DC – Gothic – Red-X
Pink-X 1
Squad Shadow HQ – Jump City.
"What am I looking at?" I asked of Terra as she emptied a small box of junk onto the table before me.
All I could see were broken bits of pink metal, and some cloth. It didn't make much sense to me, and that feeling was shared by all the crooks who were sitting around the table with me.
Not that we minded the distraction as we'd reached a dead end in our investigation into who had been kidnapping exotic women in order to sell them as sex slaves. As to why we didn't have any leads, well that was because Blackfire had killed many of the people involved, and the rest had run for the hills.
Despite that I wasn't too worried as I imagined that the Huntress was still on the case and she could call upon the Question if she needed help, and at some point the Justice League would take part in an operation to shut the whole thing down.
"I went to visit BB again last night" Terra told us.
The geomancer hadn't yet moved back into Titan Tower so she slept here, but most days and evenings she was with Beast Boy. In my view they made a cute couple and Terra was a nice girlfriend who never complained about her boyfriend playing video games. Unlike Jinx who though the Gamestation was a waste of time.
"And there was a crime alert so I went out with the Titans" she added.
That was encouraging, as I wanted her to get close to the Titans, and maybe even get to live her life as a hero if she so desired, as this would annoy Raven, but it still didn't explain anything about what was in the box, or why it had been dumped on the table.
Thankfully Gizmo was already on the case, he was taking tools out of his belt and he was looking over the stuff on the table. His studying took a while yet no one spoke until he was finished.
"Well this metal is just stainless steel that's been painted" he informed me.
I was able to confirm this simply by holding the piece of metal. It was too light to be the metal I used and the feel of it was different as well.
"But the cloth, that's a little more complicated" my buddy then said.
Despite his words I was still clueless as to what was going on, but Gizmo seemed to have some idea as he was deep in thought.
"It looks normal enough to me" Blackfire said to me as she handled the material "It feels like your cloak"
As a matter of fact it did both look and feel just like the cloth my cloak was made from. Which was strange as it wasn't something you could buy over the counter, it had been specially manufactured.
"Your right its exactly the same stuff as what X uses" Gizmo told us all.
I'd already figured that, but I still didn't know what this all meant.
"The Titans took on a thief who was dressed like you" T told me "Only she was a girl and the X on her suit was pink".
Having been in a DC verse for a while now it took a lot to surprise me, this really surprised me and it also worried me.
"This is bad" I said "She's a fan girl!".
No one found my remarked amusing. Which was good because I had not it meant to be, but they didn't seemed concerned either. Which they should be as fan girl's could be very dangerous. I'd seen the film Misery I had no desire to have my legs broken by some crazy woman.
"So this chick is just someone with a crush on you" Jinx realised "I'm so not threatened by her".
Despite her words she did slide onto lap. Which would normally be very pleasant for me, but this was not the time for such things.
"She told us she was your daughter" Terra informed me.
Since I wasn't wearing my mask everyone saw my jaw drop. Had this been a cartoon it would have hit the floor.
"And BB thinks that she wasn't lying" Terra then said "His theory, if you can call it that, is that Pink-X is the kid you're having with Raven, whose come back in time and is now trying to get your attention".
Given that this was a DC universe that wasn't as unlikely as it sounded. Time Travel was not only possible it was practically mundane, it was however also very risky as someone using it could create alternate time lines or even bring about the end of the universe.
"But everyone else isn't so sure" Terra went on to say "because if she is your kid with Raven then she wouldn't have attacked the Titans and risked hurting her unborn self".
If Beast Boy was correct then clearly Pink-X had some issues with both her mother and father, none of which were healthy. It was also worrying that this Pink-X could kill herself by harming Raven. Aside from the fact that it hinted at how messed up she was, this Pink-X could cause a paradox of some kind by preventing her own birth.
"Well maybe she's my daughter" Jinx proposed "Maybe she got my pink hair and its favourite colour".
That also wasn't as unlikely as it sounded. After all Jinx and I got on well, so there were no reason we couldn't have kids at some point in the future. Meta-human powers weren't always inherited, so Pink-X could just be taking after me because she had inherited some of my skills rather than her mother's luck manipulation ability.
"Robin has this theory: Pink-X might not have meant she's your biological daughter" Terra then said "He thinks she might be someone you either created or inspired".
Which meant she could still be a fan girl. I wasn't sure if I found that more worrying than me having a time travelling child. Although the latter would be way cooler than the former even if it was more troublesome.
"Anyway he's decided that she's your problem either way" Terra was now informing me "If she is your kid then I think he's right in saying that you have to deal with her and make her go back to her own time, and if she's just some crazy girl whose a big fan, then he thinks Pink-X might listen if you tell her to stop stealing things".
While I was annoyed at the Boy-Wonder, as catching crooks was his job not mine, it also made sense. This could be a child of mine who had come back in time for reasons she felt was important, and if that was the case I had to help her deal with her issues and make her go home. The same applied to a fan girl it would just be that to go home she wouldn't need a time machine, she'd just need money for a taxi.
"This is a copy of everything the Titans have put together" Terra said to us all while taking out a CD "There's some footage and he wrote up reports and what was stolen and where".
Gizmo took the recorded data and plugged into a laptop. One that wasn't connected to our other computers. At once he started typing away like the nerd he was.
"Hey Daddy-X take a look at the things she stolen. I'm seeing a pattern" Gizmo said "Baby-X has been randomly hitting Tech-Companies so no one would notice a pattern, but she's been after Xenothium, which means her suit is a copy of yours".
It could even be my suit that she had modified sometime in the future, but if it wasn't then this meant that someone out there had been able to recreate the outfit. The list of people who could such a thing was small. I couldn't even do it. Gizmo could have but he had no reason to and I couldn't imagine why Robin would make a version of the suit for a girl.
"Only someone with X's skill could have hit that many places so soon" Jinx stated with what sounded like pride in her voice.
That was pretty much the case. Heck even I would have been pushing my luck with so many jobs at once.
"Not really because she cheated" corrected Terra "Pink-X can walk through walls and be invisible while doing it. So she just walked in and took what she wanted. The only reason we found her was because Cyborg has motion detectors".
Perhaps this daughter of mine, if that was who she was, had been able to improve the Red-X suit in the future. That or my could be daughter had a meta-human power like allowed her pass through solid objects, like Kitty from the X-Men. However if that was the case then it made no sense that her throwing Xs were made of painted steel.
"Hey Crud-For-Brains I have a lead on Pinky you might like to exploit." Gizmo said "I figure that she needs a lot more xenoithum than you do for the phasing through walls, if I'm right then there's only place left in the city, aside from here, where she could get enough to make it worth while".
I could well imagine that such a trick drained the batteries, and being invisible so much would only make it worse.
"S.T.A.R labs just got enough of the stuff to power your suit for months" Gizmo told me.
That had to be fate.
"I have an appointment there this afternoon so I can scope the place out and plant a bug that will let you into their system" I said to my little buddy "Then when she hits the place we can make sure the police don't hear the alarm, and we will be there to catch her".
The tricky part would be containing someone who could walk through walls, but if this Pink-X wanted my attention then we wouldn't have to capture, she'd stick around.
"Why are you going to S.T.A.R labs?" Jinx asked "We don't have a job involving that place, do we?".
I needed to carefully answered this question, but before I could say anything the blonde in the room spoke for me.
"Raven's going for a check up" Terra said "The baby's like half human – half whatever she is, so a normal doctor won't be much help, but S.T.A.R labs has people who specialise in alien biology, so they're better equipped to handle this kind of thing".
Which was actually the case.
"Right" Jinxy said after a moment "X, can I talk to alone. In your room".
For a second there I had thought I was safe as it turned out she had just decided to rip me a new one behind closed doors.
(Line Break)
S.T.A.R Labs – Jump City.
Until now I'd never considered who aliens and meta-humans go to see when they need a check up, or even just dentist appointment. After all they couldn't just go to a regular doctor because most medical professional only knew how to treat humans. However there were people who specialised in alternate physiology. Most of them work for one of the S.T.A.R labs that were scattered across this country and other places.
Given that Raven was half-demon/half something else she had an odd biology, at least when compared to most people on this planet. Although Blackfire had a load of stomachs and could shoot energy beams from her eyes, which was very strange so I wasn't going to judge Ray for having a few oddities in her nature.
"Why didn't you want to go Metropolis?" Raven inquired "Dr. Emil Hamilton is suppose to be an expert on how alien and human biology can interact, he's more qualified than anyone to tell us how our baby is doing".
I had good reasons for not going anywhere near that guy.
"Because Hamilton is working for CADMUS" I told the mother of my unborn child "He's the one who cloned Supergirl, and I do not want him within a thousand miles of you all the baby".
Raven gave me a perplexed look and then went back to reading her magazine. Apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar had just gotten married, sometime last year.
"People from Azarath are descended from humans, Raven then told me "So we only need to worry about the demon part".
Ray was from another dimension, like I was so in my view it wasn't just the demonic DNA we should be concerned about, but I wasn't going to worry unless there was actually a problem.
"Like I said I'm going to name the baby after my mother if she's a girl like the psychics I went to see say she will be" Raven told me "But if we do have a boy, and that can still happen, then you have to think of a name".
The naming thing didn't worry me, her going to see mind readers did. She'd mentioned if before but we'd not talked about it much.
"Why did you go see a psychic?" I wondered
Raven didn't answer right away she finished reading an article first.
"I wanted to make sure that the baby is going to be okay" she told me "To find out if she or maybe he will be a monster or not. Everything is okay mystically speaking, and she will have magical powers, and she has some kind of special destiny as well. I know that those kind of things don't always work out well so I needed more information".
That sounded reasonable and now I was getting the sense that she was trying to avoid talking about something by talking about other things, but given what she was going though these days I understood that she was trying to distract herself.
"Why do you have a pair of girl's underwear in your pocket?" Ray then inquired of me.
The answer had to do with Jinx being all jelly. I'd expected her to be mad about me spending time with Raven, but as it turned out she'd just wanted to mark her territory as it were. As soon as I'd gotten into my room she'd started to hump me.
"Oh those are Jinx's" I explained "There her way of reminding me who my girlfriend is I guess. She's so jelly of you".
Raven lowered the magazine and gave me a look of confusion.
"She's what?" the Titan asked.
"Jelly as in jealous" I clarified "She's worried that you will try to steal me away from her".
Raven smiled in a way that made a shiver run down my spine.
"Well she should be" the purple haired girl said "Once you see me holding your baby you'll so want us to be a family".
For a moment I dismissed that idea as nothing more than a fantasy she had, but when I thought about it I realised that it might actually happen. It was a strong human desire to protect one's mate and offspring, and seeing Raven and Arella together could trigger that inclination.
"Well we'll cross that burning bridge when we get to it" I told the hero.
This conversation was heading into uncomfortable territory so I decided that it was time to change the subject.
"So what about Pink-X" I said "Do you think our little girl grows up and takes after her beloved Daddy".
Raven was amused by my words, and for some reason she didn't seem to care much, but I was as I did not like the idea of my kid abusing time travel for some selfish goal.
"Well she said 'I am the daughter of Red-X' and not 'I am your daughter with Red-X' so she might not be our baby girl" Raven told me "But if she is I don't get why she didn't called me Mom, and if she is Arella then why did she attack me and risk her own life? That goes way beyond having issues with your parents".
She was right it didn't make sense. Unless Pink-X wasn't the kid growing inside Ray right now. She could be my kid with Jinx, or even with someone else. That would explain why Pink-X hadn't used magic like any child of Raven's naturally would.
If she was indeed my child then she was taking after me, and she had access to tech even I didn't. Which did support the idea that she was from the future. But I had the feeling that something else was going on here. Things did add up.
If Pink-X was my kid, and she was stealing stuff in order to get my attention, then she was going about it all wrong. Being a criminal had only succeeded in getting her into trouble with the Titans. There were easier ways to contact me. Like knocking on the front door of our headquarters and said 'Hey Dad I'm your daughter'.
"I'm sure you will track her down and then we will get some answers" Raven said with a complete lack of concern.
Her attitude surprised me, but after thinking about it I figured that Ray just thought that Pink-X was just a fan girl.
"I'll find her" I promised.
Before anything more could be said a woman in a lab coat told us she was ready, so we headed into her office.