I do not own the Teen Titans or anything related to them, however I do own this story and all of the non-original characters except for Isis, who I have been given permission to use by a friend of mine and all are copywrited. This means you can not copy the story or any of the characters or use them without permission from their original owners.
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Dante Tigerwolf : Glad I explained Isis well enough, I didn't think I'd done Phoenix too well, guess I was wrong. As for Li, Zeru and Taiyou, I've detailed Zeru more in this chapter, and I thought I'd done Taiyou pretty well. Well anyway, if I didn't, Taiyou can manipulate and control fire. As for Zeru, read on and I'll detail him a bit more if its still a little confusing. Li will be explained more fully later on, but if you want to know now I guess I could tell.
Anyway, enjoy the next chapter.
Teen Titans: Alpha
Secret conversations
"Well that went well." Taiyou said dejectedly as he walked in through the main room doors. He jumped over the back of the sofa, slumping down in his seat as Zeru and Li looked at him expectantly, whilst Isis sat quietly in the corner.
"He was being sarcastic." She said icily and the other two boys were quick to reply;
"Yeah we know." Zeru said, feigning that it was only pretend obliviousness.
"So what did she say?" Li asked, ignoring the other Titans and Taiyou sighed.
"Nothing, she said absolutely nothing."
"That must have been an insightful conversation." Isis remarked, but her sarcasm seemed lost for the moment which angered her slightly.
"As soon as I got there I opened the door and all I saw was the CD coming at me, so I ducked and it shattered on the wall. I think I'm lucky to come out with my head still attached to my shoulders."
"Don't exaggerate Tae." Li said, but Zeru shook his head,
"I've seen her go nut-so Li, Tae's lucky to be alive."
"She didn't go nut-so Zeru, she went Super Nova." Li and Zeru's jaws dropped and Isis merely shook her head. It was just like Phoenix to steal the spot light as usual. She was always being talked about or to for something. 'Girl Wonder the popular' Isis thought bitterly, thinking back to their Academy days when Phoenix had been a star in so many ways. Pretty, popular, intelligent, Phoenix was perfect and Isis, was frankly, sick of it. She always stole the limelight, and the ice girl thought it was time for someone else to take centre stage. But, as always, she remained stonily silent and refused to buckle to her emotions.
"Now I know you are exaggerating." Li said; folding his arms. Taiyou shook his head.
"I've never seen her like that you guys. She was totally freaked; you could see it in her face. She bit my head off, then apologised and asked why I was there."
"See, she's still the same old Phoenix if she apologised." Li interrupted and Taiyou sighed;
"I haven't finished." Li shut up and Zeru continued to listen, whilst Isis still remained deadly quiet.
"She lied to me you guys." You could practically hear the mental gasps of Zeru and Li and you could see Isis' raised eyebrow. Phoenix didn't lie. "I told her we wanted to know what was going on and that we were worried, that she hadn't been herself lately and that she'd completely changed on us."
"What did she say to that?" Zeru asked with baited breath and Taiyou's voice sounded even more dejected;
"She asked me what my point was and I got riled and I said it was like we didn't know her anymore." Zeru was hanging onto Taiyou's every word, he loved stuff like this; it was like an action and adventure story happening right in front of him. Li just prompted Taiyou to finish his explanation of the encounter with their leader.
"And?"
"Then she went all silent and said; 'Or maybe you never knew me to begin with.' And I said that was starting to think the same thing." A silence descended on the group as they all thought about what had taken place. It didn't make any sense, why would Phoenix go all weird on them? She wasn't normally like this.
"Maybe the Girl Wonder finally cracked." Isis said, breaking the cold silence as she rose from her seat to retrieve a glass or water.
"Don't say that." Taiyou said quietly and Isis looked up from the water she had just summoned into the drinking vessel.
"Why? Our brilliant leader is keeping things from us, how do we know we can trust her if she can't tell us the truth?"
"Because she's our leader and we have faith in her." Taiyou said, his voice was suddenly as harsh as when he had confronted Phoenix.
"You might." Isis snapped back, her glass of water slowly freezing over.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Taiyou said, rising from his seat to face the girl and Li and Zeru looked slightly nervous.
"I'm saying that maybe we shouldn't rely on someone who can't even tell us why she'd going, how did you put it, 'Super Nova'?"
"We all have private stuff Isis, maybe this is something Phoenix wants to keep private."
"I recall you being one of the ones who wanted to know what was going on, or have you forgotten that?"
"Why do you dislike her so much Isis?" Taiyou suddenly asked, catching Isis off guard. Isis quickly regained her composure her voice was now even colder than usual and Li and Zeru could have sworn that if looks could kill Taiyou would be six foot under by now;
"That is not fair."
"Why is not fair? You were the one trash-talking Phoe behind her back!" Isis' glared before storming out of the main room.
"Nice going man, now we've got two girls mad at us." Zeru said, raising from his seat on the sofa and following Isis out of the room. Taiyou wanted to scream so badly, but instead he clenched his fists and flopped backwards onto the sofa.
"I couldn't have handled that worse could I?" Taiyou asked after a moment and Li shook his head.
"I doubt it." Taiyou rose an eyebrow and Li just smiled weakly.
Isis stormed into her room, the ice blue walls and pure white sheets which normally felt like home made her feel so cold, not that she shouldn't be new to this. She wrapped her arms around herself, in an attempt to hug herself to make herself feel warmer.
'They hate me. Everyone hates me. Girl Wonder the Popular. Like she could ever say her life wasn't perfect. I've never fitted in here. I'll never fit in here.'
"I'll never belong anywhere." Isis said quietly, sitting on the end of her bed, with her head down. The light from outside disappeared as she noticed a shadow coming from her doorway and her head rose.
"Isis?" Zeru asked, standing as he had done when Phoenix's message had first been discovered. Isis thought how strange it was to see Zeru standing rather than hovering mid-air, as he hardly ever stopped doing the latter.
"What?" She asked as she folded her arms and looked at the floor again as the fly-boy entered.
"You Ok?" He asked. Ok, so reassuring people wasn't one of his specialities. Zeru was a master of the air, of manipulating air currents, soaring through the clouds and causing tornadoes and twisters, he was not adept with emotions and all that 'girly stuff' as he called it.
"Why do you care?" Isis asked coldly and Zeru looked slightly put-out, but he didn't shy away.
"Just because you don't show your emotions to everyone else doesn't mean you don't have any." Zeru said and Isis was baffled by how wise he sounded. Zeru seemed surprised too and was momentarily lost for words.
"Look here Genius, what I do, say, think and… feel…" Isis added the last word rather reluctantly, "Is my business, not yours so don't go worrying your little head, you'll hurt yourself." Zeru shrugged, being his laid-back self as always.
"Fine; just thought you could use someone to talk to." He folded his arms and looked at her with his head tilted slightly.
"Yeah, well, I don't." Isis said shortly and Zeru nodded;
"Well if you want to talk, you know where to find me." With that he flew to her door, stopping only to say quietly; "Oh and you belong here." With that, he continued out of her room and Isis watched him leave. After a few silent moments she muttered with the most microscopic of smiles;
"Thanks Genius."
"What do you think is up with Phoe then? I mean, I know she hasn't told you anything, but do you have any ideas?" Li asked as Taiyou continued to sit on the sofa with his legs hanging over the back.
"I don't know. She said this morning that she had gotten a message from her Dad the other day and that it had been playing on her mind, maybe it's got something to do with him." Taiyou asked, shrugging.
"To be honest, it's like I don't know her anymore. She's a completely different person to who she was. I mean, you saw how she wanted to get away from us, you even remarked on it. I reckon something's got her majorly freaked." Li looked at him;
"Her Dad?" Taiyou nodded and Li looked confused.
"Like what?"
"I don't know, but it's enough for Phoe to go Super Nova on us." Taiyou said, staring at the ceiling and Li looked up at the main screen.
"And the message, you reckon that was something to do with him?"
"Yep, it's the only reason I can think of. We don't know all that much about Phoe's family do we? Apart from that her parents were in the original group of Titans."
"Yeah I mean, talk about pressure. Everyone expects you to do well when you've got a legend for a Dad and an original titan and alien Princess for a Mom, let alone them being teachers at school too."
"Exactly. Apart from that, we don't really know anything do we? I mean, with crime-fighting super-heroes for parents, her family's bound to have enemies, but the way Phoe's reacted it's got to be something, or someone, bad."
"Someone dangerous enough to threaten Robin the Great Boy Wonder? No wonder she's tweaked. I mean, to threaten an original Titan, but the leader?" Taiyou nodded but added;
"Remember, that's only what I've guessed from what she said, he could be completely wrong."
"Yeah, but what else is likely to get her as worked up as this?" Li asked, thinking furiously, Taiyou shrugged, his voice quiet;
"I don't know, it's hard to imagine anything worse."
