Chapter 3
Albatross remained silent, unsure of what to say and if he should say it. How could he explain why he'd stolen the vortex regulator without any of them getting upset? How could he tell them how sick of it all he was? They wouldn't understand, they never did. Baring his teeth, he barked, "It's none of your concern."
"None of our Concern?" Nightstar shouted, her sharp tone echoing throughout the alleyway they were in, shattering the silence of the night. "You break into Titan's tower, attack us, and send us God knows where, and it's none of our concern?"
"Yep," he knew the instant he'd said it he was going to pay. Her fist connected with his cheek and he fell to the ground, his head knocking against the pavement.
"Mari, stop!" Ibis cried, stepping between her friend and her brother.
"No, I'm done listening to you stand up for him. He's done nothing but cause problems for the team," she growled.
"Don't you think I know that?" Albatross stood, glaring down at her.
"You don't act like it," Nightstar retorted.
"Guys, please," Powerhouse interjected, only to be brushed aside.
"Tell me why you brought us here, now," Nightstar ordered.
"I didn't bring you here, you followed me!"
"Then why did you come here?"
"It's none of your concern!"
"Enough!" Ibis huffed, grabbing her quarreling friends in cocoons of dark energy. "This is not the time to argue. We need to figure where we are."
"More like 'when' we are," Powerhouse muttered, picking up a newspaper from the ground. "This is dated oh-six."
"But that's -"
"Seventeen years ago," Albatross finished his sister's sentence when she let them go. He took off his cape and rolled it up, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, with a silver studded belt around his hips. Holding the cape like a coat, he began walking out into the midnight streets, trying to figure out where they were.
"Where are you going?" Nightstar hissed, following.
"Looking around. We need to find somewhere to sleep. I dropped the vortex regulator sometime in the near future, so we need to wait for it to pop out again," he secretly added, so that you guys can go back.
"Who knows how long that'll be," Ibis moaned. "We could be stuck here for years!"
"Then we should contact our parents in the morning," Soren commanded, walking across the street into Central Park. They were on the south side, where there were tons of playground equipment scattered around.
"Are you insane? Not to sound like a TV special, but doing that could drastically alter history!"Nightstar exclaimed.
"So? We can change it for the better, then," Soren crawled into one of the toy tunnels, laying his head down as if ready to sleep. Nightstar kicked it, causing an annoyed grimace from the boy.
"How? Everything's fine the way it is," she retorted.
"For you, maybe. You're the only child of a rich family, you were born with it easy," he shrugged. "We should get some sleep, we'll need to move before eight or the police'll catch us. And you should probably find something else to wear, you'll draw attention to yourselves."
They looked down at themselves, realizing they were still in their hero attire. However, with it being too late to do anything, the children found areas to sleep in the cold open air. Ibis crawled in on the opposite side of the tunnel, laying her head near her brother's. Nightstar flew up and laid inside the enclosed jungle-gym, while Powerhouse crashed underneath it.
"Well, on the bright side, School doesn't start for seventeen years," Powerhouse chuckled, closing his eyes. The others grunted, angry and tired.
:::
She felt his hand nudge her softly, the mist and dew waking her senses to the uncomfortable world around her. Cold, Wet, and irritable, she bat the hand away and shrouded her eyes from the morning light. Soren patted her again, this time a bit harder. She groaned and rolled over, the plastic hard on her back. His fingers dug beneath her hair and gently tickled behind her ear like their mother used to. She squirmed away and opened her eyes, seeing him smile as he said softly, "C'mon Em, gotta wake up."
She gazed out the holes of the play tunnel, rubbing her eyes to shake away the sleep still settled within them. Soren crawled out and stood by Nightstar and Powerhouse, who had already put on regular clothing. When she went over to them, she wrapped her cloak around her tightly to combat the chilly air. Soren handed her a bundle of clothes that smelled like must and mothballs.
He read her like a book, and answered before she could ask, "Got 'em from a garage sale, a little bit north of here. Wasn't much out, though."
"When did you get them?" she asked.
"Just a little bit before you guys woke up," he shrugged. "Go get changed in the bathrooms. We'll grab a bite to eat when you're done."
"I'll come with you," Mari offered, despite already being dressed in a black and pink graphic T-shirt and skinny jeans. The bathroom was up the hill and around the corner of a copse of trees, out of earshot of the boys. When they were entering the building, Mari asked, "So, any idea what's going on with your brother?"
"No clue," Ember sighed, not wanting to talk about it. She entered one of the stalls and began throwing on the dark purple t-shirt and cargo pants over top of her hero clothes. They were big on her, but snug enough to stay up, so she didn't complain. She held onto her cloak like it was a coat as her brother did.
"We need to keep an eye on him. He brought us here for a reason, and I'm not about to forget that he blatantly attacked us," Mari growled, clearly hyped about the matter.
"He didn't bring us here on purpose," Ember pointed out, emerging from the stall. "I'm sure he's got a good reason, too. But we need to let him come to us about it; otherwise we may never get an answer at all."
"I have a bad feeling about all of this," the other girl hissed quietly. "I've been wondering if Soren's – defecting."
"My brother isn't turning evil," Ember spat, exiting the building. Mari took the hint and remained silent. They walked back to the boys who had been discussing where to eat. Soren wanted somewhere with coffee, while Desmond wanted to find a hot meal. The older boy argued that he didn't have enough money for four meals, but could get four drinks.
"Then how are we supposed to eat?" Desmond grumbled, rubbing his stomach.
"We don't," the older boy scowled.
"We also need to remember that everything we do anymore has consequences," Mari stated, sitting down beside Desmond on the play equipment.
"Didn't it before? We just believe that we know how the future's supposed to be like right now," Soren retorted.
"We do know what the future's supposed to be like. We can't go around like it's our time, we need to calculate everything we do here," Mari pointed out.
"But we also need to survive. What if we died here? Think of how that would change things," Desmond replied.
"He's right," Soren nodded. "Besides, how do we know that what we do here wasn't supposed to happen in the first place? What if we don't do something we were supposed to, and change the future that way?"
"Well – it doesn't matter, we should still be careful what we do. I mean, what if we accidentally stop one of us from being born?" Mari protested, and Soren smiled darkly at that thought.
"You raise a good point," Ember interjected.
"Why don't we just settle on doing only what is necessary to survive?" Soren sighed. "We only have to wait for the vortex regulator to pop up again, and that shouldn't take too long."
"But how will we know where it'll end up? How can we be sure nobody else will find it before us?" Desmond pondered.
They all thought about it a moment. Mari was about to retort when their conversation was put to a stop by a loud commotion from across the street. Smoke and cries of surprise wafted over and the teens jumped to combat the danger. Desmond was already unzipping his gray hoodie to reveal his Powerhouse costume, and Soren had donned his smoky colored cloak. When Mari finally had time to think, she cried out, "Stop! We need to stay out of it."
The others looked at her surprised. "We need to let our parents handle it," she explained. As if on cue, Starfire, Raven, and a green pterodactyl soared overhead towards the fray. The T-car whizzed past down the road, turning a corner and zooming out of sight towards the action.
"Hey, let's follow!" Desmond called, dashing across the grass.
"Wait!" Mari huffed. "It's too dangerous!"
"Bah! When have we ever gotten the chance to see our parents in action? This is a once in a lifetime event!" Soren called, dashing after the other boy.
"Boys will be boys," Ember grinned, taking off after the two.
Is it just me, or is Soren actually happy? Mari thought before following the others. "Hey, wait up!"
:::
Smoke billowed from the broken windows of the bank, bags of money hopping through the broken windows like an animated monopoly set. Various doves and rabbits scattered themselves as they fled from the scene, as objects threatened to smash them as they came to life. The sight reminded the time-traveling teens of a distorted circus, which could only have been conducted by one villain: Mumbo Jumbo.
"Whoa, I thought this guy was just some joke?" Desmond murmured when they joined the small crowd of people who had actually stuck around. The T-car was parked outside, while the Titans were inside. Since most of the fumes had wafted into the air shortly after the vault had been blown open, they had been able to enter it safely.
"Nope, he's real. Still a joke, though," Soren murmured, watching with interest.
Robin had just swung his bow-staff down towards Mumbo's head, who dodged and waved his wand, transforming the stick into a snake. When the teen wonder had collapsed with the snake coiled around his arms, a large T-rex scooped the magician off his feet and into a wall with his tail. Starfire rained star-bolts onto the man's head, causing dust to shroud him. From his spot as a bystander, Soren could see Mumbo roll away while the others assumed him in the same spot.
Mumbo tried to sneak away, but a beam of sonic energy knocked him back into the fray. Dark energy more potent than the future duo swept up the pathetic clown in a hooked claw before tossing him at the feet of a charging green ox.
"Way to go Dad," Ember whispered beside Soren, and he smiled when he saw the light in her eyes. Mumbo was tossed between the Titans like a rag-doll before he collapsed in the center of the battlefield. He thrust up his arms, ready to be cuffed, eyes pleading for mercy. Policemen surged in and arrested him, others collecting the bags of money that had collapsed in the street once Mumbo stopped feeding them magic.
"Makes you wonder why they gave it all up," Mari remarked from behind Soren. Her parents hadn't given up heroism as quickly as his parents had. In fact, they hadn't retired until she was seven.
"It was me," Soren confessed.
"Don't be like that," she scolded him softly, watching him deflate. Was his self esteem really that low?
He shrugged. "It's true. Mom got pregnant with me towards the end of May, and the team split up in June."
"But, It's May now," Desmond whispered, careful of the people around him.
"I know," Soren growled, stalking down the street. The others followed, wary of how easily he was shifting moods. Mari narrowed her eyes as she tried to piece together what that meant.
They walked in silence as Soren led them to a small coffee shop with a view of Titan's Tower from the front. They each had a small black coffee and sat outside where they were alone. Soren glanced at the small amount of change in his hands; all that was left from the usable money he'd had.
"So what now?" Ember asked, sitting beside him at the round patio table. Mari shrugged, plopping down on her right while Desmond took the remaining seat.
"We figure out what to do for food and shelter," Soren pledged glumly.
"One of us could get a job," Desmond offered.
"No, whatever job we get is destined for somebody else. We can't afford risking something that big," Mari countered.
"How? A job's a job, isn't it?" Desmond frowned.
"Suppose one of us gets a job at - - this coffee shop, for instance," Mari explained. "And say that job was supposed to go to somebody from this time period. Maybe that job was the reason he was able to keep his house, or he meets some girl he was supposed to marry. By taking that job, we take the life somebody was supposed to have."
"She's got a point," Soren said as he swallowed some of the cheap coffee.
"What about a soup kitchen?" Ember piped up.
The older children thought about it. "I suppose we can't screw up too much with that," Mari pondered.
"It's free, but we'd need to be careful or somebody might think we're runaways," Desmond nodded. "I don't wanna try to explain that one."
"I don't think we could explain it," the other boy agreed. "Worse comes to worse, we beg."
"Or both," Ember frowned.
"The final option," Soren swallowed, "is to go to our parents."
"No," Mari growled.
He glanced at her, but continued onward. "We don't have to tell them who we are. We just need to say that we need help getting back to our own time. They're the only ones who can find the vortex regulator once it pops up again, or make a new one."
"And what if they remember us in the future, which I'm sure they will, how will we explain that we time-traveled without permission?" Mari challenged, standing up and getting into his face.
"We lie. We say that somebody like Steel-Swordsman or Villainelle broke into the tower and tried to steal it. During the battle, the regulator was activated, and we got sucked into the past," Soren finished his coffee and tossed it into a nearby garbage can.
"You can't possibly think that'll work," Mari huffed.
"Sure it will, so long as we keep it as close to the original story as possible. Besides, I doubt they're going to remember," he leaned back and closed his eyes, appearing much too at ease for Mari's liking.
"Then why don't we just tell the truth? I mean, it's because of you that this happened in the first place!" she exclaimed.
"Fine, if they ask us about it, we tell them the truth," he stared at her coolly with his cerulean eyes. "Otherwise we say nothing."
"Care to enlighten us on what you actually were doing?" she challenged.
"No," he smiled smugly. He enjoyed setting her off.
"God, you're insufferable," Mari muttered, slumping back down into her seat.
"So, should we put it to a vote?" Desmond ventured to ask.
"Whoever wants to stay on the streets, say 'Aye,'" Soren declared.
Only Mari responded, and she turned to the younger teens. "Oh, come on guys, really?"
"Sorry," Desmond threw his hands in front of him. "But I think Soren's right."
"Yeah, I trust him," Ember added, looking up at her brother. He smirked sadly, knowing her faith in him was misplaced.
"It's settled then, we'll contact the Titans," Soren stood, leading them towards the bay.
"Wait!" Mari called after him, "How are we going to do this? What are we going to say?"
"Just trust me," he replied. Everything was back on track.