Chapter Two: The Shocking Discovery

The masked dark-haired boy stared at Efim. "Why not? Is someone else already running around claiming to be the Teen Titans?"

"Yo! First things first!" barked the mostly-metal guy. "If we can nail down the date, I can recalibrate some software and get a better handle on things! We can argue about identity theft later!"

"Good point," the dark-haired kid conceded. "Excuse me, but do you happen to know today's date in the Christian Calendar?"

Efim said promptly, "Friday, the fourth of June. Around here, we still use the same seven-days-a-week and twelve-months-a-year system that was popular in the era you say you came from, with each New Year beginning about ten days after the Winter Solstice. But we number the years differently, especially since a lot of record-keeping got disrupted by the Troubles." He paused to do a little mental arithmetic. He happened to remember he'd been born in 2753 C.E. (estimated), therefore . . . "The best estimate is 2771 C.E. by the old reckoning."

The golden girl looked blank. "C.E.? Does that tell us anything helpful?"

The girl in midnight blue said drily, "It means the same thing as A.D. as far as the basic numbering is concerned—it's just that non-Christians are often happier measuring time in terms of a 'Common Era' instead of 'Anno Domini.'"

The green boy scratched his head. "Anno Whatsis?"

The girl in midnight blue sighed, and then began to quietly give the golden girl and the green boy a crash course in the history of the 'most popular' calendar system and the meaning of certain scraps of Latin.

Meanwhile, the mostly-metal guy had been punching a few keys. "Okay, June 4, 2771. Even if that's a couple of years off, it oughta be close enough for government work until I can fine-tune it by studying the night sky!"

"Good work," the dark-haired boy approved. "Without a decent chronological fix, we'd have a miserable time trying to figure out how to set the controls for a new wormhole so that we ended up back where we belong!"

Efim stared at him. "Are you still sticking to that story about time travel? You don't seem to be acting like you really mean it!"

"We're not?" asked the dark-haired boy. "What should we be acting like?"

"If that robot that got away from this fight is so important, I'd expect you to be chasing after it right this moment before it hides in a cellar or something!"

The dark-haired boy snorted. "Is that all that's worrying you? We can catch up with that fugitive robot any time we want to, after we've got our bearings!"

"You can?"

"Didn't you notice the robot with green stripes had a bit of an oil leak?"

Efim blinked. "No."

"Trust me—it did. So Beast Boy here can turn into a bloodhound and follow the fresh trail whenever we're ready to move." The dark-haired boy glanced at the surrounding ruins. "I don't think much other machinery has been running around this area dripping lubricants recently."

Efim took some comfort in seeing, from their reactions, that none of the dark-haired boy's friends had noticed an oil leak either. But somehow he just knew it would turn out there was one—the dark-haired boy was so sure of himself that it seemed certain he rarely got caught out in any mistakes of memory or observation.

"Down to business!" the dark-haired boy said firmly. "You make it sound as if anyone we meet is likely to recognize our costumes—but if we tell them who we are, they'll call us liars, same as you did? Might be nice to have that explained before we go charging off into the wild blue yonder after that robot, or ask any local authorities for help if we need some!"

"I didn't actually call you liars," Efim politely pointed out.

"No," the mostly-metal guy said. "You just laughed when Rob said we were the Teen Titans, and you warned that nobody would believe a word of it. Is there a difference?"

"Perhaps I thought you were practical jokers instead of 'serious' impostors," Efim offered. His mind was racing. Did they really not understand the magnitude of their offense?

The green boy moved closer. "Impostors? Dude, why would we bother to impersonate some heroes who lived, what, more than seven hundred years ago from your point of view? The Teen Titans must be ancient history by now, so who really cares?"

"The Teen Titans were not just 'heroes,'" Efim said automatically. "They were the mortal avatars of gods!"

Five jaws dropped.

Looking around from one face to the next, Efim decided that if they were acting, they were incredibly good at it, one and all! In any other context, he would have sworn these people had just been blindsided with a totally unexpected shock! Was it possible they came from somewhere so far away that they knew nothing of the Faith of the Five?

"Please tell me you're pulling our legs," the dark-haired boy finally said, rather weakly.

Efim paused at the odd mental image that triggered. "Pulling your . . .?"

"Kidding. Joking. Joshing. Teasing. Just tell me you are!"

Efim shook his head. "I can't do that. I am a staunch member of the Faith of the Five, and we all believe—you might even say we know—that after the Five ascended to a higher reality, they continued to look down benevolently upon the world and provide guidance for a shattered humanity."

Even the hooded girl in midnight blue sounded a tad shaken as she said, "Huh. I've been called 'demonic,' but this has to be the first time anyone accused me of being 'divine.'" She floated forward and hovered in front of Efim, her eyes level with his as she sat cross-legged on nothing but air. "Now I'm dying to hear what makes you so certain that I'm not the original Raven of the Teen Titans. You never met any of us before, right? As mortals or otherwise? So how can you tell?"

Efim frowned. "Pull back your hood, then."

The girl in midnight blue shrugged and did so. Efim peered at her, stepping all the way around her hovering form to view her features from several angles. "No," he said finally. "You are not Raven the Titan."

"I'm not? This is fascinating. What makes you so certain?"

"Doesn't every member of the Faith know that the Queen of Air and Darkness, in her mortal incarnation, was one of the two loveliest women alive, with a sad, ethereal beauty that could wring a man's heart and tie it in a knot? That was said to be the primary reason she usually shrouded her face with a hood!"

(Off to Efim's left: The green boy goggled at that concept, but the mostly-metal guy slapped a big gleaming hand over his mouth and kept him from interrupting.)

The girl in midnight blue raised a delicate eyebrow. "Whereas I . . .?"

(Girls could be so touchy about their looks, he remembered.) "Don't get me wrong," Efim said hastily. "You're a very pretty girl and all that. And you must have gone to a lot of trouble to get that pale gray complexion and that violet hair just right! But when I look at your unhooded face I don't immediately stagger and gasp for breath as if someone had just squeezed the last ounce of air out of my lungs!"

"I am so disappointed to hear it. Theoretically, has it ever occurred to you that the stories of Raven's unearthly allure might have gotten just the teeniest bit exaggerated over the years?"

Efim chuckled. "It's only been suggested by unbelievers about a million times. So am I familiar with that hypothesis? Sure! Do I have any reason to be seriously worried about it? No!"

The mostly-metal guy looked at the dark-haired kid, who seemed to play the same role of 'team leader' that the real Robin had filled in the days of the mortal incarnations of the Five. "Rob, this is silly. If this guy wants to believe we're, like, mythological gods and goddesses, what do we care? I guess he's entitled to his opinion—but as soon as we get back home we can just write it off as a bad dream that probably won't ever happen! Like that time Starfire went twenty years ahead to a future where she'd been 'gone' the whole twenty years, and then she came right back to us to 'change history' so it never happened that way!"

"Patience, Cyborg. I get the feeling he isn't the only one who believes this. If everybody we meet is going to yell at us because we're 'pretending' to be their favorite deities, then we need to know in advance! Might even have to disguise ourselves if it turns out we're going to be stuck here for very long!"

Having offered that pronouncement, the dark-haired boy turned back to Efim. "Excuse me, Mister—I don't think I caught your name—"

"Just call me Efim."

"Efim. Sure. I'm Robin—or Rob, if you don't like calling anybody 'Robin.' I've got a request—we're going to try tracking that robot now, and maybe that will solve all our problems pretty darn quick. But it might not. Is there any chance you could wait here for a little while, and then—if we come back soon—tell us the bare essentials of your faith, and what sort of government you have in these parts, as if we were just a bunch of kids from a zillion miles away who didn't know anything? Just ignore the costumes, if it makes you feel better."

"That's reasonable," Efim conceded. "And I'm an Acolyte—a student of theology in the Faith of the Five—so I ought to be able to give you a decent summary of what's what. But I don't want to wait right here." He pointed to the tall structure a mile away. "I was actually headed for the Tower when you followed the robots through that black circle in the air. Suppose we agree to meet there in an hour? By then, I imagine you either will have found the robot, or given up on it for the moment?"

"Suits me fine. Beast Boy! Bloodhound! Let's go, Titans!"