A/N: Hey boys and girls, i figured i should let you all in on the story that's been stopping me from updating my others, I was trying to finish it before I put it up but it just couldn't wait, so here you go. Enjoy!
Robin didn't even manage to catch the name of the machine that had been stolen from the new Central Science building, before he caught sight of the criminal backing out of an alleyway which he knew was a dead end and trying to stealthily sneak off elsewhere, Robin gave chase with the other Titans following behind him at high speed. He skidded around an alley corner and followed the scared looking man. Robin knew that he was gaining on the man who rapidly seemed to be loosing breath, the rest of his team were closely following him in the tightly packed alleyway. Raven extended her hand and lashed out a tangle of dark energy tripping the man up.
Robin tried to skid to a halt as the device dropped to the floor and gave out a bright flash of light, Robin managed to skid to a halt with just the steel toe tips of his boots in the strange white light, he almost breathed a sigh of relief before Cyborg skidded into the back of him, sending all five Titans tumbling into the white light like dominoes.
"Gee, nice one Cy." Beast Boy groaned from under the others, he flopped his head to the floor and jerked up when he found it cold and wet.
"It's snowing!" Starfire declared with glee as she looked up at the night's sky which was glittered with falling snowflakes.
"But… it was midday just a moment ago!" Cyborg exclaimed as he got up.
"Not to mention the middle of June." Raven added flatly.
"Beast Boy, where are we? Can you tell?" Robin asked sitting up and rubbing his head. Beast Boy turned into a pigeon and walked this way and that before taking off, flying in a small circle and dropping to the ground again, he quickly turned into a bloodhound and sniffed the air before turning back to a recognisable Beast Boy.
"It's Jump still, I'm sure of it. That's what the magnetic field says and it even smells almost exactly like Jump too." Beast Boy commented as he knelt on one knee.
"I know Jump like the back of my hand, this isn't Jump and it certainly isn't where we just were." Robin said with a frown.
"Well dude, if you were so sure why did you even ask me?" Beast Boy muttered rolling his eyes.
"Because-" Robin snapped before suddenly stopping, he could hear footsteps approaching and shouting voices, he raised a finger to his lips. Robin looked left and right before spotting the garage door to his right and hauling it open, he beckoned the others in and pulled the door down.
"We don't want to be seen if we don't know where we could be." Robin explained.
"I DO know where we are." Beast Boy grumbled.
"But I want to be the one doing the seeing." Robin added ignoring Beast Boy and lifting the garage door up a few inches. Robin pressed himself to the floor and looked out through the gap, the other Titans did the same.
A pair of booted feet ran past before skidding to a halt just at the edge of vision. Shortly behind them stopped three pairs of feet.
"As I always said, you can run but you can't hide. Not in this town at any rate. Also you might want to reconsider running, not such a great idea either." One voice said with a slightly smug tone.
"G-get that… that thing away from me!" The first booted figure said shakily as the owner backed back into vision.
Beast Boy heard the noise first, it made every hair on the back of his neck stand on end, every prey animal in his mind told him to run, and run fast even his primal human instincts told him to run. It was the low growl of predator, the other Titans felt it too. Large grey black paws moved slowly and deliberately into sight, forcing the man to back up.
"Aww, that's not nice. We are Titans after all, the name is meant to garner a little respect at least. Aya's a person not a thing, a titan too so maybe you should show her a little more respect. I promise she'll play nice if you surrender." A second voice said.
"Titans?" Robin breathed, he didn't recognise the voices or what he could see of the figures and he knew every Titan there was, they must be faking, and tarnishing the Titan name no less.
"I-I mean it! Get it away from me!" The voice shouted, hitting a high pitch. A snarl and a snapping of jaws came in response.
"Whoa, hands out of your pockets- ack!" One of the voices shouted before recoiling, the Titans all gasped and skidded back from the gap in the garage door holding their noses and mouths. Beast Boy skidded back the furthest and tried to suppress a retch.
"Aniseed- you bastard!" The first voice coughed running towards the first booted figure that had started to flee. Robin watched in watery eyed in interest as the large paws shook and turned into feet, shortly followed by snow white knees hitting the floor, a whole figure following after.
"Aya!" The boy shouted grabbing her.
"It's okay, go catch him, I'll still be here when…" The girl who laid in place of the wolf said croakily. The boy paused before rushing off with the other two figures to chase after the first. The girl pushed herself up off the floor and staggered over to the corner of the alleyway and promptly vomited in a trash can, Robin quietly eased the sliding door of the garage up and crawled out.
The girl was short, about his height, long black hair in start contrast to her unnaturally white skin and her black leotard which seemed to expose far too much skin for the freezing weather. At the base of her spine a black and white wolf tail lashed from side to side indicating his displeasure, on the top of her head pointed canine like ears twitched.
"Ugh. Aniseed. There goes my sinuses for the night." The girl muttered to herself sounding as if she had a cold and spat in the bin. Around her neck a large steel band like collar hung, about the right size for a large wolf Robin noted. Hanging from it a yellow and black communicator with a white T hung like a pet tag. Robin narrowed his eyes, if anyone would know where they were and what was going on, someone pretending to be a Titan was a good place to start, he clenched both his fists into one large fist as he crept up behind her, silently raised it in the air and brought his hands crashing down onto the back of the girl's head. She fell hard, he didn't care much.
"Drag her in, before the others get back. I want answers." Robin ordered as he looked shiftily up and down the alleyway.
The girl on the floor groaned and shifted, she opened her eyes slowly and jerked upright when she realised that her hands were tied together, she looked wildly around the room and skidded herself backwards to the nearest wall and prepared to use it to lever herself onto her feet.
"Stay where you are." Robin ordered darkly from the shadows of the room, the girl peered into the darkness but couldn't make out any detail on the speaker. Stupid aniseed bomb.
"You're making a big mistake by doing this." She warned shifting her wrists in their restraints but there was no room to wriggle free of them, her captor knew what he was doing.
"Yes, I'm sure. Now who are you? And where did you get this?" Robin questioned sticking closely to the shadows as he threw the Titans communicator across the room, it skidded across the floor to the girl.
"Are you kidding me?" The girl asked looking from the communicator to the shadows, Robin said nothing.
"It's mine! Don't you know who I am? I'm a Titan!" the girl snapped angrily, she sniffed and wiped her watering eyes on her shoulder, damn aniseed.
"You're lucky I can't see or smell a damn thing." She muttered trying to spit the taste of aniseed out of her mouth.
"You're lying! If you were a Titan I'd know you! What city is this?" Robin demanded.
"It's Jump, where else would we be?" The girl snapped angrily, she thought she heard a mutter of 'told you' from one to the other.
"You're lying!" Robin shouted frustratedly, the girl cocked her head to the side and black wolf ears twitched, a smile spread across her face.
"Fine, don't believe me. But if you don't know who I am or where you are I'm betting you didn't know to hide me better from my team mate and he's looking for me, you're running out of time and fast." She grinned before tilting her head back and making a sound that should never have come from a human throat, a perfect wolf howl.
The garage door exploded in an instant and a blur sped through the room and threw Robin against the wall. Robin stared wide eyed into the face of his oldest friend or at least it was almost his face, there were a few different subtle touches, higher cheekbones, a sharper jaw, redder hair with less orange tones in it of course the less subtle difference was the fiercely glowing pink eyes, it was however unmistakably the face of Kid Flash. The face of Kid flash registered surprise, shock and a hint or horror, he dropped Robin to the floor as his eyes ceased to glow and returned to blue increasing the resemblance to the Kid Flash Robin knew. Robin looked the boy up and down, the outfit he wore only increased the resemblance the colour patterns were different but the colours themselves were still the same although with more red than yellow and the unmistakable lightning bolt across the chest.
"Jesus…" The boy breathed stepping back and staring at Robin.
"Kid Flash?" Robin ventured.
"No, well, kinda." The boy murmured looking from Robin to the others.
"Bolt?" The girl called as she pushed herself up to a standing position against the wall.
"Jeez, sorry." The boy quickly apologised and zipped behind her, freeing her from her restraints.
"Have you seen them?" The Kid Flash look-alike asked jerking his thumb in Robin's direction.
"No, I'm half blind from that aniseed remember? I can't smell a damn thing either." The girl growled at him and rubbed her wrists.
"Oh right, sorry. Heh, this is probably the only time I've had better senses than you isn't it? Hmmm how can I exploit this situation to my advantage?" He grinned cheekily.
"He sounds like Kid Flash." Cyborg commented stepping closer to the boy to look at him and stepping out of the shadows at the same time. The girl's eyes widened in shock and she jumped back against the wall.
"Jesus!" She yelped.
"That's what I said." The redhead said smirking at her.
"What's going on here, are you Kid Flash or not?" Cyborg asked confused.
"Not quite, my name's Bolt, although I'm also known as- mmf!" He yelped muffled through the pale hand clamped over his mouth.
"Please try not to do anything stupid Bolt, like, say erasing yourself from history." She said slowly and quietly in his ear as she eyed the Titans who were mostly out of the shadows now suspiciously.
"What do you mean erase yourself from history?" Beast Boy asked stepping forward into the light as his sensitive ears picked up the whispered words.
"Smooth, Aya, smooth." The boy smirked again.
"You're no better." She replied shoving him.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on here?" Cyborg asked frustratedly, the wolf girl known as Aya and the boy who was apparently Bolt looked at him carefully.
"We're in the future. That's what she means by him erasing himself from history, if we know too much about his family our knowing might effect his parents getting together at the right time or not at all and make it so he was never born, effectively erasing him from history, is that right?" Robin asked, Aya nodded at Robin's calculated guess.
"But I have been forward in time before, nothing bad happened." Starfire pointed out in an attempt to be reassuring.
"But it did, you changed the future, this isn't the same future that you went to then is it?" Aya pointed out reasonably.
"How would you know she went to the future? Star you were absent from the future you went to weren't you? Your adult self wasn't there was she?" Raven asked suspiciously.
"No, I had disappeared from the moment I left." Starfire agreed.
"But if you know about Starfire going through time one of us must have told you so our future selves are here? We could run into them?" Raven asked.
"Awesome! I wanna see my future self, I want to make sure I'm not bald." Beast Boy said grasping his hair nervously.
"No! You can't!" Aya yelped.
"And why not?" Cyborg asked raising an eyebrow.
"Because… it might cause a paradox!" Aya pointed out.
"Yeah, we kinda like the fabric of space and time how it is. And you know, it'd suck to have to redecorate." Bolt grinned cheekily.
"Either way, we need to get them back to the tower as fast as possible. You know the protocals, they cannot be seen by anyone, much less their future selves." Aya said turning to Bolt with a serious look.
"Okay, so we walk them back to the tower. Big deal, I don't see why you're so fussed." Bolt said with a careless shrug.
"Oh yeah, just let any old nutjob take a stab at the greatest heroes this city has ever known, let any villain with a grudge find out that there's a way to erase them and us from history. Great plan, I didn't realise it was possible to live so long without a brain, now come on. We can take the rooftops." Aya growled jabbing Bolt in the chest before turning on her heel and walking out of the garage and out into the snowing alleyway.
"She's pleasant." Beast Boy said with a wrinkle of his nose.
"She's fine, she just… thrives on protocals on rules and regulations, something that could destroy her whole system scares her. Plus, seeing you guys is freaky enough for me, let alone her." Bolt said with a sigh and a shrug.
"That doesn't sound like a good quality in a leader." Robin said folding his arms and frowning.
"Geeze, why does everyone always think Aya's the leader? I'm the leader." Bolt grumbled running a frustrated hand through his hair.
"Then she doesn't sound like a good team member." Robin replied.
"You don't know her, she's good at what she does." Bolt shot back with a glare.
"And that is?" Robin prompted.
"Catching criminals, solving crimes and frustrating the hell out of me." Bolt muttered leading the way outside.
"We can take my patrol route back to the tower, it'll avoid all the streets and pedestrians, hopefully no one should see you." Aya said turning to look at the others as they made their way outside, she leapt up and bounced up to the roof top.
"Why do you have a patrol route that doesn't even touch the streets?" Cyborg asked Aya as Starfire lifted him up onto the roof.
"Necessity." Aya said flatly, "I'll see you back at the tower, I'm going to go ahead to make sure there's no chance of these lot running into themselves." Aya added looking around Cyborg to Bolt.
"Got ya." Bolt nodded as Aya transformed and bounded off on the rooftops in the direction of the Titan's tower.
"Why is it necessary for her to not patrol on the streets?" Cyborg asked turning to Bolt.
"Unfortunately for us in our time the second generations of Titans aren't as popular as you five were. The city more or less hates us, Aya especially. Any animal attack within a hundred miles of here is blamed on her, people telling lies about her going insane on a full moon and slaughtering children. All lies I might add. They call me a 'trust fund titan' only in because of who my parents are, the rest of my team comprises of a psychic possessed by a demon from hell and an alien from a race that's declared war on us and frequently kills any humans in the galaxy they can find. We're not exactly popular, so Aya guards the city from up here, keeps an eye on things without the mob and pitchforks after her." Bolt said with a sad sigh.
"Man, that sucks. Sorry I asked." Cyborg apologised.
"Yeah, well. We do our best to try and turn people's assumptions but we've got some pretty big boots to fill thanks to you guys." Bolt shrugged as he jumped to the opposite rooftop.
"So you are Kid Flash's Kid, or rather… Flash now I suppose?" Robin asked carefully.
"Yup. I know I'm meant to lie and not tell you anything about who any of us are but with me it's a little pointless seeing as I'm pretty much a carbon copy looks wise." Bolt laughed.
"You don't talk like him though, you laugh like him… but you talk differently." Robin noted.
"Well you wouldn't think it the way my mom yells at us, 'stop talking at a million miles an hour the pair of you, now shut up or I'll throw you both out!'" Bolt mimicked with a laugh.
"I can imagine life with two of you could be more than a little draining." Raven said flatly.
"Gee. Thanks." Bolt said rolling his eyes. Slowly the lights of the Titan's tower came into view across the horizon amidst the blackness of the waters of the lake.
"Here we go, home sweet home." The red head smiled as he skidded down the fire escape of the last building between them and the Titans Tower.
"Hey, Aya's there." Cyborg said as they drew closer to the Tower. Aya stood by the doors of the tower arguing with her Titan's communicator and striding angrily from side to side.
"What? No! I didn't break it or disable the tracker on purpose, why would I? …I… what? No. It just broke. …sometimes things just break okay? No I was not kidnapped- well then Bolt misinformed you. It was all just a big misunderstanding." Aya said into the communicator as she shot Bolt a dark look.
"I thought he should know!" Bolt hissed defencively.
"No, look, I'm fine but I've got work to do right now, I'll promise I'll show up later to prove to you that I'm not dead in some alleyway okay? Bye." Aya said rolling her eyes and closing the communicator.
"Ah. I'm in trouble aren't I?" Bolt asked with a wince.
"Oh yeah, you know you shouldn't worry him like that." Aya sighed running a hand through her black hair.
"It was a whole hour with you off the map and if you had gone missing and I hadn't found you then you know he'd have skinned me alive." Bolt pointed out.
"Yes I know. Not that he's going to have bought that lie anyway, but it's not like I can tell him the truth is it? Ugh. I hate time travel, let's go inside and see if we can get them back." Aya said as she turned and pressed the panel by the door which registered her handprint and slid open.
"Welcome back Aya." Cyborg's voice greeted her as the door opened fully.
"Whoa, was that me?" Cyborg blinked shocked.
"Eh, kinda. It's your automated system, it's more creepy than anything." Bolt grinned weakly as he followed Aya inside, the Titan's followed feeling strange to have to be invited into their own home by other people. Robin looked around, not much in the place had changed, the large TV screen still flickered warmly on mute along with several large computer banks and stations across the place, the kitchen looked pretty much unchanged apart from the new Titans sitting around in it. A girl with unnaturally bright looking red hair gawped at them.
"Whoa, is-" She gasped before being interrupted by Aya as she walked past.
"Time travel, trying to prevent paradoxes, don't say anything dumb." Aya finished as she arrived at the large screened monitor and computer bank. The girl paused before poking her tongue out at Aya behind her back.
"I'd like you all to meet my sister, this is Lucy, although we don't exactly call her that." Bolt grinned at them.
"Lucky." Aya snorted as she tapped onto the computer keys.
"Heh, totally. You know when you name pets lucky they always end up being like, run over and end up loosing half their limbs and one ear, my sister is like, the least lucky person ever. I mean she's blown up her half of the tower six times this year already, and it's February! She's been possessed by a demon which we've not been able to do anything about really. Oh man, she's ALWAYS getting into-ACK!" Bolt yelped jumping to the side as a burst of flame ripped through the air from his sister's fingers, narrowly missing him.
"Unfortunately for my idiot brother here, since I got possessed, I've been able to do that." Lucky muttered folding her arms knowing that the name had now irrevocably stuck with these new people.
"So what brings them here fuzzball? You got a lead yet?" Lucky asked with a grin as she looked over to Aya.
"I'm going to ignore that Lucky, and yes as a matter of fact." Aya said triumphantly as she pulled the data up on the screen, she turned to look at Robin.
"This was the guy you were chasing right?" Aya asked as she pointed up to the image of the man on the screen, Robin nodded.
"That's him, you think that he activated the machine? It looked more like he dropped it when we were following him." Robin said stepping closer to the screen.
"Well, it's a good start. His future self is dead, but that doesn't mean that he didn't come through with you." Aya said pointing out the mark of deceased mark on the man's profile.
"But I never saw him in that alleyway, and we didn't see him running off anywhere either." Robin pointed out.
"True, but he's the most sensible place to start. I'll get going." Aya nodded and turned to leave only to be stopped by a hand firmly holding onto the big steel collar around her neck.
"Oh no you don't. You just got hit by an aniseed bomb and knocked out at the very least you're gonna stay here for five minutes and get your sense of smell back properly." Bolt said flatly.
"But… I've got lots to do. I've got to go look at the alleyway before the trail goes cold, check out the make of the machine and where it is now and I've got that errand to run for the embassy and- and…" Aya stumbled as Bolt glared at her.
"No. I'm going to go boil some water to clear your sinuses and you are going to sit there and just do nothing for five minutes." He retorted walking into the kitchen.
"But-" She tried helplessly.
"No! You. That chair. Now." Bolt snapped back, Aya obediently sat down on one of the bar stools surrounding the kitchen island with her ears drooping sadly.
"You need to learn to relax Aya." Lucky said rolling her pink eyes.
"I can relax, I'm just to busy to right now." Aya protested.
"That's exactly what I mean." She snorted in response.
"So… if this is Jump in the future, how many years forward are we? None of my internal clocks are working." Cyborg said after a moment or two of silence in which the Titans had felt a little ignored.
"It's 2034 and that's probably because none of your components are compatible with modern technology anymore." Lucky replied.
"Wow, we went forward twenty six years? That's a lot." Cyborg whistled lowly.
"Yup. You're all old now." Lucky grinned cheekily at them.
"Hey, it's not that old." Cyborg said rolling his one human eye.
"Dude! It so is! We're like… sixty four!" Beast Boy exclaimed horrified.
"You idiot, you're sixteen now, how does sixteen and twenty six make sixty four? You'd be forty two, and still a moron no doubt." Raven corrected Beast Boy irritably.
"Aww, it's not his fault. Math is hard." Bolt smiled sympathetically as he put down the bowl of steaming water in front of Aya, he shot her a look and handed her a towel, Aya rolled her eyes and leant over the steam with the towel around her head.
"Math isn't THAT hard." Raven shot back.
"So tell me friend Bolt, can you tell us anything about ourselves as we are now or must it be a secret?" Starfire asked with eager interest.
"Well, the more we tell you the more dangerous the whole thing gets for us, maybe if we can find someone who can erase your memories before you go back we might be able to tell you stuff but as for now it'd probably be best if you just stay here and try and remain as ignorant about everything in our time as possible." Bolt explained.
"Oh, I see." Starfire said deflating slightly.
"Sorry Starfire." Bolt said holding his hands up in defeat. Aya leant back and rubbed her flushed face from the moisture sticking to it and sniffed experimentally.
"I think I'm good to go." Aya said standing up from the barstool.
"I thought we said five minutes Aya." Bolt said narrowing his eyes at her.
"Hm. I was fairly sure YOU said five minutes. Anyway, I can smell now, so I can track these five back to the alley and go hunt for clues and the million other things I have to get done tonight." Aya said with a shake of her head.
"It's midnight already Aya, you can't just be out all night." Bolt protested with a worried look on his face.
"I'll be fine. Now, I'll see if I can't track your guy down, you all smell like a different kind of Jump city, it shouldn't be too hard to track down that smell on someone else if I start where you lot came through, and failing that I'll see if I can't beat some information out of a few of our old friends." Aya said as she turned to the Titans, she flashed them a smile.
"Well, what about us?" Bolt asked as Aya walked off towards the door.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll think of something." Aya smiled before turning back into a wolf and padding out of the open door.
"And who's the leader here again? Just remind me." Lucky smirked at Bolt.
"Oh, shut up." Bolt muttered.
"Heh, he's never able to tell her what to do, she's somewhat of a lone wolf, no pun intended." A blue boy with slightly translucent skin smiled wryly.
"This is the last member of our team, Ice." Bolt introduced him distractedly as he looked out across the door with a worried look on her face.
"Does she always run out on her own?" Cyborg asked looking surprised at Aya's sudden disappearance.
"Yeah, she's… something else certainly." Bolt nodded with a sigh.