A New Guardian
A Teen Titans FanFiction by drsonicfan
Opening Notes: I have just finished my recent exams, so I'll be able to return to writing right now. Thanks for taking the time to read this. This chapter is dedicated to Nilion Unlustig (thanks for helping me out with Guardian), do go and check out her work. It really is brilliant!
(And as-per-usual.) Standard disclaimers apply. I do not own The Teen Titans or any DC characters, but my own hero belongs to me.
Chapter 6: Allied
Raven was able to appear just in time as SAS units began to move in. She got hold of Kid Flash and put his left arm round her head for support and Superboy was carrying Speedy like a baby as she teleported back to the tower.
To be precise, the medical room where Robin and Cyborg were waiting. Usually Raven or anybody else with healing powers would be able to tend to wounds during and after battles. Unfortunately, those would be considered minor injuries. Stuff like being shot and knocked unconscious took more time, and more of her energy to heal. So, in preparation for those occasions, every Titan was to be taught an extensive first aid course, and a medical room was a standard for each Tower to preserve a healer's energy and to treat anyone that ever got a severe injury during battle. Not to mention, most Titans' mentors in teams such as: The Justice League or the Doom Patrol would never approve of them going around fighting without good medical precautions.
It took quicker than it should have to get the tubes in and the heart monitors set up. During that time, Robin vigorously questioned Superboy on their attack and how did their injuries happened. When Superboy first mentioned the name "Guardian" both Raven and Cyborg noticed the tick in their leader's eye. They expected to have him obsessing over him and become much more violent in his interrogation, but to their surprise he kept his professionalism and only asked about him when it mattered.
Cyborg had taken x-rays of Kid Flash, which caused Robin to open up a new line of questions, "Have you assessed their injuries?" He spoke loudly looking at the unmasked face of one of his best friends.
"Yeah once, when I was checking Wally's broken hand. But that was when we thought we had the fight won first time, but afterwards no. I didn't possibly have the time to do that in battle or afterwards when I was trying to prepare for evac." Superboy gave him a glare, "You don't do that either-"
"-Actually I do. Maybe I can't assess the full damage, but from that I can certainly see if certain injuries can prevent anyone from continuing."
Cyborg looked to Superboy, "So, you only used your advanced sights once?"
"Like I said, I did not have the time."
"Well you could have checked through any of them quickly. 'Cause you could have also been able to help see the person you were fighting." Cyborg walked over to Speedy.
It never occurred to him before. Superboy wondered who or what if he fighting throughout the battle. If he had seen through his x-ray vision (or any other type) at any point he could have been able to seen who he was fighting. He felt like he wanted to kick himself for doing such a routine mistake. He hoped that Robin didn't pick up on that-
"That was a routine mistake." Robin pointed towards him.
-He hung his head and sighed, "Give me a break, it's not like I would've remembered his face anyway."
"Bullshit. If you were that obsessed in beating him, then you would have loved to known his identity." Robin leaned forward over Wally's limp body to get in the Kryptonian's face.
Conner leaned forward and levelled his glare with their both pairs of eyes only inches away from each other, "Are you telling me this because of good leadership? Or have you finally learnt from experience, Dick?"
"Stop it!" Raven just barely raised her usual monotone voice and came inbetween both of them, forcing them apart with her hands, "Now really isn't the time for arguing. If you are going to stay in this room, then help us out with your injured team-mates."
The two stared at each other, daring the other to continue. Neither of them spoke for a while, making Robin look away from Superboy and over to his injured friends lying still with a look of hope and sadness, "Conner, do you have any injuries?"
Superboy looked over to the red and yellow clad heroes and started to blame himself inside for the state Roy and Wally were in, "N-no. I'll just go outside until they heal on their own." He spoke quietly and in the same tone Robin's voice was.
Cyborg shot up urgently and turned to Robin, his face gave the impression that the news he was going to give was not a story of a miraculous recovery, "Not good."
"How bad is it?" Robin walked and stood right beside him.
Cyborg swiped a hand over his forehead, "Roy is definitely going to need a blood transfusion urgently, he's lost probably over a pint of blood, not to mention he has also broken several ribs and the bullet went straight through his shoulder, so he may have bits of broken bone in the surrounding area."
"And Wally?"
"Several broken ribs, broken, dislocated and sprained fingers and possible internal bleeding. But, that's not all..."
Cyborg said in such a way that Dick started to get worried, "What is it?"
The mechanical man struggled to speak, "Wally is... well... I-I-I just don't know what to say."
Robin reassuringly put his green gloved hand on his friend's back, "Cy, we need to know."
Cyborg breathed air in slowly and cleared his throat, "Wally may have brain damage." He spoke just above a whisper.
The room became eerily quiet for a moment; a moment that seemed to be going on forever. Only the beeps of the heart monitors could be heard as everyone struggled to take in the news, even Raven who was never really ever on the best of terms with Wally and was rarely seen showing such emotions as happiness; felt like a bullet had just came out nowhere and hit her in the head.
It took a while for Robin to pull himself together to even utter a sound, "...well...erm...We'll do whatever we can. Whatever it takes to pull him through..." What bothered him most was that they didn't know yet how bad Wally's condition was. He always hopes for the best and this was no exception, but it was that "may" that put him on the edge and made him fear for the worst.
Superboy was the most distraught though. His throat was choking up and he was killing himself in his head, he just wanted the Earth to just open up and swallow him, "...I'll leave you t-to help him...I'm just g-g-gonna go onto the roof if that's alr-r-right." He mumbled to Robin as he headed to the door, stopping as it opened. Dick didn't turn around to face him but he nodded as a way of allowing him to leave, a way of telling him that he didn't want to see him for a while, and as a way of letting Conner be alone with his own dark thoughts.
Conner walked down the corridor to the left to get the elevator up to the roof, but stopped as the door swished open. He stood there waiting for Robin to let everything inside of him loose on him and he even felt a tear beginning to form in his eye. He felt that he deserved everything coming to him.
"Hey, man." A more calm voice instead spoke as the door closed.
Conner didn't turned round mainly to hide his tear and also to just because he wanted be left alone, "Hey. What is it?"
"It's just to say I have shirts in my room that might fit you. I don't usually wear them, but they're there just in case."
The simple nice gesture caught him off-guard and it nearly made him smile, but he knew it just wasn't the time for that and he turned and walked ahead as the elevator doors parted, "Thanks Cy."
"And also if you're going up, Dick wants you to get help from upstairs from people who can help us like Karen."
Superboy nodded slowly. He felt that he was getting others to clean up his mess.
"One more thing." Cyborg's voice rose, "It wasn't your fault."
Superboy turned and raised his head a little bit, not enough for Cyborg to fully make out his face entirely.
But he knew that he didn't need to know what he was thinking or what his face would tell him.
The elevator doors closed without uttering a sound as it took the Kryptonian up the building. It left Cyborg in the corridor only with him and his thoughts. "It wasn't your fault" kept replaying in his mind over and over again. He knew that Conner was destructive and wreckless, but not to the extreme where he would endanger one of his friends; he firmly believed that what happened to Wally and Roy was not due to him.
He went back to the medical room after some time alone to ponder. The deafening silence of the corridor suited the emotions to reactions of the news that broke out. In one way it seemed like its own realm of despair.
For the next few hours, Wally West's condition was up in the air.
Multiple broken ribs, severe damage to the exterior of the suit, internal bleeding, severe concussion, exterior facial recognition dots and microphone in need of immediate repair, whiplash, second degree burns, broken nose, multiple broken and sprained fingers, and arrow wounds.
To name a few. That's what Dennis could remember from the analysis on the damager from his interface computer post battle.
It had been over an hour and a half since the fight had ended outside the embassy and Dennis was in the MI6 HQ sitting, helmet off, outside on a leather bench just a few metres from a room guarded by two highly armed guards with SA-80 assaults rifles where inside the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the respective heads of MI5 and MI6, the Intelligence Minister, The Home Secretary, The Foreign Secretary, the Director Special Forces, generals, admirals and air marshals of: The RAF, The Royal Marines, The Royal Infantry, and several advisers to them and others of importance (which somehow included Nigel Thompson) where all in a video meeting the President of The United States and his associates discussing the latest attack, the implications of it and the way to deal with it.
The President was in favour of sending in a metahuman team to deal with this threat considering that they have been already identified in the embassy assault, and that they would be able to deal with the hostiles better than what he believed to be anyone other team could.
The Prime Minister liked the idea and most of the heads on the Prime Minister's side agreed with it. Even the majority did feel that they felt that a coordinated military and special ops attempt would probably be more effective, efficient and trustworthy rather than vigilante superheroes breaking in and destroying the place with no consideration to damage control. But they all unanimously agreed that they would rather not start a mass hunt for the terrorists considering that Britain had only suffered minimal losses (as three men kidnapped in the embassy were British citizens) and that it was The United States that they targeted.
The American Officials on the other hand were completely different.
The attack on the fort was devastating and casualties were enormous, and speculation was going around if the amount of fatalities were in the hundreds. A massive amount of metahuman villains had been freed and the helicopters that fired on the base and transported the prisoners were somehow off radar. The embassy assault had also killed more of their own men and also exactly fifteen people were kidnapped including The U.S Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
America was now at DEFCON 2 and the country was at its biggest state of panic since the 9/11 attacks and anthrax attempts. His delegates in the army wanted a and the heads of the NSA, CIA, and FBI were agreeing to this. Not only that they wanted to implement a curfew nationwide and have the police do the exact same as the did after the Boston Bombings.
"Boston was an entirely different scenario. We knew that they couldn't get far, and we made sure of it by closing of the city and the surrounding areas." The President shook his head on camera over the idea of having the entire nation turning into a police state, "What you are talking about means having tanks and men out with military grade equipment day and night throughout the entire country. We don't have enough resources to do that in every town and city."
"With all due respect Mr. President, what other choices do we have? Another attack could happen at any moment and they could be anywhere in the nation. We have to make sure that every state is on full alert and highest state of readiness that we can be." The head of the NSA made clear as all the four screens on the table switched to his face.
"If I could but in for a moment." The Prime Minister coughed and took a deep breath to clear his throat as the screen changed back to the President, "Britain has not suffered anywhere near the amount The US has on these attacks, but we have three citizens kidnapped from the embassy. That may not seem a lot to what I pointed out, and some of you may think it is an odd point to focus on because of all that has happened; but they are British citizens and we will stop at nothing to return them here safe and soundly. That is what we are prioritising over here."
The President leaned back in his chair, "We understand of course. Twelve of those abducted were American citizens, including our ambassador to you. We know that it is a priority in getting them out of there, but right now we are just stunned. We don't know what to do or who to go after because like what was said before: our best forensics experts from the army and four Teen Titans had found very little that would help in knowing who carried this out. There was no video evidence, soldiers that survived only remember seeing soldiers in full body armour and bullets recovered from the scene are only getting some results here and there."
"At least it is something." The Prime Minister had his hopes up.
"But it is not enough. We are determined no matter what, to find whoever did this and make them suffer the full extent of justice." The President stated.
"Excuse me, Mr. President." The screens all showed the face of a general of The United States Marine Corps, "But the question still remains, who do you want to deal with this."
The cameras changed back to the President who had shifted in his seat, "Well first and foremost I want JSOC dealing with this. This is their expertise so I want them to mainly go after them. That does not mean I want you all to back off."
"I want every satellite to pick up every phone call, every text, anything that will help us get an idea on who's behind this. I want agents from the FBI, CIA, and NSA to start looking through those calls and text and questioning anyone that you even find to be remotely suspicious. I don't agree turning us into a police state but drastic measures have to be taken. Therefore, I want all air travel into and out of the US to be hereby suspended until we can guarantee safety. I want the Navy with battleships at every port in the country and possibly aircraft carriers near major cities like New York. If a boat docks, the Navy SEALS are to search every inch of that ship from top to bottom to make sure nothing is being hidden. I want the National Guard up and running ASAP with immediate support from State troopers to normal police officers. If any plane gets into our airspace I want jets up and running and force them out. And we also may have to start pulling soldiers out from active duty from the Army Rangers and such to defend the mainland."
The President was tiring as grabbed a bottle of water drank it as he took a deep breath, "And finally, I want the Justice League to help search for these metahuman criminals."
"Sir, the entire Justice League are apparently dealing with bigger problems in a parallel universe of some sort." A general butted in.
The President was caught of guard by that comment, "What? The entire league is unavailable!?"
"Not exactly Mr. President," A woman spoke as she took over on explaining with this detail, "The majority of the League is unfortunately unreachable at the moment. I have received from sources inside the Watchtower that some members not with the League in this mission are helping out both the Justice Society of America and The Doom Patrol in missions of their own. They say that they can call on the remaining members for an emergency, but they have warned the numbers would be very limited."
The President was starting to sweat due to stress, "Are there any other options outside the League? What about our own group?"
"We have two options outside of the Justice League. Well, "had" two options. Now I guess there's really only one if you still want to go with metahuman means."
"Wait, what do mean there were two, but there's only one now?" The President said as he sank in his chair.
The women straightened up before speaking"We know you have taken a liking to the superheroes that have helped us in conflicts in our cities. This was a surprise as the past governments has always been quite sceptical about them. You even decided that keeping the Suicide Squad was a good idea even though we only brought the idea forward to make sure we had metahuman convicts under our control-"
"Sorry to intrude once again, but could you please hurry to the point madame..." The Prime Minister stretched out the final syllable, emphasising that he did not know the woman.
"Waller, Mr. Prime Minister." She nodded to him before she continued, "My point is, we considered that you may want help from metahuman allies and before I got here, I quickly went to work on finding out any options available. When the Justice League and other groups weren't, I started to gather up the Suicide Squad, but I couldn't get everything sorted in time due to the recent plummet in metahuman crime."
"So the Suicide Squad is out of the picture." The President swiped his forehead, and even slightly grinning a little. He only used the Suicide Squad if it was too dangerous a mission to let his own troops deal with it and was glad that former supervillains weren't being used for a prolonged mission like this, also he reckoned the mess caused by the Suicide Squad would probably end up looking worse than what the terrorists could have caused altogether, "What is the final option?"
Waller screwed up her face, rather not letting the President know of the last choice, "The final option would, therefore be the Teen Titans, sir."
"Have we reached them yet?" The President looked more optimistic with the final choice, knowing that they had helped out earlier searching for forensic evidence.
"No sir, we haven't because..." Waller stopped for a moment to try and string the next part of her sentence carefully, "I feel that it would be irresponsible for the United States government to task teenagers with tracking down such dangerous threats when we do have the resources to do so ourselves."
Waller's speech had given way to other heads of the US military and intelligence beginning to rabble before quieting down as the head of the CIA shushed them, "Mr. President, we have to agree with Madame Waller. I mean, the Justice League themselves already have a bad history of letting things spiralling out of control in confrontations. And now we're going to be letting their teenage apprentices deal with such terrorists! Mr. President, we would seriously advise against this decision."
As the heads on the American end were arguing over the best course of action. Some heads in the British end were starting to change mindsets.
"Mr. Prime Minister, I think they have a point. I even this has very little to do with us, but I mean the President is thinking about sending in metahumans youths who have virtually no experience in combat of this calibre."
The Prime Minister that the General of the Royal Marines who had just spoken was getting quite harsh near the end in his tone, ""Virtually no experience" you say? If memory serves me correctly, it was those "metahuman youths" that defeated the Brotherhood of Evil group in Paris."
Several people began to speak in against the metahuman intervention and they all started to disagree on how dangerous it would be to let them fight freely in populated cities, but fresh voices started to disagree with them and pointed out that it could take a much longer time to sort out this problem with soldiers and how the Titans have dealt with groups such as these before.
As the same dispute was happening on the American side as well, it looked like it would take a few minutes or so for both sides debating on the issue to calm down and come to a decision.
The crisp September breeze blew against a sitting Superboy on the roof of Titans Tower. He reckoned by now that the news of Wally's injuries would by now have been heard of by everyone in the Tower.
Conner was replaying the several different scenarios in his head over what could happen: Wally getting brain damaged, everybody blaming him for his mental illness, being kicked out of the group, being disowned by all his friends. Even though Cyborg tried to reassure him that he did nothing wrong, he didn't believe it and kept on blaming himself. He just wanted to shut himself off from the rest of the world for a brief moment before going back down and facing Robin again...
...Or maybe he could just leave now and be by himself on an inhabited planet forever. He could do it, and he imagined that it would not make a difference down on Earth since they already had Clark and Kara.
But he did not have it in him.
He did not even have it in him to move. He felt as if he was turned into stone and he could no longer be able to move or think.
He also started to regain some sense and realise people would miss him if he left like Kara and M'gann. It would be unbearable to never see their faces again.
All these new thoughts created new tears. Once he had reached the roof and the tears first started to fall; in his anger he burned them off by forming his heat vision, but once he settled down and tucked his chin into his neck, he just let the tears flow down and be absorbed into the fabric of one of Cyborg's blue Superdry hoodies.
Robin would call a meeting soon. It was obvious to everyone here, and until then he wanted to be left alone in his own miserable little world at the moment.
Left alone with only despair.
The argument had quelled and a decision was made: the Teen Titans would be asked to help out with the crisis at hand, but they would also work alongside the JSOC counter-terrorist unit, US Navy SEALS, the SAS and several others to sort this out.
Not to mention they would ask any remaining members from the Justice League to monitor the Titans if they should go into combat. It was not ideal for everyone, but they saw it as a fairly suitable compromise and they would go with it.
"Is that pretty much everything?" The President asked as everything was just about finalised.
"I have something concerning our metahuman allies," The Prime Minister signalled to one of the guards at the doors of the meeting room, "Please send him in."
Dennis was just about finishing off healing himself as the door opened to the meeting room and the two guards at the door turned to the other man in military uniform came out of the room, closed the door and walked over to Dennis, "The Prime Minister would like you to come in now."
Dennis stood up and grabbed his helmet off the leather bench where it sat beside him and put it over his head and let itself reattach itself with the rest of the suit.
The suit looked brand-new as Dennis focused on fixing it first, before going onto his own injuries. It took much longer than usual to fix the suit, and understandably so, never fighting such opponents before and never experiencing such damage. But everything was all fixed from slight dents on the arms to even reconnecting the facial recognition dots back, which represented his face, to the mainframe.
He had just about healed all his own wounds, except for minor injuries such as bruises and others, but he could either leave them be or he could fix them up later. It was nothing of importance to him right now as the helmet made its final click, indicating it was locked, "Aye, sure thing." He said knowing that he could use his natural Scottish words around soldiers and stuff knowing that they will never spill that he was behind the suit due to them being under orders from the Prime Minister.
"If the Teen Titans are being asked by the American government to go out and find whoever committed these atrocities. Then the United Kingdom would like to send out its own metahuman representative." The Prime Minister said confidently.
The faces on the American end looked baffled, "Britain has their own version of the Teen Titans?" The President asked.
The Prime Minister shook his head, "No, we have no such thing over here. Though we do have this." He turned in his chair with his arm out wide as it followed along a golden figure walk round the right side of the table as it entered the room.
Mumbles began to start in the American end as they all saw the man come into vision on the screen, only seeing the back of him and the cape and weapons he had on him. The President even leaned forward in his chair, his attention uninterrupted from the gold colour of the suit and cape.
The figure stopped as it reached the head of the table, being on the Prime Minister's left side, turning to face the American heads on the other side on the video with arms locked behind his back and with a fairly normal look on him, but it gave the look like he could hammer anyone standing in his way.
The Prime Minister smiled as he still had his arm openly pointed at him, "This, ladies and gentlemen, is Guardian. He is the British government and military metahuman operative. He works predominantly with the Royal Infantry and the SAS in more extreme operations, but has proved himself well in espionage missions assisting MI5 and MI6 agents."
"In fact he has been so useful, efficient, and effective that any mission he has been sent on has succeeded. He basically has a one hundred percent record, isn't that right Thomson?" The Prime Minister said, lowering his arm down.
Nigel and Dennis did not have a very sturdy relationship; being only associates at their work, never taking a liking to either one's personality. So Nigel just nodded, "Yes, Mr. Prime Minister. Just about." He would have pointed out his flaws, but he knew his place in the room and only slightly hinted that the missions were never quite according to plan.
Dennis could not do much either except have his pupil dots eye him and slightly squint his eyes. Once he stopped he looked back and looked to see the President and his associates whisper before turning back to face the Prime Minister, "So you want him included in the search?" The President asked.
"Of course. Knowing his abilities, he is virtually a one man army, and can spot things our thermal drones cannot." The Prime Minister
The President was still unsure, "Well, do you trust him?"
"Absolutely! He's one of our best, if not, our best operative!" The Prime Minister continued to sing his praises.
Dennis' pupil dots looked back over to Nigel and saw him do his own slight squint back at him. He looked back to see the Americans whisper again before turning back.
"Very well then, we'll be sure to be able to allow him on the hunt. We will let the Titans know of your..." The President pointed his hand towards the golden figure, "Guardian's involvement."
"Very Good." The Prime Minister looked down on the desk at the only sheet of paper that was not in a folder, "Are there any more issues of business needed to be addressed?"
"There does not seem to be any left." The President had the same situation with him and the sheet of paper, with only one lying outside a folder.
The Prime Minister stood up out of his chair, "Then I think it is safe to say this meeting is adjourned." He waited for the President to do the same before continuing, "We wish you all the best. This will all be solved due to our nation's powerful alliance."
The President acknowledged this, "As we all know. Let's just hope that it can be solved quickly and with as little chaos as possible. Good hunting." The President's final words lingered as the camera on his side went out.
The rest of the people at the table began to rise out of their chairs and looked over to the Prime Minister for any final words he had to say on the issue.
"Just give me a moment to talk to Guardian in private." He put an arm round the Guardian's shoulder and brought him over to the corner of the room, backs turned to everyone else. Making sure that nobody overheard them as everyone began to discuss the meeting aspects with each other, "You are in for a predicament." He whispered to Guardian.
"What do you mean, sir?" Dennis whispered back.
"You know? You are going to be working alongside with the Teen Titans."
This took Dennis by surprise, indicated by the widening eye recognition dots. It had always been a dream of his to work with the superheroes like Batman or Superman, but he had just fought three of them and could not show this emotion in his work. Though the fighting part stood out more, "Oh... I understand. So when the President said they would let them know of my involvement..."
"That they would let them know that they would have to let you fight alongside them." The Prime Minister obviously understood what Dennis would be in for, "Nervous?"
"That's a bit of an understatement, sir. But it doesn't matter though, I can handle it. We have a job to do and neither of us would let our fight interfere with our search." Dennis tried to be brave and shrug it off.
The Prime Minister turned him around so he could look face-to-face at him, with both hands on either shoulder, "Then you know what to do. Go home, restock, say goodbye to your family for a while and head out to Jump City."
"Yes, sir." Dennis nodded and started to walk towards the door. Staring down Nigel as he walked by him, he walked to the door and had it opened by the same soldier that brought him in.
"Oh, and one more thing!" The Prime Minister shouted across the room, making Dennis look over his shoulder and everyone look towards him, "Good Luck."
Dennis turned round fully to look the Prime Minister dead in the eye, "Thank you, sir." He could feel Nigel trying to get him to focus his attention onto him, but Dennis did not care for him and would not to give him the satisfaction, leaving the room without saying another word.
The door closed and the room lost the vibrant colour that Guardian gave off as they all started to go back to discussing everything that was just set in motion and finalising all the final details of the meeting from the military action needed to the statement the Prime Minister would give off later to the public and press.
Robin had just came into the main lobby of the Tower, stressed out after two extensive healing sessions from Raven and surgeries from Karen and Vic. He felt that he should be less tense now that the surgery on Wally showed that he is eighty to ninety percent unlikely to have any sort of brain damage. He was not, that scare left him in a rather foul mood.
It was common that Robin had a bad temper when aggravated, so it explained that one or two people left the room just after he entered, and the subsequent change in atmosphere in the lobby from scared for Wally to scared of Dick.
There were only a six people in the room excluding himself: Kara, Gar, Kori, Garth, M'gann, and Jinx who had just arrived only minutes before he entered. The group had noticed him but were near the monitor talking quietly.
He went over to them to figure out what they were talking about, "What's going on?"
Beast Boy was the closest to computer so he tapped a few keys and it brought up the Titans video call from the toolbar and full-screened it, "We've had a call come in, but she's on hold for the moment. She says she'll only talk to you."
"She? Who's the hell is calling." Dick said confused.
Garth provided him with the information, "Amanda Waller."
Robin was even more confused as to how and why Waller got a hold of them, "Let me on."
Beast Boy pressed a key, showing Waller's face looking straight at them. She was in the back of a government car with bodyguards at either side of her, "Grayson." Waller already knew of Bruce Wayne being Batman, so naturally she knew his identity as Robin.
"Waller." Dick greeted her.
She looked round at everyone else with her eyebrows virtually coming off, "Do your friends really need to hear this?" She asked sarcastically.
Robin did not appreciate her sarcasm however and took it seriously, "Anything you could tell me, you can tell them. Besides I doubt you tried to find the secure number for Titans Tower and only seek me out."
Waller sighed and slouched in her seat, "Fine they can stay." The six Titans took this news like a six year old boy would have been as if he was told he could stay up for another hour before going to bed, "I'm going to get straight to the point here, the President has asked for the Teen Titans assistance in the search for the culprits in the fort and embassy attacks." Waller straightened herself, thinking she was still thinking that this was a bad idea and that they should give her more time to get the Suicide Squad.
All the Titans in the room were baffled by the news and started looking at each other as if they had all heard what she said wrong, "I'm-I'm sorry?" Robin tried to string together.
Waller sighed, "I know. I didn't agree with the decision, but since all other groups are unavailable, including my own Suicide Squad. That means we have asked for your help in this situation."
Robin looked over his shoulder and saw Beast Boy shrug and mouthing "Go with it" before continuing with his talk with Waller, "Erm... we're honored to do so... but... why? I mean why has the President asked for our assistance?"
Waller explained, "It's not really a secret that the President is a fan of the superheroes that defend our nation's cities and people. He thinks that the US government should ask for your help in crises such as these, because he believes that the situation will be solved quicker than constantly using our military."
"I understand the President's point of view Miss Waller, but we had already started in going and hunting them. Why do we need the President's approval for this?" Robin questioned.
"You won't be alone on this. The President has ordered pretty much everyone from the NSA to JSOC on this as well. They are there to also follow up on leads; mainly tracking the weapons, bullets and caught individuals in helping find where they are. Not to mention, working with us will mean that you will be monitored. Meaning, watch how much damage you cause. We will not stand for any excessive force in this operation." Waller instructed, trying to insert some sort of leadership onto the team.
Dick on the other hand, just shook his head, "That's odd that you'll not stand for excessive force, even though you are in charge of the Suicide Squad." The comment was also sort of a reminder to everyone around him, that just because he is in a bad state-of-mind, it does not mean he has forgotten his normal quick-witted self.
Waller did not appreciate his comment, and glared at him, "Funny. If this whole damage control thing is a laughing matter then let me remind you that all these groups cost this government more US taxpayer dollars than the Suicide Squad ever could."
That basically said goodbye to Dick's normal side for a moment, "That's because the Suicide Squad always are in secret and usually do their work in different countries for them to pick up your mess. And not just any countries but third-world countries, where they could help starving children but rather have to clean the great fuc-" He would have finished, but a hand wrapped around his mouth; not letting him complete his sentence, which was for the better.
Whilst Robin was mumbling loudly, he tried to see who was holding him back from speaking. Thankfully for him, it was Starfire, his girlfriend doing so. He was not so sure however he would react if anybody else (especially Gar and Garth) had done that.
"Apologies Miss Waller." Kori took over from her boyfriend, "He has not been having a very delightful day, and is right now... in the dumps." Kori said, pretty sure she had found the right phrase.
Waller did not want to let this ramble on for much longer than it needed to, "Okay, apology accepted. Could you let him go please so we can finish this?"
Kori gently removed her hand from Dick's mouth and started rubbing his back momentarily with it, as a way of calming him down so he could be able to talk properly without sidetracking himself.
"Sorry about that. Where were we?" Robin spoke normally, clearly appreciating Kori stepping in to stop him doing something he would have regretted later.
"Damage control. The President would be most grateful having most of our cities and landscapes looking unaltered during this conflict, and therefore asked for us to monitor how much surrounding damage you cause. " Waller explained why the damage control issue was important to the President.
Robin actually thought about it for a moment and was relatively fine with that, "I think our team will be able to handle that once we all tell them to be extra careful when it comes to that." Jerking his head behind in a backwards motion, which pointed to the Titans standing behind him.
Whilst everyone was paying attention to the call, the doors to the lobby opened to allow Superboy to enter. He only came down for a beer just so he could take his mind off Wally and Roy for the moment. He had the hood and kept his head down, just to make sure nobody saw his face and noticed he had been crying, also if anyone did see him it made sure people knew that he was no mood for talking.
Noticing Robin was in the lobby, he tried not to bring his attention over to himself, so after the few initial steps into the room, he glided the rest of the way to fridge just so he made sure he made as little noise as possible.
He opened the fridge and took out a beer from a six-pack, leaving only two left in it. He promptly shut it quietly and quickly opened the beer can knowing that the seven at the monitor would probably think that that would just background noise such as noise from some other room in the Tower.
Just as he was about to leave, he took a quick glance at the group and his eyes widened as he saw the face of Amanda Waller on the screen. This had ought to be important and wanted to hear what Robin had to say if this happened to be about what happened in London.
So Conner perched himself on top of the counter, keeping his head down and back turned away from the screen; giving the illusion he was not paying any attention, and he stayed completely silent.
Luckily for him, they were not. Interestingly though, they were talking about cooperation with the JSOC counter-terrorist unit and other such as the FBI. His mind was changing its focus from the injuries to the video call. He found it unable to forget it completely and it kept on bugging him as it lingered on the back of his mind momentarily, but if he could be able to stomp out the worrying temporarily, then he did not care.
Dennis was here. Jump City, one of The United States of America's most populated cities, one of the culture capitals of the world with having housing refugees and immigrants during and after World War 2 from the pacific islands, Japan, even places such as Burma. Not to mention, there were a large population of Mexicans, even some El Salvadorians and Guatemalans. The city is also unfortunately used by arms dealers as a front for gun smuggling and selling them to the eastern half of the world.
Most importantly, it was the home to the Teen Titans.
The original group set up by Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven was a pretty big thing at the time that Batman's former sidekick and member of the Doom Patrol had gone and made their own group consisting of only teenage superheroes. Pundits, news reporters, experts, nearly everyone believed this would not last long, but they were proved dead wrong.
Stopping countless threats such as Slade, (who changed back to Deathstroke the Terminator after he found his idea of taking over the city and such to be too distant from his real self and finding it to be silly), Trigon, and the Brotherhood of Evil. The group also grew in size due to the amount of teen heroes wanting the chance to prove themselves.
So, the Titans went from all people believing that this small group of teenage heroes who are way out of their depth, to one of the biggest, most famous and most feared groups by the small-time criminals selling weed on the street corner at night to every major villain running vast criminal empires and gangs around the world.
And he was only just over five hundred metres away from the tower and only ten metres above its roof as he was looking down on it from his aura platform.
After the meeting had finished he quickly raced home to resupply some ammo and get some more grenades, plus a few extras. Once he had down that he had said goodbye to his mum and dad, his brothers: Daniel, Stephen and Joseph, but not being able to say goodbye to his only sister, Orla. Though Dennis knew that someone would pass on his message to her that he loved her. He got a bit teary eyed as he left, knowing that he would be gone for a long period of time and fighting against opponents that could be able to match him in combat. This was all only a few minutes ago.
His helmet was wearing a sort of sad face, but Dennis was needing to wipe it clean as he was about to enter a place he always dreamed of going to since it first started. He loved the Teen Titans and all they did, but he knew once again he was not acting as Dennis Roberts, but as Guardian. He needed to act professional.
He took deep breaths and made sure he could feel that he was wearing a sincere look of his face before near instantaneously speeding off to the ground to the Titans Tower door, and in a split-second started moving from side-to-side at neck-brake speeds to phase through the door and soon as his feet touched ground he was in.
He was in the entrance hall of one of the most famous and recognisable buildings in the world. He felt the massive weight of character being put on him from just being present here, like he was back in his aura vision for the first time. It was one of the most important moments of his life, this was where metahumans like himself became heroes.
As Dennis walked towards what appeared to be doors to a lift at the other end of the room, he could feel the presence of the heroes that walked here before him.
And that has been Dennis' dream since he was kid, to be a hero.
"Is that everything?" Robin asked as Supergirl had typed down the final pieces of information that Waller had last given them.
"Just about everything you need to copy down." Waller sighed, relieved to finally get that all out of the way, "But there is one last thing that you really should know, before he arrives."
"Huh?" Robin mumbled as Kara had sent the file that she had typed to a printer in Robin's room, and closed to word document; which brought Waller's face back up to full-screen again as the call was slimmed to make room for Kara to type the file.
"After we had decided to ask for your help, the Prime Minister had brought forth one of his own forward. He asked for him to be included in the search as well." Waller informed them.
"Why? Are they metahuman?" Robin seemed curious that the British would have their own group and not be publicised.
"Yes and no." Waller took a second to think before continuing, "No, that this is not a group you're dealing with, it is just the one. And yes, he is a meta. I think you may have misheard when I said "him" for "them"."
Dick lost track of what he was thinking a second ago as he heard that it was just the one, "So, what does the Prime Minister want to do with him?"
"He wants him working with the Titans on the search. He wanted him to be on this mission quite badly, I mean he did say that this guy has a one percent record on any operations he's been on." She said, linking back up what Robin had forgotten.
Robin however did not think that this guy had a one hundred percent mission success though, "Is the Prime Minister exaggerating with this perfect record thing?"
Waller shrugged, "I don't know. Probably not. He acted as if he was serious and he even said that this was one of The United Kingdom's best, if not their best agent."
"Do we have to work together?" Beast Boy interrupted.
Waller though about that, "I believe so, Mr. Logan. It would be quite difficult and frustrating for both of you to run around and continually bump into each other on the same and think you are the enemy."
"So who is he?" Dick said, now quite intrigued by all he had just been told.
"He's-" Waller had only taken a little glimpse from Robin when the background behind Robin had moved just to make sure it was just a door opening, but she looked back again once she saw an unmistakeable golden figure, with a dark grey patch of the front its face walk right into the room. "-Right over there..."
Dick saw the sudden change in her look and though that she was seeing things, but once he turned as well as the other six, he thought he was hallucinating with her.
Standing there as the door closed was an golden coloured figure of average height. The front of his face was blackened by some carbon material with white dots representing: eyes, mouth, and eyebrows. They could see that there were two circle magnets on both shoulders keeping what looked like a cape in place. Poking out behind him from the left side of his head was a long bo staff. Along his left side of his waist were about seven different types of grenades, only one looked lethal (which was actually Semtex).
Inside the suit, Dennis had wondered why the Tower was quite empty once he came through the front door, so he went up by each floor on the lift to see empty halls until he came to this floor and before the door shut he heard voices from a door from the opposite end of the room. He considered it lucky that he actually found Teen Titans and not instantly get an alarm raised.
Now though, he was staring at seven Titans including the leader himself, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Supergirl. He could feel his inner fanboy basically exploding, but he had to do what he had to do.
"Sorry for intruding." He spoke normally from inside the suit, knowing it would instantly be broadcasted to everyone in the room in the robotic sounding voice the suit would give off.
Conner instantly shot up as soon as he heard the robotic sound and was in complete disbelief in seeing Guardian inside the Tower. As if his day could not get any worse, the Prime Minister's metahuman representative was the person who just about two hours ago shot and seriously injured two Titans.
Now they were to work together!
He could not stand for this. Superboy was about fly off and slam right into the tin man, but realised that Waller seeing him attack an allied partner belonging to Great Britain would look pretty bad, so with all his willpower restrained himself. The second this call ended though, he was going split the golden man's top half from his bottom half.
"It's for the better actually." Waller finally took what she saw as a reality, "You're here now which means you can introduce yourself to them in your own time and it also means the mission can be get started quicker."
Everyone turned back round to the screen, except Conner who was eyeing his target down and started burning his eyes with rage.
"Robin I think we're done here. I've told you everything you need to know for this, and he over there," She said pointing to Guardian, "Can tell you everything you need to know about himself."
"Okay. Who do we keep in contact with again once we have positive identification of the Brotherhood or any other known to be associated with the attack?" Dick asked his final question.
"I have already sent a contact to every Titans' T-Comp. It will take right into contact with the nearest JSOC commander and they'll have a team prep and ready within an hour." Waller went through it one final time, relieved.
"Then that's everything. We're done here." Robin sighed with ease.
"Very good. Keep in touch with the commanders so we can be on the same page with everything." Waller's arm reached over to the left side of the video camera and disappeared behind it, "Waller, out."
The screen switched instantly to black. They were ready to go with everything laid out for them, except the golden man in the room.
They all started to turn round again, with Robin speaking for them once again, "So, who are yo-"
-CLANG!
Before Dick had even finished his sentence, even before he had turned round, someone in a blue hoodie had just crashed the gold figure into the wall with a fairly loud sound of hitting metal radiating off.
The man in the blue hoodie had pulled his hood down to reveal it was Conner. Once Dennis recognised his face after being dazed he realised how bad of a situation he was in right now, "Remember me? Well do you, you motherfucking piece of shit!?" He shouted in Guardian's face, his on his neck was crushing Dennis' windpipe as he finished his question.
"What the hell are you playing at Superboy!?" Robin yelled after Conner, remembering to use his alias in-front of someone outside of the group.
"You'll understand in a second Robin!" Superboy psychotically spoke, creeping everyone out, "This trash can will be in bits once I've beaten the fucking information, of what happened earlier, out of him."
Dennis had enough of being shoved into walls for one day, and was blessed to have not have taken off his kryptonite ring. He reached his right arm over to his left arm and pressed the button which opened up a slot to his left ring finger and shone the green light coming off it in his face.
Superboy instantly reacted to the kryptonite ring, dropping Guardian down to his feet. With Dennis having the upper hand now, he headbutted the Kryptonian clone and smashed his knee to his guts before turning the tables completely and hammering Superboy on to the wall.
With Superboy completely stunned from the quick counter-attack Dennis poised to strike again with his kryptonite hand, but another green gloved hand stopped him from doing so.
"Hold it! What the fuck is going between you two? Do you two already know each other?" Robin demanded an explanation for all this.
As the golden person let go of Superboy, he took a moment to lean against the wall and cover his stomach and forehead whilst trying to his full strength, although the kryptonite was still in plain view, "Why don't you let... that over there, explain it!" He spat, refusing to recognise Guardian as a person.
"And could you please put away the kryptonite? I'm starting to feel the affects." Supergirl asked politely, which seemed like a first all day, as she walked over to beside Conner.
Dennis pressed the button once again, covering up the green stone on his finger. With it gone, the affects of it out of reach was felt almost immediately by Superboy as moved off from the wall and took his hands from his stomach and head, and folded them. He still kept the face which said that it was still hurting.
Inside, Dennis knew there was literally no way of explaining how they knew each other without pissing off everybody as he: disrupted their mission in London, fought three Titans, shot one, knocked-out another, fought off the last one to a victory of some sorts afterwards, and ultimately let two major conspirators get away from the scene. Things could not be worse at the moment for himself.
"Well it turns out I have met Superboy before." Dennis tried to choose his words carefully.
"Really? And what was that meeting like?" Superboy's sarcastic responses were making so much harder for Dennis to break the news in as peaceful as a manner possible.
"Well... it wasn't good... it didn't end well." He struggled to continue.
Supergirl nudged Conner, "So, when was this? Did you meet and end up having an argument over something?"
Superboy shook his head, and once Dennis knew he would not explain himself he continued, "No... erm... I... you see... that meeting... was today."
It all finally connected for five of the Titans in the room. Their eyes were widened with shock that the very person who just about two hours ago shot Roy and seriously injured Wally. Whilst the other two were extremely confused as to what the big problem was.
Robin was barely able to even string a sentence a word together in disbelief, so Beast Boy took over, "You mean you're-
Dennis nodded slowly, "- Aye- Yep, I'm Guardian." Remembering that he could not say any Scottish.
Though the use of Scottish phrases as Guardian right now was the least of his worries. He was in deep shit. Two hours ago, he severely injured two Titans. Now, he's been forced to work with them. And explaining what happened was harder than he could have ever imagined.
The room went eerily quiet for a moment or two after that, before the silence and tension was quickly broken by Miss Martian, "I'm sorry, but we're lost right now." Pointing to the other one the room, Jinx, that did not know anything of Guardian beforehand: Garth, Jinx, and herself. "Could someone please fill us in? What's the big deal?"
Conner was had thought everyone would have known by now, "Do you seriously not know what's going on?"
Aqualad came to their defence, "They only came in a few minutes earlier, so they don't know the full details." He said before turning round to the two girls, "You know when Beast Boy was telling you that Speedy and Kid Flash were injured before we got the call from Waller."
The girls both nodded.
"Well he was going to tell you that they were both badly wounded from fighting an opponent in London today. Well..." He said looking at Guardian.
And it finally connected for two female Titans.
"Wait a second! He's the one that attacked Speedy and Wa-Kid Flash, and now he's to work with us?!" Jinx shouted pointing at Guardian. Almost revealing her ex-boyfriend's identity to him.
Everybody was quite nervous that Wally's identity nearly slipped, and Dennis picked up on that but decided not to press matters further on that in-case it just made everything worse. So he decided pick out another bit from Jinx's sentence to take away the nervousness in the air, and try to lower tensions.
"Hey! That's not fair! If anything, he started it." Sharply turning his to his opponent from earlier. And he just realised that he completely failed in trying to lower tensions.
"What!?" Superboy yelled, putting his hands up in defence, "No we didn't!"
"Yes you did! You were the one to throw the first punch!" Guardian folded his arms.
Superboy remembered thing differently though, "Before that you tried to stab Kid Flash, TWICE!"
"From an arrow that your teammate shot at me!"
"That's only because you were shining your fucking kryptonite in my face first!"
"Don't give me the kryptonite bullshit! You pushed me twice after I told you that this was not your mission, and that you were on British soil therefore my mission!"
"It was our mission because they are our enemies to do with, our US embassy. And if I recall before you saying that, you threw a flashbang at all of us!" During this entire argument, Guardian and Superboy were slowly advancing on each other again. By the time Superboy finished his final bit of information, they were squaring up to each other once again. With Superboy looking down on him once again.
Robin took a breather after the initial shock and felt that he was fully himself again. So he needed to take some authority back, and he did not like the way these two were staring each other down, "Break it up! We do not want anymore casualties." He stepped inbetween both of them, and separated them by pushing them both back at arm's length.
At that moment, the door opened once again to reveal the presence of the other original female Titan, "Robin! The intruder alarm has gone off an-" Raven hung on to the last syllable as she saw the golden figure, "-d I see you've got him."
Robin lowered his arms from the two and shook his head, "No, it's not that. He's not an intruder."
Raven stared at the golden figure, who's white-dotted eyes on the grey facial area (appearing to be some sort of carbon material) stared back at her, " Then who is he?"
"I'm Guardian." The golden figure spoke.
Raven had the exact same reaction as Jinx, the only difference being her voice, instead of shouting it was more of a growl, "Wait, what! Robin he was the one to wound Speedy and-"
"-I know what he did." The Titan leader stopped her mid-sentence, mainly because he did not want to hear the same thing over and over again.
"Then why is here?" Raven folded her arms.
"Long story." Robin swiped his hand over his head. Knowing that everyone will be having a similar reaction, he wanted to make this whole initial shock thing go by as quickly as possible, he came up with a solution, "I'll explain everything in a minute. Could you all go and get everything and we'll get this meeting started. The sooner we can get all the information out of the way, the sooner we are able to start our search for the Brotherhood."
"Including Cy and Bee?" Supergirl asked Robin being the first that was starting to head off.
Raven took over from answering, "Kid Flash and Speedy's conditions are both still in critical, but for the moment they are stable."
Robin placed a green gloved hand on his chin and thought for a moment before finding his solution, "Bring them up then. If anything starts going wrong then could you teleport them back down?"
"Fine." Raven nodded before leaving the room herself with Kara alongside to gather all Titans they could from the top floor.
Everyone else followed, including Superboy who kept staring back at Guardian over his shoulder as he left the room to go get everyone.
That left just the two, Guardian and Robin in the room together. Guardian had switched his staring contest over from Superboy to Robin now that he was the only person left. They were about the same height, but Robin would be a few centimetres taller if Dennis was outside the suit. They kept their distance and kept silent.
In one day the Titans had went from: constantly running into Guardian, fighting Guardian, and now being allied with Guardian. Today was already proving to be a long and tiring day.
With all Titans in the room, the meeting started having gathered everyone round the main table of the lobby. Robin had gone through why they were all here and the introduction of Guardian. Pretty much everybody had the exact same wide-eyed shocked face afterwards. Robin had to continue the meeting and tried to quell any heat right now between the entire group and the lone Guardian, saying that they both had to work together and what had happened had to be put in the past for now.
Though Dennis thought that Robin meant something when he said "for now", but he could not keep focus knowing that many of the Titans were giving him dirty looks, so he just kept looking at Robin, giving the illusion that he was not to noticing any of the stares.
Once Robin went over the details that Waller went over in the call, Conner slowly made his way from being at the back of the group people of people standing around the table directly opposite Robin and Guardian and made his way over to M'gann, Kara, and Raven both being at the back of the group to the left of Robin.
Tapping his ex on the shoulder, making her jump before calming down noticing it was only him, "What is it Conner?" She whispered.
"I need you to read his thoughts." He whispered also.
"Wait who's? Guardian's?" She raised her voice a little walking away from the two other girls.
Conner had an arm round her shoulder and had their backs turned round, making sure that what they were saying was confidential, "Yes, I need to know who or what he is." He asked in a way that sounded like he was demanding.
M'gann did not like the way he was acting, "Conner I'm getting worried about you right now." She voiced her concern.
"Please M'gann. I only need to know this one thing and I promise it will be the only thing I need to know. If you could just read his thoughts and find something that would give a clue to who he is, I will be so grateful." Conner begged.
M'gann considered things for a moment, but if this what it would take to calm Conner down then, "Okay, I'll do it."
"Thanks M'gann." Conner smiled for the first time in a while.
M'gann walked back over to Kara and Raven, just being only a little bit behind them. When she was able to see Guardian, she closed her eyes and began to get into this person's mind.
Midway through this meeting, Dennis felt as if his brain was being attacked from somewhere. He darted his white eyes around until he saw Miss Martian having her eyes closed and what appeared to be doing something with her powers.
She was trying to read his mind.
Dennis was kind of spooked by the idea of hypnosis and mind control, even mind reading. So luckily for him his mind was mentally strong already from having aura, but he decided to go all out and make sure he was invulnerable as he could make himself from mind control. In his search to make himself immune to it, he looked online and saw old scriptures written by Chinese monks of some sort in the eleventh century, and these monks were rumoured to be fuelled by some sort of mysterious power. A power that checked all the boxes for aura. Those scriptures had a section dealing with concentration of the mind and dealing with those who tried to meddle with yours.
So he decided to use a trick that those old scriptures taught and brought an arm round his back and started to feel the aura surround his hand, before crunching it up into a fist.
M'gann began to feel a searing pain in head. She felt like someone had dropped a boulder on her. She started to walk back to Conner but felt like her legs were made of jelly, then just blacked out.
Kara caught her before either she hit the floor or Conner caught her. Raven and herself put one of her arms over the shoulders and brought her over and sat her down on the sofa not to far away from the meeting.
Conner had rushed over to get water from the fridge, to help bring her around. When it was apparent that there were people on the opposite side of her had moved, Solstice looked around and saw M'gann being tended to by Raven and Supergirl, she went over to Superboy to know what the problem was and to give the Martian some space, "Hey, Conner. What's wrong with M'gann? Is she hurt?" She said keeping her voice down low.
Conner appreciated her kindness and concern for M'gann, "It looks like she fainted. I'm just getting her some water to cool her down just in-case she's too hot." He whispered back.
Solstice looked over to the three other Titans, "Do you need me to get anything for her?"
Superboy did not want anybody finding out that asked her to mind read Guardian, in-case it made him looked like he was obsessing over him, and when it came to obsession on a target in the Titans it never turned out well, "Not that I can think of. Besides, Kara and Raven are already there to her to make sure she's alright."
"What about the meeting?" Solstice looked back over nervously to everyone around the table, feeling there was information she was missing out.
"Everything Robin is saying right now, we've already heard. We were in the room when Waller called?" Superboy whispered as he started walking back over to M'gann.
All three girls were sitting down, M'gann just regaining her consciousness. Raven budged up to let Conner sit besides his ex, "Here drink." He said, still keeping his voice low.
M'gann took the bottle of water and slowly drank it until about a quarter of it was downed, taking her lips away from the lid of the bottle she breathing fast, "I... couldn't... do it Conner."
Kara and Raven quickly looked at each other, "Do what M'gann."
M'gann waved her hand over to the meeting, "Read... his mind."
"Guardian's?" Raven understood what was going on.
Miss Martian tried to nod, but was still drowsy so her body lurched forward when she tried to, but Conner caught her and helped her slowly lean back, "Yeah... there was... like a... mental barrier of... some sort." Giving away what Conner asked of her.
"I could have told you that." Raven leaned back on the sofa.
Conner changed his focus from M'gann to Raven, "What?! How?!" Raising his voice slightly in anger.
"The amount of energy coming off of him is massive. Isn't it Kara?" Raven looked back over Supergirl.
"Yeah. Whilst you brought M'gann out of the meeting, I tried to see behind the helmet, but he has some sort of lead substance around the entire suit." Kara explained, "Raven sort of noticed what I was doing and said the exact same thing what she told you just there, and I saw it for myself. She's not lying. The aura around him and him is enormous, so it must be that he controls aura."
"You couldn't see anything?" Conner ignored the aura part.
"Nothing, there's no opening in the suit. I even went into microscopic vision and I couldn't see a see a thing that would help." Supergirl shook her head.
Superboy held his head in his hands and swiped them along his head, before leaning back up and taking sighing loudly, "I can't believe this!" He quietly shouted.
Kara leaned round and swatted Conner on the arm giving him a look. She began rubbing M'gann's back and brought the conversation back on its original track, "You haven't told us what happened to you M'gann."
"I was trying to read Guardian's mind and I don't know..." M'gann had just about regained her breath, "It felt like someone had hit a hammer over my head."
"Guardian must have done something!" Superboy palmed a fist into his free hand.
Kara was getting sick of Conner's hatred, "That's enough Conner! If you don't shut up about-"
"-It is possible." Raven interrupted her taking Conner's side.
"Huh?" Supergirl looked at Raven not believing what she just said.
Raven was not the type of person to lie or make stuff up and thought Kara would be smarter than that to know her, but she continued on, "Nobody really knows what you can or can't do with aura. Though there are scriptures written on aura usage."
M'gann tilted her head to Raven on the sofa, interested in this aura thing, "How do you know all of this? Like what is aura?"
Raven explained the background, "Kara knows it as I do. Aura is the living energy inside everyone and everything. Every tiny thing gives off aura; be it a person walking down a street, to a brick in a building. Some things more than others give it off than other, like the person walking down the street would clearly have more aura than the brick. Here's the thing though."
Whilst Raven was speaking she was looking down and holding out her own hand, with her black energy surround it, "Very few people throughout history have had the ability to control what is basically pure energy. There aren't any real records dictating all that happens when you control aura, but there were monks of some sort in China hundreds of years ago that were apparently able to control aura. They were said to be "doers of many great deeds to those the very people around them". It is written that sick people came to them and they were cured, and some monks not from China went back to their homelands doing acts of kindness with the gifts they had."
Everyone was hooked by the story Raven was telling, she was practically a genius in the spiritual, supernatural, and magical powers and folklore so she could tell the fable like an Shakespearean actor could recite Macbeth.
Kara had noticed something in Raven's speech, "Wait, you keep on saying "had". Did something happen to those monks?"
Raven nodded, "Yes, the last known aura wielder was killed in the late sixteenth century." She shook her hand once and the black energy left her hand.
"Who by?" Kara continued with her line of questions.
"A rogue monk. He believed that since he was more powerful than a normal human being, that he should be allowed power of a normal person. Whilst the other monks focused on abilities that were suited for the benefit of others, he used his aura abilities for the benefit of himself. Such as super-strength and speed." Raven remembered everything that she had read of the aura wielders' downfall, but kept an eye on the group making sure nobody realised what they were all doing.
"What about the rogue monk?" M'gann asked, taking over from Supergirl.
"History of him stops there. It was said he had killed every monk, but one. The only European monk ever and the last aura wielder left. They had fought a long and tiring battle before finally killing off the European monk." Raven was able to get a glimpse of Guardian through the crowd.
What she did not tell them that the European monk had a son though, and it is said that the European monk was fighting the rogue monk to able to allow his son flee back to his home country on a ship that was only a few miles from Hong Kong. It is also said that the rogue monk felt the presence of deceased aura user's son who was training to manipulate aura as well. He swore that he knew that the son would never be able to wield aura in his lifetime, but when that the aura wielder from that family line appeared. He will return to finish the line altogether. She strongly believed that "Guardian" was the descendent of the European aura wielder.
The meeting was coming to a close with information being brought in from both Robin proving to be a hefty amount of information to remember. He seemed out of breath by the time he had finished talking and showing on the monitor about the final piece of information about suspected people involved with carrying out the assault. With the ranging from smart, calculating, and tactical people like Lex Luthor to crazy, demented, and anarchy-loving people such as The Joker.
Robin took a breath before giving final words of advice, "Listen everyone, I don't know how long this'll take. It might be a few days or it might even be months. Throughout all of this some of us may be: bruised, battered, stabbed, shot, or even killed."
As he kept looking at the Titan leader, Guardian could just tell that some of them started glaring at him again once "shot" was mentioned.
"But that's not what matters. We have been asked by two separate nations for our cooperation in restoring security where we don't need to worry about the constant threat of groups such as the Brotherhood of Evil. For most of us, this will mean that your own nation has called on you in its time of need. For those who's isn't, then it means that the citizens of these nation maybe even the world asks for your help. This is an honor not bestowed onto many, and we accept it humbly like we should. Why? Because first and foremost, it is the right thing to do. But more importantly because it is: our job, our duty, our responsibility, our motivation, hell it is even our very way of life." Dick stressed the final word making everyone know their place here.
"And that "way of life" is all of us giving our lives for the good of society. We are willing to lay down ours for the sake of: every person on this Earth, justice, peace, and hope." He stopped for a moment to let every sink into every person, looking across the room he saw different expressions but all had the same sense of agreement with what he was saying.
"So," Robin opened his T-Comp and started typing; making everybody else's T-Comp buzz (except Cyborg, whose eye changed colour to red). Opening it they saw that they had been all connected a network to track everyone's movement, calls, messages to make sure that everyone knew everything that was going on, "Titans... you know what to do."
Dennis zoned out from the meeting by stopping all facial movements from his Guardian face and turned off the microphone to the outside world, "Bring up a map of Jump." He spoke to his mainframe computer.
It showed a live satellite overhead view of the city, "Go in further to the city centre." Showing him the names of the shops, streets and buildings. He kept looking for a minute until he saw something that caught his eye, smirking he backed out of the map back to the view of the Tower lobby and turned everything back on.
"-so we need people on first patrol throughout the country first." Robin was continuing the meeting.
Dennis unfolded his arms, turned and started walking away making everybody in the room look at him dumbfounded.
Superboy shouted after him, "Hang on! Where the fuck are you going!?"
"First patrol. I'll take Jump." Dennis continued walking and the automatic doors parted to reveal a ginger haired individual surprising every Titan that were able to get a glimpse of the hair. Guardian stared the individual down briefly before stepping to the side and walking to the elevator at the other end of the room.
Leaving the individual behind, those that did wear a shocked look dropped it completely; hoping to see Wally West and that the only these two had in common was hair colour. Everything else was entirely different with his hair being long for neck length, white retro full circle glasses, a bronze coloured trench coat only just passing below his waist, a plain white t-shirt apart from the Teen Titans logo of the red "T" and circle outline with the yellow inside it, and a fairly new of white Nike running shoes with a blood red outline surrounding the logo and having the same for the fabric inside the shoes.
Still looking at the closed door, he tilted his head a little, "Who's the new guy?"
"Where the hell have you been Danny?" Robin tilted his head as well, looking at the newcomer instead.
The ginger haired youngster faced Robin with his usual cocky smile, "I told you last time. I wouldn't be able to make today's meeting because I had to go stay with my grandparents because my parents are on a mission. You're lucky I'm even here."
The last thing thing Dick wanted at the moment was another fight, so whilst everyone began talking amongst themselves again he composed himself to deal with the late arrival, "Okay I understand-" Then it hit him, "-Danny could you do me a favour?"
Danny pretending like he was in deep thought for the moment, "Hmm... nah. Can't be bothered." He shrugged jokingly.
"Danny, seriously." Dick made sure he was not in the mood for games, "You see the... thing that walked by you a second ago?"
"Yeah, the reject from Transformers." Danny still joked.
Robin sighed, "Look, could you please keep an eye on him throughout this whole search."
"Why? I mean who even is that?"
"Look, he'll probably explain everything to you. You'd be doing a massive favour for me. All you need to do is keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't get into any sort of problems." Robin swiped a hand across an eye as he began to feel fatigued as per usual.
Danny stood there a moment, moving both of his hands down his face making a face when it went past his mouth. Battling with his conscious on the situation. His mind was split, but eventually one side won out, "Ahh, fuck it. I'll do it."
"Thanks Danny." Robin felt like this had been the first thing that had gone right all day.
Danny started mumbling to himself as began walking back to the main doors that he just came in only a minute ago, "-Unbelievable. Just when you come to the Tower, you get sent off babysitting a tin man-" His mumblings being cut off from the lobby once the doors closed behind him.
Dick wanted to sit down, knowing that the meeting was not over yet. He still had to go through the teams and such and where to look and a bunch of other things. He needed Danny out, mainly through not wanting to repeat himself; selfish, yes but he felt like he would pass out from anger if he needed to do the speech all over again for one guy.
"Hey, Dick?" Beast Boy came upto him, put his arm round Robin's shoulder and lowered his voice. "You do realise you just sent Chase after the guy that just shot and knocked-out two of our friends?"
"Yep."
"I don't think that's a wise decision Dick." The green changeling shook his head.
Robin just threw his hands up in the air for a split second, letting them crash down, "Well Gar, I'm just about to explode with anger. Nothing has gone right today, two of my best friends are lying unconscious right now; one nearly had brain damage whilst the other was shot. I needed him out so I could just wrap this whole thing up. I'm too tired to continue, but I have to finish it all up here before doing anything else. Once we finish here, we'll start the hunt for the Brotherhood."
Closing Notes- This chapter took me less time than to finish than previous chapters but still was a load of work to complete. Thanks for once again for reading, hope to see you next chapter, and please leave a review.