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Mentors and Pupils, chapter 3
Location: The Birds of Prey's plane
Barbara woke to the smell of coffee. It was a wonderful smell. She put on a robe and maneuvered herself into her chair. She followed the smell and saw Match at the stove, making breakfast. It smelled good.
"You didn't have to do all of this," she said as she sipped her coffee, sighing in satisfaction. "We could have gone out."
"I was already awake," he said. "It was no bother."
"I figure we'll crack that encryption and see what we have," she said, laying out plans for the day. "We might try to take it easy after that."
"I've already begun work on that," he said. "I estimate it will be done within the next ninety minutes."
"How long have you been awake? It's only 8 AM!"
"I've been awake for roughly three hours. I did some morning exercises before beginning."
"That means you got less than four hours of sleep. That's not enough."
"I don't sleep much," he said.
"Neither do I, but you're still growing. Your system needs more sleep."
"My body runs off of solar energy. I don't need as much as others."
Location: Metropolis
"Is this always how you start your weekend?" Superboy asked as he punched an attempted hostage-taker in powered armor.
"Only on the three-day weekends," Superman quipped as he dealt with another armored foe.
"I really do think they would have learned by now to plan these sorts of things for cities other than Metropolis. I mean, isn't that like they're asking to be caught?"
"While I wish they wouldn't do it, I am glad they make it easy for me to catch them," Superman replied as he fired a blast of heat vision at another one. "How are you holding up?"
Kon sighed as he looked at the crowd in front of him. "There has got to be an easier way to go about this. Cover me; I'm going to try something."
Without waiting for a response, Kon dove into the midst of the would-be hostage-takers. It had been a very long time since he used his powers this way, but he willed the armor that he was touching to disassemble. It worked.
He flashed Superman a grin. "All right! I've still got the touch!"
"Retreat!" one of the few remaining men with armor called out. "We can't take them if we don't have our armor!"
While they had planned out their mission, it appeared that the criminals failed to practice a retreat. They were disorganized and easy for Superman and Superboy to capture.
"Good job!" Superman said. "Now, we can get back to breakfast."
"These guys should have known better than to try to commit a crime so early. Don't they know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?"
Location: The Birds of Prey plane
The data was decoded, and it was analyzed and passed on to those who could make the best use of it. It was only 10 AM.
"You threw my schedule off," Oracle admitted. "I figured that I'd have until at least early afternoon before all of this was done. Now, we're roughly five hours ahead of where I thought we'd be."
"I didn't know we were working on a schedule," Match apologized.
"We weren't; it's nothing to be sorry about. I didn't know you'd get such an early start, and I didn't think your computer skills were as good as they are."
"Thank you."
"You're really amazing. You can process information faster than I can, and I'm in the top one percent of the population. I wasn't expecting your implanted knowledge to be so thorough."
"I was trained to be an operative for all purposes. I believe they wanted to test whether it was a viable training method for other operatives."
"Did they implant knowledge in any others?"
"The results were mixed. It destroyed the minds of some while other subjects had varying rates of retention, but never at one hundred percent. I believe that it was the nature of my creation that allowed the process to be successful with me."
"What happened to your skin? Early pictures of you have you with absolutely white skin. You're still fair-skinned, but there's pigment in it now."
"The Groups decided that my original skin was too noticeable, so they decided to alter it. It took some painful genetic modification to do so."
Oracle winced. "I'm sorry to bring up bad memories."
"They're in the past. I don't mind."
"Is there anything you wanted to do?"
"I'm here to learn."
Barbara smiled. "Then we're going to have some fun today."
Location: Metropolis
"There must be a full moon out tonight," Superman said as he hit a giant robot that was rampaging through downtown Metropolis. "It's not normally this crazy."
Superboy swooped in and grabbed two bystanders moments before a chunk of building would have fallen on them. "This is, what, the third emergency we've dealt with today? It's not even noon!"
"I want you to knock it over while I pick it up," Superman said. "Let's see if it's any good in the air."
Superboy dropped off the people he saved. "Sounds good to me. Let's go!"
Kon charged at its upper chest, causing it to teeter over. Superman then swept up behind it and lifted it up off the ground. As he gained altitude, the robot flailed around helplessly.
"Finish it!" Superman called out.
Superboy smashed into the robot, causing it to fall apart. The two then vaporized the pieces with their heat vision before they could fall to the ground.
"That was easy," Kon said. "What's next?"
Superman cocked his head. "I hear another alarm. Let's go!"
"Never a dull moment, huh?"
Location: The Galleria
Barbara realized too late that her definition of 'fun' may have qualified as 'torture' for Max. Still, he was being a very good sport and not complaining about going shopping with Dinah, Helena, Cassandra, and Zinda. Of course, that mostly translated into 'hold the bags' and 'compliment the women trying things on.'
"You should try on something too," she urged him. "This shouldn't just be about us."
"If you insist," he said as he picked out some clothes.
Zinda gave an appreciative whistle as Max came out of the dressing room. While his choices were more modest than the outfit he wore for the previous night's mission, they highlighted his attractiveness. Barbara harbored the suspicion that there was a ten year span of GQ in his implanted knowledge.
"How does this look?" he asked.
"Good," said Cassandra.
"It's missing something," Dinah said as she went over to the accessories counter, picked out a pair of stylish sunglasses, and put them on his face. "There, I think that does it."
"We're getting you that," Barbara said.
Max changed back to his other clothes.
"Tell me, are you always so well-behaved?" Helena asked.
"Normally, I'm asked if I'm always terse and formal," Max answered with a slight smile.
"I teach teenagers," she continued. "I don't know of another teenaged boy who would be able to go through this morning without going crazy or making some sort of comment."
"Etiquette is part of my implanted knowledge," he noted. "I know what's appropriate and what isn't."
"Knowing and being able to actually do something are different animals," Barbara said. "You don't seem to have ever held back anything today. That's very unusual."
"Proper behavior was...required," Max said. "That's most likely something that other teenagers did not have enforced."
"I'm sorry to bring up any painful memories," Helena apologized. "It's just that you seem so different. You're kind of like Cassandra that way. She's got a lot of stranger mannerisms, but they're being smoothed out."
"When did kids get so complicated?" Zinda asked. "In my day, there wasn't this angst stuff or these issues you guys have."
"I believe our cases are rather unique," Max said. "Cassandra was trained to kill people, and I was made to be a servant and warrior. There wasn't exactly any love and understanding involved in my creation, just science."
Location: Metropolis
"Sometimes, technology really sucks," Superboy said as he guided an airplane to the Metropolis airport's runway.
A localized EMP blast had gone off, and Kon and Kal were rescuing the planes that were affected. Because of his telekinetic powers, Kon was actually able to handle them more gently than Superman. Still, Superman was able to deal with the larger planes better than he was.
"It's not normally this bad in Metropolis," Superman said. "I don't know what's gotten into everybody."
"Powered armor, giant robots, and now this," Kon listed them off. "You think it's all connected?"
"It's possible. I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions."
After landing the last plane, Kon sat on the runway to catch his breath. He was used to dealing with crises, but these were a lot strung together. It was becoming ridiculous.
"Kon-El," Superman said to get his attention.
"Let me guess, another problem?"
"Yes."
Conner stood up. "Let's do it."
Location: The Birds of Prey plane
"I'm getting reports of multiple incidents in Metropolis," Barbara said.
"You only tell us things if we're going to mobilize," Dinah said. "Superman and Superboy need our help?"
"I don't think they'll turn us away if we show up. Zinda, get the jet ready."
"I'm on it, boss," Lady Blackhawk said, as she went to the cockpit.
"What's our role?" Max asked, sounding calm.
"We'll analyze the incidents while in transit," Barbara replied. "I think those two have their hands full with what's going on. We'll see if we can find the source of the incidents and deal with it."
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Last chapter, Superboy had it relatively calm while Match had a lot of action. This chapter, it's the other way around.
Any and all comments welcome!
