Chap. 6
Mother Father Please Explain to Me
"Do you know who we are now?" Nighstalker asked. "You're the…the…" Bart stammered. "Uh-huh." Lightweaver answered. "You were in the…." Lisa said. "Yep." Nightstalker replied. "Wait, what are you guys doing here? You haven't been seen in twenty years." Martin asked, being the first of the group to finally get out more then a four-word sentence.
"Good question." Lightweaver said. "We'll tell you later. Right now, you guys need to go home." "What? Why won't you tell us now?" Rivers asked indignantly as the two Knights turned away. "Keeps the drama fresh." Lightweaver answered. "How do you know our parents?" the boy asked in rebuttal. "Once again, drama." Lightweaver responded anew. "Why do you care what happens to us? Why are we special? Why haven't you involved yourselves before?" Katie asked in rapid-fire succession.
Those questions seemed to strike a nerve. Both Knights halted and their bodies seemed to tense. They were silent for a moment, and then Nightstalker answered, "Let's just say we have a personal involvement in what's happened tonight, and why it's happened." They seemed to regain their composure at that, and then both Knights disappeared in twin columns of gold and black flame. As the kids stood there silently, Nightstalker's voice drifted through the shadows: "The Logans. We'll be watching. But you'd best hurry."
They looked at each other, unsure of what to do. "Should we go? I mean, Katie and I don't have a choice, but you guys do." Bart asked. "If our parents are all there, we're going to have to." Rivers answered. "If they were telling the truth!" Martin snapped. "Hey, they're WILDB.R.A.T.S! Why wouldn't they?" Lisa snapped back. "They've been gone for two decades!" Martin answered angrily. "Besides, if they have some kind of involvement like they say they do, why is that a good thing? What if they've switched sides? What if they're in league with Slade? What if this is some giant trap?" "Jesus, are you retarded or something?" Lisa yelled. "If you haven't noticed, something happened to us. Something that isn't going to go away, and those guys seem to know something about it!" "Maybe because they caused it!" Martin yelled back. "Look, if you wanna be like this fine. I just want to be normal!" "None of us are normal!" Lisa roared back.
"Enough!" Rivers cried out, silencing his sister and his friend. "We shouldn't be acting like this." "He's right." Katie said. "Being angry isn't going to solve anything. This involves all of us, whether we like it or not. If we're going to do something about it, we might as well be democratic. Everyone who wants to go my house, raise your hands." Rivers raised his hand, as did Lisa and Bart. "Everyone who doesn't?" Martin grudgingly brought his hand up. "Well, I want some answers too, so it looks like we're going." Katie said.
After that, they began to make tracks for the Logans. However, in the escape from the dogs they had gone a few blocks off of their route. So by the time they did reach the house, they saw that it was about ten o'clock. But when they did get there, they found the driveway cluttered with two extra cars. "That one's ours." Rivers said, pointing to the silver Mercedes. "And I'm guessing that's yours, Martin." He continued, pointing to the '72 Honda Accord behind it. "Well, looks like they were telling the truth." Lisa smirked, looking right at Martin as she said it. "About one thing. And this could still be a trap." He said back. "Well we're not gonna find out sitting here." Bart said, as he walked up to the front door.
The young boy opened the door to find his parents standing in the foyer with four other people. "Bart!" Garfield yelled out, drawing everyone's attention to the boy. Raven quickly ran to her son, checking to make sure that he was ok. "Where's your sister?" she asked, with a hint of panic in her voice. "Right here Mom." Katie answered as she walked inside with the others. Once every child was inside, a man, who could have only been Rivers and Lisa's father, with his black hair and athletic frame(in sharp contrast to his business suit), sidestepped all the others, and after checking on his children as well as the others, asked in a very authoritative tone, "Rivers why did you call all of us here?" "What are you talking about Dad? I didn't do anything." Rivers replied, a puzzled look on his face. "But you were the one on the phone, telling us to come here." Kory explained. "You said that you had already called everyone else and their parents here, to talk about something really important." "And Katie told us that story, after we found out that Martin had apparently told the Stones himself." Raven said, in a far darker tone then Kory. "What's going on here son?" Victor asked.
But any of the kids could answer, another voice said from the couch, "Well you know what they say about imitation and flattery." Everyone whipped around, as the shape of the Nightstalker emerged from the shadows on the sofa. "You've done well Greenie." He said, as the parents stared at him in shock. "'Stalker? You did this?" Garfield finally managed to sputter out. "Well, it was a lot easier then calling you myself and having to answer your questions one at a time." The bat answered, as he got up and looked over the room. "Wow, Rae actually let you keep your video games. I wasn't sure you kept any of the stuff from the old days." he said, in an extremely bitter tone. "When I met the kids tonight, I got the impression that you'd forgotten everything…. Including our agreement."
At that, Mr. Grayson came to the front. "We haven't forgotten anything. We were just waiting for the right time….." "Don't bother with that crap, Dick." The bat sneered. "I told you the time. I told you when they were born. You knew it was going to come this year. You knew it would come soon after their birthdays and last time I checked, that time has passed. You remember the deal. I built the emitters for your retirement and so you could it secret till now, and you would tell them everything when they turned the proper ages. Wasn't that it, Dick?" he said as he moved in closer to the parents.
"Dad you knew?" Lisa cried out. "You knew something was going to happen to us?" "How could you not tell us?" Rivers asked, his face a mask of anger at this revelation. Dick saw the state the children were in and said, "We were going to. We were waiting for a sign something was going to happen." "Apparently, you didn't watch well enough." Another voice said from the corner. The Lightweaver materialized out of the light from the lamp and said, "It happened tonight. They've all triggered. All your powers are there, and waiting to be used." "What?" Kory cried out. "But we didn't think it was going to…" "Of course." 'Stalker sneered, as he re-entered the conversation. "You buried your heads in the sand and hoped everything I told you wouldn't come true. I'm disappointed. Now I have to do something I hoped you'd be mature enough to stay my hand at."
The Shadow Knight spoke four words; "Emitters, receive program code- 5227-AWEST.. A beep was echoed thrice from Garfield, Kory, and Victor's belts. Before they could react to it, Nightstalker said "Activate program Backlash. Password: BLACKNIGHT." The beeping hit once more and the bat spoke three words, "Deactivate holo-emitters."
"NO!" Jes yelled, but it was too late. Rings of energy surrounded the three parents and spread up their bodies. When they faded, the parents the children knew were gone. Instead there stood a man colored green, a woman colored gold, and a man with half of his face replaced by machines. Their faces had aged, but there was no longer any way to hide their identities. "Allow me to introduce your parents." 'Stalker said. "Robin, Starfire, Raven, Beast Boy, Jinx, and Cyborg…. The Teen Titans."
The children stared in shock. Of all the things they could have expected, this was the last one. "Mom?" Rivers breathed, as he looked over the alien woman who had given birth to him. Starfire nodded sadly, and give a tiny smile. The other children made similar observations, looking in awe at the sight of their legendary parents. Raven turned to 'Stalker and asked, "How could you do this?" "I didn't want to." The bat replied, with a sad tone in his voice. "But things are bad now. We can't keep any more secrets. I think you should understand that. And there's still one more left. Katie, Bart, I want you two to come over here."
The two of them left the sight of their father and walked over to where the bat and their mother stood. "Do you remember how I said that we had a personal interest in this?" the bat asked. They nodded and he continued, "That interest is you two. You've come into some hard secrets tonight, but there is one good one to tell. Isn't that right Raven?" he said looking at their mother with a small grin. The woman slowly nodded and said, in a reluctant voice counteracted by the small smile on her face, "You're right…. Dad."