-1NEOPTOLEMUS
Chapter. 1 : Arrival
It was a beautiful dusk in jump city, or rather it would be if anyone was up to see the sun rise. In the middle of the Jump City bay, on a mini-island there sat what could be referred to as a monument. It was the epitome of justice, peace, and love and incidentally it happened to belong to six heroes, and was shaped into that of a latin-roman "T", most likely the work of a young technological wiz kid who doesn't think about his organization being taken serious in the near future. Within this mass of steel, genius wiring and the holy grail of artificial intelligence, and security, a boy sat, watching the sun rise. It didn't last for long however as he darted from his room, down the hallway and into the large, spacious room, commonly referred to as "the living room."
The young boy sat down on a large red semi circle couch and turned on the 120" television. His eyes were pleasured with pre-Saturday morning cartoons. Minutes later a disoriented bald young man walked into the living room. Groggy and still half asleep he shifted into the kitchen where he fetched himself a carton of milk and downed the entire thing in one go. With a belch and shifted over to the couch and sat beside the young boy. "Don't you ever get any sleep?" he said slowly, hanging on to the last syllable of every word. The boy, completely absorbed by the dancing lights of the television set, replied with a blunt "no" and returned to silence.
Hours later, the boy hadn't blinked and the bald man had fallen back to sleep. The sun had risen fairly high in the sky now, noon was approaching and the Saturday cartoons were drawing to a close. Another figure emerged from the automatic sliding doors from the left exit of the living room. A cloaked figure walked in. She was only about five foot five and had waist length purple hair, as well as purple eyes. A red gem was placed in the middle of her forehead. Slowly she walked behind the couch and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. Her eyes pierced the boy below her. The boy leaned toward the back of the couch and he threw his head back, so he wouldn't have to turn around to see her. His gleeful grin opposed her dull emotionless glare. "Hi mom." he said. Raven sighed. "Bodu koresorettema, Kuro" she said. The boy pouted. "Demun, re ku?" Raven turned and walked into the kitchen, her child in tow. "Kan mukastu ruun U daetaza se" she said while preparing her daily herbal tea. "Demo…gui.." the boy protested. The purpled haired psychic glared at her son once more. "Because it disciplines you" she finished.
The boy hung his head in disappointment and looked to his mother again to beg, but was met with another glare. Raven sipped her tea calmly and said "Focus. You are slipping." before she brushed passed him and disappeared behind the automatic sliding doors that opened to the black stairwell leading to the upper levels of the tower. The boy was puzzled at first but looked down to find splotches of black dotting his skin and spreading by the second. He took several deep breaths and his skin slowly but surely returned to they're "normal" pale grayish color.
Above the boy and his mother, down a grey corridor and on a grey steel door beveled with a "T" someone else was stirring. Inside this room, decorated with a mural of a desert, the shades automatically drew themselves, allowing rays of light to shine in. They crept across the floor and illuminated a young girls face. She moaned and turned over to escape the light, but had forgotten that her room had windows in a semi circle perpendicular to her bed. With a sigh, she sat up and threw her covers onto the red carpet. The young blond opened her eyes and they resonated with bay outside her window. The blue water complementing her eyes. "Good morning Terra" she said to herself gleefully. Slowly she got of bed and staggered out of her bedroom door towards the elevator.
The neutral grey doors of the elevator opened to reveal a purple haired woman with a brown cup of tea floating in front of her. Raven studied the blonde with distaste. Garbed in a white skimpy pair of cut off shorts and a white belly shirt. Terra nervously grinned and moved her hair from out of her eyes. The young embrakinetic walked brushed past the blonde without a word and turned left at the end of the hall to enter her room. Terra sighed, entered the elevator and pushed a black button to depart to the living room.
Cyborg slowly began to awake from his second slumber on the living room couch. The sun was almost at it's zenith in the noon sky. He yawned as his eyes began adjusting to the light. Behind him he could hear cereal cascading into a porcelain bowl. He turned and his eyes fell upon a blonde female. She smiled and winked in his direction. Rolling his eyes he reached from the remote, which was left on the floor by Raven's child. "Good morning, Terra" he said before the room was filled with noise of sweaty men chasing a ball made of pigskin. Terra hopped over the back of the couch and landed next to Cyborg with a flop. "Any news from BB?" she managed to say between large chomps of name brand cereal. "No" Cyborg said bluntly. Terra grinned whilst laying herself across Cyborg's lap. "Aw, sounds like someone woke up on the wrong part of the motherboard" she giggled and continued eating her cereal despite her awkward position. Cyborg folded his arms and looked away. "Why do you worry about him so much…he has his woman" Cyborg said.
Terra stared at him for a minute and leaned up towards his face. "Would you rather me worry about you?" she said softly. Cyborg glanced into her ocean blue eyes and was nearly lost in them.
It was when Cyborgs face began to turn red that a long haired man entered the room. He stopped dead in his tracks at the scene of Terra and Cyborg so close. He cleared his throat rather loudly. Cyborg was the only one to turn and look at Robin, or Nightwing as they were calling him these days. Terra's eyes remained locked with Cyborgs. "Erm…am I interrupting something?" he said forcing a smile. Cyborg curiously looked between the blonde and the team leader. Terra grinned childishly. "Nope, nothing at all" she rolled over sprawled out on the couch…all while miraculously holding on to her bowl of cereal. Nightwing ignored his two team mates and made his way to the kitchen as those had before him. "Say Cy" Terra mumbled with a spoon in her mouth. "I didn't know blacks could turn that red." she giggled. Cyborg acted like he didn't hear her comment and continued watching T.V.
It was hours later that a picture in picture of a distress call appeared in the upper left hand corner of the television screen. The red letters flashed red before brought it into full view with the remote. A man with dark green skin and flowing long green hair appeared on screen. There was also a small grey skinned child peeking up from the bottom of the screen. Beast boy's face seemed to be quite serious. Terra sprung up, letting the milk from her left over cereal spill onto the floor. She adjusted her bed hair and tried to look as presentable as possible, even put on a smile. Beast boy swiftly looked in her direction to confirm her presence and focused on Cyborg once again. "Did you guys see anything on the atmospheric radar a few hours ago?" he asked.
Cyborg quirked his brow. "Naw, man." Beast boy rubbed his chin and looked off screen. "Funny" he said. "Neither did the Justice league." Cyborg's intrigue had grown substantially, but Terra asked the question on the tip of his tongue. "Why? What's going on?" The small child could be seen tugging on Beast Boy's clothing murmuring silently. "Lemme' talk to mommy." Beast boy patted her head and assuring her that she would talk to her mother soon. "Tell us what's goin' on BB" Cyborg demanded anxiously. Beast Boy looked off screen again, but finally adjusted the camera to look at a long cylindrical bronze pod sticking up out of the dirt in the ground. The tail of it was on fire a column of smoke was billowing into the atmosphere. "This crash landed not to long ago…" Beast boy explained. Cyborg began examining the shape and identifying common components in a space pod. "Never seen anything like this" he said.
The camera shook violently as the pod rocked and fell over on it's side. There was a brief silence before part of the pod was violently ejected by a forceful kick. The component flew several hundred feet before burying itself into the rainforest soil with a subtle thud and some short bounces. A brown hand gripped the side of the opening left behind by the component kicked from the pod…