A/N: Thank you all again for your support and other niceness. ^-^ I worked pretty hard trying to keep the personalities accurate… I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

titanfan45: A snooker table is a game that you play snooker on. Since that probably isn't very helpful, snooker is a game that's a lot like pool. It's played with basically the same kind of balls and cue ball as regular pool, as well as that little pokey cue that you use in pool/billiards. If you win a certain number of points, you win a frame (or an individual game). The person with the most won frames wins. Except, Gar and Kori would probably just play it by trying to put the balls in the pockets, since they didn't really have much of a idea how to play. XD.

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Gar and Vic Stone were sitting next to each other for most of the rest of the plane ride. They had been chatting animatedly for almost an hour, when Gar changed the subject.

"So, Dick over there," Gar said. Victor laughed at the emphasis. "He said you were called Cyborg. And, um, unless I'm completely wrong, which is always, you know, a possibility, a cyborg is a robot. Which would mean…" he trailed off. Gar had been trying for the past hour for the two of them to become more relaxed, before he did any stupid unwarranted probing into Victor's life.

Vic sighed, and took off the pair of large, dark sunglasses he had been wearing.

"Oh," Gar said, as he realized Vic's left eye was glowing a faint red. Victor lowered the hood of his sweatshirt, which had been hiding his face, and Gar saw an armor-like plating of wires and metal on most of the left side of Vic's face, made of shiny metal that gleamed in the plane's light. "Never mind, then. That explains it!" he said cheerfully. Vic looked a little surprised.

"What do you mean 'never mind?'" he asked, seeming confused. "Aren't you…?"

As soon as he realized what Vic was saying, Gar started laughing. "No! What do I care if you have a couple of prosthetics or whatever? Actually, to tell you the truth, I'm not technically a human being. My DNA… it isn't Homo sapiens. Not usually, at least. See, watch." Gar stood up and reached down to his finger, before slowly twisting a dial on a ring, located where a gem might normally be inset in the metal.

Vic watched as the image of Gar, blond-haired and jade-eyed, flickered before him. Finally, he heard the dial click, and Gar solidified again, looking like a completely different person. Gar had razor teeth, catlike pupils, pointed ears, and claws for fingernails. And most of all, he was green. His skin was green, his hair was green, his eyes were green. Framing his face was a faint growth of thin, stubbly green hair, traveling down to his neck, where it disappeared into his shirt. Then Vic noticed a faint twitching in the corner of his eye, and he look down and realized something else: Gar Logan had a thick, fluffy, almost squirrelike tail. Gar grinned, baring his sharpened, elongated canine teeth. "Pretty nasty, huh? Especially the baby-beard. I can never shave this thing off," he said irritably, scratching his chin. "And it itches like fury. Here, watch. I change into animals," he said, before rapidly shifting, snake-cat-bear-wolf-falcon-spider-rat-lizard-sparrow, before he finally changed into a chirping velociraptor, peering intently at Vic, looking a lot like in the movies. As an afterthought, he switched to an enormous phoenix, blazing flames for a brief instant, before returning to his human form, looking slightly winded. "They don't have to be… you know, real animals. Or even not extinct. But the bigger they are, or if they aren't real, or they've died out… well, it really tires me out. So, you know, I try not to." Gar rapidly twisted the dial again. "I like my regular skin better, he said, looking a little embarrassed behind his pale-skinned façade. "But I can still feel my tail… and that damn itchy chin hair," he added, looking irritated again. He scratched his chin viciously. "That's better," he said, grinning. "So you see, I know where you're coming from. Actually, I think most of us do. So I… we… we understand what your… issues are."

"Yeah… um, actually, most of me is metal," Vic admitted. "Mostly, you know, I wear dark sunglasses. And hats. A lot of hats. Yep! Hats are good." He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. Gar saw his fingers were tipped with metal. He could see how much Vic hated the way he was, and his gut clenched in sympathy.

"Why don't you just use a holoring like me?" Gar inquired after a short silence.

"Actually, um, I didn't really know they… existed." Vic looked a little embarrassed again. Gar's eyebrows shot up.

"Are you kidding? Almost all metas have them…" Gar said. "I mean, all the… non… regular-looking ones, at least."

"Metas?"

"Metahumans," Gar explained. This was really odd. He had never really met anyone "special" like him who knew so little about the metahuman community, superhero and otherwise. "Usually the people in the… meta community track you down and help you out. Or that's what they did with me, after my little… accident."

Vic looked a little surprised at the sound of this. "…I've only really been like this for six months," he admitted at last. "I'm not even much of a hero. I just fought a couple of bullies on the streets before, you know? I've only been half-metal for about six months. It's why I'm still only going to be a freshman, even though I'm fifteen. Honestly, I don't even know why these guys picked me to be on this little… thing. I mean… hey, um… can we please talk about possibly something else?" he asked, looking a little uncomfortable. Gar understood immediately, and segwayed the conversation smoothly into the subject of Packers football. Vic looked a little relieved.

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Kori Anders had ended up sitting nest to Rachel. Rachel had been sitting in the same seat for the entire plane ride, except for Dick's little meeting. Kori had decided to sit next to Rachel after the meeting, mostly because she had not had much of a chance to speak with her before.

Rachel had put the dusty old book down in her lap, and was sitting very straight in her seat, with her head tilted back ever so slightly and her eyes closed tight. Inside she was thinking of nothing other than the hopeful wish that this bubbly girl would refrain from speaking to her and leave her much-valued privacy intact. Truth be told, Rachel was not exactly like Kori, in basically any way, and she was positive that they would not exactly hit off if they came to the point where they actually exchanged words with one another. The last thing she needed right now was a side helping of idle gossip.

After nearly ten solid minutes of blessed silence, wherein she expected Kori to speak up any second, Rachel cracked open one eye and peered at Kori. "Aren't you going to start talking to me about clothes or boys?" she asked. Despite the slight bitterness in her voice, Kori was surprised by the lack of maliciousness in it.

"Nooooo…" she trailed off, a little confused.

Another few minutes of silence, as Rachel waited for Kori to finish her undoubtedly clear and succinct point about the latest trends in skirts, or whatever people like her talked about. "Oh," Rachel finally said after a while, at a loss.

"Kori, I can usually tell a lot about people," Rachel finally said, her voice hard. "One of my powers is empathy. Most girls like you are the girls that sit next to me at lunch and try to make friendly conversation with me because they feel sorry for the dark little silent girl sitting by herself. Those people always give up eventually, no matter how determined they are initially. I can tell you're going to try that as well. I thought I would warn you in advance to please leave me alone." Rachel felt bad about saying this before Kori had technically said anything to her, but she could feel Kori's personality, and thought it only fair to give her a warning.

"Um… okay…" Kori agreed slowly.

Neither of them said anything else the entire plane ride, though Rachel was certain Kori was pretty bored, particularly toward the end. Privately, though, she was impressed.

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Dick had gone into the cockpit, where Alfred was piloting the plane. "Shouldn't you have a copilot?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Alfred glanced at him. "You know this plane has been designed to be piloted solo, Master Dick."

"This plane has been designed for a couple of things, actually," Dick said absentmindedly, running his finger along a patch of smooth metal, thinking of the heat-seeking missiles and liquid-nitrogen-filled bombs that Bruce had installed personally, "just in case." Alfred merely smirked.

"Yes. It has." Dick sat down in the softly padded copilot's seat and sat with his chin rested on his hand, thinking. After another few minutes of flying in silence, Alfred spoke again. "I thought as a team leader, you might want to be… bonding with your team, sir."

Dick blew out a frustrated breath. "I don't really think my team likes me, Alfred. I know at least one-fourth of it doesn't."

Alfred looked at him again. "Perhaps you and Master Bruce shouldn't have taken advantage of them so readily, sir. I do hate to say it, but I did rather warn you." Dick was slightly stung. "At any rate, you might want to try to get on better terms with your teammates, sir," Alfred continued. "You young ones can't let any hot-headedness endanger your unity, you know, Master Dick. Your lives are going to be in each other's hands. If there's ever the slightest hesitation in your trust, your lives… and the lives of others… could be destroyed. Sir."

Dick's finger slowly traced its way along a readout screen. "I know."

Alfred raised one of his ever-expressive eyebrows. "As you say, sir," he said, inclining his head.

Dick cast a sidelong glance at him. "What are you telling me, Alfred?"

"Whatever you take it as, Master Dick." Dick sighed. "You may want to go and reconcile relations with your team, sir. That was the main purpose of this plane ride, you know."

Dick nearly pouted. "I don't have anyone to sit with," he said. "Either I sit next to the changeling boy who loathes me, or I sit next to girls. Two of them," he added for emphasis, looking embarrassed. "And I can't sit by myself," he added, seeing Alfred's expression. "I'm supposed to lead them, for God's sake."

"I wasn't going to say that, sir," Alfred said, holding back a chuckle. Dick raised a questioning eyebrow. "I was going to say you weren't going to get cooties from the girls." Dick's face turned a bright red, matching his t-shirt. Alfred smiled widely.

"Alfred… Alfred, just please shut up. Thank you very much." Dick buried his face in his hands.

Alfred smirked. "As you say, Master Dick. But that being said, it wouldn't hurt you to just go and speak with them."

Dick sighed again, making a face and running a hand through his tousled hair. "I don't know how to make him hate me less. Garfield said that he was… sort of angry… that we had… you know, blackmailed him and all." Dick thought about how hard it had been for Batman to give up both of their secret identities to the others, yet how easily he had decided to find out and use the others' against them. "You know, Alfred, I think Bruce may be a hypocrite. He's always so careful to safeguard his family's secrets, but he was so eager to dig up my team's backstories and invade their privacy for information… and use it against them to help us, if necessary." Dick thought of another thing. "And Catwoman -- Selina Kyle -- he'd trust his name with a dangerous free agent like her, just for -- you know." Dick's face, which had just recovered from its most recent bout of blushing, turned bright red again. Alfred smirked once more.

"Master Dick, you must not be as sharp as I'd thought if you're only now noticing that," he said. "Master Bruce is not the most morally astute of men, hero though he is. He is a vigilante, and exacts his own kind of justice, to the people he deems appropriate. That doesn't make him a moral pillar of society, no more than any other man."

Dick thought of the Barbie doll girl -- or six -- that Bruce always had around his arm. "You know, Alfred, I really think you're right." Dick sighed. "I guess he was just doing what's needed to help Gotham."

"What's needed to help Gotham isn't always what's best for everyone else," Alfred pointed out. "Master Dick, sir, don't you think you should go and try to resolve things with your new team? Before they get any worse. First impressions and all that."

"Well… I guess so," Dick agreed. He got up, stretching, and left. He only hoped he could make relations better with Garfield Logan.

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Rachel was starting to become very impressed with Korina Anders. She could feel that Kori was still as bursting with enthusiasm as ever, but she somehow managed to keep it contained, something that was probably very difficult for a person like her, who always seemed to be on an endorphin surge mixed with a sugar rush, she thought cynically. Kori, however, still managed to keep a very tight lid on her excitement, seeming to not wish to irritate Rachel. Rachel had even gained enough courage to reopen her book, and, hoping Kori would not inquire as to its contents, started reading. Kori started twiddling her thumbs and concentrated very hard on not making Rachel angry.

Rachel saw Dick come out of the cockpit back into the cabin. Since there was only a double row of seats along the plane's walls, Dick sat behind Garfield and Victor and leaned forward. He was evidently trying to talk with them. Rachel rolled her eyes slightly. Good luck with that, she thought. She could feel how unreceptive Gar was to him.

It was another few, fairly uneventful hours later when their pilot's voice rang out through the cabin. "Ladies and gentlemen, I must request that you please fasten your seat belts. We are beginning to descend, and will land in Gotham in around thirty minutes. Rachel sighed with anticipation, feeling her legs, which were starting to cramp, give a cry of relief. They had been flying non-stop from San Francisco International Airport to what was presumably Bruce Wayne's private airstrip. She was very sick of sitting in one spot for so long. From the looks on the others' faces, they were as well.

During the next half hour, Rachel could see increasingly fine details on the ground, and, at last, could feel the judder of the plane as it started to land, then eased into a stop. "We've arrived, everyone," their pilot said, somewhat unnecessarily. "We'll be getting off the plane in a few minutes. Please remember to take anything you may have brought on the plane with you. I'll be getting your luggage as we leave."

Everyone got up eagerly and stretched. "It was good to meet you, Rachel," Kori said sincerely. Rachel felt like raising an eyebrow, but refrained from doing so.

Their pilot, a very well-trimmed, somewhat aged-looking man, handed each of them their luggage one by one, introducing himself to each of them. When he got to Rachel, he handed her her bags and bowed. "I am Alfred Pennyworth, ma'am. I am Bruce Wayne's butler and… confidant." Rachel got a strong feeling that Alfred Pennyworth knew about Bruce Wayne's double life -- besides, it would be difficult to hide the fact that he left every night to parade around as a costumed bat from the man who made his bed every morning. "Thank you, Alfred," she said, inclining her head and taking her luggage from the butler's hands.

In single file, they left the plane, with Alfred bringing up the rear. Rachel noticed he was carrying his own luggage, and was bent over slightly with the weight of it. Her brow creased into a concerned line. "Hey," she said, her eyes glowing white for a moment. A flick of her wrist and Alfred's bags were hovering in the air next to her. "Need a hand?"

Though he looked a little surprised for a moment, Alfred eventually smiled at her. "I can carry my own bags, Miss Rachel. But thank you," he added, bowing slightly.

"No problem." Rachel said, holding back a smile.