Assume the disclaimer posted in the previous chapter applies to all chapters herein.
God's Playground
02 - Now Why Didn't I Think of That Sooner?
And now, In accordance with a tradition started oh so long ago, the theme!
Cue three-minute special long opening...
Robin flies across the screen in his familiar falling kick.
When there's trouble, you know who to caaall..
TEEN TITANS!
Titan Tower standing on its island off the shore of Jump City.
From their tower, they can see it aaaall..
TEEN TITANS!
Lettering to purple, slide over to various scenes of Raven teleporting, using spells, and generally doing what Raven does best. End with the close-up head shot.
When there's evil on the attack, you can rest knowing they got your back...
Raven flight over to green background, various scenes of Beast Boy changing into random animals in the background while he makes odd faces in the foreground before finally changing into a pterodactyl and flying up and across the screen.
Cause when the world needs heroes on patrooool..
TEEN TITANS, GO!
Orange background, Starfire flies into and past the screen throwing starbolts before panning out to a view of her letting loose at something on the ground.
With their super powers, they uniiiiite....
TEEN TITANS!
Background to yellow. Various scenes of Terra pulling up and throwing around boulders and city streets. Camera pans around behind her before shooting around the side of her head and fading out to...
Never met a villain that they liiiiiiked..
TEEN TITANS!
Blue background, familiar random shots of Cyborg ending with same scene of said Titan's fist flying into the camera.
They've got the bad guys on the run, they'll never stop 'till the job gets done...
Gold background. Camera pans back from Cyborg's fist to reveal Gauntlet's namesake pulling back before throwing up shields, rams, and random shapes before turning quickly towards the camera and lashing out with a line of yellow energy.
Cause when the world is loosing aaall controooooll...
Background to white. Savior lashing the Shimmer around and using it to perform various aerial acrobatics before finally swinging a booted foot back towards the camera...
TEEN TITANS, GO!
Background to black. Camera pans right to find Scalpel twirling and thrusting his glaive around and throwing various kicks and punches before ending with a glaive-swipe at the camera.
TEEN TITANS, GO!
Background to red. Camera pans back to reveal Robin standing from a diving swipe with his bo-staff. Lightening flash illuminating the leader from behind followed by various scenes of him fighting with Slade.
If your heart is black, you better watch out...
Cue random scenes of the team fighting together.
You can not escape the team...
When they catch you, there won't be any doubt...
You've been beaten by the Teeeen....
Beaten by the Teeeeeen....
Individual characters flash by screen in above order in time to...
T-E-E-N T-I-T-A-N-S
Teen Titans, let's go!
Back to more scenes of each character randomly thrashing or getting thrashed by the bad guys.
T-E-E-N T-I-T-A-N-S
Teen Titans, let's go!
T-E-E-N T-I-T-A-N-S
Teen Titans, let's gooo!
When there's trouble, you know who to caaaaall..
TEEN TITANS!
From their tower, they can see it aaaall..
TEEN TITANS!
When there's evil on the attack, you can rest knowing they got your back...
Cause when the world needs heroes on patroooool..
TEEN TITANS, GO!
TEEN TITANS, GO!
One, two, three, four, GO! Teen Titans!
Several hours have passed since we first joined our heroes in their fair Tower. The sun was beginning its descent below the horizon by now and the signs of fatigue have started to show on all of their faces. In reality, it's only shortly after six in the evening, but it had been nearly four hours since Tim had initially placed Titan Tower under lockdown. With four of their assumed twelve-or-less hours lost and very few leads, many of them were beginning to worry.
"Augh! I give up!" Rob yelled, throwing the keyboard across the room he and Kory had chosen to use for their purposes. On a table near the center of the room stood a small stack of printouts... and not much else. They were getting nowhere, fast. "I'm not cut out for this kind of crap."
Kory looked up from the few sheets she'd been reviewing. "Friend Rob, you must have patience. Don't you think that myself, as well as the others, are close to reaching their wits'-end by now as well? Shouting and throwing the plastic board of keys into the wall will not aid us in our quest for answers."
Pacing the room quickly, Rob took a quick kick at the downed keyboard. "Maybe not, but it'll make me feel better."
"Would you like to exchange tasks?"
"...No. As much as I hate computer crap, I hate reading more. It should be Tim or Vic doing this, not me! Noel, Gar, Raven, just anyone but me," he whined, sitting down.
"Why do you not rejoice in the gloriousness of the opening titles? We were all in them this time!"
"Yeah, that's true. I looked so cool. And I was in them before Noel, ha!"
Laughing, Kory stood and stretched, wondering if it would be possible to convince Tim to take a break soon. "I can't help but wonder though... should we not feel bad about violating the fourth wall to this extreme? Perhaps there was a reason for Legend Maker's vehemence."
"Maybe you're right. I should feel bad, but," Rob nodded, and then paused. "I just realized that that is totally out of character for me. What do I care? I should be trying that much harder to break it since she isn't here to yell."
A second later, their room was filled with a sound very much like breaking glass. Looking around for the source of the noise, the pair discovered what can only be described as a jagged hole in reality floating near the back of the room. "Rob, what have you done?"
"I broke the fourth wall! Woohoo!" Rob yelled, running over and taking a closer look. "I wonder where this leads."
Taking several steps back towards the exit, Kory shook her head. "I do not believe you should play with it."
Grinning, Rob stuck his hand in. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" he asked, waving his hand around. He stopped moving when it came into contact with something. Kneeling, he leant closer to the tear to attempt to get a look at whatever was on the other side but was greeted with darkness. His hand seemed to end where it met the portal. "What's this?"
He planted his hand firmly on whatever was on the other side and gave it an experimental squeeze. "Firm, but soft—it has some give to it," he mumbled, continuing to squeeze. Suddenly, whatever was on the other side jerked away violently...
Not too far away, Noel and Raven were still attempting to gather information through everyone they could get in contact with within the Justice League. Like Kory and Rob, they were running into dead ends at nearly every turn. "This is frustrating," Noel commented quietly, waiting for someone in the Watchtower to help him with a hack job involving the closest thing he had to a lead.
Raven would have replied, but an odd sensation cut her off. The weird feeling was followed shortly by what felt like a hand... a hand brushing and then squeezing her buttocks. Glancing more closely at Noel, she noted that he had both hands behind his head and the Shimmer didn't seem to be visible at the moment. "Noel..."
"Hmm?"
"There's something on my ass," she whispered, pointing towards her rear end.
Turning his chair to face his girlfriend, he regarded the area of her body in question. Sliding closer, he lifted up her cloak to reveal a hand—just a hand, sticking out from seemingly nowhere. Upon closer inspection though, it looked like it was poking through some sort of hole in reality. Also, there was a very familiar ring attached to one of its fingers.
"It looks like Rob's hand...poking out through some kind of tear. You don't think..."
Growling, Raven stood quickly and regarded the offending appendage. It began waving around, obviously trying to find whatever it'd been pressed against seconds earlier. "He's dead."
"Rob."
Startled, Rob withdrew his arm from the hole in space before turning to see who had called his name. "Uh, hi Raven. What's up?" he asked, trying to covertly hide his damage to the fourth wall by standing in front of it.
Raven didn't buy it for a second. "Is that a hole in the fourth wall?"
"No?"
"Did you make it?"
"Uhh... nope!"
Glaring, she took a single step forward, inwardly laughing at how he seemed to fight to stay where he stood. "Fix it, now, or you're a dead man," she ground out.
"Right!" Rob yelled, glancing around the room. Spotting a gray roll of what appeared to be tape; Rob picked it up and began patching the hole.
Raven, recognizing the tape for what it was, narrowed her eyes. 'Don't say it, don't say it...'
"Hey, it's true! Duct tape really does hold the universe together! It's like The Force—it has a light side and a dark side and...."
...We rejoin Kory and Rob ten minutes later. By this time, Rob is sporting several bruises, cuts, and judging by the ice pack, a black eye. Kory, who had backed out of the room as soon as Raven had teleported in, was failing to keep in her giggles. Luckily though, Raven had managed to actually close up the hole somehow... 'It still amazes me that there is an actual fourth wall,' she thought idly, still enjoying the look on Rob's face the moment he turned around.
"Man, I am really not liking this author," Rob muttered, flinching as the ice against his face shifted. He regretted his statement a second later though, when an invisible force slammed his head down into the table top.
"Robert, Raven warned you that should you violate the fourth wall again for the duration of the chapter, she would use her powers to propel your head into the nearest blunt object. Were you not conscious when she said this?" Kory asked, only mildly worried for her friend's safety—after all, he brought it upon himself.
"No, Star. I was pretty much out of it at that point. Where does she keep that cricket bat or whatever it was anyway..."
Deciding it would probably be in the best interests of finding a solution to their current crisis, Kory attempted to distract Rob and get him onto a topic that wouldn't invariably lead to cranial damage. "Why don't we review all that we have learned so far?"
"Ok, where do you want to start?"
She flipped through some of the documents on the table before coming to what she was seeking. "Medical records. Let us see... Our guest, Kate Rivers, was—at time of death some time close to three weeks ago—nineteen years of age, five feet and two inches tall, weighs one-hundred and nine pounds, had black hair, green eyes, and was born in November. No cause of death is listed, but the hospital is in Metropolis."
"Right, and now she's made her way here somehow," Rob added, putting down his ice pack. "I bet Noel could tell us if her clothes looked like she'd been on the road since then—my guess is that she came here by foot."
Kory nodded. "That is my assumption as well. Most hospitals in Metropolis keep a list of known metahuman patients—that is, if they bother going to a regular hospital. Possibly because of the nature of this virus, she was simply admitted to the closest hospital. They left a note on her records confirming that yes, she was a metahuman possessing some form of empathic powers."
"Empathic? You mean like being able to read thoughts?"
"No, that is telepathic. Empathic deals with emotions."
Rob stood, pacing around the table again. His boredom was once again manifesting itself physically. "Ok, so she's like you? Or maybe like Raven?"
"We don't have enough information. What did you find through the network of computing machines?" Kory asked, dropping her papers.
"Not much—just some school records, but you wouldn't believe how much trouble those were to get. She recently graduated from some crap-school on the outskirts of Metropolis—nothing really special. Her scores were actually pretty low compared to the rest of her graduating class, but nowhere near as bad as mine," Rob grinned.
"Did she participate in any sporting events?"
"Nunuh, not that I could find anyway. I tried calling a few of her classmates and teachers, but they were either unwilling to talk about her or just didn't recognize her name. It looks like she kept to herself."
Kory frowned. "I wonder why. Do you think it had something to do with her power?"
"No idea."
"What about earlier?" she asked, remembering what Nigel had said in the briefing room. "She woke up?"
Rob nodded, trying to remember exactly what had happened. "Yeah. We were talking and then Nigel's thing just went crazy, then she sat up for a minute before falling back down."
"Do you remember anything else?"
"She snores—loudly."
Laughing, Kory ran the events immediately preceding Rob and Nigel's entry into the briefing room through her head again. 'I was swimming in the pool on the roof to recharge my energy stores, the alarm sounded and I ran to the elevator, then Tim and I flirted for several moments before Victor joined us. Next, we made a wager upon who would be the last to enter the room—I chose Robert and Tim chose...'
"Rob?"
Rob glanced up from where he had actually been going over what they'd printed out. "Huh?"
"What were Raven, Noel, Tara, and Gar doing before the alarms sounded?" she asked, though she already suspected the answer.
"I dunno," Rob shrugged. "I think Noel and Raven went back to her room, and I don't want to know what Tara and Gar were doing. Why?"
Standing, Kory made for the door. "Let us go ask them."
Elsewhere, Gar was going through his own problems. He was usually good with stress, but all of the life-or-death situations that usually somehow seemed to come down to him to fix at the last minute were starting to add up. 'Man, I am so sick and tired of time limits.'
Near him, Tara wasn't having much luck either. No one she had talked to at Star Labs or any of the other big-name research facilities had seen anything like the scans they had sent in. The symptoms had raised a few eyebrows though, and once or twice someone had sent them a few files on a similar case. Besides those two or three leads, everything else seemed to be hitting a brick wall. "I can't think," Tara sighed, lamenting Tim's poor timing.
"Yeah, me too," Gar agreed, standing up where he had been typing out a few notes on the things they'd collected thus far. "I'm going to get something to drink... wanna come along?"
"Sure!" Tara grinned, following Gar from the room. 'Maybe, when this is all over, we'll finally have some time to ourselves. I'm in the mood for a movie, for some reason,' she thought, not realizing that something seemed amiss with that—that she was taking for granted the fact that Tim or Raven or Noel or someone would somehow find a way to make everything better again.
They found their way to the kitchen, where Kory and Rob looked to have shared their idea about a break. "How are things going on your end?" Gar asked, opening the fridge.
"Not good. We didn't find much of anything new. Kory may be onto something though," Rob answered, digging around through one of the cabinets for a bag of chips.
"Onto what? And what happened to your face?" Tara asked, noticing Rob's injuries for the first time.
Rob looked confused. "My face?"
"Yeah dude, you've got a black eye," Gar pointed out.
"Damn! It didn't go away when we went off-screen!" he cursed, only to regret it a second later when his head impacted with the cabinet door with a resounding thud. "Oww."
"What the hell?"
Kory was once again forced to suppress giggles. "Raven warned Rob not to break the fourth wall again today, or else she would cause his head to collide with the nearest solid object."
Tara looked confused. "Why would she do that? Legend Maker is obviously not—"
Rob cut her off by putting his hand over her mouth. "Shut up! Please! I don't want her thinking it was me."
Tara nodded and the hand left her mouth. "So anyway... what did Kory figure out?"
Beaming, Kory readied herself to relate her thoughts to her friends but was cut off by the Tower-wide intercom. "All Titans report to the medical lab. I repeat: All Titans, report to the medical lab," Nigel's voice echoed through the tower.
"It can wait until we are all together," Kory said as the four set off for the nearest elevator.
Had Tim made the same bet he'd made earlier in the day, he would have won it now—though not for the same reasons. Finally, after hours of work and a lot of help, Raven and Noel had managed to gather a few files pertaining to their current problem—files gained through the combined efforts of several members of the JLU which involved hacking into the computers of an unlisted biological weapons manufacturing plant somewhere in Montana.
As soon as they stepped into the medical lab, Tim began to speak. "Ok guys, what have you got so far?"
"Pretty much zilch," Rob volunteered. "Just some school records. We think she walked all the way here from Metropolis."
Tara spoke for her and Gar next. "One or two cases with similar symptoms—but nothing that completely matches what we've got here."
"Yeah, they didn't have a clue what it was when we sent them our stuff, but they're looking into it," Gar added.
Nodding at what Gar and Tara had said, Noel thought back to what they'd found. "We found something... Well, the guys at the Watchtower did. We think it was being developed as some kind of biological weapon by the government, but we're not sure on the details."
"What he means to say is that most of the data had been destroyed and we found this only by sheer dumb luck. The plant has been empty for the past month," said Raven.
Robin nodded as though he'd expected as much. "It sounds like some kind of anti-metahuman weapon, but something about this has been bothering me for a while. If it acts within twelve hours, why haven't we started showing symptoms yet?"
"What are you getting at?" asked Tara.
"I'm saying that I don't think it's airborne, so we may not be infected. That's why Nigel is going to take blood from all of you."
Glancing at the packet of needles the resident doctor had produced from seemingly nowhere, Rob began to fidget. "Are you sure we all have to do it?"
Nigel answered, grinning. "Yes, and you have volunteered yourself to be first my friend."
"Nunuh, no way! What about Tim? As the leader, he should go first!"
"I was first, Rob," Tim said, holding out his arm so they could see the small bandage there.
"Damn. Vic!?"
Shaking his head, Victor grinned. "Nope, sorry man. Already went."
"Uh... Noel!"
Noel raised an eyebrow. Snapping out the Shimmer, he forcibly pulled Rob's arm into range of Nigel's needle and held it there long enough for the Blacktrinian to draw a sample of blood. "Sorry Rob, it's for your own good."
"I hate you all!" Rob shouted once the needle had been removed before walking over to sulk near the back of the room.
"You next, Noel," Nigel called, looking up in time to see Noel flinch.
"Crap. I hate needles."
Once the Titans had finished giving blood (and Rob had gotten over being stabbed in the back...or arm, as it were), Kory remembered what she had wanted to ask earlier. "What was everyone doing before Tim sounded the alarms? I was in the pool and Robert and Nigel were with our guest, but what about the rest of you?"
"I was cleaning parts of Mortimer out of my circuits," Victor answered, still disgusted at what he had found clinging to his inner workings.
"And I was in touch with Oracle. That leaves just the four of you," Tim pointed out, motioning towards Raven, Noel, Gar, and Tara.
Tara blushed, Gar probably did but no one would have been able to tell (except possibly Victor, had be turned on his infrared sensor), Raven suddenly found the fastener to her cloak very interesting, and Noel attempted to school his face into a neutral expression and kept his mouth shut. He and Raven hadn't been doing what he assumed Gar and Tara were doing at the time, but what they were doing was no one else's business. Rejoining the group from his place near the far side of the room, Rob laughed and grinned at Kory. "I told you they were making out!"
Seconds after forcing Rob's head into a nearby steel bed frame, Raven shrugged. "Why do you ask?"
"Look at all the pretty sounds..." Rob was cut off mid-ramble by the bed frame suddenly rushing up to meet his head. Or maybe his head rushed down to meet the frame? At the moment, he was too dazed to care.
"Perhaps you should stop making friend Robert's head crash into random objects, he may need it later."
"I think it's an improvement," Noel mumbled, grinning.
Raven glowered. "He had his hand on my ass... He's lucky to be breathing."
"But it was not entirely intentional! Rob was merely trying to explore the breach in reality."
"Wait, what breach?" Tim asked, echoing the sentiments of most of those in the room.
"I think Rob literally broke the fourth wall for a while there," Noel answered. "So Kory, why do you ask?"
Shrugging off her concern for Rob's cranium, Kory smiled. "I wanted to see if perhaps one of us did something to awaken our guest."
"Dude, wait... you think it was us?" Gar asked, glancing nervously at Tara.
"I think I see what she's getting at," said Tim, retrieving Nigel's pocket-med-gadget from his utility belt. "From what I first found out, she does have some sort of empathic power. It isn't completely outside of the realm of possibility. If anything, it may just be that because she's unconscious she isn't able to tune us all out, and just being around this many people may be a pain."
Nigel, who had remained fairly silent up until now, spoke up from his place over the machine testing their blood samples. "I have the results. We are all in perfect health," he announced, much to everyone's relief.
"Oh thank God," Tara sighed, throwing an arm around Gar and almost dancing.
Frowning, Noel turned his attention back to Tim. "So now what?"
"To the Batmobile!" Rob yelled, standing wobbly and walking from the room. They heard him fall down somewhere down the hall.
"We need answers, that much is certain. Nigel, about how long do you suppose it will be if we leave her alone?" Tim asked, tossing the alien back his medical toy.
"Honestly, I have no idea. Kory's suggestion that she may have some form of ability similar to that of the Tamaran race is supported by her earlier reactions, at least in theory. Then again, there are always more proven methods—I have some things in the medical bay that should wake a normal human."
"As much as I like the idea of embarrassing Tara and Gar, it's probably best to just let her sleep it off for the moment—and it might not be a good idea to pump someone like that full of chemicals when we have no idea how she'll react to them. In the meantime, why don't we go out for pizzas or something—I'm buying. This day's been pretty busy, so I suppose we could all use some time off," Tim suggested, standing and making his way to the door, followed by the rest of the team.
"I think I'm in the mood for Thai," Noel suggested.
A few paces behind him, Tara grinned. A night out on Tim usually had a tendency to degenerate into squabbling about what everyone wanted, and since Tim only agreed to pay if the others could agree to go to one place only, it usually wound up being pizza anyway. Still though, it couldn't hurt to ask. "Burgers sound good."
"Anything vegetarian."
"Dude, no way. We need real food."
"Chinese."
"No way. Mexican!"
"Will they serve the delicious yellow beverage?"
"Euck. I'll never get used to seeing that."
"What? Two bottles of mustard poured straight into a glass of coke?"
After the initial bickering about where to eat, the Titans had piled into the T-car and one of Tim's cars (Tim refused to let anyone else drive one since they had a bad habit of getting destroyed lately) and wound up at an all-you-can-eat pizza place. Later, they'd decided to let off some steam by catching a movie. It was well after midnight before they called it quits and headed for home. Well, everyone but Nigel left for the tower. He made a poor excuse about needing to get some night air and had taken off from the theatre—they all knew where he was going though. His relationship with the undertaker-slash-coroner-slash-metahuman wasn't exactly secret, though they tried to keep it low-key.
Taking a sip of water and swishing it around the inside of his mouth to catch all the used toothpaste and food particles, Tim spat into his bathroom sink before making several random faces at his reflection in the mirror in an attempt to make sure he hadn't missed anything obvious. Giving up, he flipped the light switch to the off position and made his way to his bed by memory and flopped down onto the sheets. A moment later, his bedroom door opened and a shaft of light from the hallway illuminated someone's form briefly before the door closed again.
'Kory,' Tim thought, smiling. He couldn't hear her moving around, which meant she was probably unconsciously hovering. This assumption proved correct a moment later when she landed atop him, knees to either side of his waist.
"Hello Tim."
"Hi K—" he attempted to greet, but was cut off mid-thought by a pair of lips closing over his. 'Bubble gum tooth paste...and a little mustard.'
After what seemed like a pleasurable eternity, Kory released Tim and simply lay there with the side of her face pressed against his. "It's too convenient, is it not?" she asked quietly, after a while.
"Mmm. You mean a girl that should be dead showing up with a deadly virus that isn't contagious? Or even deadly, for that matter, considering the fact that she's obviously alive and—as Nigel put it—almost too well to be normal?"
Kory shrugged. "I meant that I wound up here and found you... but I suppose you have a point."
Laughing, Tim ran his hands through her hair. "Sorry, I've just got a bad feeling about all this."
"Then let me take your mind off of it, my dear Tim."
Elsewhere in the Tower—Noel's room (for a change of scenery) and Tara's room (because Gar's was a mess, and he shed, though Tara didn't mind that... she thought it was cute, in an odd "Dude, so that's why my sheets are green" kind of way) to be exact, two other couples were also sharing intimate moments. Had they been able to hear Tim's statement to Kory, they might have wondered at the convenience of things as they were going as well.
Gar's tongue had somehow managed not to trip all over itself that evening every time he'd talked to Tara. For her part, Tara had gotten over her own embarrassment and frustration at being cut off in the middle of something that might have eventually led to something more later. The two had decided that they'd had enough excitement for one day and had selected a comedy out of Gar's collection at random—they needed a few good laughs to let off a bit more of the anxiety that had accumulated that day.
Raven and Noel were currently spooned under his sheets listening to soft strains of classical music and slowly drifting off to sleep—it seemed that, despite the fact that half of Noel's CD collection was missing; the classical stuff hadn't been removed.
Rob, being the only other person without someone to spend time with, had took it upon himself to watch Nigel's pocket-gizmo and make sure their guest didn't up and die in the middle of the night. The other Titans probably would have objected, but due either to some subtle nudge towards the flow of events or perhaps just blind dumb luck, none of them were actually aware that Rob had it—save for Nigel, who was currently not in the tower. Why Rob, anyway? Because Nigel knew that the other Titans were likely to be otherwise occupied, save for Victor, and he usually went offline for the better part of the night to recharge his batteries, as he was doing this night.
So it was that Robert Candide found himself parked in front of one of the televisions in the Titans' main living room playing a video game late into the night—Halo VI, upon closer inspection. It was probably sheer coincidence that the sound of the little monitor beeping like mad was drowned out by a conveniently timed explosion and Rob throwing Cheetos at the screen as his character was blown off the map. "Not again! I hate Legendary!"
Several floors and many rooms away, Kate's snoring—which had continued throughout the better part of the day—ceased. Rolling over into her stomach, she mumbled quietly under her breath. Had anyone been in the cell to see her face, they would have immediately noticed the pained look there. Eyes squinted shut and lips drawn down in a tight frown, she would have brought to mind someone who had gone to bed with a near-migraine headache which continued throughout the night. Despite the pain though, she was more capable of actually moving her limbs now—if only in her sleep. As Nigel had explained earlier that day, Kate had indeed drained her body completely of energy—almost to the point of death. Enough had returned not long after they'd gotten her back to the tower for her to roll over onto her side and snore like a band saw, but not much else. Nigel's estimate was also correct in that she wouldn't have awoken until late the next day, at best... but at the rate her strength was returning now, it looked like she would be waking up much sooner.
Noel quietly sipped from his cup, reading the second page of the morning paper. The cup itself—one of a set of custom mugs Robin had purchased for the team which proclaimed "Teen Titans!" on one side and "Savior" on the other (with a stylized 'S' in the bottom of the cup)—wasn't out of the ordinary...the contents of said cup were though. Normally, Noel didn't drink coffee, but this morning seemed to call for it.
"Titans once again defeat sludge monster," Noel read. The Titans weren't usually front-page material—not that it mattered a damn to him. He loathed the media and if it meant not having to put up with their crap, Noel would gladly never have anything to do with them again. Further down the page, a related article caught his eye. "Driver claims Titan knocked him unconscious and stole his truck." This had 'Gauntlet' written all over it in big flashing neon letters.
Several moments later, Raven stumbled blearily into the kitchen—clad in one of his shirts, a pair of his boxers, and not much else—followed shortly by Tim and Kory, though Kory's Pikachu slippers and pink Hamtaro pajamas were a relatively more common sight than Raven walking around in borrowed clothes. Using the Shimmer, Noel passed Raven a cup of tea as she sat down beside him. "What time is it, and why am I up again?" she mumbled quietly before sipping.
"Nine thirteen," Noel answered, almost laughing as Kory nearly poured her chocolate syrup (for her milk, of course) into her bowl of what appeared to be Rob's Lucky Charms. It took Tim two tries to convince Kory that the cup was on the other side of her bowl before he sat down. "And you're up because you set the alarm for nine."
The four were joined shortly by Victor who rummaged about in one of the cabinets until he came across his own personal mug—triple the size of the others—and poured what was left of Noel's pot of coffee into it. Vic sat down, only raising an eyebrow at Raven's attire but not quite daring to comment on it. "Why's everyone so quiet?"
"Probably because half of us are dead tired," Noel answered.
Victor grinned. "Whose fault is that?"
Raven mumbled something about not sleeping well, covertly pointing towards Noel and miming snoring. A moment later, Rob stumbled in from the direction of the living room. Glancing around, he spotted Kory's bowl—which looked to be filled entirely with tiny marshmallows. "My Lucky Charms!"
One of Tim's eyes twitched. Looking up and back towards the counter, he found the offending box. Two blinks later, the box was pinned against the wall—a Birdarang embedded into Lucky's head. "Rob—no more buying cereal that has enough sugar in it to jumpstart a corpse."
"But I like the marshmallows."
"Marshmallows are tasty," Kory agreed fuzzily, her eyes only half-open by this point.
Rob had just taken his own seat at the table when the bell announcing the elevator sounded from near the living room, meaning someone had just entered from downstairs. "Nigel?" Tim asked and was answered by a resounding 'Yes!' from somewhere in the middle of the living room.
Nigel strolled into the kitchen a moment later, followed by none other than Jason Blood. "Look what the Blacktrinian dragged in," he greeted, heading straight for the refrigerator and looking for anything not moving too quickly that he couldn't hold it down long enough to bite into it.
"Hello, Titans," Blood himself greeted, taking in the six at the table. "What an interesting costume selection you have this morning," he smirked dryly, declining an offer from Nigel for something that looked to be squirming.
Raven stood and made as dignified an exit as she could—considering her state of dress. Kory didn't so much as bat an eye. Upon closer inspection, this was probably due to the fact that her eyes were already closed and she appeared to be quite asleep. Tim nudged her elbow. When this didn't get her attention, he stood and hefted her into his arms. "Nigel, Noel—show Jason down to our guest. I'll join you in a few minutes."
The two addressed Titans stood (well, Noel stood as he had been the only one out of the two actually sitting) and did as their leader asked, as Tim took Kory back to his bedroom so she could get some extra sleep. She was drooling on his arm by the time he made it through the door, so he doubted she would be awake again any time soon.
Lacking anything better to do, Vic and Rob tagged along as they led Blood back to the elevator. "Rob, where is my...?" Nigel asked, remembering he had left one of his favorite toys behind with Rob of all people.
"...Uh.. right! Hang on!" Rob ducked back into the living room and dug around through the Titans' massive pile of miscellaneous gaming material before coming up with the widget in question. He tossed it in Nigel's general direction while he ran to catch up, never considering that it might be a bad idea to toss a fairly heavy hunk of plastic and circuitry without bothering to look. Besides, it looked as though it was going to hit Noel in the back of the head, and that was always good.
A Shimmer line caught the device and handed it over to the doctor as they stepped into the elevator. Turning to regard Rob—who was grinning like an idiot—Noel pressed the 'emergency close' button on the panel beside him. Rob's eyes widened as he realized what Noel had done, but it was too late and the doors slammed closed in front of his face just before he would have stepped through. Rob's yell of "Noel! That isn't fair!" was thankfully muted by the elevator.
They reached the level for the medical lab and the few isolation cells there. These cells, while not exactly prisoner cells as they were built more for patients with contagious diseases (or those who didn't need to catch them), had served their purpose well enough in the past. Nigel disabled the containment field around the cell before he and Blood entered. "Where did you find her?" he asked.
Tim answered from down the hall as he, Rob, and Raven—in her costume—made their way back to the group. "Noel found her wandering out of an alleyway in the middle of a battle."
"She was completely out of it when I found her—looked like she'd gone without food or water for the past two or more days. Rob thinks she walked here from somewhere around Metropolis, and the data we collected seems to back that up," Noel clarified, ignoring Rob who was mimicking him as he spoke.
"She has the smell of death about her," Blood commented softly, stepping closer and lifting one of her wrists, upon which was a pair of thin, silvery bracelets covered almost entirely in tiny runes. A glance over revealed an identical pair on her other wrist.
Victor grinned, noticing that she was still dressed in her clothes from the other day, which were covered in an all-too-familiar dried black gunk. "Could just be Mortimer you smell."
"No," Nigel denied, recognizing the scent Mr. Blood was referring to—it was one he knew well. He wondered why he hadn't noticed it sooner. "She smells faintly of some of the stronger chemicals used in a morgue."
"Makes sense—she is listed as legally dead, though there was no coroner's report," Tim acknowledged. "It didn't look like there were any scars from an autopsy though—at least not that I saw. Nigel?"
Nigel shook his head and would have confirmed Tim's statement, had the girl on the bed not suddenly ceased snoring, jerked her hand away from Jason Blood, and almost flown across the room in her haste to get away. She wound up sitting against the far wall (though that wasn't very far at all, as it was a fairly small cell), one hand pointed palm-forward in Blood's general direction as she closed her eyes and yelled something Nigel couldn't make out.
Rob's gauntlet activated and he threw up a shield as Noel made a dive away, Victor armed his sonic cannon, and Tim crouched and instinctively drew a Birdarang. After a full five seconds with no destructive blasts of energy, magic, or otherwise, the Titans managed to bring themselves most of the way down off of their battle readiness. Blood, being the closest, knelt down a bit closer, raising his hands in the universal 'we mean thee no harm' gesture. "Calm yourself child, we aren't going to harm you," he said quietly, his deep voice convincing her to open her eyes.
Glancing around the room, her eyes fixed on the hand she held pointed Blood's direction. Her eyebrows raised in confusion as to just what she had planned to do with it and why exactly it was there. "Uhh..." she mumbled, dropping the hand.
"Do you know where you are?" Tim asked as Nigel quickly strode past him and around the corner of the cell, trying not to draw attention to himself.
"No? Where am I?"
Noel, recovered from his attempt to clear the possible blast area, answered. "You're in Jump City. Did you walk all the way here from Metropolis?"
Frowning, Kate searched her memory of the previous days. "I guess so, if that's where I woke up."
"What do you mean?" Raven asked, noticing that something about the way she answered seemed decidedly...off.
"I don't know. I just woke up and I was really cold. I found these clothes nearby and just started walking from there."
Tim glanced between Raven and Blood before asking, "You didn't see or speak to anyone?"
"Nope. You're the first people I've seen. Who are all of you, anyway?" she answered, taking a closer look at those gathered.
"Wait, let me get this straight," Tim started, attempting to clarify the situation of events. "You woke up in a morgue—"
"In or near a freezer," Nigel tossed out from the hallway.
"Right. You woke up in or near a morgue freezer, got up, found some clothes nearby, left the morgue without meeting a single person, and made your way here—also without meeting anyone—where you then stumbled through an alleyway and right into a battle with Mortimer, were nearly painted across a wall, and then used your powers to completely destroy the monster?"
"Uhh... mostly. There was this really nice guy I met who gave me food and let me ride some of the way here! But that was a while ago," she added, not having any reference of time to be able to tell exactly when it had happened. "And who's Mortimer? And I did what? I don't remember any of that."
Raven blinked. "You don't remember using the glowing...things to wipe out a giant, flaming monster composed entirely of mostly-flammable sludge?"
"Nunuh."
"Riiiiiight."
"I don't, really! I—" she paused as her stomach growled audibly. Glancing down, she grinned. "Guess I'm kind of hungry," she admitted sheepishly before noticing that her clothes were mostly covered in dried gunk...and something about her head didn't feel quite like it had for the past few days. "Ugh, what is this?!"
Rob grinned, speaking up for the first time since she'd awoken. "That would be Mortimer."
"...I'm covered in it! And it smells," she whined, making a face.
"Ok. Raven, could you see about getting her into one of the showers. I'll go see if I can find her some clothes that might fit. Gauntlet... No, Cy, think you can scratch up something to eat?" Tim asked, turning to leave the room.
"Um, I don't know Fearless—that might be a bit harder than it sounds. I could order something."
Tim nodded as Victor and Nigel followed him to the elevator. "That'll work."
Sighing, Raven rolled her eyes. 'It can't be helped for the moment, I suppose,' she thought, motioning for Kate to follow.
"Why can't I cook?" Rob asked of no one in particular, following everyone else to the elevator that was just returning from wherever it had taken Tim and the others.
"I don't know Gauntlet, why can't you cook?" Noel asked sarcastically, earning a glare from the other teen.
"That wasn't my fault! It caught fire all by itself!"
Trying to get rid of her soiled clothes without actually touching the dried crud splotches all over them proved to be more difficult than Kate had initially thought it would be. Finally deciding that she was going to shower anyway, she gave up and pulled them off before throwing them as far away as she could. Looking around, she picked a shower stall at random and stepped in, closing the door. "Ok, I'm good!" she called to the girl on the other side of the bathroom door—Raven was her name?
Opening the door, Raven found the discarded pile of filth and wrinkled her nose. 'There isn't a chance in hell that I'm touching those,' she grimaced, using her power to levitate the pile of refuse. "There should be soap and shampoo in the stall. I'll come back and check on you in a few minutes, so don't wander."
Raven left the bathroom, nearly bumping into Tim as he placed a pair of faded jeans and an orange t-shirt just inside the door. He noticed the black-encased ball of old clothes and grinned. "Going to wash them, or just save time and use fire?"
"I was considering burning them, though if Rob opens another hole in the fourth wall, I may just shove them through... who knows, I may get lucky and they might fall out on top of Jinx or someone. After I push him through first."
Turning the shower knobs, Kate sighed as the filth was washed away from her body. "So much better," she mumbled, rinsing her hair out. That's when she noticed that, unlike when she had woken up the first time, this time her hair was short. "I wonder what happened to it." Running her hands through it, she found that it was actually longer in the front than in the back now, as though someone had hastily lopped everything else off. She shrugged, deciding that it didn't matter.
She looked around for the soap that Raven had mentioned earlier, knowing that simply standing under the stream of water wasn't going to cut it. She found a palm-sized blue bar and a green topped bottle covered in symbols she couldn't make out (it read that yes, it was indeed shampoo, and gave instructions on how to use it but none on when to stop). She grabbed the bar first, bringing it under the stream of warm water. It immediately became covered in thick, foamy bubbles. Kate gave it an experimental squeeze and was surprised when it flew from her hand, struck the wall, bounced off, and hit her knee before coming to rest on the shower floor. "Ok... That was fun. Let's try it again."
Several minutes later, she stepped out of the stall feeling much better than when she'd first got in. She found a towel and the clothes that had been set out for her, noticing that there weren't any socks or shoes there. That didn't really bother her though—the last pair of shoes she had worn didn't seem to fit quite right. She didn't take into account that she had only four toes on each foot and that normal shoes were made with people with one more per foot in mind. Why would she? Hers were the only feet she'd ever laid eyes on—that she knew of, anyway.
Getting dressed, she used her fingers to brush her hair out of her eyes. She stepped outside of the bathroom and glanced around. "Now what?" she wondered, remembering that the other girl had told her not to wander. The insistent tug (something akin to that of a small child pulling on one's arm) that had first woken her up and driven her to walk the majority of the distance between Metropolis and Jump without stopping for food, water, or sleep had finally relented and now she felt a bit lost.
Kate sat in the hallway, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door. She could wait. Glancing down, she once again noticed the two pairs of bracelets adorning her wrists. They looked and felt as though they would slip right past her wrist and over her hands should she just hold her hand at the right angle, but that assumption had been proven wrong not long ago when she had attempted to remove one to wash the skin under it. The moment it had brushed the skin behind her thumb, it had stopped moving, as though it were too tight to go any further, so she had given up and simply poked a corner of the washcloth she had used underneath them.
A voice from up the hallway interrupted any further rumination she might have had. "Come on, we're going up."
"I want to take her back with me for a few days."
Tim paused halfway into the Titans' living room, turning around to regard Jason Blood. "Any particular reason?"
Jason gave a short, enigmatic smile before taking a seat in one of the many chairs. "Nothing specific, yet."
"Anything we should know about?" Tim asked, sitting as well. Most of the rest of the team had gathered, save for Gar, Tara, and Kory who were sleeping still (all of whom had a habit of sleeping until noon or later when they could), and Raven who was presumably off starting a small fire.
"You'll know as soon as we know."
Tim nodded. "Ok. Well, as long as you're sure, it's fine by us."
"Robin," said Scalpel from—of all places—the ceiling. He'd decided to indulge in this habit for a few moments to get a new perspective on one of their current problems, and he believed he had a solution. "I would like to attempt to draw more blood. If I could get someone to assist later, we could wrap a vial in cloth or something and perhaps send a sample to Star Labs—with explicit warnings not to expose it directly to light, of course."
Standing, Victor made his way to the elevator. "Delivery guy's here, I'll be right back."
"You think she'll go with you?" Noel asked.
"I don't believe she really has a reason not to."
"What does Etrigan have to say about all this?"
Blood frowned. "Not much."
Nearby, the elevator door opened to reveal not Victor, but Raven and the Titans'—and soon to be Blood's—guest. Raven stepped out, looking mildly annoyed. "Problem?" Tim asked, reading her look.
"Two, actually," Raven confirmed. "The clothes refused to catch fire."
This drew more than a few snickers. "What was the other?" asked Noel. His question was answered when Raven stepped to the side to reveal Kate—her hair was streaked with green, whereas it had been solidly black earlier. "Rob."
Rob, who had been napping on the couch, sat up quickly. "Huh?"
Noel pointed towards Kate. "Who was that for?"
Glancing towards their guest, Rob grinned. "Why are you blaming me?"
"Because you're the only one who would put green dye in someone's shampoo," Raven answered accusingly.
"No I'm not! Gar would too, if I hadn't have beaten him to it...er, oops."
"Green?" Kate asked, grabbing a strand of hair and pulling it into her line of sight. "Why is my hair green?"
Tim blinked. "You didn't notice earlier?"
"When?"
"You had to have looked in a mirror—there are at least three in that bathroom," Raven pointed out.
Kate shook her head, her hair returning to its original position. "Nope. It doesn't bother me though. It was long when I woke up the first time and short when I woke up the second time, so I suppose having it turn green in the shower is to be expected."
Noel frowned, picking up on her choice of wording. "How many times did you stop to rest on your way here?"
"I didn't," she answered honestly.
"So not only did you not stop to eat or drink anything on your way here, you also forgot to sleep?" he asked cautiously.
Kate shook her head. "I didn't forget—I just didn't want to."
"Anyone else here notice how that's physically impossible?"
"It is?"
Their questions were interrupted by the elevator sliding open again and Victor stepping out this time with a couple of cartons of Chinese food, a bag from a nearby burger joint, and a box of tacos and burritos balanced atop a pizza box. "I didn't know what you'd eat, so I ordered a little of everything," he announced, placing the pile of food atop the table after Raven used her powers to clear a spot off.
Rob looked longingly at the boxes and bags. He reached for the box of Mexican, only to have his hand slapped away halfway there. Somehow, Kate had managed to get past Raven, around Victor, and was now hunched possessively over the stack of food—all in the span of less than a second. "Mine!" she growled before digging into the closest thing. Rob's kicked-puppy look went unnoticed by the other Titans as they watched her devouring everything there.
Tim went into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a bottle of soda, which he offered almost-warily—he didn't know what would happen should he get within grabbing distance. "Here. I'm Robin," he offered, introducing himself and motioning for the others to do the same.
"Savior."
"Cyborg."
"Gauntlet!"
"Scalpel," Nigel called from the ceiling. This earned a quick glance his direction before she dug back into the food. Raven and Jason Blood remained silent.
Pausing long enough to draw breath, Kate asked a question. "When do I get a cool name? Wait," she paused, thinking. "Do I have a name?"
Rob stood from his place on the couch and yelled at the nearest wall. "Come on! Don't tell me the author is going that low! The 'amnesia card' is the oldest plot device in the book." A second later, Rob's head found itself flattened against the table—dangerously near Kate's pile of food. A second after that, he found himself back on the couch—an imprint of Kate's bracelets plainly outlined in red across his forehead. "Oww, why me?"
"Despite the fact that Gauntlet seems determined to break the fourth wall, he has a point. Considering everything else, it is a little unbelievable. Please tell me he's wrong," Tim pleaded, silently hoping that would be the case.
Hand halfway to mouth, Kate paused. "Ok. He's wrong."
Tim sweat-dropped. "Did you do that just because I asked you to?"
"Mhmm," she mumbled around a mouthful of food.
Raven sighed—the longer she stayed around this girl, the more annoyed she seemed to get. "Do you remember anything before waking up in the morgue?"
Pausing to think, Kate shook her head. "Nope. So I don't have a name?"
"'Kate Rivers.' Does that ring any bells?" Noel asked, mildly annoyed himself. Things just made less sense the more time went by.
"No. I don't have any bells! These clink, but they don't ring," she answered, waving one hand so that the bracelets clicked together. "So I'm Kate?"
Everyone save for Jason Blood face-vaulted—and Nigel fell from his place on the ceiling. Somehow managing to be the first to regain his footing, Victor regarded the girl skeptically. "Fourth wall breaking aside, what the hell is the author on?"
"What's a fourth wall?"
Nigel, digging his face out of the carpet, answered first. "It is the boundary between the real and the outlandishly absurd—a very much abused boundary as of late."
"How come you didn't smash Cyborg's head into something?" Rob complained, jumping back over the couch and sitting—somehow, he had managed to fall behind it.
Glaring at Rob, Raven answered tersely. "Because Cyborg didn't put a literal hole in the wall, nor did he put his hand through it and grab my ass."
"So that's what that was?"
"Yes Rob, what did you think it was?"
Scratching his head, Rob shrugged. "I don't know. So anyway, before we wind up giving me a concussion..."
Producing a folded printout, Tim tossed it in front of Kate. "You are Kate, unless everything there is wrong."
Kate unfolded the piece of paper and gave it the once-over. On it were printed more of the funny squiggly lines, along with a black and white picture of a girl from the shoulders up, rolling her eyes at the camera and poking the tip of her tongue out from the side of her mouth. She might have laughed at the absurdity of her own driver's license photo...had she understood the concept. "This is me?" she asked, turning the paper around so Tim could see and pointing at the picture.
Glancing between the girl and her photo (just to be on the safe side and make sure there wasn't actually someone else's picture there), Noel nodded. "Yes."
"What's it say?"
"...You're fucking kidding me!" Raven half growled-half yelled, startling almost everyone present.
Glancing back at the scary dusky-skinned girl, Kate shook her head. "Nope."
"Arg!" Raven ground out. Snatching the printout from the other girl's hands, she read its contents aloud. "'Kate Rivers: born November 1, 19; age: 19; sex: female; height: 5'2"; weight: 109; hair: black; eyes: green, gold? that can't be right," she paused, leaning in close enough to get a good look at the eyes in question—light green with a thin wavy patch of what was clearly a shade of brown light enough to be called gold set mid-distant between the outer rim and the black of her iris. "I guess it is. Blood type: O-; organ donor; special note: born without last toe on both feet and umbilical; date of death..."
The next-to-the-last statement drew everyone's attention (save for Tim and Nigel, who had already seen both) to the bare feet in question. Feeling nervous under such close scrutiny, Kate attempted to pull her feet under her legs. "What?"
"BB has green fur and Scalpel had metal covered talons for hands and feet... this is nowhere near weird enough to chart on my weird-shit-o-meter," Victor commented, grinning.
"So that piece of paper said all of that?" Kate asked before pointing towards the paper still clutched in Raven's fists.
The fists clutched the paper harder. "Yes. And if you don't remember anything, how do you know it's a piece of paper?"
Kate shrugged and began pointing at random objects around the room. "I don't know. I know that's a table, a chair, a soda can, a book," her finger landed on Rob before continuing, "a moron, I don't know what the big box with the glass front is... but I know it's glass!"
"You know," Noel grinned, glancing at Tim. "I'd be willing to have her stick around simply for entertainment value."
Kate paused in her listing, turning to regard Noel and Tim. "I can stay?"
"Actually," Jason Blood spoke up, drawing her attention. "I would like you to come with me back to Gotham for a few days—if you don't mind, that is."
"What's a Gotham? And I can stay with you?"
Blood nodded. "Yes, you would be more than welcome to. And Gotham is a city."
"Oh. ...I think I know what a city is too."
"That is good," Jason commended her, somehow managing not to sound condescending as he did so. "We should get going soon—it is a long drive. Was there something you needed to take care of beforehand?" he asked, glancing towards Nigel.
"Oh, yes! I will be right back," said the alien, dashing for the elevator. He returned several moments later carrying the things necessary for drawing blood. "Does anyone have a dark cloth?"
Reaching into a pocket in her cape, Raven produced a black handkerchief. Noting a couple of confused looks (mainly from Rob and Kate), she explained. "It's for evidence with finger prints that I wouldn't want to smear or otherwise contaminate, either with my hands or my power."
Accepting the kerchief, Nigel crouched beside Kate and took hold of her arm. "This may hurt a little," he warned before sliding the needle into a vein. Kate flinched a bit, but not enough to dislodge it. "Savior, the lights?" A Shimmer line snaked out and flipped the light switch to the off position and Nigel depressed the switch that would draw blood into the vial. Hearing it a click indicative that it was full and sealed, he then removed the vial and carefully wrapped it in the cloth. "Done."
The lights came back on and the Blacktrinian handed the wrapped vial over to Tim, who pocketed it within his utility belt. "Is that everything?" he asked, wanting to make sure they weren't forgetting to do or ask something important before Blood left with the idiosyncrasy currently sitting on their floor and playing with a coke cap as if it were suddenly the most entertaining thing in the world.
Seeing no objections, Jason stood and offered his hand to Kate then pulled her onto her feet a moment later. "Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed this visit. I will keep you informed, Titans. Coming?" he asked of the girl beside him.
"Uh, sure?" she asked questioningly, glancing around at the others once more.
Just as they neared the elevator, Rob remembered something. "Hey! What about shoes?"
Kate glanced down at her feet, and then shrugged. "I won't need them any time soon."
"Oh..."
Blood stepped into the elevator, followed by Kate (who skipped, more than stepped), and the two made their way out of Titan Tower. The drive back to Jason's private manor was mostly uneventful, save for Kate glancing back in the direction they'd come more frequently the further away they got. "It's tugging," she mumbled, referring to the odd sensation that had brought her this far.
Jason noticed, but didn't comment. At this close proximity, he could almost feel exactly what she was talking about. 'I wonder what this girl's appearance portends for the Titans and what would wish to resurrect a dead child and draw her straight to them...'
I have my reasons for using the 'amnesia card.' Expect a lot of Blood and some more violence in the next chapter, though nothing quite that punny.