Chapter 4
Connections
He was exhausted; the night was rife with criminal activity as if all the gangs and criminals in Bludhaven decided to have a convention. He attributed it to the unusually warm weather and the new moon. After several hours of patrol, taking down criminals and a major bust of Blockbuster's gang working an arms deal with a nefarious international gang of arms dealers he was ready to call it a night. He had to go in early tomorrow and even he needed to sleep sometimes. He unbuckled his belt and pulled off his boots and gloves to feel more comfortable, then took some naproxen to help with the aches he currently had and the ones that were surely to come. He then plopped down on the sofa to watch some TV to unwind.
At first he flipped numbly through the channels since not much was on other than the usual drivel of fake 'reality' shows, home improvement, cooking, 'survival' shows, etc. Even the sports channels had nothing on but talking heads, so he ended up on one of the news channels and stared blankly at the screen at the talking heads babbling on about the latest problems with the economy and politics. He put the remote down and gently rubbed his temples to help himself relax. His eyes were getting heavy and he was about to dose off when an urgent news flash was announced, rousing him to attention.
"Reports are coming in from Bialya, Borastan and other nations on the border with Qurac, that an entire Quracki armored battalion was destroyed near the borders with Bialya and Borastan by some type of unknown weapon. Both Bialya and Borastan have denied any involvement, but are mobilizing there forces along their borders with Qurac in case tensions escalate further. The Quracki ambassador to the United States had no comment and the ambassador the UN has stated that there was no word from the Quracki government and he is unaware of any such incident. The White House Press Secretary stated they are looking into the incident, but have little information at this time. So far there has been no word from the Government of Qurac itself and all transmissions out of Qurac are suspiciously silent and attempts to contact our bureau in Qurabad have not been successful."
Nightwing stared at the screen, wondering what was going now, though it would be a problem handled by the Justice League International and not really his problem. His instinct told him that the "weapon" was more than likely a meta-human or possibly alien being that was either attacked or was up to no good. No telling though since the incident happened in Qurac, and if it is an embarrassment to the regime, there was no way that they would tell the truth. The news anchor was in a discussion with a so-called Central-Asian expert who was postulating about the incident when another anchor announced more information was coming in from Borastan.
"… our field correspondent Alexis Damhanpour is at the Qurac-Borastan border with a spokesman for the Borastani Army with more information. Alexis can you tell us what you know about this incident?"
The screen was split with the anchor on the left and Alexis Damhanpour on the right, behind her was a vista of rocky dessert hills and large amounts of black heavy smoke rising from behind a ridge. Next to her was a large brown skinned man in an olive colored battle dress uniform and red beret of the Borastani Special Mountain Brigade with a major's rank insignia on his uniform.
"Yes Mike I am here with Major Raamjavi, Commander of a border observation post and he has been authorized to share with us information he has concerning the incident that happened just 15 kilometers from here on the other side or the border with Qurac." The correspondent said then turned to the Borastani officer.
"Major Raamjavi, what information can you give us concerning the area where the smoke is coming from to the north of us right now?"
Major Raamjavi slightly bowed his head and began to speak. "Well Ms. Damhanpour as you can see there is much smoke coming from behind that ridge. Approximately two hours ago we observed several large explosions and what looked like bright blasts of energy coming from above the area of the explosions. I ordered a surveillance drone launched to gather information. For all we knew it might have been an attack by Qurac at the border crossing 10 kilometers north east of here or an attack by Bialyan forces, as you know the border crossing in question is a three-way crossing between Borastan, Bialya and Qurac."
The correspondent nodded her head, a look of journalistic concern on her face. "And did the drone see anything Major?"
"Yes, but we're not sure what it was we saw, but my government in the interest of peace and openness to our allies has authorized me to show you the video we recorded."
"Thank you major, Mike, we have the video loaded. I have seen the video myself, but in some places it is hard to make out what is going on."
The screen changed to that of the recorded video, which started right before it cleared the ridge. Right away, fiery explosions from fully armed tanks could be seen and other tanks and armored vehicles scrambling to evade whatever was attacking them. There was a clear shot of a tank maneuvering towards a hillock of rocks and it was firing at something when a bright blast of green energy hit the tank full on causing it to explode, leaving a twisted pile of melted metal, its tracks busted and smoke pouring from where the turret used to be. The drone turned toward the direction from where the blasts came from and in the smoke, dust and haze Nightwing could make out a figure, then the drone made an evasive maneuver as a blast of green energy flew past it. This changed the view to the ground below and there was an SUV with a driver and a passenger working hard to avoid the tanks and the explosions, then view changed back to the location of the figure he'd seen earlier. As it got closer he was sure the figure was human in shape and then the figure disappeared, then static and then the screen went black.
"As you can see, the drone malfunctioned and I ordered another drone prepared. By the time we launched it though, the attack must have ended, since there were no more blasts coming from the sky and all the tanks, armored vehicles and trucks were destroyed and we could see no survivors. I can assure you though, Borastan has no such weapon in its arsenal, nor have we seen evidence of such a weapon even with the…"
The screen went blank and was replaced with the logo of the Justice League, Nightwing keyed in the combination on his remote to answer it after he quickly put his mask back on. The face of Cyborg was now on the screen.
"Nightwing, glad to see that you're available, I hope you've seen the latest news reports?"
"Was just watching them Cyborg, so are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Not only thinking, knowing. We need you to come aboard the Watchtower though immediately, you available?" Cyborg asked, knowing that Nightwing didn't have to come if he didn't want to since he was not a member of the League.
"Yes, I am, give me a minute though suit up and get the transponder." Nightwing said as he put his belt, boots and gloves back on, the dug in his junk drawer for the transponder.
"You still don't carry it around with you? Batman said you didn't, but I didn't believe him. What, you afraid we might snatch you up unexpectedly?" Cyborg asked feigning surprise.
"Yep, and you know I'm not a member of the League, so I'm not required to wear it anyway," Nightwing said as he found the quarter sized button he was looking for.
"Got it Cy, ready when you are," Nightwing said as he faced the screen.
Cyborg looked at him suspiciously then nodded his head, "Ok, we got you signal, transport commencing in five, four, three, two, one…"
Nightwing felt the familiar burning tingle of the Watchtower's transporter system breaking down his body into microbits of energy, then all around him, the world turned white. The white started to fade and he could now see the interior of the Watchtower's transporter deck. Waiting in the room for him were Cyborg, the Flash and Raven.
Once the teleportation was complete the lead lined glass panel separating him from the others slid to the side and the transporter powered down. This was enough time for him to reorient himself to his surroundings and shake off the feeling of vertigo one gets when transported. He personally hated the things and felt they affected his balance and acrobatic abilities for minutes after, but they were an effective way to get to the Watchtower. He stepped off the platform an over to the three superheroes that were waiting for him.
He greeted his former team mates then looked over at Cyborg, "So tell me is it her?"
Cyborg nodded, along with the Flash, Raven remained impassive.
"What brings you here Raven?" He asked his old teammate.
Raven answered him in her characteristic nonchalant manner, "Cyborg asked me too."
"Yeah, I asked her to Nightwing, I invited Changeling too, but he said he needed to stay at Titans Tower and keep an eye on it." Cyborg said with some sarcasm.
"Well at least he being responsible." Nightwing said with a bit of humor in his voice.
Raven turned and glared at him. "And why would he not be? He's not a kid anymore."
"Oh come on Raven, no harm done. Still gotta pick on the ol' Green Bean." Cyborg interjected to smooth things over. Ever since she Raven and Garfield Logan were married, she became very protective and defensive of him.
Nightwing put on his best charming smile for Raven, "Sorry Raven, no more picking on Changeling, we'll be good."
Raven's glare softened slightly and her only answer was a quiet "Humph."
They continued on down the hall to one of the larger conference rooms that had a full communications suite. Inside were Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter and Aquaman. The group of younger superheroes stepped inside and the door closed. Batman gestured for them to take a seat around the ring shaped tabled and they complied with the Flash and Cyborg taking seats with their Justice League colleagues.
Batman addressed the group; "Members of the Justice League, Raven and Nightwing, as we know approximately five weeks ago the Tamaranian princess and former Teen Titan known as Starfire returned to Earth after fourteen year absence, at which time she allegedly made contact with and joined up with the criminal Red X. Since her return we have programmed our surveillance satellites and requested access to municipal security camera feeds, along with other surveillance methods in the attempt to ascertain Starfire's whereabouts and her activities. In that time we saw nothing until today when a Quracki armored battalion was destroyed by an unknown force. After reviewing the satellite imagery, there is no doubt that the force that destroyed the armored battalion was none other than Starfire. Cyborg, please start the video."
Cyborg manipulated the controls at his position and the lights in the room dimmed and a holo-emitter in the center of the ring shaped table glowed to life. The view was a three-dimensional top down view of a hilly dessert terrain, from one direction there was a dust cloud caused by a fast moving SUV heading into a valley, from the other direction was the armored battalion positioning to intercept the vehicle. Once the SUV was in sight of the armored battalion, it continued straight at the first line of tanks instead of veering off as expected. Suddenly before the tanks could open fire though a brilliant blast of green energy hit the first line of tanks destroying them on contact. Now all could see a small, person sized object in the sky rapidly darting back and forth leaving streaks of red, purple and green and taking pot shots at the tanks and armored vehicles below causing them to scramble. The SUV below was now veering randomly to avoid debris both on the ground and flying at it from the explosion.
There were more scenes of destruction and then Nightwing could now see the Borastani drone that had taken the video shown on the news now coming into view and the flying object hurled an energy blast at the drone, barely missing it. The remote pilot was pretty good to miss that blast, but not good enough to evade the object as it rapidly flew above the drone then straight down, ripping one of the wings off at the fuselage and then firing an energy blast at it.
"Stop the video there Cyborg and zoom in on the object."
Cyborg immediately stopped the video, rewinding it a few frames back, the zoomed in on the object, which was clear now. The red flowing hair, orange tone skin, green eyes glowing bright as a star along with a green aura surrounding her body, and a barely there purple outfit, there was no mistaking who the person was they were now viewing. It was none other than Starfire, though older and more fierce than Nightwing remembered, even more so than their first meeting.
Nightwing felt all the others' eyes on him, knowing they were trying to gauge his reaction to seeing his former lover again, but also behaving in such an aggressive and criminal manner. He did his best to remain stoic, and in all reality didn't know himself what he felt. Confusion, sadness, anger, even a little joy at seeing her again, but not really knowing himself what he felt. He had to shift the focus off him and quickly before he did break though, so he addressed Cyborg.
"Cy, can you get a better focus on the SUV, I want to see who it is she's protecting," Nightwing said emotionlessly.
"Yeah, I can do that," Cyborg answered back almost too quickly and adjusted the video until he found a clear shot of the SUV and zoomed in on it.
"Whu…?" Cyborg blurted out once he had a clear view of the SUV's occupants. The driver was wearing a distinctive red full head mask and wearing a charcoal colored leather jacket, the passenger had longish red hair, was wearing a sleeveless red shirt and a baseball cap. He had a concerned and slightly scared look on his face.
Nightwing grimaced and slightly shook his head.
"Wait a minute, I thought Starfire hooked up with Red X, what is she doing with the Red Hood and surely that's not Arsenal is it?" Cyborg said sounding confused. He'd already seen that the video confirmed that Starfire was behind the destruction, but he didn't think to check who was in the SUV. He'd assumed it was Red X.
Nightwing smirked then turned to Batman and asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "Yeah Batman, why is Starfire working with Jason Todd, oh I mean Red Hood? Would you be so kind to inform the rest of us?"
Batman just glared at Nightwing, and seethed inside at him from breaking the rule that secret identity names never be used on the Watch Tower.
Nightwing's smirk grew more noticeable now. "You might as well, because if you don't I will."
Batman didn't flinch.
"Alright then, for those of you who don't know, Red Hood and Red X are one in the same. Jason Todd is both of them. I found out the day Starfire returned. Batgirl gave me access to Batman's classified databases and I was able to pull up the profiles on Red X and Red Hood and I found out then, but I kept quiet about it as I was angry more at myself than I was at Batman for knowing about it."
Nightwing then turned to Raven, "You can tell Changeling, he was right all along. Red X was Jason Todd. He saw it and I refused to believe it, but once I found out and why it all made sense."
He shifted his gaze back to Batman now. "So Batman want to tell us why Jason has the Red X suit?"
Batman's gaze didn't change, but Nightwing could sense a barely imperceptible change in his breathing, until finally a corner of his lip moved. "What is it you want me to tell them Nightwing, that I had Jason steal the suit? Yes I did, I was impressed with the technology, but I believed you would not share the design with me and I wanted to know what made it work. Very smart of you too, keeping the designs stored on a non-networked PC so I or anyone else couldn't access the plans. You didn't count on Jason though; he was the wild card in all this and was more than willing to help me commandeer the suit. I should have known better in letting him have that much power and you should have destroyed it in the first place."
The others just stared at Batman blankly, not knowing what to say. There was an uncomfortable silence in the room now that that they all knew who Red X was. They all looked around the room as Batman continued to glare at all of them. Finally, Nightwing broke the silence.
"Now that we have that little tidbit of information out of the way, it is clear that Starfire is in league with a criminal and as far as I'm concerned a murderer. It doesn't matter that she was protecting Red Hood and Arsenal; she has the training to do so without such wanton destruction. Instead she chose to destroy those tanks and the men inside them; clearly no human could survive what Starfire unleashed on them…"
At that moment Wonder Woman stood up and spoke up with a firm and commanding voice, "Nightwing, as a warrior I understand Starfire's actions. The men in those tanks were a military threat and as soldiers naturally put themselves at risk of death; it is not like she was attacking defenseless civilians. I understand your and Batman's code of justice, and as part of the Justice League I adhere to it as much as I can, but there are times when a warrior must be a warrior. Let me find her and speak with her, and remind her of the importance of restraint. You and Batman can deal with Red Hood and Arsenal. You might want to bring in Green Arrow on this too…"
Batman stood up and interrupted Wonder Woman, one of the few men brave or foolish enough to do so. "No Wonder Woman, Starfire must be brought to justice, her actions are criminal and it is the duty of the Justice League to deal with her, per our agreement with the nations of the Earth. As Nightwing said, she could have just as easily disabled those tanks without harming the men inside, she has the training and the power to do so. We will need you, Superman, Captain Atom and Power Girl to bring her in. I'd also like the Titans involvement in this Raven, I need you to contact Troia. I understand they were good friends during her Wonder Girl days. She will not go down easy, but we need to stop her soon before she hurts unarmed civilians, any questions?"
Wonder Woman looked hard at Batman, she didn't like to be interrupted, especially by a mortal man, but she deferred to Batman for now. She would have words with him later after the meeting. For now she sat back down and glared at him, if Batman noticed he gave her no indication though. She didn't expect him to though, even if she wanted him too. The man hardly ever flinched, this being just one of the things that intrigued her about him.
Batman then turned to Nightwing, "I want you to take the lead on this – you probably know her better than anybody…"
Nightwing raised his hand to stop Batman, "No, I'm not a member of the Justice League or the Titans, and I don't take orders. Besides it's been fourteen years, she's different now and when she left, she and I weren't exactly on good terms."
"You're telling us that you don't care if Starfire is brought to justice or not?" Batman asked with a slight growl.
"I didn't say that, I said no to taking the lead on this, let Cyborg or Raven do it and I'll advise and provide assistance as necessary. As long as she stays out of Bludhaven, I have no intentions of running after her, but I will help and provide any intelligence if asked." Nightwing said without a flinch, and returning Batman's glare.
Raven spoke up, "Can you two take your dick-measuring contest somewhere else. Since she is an alien, without the proper oversight and clearances by the Justice League, may I suggest one of the Green Lanterns coordinate this. It is more of their jurisdiction anyway."
Batman turned toward Raven, and slightly nodded his head. "Not my first choice, but you're right Raven. Speaking of which, I took the liberty of having our Green Lanterns establish a connection with the Tamaranian government to find out if they knew why Starfire returned to Earth. In the process they found out that the planet known as Tamaran no longer exists, that it was destroyed by a race known as the Psions. They did so because Tamaran and their allies defeated the Citadel which the Psions used to control the population of the worlds of the Vegan star system. Apparently the Psions consider the Vegan system to be their private laboratory and they have some type of treaty or agreement with the Guardians of the Universe that keeps them to them to the Vegan System. At first they thought Starfire was a survivor, but that was not the case, instead there is a fully functional Tamaranian government with a population now located on the Vegan world of Karna. It took some work and negotiations with the Guardians and the Lanterns to establish a communications link, but we have done so. It seems that Princess Starfire was involved in criminal activities there as well."
Batman pressed a button on the table and an image of the Green Lantern, John Stewart appeared in the holo-display.
"Yes Batman?"
"John, is it possible to contact the Tamaranian government at this time? "
"Yes it is. We have a continuous live link with the High Council. Do you wish me to contact them?"
"Yes, please contact them and pipe the link here."
"Alright, give me a minute," the Green Lantern said, the faded to the Justice League symbol. A moment later he returned.
"Batman, I have the Grand Ruler on the link who after speaking with you all, has requested to speak with Nightwing alone."
Batman looked over to Nightwing. "Are you ok with this?"
"I'm ok with it." Nightwing said with a clenched jaw, dreading the upcoming conversation with the Grand Ruler.
Batman nodded, the turned back to the Green Lantern. "Alright then, open link to this room."
The Green Lantern obliged and his face faded away to that of an attractive and regal face of a Tamaranian female, but instead of Starfire's red hair and green eyes, the female had blue-black hair and violet eyes and she had a sly look about her. There was a barely audible gasp from Raven, Cyborg looked puzzled and Nightwing's mouth opened slightly in astonishment as he looked at the face of Blackfire staring back at from the holo-display. She looked at Nightwing with a sense of smug satisfaction, then winked at him.
"My, my, haven't you grown up Robin, oh I apologize, I mean Nightwing. Not too bad for a human, not bad at all, I like the new outfit too. It's too bad I can't see those blue eyes my baby sister raved about, but no matter, it is delightful to see you again." She then looked around the room, and acknowledged the others.
Nightwing watched her, and inside he was seething. Even though he was hurt and angry at Starfire's recent actions, the sight of Blackfire as the Grand Ruler made him think that maybe Starfire had a reason to act the way she was. Things definitely were not as they seemed and now he wanted, no needed to know what was going on with Starfire. It seems like she was back in his life whether he wanted it or not.
Need to end the chapter here before it gets too long. It is also where I will diverge from the canon of Red Hood and the Outlaws and only use it for a jumping off point for this story.
The idea of having Batman use Robin II, Jason Todd, to steal the suit just makes sense to me. He'd have the access codes to the Titans Tower (whether Dick Grayson gave them to him or not, he's Batman). I can see Robin I securing the design and not giving Batman any data on it, especially since the suit was designed shortly after he left Batman to start on his own. There would still be some hard feelings and it would take a while for Batman to train a new Robin anyway.
I hope to get the next chapter published sooner than I did this one and it will have more Starfire in it.