Welcome back. I trust that you've enjoyed yourself these past two chapters—otherwise you wouldn't be here. Thank you for your patronage. Not much to say other than this might be a little shorter than the last two chapters, merely because I am putting just chapter 5 of the old story in. I'm going to need to wrangle up some brains and figure out how I'm going to manage the upcoming few chapters. There will be actual changes very soon, other than tiny little spelling or grammar issues. Also, I'm going to make sure I spell Gemlon right when we get to him. Who's Gemlon? You'll see…


"…and then I guess that's when I fell to Earth in giant streak of fire," Henry concluded. The coffeepot had been emptied—mostly by Robin, but Henry had had some. Robin took a moment to respond. It was insane, all of it. Hit by a car? The Ellimist? Alternate universe? Of course, the alternate universe bit made the most since of all—different dimensions were certainly not unheard of. Raven was born in one. The entirety of Azarath lay in its own, special dimension. Henry's "alternate universe" explanation was an extension of that. It was, however, a little hard to swallow the fact that he was merely a fictional character. That was like saying that Wolverine was real, or Pikachu. Hell, even Mario might have his own world. But that wasn't the important thing. At the moment, what Robin knew for sure was that Henry was here, and that he couldn't go anywhere due to his lack of government identity. While it was true that he and Cyborg could whip up an identity, to have it validated, he would need to enlist the help of… higher authority. Robin knew him as Bruce Wayne, the Batman. However, it would be a lot of effort to get it all validated and set up, and he wasn't going to bother his former mentor with this issue. It would be the first they had spoken in years, and it was not going to be Robin asking Batman for help. No, the Boy Wonder was still too proud to go to the Dark Knight. This would be something he would solve on his own.

"So Henry," Robin began. "It's seven in the morning, Raven is on the roof, and the other Titans are still sleeping. Follow me," he instructed, and walked to the elevator. Intrigued, Henry followed. He stepped into the elevator, and stood silently as the doors closed. The elevator began to drop, and after a short while the doors opened again. Henry stepped out into a huge room—it must've as large as three tennis courts laid end to end. It was yellow in color, with a square pattern over the walls. Large black burn marks showed that the room had been used often. The room was bigger than what he thought would be possible given the Tower's dimensions, but then he remembered that the Tower was on an island. This must have been under the Tower, and underwater in some areas.

"This is the training room, Henry," Robin announced, and with a small smile on his place. This was great—showing off to someone new. Robin hadn't been able to introduce it to the Titans, seeing as though they were there when it was built. Terra had never really been down here, and if she had, it would have been Beast Boy showing her around, not Robin. Not that it mattered. "This room is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, more advanced than what the public will see for decades."

"This… this is amazing!" Henry said in awe, watching as two turrets came out of the ground. They were gray, and round in shape. The twin barrels on each of the turrets extended away from Henry. Suddenly, they swiveled towards him.

"Training starts now. By the way, those lasers hurt," Robin added, then leapt away as the turrets began shooting at Henry in slow, once-per-second bursts. Henry gave a cry of surprise, and began running and zigzagging to avoid being hit. Robin did multiple backflips until he was safely out of the away. He tapped the wall, and a control panel popped out. After several buttons were pressed and a few settings were changed, Robin turned back to view his handiwork. Different structures rose out of the floor, blocking Henry's path. They were different heights, and Henry nearly tripped over a short floor tile. Some of the obstacles were curved, others were hexagons, and some were like rocks. The turrets continued blasting away at Henry, who was now breathing hard.

"Robin!" he called. "You" pant "are "pant "insane!" Unfortunately for Henry, stopping to yell at Robin had caused him to not notice the turret fire, and a beam caught him in the left arm. "Agh!" Henry yelled in pain, grabbing his left upper arm. "That hurts!" he yelled again, still running. He let his arm go, otherwise he might get hit again.

"Find a way to disable the turrets!" Robin called out. He was enjoying this—it was pretty entertaining to see Henry run around like an idiot. Besides, Robin had to have some fun once in a while. Henry, however, was finding it a lot less funny. He jumped onto a raised floor tile, and onto another and another, until he was higher than the turrets. He ran across a long wall that had been raised, and jumped onto a turret. His outstretched foot had impaled the metal thing, shutting down the turret. The other turret fired, but could not raise its barrels to aim directly at Henry, so the lasers merely bounced off the side of the destroyed turret. Henry looked at the other turret. It was still a few yards away, and he lacked the ability Robin had to jump that far. So what was he going to do? Then he realized: powers. He jumped down from the top of the ruined sentry and landed, one knee falling to the floor. He got up from that position by beginning a run forward. Of course, twin lasers came at him, but they struck the palms of Henrys' hands. He focused on absorbing their energy, willing it to enter his body and become a part of him. It worked. Realizing this, Henry gave small "Yes!" before continuing towards the final sentry. The laser blasts, but each time Henry absorbed the yellow energy. He felt the energy flow through him, filling him, making him feel like someone had electrically massaged the inside of his body. It was weird, but not painful. Uncomfortable, yes, but it didn't hurt. He jumped into the air, using some of the absorbed energy to enhance the power in his legs. He easily cleared the height of the turret, and landed on a platform next to it. As the turret rotated to shoot him again, Henry thrust his right hand forward. Out of his palm came a shock wave—Henry had given a lot of the energy within him to caused extreme compression of the air, which traveled straight to the sentry. The barrels were blown off, and the rotating silver top of it flew into the air, landing a few feet away with a clatter. Robin clapped his hands a few times.

"Nice job Henry, but this only the beginning." Robin called out, and pressed another button on the control panel next to him. Four panels in the ceiling slid open, and a dozen or so little flying robots flew out. Each was two feet across, with twin propellers keeping the small, shiny body in air. The panels retracted, and the robots began to fly in a circle around Henry. Individually, they fired, causing Henry to yelp in surprise and pain from each shot. No matter where he turned, the shot always came from behind. Realizing this, he absorbed the next few shots. He had an idea, and was about to test it. He jumped upwards again, allotting a small amount of the absorbed energy to his jump. This time felt different—he felt like had a small electric shot running through his body. Electric… hm… Henry said to himself. In the air, Henry put both hands down at angle, and shot a jolt of electricity towards the robots. The electric shock arced from robot to robot, each short-circuiting in turn as he landed. The pile of robots sat in a ring around the teenager. Henry wore a confident grin on his face. It came off of his face quickly when a hole appeared in the floor, making a loud thud as the panel moved. A robotic arm came out, and Henry got into a fighting stance—well, what he thought would be one. He had only ever seen movies and TV shows, so perhaps it wasn't the best. However, it didn't matter, as the robotic arm merely began retrieving the grounded flying robots. Henry stepped out of the ring, looking towards Robin. To his surprise, Robin wasn't at the control panel. Henry began to turn to look for Robin when all of a sudden, he heard a small explosion. The area around him filled with smoke, and he unexpectedly began flying to his right. When Henry be oriented again, he realized that he had been kicked by Robin. He saw the area of smoke where he had just been standing. Two small objects flew out of it. Henry recognized them as birdarangs, but all too late. They flew near Henry, and suddenly he felt a thin wire wrap around him very quickly. Henry fell over, the birdarangs on his chest laying neatly. Robin dropped down from seemingly nowhere.

"Surprise," the leader said. Henry struggled against the wire, wriggling to be free.

"C'mon, Robin, that's cheating. I didn't even know you were going to fight me," Henry complained. This was for two reasons: One, he needed to buy time to think of a way out, and two, it really wasn't fair.

"What happens when run into the H.I.V.E. Five? Or Mumbo again? Do you think that they'll fight fair?" Robin asked rhetorically, standing over Henry, who was still trying to find a way out.

"Fine, Robin. Just let me out," Henry said. Robin obliged, clicking the top of the birdarangs. The wire disappeared around Henry, whose eyes opened wide in shock. "How… how did that work?"

"Inside the birdarangs are a little wheel. By pressing the button, it disconnected in the middle and the wheel turned to retrieve the wire. It's like an automatic spool," Robin explained. "It happens so fast you don't even realize it." Suddenly, Henry collapsed. Robin dropped to grab him. "Henry! You alright?" Henry waved his hand.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just… tired," he explained. "I don't know—one second I was fine, then the next I felt exhausted. I think that's one of the things that go with my powers." Robin nodded.

"We'll look into this later. Can you stand?" Robin asked, holding his back and chest. Henry rose slowly, his knees shaking. "Okay, now try walking," the traffic light-colored teen instructed. Henry took a step, and slowly but surely he made it to the elevator. When they got in, Henry leaned against the wall, clutching his head.

"Oh, man, my head is killing me," Henry moaned. When the elevator opened up to the main room in the Tower, Henry slowly wandered over to the kitchen. Robin walked ahead of him, and pulled a small bottle out of a cabinet. Opening it, he removed two small white pills.

"Take these," Robin told Henry. The boy did as instructed by popping them into his mouth. Henry swallowed, and a sour look came on his face. Robin looked at him strangely. "Don't you need water?"

"Nope," Henry replied smugly. "I can take pills without anything. It's something I get from my dad."

"That is… interesting," replied Robin. Henry then had an idea—a crazy, stupid idea.

"Robin, get me a fork please," Henry said, looking around for something. Ah—there it was! He saw what he was looking for. Robin handed him a fork.

"Why do you need a fork?" asked Robin. He was confused, but followed Henry as he walked over to a spot on the wall.

"Now, this should work, or be really painful," the dimensionally-displaced teen said, folding the fork next to the outlet. Robin realized immediately what Henry was going to do.

"Henry, this is a bad idea," Robin warned. "You could seriously injured."

"I'll risk it," replied the foolhardy teen, then plunged the forks' prongs into the outlet. What followed was one of the most bizarre things Robin watched in his life. Henry stood perfectly still, but the fork began to spark. The lights in the kitchen began to flicker. The end of the fork glowed as Henry absorbed the electricity from the outlet. The fork started to glow, and still Henry held it.

"Um, Henry, you should let go," Robin cautioned, slowly backing up. "Like, right now." Henry listened, and removed the fork from the outlet, the end yellow. "How do you feel?" Henry's grin stretched from ear to ear, and if it were possible, would have come off of his face.

"Electric," was his reply. "I feel really good, like I just had a long, hot shower, ate a filling meal, and I just had a great night's sleep." And that's exactly how he did feel—but there was something else, too: a charge. It flowed throughout his body, mostly in his gut. He felt like he was a battery. He could almost taste the electricity on his tongue. That must have been the energy he absorbed; perhaps each type of energy felt different? He would find out later. Then, the sound of the elevator door opening caused Henry to turn around, and out came Cyborg.

"Did you guys see that?" he asked, sounding worried. Henry and Robin shook their heads. "There was a rapid power drain just moments ago. It pulled energy from all over the Tower to one location—here," Cyborg continued, pointing at the outlet Henry was near.

"Sorry, Cyborg, it was me," Henry apologized.

"You?" Cyborg asked, confused.

"It's one of his powers," Robin explained. "He can absorb energy, and I guess he can convert it too. I took him to the training room earlier, to see what he can do right now."

"Yeah, and you CHEATED," Henry said, crossing his arms.

"Well, listen, that's cool and all, but be careful next time," Cyborg replied. "If you want, I can set up a power-draining station for you."

"That would great, Cyborg!" Henry said. "So, now what do we do?"

"Well, it is about time for breakfast," Robin said. "Starfire will be up soon, and Beast Boy will be up whenever, so I think it's time for—"

"I'll get started on the waffles!" Cyborg interjected excitedly, and immediately went to the kitchenette to get started.

"Before you start, Cyborg, I have an idea," Henry said, walking to Cyborg. What if you put chocolate chips in the waffle batter?" Cyborg stopped moving.

"Chocolate chips?" The cyborg thought aloud. "IN the waffles? That might work…"


Somewhere on the far side of Jump City, a man that wasn't really a man walked into a bar. Now this wasn't a public bar. Technically it was, but if you were smart, you didn't go there. This was the place that the dangerous criminals went—the ones that didn't have special powers. These were normal people, save for their desire for crime. The regulars here weren't stupid, either, because they didn't do anything worthy of the Titans' attention. They knew they were no much for the superheroes, and so they kept low. The thug from the previous night walked in.

"Alright, maggots, listen up," he announced. One of the men at the bar turned around.

"Listen, pal, you keep your damn mouth shut. You ain't no one to call us mag—" was all he said before the newcomer raised his hand and shot a green glob of something onto his face. The victim of the attack's face was completely covered. His screams were muffled by the green stuff, and he struggled in vain to remove it with his hands. After a few moments, the man stopped struggling.

"Now then, is there anyone else who wants to speak up?" Nobody did. The bar was silent. "Good. Change is coming to Jump City. There will be a new order, and it will spread across the world. We will become kings—no, GODS! Who is with me?" The bar cheered, and the man-not-man chuckled evilly. Good, he thought. Good…


HOORAY FOR CREEPY GUY! Not much to say in this AN (author's note, for anyone who doesn't know) other than I look forward to feedback from you! Yes, you specifically, dear reader! What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? Tell me! Any and all questions, comments, concerns, or general statements are appreciated. Reviews are good, and PM's are better for personal messages. Which is why they're called Personal Messages, I guess! Seriously though, if you want to talk to me, I'm all ears. Thanks so much for reading this, and remember, I hope you have a fan-freaking-tastic day!

Cortexin