I OWN NOTHING
About the pairing: Trunks will have some choices to make with heroes and/or a villain before choosing "The One," and as of now there are five candidates for flinging and/or "The One." I'm adding Diana back onto the pairing thing in the description because most of you are hoping for her, SG, or PG to be his final conquest, and Zatanna, if they'd allow more than four characters, based on what happened last chapter. You'll find out the fifth one by the end of this first book. ;)
Trunks forgot how hot Texas was. Before he reached Cale's office, he had bought a black briefcase and folded his jacket inside it. He also took the opportunity to sew up his pants. That was an awkward bathroom visit. He walked down a busy sidewalk, getting strange glances every now and again as his Scouter told him directions. "Take a left on Lee street and the destination will be in front of you."
Trunks turned onto the street corner and looked across the busy crosswalk, looking at the tall, Double-Helix shaped chrome skyscraper. He scowled at the sun glinting off the shiny, innocent looking marvel; Trunks had read the contract thoroughly and it wasn't pretty. However, he felt at ease about what he was doing. For once he wasn't bashing skulls in, or cleaving any space aliens in half; he was going about a day of business. People never stop needing help though. The bouncy ball the kid dribbled next to his mom who was on the phone had rolled into the busy street. Trunks watched in horror as the small, Asian boy raced out into the street, unwary of the oncoming semi-truck. Trunks pushed several people out of the way and took a leap into the street in front of the red truck. He rolled through the intersection and caught the boy around his waist, running to the other side of the street with the ball tucked in his other arm. He hit the sidewalk as the sign changed from "stop" to "walk" and turned around, facing the crowd of people briskly making their way across the street. The mother of the child gasped and raised her sunglasses, almost running across the white stripes. "Yang!" she exclaimed, picking the young child who had received his looks from her. "How many times have I told you not to run across the street? You could have been hurt!" She grinned at the Saiyan. "Thank you so much! I don't know what I would have done if-" She gave him more of a scornful look. "You were trying to save my son, weren't you?"
Trunks put up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Yes, I promise."
"Well," she said, still debating whether to show gratitude or criticism. "Thank you. Yang's going to be in quite a bit of trouble."
Trunks handed her the ball and reached into his pocket, pulling out a purple Scouter and handing it to her. "Use this to keep a better watch of Yang, and of everything."
The mom looked at the Scouter on Trunks' face and fastened hers just like his. "How do I-"
"Greetings, mistress," the English AI said, making her jump.
"What was that?!" she exclaimed.
"The AI that answers all of your questions," Trunks said nonchalantly. "Enjoy it." He turned to the building and grabbed the door handle.
"Wait," the mom said, "what's your name?"
"Mister Takeshi Kusao," Trunks said, heading into the building. A blast of cool air conditioning hit him full force, making him take a sigh of relief. He looked around the new age building, the elevator shaft waited in the center of the room, small, round tables and brown leather chairs with exotic trees dotting the room presented a relaxed atmosphere above the white tile floor, and the smell of coffee from the bar-styled table in the back of the room drew Trunks further inside. The first floor was mostly empty, with one or two men in business suits typing away on their expensive laptops.
He looked at an element clock on the wall. "Na Ne," it read, and Trunks chuckled. He was ten minutes early. He set down his briefcase and opened it, taking out his jacket and putting it on again.
"Nine minutes and counting, master," the Scouter said. "I would suggest making your way up to the office now."
"Thank you," Trunks said, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving. He closed his briefcase and walked over to the center of elevator shafts with them, pressing the "up" button. One of four elevators could open, but it seemed like none of them would. Trunks waited for four minutes before one opened. A sea of suits and ties flooded out of the small box and Trunks waded his way inside just before the doors closed.
He stood in the elevator like a packed sardine, trying to shift his briefcase to where it wasn't jabbing him in the ribcage. Country music played softly in the package, making Trunks scowl. He thought "country" was just a thing from his world. The doors opened and the businessmen piled out. Trunks walked into a room with brown carpet and leather sofas lining the walls painted a light coffee color. The businessmen filed their way through various doors in between the sofas like robots, knowing only what they had to do. A mahogany desk sat opposite of Trunks and a short brunette girl wearing a navy blue jacket and a white top worked tirelessly on her desktop. She had a headset on. A small, black label read "secretary Jones" on the desk. Trunks looked to the double doors to the girl's right, hearing Miss Cale's voice inside them shouting at a high-pitched voice who wouldn't stop apologizing.
He walked up to the desk. "Miss Jones," he said. She seemed to have not heard him. "Miss Jones," he said a little louder, making her jump a little in her seat.
"Sorry about that," the young girl said with a slight southern drawl. "I assume you're her twelve o'clock?"
Trunks nodded. "Yes, I am." He looked at the clock. He had a minute to spare. "I'm here about the product."
"Have a seat, please," she said, "I'll sign you in. What's your name?"
"Takeshi Kusao," Trunks said.
"Oh, here you are," she said, quickly typing something into her machine. She pressed a grey button on the mouse. "Miss Cale," she said. She grew a slightly disturbed look on her face. "Miss Cale, is everything-"
"It's fine!" Trunks heard the blonde scream into the headset. "Send him in!"
The double doors flew open and a tall, lanky man with slick blonde hair and a briefcase ran out of a long hallway with his head in his hands as he sobbed. Trunks fastened his tie and walked through the doors, closing it. The floor continued its brown carpeting, but the hall itself was hotter than the area around it. He felt like he was being watched and he turned on his Scouter tracker. Four yellow circles appeared at the corners of the device. "I can see you," he said as he approached the second set of double doors to Cale's office. He heard a slight shifting from behind the walls and he smirked. He opened the door to the hot office. The office was large and round, with Cale sitting at her dark brown, Victorian era desk with her back to the window wall, showing Trunks' reflection in the beautiful summer day. While her chair was big and leathery, almost like a rolling throne, the chairs that were expected to be sat in by Trunks were black and plastic, like an orchestra or band chair but flimsier. Trunks closed the doors behind him and looked at the business tycoon, in her pink suit. with an emotionless face. "Hello, Miss Cale-"
"You're late," she cut in sharply, silencing the Saiyan. "Have a seat."
Trunks glanced at the chair. "No thank you, Miss Cale-"
"I said have a seat," she stressed, glaring at him with a venomous stare.
Trunks sat down and crossed one leg over the other.
Cale grinned. "So let's talk about your integration into Cale."
"Scouter, bring up highlighted sections of the contract," Trunks said.
"Yes, master," the Scouter said, projecting eight pages of the contract on her desk.
"Integration is an understatement, Miss Cale," Trunks said, standing up and pointing to a highlighted line on one of the sheets. "This states that I would hand over all assets and rights of my products directly to CaleTech," he said. He grabbed the top of a holographic paper and held it up tangibly. "Then this states that the party of the inventor of the product shall cease to exist past the point of gridlocking, and that I as an individual would have to reapply for a supervising job to get a cut of the income brought in by the product. I wouldn't even make one percent if I decided to join your team."
"You're looking at one percent as a bad thing," Cale said with a wide, fake grin. "With the amount of products we'll be selling, you'll make back all the money you think you're losing. We can sell both your items for three grand a pop; that's ninety dollars, times ten thousand products sold; we'll be rolling around in money before you can say 'Mister Wayne.'"
"It's one percent minus all of the production taxes, shipping, and packaging costs," Trunks said sternly. "And your contract puts me out of a raise." He stood up and turned toward the doors.
"But you are guaranteed a six digit salary here upon readmission-"
"I'm not going to let you steal my work," Trunks said.
"How dare you even accuse my company of stealing!" Cale shouted. "I demand you sit back down to discuss your readmission!"
"You're still acting like I'm going to give you my products," Trunks said. "Fine. I won't hand over my products. Better?"
"I think you need to read over the contract again because you cannot seem to grasp, with your thick skull, the amazing opportunity-"
"Good day, Miss Cale," Trunks said, opening the doors with a screaming business owner piercing his ears from her desk. Those watching behind the walls shifted again, as if they were turning away from the affair.
He walked down the hallway and through the second set of doors. The whole room heard the tail end of Cale's rant. "You will never sell a product like that without my help, do you hear me? I went to Harvard business school!"
"I apologize, Miss Cale, but you cannot expect anyone to just ignore what I presented," he threw back, brushing past a few suits and ties before returning to the elevators to begin a long ride down. He leaned his head on the wall. "I wonder how the other me is doing," he muttered.
Gotham, Illinois, 12:45PM
Trunks left the more relaxed Mister Wayne nearly silent in his chair as the business tycoon played with the Capsule, his eyes glued just above the edge of the desk, carefully building a house of cards. Trunks continued in depth of the specifications not covered in the presentation he gave on stage, but it seemed like the suit wearing business man Mister Wayne wasn't listening. His office was large, warm and welcoming with an Allan Quatermain feel; a crackling fireplace in the corner with a rifle mounted above it and a large portrait of himself with his parents-he most certainly got his looks from his dad- and a rich, fur carpet like it was made out of beaver. Mister Wayne's desk was near an old, inverted window, but instead of looking out at the sunny, late summer Dallas, Trunks looked at the gray, rainy Midwestern day. The building was tall enough to where he could see Lake Michigan just within the horizon. "Darn it!" Mister Wayne exclaimed. The house of cards toppled and he sucked them all back in again, starting over by spitting out one card at a time.
"Are you alright?" Trunks asked, taking his finger away from a diagram his Scouter projected in the air.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks," Mister Wayne said, spinning once in his comfy leather chair. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out his copy of the contract and a recorder. "I'm going to read the contract out loud," he said, tossing Trunks another copy and the Capsule. "I am interested in both the 'Scouter' and the 'Capsule.' Here are my terms."
Trunks wanted to pump a fist into the air. Hopefully the pay would be good enough to allow him to rebuild his machine within one to two months. He was already a tenth of the way there. For the next two hours, Mister Wayne and Trunks scoured the contract, while being recorded. Trunks gladly took a soft rocking chair while he read.
"Blah blah consolidation," Mister Wayne said, now reading the contract upside down in his chair, his head under the desk. "Blah blah bleh blah bleh. Could you finish reading these last two pages? My brain is fried."
Trunks was too busy staring in awe at one of the most powerful men in the world, tens of diplomas in every form of scientific study known to man, acting like a bored child. It seemed like he was taking the same route Mister Wayne was, and he started to wonder if he would end up like him, upside down and in a chair.
"Kusao?" MIster Wayne said.
"Oh, right," Trunks said, quickly reading through the last pages, pleased at seeing that he'd start out with a ten percent earning then grow percentage wise as more people would buy his product. Capsule Corp would exist as a sub branch of WayneTech for now, and Trunks could buy himself out of WayneTech to form an official partnership as well as take the rights to the Capsule and Scouter once he could stand financially on his own. He was also happy that in few minutes, the business he, his mom, and grandfather took the world by storm with was going to make a full comeback. "I would be glad to work with Wayne Enterprises," he said. "I couldn't thank you enough, Mister Wayne."
Mister Wayne fell out of his chair but quickly returned to it. He tossed Trunks a pen. "You can sign it after we file your patent."
"Already done," Trunks said. "I made a trip to Alexandria…" He realized that saying that he had gone there after his dealings with La Encantadora would be unbelievable. "Yesterday," he said. "The process was a lot faster than I thought." Trunks was right. Where he was from, it took twelve months to get anything patented. According to the headquarters here, it would take roughly twelve hours. A new algorithm for sorting through existing patents and 3D scanners for prototypes, the former made possible by WayneTech, made the authentication process so much easier. "I'll give you a call at around eleven, your time, once the patent processes." He reached into his pocket and tossed him a red Scouter. "Thank you, Mister Wayne," he bowed to his new boss. He quickly penned his name, with "Trunks," in between "Takeshi" and "Kusao," in parentheses, and went to write the date. His eyes widened. He didn't know what day it was.
"Saturday, September 20th, 2014," Mister Wayne said. "This is one heck of a way to end summer, you know? Can you imagine anything more exciting?"
Trunks could, in fact. "No I couldn't, Mister Wayne." He reached into his pocket and tossed Mister Wayne a red Scouter. "Thank you so much for the opportunity. I'll build you a Capsule tonight."
Mister Wayne caught the Scouter and fastened it on his face. He pressed the on button. "Hello, master Wayne."
"Ooh!" Mister Wayne said giddily. "I love it!" He stood up and walked over to Trunks, clapping him on the shoulder. "You made the right choice by coming here. I'll show you around the production grounds and where your office is going to be as the head of production of the Scouter and Capsule."
"What will my hours be?" Trunks asked.
"You'll only come in when there is a need," Mister Wayne said, opening the doors out of his office. Trunks stepped onto a busy tile floor with his new boss right behind him. They approached a railing overlooking a twenty story drop through the heart of WayneTech. "Someone will call you. In the meantime, keep cooking up more cool stuff and leave tips for the producers and my PR firm: what colors to make them, what sizes, voices, how much you want to sell it for, who to market to, a whole bunch of stuff we can look into in the near future, like, two weeks from now; by the way, did you record the voice yourself?"
"Yes, master Wayne," Trunks said in his English old man accent.
"Nice, nice," Mister Wayne chuckled, "and you need to set up commercials for your products. Do you have a laptop? I feel like email would be the quickest way to reach you."
"I don't have one yet," Trunks said, "but Best Bargain will be my next stop."
"Great," Mister Wayne said. "I assume the blueprints are in the Capsule?"
Trunks spat them out of the Scouter as soon as he asked it. "Not anymore, at least," he said, handing them to him.
Mister Wayne led Trunks into a wide elevator and closed the doors. "Be here in two weeks, the fourth, to discuss the next steps in marketing; it will take a little while for us to get a preliminary line of products ready for consumer testing, " he said as the doors opened again on the bottom floor. "And bring your associate, Karen. She seems to have a good head for this kind of stuff."
"I will; thank you, Mister Wayne," Trunks said graciously, leaving the elevator and beginning to cross the floor toward the glass doors to the outside.
"And she's kinda cute," Mister Wayne said quickly, making the Saiyan blush. "Anyway; how much did it cost to make the Scouter and Capsule?"
"One dollar twenty and fifteen dollars, respectively," Trunks said. "I'm planning on selling the Scouter for the price of a cell phone, then the Capsule the amount of renting a two-man moving system for six hours. The convenience will cost more than the items themselves."
"Oh ho!" Mister Wayne exclaimed, clapping him on the back. "Now you're starting to sound like a businessman, Takeshi! Welcome to it. Now go on, buy your laptop, and make sure to add WayneTech's email into your directory."
Trunks bowed once again. "Thank you, Mister Wayne." He walked out of the building and looked up, seeing his other half. He left an afterimage in front of the doors and appeared on top of a building three blocks away. The sky was clear and sunny now and he felt the cool, late Summer breeze through his hair. The two Trunks's chuckled at each other before forming one again. "Let's go see what toys the Best Bargain in this universe has to offer me," he said, hopping into the alleyway and getting caught up in the sweep of civilians down the sidewalk. This was the most 'normal' anything was in a long time, even though he was just buying a computer he'd mod to the point it was some technological anomaly, but as his Scouter beeped as he exited the store with a boxed, bagged laptop in hand, he knew all good things must come to an end. He ran into another alleyway. "Hello?"
"Hey, Trunks," Black Canary said, "Green Arrow and I could use your help."
"What's up?" Trunks asked.
"Solomon Grundy, a good friend of ours, is here with us in Port-au-Prince and he has a knack for raising the dead and controlling them," he heard Black Canary say. "We're a bit outnumbered, but it's nothing we can't handle. The problem is his backup."
"Who is it?" Trunks asked.
"Giganta," Black Canary said, "and she's quite a big problem."
Trunks held his index and middle finger to his forehead before vanishing in thin air. He reappeared in his room in the Watchtower, panting and dizzy. "Damn it," he cursed. "So much energy," he said. "Should have gotten some coffee," he told himself; "No, it was probably stale," he said, quickly changing into his armor. "Scouter, news in Haiti."
The Scouter projected a shaky feed onto the wall of a giant, redheaded woman in a pink dress punching through a building at a little, green dot. At her feet were hundreds of zombies controlled by a hulking. gray man with black eyes and white hair. They surrounded what looked like the Black Canary who belted out "Welcome to the Jungle" at them, blowing them away.
"Well, at least I can just barrel into things," Trunks said, rushing out of his room and toward the surveillance. He stopped just in front of the doors to the parking lot and looked at the watch, seeing Aquaman disgruntled.
"To where must I tire my hands in sending you?" the king asked.
"Haiti, sir," Trunks said. "Port-au-Prince."
Aquaman sighed. "Stay still."
Trunks felt the familiar jolt down his spine and found himself standing on top of a tall, run down building overlooking a hill leading all the way down the street of similar buildings in similar shape. A firetruck rushed down the street toward the sight Trunks could see a hundred feet away: the tall woman he saw on the news was desperately swiping and hitting at a target that bounced around her shoulders and arms. Trunks spiked his aura and burst through the air. "Here's Johnny!" he exclaimed, landing a dual kick in Giganta's side as Oliver leaped off her arm.
The hundred foot tall woman yelped in pain with a surprisingly high pitched voice for someone that tall. "Hey!" she shouted, wincing in pain as several green pins poked her cheek. She tried looking for the culprit and found him just before he planted a Saiyan-sized punch in her nose. She stumbled back and fell on her behind. "Ouch! That really hurt! What are you?"
"Hi, the Saiyan, nice to meet you," Trunks said, throwing a kick into her forehead and dragging her to the ground by her hair. "Can you please fall unconscious now?"
"I'll squash you like a gnat!" she snarled, trying to clap him in between her hands. Trunks fired two burning hot beams of chi into them, making her hands hurt like she had been stung by a hornet. She yelped in pain again and snatched Trunks out of the air, squeezing with all her might.
Trunks felt veins bulge in his forehead as he tried to push back with all four limbs. "Black Canary, Green Arrow," he said into the Scouter. "I don't have the chi to go Super Saiyan now. Please get her to open her hands."
"I don't know who you're giving orders to," Oliver said with a condescending tone, chuckling after Trunks growled, "but I guess I'll help you out."
"I'm still trying to sing Grundy a lullaby," Black Canary said. The last thing Trunks heard before she disconnected from her communicator was the hard rock vocals from "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Giganta screamed in pain and squeezed even tighter, crumpling Trunks between her hands. She opened them again, furiously shaking her frostbitten palms with blue arrow tips stuck in them. Trunks fell to the ground with a light thud, the wind knocked out of him and breathing hard. "Instant Transmission, the Multi Form, flying across the country in two separate directions; never doing it again." He climbed to his feet and looked around, seeing fresh, gray zombies slowly circling him. "Damn it," he cursed, whipping out his sword and fazing out, reappearing behind Giganta. The zombies fell into three pieces each, seconds later. He burst forward and took Giganta by the arm, slowly raising her into the air. "Alright, lady, let's go on a-"
Giganta's other hand snatched him, holding him where only his head was facing her. "I have you now!" she exclaimed. "Unless you can breathe fire-"
"Chou Makouhou!" Trunks barked, yelling out a fiery burst of pink chi into her face.
"Damn it, you can breathe fire!" she cursed, letting him go and thrashing about. She threw a punch toward the mosquito-sized super. Trunks flipped over her middle knuckle and darted up her arm, drawing his hands to his face while shutting his eyes.
"Solar Flare!" Trunks exclaimed, blinding the giant then bombarding her with an endless volley of yellow chi. Through the explosions she screamed and became smaller and smaller until she was a regularly sized woman in a pink dress, now burnt in small patches on her skin and unconscious. "Spamming; sometimes, you just have to." He fell to his knees, half-laughing while he slowly recuperated some energy. "Scouter, scan the area for the injured and unstable."
Seven yellow rings appeared on the Scouter glass. "All building structures in tact, no casualties, high property damage, a few injured but stable, the population has reached high ground or has evacuated."
"What about the seven unstable?" Trunks asked, standing again and pointing his Capsule at the ground. The medical kit he used in North Korea popped out, still old but usable.
"Average power level of 3 and decreasing at an alarming rate," the Scouter said.
Trunks noticed another ring of disheveled zombies growing around him and he cut them again, this time heading toward the hulking gray necromancer himself. Grundy wore black, tattered jeans, a white tank top, and had black eyes that radiated with an undead power.
Trunks met up in the center of a pile of zombies with Oliver and Dinah. "Miss Canary, I am going to take care of the seven unstable civilians. May I go, or do you wish for me to take care of Grundy first?"
"You can't ask for what I'm going to tell you to do," she said, "that ruins the fun."
"How should I take that?" Trunks asked, growing annoyed of this pair.
"You'll take it how she tells you to!" Oliver said.
"Take care of the bystanders, of course," Black Canary ordered. "Stun the big guy for a second though, okay?"
Trunks nodded and fazed out, appearing on a steeple of dead bodies where Grundy stood, controlling his hordes, to bash the butt of the handle into the side of his head then cutting a large gash into his arm. Grundy fell off the hill and Trunks took off, frantically searching for the closest bystander. He flew into a short building with a chunk of the ceiling kicked out, finding a middle-aged woman lying on her back in immense pain. There was a large gash that was bleeding heavily; a few EMS's were already trying to reduce blood flow, but with the large piece of glass stabbing her, the hemorrhaging wouldn't stop. Trunks pushed his way in between them and put his hands over the wound, forming a green aura around them. "Merci pour l'aide," he said, handing them two Scouters. He tapped on the yellow circles on the fringes of their screens. "Il ya plus de personnes. Head toward the dots."
One EMS reluctantly watched the Saiyan masterfully remove the glass shards from the woman's side and the other EMS took off out of the building toward the next person. Trunks removed the glass, sterilized the cuts, stitched the woman up and bandaged her within a minute. He tenderly carried her in his arms out of the building, holding his kit with his middle finger. He flew her over to an ambulance rushing into the center of the zombie melee. He opened the back doors and placed her on the bed, quickly hooking her up to all machines inside the ambulance. "Still," Trunks hushed the woman, hopping out and closing the doors. He ran to the driver's side and tapped the window.
The driver nearly pissed his pants at the man running with his speeding car, but rolled down the window. "Appelez plus de policiers et plus ambulances," Trunks said. "We need more police and ambulances. Comprendre?"
The driver nodded quickly.
"Bon," Trunks said, taking off into the sky toward the next injured civilian.
After the seventh civilian surgery, Trunks' bloodstained gloves shook over his hands. He had stabilized everyone, but energy-wise he was running on fumes. He took a deep breath and burst out of the ambulance he had carried the man with now one leg to, heading straight toward the thin group of zombies. Grundy was barely putting forth the energy to keep raising the dead, however he was doing it, as the zombies that would rise only fell seconds later. Black Canary and Green Arrow battered him into a wall. "I'm going to let out a wail," Canary said, kicking a zombie's head off and inching closer to Grundy. "Arrow, end him once I start."
"Got it," Green Arrow said, notching a red-tipped arrow.
Black Canary let out a high pitched "C" and Green Arrow fired. Grundy screeched in pain and held his hands over his ears, giving the arrow a perfect path toward his mouth.
Trunks rushed over their heads with his sword drawn. He sliced upward and sideways, cutting Grundy's head off and his body in half. Trunks felt the plink of metal hitting his back and he turned around as Grundy fell into fifty pieces, seeing a red-tipped, blinking and glowing. as Trunks sheathed his blade. All three heroes gasped. "Oh shit!" they exclaimed as the arrow exploded. Trunks hit the wall hard, sinking into it six inches like he was in a cartoon. He stayed there for a second with his world spinning around to let the dust clear, and when it did, he looked up to see the two blondes' mouths agape and eyes wide. "My bad," the tired Saiyan said with a chuckle, stumbling out of the wall. He heard the foundation behind him snap and he laughed even louder. "Damn it!" he shouted as the short, brick building fell on him, crumpling him under a pile of bricks and mortar.
"Trunks!" Oliver exclaimed, rushing over to the pile and quickly removing bricks. "No, no, no! Come on Trunks, stay with us!'
Black Canary removed a brick and Trunks' arm shot out with a thumb up. "I'm okay!" Trunks said shakily, standing up and dusting himself off. He removed some strands of hair from his face. "But I think I'm done with hero-ing for now."
Canary smirked. "The cocky Mongul-fighter is all tuckered out?"
"Yeah," Trunks said, half panting. "The amount of chi I can spend at one time is finite, and using certain techniques drain it faster than others."
"You mean you have limits?" Green Arrow said with a scoff. "So you're not Kryptonian after all."
"I'm just a Saiyan-human hybrid with years of training," Trunks said. "I only have one species specific technique."
"Then your moves can be taught?" Oliver said, taking out his communicator. The police arrived and started cuffing Giganta. "Hypothetically?"
"I'll teach you some basic techniques in ki control," Trunks said. "I think I might just write a book on it. A flying population would be cool," he felt the transportation jolt up his spine that took him to the watchtower. "Wouldn't it?"
"I think that would be a 'just for the League' book," Black Canary said, helping Trunks to the elevators. "Thanks for the help. I know you've been all over the place lately and that even with the icebreaker, you've been pushing yourself, so it really means a lot to us. Try not to die so soon, okay?" They got into the elevator and pressed the down button.
"You still have some work to do," Oliver said, giving Trunks a firm squeeze on the shoulder. The doors opened to the residential floor and they started walking. "Does this count as repayment for Cheetah?"
"I never asked for repayment," Trunks said, leaning on his door and popping the key out of his Capsule, "but if I did, I'd say no."
"I don't know," Oliver said, following Canary and Trunks to the bedroom. Trunks sat on his bed, breathing hard but less dizzy. "You were pretty deep under the building."
"I got myself out," Trunks said with a chuckle.
"Who got themselves blown up in the first place?" Canary asked. "You'd think someone with super vision would look before charging into its path."
Trunks wheezed in laughter. "Okay, okay, you saved my life, I am eternally grateful."
"We'll take you up on eternally grateful," Canary said.
"I wonder how Coke tastes in Europe," Green Arrow said, tapping his chin like he was thinking. "Oh, Mister Eternally Grateful-"
"Get out," Trunks cut in, making all three of them laugh.
Oliver and Dinah headed toward the door. "By the way," Dinah said, walking back into the room. She handed him three photos with phone numbers on the back. "These three heard that you were giving lessons to the Titans. They're interested."
Trunks looked at the Indian heroine with long, black hair and wearing a golden, flowing dress, a young Caucasian hero with slick, black hair and long, stretchy limbs in a red suit, and a blonde girl wielding a strange golden staff and wearing a tight, America themed outfit. "Who are they?"
"Solstice, Plastic Man, and Stargirl," Dinah said. "They're pretty new to the hero game, and they're pretty sure they can take anything you can throw at them."
Trunks scoffed. "There's one thing that I'm completely sure about," he said. "It's that no one can dodge on day one."
"I don't know what that means," Oliver said, "but I'm sure as hell not going to question it."
"I just thought I'd give you some info on them before your lesson," Dinah said. "Word travels fast in the hero world, and Beast Boy has a big mouth."
She answered two questions Trunks had before he asked them. "Thank you," he said. "Their first real lesson will be frustrating."
"What will you be teaching them?" Oliver asked. "Hey, Dinah, if you want to make it to dinner, I'd suggest we leave."
"We leave when I say we can," Dinah asserted, making Trunks cock an eyebrow, "but Oliver has a valid question."
Trunks snickered. "I'll be showing them how to throw a punch."
"Oh boy," Dinah said, "I know Robin's not going to like that. I have to go. Oliver's taking me out."
Those words reminded him of something important he had failed to think about: he had to prepare something for Zatanna. He had until Friday.