"All in all I would say that was a successful mission. We found out who's been supplying Intergang and managed to recover a large cache of alien tech." Nightwing said, as he came up from securing their haul. "I mean, it could have gone more smoothly but, when has a mission gone smoothly. Thanks for untying me by the way."
"Hey, we got you, didn't we?" Starling quipped back.
"Barely." Nightwing retorted.
"Whatever!" Miss Martian cut off Nightwing's complaints. "You're fine and you know we wouldn't have left you. Now I want the explanations I was promised."
"Well then you had better ask some questions then, hadn't you?" Starling snarked, as he swiveled around to face the group.
"How about, we start off with the honest answer to Kid's question?" Miss Martian replied. "How did you know that Wolf would be able to call off the other animals?"
"Once again, I did not." Starling insisted. "It was just an educated guess. They seemed to have similar 'enhancements' to those Wolf underwent and I figured that they had somehow formed a bond. Good enough for you?"
"Acceptable. Not fully believed but, acceptable." M'gann answered, with an uncharacteristic air of imperiousness. "Next question. How did you manage to get the bioship to respond?"
"Once I managed to disengage the locks the Thanagarians had on her, she was configured for manual piloting so I just used that." Starling stated nonchalantly.
"Believable." Nightwing interrupted Miss Martian's reply. "Except, you let her fly herself around. Not even Impulse could have gotten to the controls and interfaced with the ship fast enough to pull off the turn it made."
"So, there is no way you could have pulled off what you did." Miss Martian agreed. "Unless, you somehow had a psychic connection with my girl."
"Which is impossible…" Superboy added, a look of understanding slowly spreading over his face.
"Unless, I'm a Martian." Starling finished Superboy's thought, narrowing his eyes.
"Which you are." Miss Martian stated simply, leaving no room for argument.
"Which I am." Starling confirmed. "Sort of…"
Everyone stared at him slack jawed. Even Bart was completely speechless. M'gann seemed the most shocked by Starling's announcement, even though she had been the one to figure out his secret. Her confusion transferred to the bioship, which began to vibrate and nearly collided with a skyscraper before she regained her composure.
"Watch out!" Bart and Supergirl cried in unison.
"Right, right! Hello Megan!" Miss Martian scolded herself. "It's just, what do you mean you're 'Sort of' a Martian?"
Starling shifted nervously in his seat at this question. "Well…I'm Half-Martian."
"Half-Martian?" Nightwing questioned. "I did not see that coming."
"Yeah, my dad was Martian and my mom was…"
"Atlantean?" Nightwing finished.
"Yep, that." Starling answered a little too quickly. "How'd you know?"
"Really?" Nightwing replied, incredulously. "I am a detective, give me some credit. Plus, SB's glowing S was a pretty obvious clue."
"Especially, after you cued it." Superboy added.
"Thanks for the support." Starling said dryly, narrowing his eyes.
"Wait." M'gann ordered, her face filled with confusion. "If you're Half-Martian, do you still have a Martian form?"
In answer, Starling shifted. His hair turned translucent white and he grew an extra foot over his already large, six foot four frame. The biggest change was his skin. His blue skin. Supergirl was the first to recover from her shock.
"Um, not to presume. But, shouldn't you be like, green?" She piped up. At the collective looks of disdain from her teammates, she added "Just saying."
"No Kara." Superboy scolded his "cousin".
"It's fine Connor." Miss Martian comforted her boyfriend. "She has no reason to be aware of Martian physiology, or culture."
"True." Bart confirmed. "But, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a blue race of Martians."
"Wait back up." Supergirl interrupted. "Race of Martians? Like there are different colors?"
"Yes." Miss Martian answered. "As you know, the majority of Martians are Green, like my Uncle J'onn. But there are other races. The Reds, who are considered royalty. The White, like myself." After this admission she allowed herself to take on her own natural form.
Sensing M'gann's discomfort, Starling took over. "Who are, wrongly, treated as second class citizens. Then, and this is information that few off-worlders are privileged with, there is another race."
"The Blues." Supergirl guessed.
"Right." Starling affirmed. "My father's race. They are naturally predisposed to the mystic arts. Making them the ideal choice for Mars' sorcerer priesthood."
"And also the heroes of many White Martians." M'gann piped up, garnering strange looks from the rest of the squad. Including Starling.
"Why? Bart asked bluntly. The only one tactless enough to do so.
"Because," M'gann answered. "They are an offshoot of the White Martians who have become accepted by the greater population. And as such, have given many a persecuted White sanctuary. Though, few outside of the Whites and Blues know this history and Blues might find themselves facing the same attitudes should this get out." With this she gave Bart a pointed look.
"Or worse." Starling added with a far off and pained look on his face.
The group allowed the two Martians a few minutes of silence. But, a speedster's tongue could only stay still for so long.
"So, like if you're Half-Martian, why didn't you become the Manhunter's protégé?" Bart rattled of the question before Nightwing had a chance to stomp on his foot. Not that it would have done much good.
"Well, mostly because I do, actually, view Canary as my Aunt." explained Starling, though it clearly pained him. "She was the first human my father met when he was exiled to Earth. He was badly wounded and she gave him a blood transfusion. Saving his life, for a while at least."
"Which is why you have sonic powers?" Kara guessed looking like she hoped the others would forget her earlier ignorance.
"Right." Starling confirmed. "Which is cool but, it seems to have some strange effect on my other abilities."
"Like" M'gann prompted gently.
"Like my shapeshifting is extremely limited. I can density shift, add limbs, go fluid, and change coloring and size, even take on animal shape but, I'm unable to transform into any other sentient race or switch gender, even changing my features to match another human male's is hard."
"Not too surprising." M'gann assured him. "Most Blue Martians can only shift to similar sentients or animals. Their disposition to the mystic causes them to lose some of the physical prowess other Martians boast."
"Well that's good to know." Starling said sounding overly cheerful. "Maybe that explains my aversion to telepathy then. Just a quirk of the Blues"
"No… I don't think so most Blues are said to be extremely powerful telepaths though, they hardly interact with anyone due to the nature of their work. In fact, I don't know that I've ever had a conversation with one, telepathic or otherwise."
"While this is fascinating and all," Nightwing cut in. "Can you two compare notes later? I would like to know how Superboy came to be in possession of magic. Especially since Kryptonians tend to have major problems with it, like it has messed Superman up really bad in the past."
"I'll handle this one." Superboy answered, cutting off Starling's acid remark. "See, being half-human I am capable of wielding certain magics, like Atlantean. Which is extremely useful since my Kryptonian half is averse to magic."
"So it works like those shields you had? Suppressing your human DNA." Nightwing guessed.
"Not quite." Superboy answered, a smug look on his face. "It causes the energy stored in my cells to jump the human parts since it can't mix with magic. So, I get the full suite of Kyrptonian powers while not going all rage monster."
"Plus you get to shoot lighting." Bart reminded enthusiastically.
"Yep. I get to shoot lighting." Superboy nodded, shaking his head.
"Yeah. And I'll let him do it to you if you try to skip out on unloading again." Starling added as they glided into the docking bay.
(A/N)
Sorry for the long time between updates, I'll try not to take so long on the next chapter. But, you know, life happens.