna remained quiet, rubbing her finger below her lower lip, as she pondered the situation.
 
"It also explains the retcons I was asking about before," he added. "If this is a repository universe, and there are multiple Zatannas that we are receiving information about that are living similar but different lives, it'll create those contradictions in the stories that need to be addressed. After all, it's not like authors know which Zatanna they're channeling information on.

"But I'm not in favor of just closing the portal. I'd never be satisfied if I didn't learn what was going on here," he explained. "There's got to be something we can do about this."
 
Zatanna leaned back with a sigh. "Yeah, but what?" Shaking her head, she add, "Could you put everything on your bed and then set me down among them? There's got to be something I'm missing."
 
He did as she asked, placing her, the candles, the talcum powder, and the bellows all on the bed along with the note. The cabinet and the rest of the girls were in clear view of their spot. He sat down on the floor next to the bed, trying to think of anything he could to use the tools they had. He also took time to explain the colors and their connection to the Chinese compass, though he wasn't sure if that was a connection or just a coincidence.
 
"Woohoo, this is like being in one of those bouncy houses," Zatanna said with a laugh, as she bounced from one place to another on Leo's bed.

"Okay, I'm serious," she said, although there was a little wobble to her walk. After a few minutes, she finally concluded, "Sorry, Leo, I got nothing."
 
He was a bit jealous of her. It seemed like a lot of fun. He had to admit, Zatanna was quite cute in her behavior. But his spirit fell when she said she had no ideas. He reached over and grabbed the talcum power. He opened it up, just to see if it was actually filled with regular talcum powder. "Don't be sorry. You're way more useful than me."
 
"We'll figure it out yet," Zatanna said, walking over to the edge of the bed. "Hey, why don't you show me the inside of the bottle. Maybe there's something I can see that you can't."
 
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