Aki: Wow, a lot has happened since my last update. I turned 18, I'm on spring break, I saw a performance of Macbeth that was awesome and used a liberal amount of ake blood in its staging. I'll be going to Disney World for the first time in a few days so I don't know the next time I will be able to update. I know I once said in a a/n thatI would update once a week, but I'm going to change that to once every other week. That's all I have time for.

Also, I have some references to Judo in this chapter. My details may not be exactly right, but I didn't just make up crap.

Chapter 9: Arguments and Debates

"You're late," said Dick as he son entered the gym.

Alex mumbled incoherently.

"What was that?"

"Nothing,…just Mom used to show up late for our training too."

"I'm always on time."

"I know." Alex had heard the importance of being on time speech too many times already.

"Ready to start?"

"Sure," said Alex in a lack-luster tone.

"Um," said Dick, unusually flustered around his rather curt and untalkative son, "I'd thought we'd start with the basics, stances and forms and stuff and then focus on the moves and forms that work best with your physical ability and powers…"

"Sounds good," Alex deadpanned.

"By the way, how has flying been going?" Alex knew his father was probably just curious, but he felt as if the man was goading him. Alex still hadn't gotten a handle on it. He had gotten up a few more times in the air, but had failed to direct himself properly. Luckily, his work with starbolts was progressing at a better pace. He was aiming really well, he personally thought it was a result of the abundant amount of video and computer games he had played throughout his youth, and his starbolts were strengthening in power, although no where near as powerful as he had seen his mother perform. He had shattered a wooden target, at his highest moment, but she turned one into dust, and that was holding back.

Dick began to instruct Alex on how to stand and exactly where his arms should be for several defensive positions. Dick often corrected his son's body positions by mere halves of inches. Alex didn't saw a word, but his jaw would tense slightly at his gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes.

After a little over an hour of learning varies self-defense techniques from a style of Judo Dick thought was suiting for Alex's abilities, whether that was his superpowers or extreme lack of muscle mass and strength downright, Alex wasn't sure, he started firing out a bunch of Asian terms that where the words for the moves. Alex wasn't exactly sure which country Judo was from, so he didn't want to assume and look like an idiot, but the terms sounded Japanese.

The first time Dick went through the forms in order, slowly, often fixing Alex's placement or reminding him when his son forgot.

"Ready for those faster?" Sick asked.

"Not really," Alex muttered under his breath. He wasn't sure if his father heard, but the man acted as if he hadn't.

Dick went through the terms again. Alex only got reprimands for two, one where he didn't have his arm at the right level, like his dad had explicitly corrected only moments before, and the second he just flat out forgot.

His father had this look on his face that Alex was familiar with. It was the expression Dick had when Alex had quite little league half way through the season, when Alex got suspended the first time in middle school for hacking into the hated gym-teachers laptop to try and plant controversial material on it that would result in the man being fired, the look on his face just weeks ago now, when his father tried to speak with him about his latest suspension and was sneered away. Alex knew that look all too well.

"I'm going to throw them at your even faster this time…and mix them up."

"Joy," said Alex, rolling his eyes, being as sarcastic as he could. He knew his father heard that, but again, the man did not respond. He was like a robot or something.

"Naname-uchi…ryote-dori…gammen-tsuki, no, wrong!"
Alex let his arms fall down to his side in frustration.

"Go on," said Dick, with a slight nod. "Figure it out."

Alex glared but after a moment tentatively took another pose and was readying to through a mock hit in the air when— "Wrong."

"Why don't you just tell me what it is?" said Alex angrily, rounding on his father.

"If I tell you, you won't learn," Dick replied smugly, as if had just played the trump card.

"Well, I obviously I haven't learned it yet!"

"You're not trying," Dick returned, his voice raised.

"I am trying!" Alex shouted even louder, and indignant.

"No, you're to busy glaring at me and making sarcastic comments under your breath to try. Halle—"

"In case you didn't notice, I'm not Halle. Sorry, I can't be your perfect athletic son—"

"I don't need you to be," Dick interrupted. "All I want is for you to try!"
"I am trying, but I'm not good at this!"

"But it's not that complicated."

"Maybe not for you, wonder boy, or whatever the hell they called you. But I'm not you and I don't want to be! I'm out."

"Alexander…" Dick called after him, but he was cut off with the gym door slamming shut behind his storming son. "Well," he said, running his hand through his hair uneasily. "That didn't go well."

"Oh, are you guys done early?"

Dick looked up from his seat on the gym floor. He shook his head 'no.' "Alex stormed out on me."

"Why?"

"He was mad."

"Why was he mad?"
"I don't know! He just got upset all the sudden and we started yelling and…and…you're gonna yell at me too now aren't you?"

Kori huffed, her hand placed on her hip in an imposing manner. "You're the parent. If he's mad you gotta figure out why and fix it."

"But…can't you figure it out for me?" Dick asked hopefully. Halle he got, Alex, not so much. Kori gave her husband a stern look. "Okay, okay, I'll go talk to him…" Dick got up from the floor and dragged his feet to the door like a stubborn child refusing to submit to his bedtime.

"I'm here," said Halle, arriving a few minutes later, sounding none too enthused.

"Oh—alright—"

"But I don't see the point to this. I was doing fine with just Dad.But I guess the sooner I learn to 'control my strength,'" said Halle with irritation, rolling her eyes over those three words, "The sooner I can get back to martial arts. So let's get on with it."

"Aa…," Kori floundered for words after that pronouncement. "Aaa, yes, I suppose the faster I learn you—I mean, I teach you, then the faster you can go back to training with your father."

"Exactly my point," Halle conceded without interest in her mother's repronouncement of what Halle had just said.

"Well, first you must understand that a Tameranian's power is largely controlled by their emotions."

"Like Alex has to be pissed off to use his bolty-thingie's."

"No, he has to feel righteous fury."

"Same difference."

Kori gave Halle a strange look. Halle wasn't sure if it was because her mother disagreed or because she didn't know what that euphemism meant.

"Our strength of superness…super strength is brought out with confidence. Boundless confidence."

"So you're saying I just have to believe that I can do it?" asked Halle, eyebrows raised. "And you couldn't have just told me this?"

"I wanted you to have practice time."

"I could have practiced by myself," muttered to herself, but with intention for her mother to hear. Kori's face dropped. Halle could so easily batter her down.

"Halle," tried Kori desperately. "Can we just try it a few times together? I know it sounds simple, but…even I, who has had this strength since the birth of myself still have problems when I lose my own confidence of self."

"Okay, whatever. I'll do it."

Kori gave a small, apprehensive smile that Halle did not return. Kori picked up a short plank of wood, holding it at an arms length. "Break it."

"Punch or kick?"

"I don't care. Prepare yourself. Believe you can do it. Feel your own strength inside yourself."

Halle readied herself, face set, and struck. She ended up with a throbbing hand. Her mother was not even fazed nor did she move from the force of the hit. A second later Halle took a kick at the board, again it did not break.

"You can do it," Kori cheered.

"I know." Halle's face screwed up in concentration. She tightened her fist into a ball and struck the board dead center. Nothing.

"Stop thinking so much," Kori remanded. Halle could think of so many 'not thinking, like you' jokes to jib at her mom's light-headedness that she thought her brain might explode. But Halle had to admit, for all of her mother's vices of forgetfulness and clumsiness and general weirdness, Halle was impressed when she learned about her mom's superhero alter-ego. And for all of her vices, her mom could use her super strength and Halle could not. But she should. She could. She will.

Halle didn't even remember making a move. Her body must have reacted on instinct, but before her was a plank of wood, shattered into two and her mom stumbling back a few steps at the strength of the strike.

"You did it! Glorious!"

"I—I did it," Halle repeated.

"Can you do it again?" asked Kori with a grin, holding another board. It took Halle three tries to break it, perhaps because the shock of he first victory had distracted her. The next board took two tries and soon she broke the remainder of the boards in one or two attempts, as long she left her consciousness slip into that little area where, instead of forcing herself to think she could do it, she simply believed that she could.

He knocked on Alex's bedroom door and received a grunt in response. Dick took it as, "come in." He opened the door to see Alex pounding furiously away on his keyboard.

"Careful, your gonna break that," said Dick, the slightest edge of a joke on his tone.

"It's catharsis," Alex muttered in response. "…What do you want?"

"I wanted to talk to you," said Dick, sitting on the edge of his son's bed.

Alex swiveled in his chair to give his father an unperturbed stare. "Can't say that feeling is mutual."

"Alexander." His tone was warning,

Ales rolled his eyes. "That stopped working on me when I was like ten."

"Look," said Dick, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "I want to say sorry."

Alex narrowed his eyes. "For what?"

"For upsetting you earlier."

"No good," said Alex, swiveling back to face his computer.

Dick sighed a loud and exasperated sigh. "What do you mean 'no good'?"

"I mean that," said Alex, not even turning to face his father as he spoke, "Me getting upset was not the problem…it was the result."

"Result? Result of what…oh."

"Finally pieced it together, did you?"

"I know we don't have the best relationship—"

"Duh. You expect me to be like your perfect first-born, Halle."

"You guys are twins"

"Trying telling her that."
"Is that really what you think? Do you really think that I believe Halle's perfect, and you're not?"

Alex stopped typing. His head bowed a little bit. He felt his father's gaze on the back of his neck.

"You do, don't you? That's how it is. You said it yourself. Wrong. Wrong. You're not trying. Why can't you do it, Halle can…"

"Oh…oh my, I never meant to…I can't believe that I did that too…" Alex was forced to turn to see his father sounding so remorseful and…he couldn't describe it…

"Did what too?" asked Alex with baited breath, watching his father look up from where he had been tiredly rubbing his brow with his hands.

"I know what it's like to never think you'll be good enough because of expectations someone holds you up to."

"Who?...you mean Uncle Bruce?"

"More Batman than Bruce…if it is possible to separate the two…Alex, I really need to apologize."

"You're a smart kid. I know you are and I want you to know that I am proud of you for that. I haven't told you that often. I guess I just assumed that if you pick up all this crazy computer stuff so fast that you could get the athletic stuff that fast too. I was wrong."

"You were," Alex bit in response. Finally his dad was admitting his faults. "But…why don't we try again tomorrow. Alright?"

Dick stood and ruffled Alex's hair, earning him a glare. "You're a good kid…Is that Yale?" he asked as he caught a glimpse of the computer screen. "Did you hack into Yale's mainframe?"

"Dad, the Ivy League is child's play…want to enroll?"

"You can hack into Yale but you can't remember a few Judo moves…"

"Dad!"

"I'm kidding…a little bit."

"Um…Mom?"

"Yes?" Halle and Kori were cleaning up the pieces of splintered wood off the gym floor together.

"I was kinda wondering …why do you talk weird the way you do…?"

"I know I mess words up sometimes. I have had to be very careful since I started living as Kori rather than Starfire…"

"That's not an answer to my question," Halle pointed out.

"I know. But it's funny. When I first came to earth I never used to realize how strangely I spoke. Only when I didn't understand things or mixed them up and lead to very embarrassing situations…not for me, usually for your father…"

Halle chuckled. "Yeah, but how come it hasn't gotten better after all these years. Shouldn't you have picked it up better?"

"I didn't learn English the ways an earthling would learn a…um…foreign language."

"How did you learn it?" asked Halle, strangely curious.

"Well, Tameranians can transmit knowledge through lip contact…"

"Like kissing?!"

Kori nodded.

"Wow, I should start making out with smart guys. Maybe chemistry would get easier…Jeez, I really want that power."

"Really?"

"Yeah...it's cool."

"…That's also the story between mine and your dad's first kiss…"

"Nu—uh!"

Although genetics had failed to pass on his father's shape-shifting abilities, Kaden was still blessed with animal-like sensitive hearing. That is how he could clearly hear his parent's hushed debate in the kitchen while he sat behind his closed bedroom door.

"We've been through this before. He's too young."

"No, he's not."

"He just turned fifteen."

"So were we. I was in the superhero business years younger than that," Gar protested lightly.

"It's different."

"How?"

"It just is…He's my son…your son. It's too dangerous," reasoned Raven.

"But if he's with us."

"It will still be dangerous."

"What if we take him on the easy ones to start?"

"Easy ones? There is no 'easy ones.' Even a first time mugger with knife can be deadly."

"I know, Rae, I do. I really do. But the more we try to keep him out, the more he wants to get in. It would be better if he was with us than running out on his own."

'Good point,' conceded Kaden in his head. Maybe this would make Mom see reason.

"Even if he is as old as we were…," said Raven. "He can barely control his powers."

Kaden winced. 'Barely control,' was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Kaden would have preferred 'challenged with his powers.'

"…That's true, but...we can't hold him out much longer."

"He's not ready."

"He's not or you're not?"

Reviews=Happiness of authoress=Surge of inspiration=Faster updates