While I apologize profusely for the tardiness. I don't care if it's past Christmas. I saw someone recently post a Halloween chapter so I have no shame, and you'll see why.
Willow, Desiree and Ethan sprinted down the dirt path to the humble ranch house. Behind them the triplets ran to keep up.
"Grandma Arella!" Willow shouted as she and her twin picked up speed.
Ethan started to trail behind but Sesha came up behind him and ducked under him to put him on her shoulders.
The door to the house opened and a woman that bore a remarkable resemblance to the woman that was regaining her breath from the teleportation she just accomplished behind the sprinting teens came into view.
"My grand babies!" the woman greeted and walked out to meet the twins.
They collided in a hug that would have looked painful if one didn't see the magic that had cushioned the impact.
"Merry Christmas, grandma!" the twins shouted.
"Merry Christmas, darlings. It's so good to see you!" Arella said.
A few seconds later the rest of the siblings caught up and joined in the hug. From Sesha's shoulders Ethan bent down to hug their heads, which got a laugh.
"Did anyone beat us here?" Conrad asked.
Arella nodded and said, "Your great aunt and cousins. The Doom Patrol isn't here yet."
"Aww. I wanna see Cliff," Sesha groaned. Ethan scrambled from atop her shoulders and Sesha winced.
"All right. All right!" Sesha shouted and took a knee to let her brother run off into the house.
"So, how're the animals?" Ulrich asked conversationally.
Arella hummed contently and turned to let the rest of them into the house as she spoke, "They have been quite happy this year. Taking care of animals has a meditative quality that you can't even get on Azarath."
"You must tell me your secret, mother," Raven said as she and her husband finally caught up, "I don't ever feel like I'm meditating while taking care of this bunch."
Arella laughed as her grandchildren wore looks of incredulity or offence. Garfield chuckled as well and said, "It takes a village."
Raven turned to him and gave him a peck on the cheek, "I never said 'we', love."
As Garfield took on a similar look as his children a new voice spoke up.
"Still as scathing as ever."
"Mary-Beth," Raven greeted her cousin, who has just walked out onto the porch, "It's been too long."
The two women shared a quick hug as Mary-Beth responded, "Too true! You almost fell off the face of the planet after I heard you taking on that freak with the suit."
Willow flinched at the mention of Adonis and Desiree put a hand on her shoulder. Conrad clutched a hand to his chest in what looked like pain and Sesha turned her head to bare her fangs off to the side and not anyone in particular. Ulrich looked at his siblings reactions and hung his head with his hands in his pockets.
Mary-Beth put a hand to her mouth, seeing the reactions too, and glanced at her cousin. Raven sighed quietly and shook her head slightly.
"It's alright," Raven assured, "He's just a weakling in a over priced tin can."
"I still owe him a good smack down," Sesha growled.
"I saw what he did to you on the news," Mary-Beth said, clearly distraught over it, "How do you do it?"
Sesha looked over at her and shrugged, "I just figure that if I can take that punishment and walk away then only I should. I don't want anyone else to get hurt when I could have been their shield."
Merry-Beth smiled at her nonchalant selflessness and said, "You're such a hero. All of you are."
"I wouldn't go that far. We're just trying our best," Willow said while scratching the back of her neck.
"That's still more than a lot of people," Mary-Beth said than waved them inside, "Come. My parents and brother and sister will be delighted that you're here."
The group walked inside and settled in with the family that had already arrived. It was full of hugs and sideways glances at Sesha whenever Raven's aunt, Alice, made a more religious statement.
It was made all the more awkward when it was made apparent that Raven's youngest cousin was very pointedly ignoring the Logans. Jessica refused to join any conversation or even look at any of the Logan teens.
"Does she really still have that big a chip on her shoulder?" Willow asked into their heads.
"I guess so," Conrad thought with a mental sigh, "Even our family can turn their nose at our blood."
"Don't think like that," Desiree though, "She's family. She'll come around."
"I won't," Sesha thought bluntly.
She continued though her siblings' protests and thought, "She came at us with a cross and holy water. You can go on about how many years ago it was but she's only drunk more of the Kool-Aid sense then. She may have apologized but she never made an effort to even be family."
No one gave a rebuttal and the mental conversation ended as they turned their attention to the verbal one.
"They should be here any minute. They had to check out an alert and they're now coming down from their sub orbit flight," Garfield said as he looked at his communicator.
"Doom Patrol's almost here?" Sesha asked with excitement.
"'Bout ten minutes," Garfield said with a grin, obviously also excited. He clicked a button on the device to put it into sleep mode and pocketed it.
The last of Raven's cousins, Billy, watched as he did so.
"Do you use that to stay in contact with all of your teams?" He asked.
Garfield raised a brow at him before answering, "Yeah. Keeps me in contact with the Patrol, the League and of course the Titans. Homing beacon and everything. It also acts like a satellite phone when I call my personal contacts."
"Cool," Billy said in awe, "I wanna help make that stuff too one day."
Raven perked up as if remembering something, "Mary-Beth said you were studying engineering in college, right? Do you want to work on the Watchtower?"
Billy huffed out a breath and looked up into the air, in the direction that Raven couldn't help but notice that was the general area where the Watchtower would be orbiting at that moment.
"That would be awesome," Billy said, "Ever since I met you, Raven, I've wanted to do my part to help fight crime. You really inspired me with when you saved our sister."
Garfield chuckled while his wife's cheeks colored slightly.
"Maybe we can pull a few strings," he said, "Rae and I may not work in the tech side but I can ask Cyborg."
"Really?" Billy said, "I'm just a semester away from my degree."
"Then give us a call when you have it." Raven said.
Arella looked out the window at the grazing cows and chickens that populated her ranch.
"Could we, perhaps, go find a clearing for the Doom Patrol to land in?" Arella asked, "I didn't much fancy the way my poor animals were spooked by that rocket contraption last time."
The family waited in a clearing a few miles out, having been teleported by Raven with the help of some of the teens.
Willow's ears perked and she looked up to the sky, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. Before anyone could ask her what was wrong the scream of jet engines pushing an aircraft past the sound barrier started to make itself heard.
"Here they come," Garfield said, looking up at the sky and shielding his eyes from the sun.
The Doom Patrol's personal aircraft soared overhead and started to make a decent, slowing down from super sonic.
Arella peeled her hands away from her ears and said, "Ah. I remember now. I also had to replace a few windows."
"That house is ancient, mother," Raven said, "I may prefer antiques, but it was due for a few upgrades, lest it fall apart."
The family banter continued behind Willow as she slowly walked up to where the plane was starting to land. She had a grin plastered on her face and her eyes never left the aircraft even when it had disappeared over the trees for its bank to descend.
Finally the plane touched down and began to lower its ramp. The moment the hydronic hissed to begin their function, Willow was sprinting to the aircraft.
"Aaaaaaahh!" Willow screamed over the engines that had yet to turn quiet.
Desiree looked at her twin in utter confusion and Sesha scratched her head.
"What has her so excited?" Conrad asked.
"I don't know. I haven't seen her like that sense we went to Evo last year." Desiree said.
From the ramp the Doom Patrol walked down. Steve, Rita, Cliff, and Larry looked a little surprised at Willow sprinting up the ramp to meet them.
"Hi Steve! Rita! Cliff! Larry!" Willow said in quick succession with a hug with each greeted member. Each member in turn tried to greet the girl but she was too much a blur.
"Hello, Willow. You've grown so much!" Rita said as she held the ecstatic young Titan before she moved on to the next member.
"You seem chipper. Even for Christmas around the corner," Cliff said. He patted Willow on the head and even her ponytail being disheveled didn't lessen her smile.
"Yeah!" She shouted.
Even through all of her hugging and greeting she still never took her eyes off of a distant point within the ship.
Steve looked at her curiously and then to Garfield and Raven. They returned the look with uncertain eyes.
"Is there something else on your mind, Willow?" Steve asked.
"I think our cargo has been discovered," Larry said, crossing his bandaged arms.
"Do you see them, Willow?" Steve asked, humming curiously when she nodded vigorously in response.
"Then go," Rita chuckled, "You look ready to jump out of your skin from excitement."
Willow was off in a streak of green the moment the words were out of Rita's mouth.
"What's on here that has her so high strung?" Sesha asked as the rest of the family walked up to the ship.
"You'll see soon enough. I didn't know that Willow would be able to sense it," Steve said with a small smile. However his eyes bore into Garfield's with a silent message. A look that was met with a mix of understanding and perplexity.
The two families exchanged pleasantries and hugs, or in Sesha and Cliff's case a fist bump that resulted in Cliff checking to see if his hand had any dents, with the Doom Patrol until a shout echoed from within the ship.
"I thought you were stuck on that research trip! Who cares! You're here! Aaaah!"
The Logan teens' eyes all widened just as Willow's did when the ship had first come into view. From around a corner Willow was dragging a pair, a male and female, that looked to be in their forties.
"No way!" Sesha said and ran towards the trio, Desiree close behind as she squealed.
The boys were slower in their approach but had the same gleeful shock on their faces.
Both wore researcher like gear that looked like they were plucked from an expedition with their knees and arms scraped, fresh bug bites and muddy boots. Both had striking blue eyes and blonde hair.
"We were able to find time. We had a breakthrough with one of our projects that finally persuaded our sponsors to let us take a vacation," the female said.
"Really think they should just let you have Christmas off. It's just rude to make you work through it," Willow said.
Raven was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Willow has so effortlessly sensed what she couldn't. She understood Steve's silent message and made a mental note to discuss it later.
"That's just corporate work sometimes," the male said, "We make the vaccines while they pay us and make the big bucks selling them. Not much room for us to barter our free time."
"And they can't just stop saving lives with their work, now can they?" Garfield said.
The Logan teens surrounded the pair in a flurry of green that settled into a group hug that had the blondes struggling to share themselves with all of them. When the teens finally stepped away, the woman walked up to Raven and, after a quick hug, took her hands in her own.
"I'm so glad we were able to come," she said.
Raven quickly glanced at the ring on the woman's index finger, so pristine and flawless a white it was as if was forged from light itself, and to Willow, who was still vibrating from excitement, clutching the man's right hand that bore an identical ring to the woman's.
"I can think of no more pleasant surprise," Raven greeted the pair then stepped aside so her husband could walk up to embrace the two.
"Hey mom. Hey dad. Merry Christmas."
"I don't want to go into this now, Mento. It's the holidays," Raven said as she waved off the head of the Doom Patrol leader. She was nursing a mug of tea and looking out the window to the yard.
"We agreed that things of this nature can't wait," Steve said, "Willow detected Marie and Mark when they specifically didn't want to be detected. You can't even detect Green Lanterns when they're going stealth, let alone White Lanterns."
"I understand the implications," Raven responded as she clutched the cup, "but I would care to not have the conversation in such an exposed area."
As she spoke Mark ran through the yard with a group of green animals hanging off of him while he laughed. Steve was quiet for a moment as he looked hard at the window separating them from the person of interest, currently a potoo on her grandfather's shoulder, and silently wished the antique house to be more sound proof.
Beside Raven, the sink clattered as a mug was deposited in it.
"Thanks for the tea, mom," Ethan said before running back around the corner and outside to join his siblings. After he was back outside Raven turned to Steve with a knowing look on her face.
Steve sighed, "I see your point."
"This is barely anything to worry about," Marie said as she looked at the white ring on her finger, "I don't see how her sensing us through our rings' veil is something to call a meeting for."
"You may not think so, but any little thing the rugrats do could be something worth having a chat about," Constantine said as he poked at ethereal fires.
He was crouched in front of a fireplace centered on the far wall of a grand gathering room of a Victorian looking estate. It was dark, rustic and gloomy with trinkets and tomes on the tall bookshelves that brought Garfield back to the days when Raven's choice of decor still unnerved him.
Besides the fireplace the only source of light were large wax candles affixed to what Garfield hoped were fake skulls with sharp teeth.
The House of Mystery would always creep him out.
He sat in on of the red velvet loveseats with his wife and his parents in another. Steve was standing amongst the chairs and faced the fireplace like the two pairs of Logans. Arella sat in the chair closest to her daughter. Zatanna stood near the fireplace with a sense of being the hostess of the occasion and giving Constantine sideways glances as he uncaringly poked the magical fire that very well didn't need to be poked.
Zatanna nodded and looked to the younger Logans and asked, "What details do you remember?"
"Before we even heard the ship Willow was already excited beyond having just sensed the Doom Patrol," Raven explained, "I could sense the Doom Patrol, but had you told me anyone else was on the ship I would have believed it impossible."
"She even kept her eyes on them through the tree line," Arella said.
"We we're slowing down from Mach speed. Even at the ship's slower speeds she had to have locked onto their location from at least a few thousand meters with us traveling at hundreds of meters a second," Steve surmised and turned to the elder Logans, "The minimal human presence and the very familiar and unique signatures from you two may have given her some ease but it is still quite a feat."
Mark and Marie clasped each other's hands and Mark spoke, "With all of that in perspective it does sound like Willow has gotten stronger."
"So she's got a fancier emotion radar," Constantine said, "That's not exactly gonna melt faces like the littlest demon almost did."
The fire he was still poking kept from the logs and the flames licked his face. Constantine, however, didn't flinch.
"They ain't real," he said as he stood and turned to look at Raven, "You're gonna hafta try harder then that, birdy."
Raven sneered at the unshaven man, "I can easily send you to the deepest corners of Hell."
Constantine shrugged, "I've gotten out of worse scraps."
"That you put yourself in in the first place," Raven said.
"You need to watch your tongue about my grandchildren," Arella interjected, "I've faced Trigon and stood my ground. I've heard you can't say the same."
Constantine turned to Arella and said, "Was that before or after he-"
"Don't you dare go there!" Raven roared, "I've known you to be intolerable at times, Constantine, but you will not cross a line that I will make you regret!"
"Bloody hell," Constantine said, "If only it wasn't like I was on in a ball and chain in this situation then I wouldn't act a chav."
"Like I said. You put yourself here and you're paying your dues," Raven growled at him.
Constantine sighed and fell silent.
"We'll update Robin and have this added to the log," Garfield said as he stood up, trying his best to alleviate the tension and helping his wife up as well, "He may be an ass about it but Constantine is right. We don't need to fuss too much over this one. It's not nearly as groundbreaking as Ethan's latest."
The other occupants followed suit, thankful that the subject matter was as inconsequential as a stronger sensory ability.
Zatanna lead them all to the front door of the mansion and opened it, leading to the living room of Arella's ranch house.
In one of the chairs Rita sat waiting silently with a mug in her hands.
"Thank you, Zatanna, and Merry Christmas," Raven said, switching to a softer volume for the sleeping residents of the hose after stepping back into her mother's abode.
"Thanks, Raven. You too." Zatanna said with a smile, "One of these days we'll get together without something looming over us."
"Saying stuff like that is asking for it with our line of work," Garfield said.
Zatanna chuckled and bid the other residents goodbye and disappeared after swinging the door shut, leaving behind an otherwise uninteresting wall where the entrance once was.
"Your mugs didn't even get cold," Rita said softly with a smile, referring to the still steaming cups on the table in the center of the room.
"It wasn't much to discuss," Garfield said with a shrug.
Raven walked over to the couch closest to the fireplace and crouched low next to a sleeping teen laying on it. Almost in arms reach on the brick of the fireplace was a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, personally milked by his grandmother from one of the cows sleeping as contently in the barn outside as the boy on the couch.
She brushed the blonde locks out of Ethan's sleeping face and sighed. "I just wish for a safe holiday," Raven said.
Beside her a crunch was heard and she looked to see her husband munching on one of the cookies.
"Garfield, those aren't for you," Marie whispered.
Regardless of having been caught Garfield finished the cookie as Raven took the blanket that was thrown over the back for just such an occasion and draped it over their youngest child.
"Let's go to bed. I just hope Mr. Claus doesn't leave you some coal for taking his treat," Raven said.
"Aww, common, Rae. You know the big guy will be giving it all to Darkseid," Garfield said.
The family started to filter up the stairs as quietly as possible, mindful of the sleeping teens in the house. Unbeknownst to them a rustle of snow and bells came from the chimney causing Ethan to smile in his sleep.
Meanwhile in the darkest reaches of the multiverse a rather large lump of coal sat in a palm of a rather large hand. After a snort of indifference the hand clenched around the coal and it was turned to dust.
"One of these years you will fail, old man," Darkseid growled.
No joke the last few lines with Darkseid are canon.
I know the ending is bad and like hitting a wall but it's already super late as it is and I have an entire thing that this leads into that I already wrote up with this chapter actually gaining story significance unlike the crappy Halloween thing I did. This was originally going to be an irrelevant side story that I would post separately but I got a wave of inspiration.
Also, no joke, the last few lines with Darkseid are canon.
Either way I am super sorry to my followers. Life hit me pretty hard again. So hard I quit my job (that's a whole story), moved (that's a whole story) and reapplied to college. Yeah, it was topsy turvy for a bit. You might have also noticed that I changed the rating. Mostly because I believe that M is way too harsh a rating when I don't explain gore or have any actual explicit sex. A few jokes, words and a bit of blood is nothing that I wouldn't bar my 13 year old sister from reading which was the final straw in wanting to expand the viewbase beyond people that actually expand the rating filter that far.
So if I do get an influx of readers then I encourage you to tell me what you think! This brainchild is my pride and joy so please review and thanks to all of the followers and reviews so far!