Tales of the Teen Titans: Unstoppable, Part 1; Shadows of the Empire, chapter 4: Reverberations

Far, far down below the Earth's crust, deep in the welling magma convection currents of the Earth's mantle, lay an anomaly. Earth scientists had detected it, but really had no explanation for it. Nor would they likely ever have one.

It was a continent-sized mass, floating, drifting upon the convection currents, yet oddly stable and solid, here in an environment of molten rock. It was also surprisingly solid, even though every theory available to men held that it should have been reduced to its components long ago. Yet for thousands of years, it had remained, not only solid in a sea of liquid rock, but also pretty much in one spot, even without anything visible to anchor itself to.

But had Earth scientists been able to see through the rock and magma in the way, they would've been very surprised to see what was on the upper surface of the floating continent: a city. Not, of course, a standard human city, but a great green crystalline structure permanently affixed to the upper portion of the subterranean continent. A green crystal city that glowed by its own light there in the stygian hot darkness of the Underground.

Within that city, in the very heart of it, stood the figure of a man. Of course, it wasn't a man; no human could tolerate the conditions here so far under the Earth's crust. But to all appearances, it seemed to be a man, a tall man, garbed in dark form-fitting garments and a cape whose collar extended up beyond his shoulders and behind his head. He was standing in the middle of a vast library, reading a book.

The notion of his being a man, or human, would've been easily dispelled had anyone gotten a chance to look at his eyes. They were not human eyes. It was more than just that they were red from corner to corner, with no visible pupils, no, it was something else. Something nonphysical. Those eyes were just plain disturbing for humans to look upon.

If it is true that the eyes are the window of the soul, these eyes gave onlookers a glimpse of a place they didn't want to go.

The figure looked up. His vision was not sight, as humans understood it, and he could easily see here, in the red-and-green litten darkness. They focused on an object floating nearby the lost continent, only a hundred miles away, an object that should not be.

Like the lost slab of continent, this object, though much smaller, was impervious to the torrid conditions of Underground. The Fallen One studied it, curious. It was not very large at all. With a thought, he Sent out a wave of what humans might call telekinesis and drew the object to him, to this room here in the crystal city. It floated obediently down, into his grasp, and he turned it over and over, noting that even his senses were unable to penetrate it even a little.

It appeared to be a silvery oblong tube, blunt at one end and squared off at the other, with flutes running down the otherwise smooth side. He found it annoying that he could not see or sense anything of its interior structure, but apparently, whatever property made it resistant to the heat and pressure here, also rendered it absolutely opaque to his vision. Odd. He'd never encountered anything like that. It was neither warm nor cold. His senses could tell him that, whatever else might be true of it, it seemed to have no temperature at all. That, of course, was the key to what it was.

It was an object in a time stasis field. For this object, whatever it was, no time passed whatsoever. It was indestructible, since destruction requires change, and no change could occur without the passage of time, which, for this object, did not exist. There was no way of telling how long it had been drifting from one place to another, for an object in stasis could be anywhere from a day to a trillion years old or older. And, perhaps most perplexing, it was totally, completely unworkable as long as it was in the stasis field. In order to find out what it was, what it could do, he'd have to turn off the stasis field first. And he didn't know how to do that.

He smiled an unsettling smile. Actually, he did, but it involved the expenditure of resources he wasn't prepared to part with just yet. Besides. There was one, on the surface world, who could break the stasis field. Perhaps he'd have some use for this artifact.

And so the Fallen One thought, and Sent the object smoothly rising upward, towards the surface world and the world of men.

…..

Robin was more puzzled than he'd ever been. The alien Hunters, who'd rescued and brought Beast Boy and Tara back, had been more than helpful with artifacts from the captured ship she'd been on. But the data he was seeing raised more questions than it answered.

"Robin?" Starfire's voice was soft behind him. "You have been studying this material for several days now. Do you not need rest?"

He shook his head. "Can't, Star. Whoever cloned Terra….we still don't have any leads on them. I don't think Slade was behind it now, or at least, not all of it. Whoever they were, they used advanced cloning technology, considerably higher than anything we have access to, and probably higher than anything Slade has access to. It's certainly beyond Cadmus. And that ship…..there were parademons on it. That suggests Darkseid might be behind this whole thing. And that's disturbing." He paused, chewing on a knuckle, as she came up behind him and began massaging his shoulders. "Ahh. Thanks, Star. Yeah, I was getting a little tense."

"I have heard of this Darkseid. He is evil incarnate."

"To put it mildly, yes. And I can see why he'd want Terra clones: I mean, imagine, your own army of earthmovers. After all, there's no indication that Terra's powers are limited to here on Earth. But what's puzzling about it is, the whole ship does not seem to be a product of Apokalypse technology." He held up a silvery cube. "Take these, for example. There were several of these scattered throughout the ship. They're mother boxes, and they appear to be inoperative. That's why Gar was able to catch up with that ship. Had these things been active, they would've simply opened a boom tube to wherever, and been long gone. Instead, they were having to do it the hard way, through normal space. But my point is, mother boxes are a product of New Genesis, not Apokalypse. And the New Gods of New Genesis are supposed to be on our side. I can't see Highfather Izaya sanctioning any sort of cloning or kidnapping of someone on Earth, not without a very good reason."

"Could Darkseid have stolen the ship from New Genesis? Perhaps as a herring that is red?"

"You mean, a distraction? That's what I'm thinking. There are some add-ons that are reminiscent of Apokalypse technology, but they were added after the fact, so to speak.

"But that meant he took steps in case his plan failed. What other steps might he have taken?

"But what really troubles me is, the simple fact of Darkseid's possible involvement in all this. If it's him, he won't give up. So it's more important now than ever we locate those other clones….and I don't know how to go about doing it."

"You have checked with the seismographs?" Still continuing to massage him.

"Yes, Star. There've been no suspicious tremors or anything, at least not any that can't be accounted for through natural means." He yawned suddenly.

"Robin? Come with me, please?" She took him by the hands and lifted him to his feet.

"Oh, okay, Star. I guess I can spare a few minutes. What's on your mind?"

"Just come with me." And she led him down to her room. He became a bit apprehensive when he saw where they were going. "Uh, Star?"

She drew him into her room, still holding his hands. Closed the door and drew him close. "Robin," she whispered in his ear, "I need you. I want you. Will you not attend to me?"

"Oh, gosh, Star. You know I will. I, I'm sorry. I, I guess I'm a little unaccustomed to, to,…this."

She giggled. "Well. I know a cure for that. Let us go prepare." And she led him into the full-size bathroom. "And this time," she whispered in his ear, "let us take off that mask. I want to see your eyes, my beloved."

Later, in bed, with her sweet-smelling form pressed up against his, he silently made a vow: from now on, he'd take better care of Starfire. She put up with an awful lot from him, his obsessions, or "determination," as he preferred to call it. Yes, he'd definitely have to take better care of her, emotionally, than he'd been doing. I wonder, he mused, should we move in together? But a part of him just wasn't comfortable with that notion, not yet.

He hoped, some day, when the time was right, to propose to her, as Beast Boy had to Terra. But he didn't see that happening anytime soon, given who and what he was. And, yes, he was certain his many enemies would no doubt seek revenge on him by attacking her. But that could happen anyway, engaged or not. Plus, he really didn't know anybody better able to take care of herself in a fight than Starfire.

The girl in his arms murmured sleepily. "That was….wonderful, Robin. Thank you."

He kissed her, a slow, hot kiss of pure carnal desire. "You mean, you were wonderful. I should thank you." Then, "Star? I've reached a decision. I'm gonna be better to you than I have been in the past. I know I brood sometimes, and sometimes I get a little intense, maybe even…obsessed. That's gonna change. From now on, I will take better care of you than I have been."

"Oh, Robin! You do not have to-*"

"Yes, I do. Not just for your sake, but also for mine. But yeah, primarily for the sake of the girl I want to marry, some day." He gulped. How had that slipped out?

She caught it. "Married? You and I?"

No going back. "Yes, Star, married. That is, if you're willing. Not right away, you understand, but sometime In the near future. Would—would you go for that?"

"Hm." A thoughtful expression lay on her features. "Let me think about it." Two seconds later, "Yes, Robin! A hundred yeses!" And she rolled over to him, hugging him, all the while pressing each and every part of her wonderfully naked body up against his. Then she sobered, and sat up on her knees. "You know, there is an ancient Tamaranean custom for occasions such as these."

"Really? What is it?"

She straddled him, her magnificent body silhouetted against the ambient light in the room. Reached down and guided him up into her. "It goes something like this. I think you will enjoy it…"

She was right.

…

Up in her room, Raven began to stir uneasily. Hers was on the other end of the floor from Starfire's, but that really wasn't far enough.

Omega patrolled the corridor, casting about with his senses. He, of course, briefly noted the two in Starfire's room, engaged in the human mating process…again. He shook his head slightly, smiling. Human passions must be very strong indeed in young humans. He often wondered how they ever accomplished anything in light of the distraction. Osiran passions were a bit more subdued, at least most of the time.

But now he heard a low moan come from Raven's room, behind him, down the hallway. He turned but hesitated; he really didn't wish to intrude, in case it was something innocuous, but if she were in danger, he needed to know. So he focused his senses into her room.

Raven was twisting and turning on her bed, twisting the sheets up in knots in her fists. She did not seem to be in any particular danger—at least, none he could detect—but the expression on her face was not a restful one, and his senses revealed an increased heartbeat and a rising level of hormones within her. That was odd. What could be causing that?

Of course! Raven was an empath. She was no doubt feeling the psychic reverberations coming from Starfire's room, and it was having a similar effect on her.

Omega stopped, thinking. He knew it was really none of his business, as the saying went, but still….Raven seemed to be in distress. If something didn't happen soon, she'd wake up, and he knew how much she valued a good night's sleep. Plus, she really seemed to be suffering. He truly wanted to help her, somehow.

But what to do? He certainly didn't know. This wasn't the first time his newfound friends had confounded him with their basic otherness, their difference from anything in his previous experience. Things in the Empire were….very different.

He thought about waking Hank and asking him. But no, it made no logical sense to disturb one human's slumber in order to preserve another's. Maybe the Orb would know? But he had a hunch the Orb would be as totally lost as he himself was, if not more so.

Hmmm. There might be one thing he could do….It was only a temporary fix, what the humans called a band-aid measure, but perhaps it would do for now.

He phased down into his room, one floor below, and reconnected to the Osiran Matrix generator, hooking it into his formet, the band around his head which was both natural and not. He could have installed a wireless connection device to it, but thought this might be safer for now. Now, if only his studies of human anatomy were up to the challenge….

He could have used the device to simply link in to Raven's mind directly, but chose not to do so. That was a trifle too invasive of her privacy. Besides, he sometimes had difficulty controlling his own emotions; being in direct rapport with someone who was also experiencing emotional surges could easily prove troublesome for him.

But he could Send her a Dream. Completely disconnected from him, of course, and largely up to her own subconscious as to exactly what form it would take, but perhaps, just perhaps, a nice, pleasant Dream would help her get some peace and rest.

He calculated and crafted the Dream's wave function, modifying it just so, so that it would interact with the human mind in just such a way, and Sent it to her, one floor up.

In her room, Raven gasped, then sagged back into her mattress. Omega watched her closely from his room, alert for any signs of complications. She exhaled, and her face relaxed somewhat. Good. That was the reaction he'd hoped to engender….

But now she convulsed, and the expression on her face became more intense. He actually gave a start. This was unexpected.

Raven, still asleep, grabbed her pillow to her, and wrapped her legs around it, sliding her gown up in the same motion. She locked her legs around the pillow and began moving her body against it in a rhythmic motion, all the while making low moaning sounds that rapidly rose in volume and frequency. Omega quickly withdrew his senses from the room, after determining that she was in no danger. It was no mystery to him what she was doing, but he saw nothing wrong with it. If it helped her, good. But this was a private thing, an unforeseen side effect of his Sending her her Dream, and he understood enough about human social customs to know that it was not polite to remain.

It might have been better for all if he had.

Up in her room, Raven continued on with her dreaming activity with the pillow. After a relatively short time, she climaxed, gasping in satisfaction, and covered the end of the pillow closest to her face with passionate kisses.

In the long run, it might be considered unfortunate that Omega had no voyeur within him, for Raven wasn't quite finished yet. A whole lot of trouble far down the road might have been averted, had he seen and heard what came next. Still asleep and clutching her now-partially soaked pillow to herself, she smiled, stretched, moaned once more, and said, quite clearly, "Garfield…."

Then again, maybe not. Perhaps it would've made no difference anyway.

….

Kid Flash and Jinx were out on the town when they came upon the object. They'd just come from a movie, Attack of the Killer Eggplants, and were discussing the special effects, Jinx maintaining that she could have done much better on her Macbook. Kid Flash agreed with her; the movie really hadn't been exactly state of the art as far as CGI went. "Say. Why not make that a goal?" he asked her.

"What, being a stuntwoman?"

"No, no, being a special effects design artist. Or whatever the job is called. I bet you could do it. After all, you've got the computer skills…."

"Hmm." She thought. "You know, that's an interesting thought." She glanced slyly at him out of the corner of her eye. "'Course, it might mean moving away from Jump City….."

"Hey, no problem. You forget who you're talking to. Hollywood's still only a ten-minute jog away for me, you know. And that's if I go slow."

She smiled, drawing close. "I know. It's just…there's so much else we could use that ten minutes for…." And she kissed him, a kiss he returned with interest.

They finally broke apart, standing there on the darkened street. "What's that?" she asked, looking over his shoulder into a nearby alleyway.

"What's what?" He turned around. There; something in the alley was shining. "Hm. Don't know. Lemme go check it out." Before she could even open her mouth, he was gone….and back, holding what looked to be, for all the world…..

"Hey, KF. Is that what it looks like?"

"Er, I, I, I dunno. It, it looks like a silver, uhm, I mean a silver, er, well, it looks like a silver…."

She giggled. He could be so cute sometimes. "You can say, 'vibrator,' dummy. I won't explode."

"Well, okay then. It looks like a silver what-you-just-said. But it feels strange."

"How so?" Curious, she ran her fingers over it. It did feel kinda odd. It seemed to be neither hot nor cold. That was strange. "What do you suppose it could be, really? I mean, call me peculiar, but I can't help but think that there's more to it than meets the eye."

He examined the object carefully. "If I didn't know better….and perhaps I don't….that looks like, and feels like, a time stasis field."

"A what?"

"A field of time stoppage, basically, around the thing. Robin was telling me about it, a while back. Anything encased in such a field would be completely indestructible, and would reflect all forms of radiation, hence the silver color. And the neither hot nor cold thing. Hm." He thought. "Maybe I should get this to Robin. I'm pretty sure it's a stasis field, but why someone would put….something like this….in a stasis field is beyond me."

She shifted uneasily. "Didn't you once tell me that stasis fields weren't Earth technology? So this could be anything. Anything at all. That it happens to resemble what we call a vibrator or dildo is just coincidence. It could be a tube full of some sort of plague." She shuddered. "Or maybe even something worse."

"I know. But Robin has contacts at S.T.A.R. labs; maybe they could contrive to open it safely there. I have to admit, if it's something not from this Earth, well, I'm curious as to what it could be." He stuck the object in his back pocket. "Good thing about objects in stasis fields: they'll keep. Wanna check out that club I was telling you about?"

…..

Breakfast at Titans' Tower: Beast Boy and Terra still weren't back, so Cyborg and Starfire had the run of the kitchen. Not having to prepare something vegetarian for Beast Boy was bit of a relief. And, it hadn't been lost on Cyborg that whatever Beast Boy ate, Terra ate as well. Guess they're gettin' ready for the ol' cohabitation bit, he mused. It saddened him oddly; his little buddy, all grown up, getting married, maybe even starting a family…..Cyborg had a hard time seeing Beast Boy as a father. But it was coming, no doubt about it. May as well get used to it.

And he'd get to be an uncle. Hee hee hee! He was already plotting ways of spoiling them. They just thought they could get cool stuff from "Toys R Us." Wait'll they saw what he could come up with!

Starfire was happily frying up "the eggs" in a skillet. She still occasionally got some things wrong, but she was learning. And she seemed exuberantly happy this morning, and he, of course, knew why. Both Robin and Starfire seemed blissfully, completely unaware that the entire tower knew, most of the time, when they were having "relations." Robin probably thought it was a deep, dark secret. Cyborg grinned to himself. If only he knew.

Raven came in, still rubbing her eyes and yawning. "Morning, people." She looked around. "Uh, where's Hank?"

"He got called away," said Robin. "Family business. No big; he'll be back today. And, Cy, when did you say Terra and Beast Boy were supposed to make it in?"

"Tomorrow, sometime. That kinda figures. They've been gone for about a week. Hope they had a," and here he smiled a dirty smile, "really good vacation."

"Mm. So we'll be at full strength again, soon. Good. Where's Omega?"

"I am here, Robin," responded the Osiran, coming into the kitchen.

"Good, good. Gang's almost all here. Well, people, this is what I've managed to uncover regarding that ship that kidnapped Tara." And he quickly summarized what he'd found out. "So I can't really tell just where the ship came from. As I told Starfire, parademons usually indicate Darkseid, to one degree or another. Mother boxes usually indicate New Genesis. The two just don't really go together. So I'm thinking that maybe the ship was stolen from New Genesis, and modified on Apokalypse, possibly in an effort to throw everybody off." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "But that theory leads to the distinct possibility that Darkseid, or one of his underlings, may be behind the cloning of Terra. Thing is, we don't know. And it's looking like we might need to know. Darkseid is bad news on roller skates; I'd definitely have to bring in the League on this one if he's involved."

"You are overlooking two other possibilities, Robin," said Omega.

"What are they?"

"That there could be a third party attempting to implicate both the people of Apokalypse and New Genesis. And, there is another, perhaps even more disturbing possibility: that Apokalypse and New Genesis are working in collusion on this matter. For reasons unguessable."

Robin considered it, arms folded across his chest. "Hm. I…..just don't see it. The third party thing, yeah, that's possible. But Apokalypse and New Genesis working together? They hate each other with a purple passion. I can't imagine any circumstances so extreme as to cause them to work together."

"Not even the imminent destruction of the entire universe, perhaps?"

"Hm. That might would do it. Certainly nothing less. But how could cloning Terra fit into all that?"

"Unknown. And it's only a theory, mind you." His gaze focused on something afar off. "I was recently reminded of….some circumstances such as I described. I believe it safe to say that both parties might conceivably put aside their differences in the face of such a threat."

"Well, frankly, I hope not. Anything big and bad enough to scare both Darkseid AND Highfather Izaya into actually working together….would have to be of incredible danger."

Shrug. "As I said, they are only theories. There could, conceivably, be another, perhaps less worrisome reason for the combination of the two technologies."

After the meeting, Starfire ran to catch up with Raven. "Raven! Wait up! I wish to speak with you!"

What are you gonna do now, dress me up in a chicken suit or something? But she sighed and let the alien princess catch up to her. "Could we—could we go to your room? Please?"

"Oh, all right. Come on."

Once there, Starfire proceeded to sit down on a footrest in front of the couch where Raven usually sat. "Robin and I made the love last night," she said, completely unselfconsciously.

Ah. So that explains my dreams. But not the intensity. Aloud, "well, I'm happy for you, Star." And maybe a little envious. That Starfire would come right out and tell her such things was nothing new; Starfire's people had a different idea altogether as to what constituted "things you don't talk about." At least she had waited till they were in the room, instead of blurting it out in the hallway with everyone around them. "So what troubles you? I sense something is bothering you, somewhere."

Starfire got up and paced around the room, hands clasped behind her. "He—he asked me to marry him. Not right away. But sometime in the near future."

Raven looked at her friend. "Well, that's great news, Star. But why would this worry you?"

Starfire hooked her fingers together in a knot. "I," she began, then halted. Raven took note. This must be something very unusual, to have the normally free-spirited Starfire in such a tongue-tangled mess. "I, I do not know if I can give him the children," she finally blurted out. She turned to her friend. "Raven, what if I cannot?"

Raven thought, and thought hard. That was a legitimate question. She knew some men regarded the ability to bear children as a major issue. "Star, I really don't know the answer to that question, but…..I can't help but believe that Robin is fully cognizant of the….possibility that it might be that way. I really don't see him as requiring that of you. Do you?"

"No…."

"But worst case scenario: suppose you aren't able to conceive children by him. What then?"

"I do not know." She twisted her fingers up in knots again, worriedly. "I find I am… afraid to find out."

Raven sighed. She got up and walked over to her friend and, after a moment's hesitation, drew her over to the couch where she was sitting, putting an arm around her as they sat. She still wasn't totally comfortable with such close contact, but she'd learned that sometimes it was just plain necessary. For both parties. "Star, I think it'll be alright. Robin loves you more than life itself. I know that time Blackfire had to you set up to get married, he was VERY upset. I actually thought he was going to come unglued or something. I really don't think you have anything to worry about." She paused. "Have you two been using any sort of protection?"

"There is a Tameranean preparation that I take, to prevent the unwanted pregnancies."

"You may be worrying over nothing. Why don't you have Cyborg check you out, sometime? Not right away or anything. Just….when you have the time. At least, that way you'd know. But look," she said to the taller girl, her arm still around her, "One thing I do know, for a fact: Robin will not love you any less if you can't have children by him. Of that, I'm certain."

"Oh, thank you, Raven! You are a good friend!" And Starfire hugged her back, not one of her usual bone-bending hugs, but definitely a strong hug, nonetheless. Maybe I won't turn her hair green, after all. It was kinda hard to stay mad at Starfire.

To be continued….