Gods' Playground
07 – Fires of Trial: Fear the Music
Medley landed with a quiet thump before again taking off at a run into the city night. What had possessed her to be the only other Titan out in the middle of the night, dashing from rooftop to rooftop in the cold? It may have had something to do with the Charaxes incident not so very long ago. Or it may have been the battle with Metronome. Or, it may have had more to do with the figure she was chasing after. In a way, all were connected. Idly, her mind turned over the events leading up to the present.
Five Weeks Ago:
This day started out much as those of the recent past had for Kate, if a little earlier. Five-thirty a.m. announced itself with the sound of a digital alarm clock going off somewhere to the side of Kate's bed. A slender hand slowly snaked its way out from under her covers, searching vainly for the source of the annoyance. Unfortunately, she'd had the presence of mind the previous night to move the clock out of arm's reach, which meant she would have to at least sit up before shutting it off. She was currently in the process of training herself to become an early riser.
Slapping the pillow in frustration, the hand lifted again and the pair of bracelets adorning it dissolved in a burst of light, reappearing a moment later in her clenched fist as a sword. The sword came down swiftly, cutting the alarm clock (and the table it sat on) cleanly in half, silencing it forever. The sword returned to its dormant bracelet-form and the hand slunk back under the covers in a self-satisfied manner. It seemed that her early-to-rise training would take some time to set in.
Several minutes later, Kate sat up and turned bleary eyes towards a clock that wasn't there. After giving up trying to figure out what happened to the clock and her night-stand, she stumbled out of bed dragging half the sheets with her. After untangling her feet, she picked up a nearby towel and headed for her door. A flash of white light from under the door—in the hallway, most likely—drew her attention and she opened the door part-way. After catching a glimpse of a red blur (her eyes still hadn't quite focused), something slammed her door shut from the outside. Blinking, she opened the door again and stuck her head out, regarding the empty hallway. Shrugging, she stepped out into the hall and walked the necessary distance to the bathroom. It was locked. Frowning, she directed her pajama-clad form into the elevator and stabbed at the button that would take her to another floor with a shower with an outstretched finger.
After a shower and a change of clothes, Kate found her way into the kitchen. She could tell by the pot of coffee, kettle of water, and used coffee cups that Robin and Savior were up already, and Raven would probably also be so soon. Scrounging through the refrigerator, she settled on a slice of cold leftover pizza and cup of chocolate milk for breakfast. After throwing up breakfast twice during morning workouts, she had learned to eat sparingly—if at all—before morning practice.
Finished eating, she washed out her cup and left it in the sink for whoever drew morning cleanup duty the night before, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and left the tower. Once outside, she made her way to the training course where she stretched and warmed up for several minutes before bringing up the control panel that would allow her to set the field difficulty and start the course. Cyborg had been kind—and patient—enough to show her how to work the machine after she'd asked and she understood enough to get it started. The console came up and the screen lit with a dialogue prompt.
Identify.
'Medley,' she typed into the lighted keypad.
Password.
The next response was slower in coming as she had to remember what letters formed what words. She had been forced to memorize a pass phrase that would allow her to access the Tower and its systems. 'Actions define us in the eyes of history, inaction defines us in our hearts.'
Cleared. Training field difficulty setting?
The field had difficulty settings up to thirty (zero being empty and thirty being impossible for any one person), or so she had been told. Currently she was at stage five of the custom settings that had been geared towards her, but this was just meant as a warm up exercise. 'Rookie 3.'
Enemy/obstacle types?
'Random.'
Time limit?
'10:00'
Confirm settings. User: Medley. Difficulty: custom. Enemies/Obstacles: random. Time limit: ten minutes.
'Confirm.'
Settings confirmed. Program initiation in T-0:10, 0:09, ...
Drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Kate stepped into the course and started the shift of mentalities from new-girl Katie to Titan-in-training Medley, the (hopefully) soon-to-be battle hardened shell she was attempting to craft for herself. A buzzer went off from somewhere above and the ground dropped out from under her feet. After falling several feet, she latched onto the walls of the square watery hole that had opened up beneath her. A push/tug of power later sent her flying from the hole in a nice arch over the first part of the field. She'd found that if she was close enough to an object with enough mass, she could use her powers alone to propel herself along its surface, without having to touch or kick off every few feet, and the walls of the drop that had opened beneath her were perfect for that.
As she landed, the only warning to what would come next was a click and hum. She threw herself to the side as several lasers fired on her previous position. These were easy to dodge, IF you knew they were coming. As we all know, it's impossible to dodge a beam of light...unless you're a speed force user, or maybe Superman. Seeing as she was neither of those and wasn't harnessing any related powers at the moment, she stuck to weaving between them as quickly as she could. Ahead, the ground opened up to reveal a watery pit crossable only by poles sticking up to ground level. Each was far enough apart that one would be required to jump from pole to pole if they wanted to cross—unless that person could fly.
Hopping onto the first pole, Medley's eyes scanned them for a quick way through. Decided on her path, she hopped to the next, then the next... which shook violently underfoot. Crouching slightly, she regained her balance and made off for the next one. Halfway into the poles, several small nozzles broke the surface of the water below. As she neared one, it activated and sent a high-powered stream of water her way. The water caught her full in the chest, forcing her back and off the pole. The water shut off and Medley readjusted her hold on gravity, grabbing the pole mid-fall. Shoving off from the pole sent her into the air and further into the field.
The course continued like this until the timer she had set ran out—she would dodge, weave, and jump through obstacles, strike the occasional holographic enemy in the required place, and navigate the maze that was the Titans training field. The buzzer sounded and the field deactivated. The girl stretched once more before taking in the state of her uniform. It was partially soaked, but none the worse for wear. After she'd gone through three sets of normal clothes (one had been singed beyond hope, another ripped to damn near indecent tatters, and the third she didn't want to think about), Tim had been forced to scrounge the Tower for a temporary set of gear the girl could use until he could get her a personalized outfit. Pulling at her shirt to keep it from sticking to her skin, she made her way back into the Tower to change into her only other set of battle clothes and do something about the set she had on currently.
Upon entering her bedroom, Kate found a surprise waiting for her on the foot of her bed. A pair of cardboard boxes with 'Medley' written on the side waited for her. Closing her door and stepping up to the bed, she found a note taped to the top of one, on top of which sat a yellow and black circle with a small protrusion jutting from its top and a small booklet beside that. She pushed away the piece of metal and plastic and took the note. It was in someone's handwriting she hadn't seen before and she took a few moments to decipher it.
I special ordered these for you and they should do for now. Hope you like them.
Setting the note aside, she opened the box it had been atop. Inside, she found a trio of long sleeved shirts (one dark green, one light blue, and one a dark grey—each emblazoned with a small pair of orange crests in the center, a few inches below the neckline) made of an odd feeling material, an equal number of what looked like jeans (two black and one the blue of actual jeans), and what looked like a thin black and grey utility belt with a circular buckle (though lacking the Titan 'T'). In the other box were two half-jackets (one solid black, the other black with dark green highlights) and a pair of short boots.
After changing into one of the new sets of clothes, Kate found she was most impressed with the boots. Outside they looked too big for her small feet, but on the inside they were comfortably snug. The toes felt a little stiff and she guessed that they were metal-shod. Snapping the belt on over her pants as it didn't look like it would fit through the loops, she stood and checked herself out in the mirror. They felt slightly heavier than she was used to, but nothing she couldn't live with. "I look so cool," she grinned, snapping the new T-com to her belt before dashing out to meet Robin for their morning practice session.
"You like them?" Tim asked as Kate joined him in the weight room.
Grinning, the girl in question nodded. "Oh yes."
The rest of the day went by as those of the more recent past had. When she wasn't practicing or running herself around the island, Kate spent her time picking up the nuances of the English language in writing. Most of that time was spent trying to decipher the instruction manual for the T-com she'd found atop the boxes on her bed. And that is where we rejoin her, several days and more pages later, sitting at the kitchen table and killing time until the meeting later in the day.
As she turned the page, Rob wandered in behind her, rummaged through one of the cabinets and filled a glass from the tap before returning to the game he had going against Nigel in the living room. Something dripped loudly behind her but Kate ignored it. This continued for the next five minutes but the girl refused to get up and fix the faucet. One more drip and her concentration—and patience—snapped. Narrowing her eyes, she unconsciously focused on the faucet and willed it to stop dripping. It stopped. Sighing in glee, she returned to her studies.
It was close to a half hour later before Victor strolled into the kitchen and dug through the fridge, coming out with a large sandwich of some sort. He turned to get a plate from the cupboard and nearly dropped his lunch. There, floating just beneath the faucet was a soft-ball sized drop of water. He blinked to clear away the sight but it remained. A small drop of water fell from the faucet and merged with the larger drop. His eyes sought out the girl sitting a few feet in front of the drop. "Kate, are you doing that?"
"Doing what?" she asked, turning the page.
"That," Victor said, pointing behind her.
Kate looked up from the book and turned around to see what he was talking about. Halfway there, the drop lost cohesion and fell, splashing into the sink. She opened her mouth to say that no, she hadn't been doing that when another small drop fell from the faucet. This time, she felt her power catch it before it could fall completely and was aware of doing so. She stood, moving quickly to the sink and bent in close to examine the tiny droplet. "That is... so very cool," she muttered, releasing her hold on the local gravity and letting the drop fall to the sink.
Given all that he'd seen happen in the Tower up to this point, Victor simply shrugged. It was new, sure, but not the weirdest thing he had ever seen. This just meant that someone—probably himself—would be putting Kate's powers through their paces again to get a better idea of what they could do. Forgetting the plate he'd wanted, he bit into the sandwich as Kory walked into the kitchen. "Oh yeah," he said after swallowing. "We're ready for you upstairs."
"...concert to be held tonight in memory of James..."
Click.
"...mostly cloudy and cold with a chance of showers and thunderstorms later this evening..."
Click.
"...In related news, negotiations between Vermillion and Collinscorp to buy out the Vancouver building in downtown Jump City have come to a close today. A representative from Collinscorp announced this morning the lay-off of all employees currently working at the facility, which was immediately followed by a more well-recieved announcement by a spokeswoman for Vermillion stating that upon contract renegotiations, nearly all of the soon-to-be terminated employees will retain their former jobs, positions, and benefits."
"Change it, you dork!" Tara yelled at Gar from somewhat of an intricate position. The two of them were seated on the Titans' couch, though using the term 'seated' would be stretching things a bit. It would be more accurate to say that Gar was laying on his back with his legs up, holding Tara suspended above him midair as the girl tried in vain to snatch the television remote from her hysterically laughing boyfriend.
When brute force didn't work, Tara resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the book... sweet-talking her way into getting what she wanted. "Come on Gar, pleeeeease?" Gar... laughed harder, though he didn't laugh last, as his legs gave way and Tara came down on top of him, snatching the remote—and victory—from the changeling's hands.
Click.
"...and now, the Doctor Phil show."
Beneath the geokinetic, Gar stiffened and had she been looking Tara might have noticed his pupils dialate. "NOOOOO! Not that! Anything but thaaaaat!" he yelled, thrashing about in an effort to dislodge his girlfriend and remove the evil from the screen.
"Come on! It's not as bad as the crap you watch all day," Tara scoffed, holding the remote just outside of Gar's reach.
Gar grinned. "Of course it isn't as bad as the stuff I watch... It's worse, worse I tell you!"
"Pfft. Nothing could be as bad as 'Masked Mexican Wrestler Idol.'"
"Dr. Phil is worse."
"You want to change it?" she asked. Rolling her eyes, Tara sat up long enough to hold open the neck of her shirt and insert the remote in the viscinity of her brassier, creating a large rectangular bulge when she released the shirt collar. "Go ahead, then."
"Oh, like that's going to stop me," Gar grinned. Taking advantage of the fact that the remote stuck out farther than his girlfriend's...assets, Gar poked his finger into her chest area.
Click.
"...You. Suck." Tara groaned, punctuating each word by poking Gar firmly between the eyes with her index finger.
"You guys are funny," an amused voice commented from behind the couch.
The pair sat up and found, much to their embarassment, that something like a third of the team had gathered to watch their little argument. Tara recovered the fastest and broke the silence. "Uh... hi?"
"How long have you been there?" Gar asked, taking in the amused grins and/or rolled eyes from Kory, Victor, and Kate.
"Since the weather," Kate answered before the others could stop her. It had been Kate who had initially spoken, drawing their attention, as she'd been having more fun watching her friends muck around than actually paying attention to the television. Why she thought they would continue to provide free entertainment once interrupted was a mystery though.
"Perhaps it would be best if you removed the long range control instrument for the television from your shirt. I believe the proper word to describe its location is... grody?" Kory observed, pointing at the device still protruding from underneath Tara's shirt.
"Oh, right!" Tara half yelled, retrieving the remote. "...Hey, wait. My boobs aren't grody!"
"Cause they'd have to be there first," Vic said in a stage whisper towards Gar.
"HEY! I heard that!"
Gar nodded. "He's right though." The sound of silence filled the room. "What?"
"Gar," Tara said quietly, drawing his attention. "How's the back of your knee tasting?"
"Uh... huh?"
"I think she means that you have opened your mouth and inserted your foot, friend Gar."
Realization struck Gar and he paled... or would have, had he not been covered in green fur anyway. "Oh, poop."
"Yeah, that's right. Poop, mister. Deep poop." Tara growled, hands clawed and reaching slowly for his neck.
"Oh, I just remembered we've got somewhere we have to be. Come on guys," Victor announced quickly, nearly dragging Kory and Kate from the room. Once clear, he paused long enough to poke his head back in. "Looks like someone won't be getting any for a while." The remote slamming into the wall next to his head convinced Victor it would be a good idea to continue his retreat for the moment.
Kory, Victor, and Kate sat around a table in one of the various rooms within the Tower that served as meeting rooms, along with Raven who sat at the head of the table. Raven was there to pass judgement, Kory as an observer and to offer input, and Victor as an impartial intermediary of sorts. The dark clad girl had with her several folders and printouts, which she had been reviewing for the past half hour before the trio arrived. Finally, she commenced the meeting. "Failed," she announced, laying down one of the printouts in her hand.
Directly across the table, Kate winced. "Crud."
Another paper. "Failed."
"Crap."
"Failed."
"D'oh."
"Impressively..." Raven paused a moment, giving Kate time to sit up in her seat slightly, hope almost glowing in her eyes. "Failed."
Kate's held-in breath exploded out in a single syllable word that faied to adequately express exactly just how frustrated she was at the moment. "Poop."
Apparently, out of the latest batch of tests she'd been given concerning the things she'd been taught while staying at Titan Tower, she hadn't done very well. The results weren't really as bad as they seemed though, which was the topic of their current meeting. When tested on her lessons with most of the other Titans, Kate's results were passable, for the most part.
The physical tests were both the easiest and the hardest—running through the obstacle course set at a middle training level, hand-to-hand and weapons sparring, and sheer endurance runs were all passed with varying degrees of success. Kate even did moderately well on tests on her lessons about the Titans' past adversaries, but there was so much material to cover in so short a period of time that no one really expected her to get it all right the first time. No, it was putting all of this and more together in simulated situations where Kate was forced to make the decisions that gave her the most grief.
"Look," Raven sighed, placing the printouts back in their folders. "Knowing an enemy's weakness means nothing when you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates. Of these four tests alone, the best score you achieved came with the loss of two of our team. The other two were total losses for the team, and the last... I can't believe you actually managed to blow up the planet. Not even ROB has managed that, and I think he was TRYING at the time."
"Come on Rae, cut the girl some slack," Victor spoke up, though he was mostly inclined to agree. "We all know we're rushing her. I'd say that she's doing better than she could be doing."
"No, Victor, there is no slack to cut. I went to sleep last night wondering what new and interesting ways our... recruit could find to get us killed in the next set of tests. I know these tests are no substitute or judge for the real thing, but they are all we have to go on. She's been here for the past couple of months, yet we still know next to nothing about how or why her powers work, how exactly she came to be here, or why she's still alive at all for that matter."
"All good points," Victor condeded.
"All I'm saying is that she is an unknown, a variable, we have no clue what to expect and apparently, neither does she. I do not like being kept in the dark," Raven grumbled, ignoring her own unintentional pun.
"Perhaps we should give Kate different tests then," Kory suggested, looking up from one of the printouts she had removed from one of the folders.
"Tim's already run her through a dozen of those you're thinking about. What more could we do that he hasn't already covered at least once?" Vic asked, though he already had the answer to that. He had been working on the answer to that question for some time, actually. Tim had originally asked him to take over that part of their observations some time ago, but due to some fluke of scheduleing Vic had never really gotten a chance to test what he'd thrown together.
"I am sure you have something up your sleeve," Kory answered, as though reading his mind.
"That still doesn't address the matter of me failing the scenario simulators," said Kate, who had mostly tuned out the conversation and had, like Kory, attempted to read through the results of her tests. Attempted being the key word, as most of it was wordy and difficult to understand for people who had a firm grasp on the English language and several years of training, let alone someone with about a fourth grade reading level.
Raven shook her head, taking back the printouts once more. "You'll do them again. Pay attention, study more, and keep going through them until you pass." Kate supressed a groan, mumbling quietly to herself. "What?" Raven asked.
"I said 'reading makes my head hurt.'"
Victor raised an eyebrow. "Could be problems with vision," he suggested. "Eventually, we're going to have to have one of the team take her to Metropolis and have a look around. Maybe someone there can tell us more, things not in the records and databases we found."
"It'll have to wait," said Raven, having already discussed this with Tim and Noel. They would, eventually, but not just yet.
"How long?" Kate asked, curious to know what secrets the place she'd come from held about her past.
Raven's grin was small, but there. "When you start passing, perhaps. Think of it as incentive."
Kate nodded, accepting the answer. "That works."
"Does that conclude our meeting?" Kory asked, glancing between Victor and Raven. Receiving nods, she stood and floated for the door. "I shall go tell Tim, then." Raven followed Kory's lead wordlessly, heading for the file room to put away the hard-copy results of Kate's tests.
"Well, looks like it's just you and me," Victor announced, standing and waving Kate to follow. "Come on, let's go see what we can find out." He lead the way down to one of the labs spread across Titan Tower, leftovers from when the building had been his father's research lab which had carried over during various reconstructions of the tower and some put to good use by the cybernetic Titan. "Any preferences on where you want to start first?"
Kate shrugged. "Not really. I don't have that good an idea what you're looking for, so I can't really say."
"Thought you'd say something like that," Vic grinned, leading her to a machine near one of the room's corners. "Hop in," he directed, punching in a command which caused a glass enclosed cylinder (really, why ARE there so many of those in cartoons and anime anyway?) to open. Once Kate was inside, he began to explain. "This should provide a good test of your control over gravity. Ready?"
Kate nodded vigorously, some of Victor's excitement rubbing off on her. "Hit it!"
The cylinder closed and a pair of metal discs, one above her head and one under her feet, lit up. She felt the pull of gravity increase immediately, but since she'd half expected it she was braced for the added strain. "One and a half times normal gravity," Victor announced, easing the machine's power upwards slowly to give the girl time to adjust. "Any problems so far?" he asked. Kate smiled and tapped one foot lightly on the floor, sending her a foot or up off the pad where she held her position. Victor took that as an answer and took a look at the machine's display, wondering how she was staying aloft anyway, even as he increased the power.
Victor's question was answered by a three dimensional virtual display of the gravity effects inside the tube. "She's latched onto the ceiling and walls," he mused aloud. The machine, at double normal gravity, showed that Kate was still producing enough output to counteract its pull and then some. Looking up, he saw that the girl's grin had spread somewhat. Smirking, he doubled the power, setting the tube to four times normal gravity. Kate's grin slipped as she lowered in the tube before stopping just above the floor, then rising back to her previous position. "Still good?" Victor asked.
"Yeah. How far can it go?" Kate asked, already assuming that Victor planned to test and see just how much power she could take at one time rather than trying to see how long she could stand it for.
"Actually, I don't know," Victor shrugged. "You're the first person I've tested this on."
Kate laughed, though stopped when she felt herself slipping slightly from lack of concentration. "Oh, great. I'm doomed."
Narrowing his eyes in exaggerated menace, Victor decided to go for broke and upped the power quickly. Faster than Kate could adjust to, apparently, as her feet hit the floor at six times normal gravity, and she was on her hands and knees at eight. "I think that's it!" she called, starting to worry. If she was doing her math right, her weight at the moment should be somewhere upwards of a quarter of a ton. It didn't feel like it though. She wasn't a pasty lump of girlflesh on the pad, so it couldn't be anywhere near there. Her thoughts were cut off abruptly, as abruptly as Victor cut the power to the machine. Unfortunately, Kate was still applying upwards pull towards the ceiling, and the results were predictable as she flew up and smashed back-first into the upper pad. The glass doors slid open and she literally fell out.
"Sorry about that. You ok?" Victor asked, helping her to her admittedly wobbly feet.
"I'm good. I feel like I just ran across the city and back... with you strapped to my back."
Victor grinned. "Was that a joke?"
"Maybe a small attempt at one," she said, sitting down and rubbing at her wrists and knees.
"Want to try for a duration test with that tomorrow?"
"Sure."
Vic nodded. "Alright. Come on, we've got a couple more we can run today," he said, leading her to another tortu—testing machine. "Think you can call up your sword?"
Kate held her arm out and a moment later, two of the bracelets adorning her wrists flashed and reappeared as the helix-sword, which she caught and held out for inspection. "What now?"
"Metalurgy tests, stress testing, and anything else I can think of to put it through," Vic answered.
"...Huh?"
Victor almost face-vaulted. Of course that would go right over her head, what had he been thinking? He tried it again, with smaller words. "I want to see what it's made of and what it can take."
"Oh. Ok."
After running the blade through a machine designed to do just what Victor said he wanted to do (and having the metalurgy analysis come back inconclusive), he positioned the blade in another device designed to make desired bends in metal plates Victor used for things like the T-Car. "Hope this doesn't break the sword," he muttered, starting the machine. Nothing happened. "Huh?" he asked, directing the machine to apply more pressure. Nothing continued to happen. (Points if anyone gets who and what I'm referencing, besides Douglass Adams.)
Glancing between Kate and the machine, Victor made up his mind. "Stand back, this could get ugly," he said, taking several careful steps back himself. Once they were at a safe distance, Vic ordered the machine to apply full pressure to the blade. The machine groaned in protest before something crunched and it shut down. "Er, sorry," Victor apologized quickly, thinking the blade broken and crushed to powder. Upon taking a closer inspection however, he found the weapon quite intact. He couldn't say the same for the machine however, as it now had a sword-shaped impression in some places. "Well, I'll be damned."
Taking her sword back, Kate looked sheepish. "Sorry," she apoligized, casually placing the blade tip on the floor and leaning on the hilt... causing the blade to bend easily. "What next?"
"Well, next," Victor said, turning to regard her. He paused when he noticed the sword. "How are you doing that?"
"Doing what?" the girl asked, taking her weight off the sword and causing it to resume its normal shape.
"Never mind. What else can you do with it?" Victor asked, already leading Kate towards another section of the room. Seeing her shrug again, he picked up a short length of wood, put there for the occasion. "Think you can cut this without taking my arm with it?" The sword flashed out quickly... and the top half of the length of wood fell to the floor. Victor hadn't even felt the impact of the blade connecting with it. Adjusting his grip on the wood, Victor held it up again. "Hit it, but don't cut it this time."
Once more, the sword swung out and caught the piece of wood, putting a dent in it but not cutting through the surface, as though Kate had willed the blade's edge to dull on command. Taking a quick hold of the weapon in question, Victor's mechanical eye glowed more intensely for a moment as he observed the blade more closely. The edge was indeed dull, to the point that it wouldn't cut anything unless someone put enough force behind their swing to literally tear through whatever they were swinging at—break bones or cause bruises, sure, but not cut. As he watched though, it reverted back to its original keen edge. "Is that normal?" Kate asked, sensing Victor's slight astonishment.
"No, most swords don't do that," he replied, tossing down the piece of wood in favor of a steel pipe. "Now this."
Kate brought her sword to bear and the sound of metal-on-metal rang through the room for a moment... followed closely by the sound of metal-on-floor. "Neat. Got anything else?"
Victor nodded, pulling out another bar of metal. Unlike the last, however, this was a solid bar—not hollow. Also, it was made of the same high-grade material typically used in military applications... on tanks. "This is the last one, I think. You really shouldn't be able to get through this one."
Shrugging, Kate once more swung out the helix-sword, which slammed into the slab of armor with a resounding clang... but did not penetrate. Blinking, she glanced at her sword briefly before taking it in both hands. "Hold it out so I can use a downward strike," she instructed, as all of her previous blows had been horizontal and one-handed.
Switching his grip on the bar of metal, Victor took a step back and held his arms and the bar out level. "Go for it," he said, grinning. The sword came up, the back down... through the bar, between Victor's arms, and lodging itself firmly in the floor all without a sound. "...Insert Neo 'whoa' here," Vic mumbled, holding the neatly sliced pieces of armor apart.
"That kind of hurt my arms," Kate complained, giving up on removing the blade from the floor and simply calling it back to her in its bracelet form. "Hitting the floor, I mean."
Vic blinked before shaking his head and giving up on figuring the girl out. "Ok, just a few more tests."
Elsewhere and some time later...
An older man sat hunched over a small worktable, a large work lamp illuminating whatever sat in front of him. After several moments of mumbling and tinkering with various tools, he leant back and let out a loud sigh of relief. One hand streched out and made contact with whatever he had been so focused on.
Tik.
His hand paused for a beat, unsure whether or not it would work.
Tik.
He lowered his hand back to his side, his fist clenching unconsciously. "It's finished." He stood, flicking a nearby light switch and illuminating the room. The man was old, tall and thin, with long hair that once had been black though now was mostly gray and as thin as the rest of him. He removed his thin t-shirt as he made his way across the room, revealing a large scar in the area of his heart. The shirt was tossed carelessly into a bin half-full of similarly dirty garments slated to be cleaned at some point.
Though he looked old and quite frail, he disproved this notion simply in the grace with which he moved around, shrugging on a t-shirt identicle to the first, followed by a fancy white long-sleeved button down dress shirt—the kind with stuff in the collar and cuffs that made the material seem stiff. The shirt was followed by and tucked into a pair of black slacks, followed by black dress socks and shoes polished to an almost absurd shine. Lastly, he donned a dress coat (also predictably black) and tie, black with a few white stripes.
Striding back to the table, he picked up the small finished product of his labors, staring into its polished frame, face, and hand... before pocketing it and taking one last look around the room before heading to the door. His hand on the knob, he paused. As an afterthought, he realized he had forgotten something. Another look around produced a short length of ribbon, which he used to tie back his hair. "For you, then?" he asked of the air. Hearing an answer only in his own mind, he nodded and stepped from the room.
Night had fallen in Jump City. Outside Titan Tower, the obstacle course had partially been converted for another use and several flood lights lit it to the point where the glow could be seen from farther ashore. Kate was once again in the midst of weapons training, though not the sort she was accustomed to. "Ok, now squeeze the trigger, don't pull," Victor instructed, still paired with Kate for the day.
The obstacle course, now a firing range, erupted into noise as the rifle Kate had pressed firmly to her shoulder went off, kicking back and nearly unbalancing the girl with its recoil. "And now I see why we wear ear muffs," Kate murmured, calling back the target as Victor had shown her to see for herself how well she'd scored. The hole was nowhere near the center of the target. "High and to the right? But I had the sights..."
Victor pressed the control to send the target back out. "You pulled when you should have squeezed. Like I said, take it slow."
Taking a deep breath and bracing herself in preparation for the next shot, Kate began to take aim once more. "What do I get if I actually hit one of the rings?"
Vic grinned. "If Savior were here, he'd probably say something like 'a break,' but since I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you have next pick of which gun you want to get a feel for." Her only response was to pull the bolt action back and slam it back in, jacking another round into the chamber. "Don't miss," he taunted, though Kate probably didn't hear it through the ear muffs.
"I won't," she answered, having heard him after all. Closing one eye, she sighted through the scope and across the range. She began to ease her finger back slowly... And alarms lit up and blared across the course. Kate's shot went out to sea.
"The hell...?" Victor asked, but was cut off momentarily.
"All Titans assemble in the garage! I repeat, Titans assemble in the garage!" came Gar's voice from the speaker system across the island.
Victor immediately turned for the garage, but stopped when a mechanical whine caught his ear. He turned around and found Kate reeling in the target. "Hey, that means you too!" he called, waving her towards the tower.
Tossing one last disgusted look at the target, Kate threw it down and ran to catch up to Victor. "I knew that."
Inside the city, gunshots rang out as police attempted to get the crowd under control. Shotguns loaded with bean-bag rounds and rubber bullets, gas grenades, and mace-filled paintballs were fired into the mob with little to no effect. Officers with riot shields, tasers, and night sticks tried to keep the mob away from the most populated sections of town, but quickly became part of the all-consuming madness themselves. A mass wave of humanity carved a swath of destruction through the city, consuming everything in its path.
Average citizens armed with anything they could pull up charged down armed officers in a zombified stupor, ignoring pain and the deaths of those they stampeded through. There was a method to the madness, however. Were one to view the mob from above as they ran from street to street, they would be able to make out the trail of destruction it had left behind, and from there guess where it intended to go next. And, in the midst of it all, was the man in the suit. He strode calmly through the chaos, his hands waving back and forth to a beat inside his head, conducting the madness. As he stepped over and around trampled bodies, one could almost swear that he was smiling...
He paused though as a burst of light parted the mob momentarily. There, above the crowd, a small pair of glowing green orbs floated. Below them, a second and far larger pair burst into being, illuminating the figure and those below her that stood between him and his goal. His smile broadened. They were saying something, but he didn't care. Really, only one word mattered at the moment. "Onward."
"What's the situation?" Cyborg asked, already in the T-Car, along with Gauntlet and Medley. It was a tight fit, but since Beast Boy and Terra were fairly small anyway, they managed to cram into the back seat with Medley without too much trouble.
"There's been some kind of riot. Not sure on the details," BB answered, strapping in as the car shot out of the garage and onto the bridge... then lifted off into the air.
Gauntlet turned around in his seat, not bothering with a seat belt. "Sounds like fun. You sure they're not just celebrating New Years early?"
"Dope," Terra commented, slapping the back of Gauntlet's head. "Yeah, we're pretty sure. The others are already there, but they want the whole team on the scene. Robin said it's huge."
"So what are we looking for, exactly?" Medley asked, her face pressed against the window in an effort to see down to the streets.
BB began ticking off points on his fingers. "Very large groups of people wielding torches and pitchforks, fires, death, and a trail of destruction a mile long."
"Or we could just follow the signal from their communicators," Cyborg said, turning an eye to his instrument panel to do just that.
"That works too," Beast Boy conceded.
After a moment, Gauntlet rolled down his window and pointed out into the city. "You mean a trail like that one?"
Cyborg surveyed the crowd below as he came around for a landing. Finally, he decided to park on a nearby roof rather than risk endangering his baby in a street landing. The team was notorious for wrecking vehicles, and he damn sure wasn't gonna let that happen to HIS pride and joy if he had anything to say about it. Once he was sure the T-Car was safe, Cyborg ordered everyone out and locked the doors. "Can we get a ride?" he asked of Terra.
"Not a problem," the blonde geokinetic said, calling up a couple of large slabs of the street below for those that couldn't fly to ride on. "Which way?"
Glancing at his wrist and the screen embedded there, Cyborg pointed. "Thatta way." The boulders carrying the Titans, minus Beast Boy as he'd flown ahead, descended nearer to ground level and sped towards the location Cyborg indicated, occasionally turning as his directions changed. Nearly on top of the other Titans' signal, Cy's cybernetic eye picked up something the others couldn't. Though the sound of shots was lost among the racket of the crowd, he managed to pick out a group of police officers cornered against the side of a building. "Terra, take Medley on ahead and join up with the main group and have them send someone back this way to back us up. Gauntlet, you're with me. Let's try to keep the bone breaking to a minimum—I can see the lawsuits coming from here," Cyborg said, groaning that last part. "And Terra," he paused long enough to toss the girl a grin. "Try not to smoosh anyone."
"Try to save some of whoever is leading this mess for me, would you?" Gauntlet said, before jumping off the boulder after Cyborg with a yell of, "BANZAI!"
Rolling her eyes at Rob's antics, Terra continued in the direction Cyborg had indicated, occasionally glancing at her passenger to gauge the other girl's reaction to all this. Not counting her encounter with Mortimer in chapter one, and also not counting the fight with Charaxes as that had been more than a little one-sided and one could barely call it a 'fight,' this was Medley's first real experience with battle. Wanting to break the silence, Terra asked the first thing that came to mind. "How are you holding up?" ...No one said it would be the most original question ever, and she wanted to kick herself immediately after for asking.
Medley thought about the question a moment before answering. "I can't say, really. I haven't actually done anything yet."
"Oh, you will. Trust me," Terra affirmed, finally spotting her teammates. "There they are!"
What she hadn't expected was several members of Jump City's finest actually firing on said teammates. "This doesn't look good," she murmured before calling on her powers. The ground surrounding the Titans shook a bit before breaking up in waves, sending everyone around them off their feet for several yards. As she continued to lower the boulder she and Medley were riding upon, Terra nearly took a bullet herself for her trouble. Shaking off the near miss, Terra did what she did best. "How about we shake things up a bit?" she yelled, yanking up more and more of the street around the Titans, some coming up in shield walls and other parts forming large chunks of ammunition best suited for thrashing tanks.
Medley spotted her chance to rejoin the main group of Titans and pass along Cyborg's message, as she'd been told. "Thanks for the ride," she called out to Terra before hopping off the rock platform... and from one chunk of floating asphalt to the next before Terra could break them down into smaller parts better suited to hitting humans than making greasy smears of them. She hit the ground on the outskirts of the group, just inside Terra's rock walls, where they were taking a moment to regroup and reassess the situation.
"Where are Cy and Gauntlet, I thouht they were with you guys? And did you see Star on the way in?" Beast Boy asked as soon as Medley was close enough to hear.
"No sign of Starfire, sorry. The guys stopped to help some of the police back there," she said, pointing back the way they'd come. "About four blocks back or so. Cyborg said they need someone to come back them up, too."
"Shit. Ok then. We'll try to work our way back up to the main group," Savior said by way of volunteering himself.
Robin nodded. "And we'll try to find the head of this thing and cut it off before it causes much more trouble. Since they're all going pretty much the same direction, it shouldn't be too hard to find us. I'm hoping we'll run into Star along the way," Once Savior was up and over the crowd and Terra had joined the group, Robin reissued his orders for those who hadn't heard them the first time, and though they were common sense, it wouldn't hurt to reiterate. "I'm not going to say to take it easy on them—there are simply too damn many people and not enough of us. Stay close to each other and don't let them catch us in the classic zombie swarm attack."
That said, Robin signaled to Terra to let down the bowl-like depression she'd put them in before swinging his staff and taking the lead as the group attempted to charge through the crowd and find the front of it. Robin, Beast Boy, and Scalpel led the way, followed closely by Raven, Terra, and Medley. Staff and glaive swung out, knocking people aside so the group could pass. Beast Boy, in the form of a giant squid, picked up several of their attackers and flung them away... but this lasted only the ten seconds required for one of the maddened pedestrians to attempt to ram a broken bottle into one of BB's tentacles. From there, he decided it's be better to risk close range combat as a gorilla than risk having broken glass jammed into some random body part.
At the rear of the group, Raven was using telekinetic bolts to hurl away would-be attackers while Terra pulled, pushed, or ripped the ground from beneath the feet of those following them and Medley attempted to deal with anyone who made it past the other two girls with a mixture of hand-to-hand and sword techniques. To Terra's amusement, several of the mob had decided the shredded ground she was leaving in their group's wake was too good a source of ammunition to pass up and had begun hurling chunks of it in their direction. Causing the rocks to reverse course midair or explode into dust before they could be thrown dissuaded a few from using that tactic, but more were coming and most just ignored it.
Raven blasted another attacker away before narrowing her eyes and drawing on her powers. A combination of magiac and telekinetic energy flooded out into the crowd as she attempted to send as many as she could into unconsciousness. Her efforts to do so were repelled just as they had been the first time she'd tried that technique. She had hoped that the strain of controlling so many people would cause whoever was in command to falter a bit, but that wasn't the case apparently. In short, the only real way to knock their attackers out was the old fashioned way. Sure, Savior could probably mind-jack a few individuals and force them to shut down, but it was too risky to do so in the middle of a battle and FAR too risky to attempt it when they were outnumbered a thousand to one. The sound of the flat part of a sword blade slamming into someone's skull dangerously close to her own head drew Raven's attention back to the here and now. She took a moment to check for cranial dents or cracks in Medley's latest victim and found none. "Be more careful!" Raven called a warning to the other girl, not wanting her to accidently open someone's head like a mellon.
"Right," Medley called back, stepping inside one of their attacker's defenses and hammering him with a trio of punches and jabs with the handle of her sword, before bringing the handle up and cracking it against the side of the man's skull. He staggered, but did not go down. A swift kick to the groin area remedied that problem, and Medley continued on about her business. Three more of the mob took the fallen man's place, rushing the Titans with an assortment of weapons ranging from a chair leg to a tire iron. A telekinetic blast from Raven shoved a chain wielding woman away, while her sword disappeared and Medley pushed off and took to the air briefly before reversing direction and using the added height to build momentum, which she spent by splitting her attacks between the remaing two, both of whom were men. The first caught a spin kick to the chest, throwing him to the ground. A quick midair twist before her feet hit the ground again put Medley in position to shift her weight into a variant of the U-punch, a backhand and palm-strike to the other assailant's nose and solar-plexus, putting him down as well.
Back in the front of the group, Robin swung out his staff and tripped yet another random person off the street turned lunatic. He followed the sweep up with a jab to the man's forhead, causing the back of his head to hit the street and send him into blissful slumber the old fashioned way. Almost as though it had a mind of its own, the staff immediately reversed course, catching a woman in the stomach as she attempted to jump on his back. He twisted the staff and used it to throw her into several more oncoming attackers, knocking them all from their feet.
Beside Robin, in the center of their little delta formation (or at the top point of a hexagon, were the others taking up the other points) Beast Boy slammed yet another in a long line of faceless attackers to the ground, monkey-stomping him for good measure... or gorilla-stomping, rather. Another person swung out with an actual baseball bat, catching Beast Boy in the chest. He paused for a moment before grabbing the bat and giving it a shove, sending the person at the other end flying. A second later, a sign post came flying down towards the changeling's head, but was caught in a gorilla fist. After shaking off the person at the other end, Beast Boy regarded his newfound toys for a moment before putting them into action, swinging first one and then the other into the crowd and sending waves of people flying this way and that. Hopefully, he wasn't breaking ribs or something, but at that point he cared more about keeping himself and his teammates alive than giving random attackers 'owwies.' "Argh! GO AWAY!"
On the left front side of their group, Scalpel swung his glaive around in much the same way Robin was using his staff, Beast Boy his clubs, and Medley her sword. The flat of his blade found any appendage it could strike, sending people sprawling back into the street and away from their group. After one such swing, another attacker who had been further off to the side jumped in, swinging her fists and screaming at the alien. One of Scalpel's clawed feet came up and caught her in the sternum, throwing her back into the crowd. He quickly rethought that move though when several more people rushed him the moment he'd gotten his leg up. He'd seen tactics similar to those before: wait for the enemy to bring their weapon to bear, then rush headlong and hope you pull it from his hands before he has a chance to stab you or any of your comrades with it, or just impale someone on it so they were left weaponless... but those were tactics more common in an actual battlefield, not something humans off the street would volunteer to do. Blacktrinians, maybe—they had a certain resiliance against bladed weapons, after all. Humans? Not so much, no. His thoughts came back to the fore though as he ducked another swing and brought his glaive back into play.
Meanwhile, the other splinter group of Titans was having a hard time of their own...
A sonic cannon blast parted the crowd long enough for Savior to join Cyborg and Gauntlet, along with the rest of the Jump City Police Department that hadn't succomed to whatever was controlling the rest of the crowd. The moment Savior was with the group, the police and Cyborg opened fire with what few rubber bullets and gas grenades they had left, or just the very few Cy had thought to bring along. He'd expected to be dealing with something a little more resiliant than a mob of normal people, like a mob of Slade drones, or a mob of walking corpses, or a mob of jello-men from Mars... "How many?" Cyborg yelled to Savior over the commotion.
"Too many to count!" replied the white-garbed teen, lashing out with the Shimmer and sending back anyone who came too close. "Close to a quarter of the city's population I'd say, give or take the rest."
"Just our luck! Damn, now why didn't I think to pack our crowd-control kit!" Gauntlet yelled, bashing several people with gauntlet energy in the form of boxxing gloves.
Pausing mid sonic cannon blast, Cyborg glanced between Savior and Gauntlet. "Actually, if you can buy me some time, I might have something in the car. It's not far from here."
"Me and my big mouth," Gauntlet groaned, but started providing cover fire none the less. "Sure Rob, let's mention the anti-mob kit in the back of the T-Car and send our tanker off to fetch it, huh? BRILLIANT!"
"FETCH! What do I look like, your maid?" Cyborg yelled, sending another sonic cannon blast into the crowd.
Gauntlet paused in his cover fire and turned to regard Cyborg. "Well... would French work? I'm sure I could find something left over from a few Halloweens back."
Narrowing his eyes, Cyborg shifted his arm so it pointed at Gauntlet's head. The blast flew past the grinning teen's head and slammed into someone who'd been trying to get the drop on him. "Oh, when I get back, you and I are HAVING WORDS!"
"KNOCK IT OFF you two, or you'll BOTH be wearing the maid's outfit!" Savior yelled.
"HE STARTED IT!" the pair yelled, pointing at each other. A second later, after taking a moment to digest the mental imagry provided, they cracked an identical pair of grins.
"Or maybe you'll be wearing it," Gauntlet tossed at Savior.
"I'd pay to see that. We could charge admission," Cy added, casually backhanding someone away from the group.
"Just go get the damned kit, PLEASE," Savior growled.
Nodding, Cyborg activated his grapping cannon. "Sure thing. Anything else?"
"A cold beer, a hot pizza, and something cool from the video store if you don't mind," Gauntlet suggested idly.
Firing off the grapple, Cyborg tested the anchor a moment before answering. "All right. How about a side of 'kiss my ass' to go with that?" he asked, taking off for the roof.
"CHEATER!" Gauntlet called after him.
Slamming the Shimmer into yet another assailant who had snuck up behind Rob, Savior threw a glare the teen's way. "Gauntlet, pay attention!"
"Aye aye, cap'n!"
And elsewhere...
The old man marched on, conducting the madness with the efficiency of one who has led processions of the damned for centuries... or maybe just that of someone who knows exaclty what they are doing. His hands rose and fell in time with the beat, slowing occasionally as the melody called for, but never stopping. They were close now, he could feel it. And there, still in his path but cut off from her friends, the orange skinned girl with the green eyes. She was proving more difficult to dissuade than he had first assumed. No matter. Eventually, she would tire and fall. The march would go on.
Starfire, for all her strength and skill was cut off, alone, and just a little out of her league here... and she knew it. Eventually, despite her best efforts to the contrary, the crowd would overwhealm her if backup did not arrive soon. And once more, the crowd swarmed. Eyes and hands glowing, she lifted off the ground slightly and held her hands striaght out to either side before going into a fast spin. Just before the crowd hit, she released the attack she'd been preparing—a concussive wave that spread outwards, throwing back those around her. Following the wave, a multitude of small starbolts flew into the crowd, further cutting into their ranks.
The starbolts stopped and Starfire touched back down, her head reeling slightly but regaining her senses quickly. She saw him then, through a break in the crowd—the madman she had first spotted at the beginning of this battle. He stood there, hands flowing back and forth smoothly, unaffected by the insanity around him. He was waving something around in his right hand, but she couldn't make it out from this distance. That wouldn't be a problem for much longer though, as she attempted to take to the air and make a dive.
Unfortunately for Starfire, the conductor had indeed seen her. At some unseen bob or wave from whatever it was he held, the crowd's fury seemed to double and they charged the girl in a frothing mass, taking hold of her legs just before she could get airborne and dragging her back to earth with their sheer numbers. Once down, they commenced the beating—kicking, stomping, punching, clawing, biting, anything to get the job done.
Starfire began to rethink her decision to pull her punches.
Savior and Gauntlet, despite their differences, proved to be an effective pairing against the sheer numbers present. Gauntlet energy battering rams, flyswatters, and any other blunt object the boy could think of flew into the crowd, scattering their ranks... only to have them get right back up, or just be replaced by more. Shimmer strands flew here and there as Savior worked his talent into a controlled flurry of blows, disarming an assailant here, knocking one down there, entangling and throwing three back into the crowd there.
And then the crowd made a mass swarm, driving back the two Titans and their police escort... until, with a cry of "BOOYAH!" from above, several concussion grenades and sonic cannon blasts parted the crowd. Cyborg impacted heavily with the ground, driving two size-twelve or so foot-shaped indentions into the asphalt. "Miss me?"
"Only a little!" Gauntlet yelled, smashing back more of the crowd.
Savior paused in doing likewise, turning to Cyborg long enough to ask, "Which way are the others?"
Taking a glance at his arm, Cyborg pointed down the street. "They've moved up since, but it's almost a straight shot to their position."
Savior nodded, turning back to the crowd and leading off with several Shimmer attacks. "Gauntlet, cover our rear. Cy, you're with me. Let's go!"
Cyborg followed Savior closely, letting loose with maching gun and sonic cannon fire, as he'd been able to fully replace his arsenal with non-lethals. Putting the police between the lead Titans and himself, Gauntlet threw up a shield behind them and followed, occasionally shooting out rams of gauntlet energy from the shield, or using the shield itself to push the crowd back. They were on the move.
The crowd was thick ahead, thicker than it had been before. Even so, Robin, Scalpel, and Beast Boy drove into it, followed closely by Medley, Raven, and Terra. An explosion of green energy from directly ahead cleared the crowd somewhat, and the Titans took that opportunity rush through the crowd and reunite with Starfire.
"You ok?" Robin asked, taking in Star's bedraggled appearance. Her outfit, what there was of it to begin with, was torn in places and several cuts and bruises covered her arms and legs. In short, she looked like hell warmed over.
"I will be," she assured him, catching her breath. "I am afraid I have lost sight of the mastermind controlling the crowd."
"I don't think we have to worry about that much," said Raven, gesturing towards the nearby buildings. The crowd was dispersing somewhat as the majority of them had bashed their way into several of the buildings and were making their way inside. "He's bound to be in one of them."
Taking a quick count and assessing the risks, Robin came up with the only plan that seemed likely to work. "Ok, we split up. FIND him. Try not to engage the mob any more than necessary. Once you find whoever is leading this mess, signal the team and we'll catch up. BB, Terra, take that building. Raven and Scalpel, you're on that one. Star and Medley, you've got that one," he said, pointing three of the buildings out and already eyeing the office building he had in mind.
"You sure you'll be ok alone, Fearless?" BB asked, though he knew he didn't need to. Once Robin set his mind on something, he carried through with it.
Robin took a quick inventory of his gear before nodding. "I'm good. Titans, go!"
As the other Titans split off to search through the buildings, Medley took the time to take a good look at theirs. 'VANCOUVER,' a sign over the shattered front doors proclaimed. "How do we go about doing this?" she asked of the far more experienced Starfire.
Starfire thought it over a moment, weighing their options. On the one hand, they should probably stick together as Medley was new to this and they were facing superior numbers. On the other hand, things would go much faster if they split up. Robin had said not to engage the crowd unless absolutely necessary, and she didn't think Medley would go out of her way to find a fight when she could and had been ordered to avoid one. "Can you make it to the top of the building?" Seeing the other girl nod, she made her decision. "Then I shall start the search from the bottom and work my way up. Make your way up to the top and start searching downwards," she said, risking fighting up through the crowd herself.
"Gotcha," Medley nodded, starting towards the side of the building. "Hey wait, what do I do if I find whoever's in charge?" she asked just before Star made it inside the building.
"Signal the team and wait. If one of us gives the signal, break off from your search and try to join up," said Star, hovering the rest of the way into the building after she received an affermative from Medley.
The splinter group of Titans, along with police officers, stopped suddenly. The crowd thinned, parted, and dispersed altogether... ignoring them completely. "What the hell?" Gauntlet muttered, echoing everyone's thoughts.
Raising his arm, Cyborg checked his built in communicator. "I'm tracking the others... looks like they've split up and are searching through some of the buildings ahead."
Pulling out his own communicator, Savior attempted to raise their leader. "Robin, come in."
The screen came to life with a view of the Teen Wonder... floating in midair, or hanging rather, as Savior had apparently caught him in the middle of scaling a building. "Robin here. Did you find the others?"
"They're here with me," Savior confirmed. "Starfire?"
"Found her a few minutes ago. We decided to split up and search the surrounding buildings. They've smashed their way into at least a dozen, so it could take a while."
"Roger that. We'll begin searching as soon as we catch up."
Robin nodded and the background behind him began falling away. "Ok, signal if you find anything. Robin out," he said, cutting the transmission.
Putting away his communicator, Savior glanced between Cyborg and Gauntlet before addressing the few officers still with them. "We're going on ahead. You should find some cover and call for reinforcements."
"We WERE the reinforcements," one of them said, shaking his head. Whatever the hell was going on, it had unsettled him and his fellow officers.
"Ok then, just find somewhere to lay low until this blows over."
The officer that had spoken before, apparently the one in charge, had other ideas. "Oh hell no. We may be just normal people, but we're not going to just sit still while we could be helping."
"Fine," Savior conceded, turning to Gauntlet. "Go with them."
"What, me?" Gauntlet asked. "Why not Cyborg?"
Savior rolled his eyes. "Because, despite the fact that Cy just rearmed, he's bound to run out of ammo again eventually, and when that happens it's down to the sonic cannon and his fists. And while this has worked before, it would be more of a hinderance when dealing with a crowd of normal people under the influence of some lunatic."
"Great," Gauntlet groaned, but headed off in the direction the police had already took off in.
"Guess you know what this means, Cy?"
"Yeah," the mechanical Titan answered. "I really hate stairs. Rock, paper, scissors you for it?"
Robin ascended quickly, his eyes scanning through the glass of the office building's windows to judge just how far along the crowd had come. They hadn't gotten into the upper floors yet, which was good. That made his job a bit easier. He pulled himself onto the roof and was startled to find someone already up there. His hand paused on its way to his birdarangs though when he realized the person there was ignoring him for the most part. It appeared to be a woman in her late twenties to early thirties, with short dark hair (he couldn't judge the color as the lighting was poor), and a pair of binoculars pressed to her face.
"What are you doing up here?" he asked, glancing the way she was looking before turning his eyes back to her.
Sweeping her glasses across the city, she stopped them when something else caught her eyes. "Watching the action."
"You know they'll be up here in about five minutes, right?" Robin asked, referring to the crowd below.
"Yup," the woman nodded, her voice unconcerned.
Robin's eyes narrowed. Something was just off about this woman, but he couldn't put his finger on quite what. "You're not concerned in the least, are you?"
The woman lowered her binoculars and turned to regard the Teen Wonder fully, giving him a good look at the equipment she wore along with her coat (and a good idea of the small arsenal contained within), and the medium length sword strapped to her side. "Not really, no." Seeing his hand once more inching towards his utility belt, the woman grinned. "Relax, I'm just here for the scenery. If I were a threat, I'd have cut your grapple when you stopped halfway up. I have no intentions of involving myself in this, whatsoever."
Robin's hands lowered slightly, but he didn't let his guard down. "I see. You wouldn't happen to know where the leader of this mess is, would you?"
The woman smiled, putting her binoculars back to her eyes and turning back to the city. "Your princess is in another castle."
"Huh?" Robin asked, but was cut off by the emergency alarm sounding over his T-Comm. A second later, a flash of orange light and the sound of an explosion came from nearby.
The woman's head jerked back before the binoculars locked onto something. "SHIT! Looks like one of yours just got themselves blown out of a building!"
"That seems to happen a lot," Robin called, running to the edge of the building and jumping off, his grapple already in hand.
"Good luck," the woman murmured after him, still watching the action.
After Starfire entered the building, Medley turned her head towards the top of it before tapping into her power and jumping. Once her feet made contact with the building's wall, she continued up it at a run. Her thoughts began to wander as her eyes scanned the inside of the building occasionally. This all seemed much easier than it had the first time she'd tried it. Really, everything was slowly getting easier to do. She was using less and less power than before to maintain effects like running or hopping up the sides of buildings. Had she focused more on the question, she'd have realized that the answer was obvious: with practice came skill.
Her thoughts once more returned to the present as she neared the top. A quick scan of the roof provided only a view of an antennae of sorts attached to the top and a door leading up from inside the building. She reversed course and walked back down the side of the building. Deciding this was as good a place to start as any, she summoned her sword and drove it into the safety glass that made up the windows surrounding the top floor. After cutting a hole wide enough to fit through, the kicked the glass circle inwards and jumped/fell (though mostly stumbled) in.
She regained her feet quickly and took a quick survey of her surroundings. The entire floor seemed to be some sort of combination between observation deck and library, as it was littered with desks, shelves full of books, chairs, and other such things. Ignoring the shelves and such, she found the elevator doors, along with two sets of doors leading to stairs. One led up to the roof and the other went back down into the building. The light above the elevators lit, drawing her attention. The door opened with a soft ding. A man stepped from the elevator, his long hair flowing wildly around his head—apparently it had come loose from its tie at some point. Upon noticing the girl, he paused.
"How did you get up here?" he asked, not reconizing the girl for what she was. And why should he? The media had shown pretty much all of the Titans at some point or another, but since she was new, they hadn't gotten a look at Medley yet. Besides, this building was supposed to be completely empty due to the buyout.
"I ran," answered the girl. "And you?"
"Took the elevator," he smiled, stepping further into the room. "May I ask your name?"
She nodded, assuming him to be a pedestrian who had somehow avoided becoming one of the mob. Why shouldn't she? He certainly looked the part. "Medley. And yours?" she answered. The man's smile wavered and suddenly, Medley's senses went on alert. Her sixth sense was screaming that something about him just wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
The old man sighed, folding his hands behind his back and stepping closer. He closed the distance of half the room before stopping to take in a better look at her. Finally, he spoke. "You remind me of her," he said quietly, his voice carrying with it the weight of loss.
"Who?" she asked, taking a half-step back.
"You can call me... Metronome," he answered. A pair of clicks sounded from behind his back and his hands came forward, bringing with them a pair of spheres, which he let go of so as so send them rolling towards the girl.
The danger she was in didn't immediately register with Medley, as the spheres closed the distance to her position. Then it hit like a punch to the gut. 'GRENADES! Where did he get grenades?' her mind screamed. Reflexes kicked in far, far too late and she dove for the window. The explosives went off, and though most of their shrapnel was absorbed by the furniture, some wasn't. The concussion propelled the girl into the windows and she struck just below where she'd entered, tearing through the safety glass with a crunch and taking the rest of the window with her.
In answer to her question, Metronome had attained the pair of grenades from one of the police officers under his command, thinking they were simply flash-bang grenades. He had been mistaken. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about that now. A pity, really. She had reminded him of...
The wind picked up as Kate's downward speed increased, little pieces of glass tinking in the light cast by street lights below and office lights to the sides. Her eyes opened slowly, and for a moment she forgot where she was. Her eyes focused on the closest thing. The glass, so much like the stars that couldn't be seen from inside the city limits, twinkled brightly and drew her eyes. Realization dawned though as she caught sight of the building falling away near her. Focusing on the building, she attempted to pull herself towards it and slow her fall. ...Nothing. It seemed that either she was too far away or the blast had knocked out her powers. Her eyes closed again and she sighed in frustration, but only for a moment. 'Try HARDER,' she thought, her mind making itself up. When they opened again, Medley called once more on her power, stretching it to its limits. She was close to the ground, and getting closer. Not close enough, however, to slow her fall signifigantly. There was something else though, something approaching...
Robin's hand snagged Medley's, the Teen Wonder having barely caught up in time. "You should really stop hanging around Savior!" he yelled, letting the line out on his grappling gun and lowering them to the ground. Once there, he set her down and assesed her injuries. "You ok?"
Medley nodded as Robin's fingers prodded at a gash on her forehead. It was bleeding like crazy, had already matted part of her hair down, and was starting to flow towards her eye. "I'm fine. He's up there!" she pointed upwards. "Top floor, heading for the roof!"
"Can you stand?"
Medley nodded. "I think," she said, taking his proferred hand and getting to shaky feet. "I think the uniform took most of the blast," she mumbled, looking herself over. Her jacket and pants did indeed seem to have taken most of the flack thrown her way, save for the piece of shrapnel that'd grazed her forehead. It did little for the ringing in her ears however.
Robin pulled a quick-sealing bandage from his utility belt, ripped it open, and pressed it to her cut. After a couple of seconds, he released the pressure and the bandage held. "The others should be coming, stay here until then," he said, once more pulling out his grappling gun and firing it at the roof. Once he had a good hold, Robin started to ascend... but was stopped when a couch came flying out a window, followed shortly by one of the mob, who latched onto his grappling line. Lowering himself back down the line, Robin dropped to the ground and turned to Medley. "Change of plans. Looks like we're going in through the bottom. Come on!"
The two rushed into the building, Robin running to the elevators. After a quick check, he shook his head. "They're out of comission. He didn't have any more of those grenades on him, did he?"
Medley shrugged. "I don't know. I only saw the two he threw at me."
"What's he look like?" Robin asked, not yet ready to open the door to the stairs.
"Normal," Medley said, a hand straying to her head as her cut throbbed painfully. "He just looks like a normal guy. I didn't suspect a thing until it was too late."
"Anything less vague and more useful than 'normal?'"
Thinking back, the girl nodded. "Yeah, he's dressed in some kind of fancy looking suit. Nothing like a metahuman would wear... just something like someone important would wear."
"Business suit?" Robin asked, slowly opening the door to the stairs.
"Kind of like that, but not quite."
Peeking through a small crack he'd opened between the door and the wall, Robin scanned the bottom of the stairwell and deemed it safe to enter, stepping the rest of the way in. "A tuxedo?"
"Bless you?" Medley asked, following the Boy Wonder.
"No, it's a type of suit..." Robin clarified, trailing off as a noise caught his attention. His eyes turned upwards and he had to supress a groan. The mob was on the stairs, less than four floors above them and stretching all the way to the top. "Crap," he muttered. "If they're going to try jumping onto my line again, then this way is blocked too."
Her gaze following Robin's, Medley narrowed her eyes in thought as she took in the layout of the stairwell. "Maybe not," she murmured, briefly tapping into her power to make sure it was functioning properly. "I think I could get us up there..." she started, but was cut off by a blast of green light far above and the distant sound of someone breaking through a wall, though in actuality it was the ceiling, as proven by the small shower of debris from above.
"Starfire," Robin answered the unspoken question. "Are you sure?"
"No, but I plan to try anyway."
"Good. So how do you want to do it?" Robin asked.
Medley shrugged. "I could carry you, but I'm scared I'd drop you and if you used the grapple, we'd be back to square one with people jumping from..." she paused, eyes going to Robin's utility belt. "The grapple!"
Roughly a minute later, Robin and Medley stood back to back, several feet of line from Robin's grapple looping them together. "Ready?" Robin asked, taking out a birdarang and getting ready to cut the grapple line the moment they were clear of the top.
"Yep!" Medley answered, tapping into her power and...going nowhere. "Wait! We're kind of off balance... umm... You're going to have to help. I'll push us one way if you can push off from the other."
Robin nodded, though he knew she wouldn't see it. "Gotcha. Let's go!"
Once more, Medley tapped into her power. This time though, she sent them flying up into the stairwell. As she'd predicted, her trajectory was off, sending them up and back, from her point of view. The moment they neared the stairs, Robin pulled up his feet and used them to push back and up, sending them further upwards. Unfortunately, since neither of them could really see where the other was going, they came up short when Medley neared the next stairwell. Hands stretched out from the crowd on the stairs and she almost lost her hold on them, but she regained her control at the last minute. Thinking quickly, she called the sword and rammed it into the stairs above her as she neared, then used it up pull herself and Robin up before kicking off again. "Let's try not to do that again!" she called to her passenger.
"You don't have any room to complain, you overshot the mark!" Robin called as they plowed over the stair railing and into several of the crowd. Much as Medley had with her sword, Robin pulled out his staff and slammed it into the wall behind the crowd, sending them up again. "Just keep it up!"
After five floors of this, the pair worked into a steady rhythm, quickly working their way through the building. Nearly at the top, Medley looked up and briefly weighed their options for getting to the roof before coming to the obvious conclusion. "I'm going to try to put us up through Starfire's hole, get ready!"
A second later, the pair burst up through the opening and onto the roof, Robin reaching back with a Birdarang and cutting the line holding the two together. They landed on opposite sides of the hole, collecting themselves and turning to face Metronome. He stood calmly watching them, his baton hand still idly controlling the madness around and below them. And there, hovering mere feet before the madman, was the alien girl who had been seperated from the other Titans at the start of this conflict. "I see you found your way back up," he said, nodding towards Medley, who frowned and gripped her sword tighter.
"Star... what have you done to her?" Robin asked of the old man, seeing that the girl hadn't so much as acknowleged their presence. He already knew though. He knew coming up the stairwell. If Star were in her right mind, this would have been over the moment she shot through to the roof. No, at the moment, he was trying to decide whether to use his drawn Birdarang to break the baton or to just put it in the guy's temple.
The old man smiled and a stray flick of the baton caused Star to turn in midair. "I have business here. I'm afraid I'm going to have to have your friend escort you back down." Turning around towards the large antennae on the other side of the roof, he idly flicked the baton again, sending Star flying towards her companions.
"MOVE!" Robin yelled, dodging to the side as the alien girl blasted past. She stopped and turned around, pulling back her fist and flying straight for the sword-weilding girl who stood there, jaw slightly agape, frozen in place. At the last second, a flying tackle from Robin brought her to the ground and clear of the alien marionette. Robin rolled to his feet again, leaving Kate where she lie. Star came around again and Robin dodged, but it seemed his luck had run out for the moment, as Star lashed out with a leg and caught him in the stomach, sending Robin spinning off towards the edge of the building. She followed it up with a flying punch, catching Tim midair and knocking him senseless.
For a moment, Metronome's control over the alien girl wavered and Starfire came to her senses. Shaking her head in confusion, she caught sight of Robin flying over the side of the building. Well-honed instincts kicked in and she went after him, snagging him around the utility belt and leaving them suspended several feet out from the edge with several stories of empty air and unforgiving ground below. Metronome spared a backwards glance at the girl before narrowing his eyes and resuming his control over her at the cost of a loss of control over much of the crowd he was currently holding sway over. As people in the madness came to their senses, he realized that this battle was beginning to wear him down and he needed to hury along. "Drop him," he muttered, turning back to the tower and beginning to climb the service ladder there.
Kory's body shook momentarily as she again fought for control, but her hand opened, sending an unconscious Tim into open air. And back on the roof, Kate collected her senses and sat up in time to watch one Titan drop the other. Her mind reeling with questions, Kate stood. Why was this happening, why had Starfire attacked them, where were the others, why wasn't Kory going after Tim, why wasn't SHE doing something, why why WHY... Medley snapped out of it, all thoughts wiped from her mind as she dashed to the end of the roof, stepped off, and ran down it, augmenting gravity's natural pull to increase her speed and catch up with the falling Teen Wonder. Questions about how exactly she planned to pull this off, or why she hadn't fallen over from overusing her powers yet didn't cross her mind as she flung herself into the space between buildings, catching Robin in a flying tackle midway through. Nearly to the other side, she realized two things. The first was that she was going far too fast for a soft landing and the second was that said landing would probably hurt. Tapping into her power again, she realized one more thing: she'd hit the bottom of the bucket.
Up on the roof, Metronome gained the top of the radio antennae and stood atop the small platform there, looking out over the city. Below him, the shadows stirred and opened, depositing seven of the Titans, each prepared for the worst. Apparrently, Raven had begun gathering the team the moment the emergency signal went out. As the Titans took stock of the situation, they caught sight of Metronome atop the antennae and Starfire hovering off the side of the building. At some unseen signal from Metronome, Starfire turned and flew towards her friends. The Titans scattered, half splitting off to hold Starfire at bay, the other half going after Metronome.
Atop the tower, the old man reached into his coat and pulled out the device he'd put together just a few hours ago—a small device with a single hand: his namesake. He held it aloft and the hand moved by itself. Amplified by the tower, its power spread across the city nearly instantly, causing everyone to pause in what they were doing... only to resume it a moment later as if nothing had happened. And back on the roof, Scalpel landed hard below the tower, glaive in hand and small pieces of debris raining down around him. He'd been in mid-swing when the metronome had activated and forward momentum had allowed him to shatter the device.
And elsewhere, a few moments earlier... the woman atop one of the neighboring buildings watched through her binoculars as Medley ran over the edge of the Vancouver building and down its side before throwing herself off of it and intercepting Robin mid-fall. Below, Medley flew uncontrollably towards the opposite building's glass-mirrored walls, bracing herself for impact and hoping she didn't drop Robin in the process. Almost there, a flash of light and something in her hand alerted her to fact that her sword had just materialized in-hand without being called. Turning back towards the building fast approaching, it didn't take a genius to figure out what the being inside of her had in mind. Medley shifted slightly and rammed the helix-sword into the glass wall on impact. Momentum and gravity took hold and they fell groundward, the sword leaving a line of broken glass and severed steel in its wake as it slowed their descent.
Robin stirred, opening his eyes to his surroundings. Pressure indicative of an arm around his waist: check. Ground rushing up from below, but not as fast as it should be: check. Loud scraping noise and a female yell/scream coming from above: check. Ground slamming into him and whoever had ahold of him: BIG check. Robin groaned a bit, turning to regard Medley beside him. "Nice save," he said, not mentioning that she could have been just a little quicker with it.
"Thanks," the girl panted, shaking bits of broken glass out of her hair with one hand while trying to rotate a kink out of the other.
"What about..?"
Medley shrugged. "Don't know."
A voice from behind them drew their attention and the pair stood—or attempted to, in Medley's case. "He's down. Looks like the crowd is starting to sort itself out. Police should be regrouping and pulling themselves together shortly. The unit that Cyborg found agreed to escort our culprit to a proper containment center," Raven explained.
"Kory?" Tim asked, looking around. As though summoned by his voice, the girl in question slammed into Tim from above and drove them both to the ground.
"TIM! You are not a greasy smear on the street!" Kory yelled, wrapping her arms around Tim in a bone-straining hug. "I am so glad I didn't hurt you!"
His face already starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen, Tim hugged the girl back before tapping on her back. "Air, Star," he choked out.
Turning away from the other two of her teammates, Raven gave Medley a once-over. "Your right arm is sprained and pulled nearly out of socket. The cut on your forehead is deep, but not serious. It doesn't look like the crystallization process reached it either, or we'd have noticed by now. And you're suffering power depletion. It looks like we've found your limit."
Medley nodded, idly flicking at the crystalized blood clinging to her face and scalp. "Food, sleep, and a shower and I'll be good in the morning. Where's everyone else?"
Raven gestured towards the entrance to the Vancouver building. "Coming down."
Again nodding, Medley's attention turned back to Tim and Kory. "Robin," she called softly to get his attention. Once she had it though, it seemed she couldn't manage to hold his gaze for more than a moment before turning away. "I froze... I'm—"
"Don't worry about it. You came through when it counted, that's what matters. You'll get better with time."
"Yes," Starfire added, "experience does not grow on trees, as you say."
"Uh... yeah, Star," Tim agreed.
"Still, I..." Medley started, but was cut off by the rest of the team's exit from the building.
"And so I said... hey, what are you guys doing down here?" Beast Boy asked, cutting himself off mid-sentence.
As the rest of the team caught up on the events that'd taken place during the battle, Medley followed along quietly, speaking only when asked direct questions, her mind running itself in circles about what could have and what should have taken place that night. The image of the old man nonchalantly walking away as Kory dropped Tim from a building under his orders stayed with her throughout. And above them, the woman put away her binoculars and sighed, glancing towards the Vancouver building.
"I really hope insurance covers repairs. This is not coming out of my pocket," she murmured, heading towards the service elevator.
Present Day...
A figure garbed in white landed nimbly atop one of Jump City's buildings—impressive, concidering all he had to go by was the ambient light provided by the street lights below. Concidering who the figure was though, this scene was fairly commonplace. After taking a brief moment to enjoy the quiet and the brisk air, Savior trotted off to the opposite side of the building before launching himself from it. A Shimmer strand shot out, effortlessly finding a hold on a horizontal flagpole and propelling Savior past the second building and on to the next. Standing, he paused slightly as a muffled sound caught his ears before continuing on across the building as if nothing had happened. He was being followed, and he had a pretty good idea just who it was.
Reason told him that were he being pursued by hostile forces, he would have probably been attacked by now. Neither could it be any of the Titans—Tim and Nigel were on patrol in other parts of the city and the rest of the team was back at the tower. Besides, his pursuor was following on foot, atop the buildings behind him. He could really only expect this from four of the team: Robin, Scalpel, Gauntlet, or Cyborg. Robin, while known for doing just that, wouldn't have made the mistake of landing on a gravel covered rooftop and giving away his position, likewise for Scalpel. Gauntlet could have followed Savior's path or done a number of other things, but he would have made his presence known by now. Cy, while quite capable of jumping from roof to roof, was quite bulky and didn't like to waste energy doing it. Besides, he also weighed in at over four hundred pounds and was covered predominantly in metal and would have been far louder. No, his pursuor was light, fast, and had the potential but not the experience for stealth—someone who could, with time and practice, come down with no more than a whisper. That left only one person...
Halfway across the roof, Savior almost missed the sound of feet making contact with the other end of the roof. He did not, however, miss the quiet footsteps quickly approaching from behind. After waiting until his pursuor was nearly atop him, Savior spun and lashed out with the Shimmer, odd shapes reminiscent of fanged mouths surrounding and encircling the girl. They had the desired effect: she nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. "You're too loud, and you follow too closely," Savior said, the sigh in his voice nearly audible. "What are you doing here Medley? I don't like excessive baggage."
Medley steeled her resolve. "Then help me not be baggage," she responded.
Shaking his head, Savior called back his power. "I can't teach you that." He turned to leave.
To her credit, Katie's resolve faltered only for a moment. "But you can show me," she said quietly as Savior continued to ignore her. Then she remembered why she was here... why she had followed perhaps the most withdrawn member of the Titans out into the night, intent on finding a way to stop the memories from haunting her nights and to keep the promise she'd made to herself not to let it happen again. Little did she know what exactly it was she was about to get herself into. Maybe, in the end, she would have been better off staying in bed—after all, she'd only seen the barest hint of the stuff real nightmares are made of. But the fact remains that she did not...
"Never again... whatever it takes."
Her resolve once again solidified, Medley hoped what she said next would convince him to stop. He had to. "At least give me a chance to try!"
Maybe it was something in her voice, or maybe it was just the more tactically oriented part of Savior's mind seizing on an opportunity, or maybe it was something else entirely. He'd only managed to get two steps from her when he stopped, turning around to face the girl. "...I suppose I can," he said, the words cutting across the short distance and drawing half a smile from the girl's lips. "Then again, I suppose you could drink pure alcohol instead of beer to try and get drunk." The smile quickly reversed its course.
"No thanks," she said quickly, remembering her 'indoctrination' as a candidate for the team and the sick feeling she'd been left with afterwards. "...But this isn't like that, is it?"
"More often than you'd believe," he said, turning and walking a short distance away, his talent aiding his arms as he removed upper parts of his costume. "You have to understand Medley, most of what this life is portrayed as is a lie. It's a world where the bad never die and the good..." Here, he paused for effect as his shirt came over his head. He knew that even in the dim light, they would be visible: scars from countless encounters with even more things that had wanted him dead or worse. "Are much more fragile than you'd believe."
Medley's head turned away as she winched. "I'm... learning to deal with pain," she answered after a beat. 'After all, that's why I'm here,' she mentally added.
"You haven't even SEEN pain yet."
That was the only warning Medley got before the Shimmer slammed into her face with an audible WHACK, throwing her head back and drawing blood.
"First lesson: it's always where you least expect it from."
Almost of its own accord, her hand found the bleeding lip and wiped at the blood there. It was wet. Odd, she'd been expecting something else. "You..."
The white energy line came again, faster than she could track, this time connecting with her throat and sending her gasping to her knees. "Lesson two: shut up," Savior said, warming up to the subject. "Bad guys monologue and in that we live. We try it, we die."
Nodding, Medley found her breath and her feet...
"Don't protest anything in this life. There is no such thing as fairness." ...Only to have them pulled from under her as the Shimmer ripped up out of the ground, landing her on her face. How she managed not to break her nose or lose teeth, she'd never know. "Never."
Hands found their way under the girl as she pushed herself slowly back to her knees, then up the rest of the way to her feet, her power kicking in to compensate and keep her steady. "What about for them?" she asked, one hand waving out towards the city around them, indicating its inhabitants and beyond. "Isn't that why you do this? To give them that?"
Savior's chuckle startled her. It sounded so... old, beyond its time for someone his age. "Normal people don't know fairness. Normal people know selfishness."
THIS was why she had come here, what she had come looking for. Something she'd caught only a glimpse of after the confrontation with Drury Walker and his subsequent fall into Charaxes. "...Cold." It revolted her, yet something about it also drew her to it.
"That's life," Savior shrugged, before continuing. "Oh, it's not all bad. Getting awarded medals by the President is nice. But those moments are an exception. This life..." Once more, the Shimmer lashed out, catching the girl in the face yet again, emphasizing his point. "Is the rule."
Part of her wanted to turn and run from this cold before she was consumed by it, the other part desperately needed to embrace it and perhaps come to possess some of the strength of character Savior seemed to exude so effortlessly in doing so. Maybe then she would be able to go into battle without freezing up. ...Maybe then guilt and monsters would stop haunting her dreams. "Pain, coldness... our life, our rules?"
"Our life." An explosion in the distance caught his ears and his head turned towards the sound for a moment to follow it. "Their rules," he said, taking off at a run for the source of the disturbance.
Medley hadn't even seen him put his costume back on, but there it was, as she watched his jacket-clad form near the edge of the roof and jump off. To her credit, Katie hesitated only a moment... She would get nowhere being afraid to act. Or being afraid of the gifts she'd been given... Dual orange crests flared to life atop her forehead before fading out, then she took off after Savior, bounding across rooftops into the light of a Jump City night.
Neither of them took notice of the figure standing several roofs away, binoculars in hand and again surveying the city and its local metahuman talent. The binoculars came away from her face and found their way into one of the many pockets in the woman's red long coat as her other hand retrieved a P.D.A. like handheld device. She flipped it open and a small progress meter lit momentarily as it synced with the binoculars' internal memory. A second later, an image of both Savior and Medley appeared on the small screen. Next, she removed a cell phone from her pocket and punched in a command or two to the handheld, putting the phone to her ear and waiting for it to connect.
"Scabbard," a computer masked voice answered.
"Rapier. Sending data now."
Author's Notes: If this chapter seems a bit jumpy, it's because it is. It was originally parts of four other partial chapters. I think I managed to stitch them together rather well though, concidering. And this makes the sixth time I've tried to upload and edit this thing today alone. It sometimes refuses to recognize HR tags for some godforsaken reason. Doesn't even recognize them when you use open office to make them and upload as an open office document. grrrr. And I can't even edit at home. My computer is unstable at the moment. I think the bearings on my cpu fan are going out... Anyhow, I digress. It's been a while since I've updated. I suppose explanations/excuses are in order. First off, I was grounded... and still am. Have been since about mid-October. I have to do well on my finals before I can access the internet regularly again. Joy so effing hard. It's taking a lot longer to get to final time than I thought it would. My schedule lately goes something like this: wake up at seven, go to school till three, go to work at five, get to bed by midnight, lather, rinse, repeat. The good news is that I got to go visit my fiancee (she lives about halfway across the country from me) back in late December untill mid-January. More bad news: inspiration of the worst kind struck while I was there and I used some of my free time to write a poem agonizing over the lack of free time. I've decided to torture you by pasting it to the bottom of this. Feel free to skip it if you want to spare yourself the pain. Read it if you're a masochist or just want to laugh at me. And yes, I wrote this after reading a Mary-Sue alphabet post on godawful's forums and noticing that the 'K' section was missing... Apologies to the original author.
K is for Katelin
naieve and sinciere
her past a blank slate
she shant remember.
Trapped is a godling in soul and in mind
for a contract verbal they both did sign.
The author's creativity fails to shine through
and he fears the readers shall beat him black and blue.
For though he has both zeal and zest,
time will tell if he stands up to the test,
of finishing a story, on time or ahead,
just as long as the poor thing doesn't end up dead.
And though he posesses both passion and flair,
he disappears for months on end, revealing neither hide nor hair.
To the story he's bound, and the tale must be told,
of why a godling would bond with the Katelin of old.
And so once again in hand I take pen,
though it's more like a keyboard crafted by more intelligent men,
than I for I've proven with this bought of verse,
that my writing is bound to only get worse.
So I close off this chapter with a Yuletide greeting,
from the home of my fiancee, whom I have looked forward to once again meeting,
Merry Christmas to you, though it nearly brings me to tears,
to report that I'm still grounded... 'till after New Years.
And with that, I think I'll go don my flame-proof bio-hazard suit. The next update will be faster than the last, probably... I've got parts of it written, I just need to string them together and tie in new stuff I'm working on now to flesh it out. Oh, and just to be a bastard, here's the short list of the things you missed because I decided to make partial chapters seven through ten into the finished version of chapter seven: a sparring match between Kate and Rob, a band of bank robbers looting the town, the introduction of at least three new semi-villians who may or may not show up later, a fight between Savior, Medley, and previoisly mentioned bank robbers which would have come at the end, more from the woman-in-red who calls herself Rapier, aaaand Katie dying. Thrice. Most of that will show up later though, hopefully... if I can ever figure out wtf is wrong with Urd (my (apparently aptly named) computer).
Current word count (since apparently ff dot net can't count): this chapter: 16915 (give or take a couple-dozen), not counting author's notes downward. Total: 79119, or so says open office.