Chapter 79: Stormy Weather

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC. No infringement is intended.


Zatanna Zatara, teenage superhero and still looking for a good superhero name, nervously wrung her hands as she took in her surroundings. The building she had entered was a privately owned one on the outskirts of Metropolis, standing rather isolated. It kind of looked like something one might find in Washington, its front vaguely Greek-looking with pillars and a reflecting pool in front of it. Large windows covered its dome-shaped front and huge letters adorned the façade.

Veritas, Iustitia, Misericordia.

Her Latin was not the best, but good enough to translate those words. Truth, Justice, and Compassion.

"Zee, you made it," the cheerful voice of her best friend greeted her as she walked into the building's entrance hall. Supergirl aka Kona Kara-El zipped towards her at super speed and hugged her (thankfully not with super strength). Kona was dressed in her usual superhero attire, meaning a black shirt with the famous Superwoman symbol on it and a pair of Jeans. Apparently, her mom had offered to make a blue suit for her similar to the ones she and Kal were wearing, but Kona had refused.

Zatanna, not having a superhero outfit as such, was dressed in Jeans and a shirt as well, just without a famous symbol on it. Not that it mattered much, given that she would be able to change her outfit with a simply magic spell if necessary. Much like the name, though, she was still trying to think of a cool superhero outfit, too.

"The others are here already?" Zatanna asked, knowing the answer. Given that all of her teammates had super speed, she was resigned to usually being the last to arrive. She really had to get that magical teleportation thing down sooner rather than later. Getting her dad to send her here had been quite the hassle. He respected her choice to use her abilities to help others (he would have been a huge hypocrite otherwise), but was not exactly happy about it, considering how young she still was.

"Kal and I just got here a minute ago," Kona told her, leading her deeper into the building. "Of course Flash says he's been here for hours, but Kal says he saw him zip in at super speed just a few seconds before us."

The two girls shared a look that loudly said "boys!" and shrugged.

"So your mom had this place built?" Zatanna asked, looking around.

"Yeah," Kona said. "She figured that super heroes might need a place to gather and talk shop and she doesn't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a domino mask and tights coming up to the Watchtower. There are a few of these things scattered around the world. The four of us can use all of them, so we kind of, sort of have our own place to meet now."

"Cool!"

"Oh, one other thing," Kona told her. "Kal kind of got promoted while we were away in outer space."

Zatanna looked at her questioningly. She had, of course, noticed that her best friend had been missing for quite a few weeks. The Justice League had informed her that they were away for a mission, but that had not stopped her from worrying. Kona had told her the entire story a few days ago when they had gotten back. She still had a hard time believing all of it, though.

"Promoted how?" Zatanna asked. "I didn't know we have ranks."

Kona chuckled. "No, he... well, Kal took charge during the last leg of our trip home when mom was out of sorts and he really came through. And mom said he is no longer a boy now."

Zatanna nodded, understanding. "So, it's SuperMAN now, is it?"

"Yeah, and I'm really trying to remember it. Though I fear it will take a bit of time before everyone stops calling him Superboy."

"You mean until Flash stops calling him that," Zatanna said, smiling.

"That too, yeah."


"It's good to see you again, Kal," Flash said, the two of them shaking hands. "You really had us worried a bit when you all disappeared. Heck, I had to tell my mom that cover story Batman threw out about you being away on a mission, she was so worried."

Clark nodded, knowing that their moms had struck up a weird sort of friendship, even if it was mostly taking place online.

"Well, it was a weird trip," Clark said, sitting down at the conference table that dominated the main room of the building. "And... we're good again? You and I?"

Flash sat down as well. "Yeah, we are. I wasn't really mad at you, you know? And while I was pretty cross with your mom at first, I guess I was mostly mad at myself. My parents should have heard about this from me, not some stranger, even if the stranger was Superwoman and my mom is over the moon about being friends with her."

Clark nodded. He did kind of agree with that, but his own situation was vastly different than Wally's. Then again, he had kept secrets from his mom, too. Not that he was all that successful in pulling the wool over her eyes in most cases, but still.

"And the identity thing?" Clark asked.

Flash shrugged. "Well, if I'm completely honest with myself, I probably would have used the whole X-Ray vision thing, too, had I been in your shoes. I... well, I just hope that one day your mom will trust me enough that we can all call each other by our real names. Or in your case your real Earth name or whatever you're calling it."

Clark chuckled, and then made a spontaneous decision. He offered his hand to Wally. "The name's Clark, Wally."

Flash stared at the hand for a moment, and then shook it. "Pleased to meet you, Clark."

"Okay, enough with the male bonding," Kona said from the door, Zatanna behind her. "We really need to lower the testerone levels in here!"

The two girls sat down at the same table.

"Well, looks like the Teen Titans are back together again," Flash said, leaning back. "Though I have to ask: can Superboy and I still be members once we're no longer teens?"

"It's Superman," Clark reminded him.

"Doesn't have the same ring to it," Flash shot back teasingly. "Besides, didn't Supergirl here say something about us having a theme?"

"So you are going with Flash Boy then?" Kona asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Flash Man sounds ridiculous, though," Zatanna threw in.

"Why are you all ganging up on me?" Flash asked in mock despair.

"To get back to your original question," Clark said, "maybe we can just call ourselves Titans then?"

"I don't know," Kona interjected. "I kind of assumed that we'd join the Justice League once we're adults."

"Can't we do both?" Zatanna asked. "I mean, it's still a few years, but I'm sure by the time we're adults, there will be other teen superheroes. Maybe we can be their mentors or something then?"

"That's not a bad idea," Clark said. "We do know of at least one new teenage superhero, don't we?"

He looked at Kona, who nodded. "Sand Girl," she said, chuckling.

"Sand Girl?" Zatanna asked. "Oh, you mean… really?"

"Who is Sand Girl?" Flash asked.

"Someone who is nowhere near ready for a life of super-heroics yet," Clark said, "but that might change one day. Maybe we can..."

He trailed off. Something was wrong. The air had changed. It suddenly smelled of rain and ozone.

"Are you getting that, too?" Kona asked, looking around. "Almost like..."

"It smells like a storm," Clark said, beginning to rise from his chair.

In that moment, the ceiling caved in on them.


Thomas Oscar Morrow was a man who could honestly lay claim to the word genius without too much hyperbole. He was possibly the world's foremost expert in the field of robotics, though men such as Anthony Ivo or Lex Luthor might disagree (idiots, the lot of them!). He had numerous patents to his name, enough so that he would never have to work another day in his life if he so chose. One could also reasonably add the prefix 'mad' to his genius claim, though he would certainly dispute that addition himself. If the rest of the world was unable to appreciate the way his mind worked, that was the world's problem, not his.

Currently, though, T.O. Morrow was not a happy man. To be perfectly honest, it had been quite some time since he had been genuinely happy and it had all started when those super-powered do-gooders had appeared on the scene. It was not as if he had a general problem with super-powered beings, certainly not, but suddenly no one cared about robots anymore. It was all "can you make me fly and have super strength?". No one was interested in the good old-fashioned killer robot anymore. That irked him.

At first T.O. Morrow had tried to turn this into an opportunity, because surely once people saw how his robots defeated those super-powered menaces, and then they would see the light and respect his genius. Unfortunately for him, it had yet to happen. It was not public knowledge, but nearly half of the various robots that the likes of Superwoman and her ilk had demolished during their careers were based on Professor Morrow's designs. He never took credit for it, of course, and he never would until one of them actually managed to soundly defeat one of those do-gooders. A genius did not take credit for failures.

His latest design was supposed to be his masterpiece, his ninth symphony, his crowning achievement. A robot that would finally show all those super-powered hooligans that human genius trumped all genetic quirks and alien origins.

He called it the Red Tornado.

At first, his newest creation had exceeded all his expectations. Its reflexes, its capacity for self-learning, its vast destructive potential, all of it was as good if not better than he had anticipated. He had already imagined how his Red Tornado (or rather an army of them, of course, because that was the whole point of creating an artificial warrior, was it not? Mass production!) would face and defeat that infernal Justice League, as they called themselves.

Then something had gone wrong. He still did not know what. There had been an energy surge, source unknown, and suddenly the Red Tornado android had stopped listening to his orders. Something had overwritten its command codes, had changed its core programming, and now his robot was gone, off into the wild somewhere.

T.O. Morrow sighed, sitting back in his chair. Some days it simply did not pay to be a genius (one that was definitely not mad in any way, shape, or form, just for the record). He briefly considered whether a bout of loud laughter might be therapeutic, but ultimately decided against it, twirling his mustache instead.


Despite possessing what was generally known as super speed, neither the Flash nor Clark and Kona were constantly at an accelerated level of awareness and movement. If they were, their lives would consist of endless galleries of statues and utter boredom. All of them needed a moment to dial up their senses and switch their bodies into high gear, so to speak. Meaning they were just as vulnerable to surprise attacks as anyone else was.

When the ceiling caved in, Clark and Kona were the first to react. The two of them threw themselves at their respective best friends, both of whom did not enjoy the perks of a skin-tight force field that rendered them all but invulnerable. Kona shielded Zatanna with her body, while Clark did the same for the Flash.

By the time the first piece of debris crashed on Clark's back, Flash was all caught up and ready to move. In a red blur he danced between the still falling pieces and was out of danger a heartbeat later. Kona needed a second longer to get Zatanna clear. Clark let another piece ricochet off his back with no effect, then moved as well.

The four Teen Titans stood at the side of the room and looked up at the large hole that had once been the ceiling. Something that looked like a miniature tornado was hovering above them, inside of which they could just about see the shape of a man.

"Another tornado?" Flash shouted over the howling of the wind. "Did we get typecast to battling wind villains or something?"

"Is that this Tornado Tyrant thing again?" Kona yelled. "He seems smaller than before."

Clark focused his enhanced vision on the heart of the whirlwind. "No, there is something in there. Something made of metal."

As if on cue the wind stopped and the humanoid shape within became visible. It looked like a man, but was clearly made of metal. It had but an approximation of a human face with two eye slits and a larger slit for a mouth. The robot – for what else could it be? – was mostly red in color with a purple cape and gloves (why did a robot need gloves?).

"Okay, who are you?" Clark asked, taking a step forward. "And why did you attack us?"

"Designation: Red Tornado," the robot responded, its voice sounding almost human, but not quite. "Objective: defeat super-powered do-gooders."

Clark blinked.

"Do-gooders?" Kona asked. "Really? Who talks like that?"

"Why do you wish to defeat us?" Zatanna asked.

The robot seemed to hesitate for a moment. "Programming," it finally replied, then raised its hand.

This time the four heroes were ready and easily evaded the targeted wind vortex that, in the confined space of the building, hit the wall with the force of a machine gun.

"Okay, I'm tired of this," Kona said. "He's a robot, right? So we can just smash him?"

Clark nodded, causing the blonde girl to shoot forward at super speed, hand outstretched. Before she could come into contact with the robot, though, and take him apart with her tactile telekinesis, the wind currents surrounding her foe threw her off course and sent her careening into the far wall.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Clark huffed. "I'm finishing this now!"

His eyes glowed red and twin beams of intense heat bridged the distance to the Red Tornado at the speed of light, looking to cut him in half. The beams hit their mark, but instead of slicing right through the metal torso, they were simply absorbed.

"You gotta be kidding me," Clark muttered.

"Let me try," Zatanna said. "I doubt he is proof against magic. TOBOR LIVE SITH…"

The robot reacted at a speed that would have been blinding to anyone not possessed of super speed and sent a vortex spinning towards Zatanna. A partial vacuum was created around the teenage sorceress, effectively silencing her words and sending her stumbling as all the air was sucked out of her lungs. Flash was by her side a moment later and moved her out of danger.

"This is getting embarrassing," Kona complained, emerging from the debris of the wall. "A few days ago we took out a fascist space empire and now we're getting trounced by a wind-up toy?"

"Flash," Clark called out. "Kona and I will double-team him; you go in when you see an opening. We need to get this thing immobilized!"

The super siblings launched into the air and sped towards the robot from opposing sides. The wind howling around him was making it all but impossible to fly in a straight line, so the two of them had to focus all their power into defying those gale forces. Their forward momentum slowed to a crawl, but they managed to stay on course as the robot was visibly straining to increase the power of its vortex.

Seeing his opening, Flash sped forward. The backlash of his super speed passing created a vacuum underneath the hovering robot, causing him to divert part of his power to remaining aloft. Which was just enough for the super siblings to overpower his resistance and reach him. Kona's fingers touched the metal surface of its right arm and her power pulsed.

Amazingly enough the telekinetic pulse that – at full power – had shredded space fortresses did not immediately demolish the robot. The machine did take damage, though, and toppled down to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. The winds died down as the twitching heap of metal and circuits struggled to get back to its feet.

"Okay, let's finish it," Clark said, raising his fist to demolish the robot once and for all.

"Wait," Zatanna said, back on her feet. "There is something strange about this machine."

"It sure is," Flash agreed, looking miffed. "Thing took us on four to one and threw us around like amateurs."

"No, I... I can sense something about it," Zatanna said, her hand raised in front of her as if she was touching something only she could see. "It... weird as it sounds, it has some kind of aura to it."

"A robot with an aura?" Kona asked skeptically, even as she pinned the robot down by placing her foot on its back. "I thought only living things had an aura."

"A living machine?" Clark continued the thought. "How would that work? I doubt even Brainiac would count as a living being and he is the most advanced AI we've ever met."

"Fles renni ruoy laever," Zatanna muttered, light flaring around her palm. The damaged robot before them began to glow from within and the other Titans took a step back, fearing some kind of explosion was imminent. The light simply formed a kind of halo around the machine, though, and within it, there was the barest imprint of a tiny whirlwind.

"What are we looking at?" Flash asked, confused. "The tornado robot has a tiny tornado inside of him?"

"It's not a 'tiny tornado'," Zatanna said, sounding annoyed. "It's something... alive. Something... elemental!"

"Elemental?" Kona perked up. "You mean like..."

"Yeah," Zatanna agreed.

Clark frowned. "Okay, so we have a highly advanced robot and it's possessed by an elemental being like the one we fought before?"

He looked at his three friends. "Not to put ourselves down, but I think we should call for some help from the experts, don't you think?"


Half an hour later Superwoman stood in front of the half-wrecked robot that was still trying to get up and continue its mission. Clark and Kona had bent steel bars to keep him pinned in place, though, so it was not going anywhere.

"This is an amazing design," Kara said, her X-Ray vision inspecting every last detail of the robot. "It's entirely Earth-made, I'd say. No alien influences that I can detect. I have never seen such an advanced robot before, though. Whoever built him is a master of their craft."

Standing beside her, Giovanni Zatara worked with his daughter to probe the elemental force that was apparently housed inside the robot.

"You were right, dear," Zatara said eventually. "That is certainly an elemental's aura we are seeing here. You are sure it's the same one that attacked Metropolis?"

"Almost sure," Zatanna said. "It feels... changed somehow, yet it's fundamentally the same. I can't really describe it any better than that."

The older magician was deep in thought. He was aware that his daughter was more powerful than he was, potentially at least, but he had a vast edge in experience when it came to all things magical.

"You told me that you banished the elemental after your friends weakened it, Zatanna. How exactly? What were your exact words?"

Zatanna frowned, trying to remember. "I think it was 'Quiet the storm and dispel the evil spirit!'"

"Well, the storm does seem more quiet," Flash added from where he, Clark, and Kona were sitting near the wall, feeling a bit useless right now.

"Magic is all about intent," Zatara explained to the teenagers. "If the elemental was 'quieted' and its evil 'dispelled', we may be dealing with an entirely new entity here, one less malevolent and temperamental than before. I am uncertain how it happened to reside within a machine, though. That is something I've never seen"

Superwoman had plugged a hand-held device into the side of the robot's head and was looking at the data scrolling across the small screen in her hand. While outwardly resembling an Earth-built tablet, the device was entirely Kryptonian in make and centuries ahead of the robot's own design.

"The robot's coding is messed up pretty badly," she said. "Looks like something changed or corrupted the original programming parameters. There are still some primary directives, though, which compel it to attack super-powered beings. Let's see what happens once I erase those."

She hit a few keys and the robot convulsed for a moment, then went still. Then it seemed to look directly at Kara.

"Query: what is my purpose?"

The assembled heroes looked at each other for a moment, then Kara turned to speak to the robot.

"Whatever you want it to be," she told the machine. "Do you know how you came to be?"

"Creator: Thomas Oscar Morrow."

Kara blinked. She had certainly heard that name before. One could hardly take a single step in the field of robotics without coming across one patent or other owned by the elusive T.O. Morrow. She had never met the man in person, though. K-Solutions might dabble in almost any field, but it was not primarily a robotics company. Moreover, she did not like going into business with people she did not know much about.

"Morrow is a rather famous robotics designer," she told the others, "but somehow I doubt he managed to capture an elemental being and put it inside one of his robots."

"Query: what is an elemental?"

Kara looked to Zatara. "Is it possible it does not know what it is?"

"An elemental is just that, a force of nature," Zatara said, studying the fascinating hybrid creature before him. "It is rare that they develop even the kind of rudimentary self-awareness that the Ulthoon entity displayed when it attacked Metropolis."

Kona came forward. "So basically, we have a non-corporeal entity that has somehow taken physical form and became a new kind of living being?" Upon Zatara's nod, she chuckled. "Sounds kind of like Sandy."

"We're not adopting a robot," Kara told her strictly. "Especially not one that was apparently created to combat super-beings like ourselves."

"It is a living being, though," Clark said. "We can't simply dismantle it, right?"

"Statement: I do not wish to be dismantled!"

Kara sighed, sharing a look with Zatara, who shrugged. "It is a living thing, however strange that may seem."

Kara shook her head at the absurdity of her own life, then looked at the four teenagers. "Okay, it seems you four have just taken responsibility for a living robot," she told them.

"Wait, what?" Flash asked. "When did we agree to that?"

"Well, apparently we kind of helped create him," Zatanna said. "So he is somewhat our responsibility, right?"

Kona huffed. "Then I guess we should put him back together. We can't leave him wrecked."

"You are the science gal, sister mine," Clark said, pointing at her. "Get to it!"

"Since when am I science gal?"

"Can't Zee just magic him back together?" Flash asked.

"It doesn't work that way! I would need to understand exactly how he works before I could even think about doing that."

"Well, you magicked the tiny tornado into him!"

"I did no such thing and it's not a tiny tornado, Flash Boy!"

"Don't call me Flash Boy, Magic Girl!"

"Where do we put him when we're not here?"

"He's not a thing to be 'put' somewhere!"

Zatara and Kara watched the four squabbling teenager from a bit of a distance, doing their best to keep the smiles from their faces.

"You think raising super-powered kids will ever get boring?" Kara asked.

"It hasn't yet," Zatara replied. "Care for some dinner, milady?"

She gave him a skeptic look. "Just dinner?"

"I am a gentleman, my dear!"

Kara sighed, then nodded. "Very well, let's go!"

"I do reserve the right, however, to try and woo you away from whatever unworthy scoundrel currently holds your heart, milady!"

"I figured as much."

The Titans and the living robot called Red Tornado never noticed them leaving.


End Chapter 79

Author's Note: The Red Tornado (technically Red Tornado II, as there was a Golden Age Red Tornado, too) made his debut in Justice League of America (vol. 1) #64 in 1968. Originally "just" a sentient android, he was retconned to be the host of the Tornado Champion (aka the good half of Ulthoon, the Tornado Tyrant) in JLoA #193 in 1981. Ulthoon first appeared in my story in chapter 55. I did make Red Tornado a bit tougher here than he usually is in the comics (where he is usually blown apart at least every second issue), but I figured a robot built to take on heroes in the weight class of Superwoman should be a bit harder to beat. The building where the Titans meet is, of course, the Hall of Justice from the Superfriends cartoon.

Sorry this chapter came with such a delay, but work is keeping me very busy right now and my muse is at low ebb. I hope to get back into the swing of things in a couple of weeks once the worst at work is over.

Up next: The Temptation of Thaal Sinestro.