Book One : Losing Balance
—
"...which only adds to the mysterious string of events plaguing the city as of late. The increasingly frequent attacks by robotic assailants have perplexed the city police; they say that, to date, no actual merchandise or valuables has been reported stolen. However, numerous public areas have been destroyed in clashes with the local Teen Titans.
When asked to comment about the situation, Robin of the Titans said only that the situation was being dealt with as quickly and thoroughly as possible. He stated that, quote, 'the villain behind these cowardly attacks just had his luck run out.'
This promise, though encouraging, is little compensation for the destruction throughout the city. The damage has even reached corporations like the General Dynamics Robotics Systems Corporation: witnesses claimed seeing a break-in not long ago. Interestingly, General Dynamics has not filed a police report for the claimed incident, and has gone as far as to deny the occurrence of any criminal perpetration in their compounds.
Circulating reports state that the events may in fact be connected with the recent terrorist explosion in the downtown area by the group known only by an acronym..."
—
"Give up, pathetic Humans! You have no hope of victory!"
Villains who talk in third person are extremely annoying...
Annoying, egotistical, and usually well-armed.
This type was no different: the only thing more smug than the cocky stance of his towering red and gold figure was the smile on his face as he challenged us. The gigantic robot stood with a ridiculously polished exterior, nearly impermeable armor, and an enormous quarter-meter thick staff apparently made of stainless steel.
"You disgrace the name of the Titans! Surely, Uranus would have been ashamed to have his mantle passed onto such feeble mortals!"
"Perhaps so," Starfire retorted as she joined the rest of the group on the shadowy building top, "but he would never have worried about us being inept enough to end up carrying the world for all eternity like foolish slaves."
Ouch. The Alien knew her mythology.
And her insults too, apparently.
"You dare offend the Great ATLAS?" roared the robot as he flung his hands in the air and stood to his full height. "You shall pay for such insolence."
He swung his staff down at us.
Robin barely managed to shout out "Titans, Go!" before it parted the team in half like the waters of the Red Sea.
Beast Boy, Robin, and I slid to a stop on the right him. Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire crouched to his left a couple meters away. Regaining our balance, we launched an assault from both sides on the robot.
Cyborg's tackle connected first. He drove his shoulder into Atlas' robotic gut with all of his strength and began driving him in the opposite direction.
"I took you on all by my lonesome self last time, Atlas," Cyborg jeered through his grunts, "what makes you think you even stand a chance against all of us as a team?"
Atlas finally looked down at the Titan trying to tackle him.
All of a sudden, Cyborg looked very small in comparison to the towering giant. "Because," he said with a smile as he grabbed Cyborg by the torso and casually hoisted him up in the air, "the gods have made me one of Them."
He bent down and threw him towards us. Fortunately, we all barely managed to scramble out of the way as he flew towards us. Unfortunately, that also meant there was nothing to slow him down. He smacked the edge of the rooftop, and seemed to hang in the air for one painful second before plunging down the building side into the darkness of night below.
"Don't worry, I'll get 'em," Beast Boy yelled over his shoulder as he sprinted over to the edge. "Take care of Atlas!"
He dove in the air after him, with his toes becoming talons as he disappeared over the edge.
Hmm, maybe someday we could try swinging down buildings together…
A swarm of black spears abruptly appeared and descended on Atlas' unprotected side. Raven allowed him no space to breath as she took larger and larger slashes at him with dark energy. The barrage successfully distracted him long enough to allow Robin to manage to aim and shoot out his grappling hook. It flew out, wrapped around his chest and Robin pulled until the line was taut enough to restrain him.
"HA! Your underestimations will be your undoing, puny Humans!" Atlas shouted. With a loud grunt of power, he flexed his arms and burst through the cable. In the same fluid movement, he turned and swung his staff directly at Robin.
He had no time to react.
It caught him directly in the side and carried him off the ground by sheer force. Robin spun with the staff pressed against his ribs and his arm around the it for protection; the last he wanted was to let Atlas throw him off the roof.
Atlas' swing abruptly stopped. As his hands struggled to hold up the metal that had suddenly gotten extremely heavy, he looked up and saw Raven, her eyes and hands sheathed in a black aura. He visibly grew angrier and struggled to move his staff to fling his prey into the streets below.
But Robin was no longer there.
He was flying through the air, already halfway around a complete turn during his leap. As Robin faced Atlas mid-turn, he flung four disks at his exposed torso.
Three fires burst from him as he shielded his face. As the smoke cleared, he looked out from under his arms.
His cautious glance was met by a tempest of flying fists from Starfire. She caught him in the face several times before attacking his torso. With each successive blow, the two veered closer and closer towards the me and, consequently, the edge.
A meter from me and only one and a half from the edge of the rooftop, Starfire threw her last punch and sent him reeling towards me.
I leaped up and landed on his right shoulder, brandishing one of Robin's disks that had flown over Atlas' head. With all my strength, I jammed the shimmering disk into the joint of his shoulder plate. I kicked off of his head and flipped away from him.
My feet had barely touched the ground when the explosion rocked the ground behind me.
I joined Starfire, Robin, and Raven just as an enormous pterodactyl rose above the side of the building carrying Cyborg in his claws. Cyborg seemed fine, and Beast Boy grinned as he changed back into his natural elf state.
I turned and fixed my gaze with the rest of the Titans on the fallen giant. Atlas stood bent over across the rooftop from us, five meters away. Smoke silently rose from the place where I had jammed the explosive disk and small patch of circuitry laid exposed from the blast.
Random areas of his armor were cracked.
His right shoulder was black and burned.
And he staggered, holding himself up despite his irregular breathing.
Irregular breathing? Since when do any robotic creatures even breath?
Just then, he stood completely and yelled across the rooftop. "Humans! You have received a turn at the offensive warfare long enough! Now, cower under the might of ATLAS!"
His threat hung in the air for a split second before he thrust his arms apart and began to glow a more brilliant shade of gold. I had never met the tin can before this fight, but I could tell that the glowing performance was not his usual method of combat by the stunned and intrigued expressions on the faces of the Titans.
Light gleamed off of his armor and his eyes filled with a fury I had never before seen in... a robot.
"It is time to perish, Titans!" he bellowed. "NOW!"
"Guess again, Rust Bucket," Beast Boy gibed.
We went on the offense, again.
As he sprinted, Cyborg shot his sonic cannon at Atlas' unblemished left shoulder.
He dodged it with a sidestep.
Starfire swooped in from an angle and began releasing a volley of starbolts at his unprotected side. He swung his staff, and swatted her out of the sky and into door of the rooftop access stairs.
I neared him from behind and jumped towards the seductively exposed wiring of his right shoulder. I wasn't even a foot off the ground when Atlas spun around and aimed his free right hand at me.
"Settle down, Little Harpy."
His right hand suddenly shot out from his wrist and caught me in the chest. Seconds later, I found myself staring at the night sky on my back. I tried to get up, but I found myself stapled to the ground by the entrenched fingers of the hand. No force I placed could dig them out. Blowing it up was completely out of the question, so I silently struggled to get out while the team continued their attack.
Beast Boy charged in, head first, ready to gore him with his rhinoceros horn, but Atlas apparently had other plans in mind: four sharp, mechanical claws suddenly sprung from the stump that was his wrist and grabbed the assaulting rhino across his wide green face.
Atlas picked him and looked him dead in the eyes.
"You truly do entertain me, Human." With that, he thrust him up into the air and swung at him with his staff. It connected and sent Beast Boy sailing away in deep pain.
He stared at his success long enough to let Robin get close to him.
"You're finished, Atlas. There's no one left to fix you up or give you your weapons now," Robin shouted as he led in with his bo staff.
Atlas retorted as he blocked the swing with his mechanical claw. "Wrong again, puny titan. I've just begun the alliance that will give me victory!"
Robin led a flurry of swings and stabs that should have pushed him back towards the ledge, but Atlas stood his ground and countered each one with a slash of his sharpened claw and staff.
Thrusting with all of my might for the last time, I finally managed to tear the hand out of the ground and off of me. I looked back towards Robin and saw him swing the staff down at Atlas' body from its raised position above his own head. Atlas caught the bo staff in his clawed hand and counterattacked with his Gargantuan leg.
The kick sent Robin sprawling.
Spinning around, I flung the immense hand as hard as I could to attack.
Raven barely saw it coming towards her.
Her focus on Atlas nearly distracted her, but she managed to catch it with a timely flick of her wrist.
She stared baffled at it, like she had never seen a hand in her entire life. Her gaze shifted to me, and suddenly her face gained a look of fury. Her shoulders grew tense as she opened her mouth to berate me.
I didn't give her the chance.
"Don't just stare at it, USE IT!"
She paused slightly, as if considering whether or not to send it right back, but reluctantly, she gripped it with her dark energy and turned to the jeering robot.
"I'll bet you think you're the Queen of the Underworld!" Atlas said with a laugh as he eyed his own hand floating before him.
"Persephone?" Raven answered, as her body became encased in black, "No, that would involve occasionally giving a damn about springtime..."
She swung her arm swiftly and the black robotic hand delivered Atlas a blow solidly across his metallic jaw.
"...and I don't do springtime."
The hand flailed out at Atlas' defending figure like a prize boxer: mercilessly jabbing and striking hits to various body parts. Meanwhile, a menacing shadow-like claw emerged from the ground and slashed at Atlas from behind.
As they traded blows and clashed, I couldn't help but stare ravenously at the sparks of energy dancing around the claws and the robot. Raven's own creations glowed darkly with power. My fingers began to itch for action.
"HA!" Atlas shouted as he dodged both the claw and his own hand. "You humans are so feisty. It's no wonder you stumble into so many errors!"
He abruptly snatched his hand out of the air and slid it into place on his retracting claws.
Atlas pivoted and dashed through the black energy claw, causing it to vanish away. He stopped abruptly though, once he reached the edge of the building top.
"Game over, Atlas." Robin said as we lined up next to him, effectively cutting off Atlas' escape routes. "Nowhere to go; nowhere to hide."
Atlas roared in laughter. "Simple-minded Humans! There's ALWAYS some place to go!"
Still laughing, he lifted his hand straight up in the air, then brought it down on the floor in front of him.
A huge quake rocked the floor beneath us as small cracks formed sporadically along the floor and we all fought to maintain our balance. In the same fluid motion, Atlas brought his staff down in front of himself and rode the crumbling floor into the offices below.
We all stood somewhat unsure of what to do. Robin motioned us towards the hole in front of us, and we barely began investigating when the floor beneath us gave completely away.
No one had time to fly.
The falling debris pulled us in and each one of us fell straight into the floor below.
—
I opened my eyes to a burgundy carpet that smelled oddly like old leather. My eyes took a quick moment to adjust to the room lit only by the pale moonlight that dripped in from the ceiling. When I could finally see further than my own outstretched arm, I saw that we were in an office of some sort, obviously closed for the night.
From someplace near me I heard someone shout to check if we were all okei.
As muffled mumbles arose from the rocks, I lifted myself up from the dust around me and saw Beast Boy, Raven, and Robin doing the same next to me. A big pile of concrete flew up and Cyborg and Starfire emerged from the rubble not too far away.
It was then that I notice a faint blue glow from a corner. Amazingly, Atlas stood only slightly bent over as he managed to finger the individual keys on a computer.
"What you lack in strength, you make up for in grace," he said as he pulled off a module from the back of the CPU of the computer. He laughed mockingly and held the module to his chest; a small compartment opened up and he placed it in carefully. Atlas looked up and stared into an incoming fleet of onyx concrete rocks. The impact barely scratched his arm, but it provide one second of distraction.
I was on him before he or I even knew it.
My fingers danced over his right shoulder delicately as I eyed the openings of his armor.
He jerked frantically as I found the place where I had blown an opening earlier. Like only days before, I felt the delicious numbness zap my fingers, then begin crawling up my arm.
As he twitched, he reached madly for my with his two free hands.
But I had no intention of getting off.
I swung across his side without ever breaking the current. I saw a small slab of concrete still encased in black off to the side and reached for it with my free right hand. The ebony oozed into me and as I swung the weapon against his face, I felt the euphoric intoxication spread across my entire body.
I was in charge.
I knew it.
He knew it.
He fought it anyway.
With an inhuman strain, he roared and pulled his staff off the floor and into my side.
Under different circumstances, I probably could have ducked, but at the point, I didn't think it would even touch me.
I was wrong.
I crumpled under the blow and fell away. I landed and immediately looked back up with rage in my eyes and a bitter snarl.
"Miserable leech!" he shouted at me, lowering his weapon. He turned to face the Titans, who had all stood up by that point, and pointed with his right hand. "If my mission here weren't complete, I would eradicate your pitiful existence from the face of the Earth!"
Atlas clenched his fists, slowly regaining his strength. He faced the Titans and took two powerful steps before leaping clear over them, flying through the the gaping hole in what was left of the roof.
Landing heavily, he turned and glanced at the team one last time.
Cyborg aimed his sonic cannon at him. Raven extended her hands, palms outward. Robin readied three birdarangs. Starfire's hands glowed brilliantly green. Beast Boy's lion form was crouched, ready to pounce.
"Don't bother," Atlas said with a sinister smile spread across his face. "Until next time Titans, remember: the gods always strike from Above."
His red and gold figure turned and leaped off the rooftop.
The team reacted. "Don't let him get away!" Robin yelled.
The Titans arrived at the rooftop and peered over the edge and saw...
Nothing.
A drop of water fell over the edge of the roof.
Several small raindrops soon followed.
Atlas had disappeared clear off the map.
—
The couch in the Main Room is very comfortable.
I couldn't believe how comfortable it was the first time I sat on it: it was like someone had built it with cushioning designed specifically for comfort. You could barely feel the wooden frame underneath. All of the furniture I had ever sat on had been built for endurance out of solid wood and steel and fell more heavily towards purpose than pleasure.
The beds were heavenly.
Just heavenly.
I determined quickly that the Teen Titans must be rich. When I asked Cyborg a day after arriving where they got their funds for the crimefighting operation, he just answered, "Eh, we have our sources..."
I stared at him awhile before asking, "Like the source you visited last night?"
He jumped back. "No! No. That—that was just—a... just—"
"—undercover work," Robin answered, walking between us.
He had the habit of doing just that: having a quick, premeditated answer for any question I could ask at any time.
"I was not aware that undercover work in your country included illegal practices."
"Sometimes, the ends have to justify the means."
He never stuttered, never faltered, but sometimes—rarely—he didn't answer back.
"Isn't that how psychopaths justify crimes to themselves in their mind? They become fixated on a goal then excuse their obsessive ruthlessness with the idea that they must reach that goal."
Silence.
He stood absolutely still with a look that could have made a stone cry.
Cyborg fidgeted nervously in the background.
I sensed that I had struck a sensitive chord and abandoned that conversation. "So..." I looked around, "your couches are very comfortable..."
It was on those couches that we sat that night when we returned from our battle on the rooftop.
Robin paced in front of the television.
Raven, in a stoically sullen demeanor that I was beginning to suspect was actually part of her personality, sat on the side of the couch furtherest from me. Cyborg casually rested on the seat next to her, looking at something in the computer in his right forearm. Beast Boy slouched on the space next to him, eyes drooping slightly; he looked about ready to fall asleep right where he sat. Starfire sat next to me with a peaceful look on her face that defied the weariness that the others obviously felt. On the other end, I waited for someone to say something about anything.
My feet tapped impatiently on the floor and my fingers fidgeted in my clasped hands. I periodically shook my back from small spasms that wormed their way through.
"That was not the Atlas we fought before," Robin announced to no one in particular.
"You're tellin' me..." Cyborg muttered.
Everyone else seemed to agree.
I just sat there.
"How is it that you were able to beat all on your own the last time we fought him, but now the entire team couldn't keep him down?" Robin asked Cyborg.
"Look, I know what he felt like last time we fought, and this time, he definitely felt... richer."
"Richer?" Beast Boy asked.
"I don't know," Cyborg stood and faced everyone, "it was like... he just had more to him... Like he was completed by something else inside of him."
The Titans stared back, completely baffled.
Cyborg looked away. "Nevermind... look, he wasn't fighting on his own. And he sure wasn't dependent on some huma—I mean—person to keep him up in battle."
Silence.
"I believe Cyborg is right," Starfire ventured. "Not only have his strength and dexterity grown, but his pride and disdain as well; he must have received additional strength from some other source."
"Yeah, that's great," Beast Boy answered, "but we have a little less than NO idea where that strength could be coming from."
Nobody answered.
Silence.
I almost started choking on the awkwardness in the air.
They were all thinking of the exact same person; at that moment, each one had the same name hanging in their mind. They didn't say anything, they didn't do anything, and that's why I knew the name was there.
It was the same name that Starfire had almost dropped two days ago, the first day I spent fully conscious at the tower.
"And this," she had said leading me into a room, "is the evidence room."
I remember looking around at the odd assortment of mementos: a black wand, a cane with a jewel on top of it, a remote control, a red computer chip, and... a puppet?
"This is a very... impressive... collection," I said. "Isn't it unsettling, though, walking in here and seeing so much evil in one room?"
"Perhaps," Starfire said as she looked around at the multitude of objects. She suddenly brightened up, "But the feng shui isn't half of a bad."
I stood, lost beyond recovery. Before I could even ask what fung shway was, she continued her soliloquy.
"It's not as bad as it seems, friend Mika: we keep all of the Sla—Um, that is—the worst evidence downstairs in the archives of the basement floor."
And there it had been.
As time wore on, I realized that they weren't fearing the name.
They were trying forgetting it.
And they weren't doing a very job of it.
"The gods."
I shook my head, returning to the conversation going on in front of me.
"What?" Raven asked, speaking up for the first time in the room.
"Atlas mentioned something about the gods twice: once before and once after the fight," Robin explained. "Whatever made him stronger, it came from them."
"Uh, Robin," Beast Boy said, "you can't seriously be serious about taking his crazy 'gods' bit serious."
"No, " Raven interjected, "that was just his overinflated ego ranting, but he was unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, revealing something about his sources when he went off on his speech."
"Still not very clear on just who his sources are..."
There came a slight pause in the conversation. I took a breath and dove in.
"The gods always strike from Above."
They all turned around, apparently barely remembering I was in the room.
"Unless he was a completely defective android," I continued, "he openly and shamelessly named his sources."
I looked around at their faces. They looked at me seriously, asking me to continue.
Silence.
"... ABOVE," I finished.
There was no surprise in any of their faces. In fact, it was almost as if they were waiting for me to say exactly that.
"How exactly," Beast Boy, of all people, asked, "do you know about ABOVE?"
I fumbled around for words.
"What? I- You-..." I stopped and took a breath. "Enormous screen. Black background. White letters. Projected death threat. Followed a monstrous explosion... Perhaps you were there, too?"
He sat back down on the couch, apparently having risen a little while I stammered to answer. "Right."
All eyes looked away, as if seeing something shameful for the first time behind me.
"We still have no information on ABOVE," Robin continued, as if nothing had happened. "Heck, beyond the letter we pocketed at the office and the message from the city board, we have no evidence of their connection to the robot crimes."
"Then we must continue our investigation with the ABOVE," Starfire confirmed, rising from the couch, "as well as the possible connections to the robotic assaults."
The gathering seemed to be unofficially over, and most of the team stood.
I followed suite and arose to leave, but Beast Boy stood in front of me, looking a little odd. Well... odder than a quirky green shape shifter with a maturity level lower than absolute zero would normally be.
"Listen Mika," he started, "earlier, I didn't mean to get all up in your face... I, uh, just was trying to see if, um, we... could—you know... like..."
"...Trust me?" I finished.
"What? Oh! No! No way! Look, I just thought maybe we should—"
"It's okei," I interrupted, "don't explain anything to me. Do whatever you would normally do if you had someone you didn't know suddenly come live with you: be cautious and careful."
He stood back, not physically reacting to what I said.
I could see, though. He knew I was right.
Trust nobody.
Especially the new girl.
The new girl who isn't even a Titan, just a drifter temporarily staying in the Tower.
Not really knowing what to do, I just patted him on the shoulder and walked past him. I noticed as I did that my head was only slightly taller than his; he was probably about the same age as I was, maybe younger.
That was something I could never understand. How could a motley group of teenagers survive, not only through daily life, but through the life of a costumed crimefighters completely on their own?
Even back at School, there was always somebody watching us; we were never alone at any moment. But the Titans seemed to live without any supervision or interference from the adult world.
I walked to the door that led from the Main Room to the bedrooms.
I couldn't even imagine how they managed to build this tower. From what I had seen, they were fully capable of having constructed it themselves. They certainly had the manpower for it.
I walked the way to my room in silence. I palmed the pad outside of the room and walked in.
The walls were bare, painted white. A bed sat in the far corner with white bedsheets and two white pillows. I don't know why they decided to furnish the room that way, but it was cleaner than virgin snow. A small lamp and radio adorned the bureau next to the bed and a wooden desk in the corner faced the door of the room.
The only other thing in the room was a wooden crate I had found in the basement filled with things I had brought with me from under the bridge.
Unwrapping my scarf from around my neck, I slowly walked to my bed and sat down.
I pulled up the faded dark red cloth of my pants and gently took off the shoes on my feet. One of the first things the Titans had offered me when I arrived were those slippers.
Cyborg had looked at the cloth wrapping I had on my feet for cover and made the decision instantly. "We're getting you something for your feet."
"I already have something," I protested, pointing at the covering.
He completely ignored what I said and had a maroon pair of slippers sitting on my bed in mere hours. They were stiff but flexible on the bottom, made of some sort of leather, and wrapped around my feet like the shoes of a ballet dancer. Every time I stepped in them, I felt like Anna Pavlova, enchanting the audience with every moment.
They had to go.
He was washing his car when I walked up to him, the pair in my hand.
"I think you may have accidentally left these in my room," I said to his back.
"Nope. They were there on purpose," he replied without even looking back.
"Look, I can't accept these."
"And why not?"
"Because... I can't just accept some random donation!" It also didn't help that I felt slightly bad for attacking him in the infirmary a day or two before.
"It's not a donation."
"Then what is it?"
"A gift."
"From who? You? Why?"
"From all of the Titans," he said, finally turning around to face me. His human eye stared at me with an odd compassion, and it made me shiver. "Think of it as a welcoming gift."
"Do you always give such expensive gifts to your gifts?"
He faltered, mulling over something in his head and chose to avoid the question. "I didn't buy them."
Silence.
"Wha- You made them?" I asked incredulously.
"With my own two hands."
Silence.
"Obaldet!"
He looked at me in confusion. "What?"
"Mmm... wow?"
"Oh."
I laughed as I pulled my shirt over my head. The shoes perfectly matched my shirt, though they were thinner, smoother, and infinitely more comfortable.
I didn't really see a tailor when I first saw Cyborg; the image of him cleaning the car of his was a lot more easy to picture. But the shoes were sitting on the floor in front of me, and somehow they matched my outfit.
I tossed my shirt aside and walked towards the door now in my formerly white tank top and still wearing my pants.
I reached out locked the door with the simple press of a button.
They may be Titans, but they're still teenage boys...
I was probably prejudging like I did Cyborg, but then again, prejudgments aren't always wrong.
Raven.
Dark, reclusive, mysterious, and slightly bitter. I didn't know her story, but I knew it was probably one of sorrow. One that invoked pity and fear. She was probably scarred or abused or maybe abandoned in her early life, but then again, what person in this line of business hasn't?
I almost chuckled at the irony: she probably didn't want pity anymore than I did.
I took out the nunchaka from my waistline and undid the small bag tied to the other side. Placing them in the wooden crate, I walked into the small bathroom adjoining my room.
The other Titans certainly didn't seem to pity her; in fact, I felt an usual amount of unspoken respect from them towards her. Probably for a good reason, too. In battle, from the little I had observed of her, she seemed to keep a clear head, and her powers were deliciously dark. She must be a telepath of some sort, to move the way she does with her black aura.
But I had sensed something else as well from the beginning.
I turned on the water in the shower and took off my remaining clothes.
Telepaths don't have to meditate.
They concentrate, but they certainly don't have to be as stoic as Raven seems to always be. Both mornings I had arisen in the Tower, I had noticed her heading to and from the stairs.
"Where does she go every morning?" I asked Starfire yesterday morning when she was cooking some sort of food covered in a dull gray fluid.
"She is going to the rooftop of the Tower to meditate," she replied.
I paused momentarily to try to figure it on my own, but eventually gave in and asked. "Why does she need to meditate?"
She started mixing the ingredients in front of her slightly faster. "Well, she... Raven likes having a balanced state of mind."
Not satisfied but wary of prodding to harshly, I stopped the topic and continued my morning.
I later threw up from eating the green thing she had made.
Shivering in the shower as the cold water hit my skin, I realized the frigid temperature was probably the only thing that kept me from throwing up again. I really couldn't have avoided the nausea, though. Starfire had insisted on making breakfast for the Titans and I last night; she talked extensively about reading a book series on a certain style of cooking and believing that she had perfected a blend of certain dishes.
Somehow, she seemed so genuinely eager to serve us that I couldn't refuse the offer.
The Titans insisted that I refuse.
"Dude, we totally understand that you're being polite and all that good stuff," Beast Boy had said to me when Starfire had left, "but for the safety of everyone's stomachs and the sink drain, don't let her make her crazy alien food!"
I refused to back down on my acceptance.
"I really can't see what would be so terrible about her cooking. She's bound to have some sort of maternal culinary skills in her."
I was dead wrong. Maybe it's because of alien heritage, or maybe the poor girl can't cook at all, but her food was awful.
"It has a base of gelatin and meat products. I added some zorka berries for flavoring and..."
I had sprinted to the restroom and out the door before I could hear the rest.
Still, we could all tell she had tried hard to please us... but she had just failed miserably at it. Starfire had an honesty about her that made me want to trust her. I don't know why, but she seemed to have some sort of quality that made me think it would kill her to lie to anyone. It doesn't mean that I do trust her, but I know that someday that quality might prove invaluable.
Starfire seemed to be the emotion of this group, and she apparently took the role rather enthusiastically. Every team is almost required to have a weight like Starfire to counter the gravity and solemnity of operating in the world of evil adults.
We used to.
I stepped out of the shower, colder than the tundra and wrapped myself in a large soft towel, white of course.
In the Teen Titans, I guess the weight of distraction fell both on Starfire and Beast Boy. They seemed to acknowledge this idea from what I had seen and regularly exercised their gifts to diffuse numerous situations.
Sometimes, Beast Boy used it very regularly and I was already beginning to suspect that his habits could get... annoying.
But I guess it's a necessary evil. The team would be morbidly depressing if they allowed the pursuit of crime to dampen their world. Beast Boy's amusing, if not somewhat cheesy, antics and Starfire's lightly naïve nature saved the group from... themselves.
I kneeled down and pulled a blue duffel bag out from under the bed. I placed it on the bed and took out the only other pair of clothes I had: a white T-shirt with the phrase "I HEART SF" ironed onto the front and a heavily-used pair of jean shorts.
I quickly changed into them and sat on the bed. The lamp lit up the half of the room I sat in and cast a warm glow towards the far away dark side of the room.
Then there's Robin.
He's the only one of the team who wears a physical mask. I'm sure everyone else has their own mental barriers and emotional quirks, but no one else displays such an aggressive denial of human weakness. Apparently, he feels the need to hide something of himself behind the eyemask that adorns his face.
I wondered what could possibly drive him to fight crime the way he did: I hadn't seen him sleep before, wake up later, or stop fighting earlier than anyone else.
It brinked on obsession.
I laid down on the bed and rested my head on the pillow as final thoughts crossed my mind.
They watched my every move. I took a walk on the island in the morning, and I could feel their eyes on me. They were kind and polite, but they entered spasms of unspoken paranoia that caught me completely off guard. I was getting lazy. I should be just as alert as they are.
It's the only way to get ahead in life:
Trust nobody.
Not even yourself...
My eyelids got heavy, and I reached for the lamp.
The world grew dark and I stared weakly at the ceiling.
A question that had bothered me for the past three days emerged from the recesses of my mind and floated up to my surface thoughts, bobbing as I considered it drowsily:
I wonder if there are any poles on the outside of this tower?