"Titans, move out!" Nightwing called, and everyone scrambled for their outfits, getting dressed in less than a minute. "Since you're brand new, Carl, you'll sit this one out. I don't want you to get in the middle of this mess until we have a chance to train you up in team tactics."
Carl frowned a bit at being told that he would be in the way, because nobody likes being told that. But it was the simple truth that he would get in the way of their team dynamics. And when he thought about it a bit more, he really was iffy on jumping feat first into the "superhero lifestyle" anyway.
On the other hand, Carl really wanted to see the group in action and watch his first superhero battle, even if he wasn't that eager to participate just yet.
"What if I stayed back and just help the civilians in danger from the explosions?" Carl asked. "Since I figured out how to fly earlier, I can come in behind you so whatever caused the explosions won't be focused on me, and I'll stay out of the team's way." He assured Nightwing.
Nightwing glanced at the Titans to gauge their reaction, which seemed generally favorable. He tossed Carl a spare earbud communicator that Carl put on.
"Fine. But I'm serious about staying away from the action if we're fighting anybody. You could get one of us or a civilian hurt or killed by getting in the way." Nightwing admonished.
"Understood!" Carl also seriously answered, and followed the group to the hangar where they had a futuristic looking shuttle for transport. The group piled in, except for Starfire and Carl, who took off into the air directly.
Before they had even gotten across the water, Nightwing had located where the explosions were coming from and sent the message over the comms. Starfire boosted her speed and shot off in a trail of fire, while Carl was content to remain above and behind the shuttle in his observation location as they trailed behind Starfire.
Soon the shuttle was hovering over a several story building downtown, and the Titans poured out onto the roof. They made their way to the edge of the building to look over the battlefield and paused for a moment to get the lay of the land. Carl settled down on the roof of a building several buildings away so that he would keep his promise to stay out of the way. With his enhanced vision he would still be able to watch what was happening.
Looking down, Carl saw some guy in what looked like a moth suit from the Tick show, even though it was a bit more badass than Arthur's suit. Rather than plain grey, it had dark tiger stripes on the body and skull shapes on his wings.
Despite the badass look, Carl couldn't help giggle a little while thinking of The Tick cartoon.
"Dance with the flames! Yes! That is the way, children! Dance in the flames of Moth-Ra! Everyone will feel my wrath!" The man was yelling as he was doing an odd little jig in the air outside the business building that was on fire, presumably from his explosives.
Carl did feel like his amusement was a bit inappropriate in this situation, since the guy was destroying property and endangering lives, but he couldn't help it. Some dude that was actually dancing in front of a bonfire and being so cheesy was hard not to laugh at.
Although…looking a bit more closely, Carl saw that there were hundreds of moths fluttering about the guy. Looking closer with his enhanced vision, he saw that they were all some kind of –
"Nightwing." Carl urgently said over the comms. "That guy has a bunch of little robot drones in the shape of moths flying around him, and they are packed with some kind of explosives. Be careful down there."
"Thanks for the heads up." Nightwing replied. "Starfire, you're on clearing mechanical moth duty, starting from the left; Raven, back her up so she doesn't get overwhelmed. Cyborg and I will use our ranged weapons to take out what we can from the front and help distract him. Terra, pick up a bunch of the debris around here and protect Beast Boy from any moths as he tries to sneak in close from the right to take him down once he's distracted."
Nightwing got a positive response from the team before he pulled out what looked like an advanced water gun from somewhere. Carl figured that it was some kind of ray gun, though.
"Carl, see if there are any people in danger in the building that's on fire. If there are, try to open a back door in the building to get them out of the line of fire." Nightwing ordered him over the comms.
"Sure, I'm on it." Carl agreed and immediately focused his vision on looking though the flames and the building's walls. He immediately spotted several people that were ducking and covering in some bathrooms and other rooms inside the building. Smoke was filling the building, so they were in danger the longer they stayed there, not even counting that the building was on fire. He wondered why they weren't booking it out the back, but shrugged that thought away for the moment.
Rising up into the air, he carefully took a route that looped around the buildings so he wouldn't be seen by the weird dude calling himself Moth-Ra. He didn't want to attract attention to the people he was trying to rescue. He soon touched down just outside the back door he had seen earlier and was about to bust open the door when he remembered that he didn't really know anything about firefighting. He knew about how dangerous a back draft was, if only because he had seen that movie years and years ago.
So instead of breaking down the door as he originally intended, he dug his fingers into the metal like it was putty, right where the latch was and held on while cracking the door open just a bit. He figured with his strength he would be able to hold the door against a wild inrush of air if a back draft situation was happening.
A moment later he sighed in relief. It seemed like there were other openings in the building that air was getting through, since there wasn't a crazy vortex of inrushing air. He still opened the door cautiously, and soon was relieved that things seemed to be going just fine, fingers crossed.
He rushed forward and found the first group of dazed people that were just huddling together under some desks.
"Hey, all the people in here. It's time to go. The back door is open, make your way outside and keep going away from the fire and explosions." Carl had to physically get some of them moving, but once they did, they followed his simple instructions and each other out the door.
While Carl continued making his way through the building, he kept an eye and ear on the fight happening out front. It wouldn't do to be surprised by the Moth guy if something went wrong.
The Titans were doing a pretty good job of keeping the explosive happy villain occupied and wasting his explosives uselessly against their powers while preventing the spread of damage and fire, all the while they were using up his stock of explosive moths.
Pretty soon old Moth-Ra finally realized he was out of moth bombs and was about to reach into a sack and pull something out when a large green tiger tackled the guy out of nowhere and threatened him with sharp teeth dripping warm saliva.
The Moth man whimpered, and may have pissed himself as he gave up at that point. Carl just shook his head at the dude that apparently went postal. What a dumbass. He was all happy and psychotic while throwing around explosives and maybe killing someone, but the moment his life was threatened he turned into the biggest coward.
He should have just stayed home and played some games or something. Maybe even gone to a gym and pound on a bag for a while if he was feeling frustration with his life. Now he would be in jail for his crimes. Carl didn't see how it was worth it.
Nightwing and Cyborg moved in at that point to finish disarming the Moth guy of his explosives and tech, while Starfire and Raven used their powers to contain and kill the fire.
The Titans must have had a comms connection straight to the authorities, because no sooner was the area cleared than the fire fighters arrived to help put out the fire, the police showed up to arrest the culprit, and the ambulances showed up to deal with the injured.
"Carl, see if you can round up the people from the building and bring them over here for the paramedics to look at." Nightwing ordered Carl over the comms. "At the very least they need to be checked for smoke inhalation.
"Sure thing." Carl answered with a grin while feeling like one of those sheep dogs that runs around herding sheep. It didn't take him but a moment to fly up and over to get ahead of the group of fleeing survivors. "Hey, everyone! The villain guy was apprehended and the fire fighters and paramedics are arriving to assist you. Come back this way to get checked out and treated for any injuries or smoke inhalation."
Jeez, Carl felt so awkward talking to the people like that, but it seemed like they weren't really surprised by a hovering guy helping them out. Welcome to the world of super heroes and villains.
'That's just to be expected in a super hero reality, I guess.' Carl thought as he led the group over and turned them over to the paramedics. Looking around he really didn't know what to do, so he just flew back up to the building that the shuttle was still hovering over and chilled there for a bit.
Looking around, he saw the rest of the Titans were running around, doing whatever cleanup they seemed to need. Raven was hovering near the building doing something. Carl could only assume she was using her magic powers to scan for more people that needed help.
Cyborg and Terra seemed to be working together. Cyborg was directing Terra what to do in buttressing the building's walls so they wouldn't collapse on everyone.
Beast Boy was currently a green owl, flying around to see if anyone was taking advantage of the chaos. And it looked like Starfire was doing a similar job, as she left trails of fire through the air.
Nightwing was talking with the police about what to do with their crazy bomber and his tech suit that let him fly, as well as how to dispose of the explosives.
Looking around, Carl really didn't see anything he could help with. Everyone seemed to know their jobs and was doing them, so he just settled down on the edge of the roof and waited and watched everyone work. He used his vision to scan the area to see if there were anymore people hiding that might need medical attention, but he didn't see anyone, so he just sat there.
Maybe in the future, as he grew used to this kind of thing and gained skills, he would find more useful things to do in the aftermath of villain attacks. Eh, well. It was his first outing. He thought he did well enough.
It took about another hour to get everything settled down before the Titans reassembled on the roof.
"Let's head back and debrief." Nightwing said after swinging onto the roof, somehow.
'Eh, the Bat Clan.' Carl shrugged internally. 'They must be blessed by the Bat Totem with special abilities.'
Like before, Carl followed along behind the shuttle on his own, flying in the air and doing some loops and other aerial maneuvers that were fun.
Upon arriving at the Titan Tower, Nightwing recorded everyone giving a quick five minute verbal description of the encounter and what they did.
"We'll write out a more formal report on the encounter tomorrow after getting a bit of rest. But it's good to get a quick verbal account now, while everything is fresh in our minds." Ric explained to Carl. "But everyone did an excellent job, and totally deserves a good rest. Go shower and relax."
Carl didn't have a problem with that.
"So, what did you think of your first foray into being a super hero?"
Carl looked up from cutting some onions for his breakfast omelet the next morning, which was a Saturday, already knowing who would be in front of him by the deadpan voice. Rachel was dressed in her baggy sweater, with her hood up. Despite the comfort and inherent shapelessness of sweats, he could tell she was an attractive woman with curves.
A moment later Carl tamped that feeling down. If he remembered right, she had an empathetic sense, so she probably knew that he was checking her out. Meh, nothing to be done about that.
'Oh, wait. She asked a question…' Carl thought.
"Oh. Well, since all I did was lead some people out of a burning building, it really felt more like I was a fire fighter than a hero or anything." Carl paused. "Not that fire fighters aren't heroes. They risk their lives to help people, of course what they do is heroic. I wouldn't want them to think I think any less of them…shutting up now."
Carl trailed off in confusion. Did he seriously just get flustered and babbled? Ugh… He was sure he was never living this down. Damned cloned teenager hormones!
So he refocused on cutting the onions, completely missing the small amused smile on Rachel's face.
"Want an omelet?" Carl asked. "It won't be a problem to make more."
"Yes, an omelet would be appreciated." Rachel stated.
"Onions? Ham? Cheese? Mushrooms? Peppers?"
"All of the above sounds good."
"Coming right up." Carl paused. "Well, in a few. Gotta sauté the onions, mushrooms, and peppers first."
"Take your time." Rachel settled down in a chair with a book, letting Carl get on with his breakfast preparations.
Despite the excitement and mental fatigue of the attack on Jump City last night, Carl hadn't ended up sleeping more than three hours. But he felt very well rested and full of energy. It was something he was noticing more and more, that he really didn't need a lot of sleep anymore.
So he had spent plenty of time looking up information on the world he found himself in over the internet. And based on his research, he had made some plans for the next couple days before he started his school review and testing. He just wasn't sure how his plans would turn out in reality.
And after several hours of trawling through the internet, it was finally six in the morning, so he decided to make himself some breakfast.
He was somewhat curious to see just which of the Titans were early risers. He had to force himself not to look into their rooms with his x-ray vision, because he might catch a glimpse that he wasn't meant to see.
While the women on the Titan's team were all very hot and he wouldn't mind looking, he knew it would be a violation of their privacy. And with his new abilities, he would have to be careful not to do something wrong like that.
So far, Rachel was the first up, or at least the first to come into the common room. He had heard some movement form Ric and Koriand'r's rooms, so they were obviously early risers as well.
"Omelet's up." Carl called out to Rachel as he plated it, placing it on the nearby table that Rachel was sitting at. He also placed out some of the condiments he found in the fridge, like sour cream and salsa, unsure if she wanted those on her omelet. "Let me know how it tastes." Carl added as Rachel slid into her seat and picked up her fork.
"It's good." Rachel stated in a deadpan voice after taking a bite, leaving Carl to scratch his head and wonder if she really thought it was good and just wasn't used to emoting, or if she was just saying it. "I really think it's good."
"Oh. Ah, thanks." Carl awkwardly stated as he moved back to make his own omelet. "So I gather from the talk yesterday that part of your powers is emotion sensing?" He was fishing for an answer on how she knew he doubted her statement of the quality of his omelet.
"Yes. I could feel your confusion and doubt about my answer." She stated.
"Huh." Carl focused on his omelet as he considered the ramifications of her powers.
"Do you feel like it's a violation of your privacy? That I can sense your emotions?" Rachel asked out of the blue.
"Not really." Carl hastened to assure her while thinking of how to address the issue more in depth. "Let's see. It's like…if I was having a loud conversation with someone in a restaurant, I couldn't very well get mad at the person sitting at the table next to us for having ears and overhearing our conversation. It's my fault for talking out loud in public where people could overhear us, not their fault for having ears."
"Hmm. An interesting analogy." Rachel said, and Carl could hear the faint smile in her tone that time.
"Speaking of which, are there methods I could practice that could help me, I dunno, quiet down my emotions so I'm not always babbling at you? Like, that's a thing, right? And I hope you won't be offended by my question, it's just that I figure it's gotta be tiring to always have people's emotions assaulting your metaphorical ears."
"Yes."
Carl literally scratched his head that time, before realizing his omelet was done and flipping it onto a plate. This girl was confusing him.
"Yes, what? Yes, you're offended? Yes, there are methods? Yes, you'll teach me?"
"Yes, there are methods. Yes, I'm not offended. And yes, I'll pass them to you sometime this morning." Rachel's deadpan delivery still caused Carl some trouble to know how to respond.
"Thank you." Carl said and tried to project the feeling as he sat down to eat his omelet on the opposite side of the table from Rachel.
"You're welcome." Rachel had finished off her breakfast and her shadow floated her plate to the sink and rinsed it off as she got up from the table and left the room.
'Interesting girl, though frustrating to get a handle on.' Carl thought as he turned on the TV to be some background noise while he ate, and to see what the news in Jump City was.
"And if you missed all the commotion last night in Jump City, than you will have missed the debut of the Teen Titan's newest super hero, which people are now calling the Flying Panda, due to his unusual coloring."
Carl choked on his omelet as he saw a somewhat blurry close-up picture of him appear on the screen in all his black and white glory. The name "The Flying Panda" was prominently pasted on the screen under his face.
"What the heck?" Carl stared in shock. "I thought I was just joking about getting that name? How could they just name such a joke name last night without even talking to me?"
"Our very own Krystal Lara is downtown, getting the low down on what people think of the new hero. Over to you, Krystal."
The anchorwoman on screen passed the news bite to a journalist with a news crew that was set up somewhere on the streets of Jump City to interview people "on the street".
"Thank you, Lilly. I'm here downtown to get the opinion of the average citizen of Jump City on the newest hero to debut in our midst. To take the pulse of Jump City, so to speak."
Carl could see people passing by the reporter, and she picked one of them seemingly at random to accost for answers to her burning questions.
"What about you, sir? What do you think of the newest hero, the Flying Panda?" The attractive blonde reporter in her late 20s asked an old man with white hair.
"Who?" The older man asked, confused about what the reporter was talking about.
After a short explanation and showing the old man a picture, the reporter repeated her question.
"Eh, I don't really understand these young people. Why would he use all that make-up to paint himself up like that? It's not Halloween, so what is he doing? But at least his heart is in the right place, since he's trying to make a difference helping people out, even if he's not that good at it."
Carl could only shake his head in amusement. He certainly wasn't putting on make-up to have this look, he wasn't some kind of mime, clown, or goth. It was all natural, dammit!
Well, natural for a clone, anyway.
Next up a young teenager was intercepted by the reporter. He was hanging with his friends, but they all refused to comment, leaving him to jump out and give his opinion.
"He's gotta be the most useless superhero. I mean, naming himself after one of the most worthless animals around?"
"Hey, panda's are cute!" One of the girls in the group interrupted angrily.
"Yeah, sure, they're cute and marketable." The brown haired teen sarcastically replied. "But we're talking about a bear that can barely survive in the wild. It's a shock they aren't extinct. Did you know that the pandas in zoos won't even get it on to reproduce without the zoo people showing them panda porn? That's how uninterested they are in mating and survival. So, yeah. Pandas are useless, and this new dude that named himself after them is a joke!"
Carl shook his head in disbelief. Panda porn? It was so out there it just might be true. He'd have to look it up later. But damn was that punk teen harsh on him.
"See if I save you if you're ever dangling on a ledge." Carl muttered darkly. " 'Sorry, kid, I'm just a panda, I'm useless. You'll have to figure something else out yourself.' "
Carl snorted in amusement at his imaginings.
Next up the reporter found a middle aged looking lady with a toddler in a stroller next to her.
"Great, another useless waste of taxpayer dollars." The lady sighed with a frown. "All these 'heroes' do is run around getting in fights with villains, which result in millions, if not billions, in property damage. And the more visible a 'hero' is, the more it just encourages these villains to come out of the woodwork to join in their little games. Meanwhile, us regular people and our families are put in danger because of their actions. Useless, the lot of them."
Carl sighed, shaking his head. That bitter sounding lady might have a point there. The only question he had was, what if the people with all these powers showed up and there were no heroes to stop them? What if all they had were a bunch of villains running around unchecked? Would she complain just as much about the lack of heroes running around "playing games"?
After all, in many cases the police and military were simply incapable of stopping them due to their powers. So it would end up being anarchy, with little fiefdoms dotting the country where super villains ran amuck and unchallenged.
Maybe.
Carl wasn't even sure that's what the world would look like without heroes. Hell, he wasn't even sure he wanted to do the hero thing, despite having all the powers that made him perfect for it.
Like he had told Rachel, he really had felt kind of like a fire fighter last night, helping the people out of a burning building. If all he ever did with his powers was some disaster relief and helping save actual lives, that would be fine with him.
The idea of going up against someone like Darkseid or Doomsday scared him, despite all the amazing powers he tripped into.
But, hey. It was his world too, now. He would just have to muddle along as best as he could.
Carl turned off the TV and got up to do the dishes. After the opinions he heard on the news about his superhero identity, he wasn't sure if he wanted to pay much attention to the news anymore. It had really just put him into a bad mood.
So, he decided he would go do the first thing he had already planned for the day, since it would probably cheer him up. He was going to the beach.
One of the first oddities Carl noticed about Jump City was that it had the Golden Gate Bridge. Which meant that for whatever reason San Francisco from his Earth was named Jump City on this Earth.
It was just a little oddity, really, in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't some randomly built city located at the same place San Francisco was located. It basically was exactly San Francisco, just with a different name.
What with aliens, magicians, mages, clones, and whatever else was running around the world, the name of one city changing wasn't really that big of a deal. But it was just a bit of oddity that stuck out in Carl's mind.
So that Saturday morning after finishing off breakfast, Carl left a note on his door that he was heading to the beach and took flight in a pair of board shorts with a towel over his shoulders. He was grateful for the clothing stipend the Titans sent his way, otherwise he didn't know what he would be wearing. Probably the pants off the guard he killed a few days ago, or the orange jumpsuit the police gave him.
The previous day Carl had noticed the sad lack of beach area on the Titan's island. There was forest, gardens, and lovely meadows on the small island. But no beach, only a sheer rocky drop off. Carl wondered if it was a way to discourage random visitors coming over that would become a security risk.
He could totally see a bunch of fans coming over and making a nuisance of themselves.
So, he flew over the bay to a nearby beach he could see from the Titan's Tower. As he approached the beach, he came in just over the water while holding onto his towel to keep it mostly dry. Once he saw the surf was shallow enough, he set down and waded out of the water to find a place to put his towel down and relax for a bit before swimming.
Sitting down on the packed beach in the middle of the morning on a Saturday, soaking up the sun, was quite relaxing. Even though Flash had told him that he didn't have the usual Kryptonian dependency on sunlight to charge his powers battery, so to speak, it still felt really good to bask in the sunlight.
Aside from the sun, it was enjoyable to see how much fun everyone was having on the beach. There were cute girls to look at, amusing games of volleyball going on, kids building sand castles, and people surfing or boogey boarding. It was everything a beach should be, which relaxed him greatly from the news story about him that he saw earlier.
The main reason he had decided to go to the beach that morning was because he wanted to test himself on holding his breath. He was pretty sure he could hold it indefinitely because of his powers and genetics, but it still wasn't something that came naturally to him. So he figured he could play around and practice in shallow water while testing his limits and getting used to the idea of not breathing in time for his afternoon trip.
But looking down at his towel, he was kind of annoyed at himself for bringing it. Should he just leave it on the beach while he swam? He didn't have anyone to look after it. It would have been weird for him to be relaxing on the beach with no towel, just lying in the sand; but now he had nowhere to stash it. He could always make a quick trip over to the Tower to drop it off.
'Ah, well. I'll just fold it up and take it with me underwater. It's not like I can't wash it later. That way I don't have to come back and can go directly back to the Titan's tower, have lunch, then go on the afternoon's errand run.' Carl decided.
With his towel folded and tucked under an arm, Carl jogged at human speed into the water, and dove head first over one of the waves, completely submerging himself in the water.
It surprisingly felt really good to be underwater.
Coming up for a final breath of air, Carl was concerned about an odd sensation on his neck.
"Mommy! Daddy! That man changed color!" Carl looked around, and saw a little girl looking right at him from nearby in the surf.
Looking down at his arms, which were now a light orange color, Carl could only say, "Huh, that's new."
He then noticed his shaggy hair was green. Feeling at his neck, he realized he now had gills.
"Must have changed due to being submerged in the ocean for the first time." Carl mumbled. He tested his other powers from being a Kryptonian Bizarro, and found that those powers were still there. He could still fly and use his senses. So he figured he was still just as strong and fast. "Well, this ruins my plans to get used to holding my breath so I won't panic when I go into space. But it's pretty cool. Wonder if I'll change back to black and white when I dry off."
Without any further hesitation, Carl dove into the water again and began swimming into deeper water. After a while, he tentatively sucked up some water as if he was breathing, and found that the water didn't go down into his lungs. They flowed through his mouth and out his gills.
But he felt a rush of adrenaline flow through him when the water flowed over his gills that felt absolutely amazing. He hadn't the biggest grin on his face at the amazing sensations. Not only did the water feel wonderful on his skin, but breathing it felt so naturally and exhilarating!
After a while he was annoyed by the towel in his arms, since he wanted to use both arms and legs to swim, instead of just using his flight capability. So he tied it around his waist to have both hands free, and then he began swimming using just his muscles. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to be propelling himself through the water effortlessly, breathing water in through his mouth and nose, and out through his newly emerged gills.
Another thing he noticed was when he took his first breath of water a second eyelid came down over his eye that prevented his vision from deteriorating underwater, as well as keeping his eyes from being irritated by salt, sand, or any other particles in the water. It seemed that his Atlantean heritage made him especially suited to living underwater.
As Carl swam around the bay, he noticed all kinds of enjoyable scenes. Kelp forests, schools of fish, sharks, and whales swimming around. None of the creatures bothered with him, completely ignoring him, and letting him look his fill.
After a few hours of the magnificent experience, Carl decided that it was time to head back to the tower for lunch before going on his journey up into space. He had thoroughly enjoyed his time underwater, which oddly felt like going home. He planned to spend plenty of time in the future exploring the oceans of Earth, since they were so huge and there was no doubt plenty to see.
Which reminded him of how little of his own Earth in his past life he had been able to see. It was something he would like to do in the future, explore the wilds of Earth. At the very least, it could be his hobby for the weekends.
Carl emerged from the ocean and flew over the bay to the Titan's island. He saw that most of the group was in the public lounge that they had shown him, so after shaking off the excess water and landing, Carl entered the room.
"Guess what happens when I swim in the ocean!" Carl called out, causing the group to turn to look at him and exclaim in shock. "Yeah! I change color in sea water!"
"Dude, that is so freaky!" Gar yelled out, getting himself a slug on the shoulder from Tara.
"Why, cause I don't turn green?" Carl laughed.
"What? No, that would be even worse! Trying to usurp my color!" Gar accused Carl in good humor. "But no, it's just freaky cool, I guess."
"Looks like that's where your Atlantean genes come out." Ric calmly analyzed. "Are those gills I see on your neck?"
"Yup, I can breathe underwater with them and everything!"
"That is amazing, Friend Carl!" Koriand'r called out with enthusiasm. "It's wonderful that you can connect to that part of your heritage."
"Yeah. But now I'm going to see if taking a shower and drying off will change me back to my black and white coloring, or if this is a permanent change." Carl waved at the group and left for his room.
"The new guy is very weird." Gar bluntly said, earning him a slap from Tara. "Ow! Hey!"
"Don't be rude, Gar. You know where your foot in mouth syndrome has gotten you."
"Yeah, you're right. It got me you." Gar said with a sappy expression on his face.
"You big goof." Tara softened and cuddled up to him as they resumed their video game. Off to the side, Koriand'r had a happy expression on her face as she watched her friends get along so well together.
A half hour later Carl exited his room, once more in his panda colors of black and white. There was a pot of spaghetti set out at the table, and Ric, Koriand'r, Gar, Tara, and Rachel were eating.
"Pull up a seat, Carl, and dig in." Gar cheerfully stated. "Looks like you returned to the Great Flying Panda!"
Carl groaned as he pulled out a chair next to Rachel. "I was hoping none of you had seen that yet. What are the chances that that name isn't going to become my call sign?"
"Slim to none." Ric stated with an amused tone of voice. Great, it seemed like Nightwing was running with his Flying Panda name.
"It's not so bad." Rachel deadpanned. "At least any opponents will underestimate you, which isn't a bad thing with how much strength you have."
"Rachel's right." Ric added. "It's exactly why I've run with the idea. If they don't expect much from you, they won't be preparing for near Superman levels of strength, which will give you a great advantage. But even so, you'll definitely have to practice your combat skills."
"Yeah, you've got a point." Carl nodded at Rachel and Ric. "So, can I schedule regular sessions with the Training Room? And does it have martial arts training programming to get me up to snuff?"
"Of course it does, Batman helped design it." Ric nodded.
"It even helped me get a hold of my geokinetic powers." Tara added on. "I mean, they were out of control before, so having anyone guide my training would have been dangerous. But three times a week in the training room, and self study on my own the rest of the time, and within a month I almost had perfect control."
"Awesome. Sounds like a plan." Carl dished out some of the spaghetti onto a plate. "I don't want to sound insensitive, but can Victor eat normal food? Is that why he's not here?"
"No offense taken." Victor said from the door as he strode in. "I was just finishing a maintenance cycle on the shuttle. And yes, while I'm mostly metal, all the important bits are still intact inside, and protected under plenty of armor."
"That's cool. Let me know if I ever venture into no-talk territory." Carl replied.
"Don't worry, if you say something wrong, the group will let you know pronto." Victor said. "We've found our teamwork works best when we don't stew on things that might rub us raw. Best to get it out of the way."
"Yeah, like that one time that-" Gar began, but had his mouth immediately plugged by Tara.
"Case in point." Victor said with an amused glint. "And remember Gar, we've got as much embarrassing stories about you, as you've got about any of us."
"Yeah, yeah. I know. I was just trying to illustrate the point."
"Total topic change." Tara smiled at Gar to take the sting out of it. "Carl, are you looking forward to school?"
"I dunno." Carl stated, conscious of the empathy lie detector next to him. "On one hand I am kind of looking forward to it, for a chance to catch up to my supposed peers and finish my education. But I've heard that most public schools teach at the speed of the slowest students. Based on the past few days of how much information I've been retaining while researching things online, I'm going to be really bored of school, really soon."
"You can always self study the topics that interest you, and test out of them." Rachel intoned. "You might even gather some college credits before graduating."
"That might be the best thing for me to do." Carl agreed with a smile for Rachel's suggestion. "I figure after reviewing everything up to this point, it'll give me a good idea of the pace of studies I'd be happy with. Even with the excuse of 'socializing', going to a traditional school may not be for me. There are other ways to socialize, after all."
And Carl was being entirely truthful, even if he wasn't telling all his reasons. When he had filled out the form in that weird waiting room, he had chosen to have an 8th level intellect, which he remembered being on par with Batman, and nearly at Lex Luthor's level.
Add in his super speed to his memory retention, and he had been noticing a huge improvement in his ability to learn and remember, just in the past couple of days. So he wasn't kidding when he said he would likely be bored out of his mind in public school.
"Well, you've got a month of review and then the summer break to make up your mind before you make a decision." Ric said.
"Yup. No hurry." Carl agreed, finishing off his food and washing his dish. "I'm going to go look around the city and run some errands." Carl called out as he headed for the landing pad. He kept an eye out, but besides glancing at each other, no one said anything.
So he took off into the air at a lazy pace. He was really appreciating that they weren't trying to curtail his freedom to keep him under observation. Carl was pretty sure the heroes were still watching him, but it was better than being under house arrest. And it was leagues better than fighting a one-man war against a bunch of people that were just trying to do right by the world.
Because as silly as he sometimes thought the heroes were, the villains were either not any better, or they were way worse. Allying with the likes of crazies like the Joker? Lex Luthor? General Zod? No thanks!
Carl found a nice shopping center in a mall and wandered up and down the halls, checking out what was available in this time. Today was the 4th of May, 1996, and he was finding a lot of parallels to his own home of the same time, with all the summertime items for sale. But there were differences. Cell phones were a bigger thing than he remembered being in the '90s back in his previous life.
After some wandering and crowd watching, Carl found the store he had been looking for specifically. Sitting on a bench across the way, he focused his super vision and looked at the contents of the jewelry store.
The big reason he was going up into space as soon as he could was to search for some asteroids with precious metals he could mine and bring back. But in order to know if he found some gold, silver, iron, or any other useful metals, he needed to know what they looked like.
Taking a look at the finished product of gold and silver in jewelry stores wasn't exactly perfect, since he knew the metals in asteroids would be mixed in with the rock as ore.
So he went for the best alternative he had without flying off to some mines around the world; looking at some gold and silver jewelry, and diamond and other precious stones in the stores. They may look a bit different before they are processed from the asteroids, but it would give him a rough idea of what to look for and how valuable each asteroid would be.
Once he got a close eyeful of what the precious metals looked like with his special vision, Carl moseyed on out of the mall and flew off when he was sure no one was watching. But if someone were watching, oh well. He wasn't doing anything illegal.
Carl flew up, keeping an eye out for any planes or satellites as he rose up in the air at a good clip. He knew he should be feeling the cold the higher he went, but it really felt just fine. Soon the air grew thin so he paused and held his breath.
And held his breath.
Surprisingly, he never felt the sensation of oxygen starvation coming on. It was so very strange having these powers that changed the way he instinctively thought his biological reactions should be.
Since he discovered he was fine while holding his breath, he continued flying higher, and the daylight faded away as he left the atmosphere. Soon he was hovering over Earth in the vacuum of space, watching the planet growing smaller and smaller.
He had a big grin on his face at the sight in front of him. It really was amazing, seeing the planet from space.
After drinking his fill of the sight, he rotated around, looking at the stars, as well as the bright ass sun. Seriously, that thing was huge and it was only his special physiology that prevented him from burning out his eyes or burning up in the radiation from it.
Continuing to look around, he eventually spotted Mars in the distance. He poured on the speed, and soon found to his surprise that he had a lot more speed than he thought he would.
It seemed like when he left the planet behind, he opened up a whole new set of gears on his flight ability. Gears that would let him travel between planets in mere minutes instead of days or month. Amazing speed was available for him that would let him travel between the stars in a sort of higher dimension. Hyperdrive? Is that what he naturally had available to him?
It was amazing.
Every so often, he turned around to keep an eye on Earth, to make sure he didn't lose track of the planet. It would be annoying to have to wander around their solar system, randomly looking for his planet.
But he was soon zooming past Mars. After passing it by, he paused and turned around. He wanted to be able to say he at least set foot on the planet, even though it wasn't his destination today.
Landing on Mars was a trip. He should probably have stopped off at the moon as well, but maybe he would on the trip back home.
After bouncing around for a few minutes, Carl took off again to resume his outward journey. Between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, there was an asteroid belt that was Carl's target. He figured he could find an asteroid or two with precious metals and figure out how to extract the metals to give him his start up fund so he could earn more money without relying on the stipend that the Justice League and the Titans were giving him.
As grateful as he was to them for their assistance in getting him set up with a new life and identity, he really didn't want to be reliant on them for everything he needed or wanted to do in life. Carl would always feel like the help came with the condition to embrace the superhero lifestyle, just because he had these powers and it was expected of him.
Right now he was physically 14, so he wasn't expected to really do much besides school and train. But in the future, what if he didn't want to spend his time patrolling for petty crime? What if he didn't want to spend his life fighting the same villains over and over again because he had to take them down softly and they kept coming back for more?
If Carl wanted to avoid all that hassle and lifestyle, having a large enough fortune so that he could just say "fuck it" and leave everything behind was essential. Even if it was to screw off to another part of the galaxy, he would need some kind of resources to trade with whoever was out there.
And the start of all that was right in front of him, in the form of a bunch of rocks, floating in the void of space.
The first asteroid he spied, Carl used his x-ray vision on to see what kind of resources were in it. A moment later, his brows furrow, and he sped forward to the asteroid. It took a bit for Carl to get the hang of dismantling the asteroid in zero g, but it wasn't long before he had in his hands what he had seen in the asteroid. It was hard to believe that it would be in the first asteroid he would find, but it was also equally unbelievable that Carl would be in the DC universe.
Cradled in Carl's hands was his very own Green Lantern and Ring.
He had wondered why he didn't wake up with the Ring, or find it soon after, since he was supposed to get one according to the Emotional Capacity level he had purchased on the document in the weird waiting room. But here it was, in the first asteroid he searched, as if it was waiting just for him.
'Well, this should definitely make asteroid mining a bit easier.' Carl thought with a smile, which faltered a moment later. 'If I can figure out how to use it properly.'