Author: Nazran
Shattered: Act I
Chapter 5
§Oo–.–oO§
"You know, space is interesting and all but was it really necessary to bring me along?" Danny griped through his comm set, "I was perfectly fine at the Tower."
"C'mon dude, you can't tell me space isn't awesome to you!" BB had his feet up on the control console of his partition of the T-ship.
Danny sighed and flicked off his mic. There wasn't much else he could do, the T-ship had been designed for five passengers by Cyborg. Now there was six and the robotic Titan had had to find a method of adjusting. The solution had come in what was basically a coffin, at least in Danny's mind, with was attached to the underside of the ship between the landing gears and thrusters. High strength independently powered electromagnets held the cramped capsule to the ship. Danny was strapped in, staring down through a specially made clear composite material, patented by Wayne Industries for aerospace utility, at the black space that stretched out before with glittering stars beyond. It wasn't meant for long distance journeys, in fact it had only been jury rigged together because Robin didn't trust him alone in the Tower yet but they hadn't much choice and had relied on teleportation tech to get this far . He had only stayed with the team for a day and a few hours, the Boy Wonder hadn't gotten his chance to interrogate the Halfa yet.
The orange ship swept in close to the arrays of the station. It was a United Nations vessel, the circular structure floating through the vacuum benignly. The large collection panels stretched out from the aerospace alloy of the station body. They were a high tech new design that captured enough radiation to charge the large batteries that powered the facility.
The UN had prearranged access codes for the hangar doors of the station when they had assigned the Titans to the now silent facility. Communications were down but the readings that were being transmitted back to the UN space center indicated that basic life support was still functional. Emergency power had booted up when the main systems failed and kept pressure and heat functional in the station. The forward boosters fired and the T-ship slowed its approach to the hangar. Cyborg punched in the codes, accessing the remote systems through UN identification protocols and the hangar door popped open to release the seal. The inner depths were dark pale light flooded in from the glow of the earth and the distant sun. A pair of white LED spotlights on the bow of the spacecraft lit up and the ship drifted in, the gentle hum of the thrusters adjusting the course the only sound in the silence. Cyborg, being the helmsman so to speak, guided the craft in and it set down. The doors shut behind them and the hangar re-pressurized.
The newest teen waited patiently as the Titans disembarked from their vehicle. Cyborg drifted down and powered down the magnets holding Danny's capsule in place. The tube released and floated to the metal of the hangar bay floor while the others cleared the expansive room. The robotic Titan pushed Danny out from beneath the low ship and released the seal on the capsule. The clear window popped, rising on pneumatic arms and the clasp of the straps released, Danny leapt out and rolled his shoulders.
"Have a good trip?" Cyborg grinned crookedly.
"Whatever." Danny grumbled back, flexing his knees.
The team, with the exception of Star and Cyborg, all wore special suits for deep space travel. It was a touch synthetic material that contoured to the body and protected from extreme temperatures, pressures, radiation and other forces that might be encountered. Danny found it uncomfortable, almost like his old rubberized hazmat suit from his previous Phantom form, the material was too constricting and if he was honest, revealing. His was plain and dark grey, it had been acquired in the emergency of the call—whereas Robin's had a belt, composite armour plating that was jointed for movement and flexibility and a cape of the same material; Beast Boy's integrated the same molecular versatility as his regular suit to allow for his changes; and Raven's was deep black, fitted with clasps for her cloak and jeweled belt. Danny looked around. Everyone wearing one of the suits had little left to the imagination besides skin tone. The Halfa was pointedly avoiding staring at anyone overly much, though Raven was making it difficult. He couldn't deny she was attractive and remained thankful Star was not wearing one of the suits as well.
Robin opened a control panel and fiddled. Lights flickered on and revealed the full expanse of the hangar. Ships, aerodynamic and of the newest designs for space travel were scattered about, silent and still. They gleamed like gems in the white lights but rested abandoned.
"C'mon, let's see if we can't get comms and power back up." Robin's voice echoed hollowly in the chamber.
They moved through the wide corridor carefully, spread out and cautious. The station was deathly silent, not even the creak or groan of the metal station was audible. The glaring white lights from Cyborg's shoulder and Robin's pen light leapt far down the corridor to another doorway of flexible jointed metal. It was sealed shut, the edge tight against the floor and the panel on the wall next to it, a dark screen, cracked and unusable. The Titans, and Danny, considered the door.
"Electronics are fried, this thing isn't going to open under power." Robin said.
Cyborg flexed the robotics and complex cybernetics that made up his hands and reached down, digging along the seam at the floor. The metal scraped against the door and the Titan grunted, driving the rigid alloy of his hands into the crack. "Here we go!" Cy stood upright with an explosive thrust and ripped the metal up. The door crumpled and retracted sharply against the hidden mechanism hidden in the superstructure.
They stared into the darkness of the main command center for the station. Large windows were framed on the opposite side, pale light seeping in like the slow creep of water over rock. A bank of control panels were set some feet before the viewing windows, they were dark and a lot of them damaged—the screens were shattered, cracked or with large pieces missing, the touch panels set below them broken and dark, their metal housings bent and battered. Papers, tablets, and other debris were scattered through the gravity free air. Power cables and fibre optics for data transmission hung from the high ceiling like tattered braided vines. Chairs were torn from their zero gravity mountings and clung with only a few fibres of wire holding them anchored to the sheared metal. It was eerie, the station deserted and quiet.
Beast Boy poked a tablet, webbed with hundreds of cracks, as it floated past him, "Dude . . . This place is creepier than the library." The boy's green eyes, with their narrow pupils, tracked the item at it floated away colliding with other detritus.
"I gotta run some diagnostics but I should be able to turn the power back on," Cyborg snapped down to the floor with magnetics on his feet. "Hm, where's the power . . . ah!" Cyborg smashed a fist into the floor, popping rivets out of the metal and revealing a compartment. It was filled with a mess of snaking cables and electronics, a screen mounted to the center of the web sat silent. "Just gotta . . ." the young Titan broke into mumbling as he plugged his arm into the screen and it lit up a screen where code flashed across it.
"Uh-uh guys, what's he doing?"
"I need to reconnect the transmission cables to the main output control and recalibrate the regulator computer . . ."
"Is he speaking English?"
"Just clear the room Beast Boy, we don't know what did this and the crew is missing." Robin tossed the green boy a compact light.
The beams cut through the darkness, casting sharp and shifting shadows as the debris drifted about in zero gravity. Cyborg was audible, muttering to himself in a frenzied state as he cast aside debris and spliced cables together with an arm that hand folded out into a soldering laser and a collection of prehensile metal probes. A compartment on his chest opened, another cable connected to a box and hologram display flickered to life on the teen's arm. Danny wandered out past the bank of the computer and gazed out the windows. The stars glittered as Danny stared out the windows, he was farther in space now than he had ever been. Earth's solar system was but a faint glimmer somewhere out there. Zeta Tube tech had transported the Titans as far as they had come, a deep space relay positioned nearby for space exploration. This particular station was a communications station for expeditions and intergalactic communication with those alien races identified as non-hostile.
"No blood, no bodies, nothing. The place was just abandoned."
"Hey artificial gravity is about to come online so everyone get down here. Unless you want to crash to the floor." Cyborg tapped a few controls on his arm display and everything fell to the floor sharply. Beast Boy yelped loudly and everyone turned to see him struggling out from under a pile of thick transmission cables. "Smooth BB, very smooth."
"Uh guys, I think we have a problem." Danny's sensitive eyes were tracking a shadow rapidly crawling through a complex of girders that framed the ceiling.
A shrill high pitched whine cut through the air like a blade. It ripped into the ears of five of the teens, bringing them to their knees while Cyborg simply muted his electronic ears and charged his own sonic cannon. The shrill screech ratcheted up to a more forceful sounds and suddenly a wave of force pushed out from the creature's mouth and rippled through the air in the station. The wave struck the group and through them backwards, tossing them and the scattered trash through the air to strike the thick material of the window. The material cracked but did not give way.
Danny rolled to his feet and saw the creature crash down to metal floor. It stood maybe eleven or twelve feet tall, broad and covered in thick brown scales, like the armour of a crocodile. There was no neck to speak of, the body merging with a bulge on which sat round black eyes and a disproportionately large mouth. Thick arms tipped with four long clawed fingers sprouted from the shoulders and reached nearly to the knees of smaller legs. Thick saliva dripped from the mouth that hung open, revealing rows of small pointed teeth. It snarled and sucked in a breath as if to blast them again but a blue beam stuck it, blowing it over with a shriek of rage.
"Titans, move!" Robin flipped to his feet and threw a disk at the creature, it skipped across the ground and blew up outward, the shape charge throwing a thick plasma of molten copper at the creature.
Danny was only along for the ride and could not do anything overtly powered, he didn't need the Boy Wonder to be more suspicious, and so he moved away to duck behind consoles. The creature shrieked again and the changeling rolled over past where Danny was, groaning. It was clear the green boy was unconscious, his body limp and his head lolling about. Danny grabbed the slight arms of the furred hero and hauled him up onto his shoulders. He looked around, the remaining Titans trying to push the roaring creature back but it was putting up a fight. A thick arm smacked Robin aside, sending the acrobat tumbling away. Danny moved nimbly, skipping over the piled debris and moving toward the corridor back to the hangar.
He stopped next to the leader, kneeling down to the prone eighteen year old, "C'mon, you guys aren't getting anywhere with this." Danny flinched as the metal body of Cyborg clanged across the floor, denting and scratching it.
Robin looked into the blue eyes, considerably lighter than his own dark blue orbs and nodded grudgingly, it was clear he didn't like it but he had been about to call the team back as it was. "Titans, back to the T-ship!"
Raven turned, keeping her magic active and nodded before grasping the creature with it and throwing it into a far corner. Starfire followed it up and with a rain of acid green, burning bolts of energy. Both girls then flew toward the still open doorway.
"You got him?" Robin asked.
Danny nodded tightly and stood back up, taking the lead between the pair as Robin rolled to his feet and followed closely behind the larger young man. Danny made it through into the corridor, Robin turning to whip a set of three birdarangs at the alien creature but they were batted aside by the thick arm. It shrieked again, the painful noise tearing down the corridor and at the ears of Robin and Danny. When they made it to the hangar, the alien following only dozens of feet behind, they saw Raven and Starfire already in their particular flight stations of the T-ship and Cyborg prepping Danny's capsules. Robin took Beast Boy, climbing up to the ship and setting the changeling down into the rear compartment that was his. Danny laid down in the capsule and nodded to Cyborg who closed it up and slid it into position for magnetic engagement.
Exploding disks slowed the alien down as it charged into the hangar and cyborg fired his sonic cannon at it before leaping down into his cockpit. Danny was jolted as the engaged and he was sucked up to the bottom of the ship. The spacecraft fired up, the fusion engines humming to life and defying the pull of the artificial gravity. A shriek struck the ship, vibrating through the orange alloy of the ship and jolting it. The wings dragged on the low ceiling as the door hangar bay doors opened and Cy swore into the comms. They cleared the station, the ship rotating to face away from the structure and rising through the vacuum.
"Damn." Danny deadpanned and then flinched as the bulk of the beast flew from the still open doors and crashed against the underside of the ship. It snarled and scratched at the window, scoring it with thick claws. "Shake this thing off!"
"I'm trying!" the ship spun as the robotic Titan manipulated the controls of the ship. The creature shrieked and the window spider webbed with cracks, obscuring Danny's vision.
"Titans . . . separate . . . ." Robin's voice was distorted through the static.
The Halfa swore again when the T-ship burst into six pieces, the magnets holding him secured shutting down as the ship compartmentalized. While the five compartments could move under their own propulsion Danny's capsule could not and he was sent spinning through the vacuum.
"Hang on!" Raven's voice cut through the roar of the static.
Danny's capsule stabilized before jolting violently, accelerating toward what he could barely make out as a planet. The comms were flickering with static and panicked voices as the malfunctioning ships spun into the gravity of a nearby planet. The window's surface was coated in the magic of Raven, so the teen knew at least that he was not landing alone if she could maintain control. His capsule was not built for entry into an atmosphere and the outside began to heat rapidly, the metal glowing and the material of the window beginning to melt. Danny would have died except for the nature of his powers, the cryogenics of his body systems fighting back against the heat.
Turbulence shook the capsule and the black magic released from the capsule. It crashed through something, things breaking beneath the re-entry as the vessel was tossed about. Danny braced as best he could, thankful for the straps holding him from being shaken to pieces in the confines of a metal pill. Moments passed and then all was still. Eyes that had been squeezed shut relaxed and opened. They focussed on the now opaque surface of the window, a white screen of melted material over the protective barrier. He flexed his hands and punched the release on the straps, the mechanism popping apart. Time to get out.
§Oo–.–oO§
Raven opened her eyes, brushing errant strands of hair from her eyes as the heavy gravity and the position of the crash pulled it into her face. She pulled on the lever to release the domed window but nothing released or moved. The half demon set her hand in a graceful movement through the confines of the cockpit and her magic blew the window from its seal with a rending crack. The domed pane flew off out of sight and Raven found herself staring down at the hard pack ground filled with a strange pink hue. Her harness released, the five points unclasping and her body dropped like a stone before the magic caught her.
The ground was barren and empty but for the debris from the crash and ruts carved by both her craft and the capsule Danny had been in. Tall trees soared into the pink sky with rouge trunks and bark, strange leafy pink foliage growing on thin reaching branches. The air was thin but she could breathe and the enchantments her broach jewel weren't detecting any toxins. She blinked again and attempted to smooth the rumples from her cloak while moving toward Danny's capsule. The window was beaten, the surface melted into a white opaque pane. The metal glowed red and Raven feared Danny had not survived.
As she watched however though a loud banging was audible and it came from within his vessel. A moment later the badly damaged window buckled and flew off, traveling surprisingly far. Danny appeared, sitting up sharply and looking around. A pale hand ran through the front his hair where it meshed black and white. He picked his way out of the wreckage. Raven smoothed her own hair and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Danny to notice her.
The blue eyes locked onto her and he waved slightly, "Uh, hey. Good to see you."
"Yes, I am glad you're alive. Though, how did you survive entry?"
"Oh, uhm, well I'm a Meta right. I can survive a lot."
"What exactly are your powers Danny?" She could see he was nervous, even though, as ever, she could not read him. He was not very open about his abilities, despite the whole Tower knowing he was a Meta. She knew that Robin hadn't gotten a chance to ask Danny questions, a lot of paperwork had come up regarding the destruction of parts of the city. And a League inquiry had arrived as well regarding Slade.
"I uh, I have enhanced strength and speed and I'm tougher than a normal human."
"And you cryogenic abilities? What of them?"
"What? I don't . . ." He trailed looking at her with a mixture of surprise and something else.
"You survived re-entry into an atmosphere and the fires of Trigon. Both should have reduced you to scorched flesh and ash, if you were lucky. Even with my magic shielding us, I couldn't protect you like my amulet does and our suits aren't built for re-entry."
"Ah. Well . . ." He rubbed the back of his head, "I don't know much about it, my powers are unique as far as I know, and they've changed over time."
"Interesting." Raven considered this new piece of information carefully. Evolving powers were rare among the metahuman communities. Typically after a point they stopped and that was usually with a fair amount of immediacy. If Danny had had his powers long and was still developing new ones or the existing ones were changing. Well that was certainly different. But much of the boy was different.
A tapping, as if on the trunk of one of the trees sounded. Both Titans snapped to alert, scanning the area for the sound. They didn't know if anything on this world was hostile or not. It came again Tap Tap Tap! Two pairs of eyes scanned the area as closely as they could taking in the wreckage. A flicker of movement and a tiny figure appeared on top of a piece of metal. It was furred in white, and humanoid in shape with two legs and two arms. A large ovoid head sat upon thin shoulders, topped with a golden hat and very large violet eyes. Twin black brows sat above the eyes and two spiny mandibles protruded on the lower part of the face.
The blinked at them and an ethereal, soft voice spoke, "Shallas!"Danny and Raven looked at each other and Danny shrugged. The little alien wandered over to them, staring in particular at the half demon. It stood before them, staring passively at Raven, "Shallas!"
More movement and suddenly the two teens were completely surrounded by the tiny furry creatures. They were concentrated more thickly around Raven's ankles than Danny, she watched them with mild amusement while Danny's eyebrows simply rose and he stared through tired eyes at the creatures. They kept crying out with their high pitched voices and before either of the half humans knew what was going on Raven was being led away by the creatures, their tiny hands pulling on her cloak. Danny blinked before following at a brisk walk, looking around cautiously.
Raven was sat down on a plush looking mat of some strange material and suddenly a carven bowl of strange round fruit was placed before her. Danny still stood, arms slack staring at the half demon girl, "Shouldn't we be looking for the others?"
One of the small fruits was popped into Raven's mouth and she spoke after eating it, "Standard Titan and League protocol; with the station under power again a distress would have been boosted from the T-ship through the comms array. Before long a salvage and rescue crew will be in the system. We're to stay here, Starfire and Cyborg will find the others, being better equipped to find us on an alien world."
"Right."
"Shallas!" the creatures bounced around Raven.
Danny looked around again, spotting a scrap of metal, a curved piece from his capsule perhaps, blackened and dented, half buried in the turf. He gripped with gloved hands, the textures of the suit's fingers providing grip for him to rip it from the ground. He set it down and sat before noticing Raven's eyes on him, "What?" he asked.
She shook her head and posed a question, "How did you come by your powers?"
"Digging for Robin are you?" Danny watched as the Shallas creatures continued to ignore him and yet lavished upon Raven.
"My own curiosity, actually." A bite was present in her monotone.
"Well how did you come by your own power?" Danny returned the inquiry.
Raven's eye narrowed. She seemed more given to expression than what he had heard in rumour and gossip. "My lineage, my father, is why I have power. And I am trained by the great Lady Azar."
Danny was silent, the weight on her heart was audible. "I don't remember how my own ability came to me. I remember pain and then I was stronger than I ever remembered." He stared at his hand, conscious of the ectoplasm and blood mixture flowing beneath his thin skin. "Do you think we'll survive? Trigon that is."
Raven's eyes snapped up from examining the round fruits. Both teens were silent for a time, the crowing of Shallas fading into the background of deeper contemplation. The dark Titan considered the young man's words, her deep eyes upon him unflinchingly. She had accepted that she had been, at one time, afraid of Trigon. And on some level she knew she still was. The voice—that terrible deep boom—and the blood red fire still haunted her when she tried to meditate. She hadn't been able to properly in a long time and the avatars of her emotion were running wild. She had become easily irritated and more emotionally charged than she had ever allowed herself to be in the past. The worst part of this was Raven was conscious of this bilious push in her emotion.
With a breath she said, "I don't know." Her voice held the quiet despair of a small child trapped in darkness. "He is stronger than you can imagine. I don't think anyone can defeat him."
Sullen silence fell over the group. Danny did not speak and Raven did not expect him to have anything to say. Trigon was a god and they were only mortal. The Titans were powerful in their own right, even compared to the League and yet Trigon was an inter-dimensional deity and could summon armies to do his maniacal and destructive bidding. She took another fruit and popped the tangy morsel into her mouth, chewing slowly as it burst in her mouth with sweet juices. Her magic protected her from the negative effects of anything she consumed.
Time passed, though in this strange system on this strange planet of an unchanging sky the sorcerer could not tell without use of spells. The Shallas aliens continued to feed her and cry their song, bring her water and fruit. Danny was left conspicuously absent of the comfort, sitting with head bowed on the scrap of curved metal. He did not complain and that removed a certain level of her amusement from the situation. The girl continued to think on her words, and that of the Meta. He held a quiet suffering about him, and it puzzled her. She wanted to know more about this mysterious metahuman, the flicker of familiarity not yet having sorted through her mind. And her thoughts turned to the other being that had turned up in the city. Phantom. There was another she wanted more knowledge of, for where Danny had offered to help as he might with Trigon, Phantom had done so without speaking a word. And he was present yet again, something of strange prophecy with the day so near.
"He won't win." Danny said, breaking the quietus between them. He looked at her, eyes muted and dead. It was stark different from his demeanor earlier, "You, and the Titans, you're strong. You won't let Trigon win, no matter how strong he seems to be."
"And what about you? You pledged to fight with us."
"I think, in the end, that it will come down to you and only you to defeat your father. Fate is funny like that."
Raven watched Danny again. His words were filled a deep regret or sorrow. "Do you . . . speak from experience?"
The boy smiled painfully, "Ha, no not really. I've never been a hero, not like this." He gestured at himself, his honed form packed into the fitted suit, like a costume, for space exploration. For an instant she thought she heard a giggle in the back of her mind.
"Why promise to help? Why have anything to do with us? What motivates you to put yourself through our troubles? First you're hit by Star, then you're dragged through a demonic library and now you're trapped on an alien planet with an inter-dimensional portal."
Danny leaned back, "Are you sure you're not digging for Robin? You know, I am planning to submit to his questioning." Raven shook her head. "Not much I can do now is there, every time I avoid the Titans I end up right back in the thick of everything. It simplifies things, to just accept it. Besides, if the world is doomed, I'd rather try to stop it."
"I see." Raven was silent again after this. Danny was far more than seemed to be. Even beyond the obvious Meta abilities and the changing moods. It picked at her mind, a feeling that she was missing some vital piece to this puzzle that was Daniel Fenton and perhaps some piece to the puzzle of Phantom as well.
§Oo–.–oO§
"Starfire." The gauntlets he wore fell away, revealing his strong hands. His bare skin brushed the edge of her jaw, his other arm holding her close to him. Dick Grayson hugged the alien girl close to him.
The team was back at the Tower. It had been a harrowing few hours and Robin had begged off to relax. He and Starfire needed to talk. The crash had put a lot of things in perspective, it had been unexpected and a threat that couldn't be overcome with skill alone. He had felt genuine fear at the thought of Starfire getting hurt in the crash. The flood of relief when he had found her alive, it had been extreme. She was incredibly important to him, more than he had admitted to her until they had worked to find the rest of the team on that unknown planet. It was time he told her, the stress and the situation hadn't allowed it before they had arrived home, even with the rescue ship picking them up and after the Zeta back into earth's solar system.
They were in the hall outside of the evidence room. It was quiet, lowly lit and her warm arms were a pleasant weight on his shoulders. Their foreheads were touching, her bright eyes so near to his. Her breath was warm on his face, sweet and comforting. Robin shut his eyes, trying to figure out how say what he needed to. Of all the team she was the one who knew him best, who, for all of her naivety and innocence, saw through to the Grayson beneath his mask. Only Batman, only Bruce, knew him better. And they had fallen out years before.
"Star. I—I'm sorry it took me so long."
"Robin . . ."
"I love you Starfire. I have since that first kiss, years ago." He looked into her eyes, burning with passion. "I should have told you sooner."
And he kissed her. It was not chaste or soft. This was a deep kiss, hard and passionate. Their lips melding together in a release of passion that was years in the build-up. For all of the struggle and strife they had been through together this moment was pure and simple. With the kiss fire bloomed within Robin, his skin flushed and his head spun in a whirl of thought and sensation. The kiss was more intense than he had ever imagined it would be. And not since before leaving Bruce and Gotham had he felt this complete.
"I love you too Robin . . ."
He couldn't stop the wide smile that broke on his face at those words. The way his heart seemed to jump in his chest when those words reached his ears. "Come on, let's go to bed. It's been a long day."
She followed him with wide eyes, silent and curious. His bedroom was dark, the large bed unkempt with the coverings still cast aside. Robin led Starfire into the room and let her sit on the edge of the bed. He unclipped his cape, the tri-weave fabric fluttering to the floor. The armoured torso pieces fell to the floor after his bandoliers, unhooked at the shoulders and the plates on his legs were unhooked from the Kevlar titanium tri-weave two piece suit beneath. The belt followed and the eighteen year old peeled off the upper layer, the material flexible and conforming and yet simply a soft pile of cloth on the floor. Dick Grayson turned back to the girl, wearing nothing but the specially built pants of his suit. Starfire's eyes were wide as she beheld him and he looked down, self-conscious before peeling off his mask.
He looked at her a new, without the covering of his identity and secret. Bruce would be furious if he knew that his charge had revealed his full face to someone. No one else on the team knew what he looked like beneath his costume. It felt free, as though a lens had been removed from his eyes and he could see clearly again, as only Dick Grayson and not Robin. Perhaps the obsessive concealment that Bruce favoured was not the way for Dick Grayson to behave. He would need to consider that; he was not Bruce, not Batman. Not yet.
Her cheeks reddened as she stood and hesitantly discarded her armour. Tamaranean garb was far simpler than human gear. She wore only high boots of material from her home planet, a pale purple back with an alloy native to the clutch of her civilization. A skirt of reinforced material was positioned over shorts of a softer material and a belt with a green gem set in a circular clasp. Her chest and neck were hugged by more of the purple material, over which a dense alloy guard was positioned. The guard was of a high collar to protect the most vulnerable part of her anatomy and would be heavy without her enhanced alien strength. Matching gloves covered her deceptively thin arms to the elbow. The belt and skirt fell away, the boots were peeled off and the neck guard clanged heavily to the floor. This was as casual as Dick had ever seen her.
The boy walked toward her and took her hands in his own. Her skin was hot and soft as he kissed her forehead and led her to the bed. They lay down together, wrapping themselves up in each other. The couple covered themselves with the plush softness of Robin's expensive bedspread. They did not speak, they did not need to. The two Titans simply luxuriated in each other's presence and after a time blissful sleep overtook them both as exhaustion and peace settled in their bodies and minds.
§Oo–.–oO§
Robin opened his eyes, the orbs coming into focus on the dark ceiling of his bedroom. He could feel the soft warm form of Starfire next to him and realized he couldn't remember a time when he had slept so well. He edged out from her grasp, careful not to disturb her and checked the time. It was midmorning and he swore in a harsh whisper. Quickly he threw on the shirt and the scaled plates of armour that made up his suit, careful to affix the mask securely to his face. He scooped the cape from the floor and rushed out the door, working to clip it in place as he went. The evidence room, and his gauntlets were just down the hall.
A shallow cough, the Boy Wonder looked up and saw Danny standing in front of him. The gauntlets in the boy's pale hands, "Good night then?" an eyebrow arched over the blue eyes.
Robin stalked forward, grabbed the gauntlets and punched in the door control command in with sharp jerky movements. He stormed into the evidence room as the overheard lights clicked on. The leader stood facing the wall, silently berating himself for appearing so foolish before the other teen while doing the straps at his forearms up tightly. His hand flexed in the tough material as her turned back to Fenton. The boy was looking around the circular evidence room, taking in the paraphernalia and the screens with silent but astute observation. He took a breath and offered Danny a chair, the seat gliding on silent wheels over to the boy. Then Robin took his own seat, leaning forward to gaze intently at his subject.
"Well here I am Robin, can we get this out of the way? I'm tired of your suspicion." Danny was casual, leaning back in his chair but still surprisingly unreadable.
"Fine Danny, since Raven has decided to be close mouthed about what you have told her I'll get straight to the point. What exactly do you want?"
"Oh I like that, simple question but complicated answer. Though knowing Raven kept her confidence is interesting." The boy rubbed his chin, "I don't want the world to end. And seeing as you haven't informed the League, or your mentor, of the Trigon problem, well your team is going to be the only group fighting him."
"And you want to fight with us?"
"Not much choice otherwise now is there? I have powers; you know this and have seen them, and since I keep running into you all I might as well just hang around instead of waiting to get dragged into it anyways."
Robin considered this.
Danny continued, "Look, I know you have a lot of questions and I've realized that the only way you're going to trust me is if I trust you. I'll tell what you want to know but there are parts of my past that are my own. And just as I am sure you would not let slip the identity of Batman, I will not reveal everything."
Robin felt no small amount of respect rise for the teen before him with those words. Danny was intelligent, clearly very intelligent and had considered this carefully. It made Robin perhaps more wary of the boy than he had been before but the bleak honesty in the voice was unmistakable. He considered what Danny had promised the team, the natural affinity that Fenton had for understanding Raven and the aid he had rendered in the past couple days. Fighting Slade, pledging to help them, carrying Beast boy, staying with Raven during the crash. Despite the mystery of Danny he had done nothing but lend aid and offer the same. Some hostility and distrust had existed but between everything that had occurred a slow bond had begun to form with the team and the blue eyed young man. Acceptance had begun and strangely Robin felt comforted by the idea that Raven trusted the newcomer.
"You want to know about my past no?"
Robin stirred, "As much as you will share." He paused before saying, "I admit to trying to find information on you through the databases the Titans are granted access to."
Danny smiled, the genuine mirth lighting his face and relieving an exhaustion that Robin hadn't noticed before, "You didn't find anything did you?" he was amused by the idea, obviously.
"Yeah how did you know?"
"I grew up in Amity Park, Oregon. There were supernatural incidences there and eventually the government took action and relocated all of the citizens, quarantining the empty town for research, as governments do. They blacklisted the Amity Park—it for all intents and purposes no longer exists and never did."
Robin was stunned, "Why?"
Danny rubbed his eyes with a hand and spoke through a sigh, "My parents . . . they were Ghost Hunters. Well ghost experts actually and they lead the research and technology sectors of paranormal investigation and science. We would have been wealthier if one of their college peers hadn't filed the many of the first patents exclusively under his name during most of their early development. They were considered eccentrics but my parents were brilliant, my father in his own ridiculous way and my mother in the more typical fashion.
"During their many experiments they successfully created an inter-dimensional portal to a place they had only theorized about—they called it the Ghost Zone. And following the success of the portal Amity Park began to experience ghost attacks on a frequent basis. Most of it never made it to the national news but a few incidents did. Of course this attracted the attention of the government."
Robin interjected then, "And then they came?"
"More or less. A department of the government was created and dispatched to Amity Park, the Guys in White." Danny said this sharp disdain. "To simplify a few things, the town was dissolved and what was left of my parents' research and technology confiscated. I managed to save some of it, and you saw me use it in the library a few nights ago, against those ghosts."
"The GIW are here in Jump, they've been impeding my investigation into ghosts and something called Phantom."
Robin watched Danny carefully as he said this, looking for any reaction or sign at all. Now that he had confirmation of Danny's knowledge of the GIW and a direct connection to the agency through his parents. The blue eyed boy betrayed nothing though as he spoke, "Phantom is here? And the Guys in White?"
"Do you know anything about Phantom?"
Danny appeared to think about it for a moment before speaking, "Phantom is a mystery to a lot of people. He was active in Amity Park, fighting against the ghosts that were breaking free of the Ghost Zone. My parents were hunting him for a long time."
"Can you explain more about what ghosts are? What they want?"
"I can only tell you so much. With my parents gone . . . they died." Danny shut his eyes, "I am essentially the leading expert on ghosts, despite not having any official qualifications like the doctorates they had.
"Ghosts are energy. They are energy concentrated into a unique substance called ectoplasm and this allows the energy to be sentient. It takes form and has emotion. Ghosts evolve, like living creatures, they adapt and change as they age though this usually takes an extended period of time. And they are driven, you will never meet a ghost that isn't absorbed in some form of what is dubbed their Obsession. The Obsession is the driving force behind the energy and the mind of a ghost, typically bleeding over from the previous life but it has been documented that some ghosts, particularly of the spirit class are formed not from a single person or entity but a collective feeling." Danny saw Robin's questioning gaze and continued.
"My parents divided ghosts into three categories; simple ghosts, spectres and spirits. Ghosts, when not under the umbrella term are simple creatures, often feral an unthinking. Driven by anger or hatred, envy and greed. They do not possess the ability to think in complex patterns or act with advanced logic. Spectres are more highly developed, possessing desires and specific motivation to do certain things. Examples my family documented include the drive to hunt, the desire to be free, to be famous, forever youthful—things like that. And spirits are the considered the upper echelon of known ghosts, they possess powers and abilities beyond the other two classes. Spirits are driven by powerful emotional links and feelings, collective among certain groups and infused into ectoplasm. They are few and are rarely seen outside of the Zone.
"Phantom is something that has never been entirely figured out. He's more powerful than a spectre and is without an Obsession, which even spirits possess. No one has ever deciphered what Phantom's game is."
As soon as Danny had begun to talk about ghosts Robin had started a software to record the boy's voice as text. The notes would be useful for later revision if he had further questions to ask regarding the specifics of anything. "This is all . . . extremely useful. I've been trying for days to find anything concrete but it's been mad blog posts by unreliable sources. If what you've said is true then we're going to have to find out how to handle this."
"Wait a second my parents may have been regarded as crackpot theorists but they did get a lot of their work published in scientific journals dealing directly with the paranormal. The evidence and research was too solid for any of the journals dealing with alternate dimensions to dismiss, I remember my father raving about it. There should be information available through scientific database searches."
"Government blackout then. I've seen them done before."
"Doesn't this mean the Guys In White are doing something more . . . black ops . . . ?"
"The League has dealt with rogue agencies before, though this is something no one in the League will have any experience with. I'll have to alert them, though I doubt they will be overly interested in looking into what is going on."
Robin sighed and tapped a few commands into his computer, the League sigil flickering over the screen before a file was packed away into a message and was sent to secure server for League access. The Boy Wonder knew that it would likely be sometime before anyone looked at the file, the League refused to employ outside contractors and each member served duty compiling and filing the information sent to the servers. Robin had a small workaround though he was loathed to use it. A copy of the file was sent to the Bat-systems mainframe, knowing as Dick did, that Alfred or Bruce would read it before long. Considering the total dead zone their communications had been for the past four years he knew that it would be read with interest.
Cy's face appeared on the screen and his voice echoed in the room, "Hey y'all we got fan mail! And a delicious looking pie!"