Stranger From the Sky, chapter 9: Wisdom

I do not own the Teen Titans. If I did, the original animated series would still be ongoing, rather than the abomination currently being shown on the Cartoon Network.

Wisdom

Athena was once again kneeling in her room, trying to sort out these strange (to her) feelings, when there was another knock on the door. "Enter."

It was the little humanoid girl, the one who'd been so extensively modified by Thinker technology, the one they called Angelique. Athena wondered why she was here. Did she just desire to see the freak, the mutation? "Miss Athena? I'm Angelique. Well, my real name's Maria," the immature one said, smiling, "but everybody calls me Angelique. I, I wanted to, to meet you. I mean, Mr. Omega's told us so much about you…."

So. She had come to see the freak. Athena crossed her arms, splotches of silver appearing on her cheeks. "Well, here I am. Observe me all you wish."

"But…but I wanted to meet you. Mr. Omega's told us so much about you, what a great warrior you were, back on Osira or wherever it is you came from, how you were such a fierce fighter, saving people's lives, always obeying your orders, how smart you were, how much he respected you, looked up to you. I think he kinda liked you, if you know what I mean. But I mean, he told us there was no one in the entire empire he felt like he could count on, more than you. He said you were even smarter than some of the Thinkers, and I know how smart they are; I live with them. And he said what a nice person you are. So, so I wanted to, to meet you….." she trailed off.

Athena was staring, eyes wider than they'd ever been since her arrival on this strange world. Was the child joking? Had she really been that misinformed? "I believe your information is….somewhat out of date." She looked down at the floor. "I seem to be not a very nice person at all, if I understand the definition correctly."

Angelique sobered, and sat down in front of her, in a perfect mimicry of Athena's own heel-sitting stance. "What do you mean?"

Athena sighed. It was not in warrior nature to lie, anyway. So for the next half hour, she related her actions since awakening here on this strange world, her attempt (and desire) to kill Omega, her embarrassing of Raven (though she omitted the exact details of the event; she'd come to understand that immature humans were not to be exposed to information regarding the reproductive process, although why, she didn't exactly know), her falling in with the H.I.V.E. Five, her part in the bank robbery, and finally, her desire to kill the one known as Blackfire. That urge had faded, for some reason, to be replaced by some feeling she really didn't know how to describe. But she related how the one known as Omega had commanded her, not once, but twice, to cease activities she was prepared to engage in, and her doubts about his true status. "So you see," she sighed, "I appear to be not quite the 'nice person' you were led to believe."

Angelique was silent for a long time. Athena was waiting for her to get up and leave, obviously disgusted at this abject failure at pretty much everything she'd tried to do, here on Earth. "So perhaps your time would be better spent around someone more….successful at…living. In general. I don't seem to be much of a success at anything at all."

"Miss Athena? Can I tell you about how it was with me? Would you mind listening to that?" Athena nodded; after all, she certainly had nothing better to do. And anything she tried, she'd probably just mess up. Again. "When I first was adopted by the Thinkers-they call themselves the Kindred, now, by the way-I made myself much stronger, more able to change. As powerful as I could be. I wanted to find my mother, I wanted us to be a family again, like we used to be. I….I thought if I could find those men who took me from her, that I'd kill them, get her back, and we'd all go back to being the way things used to be." She thought. "And I'd be sitting in the kitchen right now, eating cocoa pebbles, bacon, and scrambled eggs, getting ready to go watch 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', or 'Spider-man,' or something like that, on TV." She shrugged. "I mean, it's Saturday morning, an' that's when all the coolest cartoons come on."

"And…I have to admit: if I were to find those men today, I'm not sure what I'd do. Mr. Robin says Titans don't kill, but I'd sure want to kill them. After all, they took my mother from me. They deserve death.

"But in the process of looking for them, I did something bad. I started working for a man they called Slade, who was a bad man. He had me rob a bank, too, but it was just to draw the Titans out into an open battle. He wanted me to kill them, to kill them all, so he could take over the city, only he didn't tell me that part. He said they were bad people. But he lied to me.

"And he had my pet dog, Charlie. He'd put nanoprobes in Charlie, so that if I disobeyed him or left him for some reason, Charlie would get instantly sick, and get sicker, so I'd have to come back to him. It was to control me. It took Father Alpha, who finally figured it out, to get the nanoprobes out of Charlie without hurting him.

"But I guess my point is, I got lied to, too. And I robbed a bank, and even destroyed a pizza place downtown, trying to kill Mr. Beast Boy. I would have, too, if the Orb hadn't teleported him out of there before I could.

"Sometimes we do bad things because we don't know any better, or because somebody's lied to us. But it doesn't make you a bad person. Just a person who did something bad. And that same person can do something good, too. You just gotta learn the difference. Sometimes, if you're not familiar with things, new stuff an' all, that takes some time to learn, is all I'm saying."

Athena stared in shock. How had one so young become so…wise? And, and perhaps she was right. She'd made mistakes, to be sure, but that didn't mean she had to keep on making mistakes…."Tell me, child. Is this Slade person alive?"

Angelique dropped her gaze. "No. Miss Kitten says he's dead."

"Good." Because if not, he soon would be. The focal point of her formet, the odd head-band looking arrangement that was both natural and not, on the middle of her forehead glowed slightly, and twisted into strange patterns: spirals, moiré shapes and more, less understandable shapes. "And what of these men who took you from your mother?"

Angelique shook her head. "I don't know. I've been trying to find them now for a couple of years, but so far, I haven't been able to."

"Perhaps I can help, if the others will let me." And if I find them first…..I just might have a little fun.

"Oh, thank you, Miss Athena! You really are a nice person. I think maybe you just made some bad decisions. It's really easy to do. It's just that there's so many bad decisions a person can make, it's really easy to make one." And she threw her arms around Athena in the human gesture of a hug, which Athena found herself responding to, hugging the child back, actually smiling. Neither one of them had to hold back much; Angelique was nearly as strong as an Osiran warrior, but Athena nonetheless restrained herself some. But if I find those men who took you from your mother, child, you might not think I'm all that nice. No, not nice at all.

….

Omega had summoned Robin to his room. When he arrived, he was unsurprised to find Kitten there, both of them sitting on the reinforced bed made especially for the Osiran's greater body mass. "Robin. I have come to a decision." Robin was immediately on high alert; Kitten didn't look too happy with his decision, whatever it was, and that boded ill….

"I know you ordered me to stay away from Athena, and I promised to do so. But I find I must end this matter now. I can no long go on with this, this insanity between us. No matter how it ends, I must go confront her regarding her hostility towards me, and, one way or another, end it." He saw Robin's expression; Robin saw Kitten's. None of them liked what they saw.

"You realize this will probably result in another battle royal, don't you? Are you prepared to let her kill you? Or are you prepared to kill her?"

"I will not kill her; I am her friend. But this has to come to an end. It is…tearing me up, inside." Kitten looked positively miserable. "I tried to talk him out of it, Rob, but….."

"Well, Omega, I don't suppose it'd do any good for me to order you not to, but I think it's a bad idea. What we've got so far isn't perfect—far from it—but it seems to work, albeit poorly. I can't dissuade you from this?"

"No, Robin. We must—what's the human expression?—thrash this out, somehow. It may well be her own emotions are at the root of all her negative behavior; if we can work past that, perhaps things will improve for her. For us all."

"Very well." And he moved out the door, out of the room, all the while celling the other Titans to be ready; things were about to blow higher than up.

As Omega passed out of the room, Kitten took his arm, and put her arms around his neck, drawing his head down towards her. "I'm glad we had…tonight. At least."

He kissed her tenderly. "We will have other times, other nights. I came back to you from beyond death itself. I'll come back to you from this, too. Mark my words."

She smiled a lopsided smile. "You realize, of course, that I'm gonna hold you to that."

"Holding sounds nice." He kissed her again, and turned and resolutely walked down the hallway. Kitten's tears flowed down her face, so certain was she that she'd just said goodbye to the only man she'd ever really love…..

To be continued…..?