Okay, so this chapter is a little different from the earlier entries in that Rachel and Garfield have a much-reduced role. That's right, our main characters get a well-deserved rest from Candid Camera while we go on the grand tour of the west coast.
Mind and Body Chapter 7: Strangers Are Friends You Haven't Met Yet
SEVEN YEARS LATER
(Big skip, but not much exciting happened)
The cell was dark and steely, while the door was joined so seamlessly that it seemed to not exist at all. The walls curved subtly away from the center and the ceiling continued the trend. In the center there was a slender figure dressed in a similar metal and had all four limbs immobilized by magnetized cuffs. The only visible part of the woman's body was the face, which had green eyes and orange skin, The look in her eyes was enough to make the target believe that no security measures had been taken: the level of hate was so remarkable that it would freeze you in your tracks.
However, this glare seemed to have no effect on the being looking through the clear panel. This being was even stranger than the first, in that he had scales, gills, and fins on each cheek as well as a larger one on the bare skull and webbed hands and feet.
When he spoke, the noises that came out of his mouth were unintelligible, yet the meaning was clear. "If you would simply accept the fate your father and my ruler's treaty decided for you, you would be free to go about the ship. However as long as you resist you must be kept in here. What do you say? Are you willing to concede?"
The woman's reply, although it could also be understood, was an entirely different kind of unintelligible. "Never! My father would never have agreed to this and I will not submit!" Suddenly she lunged against the magnetic cuffs and managed to lift them from the floor to the point where she took a couple steps forward. With an expression of irritation the fish-man increased the magnetic pull by 3 times, bringing her back to her knees.
"Coward!" she shouted, "you never fight if you can keep an enemy helpless! Honorless Kalgorf!" Whatever this unique word meant, it was clearly highly insulting, as the fish-man pressed a button on his side with malicious satisfaction. An electric current ran from the generators, through the floor and up the cuffs to dump many thousands of volts into her.
Robin woke up with a scream. Almost immediately, his guardian Bruce Wayne opened the door. If he hadn't been shuddering with the effects of his dream, Robin would have laughed at the sight of his surrogate father, dressed in his vigilante identity of the Batman, yet being entirely in the attitude of his public appearance: friendly and slightly klutzy, but by no means the kind of material for a masked agent of justice.
"What's wrong?" Bruce said urgently, "If you're going to spend your night off the job by screaming and staring at the ceiling, you'll never get a good night's sleep!"
Robin sat up and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Nothing," he said, "It was just a nightmare."
Bruce sighed and shook his head, settling back down and assuming his distinctly gloomy alter ego. "Then let's get you down to the Batcave to plan your recruiting scheme." He looked at Robin's confused face and stopped frowning. On Batman, that was the equivalent of a belly laugh. "I take it you forgot that this week is when we scheduled for Oracle's help appointing your debut team, Dick? You know, your first shot as leader?"
"Oh yeah! It is, isn't it?" Robin said, and hopped out of bed. He dressed quickly after Bruce had left, and hurried down to the Batcave, where his successor to the title of "Boy Wonder", Jason, was training while Barbara Gordon was seated in front of the central computer.
He winced inside as she turned around in her wheel chair. Before the Joker had told his killing joke to the Gordons, Barbara had been Batgirl, Batman's first unwilling attempt at a sidekick and the only person that he trusted as much as Alfred. Now she had lost the use of everything below her waist, and couldn't bring her lively spirit to the job of apprehending villains anymore. It was a great shame, as she provided a much-needed humor to the Bat-family, but she had proven at least as helpful in her new persona as Queen of the Internet.
"Hey, Oracle," he said awkwardly, and she smiled ironically at her new name.
"You're wondering how we start?" she said quietly.
Startled, all he could do was nod. Barbara shook her head at his amazement and explained, "When you receive a codename, it starts to grow on you. More than a title, it lends itself to the formation of your character in subtle ways that can't be tracked." She smiled bitterly. "Now if only I had a bit of my new name at that time, I might have known not to open the door."
"It is not wise to think like that, my dear," Alfred said from the elevator as he stepped out, "You'll stunt your growth."
"You're right, Al," she replied, "let's look to the future shall we? What are you looking for in your first team, Robin?" Surprisingly enough, she had whipped out a notebook despite the giant research machine in front of her. Everyone gathered around her chair as Robin began describing it.
"I was hoping that I could get people with real powers…no offense to everyone here."
"None taken," Jason said with a grin from behind them.
"Anything else?" Barbara asked.
Bruce interrupted at that moment, "I'm not trying to take control of this," he started, but Jason and Dick shouted "Liar!" before he could continue. "Okay,"he said, putting his hands in the air in concession, "maybe I am trying to manipulate this, but it would be best if the people you accept had a hidden addition to their powers: something that will cover an area where they are otherwise lacking with their main power. This would make them more able to take care of themselves in case you were separated."
"Very good, sir," Alfred said in approval.
"Wow!" was Jason's contribution, "That was actually smart!"
Everyone froze and looked nervously at Bruce. The Batman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yes, Jason, it was. I am glad you were able to see that."
Barbara covered her grin with a hand at Jason's flummoxed look. "Hee hee hee," she chuckled as Dick tried to contain his mirth, "A woman might think you were being driven batty." She said to Jason.
Dick groaned, "Oh no, not the bat jokes again?"
"Sorry," Barbara said without the least hint of remorse, "I couldn't resist."
After deciding on Jump City as the site for Robin's new team, Oracle spotted an alarm. "Hey Bats," she said casually, "Looks like there's a robbery in that new Egypt exhibit at the museum. Want to check it out?"
"Well yes, I do," he said, "But this is just as important." Everyone stared at him.
"Wait, there's actually something you consider to be as important as stopping crime?" Robin said in genuine surprise, "I'm touched."
"Are you sure?" Oracle said enticingly, "The target seems to have been a solid Jade statuette of Bastet…." She gave the last word a suggestive lilt.
The side of Batman's mouth quirked upward. "The cat-goddess, huh?" he murmured.
"Go on," Robin said cheerfully, "We can manage without you." As Batman strolled toward the Batmobile, Robin called after him, "Oh, and tell your girlfriend I said hi!"
"She's not my girlfriend." Batman said stiffly over everyone's laugh. Even Alfred chuckled.
Down an alley in Jump City, with a dumpster on the far end and wooden walls on both sides, a sparsely-bearded man could be seen in silhouette crouching down in front of said dumpster. His hand leapt forward a couple times, disappearing behind the dumpster. It was clear to the hidden watcher that he was mugging someone. However, the screams that suddenly issued from that area was a lot shriller with pain than a simple punch could justify.
Suspecting foul play, the watcher chose that moment to attack. A large man enveloped in an even larger trench coat lunged from the shadows only for his target to turn sharply, startle, and run away. The watcher barreled down the alley too quickly for his prey to escape, and he grabbed him by the throat. When he raised the man in his grip off the ground, it could be seen that the arm was made of metal.
"You!" the thin man said in shock, "No wonder your scent was so sharp: you're the cyborg everyone's been talking about!"
"That's right," the watcher said as he lifted his hat to show that half of his black face had been replaced with a silver and pale blue metal. His left eye had been replaced as well. "However I do not know you: you will tell me or you won't survive this encounter. If you do tell me, then I will let you off with a warning."
The unkempt little petty crook looked at him with hooded eyes. "My name…. For now it's Ethan. Other than that, though, I'm not telling you anything."
As the cyborg's hand tensed to snap Ethan's neck, spines sprouted from his entire body. Including his neck. Cursing as the spines stuck in his partly-flesh hand, the cyborg dropped Ethan. Ethan seized the moment and ran again: this time straight up the wall as he rubbed his throat. When he arrived at the top Ethan looked down to see the man climbing after him. Impressed with his tenacity, Ethan asked "Just who are you?" as his spines mostly retracted to only remain on his face and joints.
Seeming confused at his question, the man paused. "Seeing as everyone calls me that anyway," he said after a moment of thought, "you can call me Cyborg." With that he gripped the window ledge in front of him and shoved himself up with such strength that he reached the roof with the first thrust.
Ethan leapt back in fright. As Cyborg stretched his arms—accompanied with a metallic creak—Ethan balled his right hand into a fist and brought it in front of his chest. Whipping the hand back to his side in a crescent arc, Ethan launched numerous spines at Cyborg and leapt to the next building.
Cyborg succeeded in blocking all the keratin spears, but when he lowered his arms the strange man had disappeared. Sighing heavily he sat down. "He could be behind any dumpster within the block now," he said to himself, "and he won't stop running." He knew he was only fast over short distances, but it still hurt when he couldn't stop someone who would have the capacity to do what had happened to him to another.
He flipped his left arm out of the sleeve and stared at the metal. Then he took a screwdriver out of a pocket with his right hand and started adjusting some parts. "I better get this thing up and running quickly: or getting people who are far away from me will always be a pipedream."
When he headed back down he spotted a curled up piece of paper on one of the fire escapes. Hoping, perhaps, that it would tell him where the man was going, Cyborg picked it up and opened it.
It was a black poster, with a yellow "T" within a circle of the same color. Below it, in large yellow writing, were the words:
"Are you dissatisfied with life being fenced in by your elders?"
"Do you have strange powers that no one around you understands?"
"Do you want to use these powers for the good of others?"
"Do you like working as part of a group, where everyone is equal and around your age?"
"If so, then perhaps you should think about joining a new team of super-heroes: the Teen Titans. The Tripoli Mansion on the corner of Simon and Garfunkel streets will play host to Gotham City's own "Boy Wonder" on the two weeks from September 8th to September 22nd. An in-person call to this residence between these dates will result in an interview with the boy and 'Oracle'."
And in small type it said: "Your first impression, your powers, and your answers to their questions will all play a part in the decision whether or not to let you join. Only four spaces are available, so if you feel you have a real chance of joining it is best to be there as early as possible. Due to the hours he keeps, Robin will interview you no matter what time you arrive: be it noon, five in the afternoon, or 2 in the morning. However, he will only be there for the dates mentioned. If some positions have not been filled by the end of this time frame, and you have not been interviewed, then the next call number will be there for you to use. You will have to schedule a time if this is what you end up doing. The site of the new team's facilities will be in Jump City, more details to be available the weekend of the 23rd."
Seeing red as he looked at the address, Cyborg crumpled the paper. "God damn it," he said quietly, "How dare he come to my city and do this: I'll kill him if that Robin thinks he can replace me!" He stomped off toward home, his fertile mind spinning as his large shoulders hunched aggressively at the mere thought of the Boy Wonder.
It was full sunlight on a warm day in Phoenix, and Raven was discreetly using her healing energy to care for a young boy's skinned knee in the square. As she was doing this Cael was going through with the fire-eating act he had come up with five years before for a large group of watchers.
The ceramic bowl between them was quite full of bills as they went through a string of routines that had been hammered out and smoothed through years of practice. First there was Cael's fire-eating, then there was Raven's "magic show" in which she simply recreated the circumstances of any card trick, then read her subject's mind to see what they had chosen. She was careful to keep the effects from her powers to a believable level, but they sure made it easy. She also used her healing for "folk medicine" whenever it was needed and her telekinesis could usually be explained away with strings.
She quickly bandaged the little boy's scrap and gave him back to her mother. "All done," she said.
"How much do I owe you?" she asked gratefully.
Raven flushed at that: she still wasn't used to being thanked, though she was nearly there. She also now knew that "free" was a price no one really wanted to hear, so instead she said, "It was only a scrape: five dollars would cover it."
Sitting on Raven's right, Garfield was growling slightly as he let everyone stare at him incredulously. I hate this, he thought to Rachel, really, I've always hated this.
I know, Raven said in body language sympathetically, but the money really helps.
At that time, a young boy careened across the square and bumped into her. "Sorry!" he shouted as he continued to run, "The little man over there frightened me!" Looking where the boy pointed, Raven and Garfield saw that there was indeed a little man there. He was wearing a strange vest with double breast pockets and jeans, but he didn't look that frightening. Also, Raven's could see in his mind that he had not scared the little boy: instead, he had hired him to give her something without being noticed.
Immediately she started searching the inside pockets of her large, blue, hooded cape that had quickly become the signature of her stage name. Sure enough, she soon fished out a rolled up tube of laminated paper. Instantly suspicious, she called to Cael, "Hey, teacher,"
"Yes?" he replied, after swallowing another torch, "What is it?"
"I'm afraid the show ends here." She said.
Cael smiled a rather silly smile and said, "But the show must go on, Raven, you know that."
She shook her head. "I'm not in the mood for jokes, Cael, I have something we need to look at." Cael then saw that she was gripping something tightly in her concealed left hand.
"Oh, all right," he sighed regretfully, "This part is the fun one, though." He then turned to the audience. "I'm afraid that's all for today: I hope you enjoyed yourselves and don't hesitate to tell your friends about us!"
They grumbled, but the people did start to wander away. When there was no one else in the square, Garfield stretched out luxuriously. "Damn I'm happy that's over," he muttered as he changed into a Golden Lion Tamarin and hopped onto Raven's shoulder. He grabbed the sheet of paper from her pocket and opened it, muttering as he did so, "I hate being a show piece; it always makes me feel lifeless, like all I am is a sight to make sore eyes sorer. Hey, there's nothing on this thing." He said in a normal voice.
Raven was also a little confused by the blank white that meted their eyes. However Cael was staring at it in contemplation, puffing on a pipe he had purchased five years before. "It's on the other side, right?" Raven said wryly.
"It is, all right," Cael murmured seriously, "this doesn't happen often: look on the other side."
What they saw was the same poster that had made its way to Cyborg. "An invitation to tryouts…" Garfield murmured, "To join a new superhero team? How did it even get here?"
"There was a man who arranged to get it to me through a boy," Raven said quietly, "I didn't have enough time to find his purpose, but I'm sure if we find him again he wouldn't be able to conceal it."
"What about any hints?" Garfield asked curiously.
"Well," Raven said slowly, "I did get the sense that he did not know who we were: he only knew that we had powers. That's probably what his power is: the ability to sense when others have powers."
"There's no point in searching for a man like that," Cael said reluctantly, "If he has any experience with his power he won't let anyone with our brand of power anywhere near him on anything other than his own terms."
Raven sighed "I'd like to get my hands on him, but you're right Sensei, we'll leave him. But this recruitment: what's it all about?"
Cael smiled broadly. "Like it says, it's an opportunity to meet your own kind, and do some good in the world. Almost everyone with an ability dreams of being a member of one."
Garfield flicked his tail teasingly, "Yeah, even me."
Raven frowned uncertainly, but she already knew the answer deep down. They would travel to this Jump City, and at the very least would observe what happened.