TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2408
NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI
The bad guy hit the ground like a ton of bricks, which was
strangely appropriate, thought Robin, given that he seemed to be made
of a material rather like concrete.
"Boo-yah!" Cyborg declared, pumping his fist. "Another one
bites the pavement."
"Making New Avalon once again safe for democracy," Raven
observed dryly. "You guys have fun mopping up. I've got things to
do."
As the dark-cloaked figure turned and melted away into the
night, Starfire stood and watched her go, head tilted in puzzlement.
"Where do you suppose she goes when she is not with us?" she
asked anyone within earshot who cared to answer.
"Who knows," Beast Boy replied with a shrug. "Probably to
feast on the flesh of the living or something."
Starfire turned to him, a look of startled horror on her
face. "Do you really think so?" she asked.
"Uh... no?" Beast Boy replied, giving her a wary glance.
"Well, it's not like we can find out," Cyborg observed. "To
follow -her-, a person'd have to be One With The Night or something."
Starfire nodded in glum concurrence. There was a momentary
thoughtful silence.
Robin became uncomfortably aware that everyone was looking at
him.
"... What?" he asked, then got it. "No."
"Please?" Starfire asked. "We have known her for nearly a
year, and yet... in many ways, we do not know her at all."
"No!" Robin repeated. "I'm not going to spy on a teammate."
"We're not asking you to -spy- on her," Beast Boy protested.
"Just... find out where she goes. What she does. You know. How
she's living."
"In other words," Robin said dryly, "spy on her."
"Well... yeah. But in a good way!"
Robin stared at his green teammate for a second, then turned
to look at the other two. Cyborg gave him a couldn't-hurt-could-it
shrug and Starfire had on her most imploring expression.
The Boy Wonder gave his teammates a grumpy look for a moment,
then sighed, his shoulders slumping.
"(... make me feel like batman,)" he grumbled, reaching to his
utility belt for his jumpline launcher.
"What?" Starfire said.
"Nothing," Robin replied; then he fired a line off into the
night and disappeared.
I have a message from another time...
/* The Ventures "Secret Agent Man" _Walk, Don't Run_ */
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
and
Bacon Comics Group
present
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
TITANS Vol. 1 No. 2
"Welcome Home"
scripted by Benjamin D. Hutchins
pencils & inks by your visual cortex
letters by Benjamin D. Hutchins
editor: Benjamin D. Hutchins
Bacon Comics chief: Derek Bacon
(c) 2004 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
It was surprisingly easy for Robin to pick up Raven's trail,
but then, she wasn't really trying not to be followed. It was obvious
to Robin that she simply didn't expect anyone would -be- following her.
... Because she trusts us not to snoop into her private life,
he grumbled to himself.
Still, he had to admit that Starfire had a point. It struck
all of them - even Beast Boy, who was the only one who could really
claim to know her - as a bit odd that Raven chose not to live in the
Tower. As far as they knew, she had no other home in the city; she
was from another dimension. So where -did- she go, and what -did- she
do, when she wasn't with them?
That -was- worth finding out, and not just for security
reasons... but it still made him feel like Batman.
As it happened, that fact probably affected the way he played
the rest of it.
Raven moved silently through the dim and cluttered corridors
of the building. It had been an office building once, on that
nebulous fringe between New Avalon's commercial and industrial zones,
but its unimpressive location and a couple of gang wars in the area
had seen it abandoned back in the mid-2390s. The interior still bore
the scars of occupation by both gangs at various points since then,
but neither gang used it as a hangout today. No one went near it.
The word on the street was that the old Coopertronix building was
haunted.
And so it was, in a manner of speaking.
She turned the corner into the one room in the ruined,
serially vandalized building that could be considered even vaguely
habitable today. It had once been the executive boardroom, but now
the only sign of its former glory was the picture window, which looked
out past a small balcony to a thoroughly uninspiring view of the least
picturesque part of the harbor.
It was as barren as the rest of the building - more so,
because it had been stripped of most of the clutter of broken
furniture, scattered papers, and discarded drug paraphernalia that
decorated the rest of the place. The walls and floor were bare but
for spray-painted graffiti, peeling wallpaper, and the occasional
scorch mark. Most of the tiles were missing from the ceiling,
exposing the wiring (useless with the mains power turned off) and
structural beams.
As she entered the room, Raven relaxed just a little bit and
flopped back her hood. The Titans' work might be over for the
evening, but hers was only beginning, and this space, for all its
squalor, at least offered no distractions. The only objects in the
room were a single circular cushion placed exactly in the center of
the floor and a small crystal ball on a stand just in front of it.
Well, those were the only objects that were -supposed- to be
in the room, anyway.
Raven recoiled, startled - and it took a lot to startle her -
before she realized what the dark shape standing near the window was.
Then she flipped her hood back up, her eyes narrowing in its shadow,
and demanded in a soft but unwelcoming voice,
"What are -you- doing here?"
"I came to see how you were living," Robin replied, his voice
similarly hushed - his "work voice", he called it in lighter moments.
"Why?" Raven asked, a touch of scorn seeping into her voice.
"Because you don't trust me?"
"No," Robin said. Then his silhouette seemed to thaw a little
bit, standing a little less rigidly upright, and he added in a much
more human voice, "Because I'm worried about you. We all are."
Raven arched an eyebrow, though the gesture was more or less
lost in all the darkness in the room.
"And I can see now that we had good reason to be," Robin went
on, one hand emerging from under his cloak to gesture vaguely at the
room. "Look at this place. Never mind that it's -freezing- in here -
how can you live like this, alone and unloved in filth and squalor?
Even Old Man Wayne isn't this solitary."
Raven let the half-understood part of the remark pass without
comment. "I've -always- been alone and unloved."
"Doesn't mean you have to stay that way."
Her eyes narrowed again. "What is this, an intervention?"
"No," Robin replied flatly, shaking his head. "I'm not going
to try to make you do anything you don't want to do. I'm just
offering you an alternative. You -have- a room at the Tower... "
"The Tower," Raven replied dryly. "Sure. That's a good place
for concentration. Any -other- suggestions?"
Robin thought about it for a second. Then, barely visible in
the darkened room, he slowly smiled.
"One," he said.
And so, without really understanding why she was doing it,
Raven followed Robin to Claremont.
Of all New Avalon's districts, Claremont was the one where
Raven came closest to feeling comfortable. In a city less than 30
years old, Claremont somehow managed to feel much older, like the
shadow-haunted central quarters of cities fifty times its age. If
there could be ghosts anywhere in New Avalon, they would be here; but
there was little sense that those ghosts would be sinister. Claremont
was odd and quirky, dark and mysterious, but in a strangely friendly
sort of way. Raven found it curiously welcoming.
Though the hour was getting late, the shops and cafes of
Claremont were still bright and bustling. The time of year was wrong
for sidewalk cafes, which lessened the district's resemblance to
Montmartre a bit, but there were still a lot of people out walking
about, their breath trailing behind them in the crisp night air. They
paid the two oddly costumed youngsters walking among them little mind;
those who did recognize the two as members of the heroic Titans just
smiled and waved.
Robin led the way off Strange Street, the district's main
drag, and down a couple of darkened side streets. At a corner, they
came to a townhouse. There he unhesitatingly mounted the stoop and
rang the bell.
After a few seconds, the light above the door came on and the
door opened. From her position down on the sidewalk, Raven couldn't
make out much about the person who opened the door, other than that he
was humanoid and rather tall. He and Robin had a short discussion,
and then Robin turned and beckoned to her before following the other
figure inside.
Raven felt an unaccustomed sense of trepidation as she
followed the Boy Wonder and their host down a nicely paneled and
carpeted hallway into a book-lined study. Not that she was wary of a
trap, because, for all that she didn't trust easily, she did trust
Robin that much - but because this house concentrated that weird-but-
welcoming feeling she got from Claremont itself, and Raven was so
unfamiliar with feeling welcome anywhere that it made her uneasy.
When they arrived in the study, the man who had let them in
turned to face them, and Raven got her first good look at him in the
light of a roaring fire. Her initial assessment of him as somewhat
tall was correct, though it was exaggerated a little bit by the fact
that she wasn't. He looked just a bit shy of middle-aged, but
hard-traveled, with a silver streak in his auburn hair.
When he turned his head a little more and the firelight caught
his eyes, though, she knew that his apparent age was a fiction. Those
eyes were a lot older than "a bit shy of middle-aged".
The training she'd received from the monks of Azarath kept her
from shifting uncomfortably under their gaze, but it was a close
thing. She felt as though they were looking straight through her - or
worse, straight -into- her.
Robin seemed to have missed that, though she wouldn't have bet
on it, as he made an introductory gesture.
"I want you to meet a friend of mine who moved here from New
Gotham not too long ago," he said. "This is Jason Blood."
Blood surprised Raven by giving her a respectful bow.
"Welcome," he said.
It took Raven a moment to find her voice, and when she did it
was nearly inaudible as she replied, "... hi. i'm raven."
Blood smiled just a tiny bit. "Indeed. Hmm." He gave her
another of those uncomfortably discerning looks, then nodded with an
air of faint satisfaction. "I can see the traces of your struggle, as
I'm sure you can see the marks of mine. Robin was wise to bring you
to me."
"... um," Raven said. She turned her head to get Robin's take
on that - but he was gone.
The older man chuckled. "Annoying habit, isn't it? They all
do that. At any rate, the discussion we're about to have would only
have bored him. The Unawakened do get so restless when our kind talk
shop, don't they?"
Raven wasn't sure she particularly -wanted- to talk shop with
this guy - conversation was never something that came easily to her -
but since he seemed willing to be the one to go first, she decided she
might at least hear what he had to say.
An hour later, she finished saying what she had to say, then
sat silently above the cushion of an armchair, waiting for his
response.
Jason Blood sat opposite her (he was actually sitting -on- his
chair), fingers steepled in front of his face, regarding her
thoughtfully.
Then he smiled a little bit - many of his mannerisms really
did remind her of her own - and said,
"I understand. Well, I can't invite you to live here. My
solitary nature and yours would have us banishing each other to the
Planes of Shadows every couple of days. Fortunately, there is an
alternative... "
For the second time that night, Raven found herself following
someone through the streets of Claremont. By now, many of the cafes
and almost all of the shops were closed, though some of the
coffeehouses were still open and the sidewalks of the main streets
were still fairly busy.
Jason Blood led her to the corner of two of the district's
principal streets, Strange Street and Fate Avenue, and, producing a
brass key from his pocket, unlocked the shop that stood there. Raven
looked up above the old-fashioned shopfront at the carved wood sign,
which she could just make out in the light of a nearby streetlamp:
STRANGEFATE BOOKS
Jason Blood, Proprietor
Blood stepped inside and switched on the lights, and Raven
paused in the doorway to take in what lay beyond.
/* Jerry Goldsmith "The Sanctum" _The Shadow_ */
(begin at 01:38)
She hadn't been in a proper occult library since her exile
from Azarath, and even that had been a rather cold and austere place
compared to this. Strangefate Books was like an extension of Jason
Blood's house, paneled in warm wood and floored in creaky hardwood
with expensive rugs.
The walls were lined with bookshelves, and the shelves were
full of old-fashioned books, some bound in leather, others in cloth,
many sporting metal straps and hinges. In the middle of the shop
there was a counter with an antique brass cash register, and
comfortable-looking, rather worn leather armchairs were scattered here
and there. In a back corner, Raven could see what looked like a
couple of trophy cases and the golden glint of an Egyptian mummy
coffin. Near it, an iron staircase spiraled up through the ceiling.
If Blood's house had concentrated the welcoming sensation of
Claremont, this place practically distilled it. Raven hadn't felt so
much at home anywhere since her tower in Azarath, and the feeling
almost took her legs from under her before she mastered herself.
Blood diplomatically failed to notice as he locked the door
behind him and pocketed the key. He led the way to the stairs and up
the equivalent of two flights. They ended in a little vestibule faced
by a sturdy-looking door.
This he opened with the same key. Then he swung it wide,
gesturing Raven in ahead of him.
She went, trying to make out the shape of the place in the
dark. A moment later, she didn't have to, as Blood turned on the
lights.
It was a loft apartment, done in the same rich dark wood as
the shop downstairs. The apartment was basically one big room, with a
miniature kitchen tucked into one corner. Its main open space was
divided into two "rooms" not by walls, but by an elevation change.
The end farthest from the stairs - toward the front of the shop - was
two steps up from the other. The ceiling was high and dark-raftered,
and the walls to either side sloped a little bit.
All that drew the eye inevitably to the loft's dominant
feature - a big round window, maybe ten feet across, in the wall
facing the street. It had a curious design worked into the crossbars
that held it in place; Raven thought it looked familiar, like any of a
dozen common sigils, but it wasn't quite any of them.
The apartment was bare but spotless, nothing like the cold and
lifeless chamber she had been retreating to in the Coopertronix
building. Seeing it for the first time, Raven felt as if she had
returned from a long trip to a well-loved haven. Downstairs had felt
as welcoming as her tower in Azarath. This place felt -better-.
She turned to Blood, trying and just slightly failing to keep
the jumble of emotions crashing through her head from showing on her
face, but again he only smiled his dark but unthreatening little smile.
"Originally, I planned to live here, but I'm old and set in my
ways, and decided I needed more space. I've done quite a bit of work
on wards and symbols for it, though of course you'll want to check
them and lay on your own," he explained.
"My... my own?" Raven repeated haltingly.
Blood nodded. "This is your home for as long as you want it,"
he said.
Raven's natural skepticism kicked in and brought her back from
the edge of an unseemly display.
"What am I to do in return?" she asked.
The man's smile widened slightly.
"Keep the shop tidy. Make sure the books are where they need
to be. Deal with the occasional inadvertent Darkling Summon -
customers are forever muttering aloud as they read," he added with a
gesture combining irritation and resignation. "Oh, and keep an eye on
the artifacts. Tomes are hard to shoplift, but every now and then
someone will try to lift St. Dunstan's Tongs or the Ruby of Cyttorak."
She gave him a searching look.
"That's it?"
"That's it. I don't expect anything else from you. Do we
have a deal?"
Raven regarded him for a moment from the shadows of her cloak,
not hesitating, but considering.
Then she nodded once. "Yes," she said.
Blood smiled. "Excellent. Then I'll leave you to get
settled." He bowed to her again, as he had when they'd first met.
"Good night, Raven."
Then he took a small vial from his pocket, twisted off the
cap, and carefully poured its glittering powdered contents onto the
floor, drawing a neat circle around himself.
Pocketing the vial, he worked his hands in ways Raven found
very familiar, and when he spoke again, his voice had a hollow,
ringing quality about which she felt likewise.
<Sestura. Tetraas... goRATH!>
With a dull WHUMP, the circle of glittering dust turned into a
ring of fire around him, then spread so that he was standing on a disk
of blazing orange-yellow flame.
Blood smiled at his new acquaintance through the flickering
circle of fire, then dropped out of sight behind it as though he'd
fallen through the floor.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the fire went out. The floor
was undamaged, without any sign that a small inferno had just been
blazing upon it. The flames were gone as fast as they had appeared,
and they took with them any trace of Jason Blood.
Well, any trace but one; as the sound of the fire vanished
instantly to silence, there was a bright metallic "ting!" as the brass
key to the shop's front door fell to the floor.
Raven stood looking at the spot where Blood had been for a
moment before calling the key to her hand.
He certainly knows how to make an exit, she thought.
When she turned, she wasn't surprised to find Robin standing
by the big round window, shrouded from neck to floor in his black
cloak.
"Is this better?" he asked quietly. It wasn't a gloating
rhetorical question, but a genuine inquiry, and Raven couldn't help
but smile just a little bit.
"It is," she said.
Robin nodded.
Before he could disappear, Raven added, "Robin."
"Yes?"
Raven hesitated, but only for a moment.
"Thank you."
Robin smiled.
"You're welcome," he said, and then he was gone.
Raven looked around her new domain for a moment, then set to
work summoning her few possessions.
Robin didn't discuss what he'd found or exactly what he'd done
about it with his teammates, and knowing that the Boy Wonder could be
almost as inscrutable as Raven herself when he chose to be, they
didn't press much. Anyway, that wasn't really important.
What was important was that Raven thereafter seemed... more at
-home- in the city than she had before. She still vanished after
Titans occasions, but now they knew the place she called home, and
knew that it was comfortable. Her disposition didn't really change,
but there was an air of something like contentment (albeit dark,
vaguely sinister contentment) about her after that.
She started spending more social time with the other Titans,
too. That was a gradual process, like most social things were with
Raven. First she started accompanying them sometimes when they
adjourned to the Tower, only to slip away later in the evening. Then
she did that more often than not. Then she started occasionally staying
in her room in the Tower - but only occasionally, and that's where the
progression ended.
Well - almost. After a few weeks of that, spending an average
of two nights a week at the Tower, she shocked everyone by actually
-accepting- one of Starfire's automatically-tendered invitations to
spend an evening at the home of her New Avalon host family.
Martin and Eiko Rose were accustomed to having odd youngsters
of various sorts passing through their house, and took their lodger's
curious guest in stride. Martin, after all, knew Raven already (as
much as anyone could be said to know her), thanks to his position as
semi-official New Avalon Police liaison to the Titans. They made her
feel welcome without crowding her; for the most part, they did what
parents do when their teenage daughter is having a sleepover, that is,
stay as far out of the way as possible.
The evening was a success, in a low-key kind of way, and Raven
retired to the guest room at the end of the upstairs hall feeling an
odd sense of accomplishment. When she first met Koriand'r, she would
have sworn that the two of them would probably come to blows one of
these days... but a few hard-fought adventures together had carried
them past their superficial mismatch and given them a common ground
that, for all that it was hard for outsiders to see, made possible a
considerable bond between them.
Although there -were- still times when Raven wished the
Tamaranian would just shut up for a second.
Some time later, Raven woke with a start, then lay still for a
moment trying to figure out what had roused her. It was no good - she
knew vaguely that it had been a dream, but all the details had
vanished as soon as she reached consciousness.
The disturbances in her dreams were getting more frequent and
stronger, which she found disquieting, to say the least. Raven was
accustomed to having full control over her thoughts. To have her
subconscious mind not only churning around in there, but not sharing
with her whatever was bothering it to boot, troubled her immensely.
Even her skill at dream exploration had availed her nothing in
investigating this. She could quest the dreamlands all she wanted,
but there was no sign of whatever it was that kept coming to her when
she relaxed fully into sleep.
She sighed, got out of bed, and went downstairs to get
something to drink.
Raven was mildly surprised to find that she wasn't the only
one awake. She wasn't sure what time it was, but it was certainly
past midnight. Eiko's job started at an inhumane hour of the morning,
and if Hammer was up at a time like this he was usually out roaming
the city, looking for evildoers to scare the pants off of. But she
could see from the stairs that the living room light was on, and the
faint, indistinct sound of a voice reached her halfway down.
She rounded the corner into the living room and saw to her
further surprise that the person awake in there was Koriand'r - and
that the Tamaranian was on the phone.
And apparently not having a pleasant conversation.
"But, Mother," Kori was saying as Raven entered, "I do not
-wish- to come home." She paused, apparently listening to what her
mother was saying at the other end. Her brow furrowed in annoyance.
"Komand'r's irresponsibility is not my emergency!" she said - snapped,
actually, which was another mild surprise for Raven. Kori was
normally the most even-tempered person she knew. If anything, she was
usually too damn nice.
All the same, the remark brought a hint of a smile to the
corner of Raven's mouth. It was always a bit amusing, in a sweet sort
of way, to watch Kori trying to be informal. That particular
construct ("so-and-so's <x> is not my emergency"), Raven had been
told, she'd picked up from the Roses' across-the-street neighbor, who
was no less a personage than the First Lensman, the man called
Gryphon.
Raven had yet to meet the man in person, but she'd heard about
him frequently, and Kori seemed to harbor something vaguely like a
form of worship for him, apparently because of something to do with
her home planet's history. Raven was a bit fuzzy on the details.
"Yes, that is it exactly, Mother," Kori said after a few more
moments' listening. Her normally sunny voice dripped with a level of
icy sarcasm Raven wouldn't have thought possible as she added, "I am
just like my sister. I do not wish to leave New Avalon because that
would interrupt the non-stop chemically altered rave that is my life
here. Truly I am living La Vida Loca."
Raven reflexively suppressed a smirk. Had any other friend of
Kori's been standing in her place, an involuntary bark of laughter
would probably have been the result instead.
"Yes," Kori said. "No. NO! Mother, I have NOT," she said in
a tone of more-than-mild offense. "I would not. ... Only under
extremely specific circumstances which are quite frankly none of your
affair." Raven arched an eyebrow, wondering what the missing context
for -that- remark could be. Apparently it drew a sharper reaction
from Kori's mother, since the Tamaranian scowled and said, "-I- am not
the one who raised the subject of my - hello? Mother? Hello?"
With an inarticulate noise of annoyance, Kori turned and
plunked the phone down in its cradle. As she did so, she caught sight
of Raven standing in the doorway. Instead of reacting with surprise,
though, Kori just said,
"Are you capable of accepting this waste material as truth,
Raven? My mother hung up on me."
Raven came through the arch into the living room, took up a
lotus position at the end of the couch opposite the armchair Kori was
sitting in, and observed mildly, "Sounded like you were having quite a
debate."
"Debate?" Kori replied sharply. "-Debate-? She practically
accused me of being a twelkarb."
"Harsh," said Raven. She had no actual idea what a twelkarb
was, but from context it seemed like the appropriate response.
Koriand'r slumped back into the chair and threw up her hands
in the universal gesture of exasperation.
"Mother cannot distinguish between me and my sister," she
said. "Just because one of us turned out to be a thieving, carousing,
planetary-government-destabilizing kreltharklor... "
Raven nodded sympathetically but said nothing. She hadn't met
Kori's sister - did not, in fact, know she possessed one until just
now - and she got the sense that Kori wasn't really looking for
comment on that point anyway.
"She opposes my desire to stay in New Avalon for a third
year," Kori went on.
"What does she think you're doing here that's so bad?" Raven
wondered. Did she -know- anyone whose lifestyle was more blameless
than Kori's?
"Oh, X'hal only knows," Kori replied, sighing. "She keeps
saying I am too young, but declines to explain what for. Obviously
not for coming here, unless it has eluded her that I was younger two
years ago than I am now." The Tamaranian sat up and gave her friend a
thoughtful look. "Does your mother ever behave in such an arbitrary
manner?"
"I wouldn't know," Raven replied, her tone offhanded. "She
died when I was born."
The questioning expression on Kori's face froze, then slowly
changed to a look of mortified embarrassment in the long, awkward pause
that followed.
It seemed to take Raven a couple of seconds to realize what
was wrong. Then she gave her Tamaranian friend a very small smile and
said softly, "Don't worry about it."
That seemed to shock Kori out of her stunned silence.
Haltingly, she began trying to apologize for her insensitivity.
"It's OK," Raven said. "There was no way you could have
known. It's not like I've ever told you before." She thought for a
moment, then ventured, "Maybe -I- should apologize. I could have
phrased my answer better."
"So, then... " said Kori hesitantly, as if unsure whether to
continue the thought. "You... you never knew her."
Raven shook her head. "I've seen a picture and heard a few
stories, but... no. I never had a mother or a father. I was raised
in a monastery."
"I am sorry," Kori said again, looking down. "I did not mean
to pry."
Raven regarded her in silence for a second, then made a
decision - one that came more easily than she would have believed
possible a few months before.
"No... it's all right," she said. "I have good reasons for
being secretive, but... " She raised her dark violet eyes to the
Tamaranian's emerald-green ones. "I don't think they apply to you."
Then she looked around the room, as if determining that it
really was empty but for the two of them, before leaning forward
slightly and saying,
"So. You tell me your life story, I'll tell you mine?"
Kori brightened immediately, the lingering traces of her
embarrassment wiped away by this gesture of trust from her often
mysterious friend.
"That sounds wonderful!" she said. Then she composed herself
into a storyteller's attitude and said, "I am the second of the three
children of King Myand'r and Queen Luand'r, rulers of the planet
Tamaran... "
Raven came out of her shell even more often after that.
Though there were still very solidly defined boundaries within which
she expected no one to come, the rules were getting easier to
understand and work with for all her friends. She spent more time
with them, gave them little glimpses into her life, and generally
seemed to get more comfortable with the idea that she had them in the
first place. They even stopped by Strangefate Books sometimes, though
even then, they never went upstairs.
The Titans' second spring was an eventful one. It wasn't
really true that there was never a dull moment for super-heroes, as
the public often believed, but there were only occasional lulls
between battling bad guys, keeping a lid on street crime, sniffing out
criminal conspiracies, providing backup for IPO operations, teaming up
with the Utonium sisters, and so forth.
Along the way, Beast Boy gained, lost, regained, misplaced,
recovered, renounced, re-regained, reconciled with, then ended up
long-distancing with a girlfriend, all to Raven's recurrent
consternation. Apart from that, things were relatively quiet in
Titans Tower itself... at least until Founders' Day.
FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2408
Founders' Day 2408 was a gorgeous day, so the Titans spent it
outside - mostly in the city, in Veterans Park. They had a cookout in
one of the park's public barbecue pits, played a little football, hung
out with some of their other friends, and generally had a fine time
before adjourning to the Tower at 6ish to get some dinner and prepare
for the fireworks.
The mood of merriment was fractured somewhat when they emerged
from the elevator into their living room to find an intruder already
there - one about whom the security system had said precisely nothing.
"... so I said to the guy - WHAT the - ?!" Gar Logan blurted,
first catching sight of the figure standing at the far end of the
room. The windows were in blackout mode, so even in daylight the room
was plunged into near-complete darkness.
The Titans slipped into defensive mode instantly, fanning out
so that they weren't all clustered in the elevator door, readying
themselves for a fight...
... until Robin recognized something in the way the dark shape
was standing and held up a hand.
"Hold it," he said. Then he touched a control on his utility
belt and the windows unblacked, filling the room with light.
The Titans - all except Robin, anyway - drew back with various
exclamations of surprise at what they saw.
"It's... " said Cyborg slowly.
"It's... " Beast Boy echoed.
"It is the Batman!" cried Starfire, clapping her hands in
delight.
Indeed, the figure standing before them matched that name,
but not the way they might have expected. They'd all seen Batman, the
legendary defender of New Gotham on Kane's World, in news clips and
such before, and they knew he'd trained Robin - but the one they were
familiar with wore a sophisticated suit of black powered armor
decorated with a silver bat on the plastron.
This guy wasn't wearing a powered suit; his costume looked
more like the kind of light utility suit Robin himself wore. It was
grey with black boots, gloves, and trunks, and featured a black cowl
and cape with a black bat on the chest. Instead of the built-in
equipment compartments ringing the waist of the modern Batman, this
one was wearing a many-pouched belt, like an earlier version of
Robin's utility belt. He stood straight and looked very tough and
strong, but the half of his face visible under his nose-up mask was
lined with age, whereas the modern Batman had a young man's chin.
The other Titans took a couple of seconds to realize what
Robin had known before unblacking the windows and Starfire had seen
immediately on catching sight of him: This was the -original- Batman,
the one who had established the legend and protected New Gotham
decades ago. He was an old man, but they all had to admit he still
looked like a serious badass.
All but Robin, who looked irked and muttered, "(Well, -a-
Batman, anyway,)" under his breath.
The white eyeslots on Batman's mask narrowed slightly.
"What do you want?" Robin asked in a tone that wasn't a
hundred miles from hostility.
"To talk to you," Batman replied. "Privately."
Robin shook his head. "These are my teammates," he said.
"Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of them - or you
can leave. Your choice."
Batman's eyes narrowed further, drawing a dark little smirk
from Robin.
"We're not in your cave now," the younger hero remarked.
"I don't have time for games," Batman said flatly.
"Neither do I," Robin replied in a voice just short of a
snarl.
Starfire, who had been looking from one to the other with a
look of increasing concern throughout their exchange, couldn't contain
herself any longer.
"I do not understand!" she burst out, her voice plaintive.
"Why do you speak to each other with such hostility? You are Batman
and Robin! The Dynamic Duo! The Caped Crusaders! Your friendship is
a thing of legend!"
Raven dragged her Tamaranian teammate back a couple of steps,
pulled her head down to whispering height, and said into her ear,
"(Starfire? Haven't you noticed that Robin hasn't even BEEN
ON KANE'S WORLD for the last TWO YEARS? Anyway, this is the wrong
Batman.)"
Starfire blinked. "(... Oh,)" she said, as though the
significance of that fact had just occurred to her. "(Yes. There
-is- that... )"
Robin cut in. "He's -not- Batman. Not any more. Not
really."
Batman's mouth quirked in an ironic little smile.
"Well, then we're even, Tim," he replied calmly, "because
you're not Robin any more either."
That brought Robin up short. He blinked and replied a bit
lamely, "... Come again?"
"You quit; you've been replaced," Batman told him. "I came to
tell you to stop wearing the suit."
Now it was Robin's turn to narrow his eyes. "Like hell," he
said.
"I thought you might see it that way," Batman replied. He
nodded slightly - and another person stepped around him to confront
the group.
The newcomer was a girl - that much was obvious right away -
with a head of thick jet-black hair chopped into a careless pageboy
bob. She was so small and slender that she had been completely
invisible behind Batman's bulk, and she moved with the kind of grace
that meant she was either seriously bad news or a very good actress.
Since she was with Batman, the Titans supposed "A" was a lot more
likely.
"Meet your replacement," Batman said - a trifle unnecessarily,
since the girl was wearing a Robin costume almost identical to the one
Tim Drake, the Titans' Robin, wore.
"She's the most talented martial artist I've ever seen,"
Batman went on. "You should know what that means better than anyone
else here. If you insist on it, she'll challenge you for the name."
Batman smiled darkly. "I wouldn't recommend insisting."
Drake snorted. "I don't have to play your stupid game, Bruce.
I could just walk away."
"You could - but you'd never make it to the elevator," Batman
said. "To Robin, this is a matter of honor. I assure you she's
taking it very seriously. She takes -everything- very seriously."
Drake gazed levelly at Batman for a few seconds, ignoring his
"replacement" entirely.
"So it's going to be like -that-, is it?" he inquired. "OK.
Fine. I'll fight your new Robin." Then, his face hardening, he
added, "But as soon as we're done, you get out of my city and never
come back."
"Midnight," said Batman flatly. "The roof of the Hammond
Tower. If you're not there... we'll find you."
He made another slight gesture of his head, and then he and
the "new Robin" stepped back and disappeared out the window.
The Titans stood there in a sort of stunned silence for a few
seconds, and then Beast Boy burst out,
"... Can you believe the nerve of that guy?! Who does he
think he IS?"
"Batman, Gar," Raven replied in her long-suffering why-do-I-put-
up-with-you voice. "He thinks he's Batman."
"We don't have to stand for this, do we?" Beast Boy demanded,
turning to Robin. "Can't we report it to the Chief or Hammer or
something?"
"Never mind -that-. Let's just show up at his little
rendezvous and show him what happens when you mess with the Titans,"
Cyborg proposed, flexing one of his metallic fists with a nasty grin
on his face.
"Yeah!" Beast Boy agreed. "Good idea, Cy. You pick a fight
with -one- of us, you - "
"No."
The green Titan did a double-take in Robin's general
direction. "Excuse me, did I just hear you say 'no'?"
"Yes," Robin replied.
"So you mean you intend to just show up and fight this chick
by yourself? No help from your friends? Let the old guy play you
like a harp?"
"Yes."
"Is this some kind of idiotic kung fu macho thing?"
"Yes."
The direct answer seemed to take the wind out of Beast Boy's
sails. "... Well, at least you're up front about it," he said after a
startled pause.
"I have to go get ready," Robin said. He turned and left the
room, pausing at the doorway only to turn back, point, and say, "Don't
call the Chief."
"Fine," Beast Boy said, a trifle sullenly. "We won't call the
Chief."
The elevator door closed behind Robin. Beast Boy waited a few
seconds for it to leave the top floor, then turned to his teammates
and said, "Somebody call Dick."
8:49 PM
TITANS TOWER
Tim Drake sat at the edge of the tower's roof, watching the
evening lights of New Avalon come on one by one, and collected his
thoughts.
He -did- understand what Batman's statement about the
capabilities of his "replacement" implied, and it worried him. Bruce
Wayne had fought alongside and against the greatest martial artists of
the galaxy. In his prime, he'd been one of them himself. For him to
say that the petite girl in the other Robin costume was the best he'd
ever seen... that was saying something, something very unsettling.
He heard the sound of shoes on the rooftop behind him.
Turning his head, he saw Koriand'r approaching, her face full of
concern.
"... Tim?" she said. "May I speak with you a moment?"
Drake nodded. "Have a seat," he said. Kori did as she was
asked, lowering herself beside him.
Despite her opening question, Kori didn't speak for some
time. Not long after she took her seat, the Founders' Day fireworks
started, emblazoning the sky above the city with color and sound.
Koriand'r loved fireworks, and the business that had brought her to
the roof was put aside while the show was going on, in favor of taking
in the spectacle with occasional sounds of delight.
Drake didn't mind. He enjoyed Kori's talent for taking
pleasure in simple things, and he, too, liked fireworks. He felt
himself relax, just a little, despite the ordeal he knew he was facing
later in the night.
After a half-hour of glory, the fireworks show wound up,
leaving the sky dark but for the city's nightglow and silent but for
the faint sounds of traffic and the almost subliminal thrumming of
airships.
For a few more minutes, all was quiet on the roof of Titans
Tower.
Then Kori said slowly, choosing her words with care, "If you
will not accept my help in the struggle you face tonight... will you
at least tell me what happened to turn you and the Batman against each
other?"
Tim sighed. "Nothing happened, Kori. That's... that was the
Old Man, the original Batman. I worked with the -current- Batman, his
successor. Actually, his successor's successor. But... " He
sighed. "This is going to get too awkward to tell if I try to tell it
that way. OK, look. You heard me call the Old Man 'Bruce', right?"
Kori nodded. "Well, the current Batman, -my- Batman, his name's
Terry. He's the one who recruited me. Actually, I sort of recruited
myself, but that's another story.
"The point is, Bruce never liked the idea of me being Robin.
He has his own ideas for what Terry needs in a partner. I'm not a
natural acrobat like the first Robin or a natural fighter like Terry.
I do what I do with hard work and determination rather than talent.
Bruce doesn't think that's enough. I finally left New Gotham because
of that. It wasn't anything that happened between me and the guy -I-
think of as Batman.
"Bruce isn't a -bad- guy, he's just... there's his way and the
highway, you know? He has his own ideas about how everything has to
be done, and even though Terry's succeeded him, he still tries to run
the cave. I got to the point where I couldn't stand it any more."
Kori nodded slowly. "I... think I understand," she said.
"Bruce sounds very like my mother, actually," she added thoughtfully.
Tim let out a strangled snort of laughter. "There's an
image," he remarked wryly.
"So you will fight this person Bruce has arranged to be your
replacement," Kori said.
"Yes."
"And you will not accept help from your friends in the
battle."
"No."
"Bruce is abusing your sense of honor for his own ends."
"I know."
"You are a fool, Timothy Drake," she said, but her voice held
no scorn - only a sort of resigned fondness.
"I know," Drake repeated.
"And," she added in a quieter voice, "you may be the noblest
living person I know."
Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, got up, and flew
away.
"... Thank you," he said to no one after he'd recovered from
his surprise.
Then, a moment later, he looked deeply puzzled and murmured,
"... ('living'?!)"
11:55 PM
HAMMOND TOWER, DOWNTOWN
The Titans arrived to find Batman and his protege waiting.
"I see you brought your friends," Batman remarked dryly.
"They're only here to watch," Drake told him. "Just like
you."
Batman nodded. "Shall we?"
The other Robin stepped out of his shadow and crossed to the
middle of the roof, then stood there and just... waited.
"Before you begin, there is something I wish to say," Starfire
said. Paying no attention to the girl in the Robin costume, she
strode across the roof until she stood squarely in front of Batman.
"You disappoint me enormously," she told him, her voice full
of scorn. "I had always believed that the Batman was a hero who only
sought to frighten the wicked. I would never have imagined that he
could be such a heartless bully to those who are supposed to be his
friends as well."
"You couldn't understand," Batman replied coldly.
"I would not want to understand, if it would mean becoming
like you," Starfire shot back. Then, turning on her heel, she went to
stand again with her friends.
"(Nice,)" Raven murmured as Starfire took up a position beside
her; but Starfire's attention was entirely riveted on the two Robins,
and she made no response at all.
Drake faced off against his opposite number and put all the
others out of his mind - Batman, his teammates, even the observers
on the rooftop across the street, of whom his teammates were, he would
wager, entirely unaware.
"Ready?" he asked.
By way of answering, the other Robin attacked.
/* Juno Reactor "Hotaka" _Odyssey_ */
(begin at 03:16)
Within a few painful seconds, he'd discovered exactly why old
Wayne had said this girl was the most talented martial artist he'd
ever seen. It wasn't just that she was fast, strong, agile, tough,
well-coordinated and exquisitely trained, although it was obvious from
the outset that she -was- all of those things. Tim Drake was all
those things too. This girl was more than that.
She wasn't just reacting to Drake's moves in time to do
something about them; she was reacting to them before he made them.
He wasn't sure how she was doing it - a psionic talent, perhaps, or a
level of kinesthetic instinct well beyond anything he had believed
possible - but at the moment, the "how" of it was a bit academic.
Drake held nothing back. He used all of his skill, all of his
agility, and all of his anger (and right here and now, goaded into
this pointless fight by Bruce Wayne to further some shadowy agenda of
the old man's, he had plenty of that) to fuel his efforts to win this
fight, but it was futile. With the girl seeming to know what he was
going to do before -he- did, he was never able to really get his feet
under him, so to speak.
He tried a flying kick; she went under it and countered. He
tried a spinning backfist; she matched it perfectly and turned it into
a judo throw. He rolled upright, popped his collapsible staff, and
switched styles, but she was never where his attacks were and always
where his guard wasn't. After about 45 seconds of that, he noted
ruefully that this was probably about how ordinary scrubs felt
fighting -him-.
OK, then, he told himself. You're never going to beat her in
a straight fight... but nobody said this had to -be- a straight fight.
The next time she hit him, he threw his weight back, rolling
with the blow, and came down on his shoulder blades. Kicking his feet
up and over his head, he rolled onto his knees and sprang upright
again, throwing a handful of gas pellets down as he did so.
The Titans gasped as both Robins vanished in a cloud of green
vapor. Drake held his breath, switched his mask's optics to
thermographic mode, and hoped he'd timed the move so that his cloak,
falling over him as he rolled, had obscured the move with the gas
pellets from the girl's view. If it had, and she was reading body
language instead of actually seeing the future, he might just have
given her an unexpected faceful of gas.
There she was near the edge of the cloud, looking around,
trying to find him in the haze. Either her mask didn't have
thermographics, or she hadn't thought to use them.
He lunged forward, his cloak streaming behind him, and swept
the girl from behind at the knees.
He got a piece of her, but it was obvious she'd realized he
was there - perhaps she'd heard him coming - because she'd started a
jump by the time his staff connected with her legs. She turned with
the blow, somersaulted in mid-air, and somehow managed to kick him in
the face before landing. The combination of moves carried them both
out of the fast-dissipating gas cloud.
He rolled through the kick, managed to avoid losing any teeth,
switched his mask out of thermo mode, and whirled, going for her head
while she was still busy landing.
She was already gone.
This is gonna hurt, Drake told himself just before her fist
came out of nowhere and snapped his head around.
Another couple of exchanges and he'd lost his staff. He kept
at it, doggedly trying different fighting styles, but it didn't seem
to matter what he did. There just didn't seem to be any answer for
her ability. Sooner or later he'd reach the end of his endurance and
she'd bring him down.
Well, at least nobody will be able to say I didn't give it
everything I had, Drake thought as he watched another punch coming
straight for his face.
Before it could connect, the rooftop shook, causing Drake to
lose his footing, the girl to miss, and the Titans to make sounds of
inarticulate surprise. Drake felt a pulse of heat against the side of
his face and turned his head to see a fireball rising from the roof of
a building a moderate distance away. The roar of the explosion hit
him a second later, followed by the tinkling sound of broken glass
falling to the streets.
The girl tried to hit him again; moving on sheer instinct, all
his conscious mental bandwidth devoted to the explosion, he avoided
her, put out his hand, grabbed a handful of her cape, and yanked her
to a halt as she began to go past him and set up for another attack.
Turning his head, he looked her in the eye (or at least came
as close as possible, given that they were both masked) and said in
his least warm-and-friendly voice,
"-Stop it-."
To the surprise of the part of him that remained an impartial
observer, she did.
Drake took a pair of miniature electrobinoculars from his
utility belt and trained them on the burning rooftop. He saw pretty
much exactly what he'd expected to see.
"Sky Raiders," he growled.
Instinct took over. Ignoring Batman and the replacement Robin
entirely, he put the binoculars away, turned to his friends, and
snapped out a series of quick, precise instructions:
"Cyborg, take the right. Beast Boy, take the left. Raven,
come in from above. Starfire, you're with me - we're going straight
up the middle."
Without waiting for acknowledgement, he drew his jumpline
launcher from his utility belt, then turned to the other Robin, who
was watching him with a hard-to-read expression that might have
included just a faint note of awe.
"If you want to help," he told her flatly, "come on."
Without waiting for her answer, he barked, "Titans! GO!"
Then he fired his grapple to the next building over, thumbed the
retractor, and vanished.
She stood looking after him for a second, then glanced at
Batman. He didn't react at all, merely stood watching to see what she
would do. She turned back, gazed for a moment in the direction Robin
had gone...
... and then followed.
During the wild melee that ensued, Tim Drake learned something
else about the girl who Bruce Wayne intended to replace him as Robin.
That same ability to predict people's actions that made her such a
deadly adversary in a fight -also- made her one hell of a -partner- in
a fight. She could read the moves of someone on her side just as well
as the enemy's, then adjust her own tactics to suit.
He realized partway through the battle, as he and the mystery
girl in the matching costume completed a three-way alley-oop to
confound four Sky Raiders and take out their group forcefield
generator, that he was working with her as smoothly and instinctively
as he had at the peak of his partnership with Terry, before Old Man
Wayne had screwed everything up.
The only other really trained martial artist among the Titans
was Raven, and though she and Robin got along all right, they didn't
really click in cooperative battle. When Raven did hit her mixed
battle stride, it was usually in -aerial- combat alongside Starfire,
and the resulting destruction was often very impressive indeed - but
that did mean that as a Titan, Robin more often than not fought solo.
He'd forgotten how fulfilling a good old-fashioned martial-arts
team-up could be.
He was working with this girl like they'd been fighting
together all their lives, and he didn't even know her name.
Some part of him found that a bit disturbing, but the rest was
too busy reveling in it.
He half-turned, smashing down a Sky Raider's shock baton with
one gloved hand, and dropped the man with a roundhouse kick. Turning
his head just a bit to the left, he saw the girl finish a nearly
identical maneuver with nearly identical results, like a mirror image
of his own attack. She glanced at him, saw the little grin on his
face, and responded with one of her own, the first show of emotion
he'd seen from her yet.
By the time the New Avalon rocket cops arrived on the scene,
the Titans and their impromptu helper had cleaned up the Sky Raiders.
"Thanks for catching this one, Robin," the ranking rocket cop
said with a nod.
"They're getting more ruthless, or more desperate for cash,"
Robin mused. "They've never blown up a whole office building just to
get at a bank vault before."
Captain Stephanie Galloway nodded. "Big Fire's giving them a
serious squeezing in the Docklands. It takes a lot of money to go up
against the Black Hoods. Thanks again for collaring them for us."
"No problem," Robin said.
Galloway glanced at the rest of the team, who were off to the
side letting Robin do the talking, as usual. (Sometimes Beast Boy
worked up the courage to talk to Galloway; tonight was not one of
those times.)
"Who's the rookie?" Galloway asked, angling a thumb. Robin
turned to see his prospective replacement standing with the others.
She had her cloak drawn, draping her from throat to boots in black, so
the police couldn't see that there were sort of two Robins on the
scene.
"A friend from out of town," Robin replied. "It'd be just as
well not to mention her in your reports. If we add a sixth member
officially, I'll be sure to let Commissioner Gordon know."
Galloway nodded. "No problem, Boy Wonder." Then, chuckling,
she added impishly, "Isn't it past your bedtime?"
Robin laughed. "It's summer vacation, Captain," he pointed
out, then turned and grappled away.
He went back to the roof of Hammond Tower; by the time he got
there, the others were already waiting, including Batman, who didn't
look like he'd moved at all.
The girl was standing right where she'd been when their match
began, silent and expressionless. In fact, it occurred to him that
she'd never made a sound since they'd met, not during their fight, not
during the battle with the Sky Raiders. No kiai, no challenges, not
even a grunt of effort. It was eerie. But then, many things about
this girl were eerie.
"That was incredible," Beast Boy remarked as he arrived. "I
thought watching you guys fight each other was pretty cool, but the
way you took apart those Sky Raiders together was -awesome-."
"She'd make a hell of a Titan," Cyborg said.
Starfire nodded. "I agree," she said. "Your abilities in
battle complement each other spectacularly well. It is such a shame
you must be adversaries." She gave Batman another hard look across
the rooftop.
"Yeah. Too bad about that," Raven observed glumly.
"Can nothing be done?" Starfire asked plaintively.
"I don't see how," Robin replied, shrugging. "Once she beats
me, she'll go back to Kane's World to be Terry's new partner."
"Hey, don't talk like that," Cyborg protested. "You might
beat her. I mean, she showed you a lot of her tricks in the fight
with the Raiders."
"She doesn't have tricks, Cy," Robin told him. "She's just
-better- than me." He sighed. "Guess I'd better get this over with."
Then, trying to put a good face on it, he cracked a grin and added,
"Start thinking of new names for me."
Then he stepped away from his teammates and went out to the
middle of the roof, where the girl with dark hair waited silently.
"Well, -that- was fun... trust the Sky Raiders to liven up a
party," said Robin wryly. Then he added with a resigned air, "I guess
you and I have something to finish."
She looked impassively back at him for a moment, then shook
her head and spoke for the first time since he'd met her.
"No," she said. Her voice was low and soft, not quite as
husky as Raven's but even quieter.
Robin looked surprised. "'No'?"
Batman loomed up behind the girl, his eyes white slits against
the black of his mask.
"I taught you never to leave things unfinished," he told her
sternly.
She turned around, unintimidated by his presence, and replied
in a halting but firm voice, "This -is-... finished. If you make
me... fight him again... I'll lose."
Batman's eyes narrowed further, almost disappearing, as his
jaw set in annoyance.
"You never lose," he said.
The girl shrugged offhandedly. "Don't... usually want to."
"You won't wear that suit if you don't earn it," Batman told
her flatly.
She cocked her head thoughtfully at him.
"Fair enough," she said. Then, reaching to the breast of her
tunic, she tugged off the "R" patch and offered it to him.
"I quit."
The Titans were treated to a rare sight indeed: the sight of
Batman flabbergasted.
"Save you... the trouble... of firing me," she added with a
faint smile.
He didn't take the patch. Instead, he recovered his aplomb,
gave her his hardest look (which didn't appear to faze her in the
slightest), and said,
"We'll discuss this when we get back to Gotham."
"Mm... hard to do," she mused, "since I'm... staying here."
Batman stared at her for a moment, his face like granite, but
she just looked back at him with calm unconcern.
Then he said, "I'm very disappointed."
She shrugged again. "Sorry."
Batman gave her another second of the stare, turned it to
Drake for a moment, then vanished into the night.
The girl stood facing in the direction he'd gone and raised a
hand.
"Bye," she said.
Then she turned to the stunned Titans, took off her mask, and
favored them with a little smile. Without the mask on, they could see
from her almond-shaped brown eyes that she was a human most likely of
Asian descent, and pretty in a careless, mostly-unaware-of-it sort of
way.
"So," she said. "Can I... crash?" Tilting her head slightly,
she added, deadpan, "I'm... very quiet."
The Titans glanced at each other as if unable to believe what
they were hearing. Cyborg was the first to speak.
"Uh... yeah, I think we can arrange that," he said.
A beaming Starfire levitated to the new girl's side and seized
her, to her visible shock, in an embrace. "Welcome, my new friend!
My name is Koriand'r and I am pleased to meet you!" Then the
Tamaranian blinked and backed up a bit, a questioning look on her
face. "What is your name?"
The girl looked back at Koriand'r's earnest face for a second,
then smiled a little more. The range of her facial expressions was
already reminding the Titans of Raven, but this girl's smile had a bit
more whimsy in it, as opposed to Raven's usual air of dark, private
amusement when she smiled.
"Cassandra," she said. "Cassandra Cain."
"Welcome, Cassandra Cain!" Kori repeated, hugging her again
before returning to her place. "We are thrilled to have you doing the
hanging out with us. Are we not, fellow Titans?"
General agreement followed this assertion.
Cassandra looked down at herself, her face thoughtful.
"Guess I'm... out a costume," she said with a small grin at
Robin.
Someone new emerged from the shadows where Batman had
disappeared. "I might be able to help you with that," she said.
"Guh!" Beast Boy cried, reeling back. He squinted at the new
arrival, and as she stepped into the orange light of the giant HAMMOND
TOWER sign, he slumped visibly as he recognized her.
"Sergeant Gordon!" he blurted. "How long have you been
standing there?!"
"She's been here since midnight, Gar," said Robin patiently.
"And so has Dick," he added as another figure, this one a man in a
long coat, came up behind her.
Sgt. Barbara Gordon of the New Avalon Police Department's
Special Crimes Unit smiled. "Been a long time since I saw anybody
stand up to the Old Man like that," she said to Cassandra.
Her partner, Inspector Dick Grayson, grinned boyishly. "Same
here. Nice job, kid."
"Wait a minute," Cyborg said. "How do you know the old
Batman?"
"Oh," Grayson said airily, "we go way back."
"More so for him than me," Barbara added with a smiling nod to
her partner.
"What did you say about being able to help with a costume?"
Raven asked, raising an eyebrow.
Barbara Gordon's smile widened.
SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2408
10:45 PM
Titans Tower
G-OS UNIX 45.5.1
login: notrobin
Passsword: **********
Welcome to the Titans Tower Master Computer!
last login: Sun 6 July 2408 02:49:30 AST (GMT -0500)
Titans Tower Message of the Day:
I just want it on record that I did NOT cause the huge mess in the
hangar bay. - Cyborg
> mail
No mail.
> trn
No unread news in subscribed-to newsgroups.
> batlink
Routing connection to bativac through the Zanzibar Sector, the Phantom
Zone, and points north, hang on a second...
OK, route established, encrypting...
!````~TXlcar
<Transmission Error>
/* loif (*polygon_indor (index=0;index>
polygon->vertex_count && p
polygon_index, polyg?%~~? is
infiltrat3on_index));nS_TRANSPARENT(line))
{polygon= get_polygon_data(*polygon_index);<\P>
Yt-c469d02l;12
EOT
Just kidding. Connection established.
This is bativac.batcave.kw
last login: Wed 02 July 2408 05:19:39 GST (GMT -0200)
bativac.batcave.kw Message of the Day:
Welcome to the Batcave! Your host: alfred@batcave.kw
Please report abuse to catwoman@batcave.kw
% batchat
Welcome to the Batcave Chat Center!
There are 17 users on 5 channels
You are entering channel #batcave
Users: BatmanBeyond @Catwoman @Alfred VFries ccain
<BatmanBeyond> Hey! It's Cass!
<Catwoman> Hey, kid. Heard about your little adventure. I'm
surprised your account still works!
<Alfred> Good evening, Miss Cassandra. It's good to see you again.
<Alfred> Need I remind you, Miss Helena, that I control who has access
to the Bativac, not Master Bruce?
<Catwoman> Shh! Don't say that where -he- can hear you. He's already
in enough of a snit as it is.
<ccain> hi
<ccain> how bad is it?
<Catwoman> Oh, no worse than usual. He's grumping around the mansion,
being snappish with Terry and me, as if -I- had anything to do with
it. All bark and no bite, like a big old dog. I can see why Mom
left him. (HHOS)
<BatmanBeyond> No need to be mean, Lena.
<Catwoman> Hey, he's my dad and I love him, but he can be an awful old
poop sometimes.
<BatmanBeyond> :) You weren't here for my can't-do-anything-right phase.
* Catwoman thanks Bast for small favors.
<ccain> victor's quiet tonight
<Catwoman> He's out. I wish he wouldn't do that...
-> Catwoman has set VFries away
-> VFries is away: Chillin'
<ccain> snrk
<ccain> that's awful
<Catwoman> He'll give me that Look when he gets back and sees it,
too. LOL
-> Opening query with BatmanBeyond
>ccain< how's it going really?
>BatmanBeyond< He'll get over it. You know how he is. He has to feel
personally betrayed for a couple of days.
>ccain< mm
>BatmanBeyond< Can I ask you a question?
>ccain< sure
>BatmanBeyond< Why'd you do it? Decide to stay in New Avalon, I mean.
>ccain< to learn
>BatmanBeyond< OK... expansion, please?
>ccain< i'm better than anyone else at the beating-people-up part. we
all knew that already. but being a real crimefighter takes more
than just being good at that part. without the rest of the skills
i'm no better than shiva
>BatmanBeyond< Debatable, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument.
>ccain< did bruce tell you about the sky raiders?
>BatmanBeyond< Yeah. He said you were pretty impressive.
>ccain< i learned something in that fight. i'm better than tim at the
beating-people-up part... but he's better at everything else
>ccain< i can learn those parts from him
>BatmanBeyond< You could learn them from me, too. I mean, I don't
want to sound stuck-up, but -Tim- did. :)
>ccain< true. but this way i can do it without bruce looking over my
shoulder - and yours
>BatmanBeyond< That's true.
>BatmanBeyond< Congratulations, Cass. You graduate.
>ccain< what?
>BatmanBeyond< I agreed to let you go along with Bruce's cockamamie
plan to have you fight Tim hoping that you'd see him in action with
his friends and draw exactly that conclusion. And you did.
>ccain< you set me up?
>BatmanBeyond< If you want to look at it that way. I wanted you to
meet Tim, get to know him, and learn from him, but I knew if I just
said "Hey Bruce, let's send Cass to take some lessons from Tim," he'd
blow up in my face.
>BatmanBeyond< So I happened to mention to him one day that it was too
bad you couldn't fill in as Robin until Tim came back. I knew that
would wind him up. ;)
>BatmanBeyond< The rest of it was just a question of whether you'd
spot your cue, and you did.
>ccain< very clever. i suppose i should resent being manipulated, but
i'm glad you did it
>BatmanBeyond< That's good to know. I -was- kinda worried that I'd
set up a repeat of the whole Bruce-Tim thing, but I had to take the
chance.
>ccain< well, i'll let it slide if you promise not to do it again
>BatmanBeyond< Deal. How's it working out with you and his team?
>ccain< i haven't really been here long enough to know, but they seem
to be ok with me. we're doing a lot of training so that when i
start going out on jobs with them we'll already know how things work
>ccain< it's been a lot of fun so far
>BatmanBeyond< Good. I'm glad. Keep me posted, OK?
>ccain< will do
>BatmanBeyond< 'Bout time for Helena and me to hit the streets. Do
you know what they're going to do for your costume yet?
>ccain< i'm supposed to find out today
>BatmanBeyond< Email me a pic. :)
>ccain< ok
>ccain< good hunting
>BatmanBeyond< You too, kid. Catch you later.
- Query terminated by BatmanBeyond
* BatmanBeyond & Catwoman -> patrol
<Catwoman> I was wondering when you'd get around to that. See you
downstairs. Good luck in New Avalon, Cassie!
<ccain> thanks
<ccain> night all
<Alfred> Good night, Miss Cassandra.
-> You have quit (Quit: Leaving)
% logout
> logout
Cassandra got up from her desk, stretched a minor crick out of
her back, and surveyed her small domain. It was a bit sparse yet, but
Raven had promised to take her for a cruise of Claremont's shops on
Monday to see about scaring up some decor, since she knew the district
better than any of the others.
The doorchime bleeped.
"Come in," she said, and the door opened to reveal Tim Drake
in his civilian clothes, looking cheerful despite the fading black eye
and general scuffing and bruising he still sported from their fight on
Friday night.
"Barb's here," he said, pointing with a thumb back over his
shoulder. "She's got your new gear. Ready to try it out?"
Cassandra smiled.
"You bet."
THE BATCAVE
OUTSIDE NEW GOTHAM CITY, KANE'S WORLD
Terry McGinnis came out of the equipment room suited up in his
armored Batsuit, helmet tucked under one arm, and crossed to the
platform where the Bativac stood.
"OK, Alfred, what've we got?" he asked.
A slightly transparent image of a bald, elderly man in an
old-fashioned tuxedo appeared beside him. The big central display on
the Bativac's multiconsole blinked to a street map of New Gotham's
South Side, complete with a number of flashing red dots.
"The raids on technology companies in the South Side are
continuing," Alfred reported. "Master Bruce's analysis indicates that
these are the most likely places for another strike this evening. He
recommends that you and Miss Helena patrol them from east to west."
The map zoomed out to show the rest of the city as well. A pulsing
blue dot appeared in the northern end. "Dr. Fries is still
investigating the unfortunate death of that researcher chap in North
Parkhurst."
McGinnis nodded. "OK. Upload this plot to the Batmobile and
we'll see what we can find. I imagine Helena's already in the garage?"
"As always," Alfred confirmed with a slight smile.
McGinnis chuckled. "All right, Alfred, thanks. We'll keep
you posted."
"I'll be here," Alfred replied dryly before his holographic
image winked out.
McGinnis turned to go, then pulled up short at the sight of
Bruce Wayne standing by the bottom of the stairs leading up to the
mansion.
"Bruce," he said. "Alfred gave me the briefing. Figured you
were taking the night off."
"I am," Wayne replied gravely. His eyes bored into Terry's as
he added, "There was something I wanted to say to you before you left."
"OK... shoot," McGinnis said.
Wayne kept staring at him for a couple of seconds, just long
enough to convey the impression that he was trying to unnerve the
younger man.
Then he smiled.
"Congratulations, McGinnis. You graduate."
Terry blinked.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're the galaxy's greatest detective," Wayne replied, still
smiling. "You figure it out."
Then he turned and slowly climbed the stairs to his house,
humming an old song.
McGinnis stood looking after him for a moment. Then, just as
the door shut behind the departing old man, he snorted, then chuckled,
then guffawed, his laughter echoing all around the cave and setting
flocks of bats to flitting about.
"I love this job," he said, then put on his helmet and headed
for the garage.
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2408
POLICE HEADQUARTERS
NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI
Seven costumed figures and one without stood arrayed on the
roof of New Avalon Police Headquarters.
"Commissioner, Hammer, I'd like you to meet the newest member
of the Titans team," Robin said proudly. Sidestepping, he made room
in front of Police Commissioner Gordon and the purple-cloaked senior
hero for a slim female figure dressed all in black. She had a
scalloped black cloak and a twin-pointed cowl with a mask that covered
her entire face. The only bits of color on her person were her
chunky-pouched utility belt and the outline of a bat on her chest,
both in bright yellow.
"Gentlemen," said Robin with a grin, "say hello to Batgirl."
/* Shirley Walker "Main Title" _Batman: Mask of the Phantasm_ */
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
and
Bacon Comics Group
presented
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
TITANS Vol. 1 No. 2
"Welcome Home"
Tim Drake (Robin)
Victor Stone (Cyborg)
Raven
Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran (Starfire)
and
Garfield Logan (Beast Boy)
also featuring
Jason Blood
Bruce Wayne (Batman)
Captain Stephanie Galloway, NAPD
Detective Sergeant Barbara Gordon, NAPD
Detective Inspector Dick Grayson, NAPD
Terry McGinnis (Batman)
Helena Wayne (Catwoman)
Alfred Pennyworth
Commissioner James Gordon, NAPD
Detective Chief Superintendent Martin F. Rose, NAPD (The Hammer)
with
Sky Raiders Assault Force 1750
and introducing
Cassandra Cain
as Batgirl
written by Benjamin D. Hutchins
with notion wranglin' and concept control by the Usual Suspects
Bacon Comics chief Derek Bacon (Lightnin)
with much owed to lots of people
TITANS
Vol. 1 No. 2
BACON COMICS GROUP 2408
E P U (colour) 2004