Hello everybody. Balkoth here with yet another story idea. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't be starting another one but this has been nagging at me for a while now. I'll try to keep a steady update stream going but Collapse is my first priority. Enjoy.

Of Gumshoes and Moonlighters (A Teen Titans ff)

Rachel Roth was your regular slightly creepy poetry club owner, at least during the day. We all have masks though, facets of our personality that we restrain of hide until the appropriate time.

Richard Grayson and Garfield Logan were private investigators. Both had know each other for years and if you asked either they would say that even one year had been way too much. They may bother each other but they were still friends and worked together in a strage Twilight Zoneish synchronization.

Funny and good cop working with obsessive abrassive bad cop on cases from petty theft to kidnapping to homocide. They moved out of Gotham to get away from all the messes that popped up there. The two moved to Jump City and picked up a semi-normal life.

It looked as if the two sleuths would be retiring from the detective business until they learned about The Raven. The Raven seemed to be a small time thief that stole random things at random times but as they meet her, as they try to catch her, Richard and Garfield will find that The Raven is only a small part of a much larger scheme.

Disclaimer: Balkoth does not own the Teen Titans. This is a work of fiction, the product of which belongs rightfully to Balkoth. Any resemblance between real events or persons, living or dead, is unintentual.

Indefinite Vacation

Richard Grayson, Dick between friends, was retired. He had been for some time. In his prime, Dick had been a private investigator with his long-time partner and friend, Garfield Logan. Usually people called him Gar because he hated that he shared a name with an animated cat.

Now that Dick was retired he wrote. Not a lot, and never under his real name, preferring instead to use a made up name. What he wrote were his more… unusual… adventures as an investigator. It had been years since he thought about it. Now was finally the time to make the story known.

Dick had written a few books now, seven to be exact, all under the same name. For most of the world the detectives Richard Grayson and Garfield Logan were fictional characters. Barely anybody realized that the stories and the people were real. That was fine for Dick. He had put off writing this story. It was both the most magical and most painful experience of his life. It had started off regularly enough. Back when he and Gar had just left Gotham to pick up a less hectic life.

Roland Wand was a track star. He had been a genius runner in high school, ran professionally in college, and had taken a silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics for his performance in the 1500-meter race. Mr. Wand was currently walking out of a coffee shop with a steaming Styrofoam cup of Jo in one hand and a paper bag with a freshly baked glazed doughnut in the other.

It was bright and warm out. There was a light breeze but other than that there was nothing to indicate the quickly approaching winter season. For the second Tuesday in autumn this was nice. Only a few wisps of white dared to dance against the otherwise uniform blue above Gotham City. If you went downtown you'd doubtlessly have seen factories spewing green fumes into the air, guaranteeing that the next generation on the planet got to suffer from Global Warming and a poisoned air and water supply.

As Roland continued his usual morning walk to pick up the paper he took in all the glory that was Gotham City. Some parts might not have been too glamorous but it was his home. Why he walked to get the paper when he had enough money to have it delivered was anyone's guess but there were just some things that needed to be constant in life. For Mr. Wand, walking to get the paper was one of these constants.

A light blue van pulled up next to the curb after the light turned red. Roland was pretty close and saw as one of the side doors was pulled open. Next, he saw a woman who looked to be about twenty-four; granted, he'd never been good at guessing people's ages. Woman were especially hard nowadays with all the cosmetics and surgeries that existed to keep them looking young.

The woman didn't step out of the van. Instead, she twisted around as if the driver was speaking to her. The door wasn't one of those automatic child-safe contraptions but was an older model, using wheels like they had in the good old days. The way the woman was turned gave a very nice view of her profile. Now Roland was into females. Almost too into them if that was possible. By his expert opinion those had to be 38C at the least.

Any other predatory and sexually related observations Roland might have made were cut off when he was tackled from behind. He had been maybe three or four feet from the van and the distance was closed in no time. The woman jerked to the side, allowing Roland and his attacker to fly into the van. Roland distantly heard the woman shout "Drive!"

The car gunned forward, the engine making it's protest known. The door slid forward on it's wheels and slammed shut. What happened next was a blur for Roland. He was punched, kicked, and stripped of everything – this included valuables and clothes. Images were indistinct and hard to make out, as if his eyes had decided to stop working and were only active some of the time. Fade in, fade out, fade in, fade out.

A sharp pain met his arm. He tried to jerk it away but found he couldn't. Somehow he'd gotten tied up or pinned. Another sharp jolt of pain, this time on his left quad. Another and another on and on until Roland Wand lost consciousness, permanently.

"This is just fucking great!" A man dressed in a police uniform yelled to the sky. Captain Edward Coven was well known for his explosive temper and even if the team around him knew he wasn't angry with them each and every one jumped after the man's outburst.

The Captain's anger was understandable. They were, after all, dealing with the dead body of a celebrity. The identification had just come in about a minute ago and the police autopsy team now knew that the naked Caucasian that had been found inside Gotham Park's fountain was Roland Wand, the Olympic Silver medallist.

The man's body was already stiff due to rigor mortis. The usually well kept sandy blonde hair looked like a nest of thatch. All over the man's body there were small plastic canisters that were attached by hypothermic needles. When the body had been found the capsules hadn't all been empty and because of this the knowledge that every one of them was a controlled release stimulant had been easy to obtain.

Apparently, the killers had a sense of humor. Roland Wand had been accused of stimulant use a few times but nothing had ever been proven. The verdict was out on the accusations: if Roland Wand had actually used stimulants he would have still been alive.

Captain Coven felt useless and so instead wandered around looking at what everyone else was doing. His first day as a Captain and this had to happen. The man was of a unique ethnicity, Italian with a mix of Celtic thrown in for good measure. His facial features were sharp because of the blend. Not unpleasantly sharp but he always looked as if he was on his guard.

Mentally preparing himself, Coven decided that there was no other option. He hated having to do this but they were going to need help on this case. Pulling a cell-phone out of his pocket, Coven hit the one button. It was sad, really, that these guys were his first call instead of the police station via his radio. It was also pretty sad that these people were on speed dial. The police force in Gotham City should have been able to handle this. No, they couldn't even do that. Even with the elusive Batman downtown and these boys up here they had there hands and feet full.

After four rings the receiver picked up. "Hello, you've reached Logan and Grayson."

"Logan," Coven started, trying to figure out just how to say what he needed to.

"If you're listening to this recording you're a little too late." Garfield Logan's recorded voice continued sounding delighted.

Coven vented another colorful string of curses while the recording continued. "My partner and I are going on an indefinite vacation. Meaning we may not ever be coming back! Ha! Take that! Clean up your own messes because I'm out of here, baby!"

The recording continued with Garfield's voice throwing taunts at his caller. Finally, the boy's farewell message was mercifully stopped when the other member of Logan and Grayson broke in, obviously just finding out what his associate had been doing. "Garfield!"

"Dude, Garfield is a cat obsessed with lasagna. Do I look like a cat? I didn't think so…" there was a beeping sound indicating that a message could now be left. Either Grayson had stopped the recording or Logan had used up all the time that was allotted for pre-recorded messages. Coven hung up without bothering to say anything. For this case, the Gotham City Police Department was on its own.

It was true; Garfield Logan and Richard Grayson had pulled their junk together the previous Sunday and headed out. Gotham was a hive for scum and villainy. They had originally been P.I.'s, private investigators, but as time went on they basically became an extension of the Gotham Police. Underpaid as it was. There was too much going on in Gotham and both Logan and Grayson were done with it. It was time to move on. They were currently en-route to Jump City, California. In retrospect, it may have been better for everyone if they had stayed in Gotham.

Next Update At The Latest: Friday, June 23, 2006