Chapter 9

The next day crane woke up in Titan Tower rather pleased with the world as it currently was, he had had a most enjoyable night last night at the coffee house/library place in midtown with Raven and today was the day he would set out into the city and build himself a brand new base of operations, first he would have to pick up one of his many emergency funds, then sort out some kind of residence ( or evil lair, whichever was more readily available) and then get to work on some kind of plan to take this pitiful city. Along the way he will check in with the titans, it pays to know ones enemies and as far as they were concerned Jack White was now a good friend of the team. It had to be said he did rather enjoy his time here, seeing how the good guys lived their lives and when it came down to it they were little more than teenagers living together and fighting crime. He had had fun temporarily taking part in it, apart from the one occasion where Cyborg dragged him into playing something the green one called "Stank Ball"… Never again.

Crane promptly got dressed, helped himself to an apple from the kitchen and set out to the Docks of TItan city. As he wandered the streets searching for the right place he found himself a in the middle of a moral dilemma, after last night he was starting to almost think of Raven as an equal, a Confidante or maybe even a friend, but he couldn't afford to think like that… sooner or later he was going to have to one by one knock the titans into the dirt, and that Included Raven. It sucked but in the end it was what he was going to have to do if he wanted to show this city the true meaning of the word fear. The closest these walking pies of scum had ever come to it before was most likely a cheesy horror movie… Pathetic.

"Here was the place" thought Crane to himself as he found himself in the rundown train city for the Metropolis- Gotham expressway which runs through a bunch of smaller towns along the way, including Titan city and Blűdhaven. The train was seldom used by most people because they all thought the other cities down the tracks were crime infested cesspits, they were all correct. He walked up to the information booth on the far side of the station and tapped the glass loudly to wake the rather overweight middle aged man dozing in the booth, who grunted and awoke with a jolt, he looked rather surprised to see a man like Crane, in a borrowed 3 piece suit in this part of town. "Yeah? Whaddy'ya wan'?" asked the man abruptly. Ignoring both the rudeness of the man and the large mustard stain on his shirt Crane politely replied "ah yes, I rent one of the lockers here long term and I was wandering if you had a spare key for locker 115?"

"You got I.D?"

"I'm afraid not, will a signature do?" replied Crane. The man grunted loudly, got to his feet and opened a filing cabinet until he took out a folder labelled "115". "Match the signature on this file and recite your security phrase and you can have the key" Informed the man curtly, obviously still pissed off at having his nap ruined. "Ok… here's the signature" said Crane handing the scrawled on sheet back to the man, "and my security phrase is Ophelia"

"Ophelia Ophelia …. Ahhh here it is" mumbled the man ruffling through the papers "here, it's all yours; just bring the key back when you're done."

I will. Thank you" replied Crane already walking towards the locker and opening it to find two large gym bags which he quickly retrieved, lifted them one over each shoulder, returned the key and asked if the man would be so kind as to call him a cab. Time to go shopping.

Crane didn't pay attention to a word the man driving the cab said on the drive to downtown, his mind had wandered off again, this time to the coffee shop last night where Raven and him talked from what must have been midnight until dawn about everything and anything, turned out they had a lot in common, They liked the same food, the same music and after the hot chocolate they even found out they have their tea the same way. It was uncanny. It almost made him sad to know that friendship with her will be impossible the second he starts getting to work. Still….

His train of thought was interrupted as the cab stopped outside of a large block of apartments. "That'll be £22.50"said the cab driver, holding his hand out expectantly, Crane grinned at this and opened one of the two gym bags to reveal to himself and the driver that it was stacked to the brim with money, just as the other was, the drivers wide grew as large as dinner plates as crane skimmed one note off the top of one of the stacks and handed it to the driver with a big, smug grin "got change for a hundred" he asked innocently

"B… B… B….Buddy if I had change for $100 do you honestly think I'd be doing a triple shift?!"

"So that's a no then? Fair enough. Keep the change and enjoy your day off" smiled Crane as he left the cab. "Gee thanks mister, hey! Hey! You ever need a cab again ask the company for Sal alright?"

Crane had come to this apartment block because the night before on the way to the café he noticed that there was a sign saying the penthouse was for sale, the building looked pleasant enough so it will do for at least a temporary accommodation. He went up to the front desk and he said he was he about the vacancy and within minutes a very excitable and possibly homosexual man came bounding down the stairs to greet him and show him around. The apartment was beautiful with a view of half the city and even Titan Tower, it had plenty of room even came with a private garage kind of space compartment in the basement which could be the perfect place for him to cook up some of his fear gas. Crane immediately walked down to reception said to the receptionist he will take it, handed her $200,000 in hundred dollar bills (the process of which the receptionist counted these took about 10 minutes and half the contents of one of the gym bags) The receptionist was obviously very surprised by this method of payment but thought nothing of it, why would she? She was a trust fund daughter who was completely illiterate in the actions of criminals. She handed him the keys and wished him a pleasant day.

Now came the bit Crane was dreading, furniture… Crane hated the idea of going shopping for that crap alone as he really didn't have much of a clue about these sort of things and not much of an idea about what he even liked where that was concerned. Sitting on the floor of his new living room he had a very bad idea, he went down to the lobby and used the payphone to ring Raven on a number she had given him last night apon learning of his plans to move out.

30 seconds later Raven's cool voice came from the receiver "White?"

After taking a second to remember his ruse Crane grinned and replied " How did you know it was me?"

"Simple, the only other people who have this number are in the Tower, It's a slow afternoon. Starfire and Robin are loudly doing things to each other that are illegal in most countries, Beastboy is trying to give Cyborg a Mohawk or something equally stupid and I'm reading and talking to you. What do you want?" Asked Raven in an amused tone.

"What do you mean what do I want?" asked Crane frowning.

" Well you seem to be the kind of guy who does everything for a reason so I'm guessing you were gonna ask me something, you were right?"

"Well… yeah actually, listen I could do with a hand with my new apartment, do you fancy going shopping?"