Ah yes, I realized that I forgot to put this into the last chapter at the beginning.

So here it is in this one!

The sequel is here! Mwahaha! Enough of that for now. I just want everyone reading this story, especially any lawyers who don't have anything better to do with their time than scan fanfiction sites, to know that I do NOT own the Teen Titans. Or Edna Mode. Or John Smith, for that matter, for he belongs to the one and only Phaethon. You should check his stories out too; Smoke and Mirrors and Wraiths and Hauntings. They're spectacular.

So, without further ado or silliness, here it is.

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Robin was not happy.

Now when I say that, it is an extreme understatement. Not only was he furious that I went for a walk (unauthorized, of course), but he was livid when I told him of my conversation with X. Somehow, I think he didn't like the idea of someone on his team conversing with the enemy and not arresting him. Fortunately, when he heard about my fight with the red-haired guy who claimed to be Slade, his interest was piqued and the steam coming from his ears seemed to die down.

"Control Freak," he said. "It was Control Freak. He loves to control things, but ordinarily, he only has control over televisions and some other miscellaneous electronic devices. And he definitely isn't that strong."

"Dude, the guy is like, a fat nerd!" exclaimed Beast Boy. "There's no way he could beat me up, let alone you."

"That's where it gets complicated…" I replied. "You see, X told me about some stuff he'd found in Slade's lair. Some stuff called tresterium." And then I told them all about what it did.

Raven looked grim. "That's probably what Control Freak was on. That would make sense if he were the one in Slade's hideout; he'd have access to security codes, etc. that would make controlling Slade's robots very easy."

"Yes, but what I don't understand is how Control Freak fits into this. Sure, he's a villain and all, but he's no supervillain, and he sure isn't bright enough to get into Slade's lair, let alone come up with this diabolical plan." Robin paced the room. "There's got to be someone behind this. I would say Slade under the normal circumstances, but I can't imagine that even he would let Control Freak just mess around with his robots."

"That, and Slade is gone. Remember?" I pointed out. "He was still inside Tierce when Tylan defeated him four months ago. He's got to still be inside that sword."

"Well, friends, it seems to me that we should go to the island of volcano and see friend Tylan." Starfire was laying on the couch with her head off the couch and her feet on the cushions.

"That's a good idea. I forgot to tell you; SHROUD shorted out and broke last night." I stood up. "It's a good thing GRAVE's generator didn't blow or the entire city would have been leveled."

"You know, I don't like the idea of you running around with an unregistered antimatter reactor on your back," Raven stated.

"We both know it's the only way to get myself around. And while I'm not powerless without SHROUD, it sure makes me feel a lot safer." I turned and went to the door. "Robin, I'm taking the T-ship to E's island. I'll ask Tylan about the whereabouts of Slade and the others, and while I'm at it, I'll see if E can fix my suit."

"Sounds good." Robin tossed me the keys to the T-ship. "See if you can get Tylan to fix that buzzing in the engine too; we don't have Cyborg around anymore…"

Everyone around the room bowed their head in silence at the memory of how their friend had been killed in the terrible incidents of four months before. His soul was locked inside the sword just as Slade's was, and while Raven had searched every book she owned for a way to perhaps restore him to his body, she had not found anything.

I turned to go to the garage. It was to be a long flight, and I wanted to get started.

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I approached the island that was E's residence and brought the T-ship down low. I landed it without a hitch, and climbed out of the cockpit to find Tylan standing on the landing pad waiting for me.

As I climbed down, I saw that he was now wearing a stylish black suit with white tie instead of customary t-shirt and jeans. He was grinning, as usual, and he extended his hand as he approached.

"How's my second favorite superhero?" he asked as I took his hand and shook. He turned and walked to the gate that would lead to the main complex.

"Not the best," I replied, truthfully. "I need to ask you and E a couple favors."

"Shoot."

"First, the T-ship has an annoying buzzing noise in the engine. It hasn't caused a problem yet, but I wanted to know if perhaps it would become a problem."

"No problem. That'll be a piece of cake to fix. What else?"

"Second, I need information about Slade's whereabouts."

He stopped and looked at me. "He's where he's been the past four months. With me, locked safely away in a vault with a triple-mutating algorithm lock. Nobody's getting in there. Maybe not even me."

"Okay, that's good."

"Tell me the story of why you want to know now. Tell me your third thing later."

"How did you know I needed three things?" I was mystified.

He tapped his temple. "I'm just smart like that."

"Whatever. Anyway…" I launched into the story for the second time. He listened intently as we continued through the corridors of the facility. I finished just as we arrived in E's tea room.

She dropped to the floor from her chair. "Ah, my dear boy! You haven't had tea with me yet like you promised! Oh, it's a terrible shame, too, because I discovered the most delicious brew! I know superhero business is consuming, believe me dear, I know, after all, I work with them on a regular basis, but still…"

"E! He's not here for tea!" Tylan interrupted her. "He's here for some help."

"Oh, well in that case, that boy over there…" she pointed at Tylan, "...is simply the most fabulous partner I could ask for! He has developed some simply ingenious things over the past few months, and I'm sure I could never have come up with them myself. Of course," she said, pulling me aside, "he has the most horrendous fashion sense! Simply absurd! He wants everything to be black or gray! Terrible, darling, simply TERRIBLE!" She shouted the last word.

"I can hear you, you know, E," Tylan said mildly. He turned to me. "It's true, though. I like black, but I'll admit here and now that I have zero fashion sense." He grinned. "So I design the tech, and E makes it fashionable. An excellent arrangement, if I do say so myself."

I raised an eyebrow. "Remember who it was who set you up with that?"

"Of course I do! And I can't thank you enough! Which is why the repairs to your suit are free!"

"What the…?" Again, I was mystified. "How did you know?"

He drew himself up, and puffed on an imaginary pipe. "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary." He laughed. "You're not wearing SHROUD. Instead, it's waiting in your ship, as if you were bringing it to the dry cleaners." He waved his hand. "Oh, don't be so surprised. We run energy scans on every craft coming into the island. We know exactly where GRAVE is. So what's the issue with it?"

I sighed, relieved that he wasn't really omniscient like he appeared to be. "Well, in that fight I told you about, something happened with the bio-circuitry that caused it to short out. The brain cells are dead, and so I can't activate either piece."

"Hmm… you know, the funny thing is, I was preparing something special for you in the case that this happened. Brain cells have to die eventually, even if they do belong to the great Edna Mode." He turned to her. "Can I show him the new item?"

She waved her hand. "Of course, of course! Run along, now, darling, and Tylan will show you his special project. He's been working on it for three weeks now, and I must say, aside from the fashion sense, it is simply spectacular." She smiled sweetly. "And don't forget, you must come over for tea sometime."

"Ok." That was all I said. I didn't really like tea anyway, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

"Shall we?" Tylan asked. He turned to go and we descended several flights of stairs.

We approached the titanium-clad door that marked the top-secret display room. I cringed. I was going to hate this part…

And I was not disappointed.

Tylan placed his palm on a scanner, typed in a password with the other hand, stuck his eye into a retina scanner, and then spoke clearly, "Tylan Contar…"

Immediately a dozen lazer cannons popped from the ceiling, every single one aimed at me.

"…and guest," he hastily added. The lasers retreated into the ceiling.

"Why does everyone always forget that part?" I asked despairingly.

"Sorry. It must be because it's very rare that we actually get a customer. At least, one who actually wants to see the merchandise in person."

"I suppose that's true…" I followed him into the room… and my eyes went wide. Everywhere were suits of every shape and color.

"Oh, don't bother with those. Those are simply concept models. Floor demos, if you will. I'm going to show you the finished prototype." He pulled a keycard from his pocket, and with it, he opened a large safe on the wall opposite the door. Inside was a single suit, which to my eyes looked to be a long-sleeved body stocking. And the suit was… surprise, surprise… black.

He gestured at it. "How do you like it?"

"Well, it's black, so I like it. But it won't exactly go with my current suit." I put my chin in my hand. "I do like the color, don't get me wrong, but white and black don't exactly go together with white on the outside."

"Well, that's why I designed two options," he stated. "On the one hand, I created an undersuit in white, in case you wanted to keep your current color. Or, I designed a new, black overcoat nearly identical to your old SHROUD coat. With a few improvements, of course."

"Of course. What kind of improvements?" I asked.

He grinned, his smile nearly splitting his face in half. "I was hoping you would ask." He took the sleeve of the black undersuit. "This undersuit is intended to be a strength enhancer and an additional layer of armor, should you need it." He ran his hand over the fabric. "This is Kevlar interwoven with psitanium."

"Wait, just a second. Raven told me about this stuff. It's what you used in your old armor, right?" I questioned.

He nodded. "Exactly. But here's the thing; rather than injecting you with it, although that would work too, I made it into what are essentially muscle fibers in the actual shirt."

"Explain."

He sighed. "Ok, when psitanium is subjected to electromagnetic energy, it creates a psionic field, and vice versa. So when you use psionic energy on it, it is highly pliable. So, by subjecting it to a psionic field such as you possess, you can influence its shape."

"So?"

"So this shape change can be used to create the same effect as muscles pulling on bones! It'd be like having an extra set of muscles that don't need body energy!"

"Is that how you were so strong in your armor?"

"Not exactly." He steepled his fingers. "Back then, I hadn't come up with the idea yet, and I also didn't have the technology to weave it into fabric. Instead, I put psitanium plates on the outside and manipulated them using sheer psionic force. Much less efficient, I assure you."

"I can imagine."

"So anyway, I installed new circuitry in the suit, so that rather than take focus and energy to manipulate human brain cells, which in turn control the suit, I just decided to skip the middle man, so to speak, and do a direct brain-to-suit link."

I frowned. "How does that work? I don't exactly have a chip in my brain, and I don't really want one."

He was unperturbed. "I figured as much, which is why I created a helmet for you that reads brain patterns. You'll have to configure it yourself, of course; my brain patterns would do different things than yours. This will "stimulate" the "muscles" of your undersuit and move them with just a thought. But I ran into a problem in development: the movement of the muscle wires outpaced the movement of the actual human muscles, so it frequently resulted in injury."

"Oh joy. I knew there had to be a catch." I rolled my eyes.

"I fixed it, however, by also building in a direct electrical stimulation system; the same system that reads your brain waves that result in muscle movement will not only trigger the muscle wires but also directly stimulate your muscles, completely bypassing your much slower nervous system. This could theoretically result in reflexes up to three times what you are normally capable of. It could probably surpass even your Illusion's capacity for reflex enhancement."

"Strange. But fascinating. Anything else?"

"I also constructed a system that would allow you to activate SHROUD or GRAVE by the same neural link. This, along with the increased strength in your legs, should enable you to leap up to one hundred feet vertically."

I wolf-whistled. That would be quite an improvement over the twenty-foot leaps I was accustomed to. I had to admit, the suit was quite an amazing piece of machinery.

He grinned. "There's more."

"More?" I gasped.

He nodded. "Yep." He led me to another safe, this one containing a black trench coat. "This is the updated SHROUD. I know E hates black, but I thought you might like a change. In any case, in addition to the normal polarized adamantium you already know and love, I added a couple of concealed flaps with those psitanium fibers in them as well, so your coat can take a number of shapes. Then, if polarized, it will hold that shape until depolarized. So you could, say, form bat wings and use them to glide if you wanted to. That's just one idea; the possibilities are literally endless."

I was already imagining the things I could use it for.

He frowned. "I was going to add a couple of other features two, including limited invisibility, but you came a bit sooner than expected. If you want, I could take your current SHROUD and fix it up with those extras."

"That would be great…" I said distantly. I still had my mind on all the things my new SHROUD could do… and it was black, like I'd wanted originally. I wondered how Raven would react.

As if he could read my mind, Tylan asked, "So, how is Raven? You guys getting along alright?"

That shook me out of my daydream. "Yeah, everything's great. She's great, I'm great, we're great."

He grinned again. "Spectacular! Tell her I said hi."

I looked at him again. "Say, you know how you made me that helmet?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Could you possibly fit that into a regular brimmed hat?"

"Like the one you already have? Sure, I guess. But I really like helmets."

I sighed. "I know you do. But it just wouldn't go with the whole trench coat theme. I do have fashion sense to think of, after all."

"I suppose. Well, I'll do that, and then you can be on your way. In the meantime, what are you doing for lunch?"

My stomach growled at the mere mention of the word. "Now that you mention it, I am kinda hungry…"

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And there it is, folks, the second chapter of the story! And, starting with this chapter, I am going to adopt a common practice of replying to reviews in my story!

Criesblood: Thanks, dear! I love you!

Phaethon: Yes, I did. If nothing else, people begin to wonder. And then they come and read your story. Yes, as you now know, he did get his butt kicked by Control Freak, and went to see E and Tylan. And thank you. I try to write Smith as well as I can.

That's all, until next chapter, at least!

::Ghostalker::