"I feel like I'm getting something wrong here. Am I missing something?"
"What do you mean?"
"You guys don't have any problems, with the locals, I mean?"
"When I came to Earth, humans were not very kind to me, but Robin and all my friends took me in."
"I mean you Titans, generally. Don't you have any problems with people getting curious? Where I come from, any forays into local space were always dangerous to say the least, and we oft had to fight one race or another before we could land on another planet." Aiira was finding conversation with Starfire was fairly interesting, to say the least, and they had at least one thing in common; they were both strangers to Earth. They had some time to locate Red X, and the time during flight was spent getting to know each other.
"You're people are warriors, then?" She liked Starfire – the Tamaranian only asked questions that were important, or helped her understand something. With her there were no wasted questions or answers – like Raven, but with more flowers and somewhat hyperactive.
"We're all able to be. Part of our learning is focussed on combat – mostly for the discipline of the mind, which helps with the academic side of things, but the training still makes us competent fighters, at least. Not everyone is as powerful as me, however. Most of us can't even do some of the most standard things I am capable of."
"You're unique?"
"That's probably the best word for it. But what about you, Tamaranian? I'm here to find friends, what keeps you grounded on this planet?"
Starfire's reply was simple, but spoke entire volumes. "Robin." Of course, it still took a couple of seconds to sink in before Aiira understood what she meant, and found herself thankful that her race didn't have the blood colour that allowed blushing.
"You found someone suited to you. If only I were to be as fortunate." The white-skinned alien sighed softly, the sound drowned out by the air rushing past. Immortality, in this form, with no knowledge of how to return home, it did not allow for much hope of finding a relationship that would work.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the girl. "You will." Was all she said. The statement seemed so naïve, but at the same time concerned and comforting, and she would have said so had they not been interrupted, mid-sentence by Robin.
"Guys, I've got a lock on him. He's broken into the standard place, one of the three city banks. Let's do this like we're meant to be professional. Star, Aiira, you two take overwatch from above, tell us if he tries to make a break for it. I'll be waiting for the call. Cy, Gar, you two hit him as fast and as hard as you can."
As the team sent various confirmations to each other, Aiira glanced across at Starfire, the pair having slowed to a halt in the air. "Gar?" she inquired.
"Changeling's real name is Garfield." She replied with a companionable giggle. Though her extra-terrestrial origins, the peculiarity of the name was not lost on Aiira, who smiled at the idea. Fitting, then, that he could turn into animals, before another idea struck her. Of all the information they had included, why an adolescent's film about a talking cat? How could that have possibly been of any real use in any situation other than this one?
"So what are we looking for?" she asked, directing it at Robin through the communicator.
"You probably won't see much of him from up there in the dark, but he uses lots of red. Watch for big red explosions near our signal and you can't go far wrong."
Down on the ground, the blue and chrome paintwork of the 'T-car' slewed to a halt in front of the shattered bank doorway, Cyborg and Changeling jumping from the car doors. Cyborg's arm twitched slightly, then rearranged itself, the hand folding aside to make way for the sonic cannon, his signature weapon. Beside him, the little green man we all know as Changeling shifted, growing fur and a tail, curling into the form of a monkey. Why he took that particular form, I don't know. What I do know is that they target burst from the bank a few moments later, the contents of at least two of the vaults in a pressurised contained strapped to the man's back.
Perhaps now would be a good time to full describe Red X. As a man he is quite wiry, yet tough, and just as agile and versed in the art of combat as Robin – it seems that they learned similar techniques – though I cannot tell you much more about his personal appearance, though he is a similar height to Robin. Once again an obvious statement, as the suit was built by Robin, for Robin, and stolen by this Red X character. Robin used the suit in undercover missions, while Red X uses it to steal and fight, always to his advantage even at the neglect of others.
And the suit…I must admit, even by my standards it is an impressive piece of equipment. The actual fabric is cotton, interwoven with an aluminium-titanium compound mesh, making a cloth that is flexible, resilient and entirely rust-proof. Interlaced with that is also fine strands of copper, protected by the first compound and used to carry the current and signals to the suit's many systems. Ah yes, the suit has a great deal of things it can do. Powered by Xenothium, an extremely rare – and I do not use the world lightly – energy source, the suit's functions ranged from diamond-hard wrist-blades, to elasti-form compounds to even a shadow-edge teleportation system. I do not list all of the functions, though this record will show you a few more.
The moment the villain saw the two Titans, the lop-sided X on his left pectoral began to glow as a suit's monitoring systems detected a rise in brain activity, shifting into a more combat oriented readiness. He moved fast, a stream of shurikens casting from his outstretched palms, cutting the air between him and the other two. Midway the miniature discs exploded with muffled thumping noises, releasing clouds of thick, cloying smoke into the air. A moment to appreciate his handiwork, then ducking as Cyborg began firing, bionic eye unperturbed by the dark clouds and clearly sighting the man as he made his move, flipping athletically over each strike. Through the darkness, Cyborg heard his voice, taunting him. "Have you still not learned how to shoot that thing?"
It was a jab at him – an unfortunately accurate one. His accuracy had never been great, despite his genetic enhancements and aim stabiliser, his shots often fell off their mark. No problem when the target was the size of a barn, but not so useful if they were this lithe and agile.
However, it went some way to explain why Changeling chose the form he did. Though he had to bound through the smoke, the multi-limbed and multi-jointed monkey kept pace with Red X as the two began to fight, fists and feet trading strikes with each other second after second, but of course, this villain would prove to be the superior. He was trained, and though Changeling had a form that could keep pace, Changeling as a person could not – he took one strike, a foot to the midriff, and it was effectively over – his defence crumbled as the wind was knocked out of him, and more punches and blows strike him before a finisher sent him spinning off into the darkness, reverting to his original form from the pain.
Aiira watched this from above, and before the man fled the smoke, her eyes had pierced the veil and seen the fight, and Robin was already in pursuit. His bike cornered, drifting to conserve speed, rocketing through the dense smoke with no apparent regard for the two other Titans floundering about, but he had more control than you could expect. His mask, a sophisticated AI program, held a heads-up-display, and as he passed out of the range of normal vision it switched to infra-red, the two incapacitated team members showing up as bright red forms, and he altered is course to avoid them, passing out the other side with streams of ash coating his bike, tearing off in the wind.
Once again, the villain was one step ahead, the ground exploding beneath the Titan in a shower of rock and concrete, as trip-mines thrown as an afterthought detonated, hurling the bike and its occupant into the air.
Now, this is where I find that Red X met his match against Robin – the young man sprung from the saddle before he made landfall again, the bike skidding and scraping on the ground behind him as the momentum carried him forward towards his fleeing opponent, a pair of discs flying from his belt to detonate in front of the black-garbed villain to cut off his escape route. It worked, to some effect at least. He stopped to allow the explosions to happen without him being in the middle of it, and spun on his heel to face Robin directly.
"Come on, Robin." He began, his voice deepened and unidentifiable, another thanks to the suit, "I always escape, you know that. Tonight isn't going to be any different."
"If tonight isn't going to be different, you should know we're going to try. But this night is going to be different – we're going to win."
"Just keep telling yourself that. Thanks for supplying my escape route, by the way." He wasted no more time on banter, sprinting off into the cloud of debris left by the detonator-discs, the Titan giving chase the moment the other had begun to move. At the choking cloud he paused, sounds of repeated impact echoing in the gloom…before Red X stumbled out again, clearly disoriented and bereft of the sealed containers. Aiira followed him from the dust, tossing aside the container full of money.
In this moment's lull, the villain looked up at Robin. "Nice girl you've got there, fast…bet she fucks like-" …that was a mistake. The moment he had started to phrase that little insult, he had basically sealed his fate. She moved when he was halfway through, hand clamping around his throat, and in a motion that seemed to discard him, she tossed the man aside into the concrete wall of the nearest building. The impact made a dent in the building, and left Red X unconscious, such was the force of the blow, combined with the beating he had received in the dust cloud.
And that was it – the fight was effectively over. Aiira dragged the villain from the building to the floor, turning back to Robin when she was sure he still lived.
"He'll hurt for a while, but I didn't kill him." She explained, to placate the young man.
"Good choice." Robin thanked her, "we don't kill if we can avoid it."
"Do you have a problem with killing?"
"Not particularly. We've all had to kill someone at some point, but we're vigilantes. We don't have a great immunity from the law, so we're only off the hook if the criminal is brought in alive, unless they specifically tell us we can do what we want. But here isn't the best place to talk about it." He drifted over to where Red X lay, plucking the utility belt from the man's waist.
"Why are you-" Aiira was still in the dark about exactly how the suit worked. Robin explained of course.
"The suit is powered by xenothium, you know. The belt converts it into safe energy. Without it, each time he uses a core it will blow up in his face. Hopefully he's smart enough to work that out, after having this done to him before."
"So you know who he is?"
"Not yet. Every time he's escaped somehow, but I took his belt the first time, and he retrieved it. He's a thief, and he knew how to get it back. I can't destroy it – the core is too unstable to be disposed of safely."
"Want to find out? He's lying unconscious only a few feet from where you're standing."
"I can't take the suit off him. It monitors the user's neural activity, so it can be used without talking. He would need to want to take the mask off for me to be able to." His hand went to his communicator. "Alright guys, we're done here. Let's all get back to the tower."
"So are all these missions like this?"
"More or less, nowadays. We used to just rush into things, hoping to not hit each other and actually land a telling blow on whoever the bad guy was that time around. Things kinda changed when Cyborg hit twenty and we stopped calling ourselves Teen Titans, it's just the Titans now."
"You grew up."
"Basically. Most of us are eighteen now, but Garfield is kinda lagging. He's still got a month or so to go before he catches up." Robin pushed himself from the sofa to go and get a coke from the fridge. The Titans were non-alcoholics, for various reasons, though primarily because they wouldn't be able to fight evil very well if they were tripping over each other's shoes and vomiting on the pavement. Cyborg was the only one who could realistically drink beer or the like – his system automatically filtered out toxins, and that included alcohol.
Speaking of which, Cyborg was on the phone.
"Yea, yea don't- it's alright just- listen! I got everything under control for when you get back. You're on holiday, just enjoy it. Come on, just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I get everything wrong- alright alright. Jinx, listen, listen- don't worry. I'm doing this for you, so I am not going to mess it up even if the world gets in the way." He walked from the room then, and Aiira didn't catch any more of it, but quizzed Robin on it when he sat back down.
"Who's Jinx?" it was a reasonable enough question.
"Cyborg's girlfriend." He replied nonchalantly, dropping back into his seat with the open can. "He had a crush on her a while back, they got together about a year ago, after she turned good."
"What, so she was evil when he had a crush on her? Didn't that cause complications?"
"Well, he got to know her on an undercover op. when he had to infiltrate the school for super villains that she was attending. They had a dance, stuff like that. Actually it was Kid Flash who turned her good a couple of years back – they were together until she dumped him – two months later she and Cyborg were together. I don't know the specifics, I didn't ask."
They lounged about in the tower's living room. Raven had not yet appeared, or summoned anyone in any way, so Aiira was taking the chance to get to know the Titans a little more.
Changeling had leapt back onto the computer the moment he got back, and Cyborg had checked his phone, leaving Robin and Starfire as the only practical people to converse with – you don't interrupt Changeling when he's playing, unless you're Cyborg – or mad.
"So what about you and Starfire?" Aiira pressed, nodding towards the Tamaranian at the other end of the sofa. "What's the deal between you and her?"
"Oh? Me and her have been together for a couple of years now, since an incident in Tokyo." He slurped noisily from the can, then sniggered as Changeling grunted in annoyance from the sound.
"It took us ages to actually admit it."
"Well, you did, at least. It's painful knowing the attraction is there but being unable to admit it."
"What about you then?" Robin swigged from the can again. "Anyone special?"
"Probably, I dunno." Aiira replied with a shrug. "There might have been, or might still be. If there was, I won't ever manage to make contact with him. I don't know how to return to my home planet. It's sealed from me."
"Then look somewhere else. It worked for me and Star."
That was true, very true. It got Aiira thinking – there might be someone else, out in the infinite universe, but even then…
"If there is, I won't drag him into this. If I really do find I have someone out there for me, I wouldn't cause them the pain of having to be a part of my journey."
"That's right, you never said. What's this all about?"
Aiira looked at him, then decided to explain. "Well, you see, my people are part of this nexus at the centre of the universe…"
When I heard about this point in her life, it made me very happy, I tell you now. The pain she had already been through, the loss and the suffering she would have to endure…truly it was the calm before the storm. I don't think she could have come across a better group to get to know. The Titans have their quirks, yes, each to their own little peculiarities, but they were accustomed to powers and aliens, and a being like Aiira could quickly intermingle with them. I must admit now that when I met them, my attitude did not allow for such easy conversation, at least not to begin with.
Up close, the hive city was larger, but definitely less impressive. At a distance the massive gun-podiums and weapon systems looked powerful and imposing, but now, as Menthis stood at the city wall, she could see exactly how bad things were. Most of the city-killers had pieces missing, or had rusted over so badly as to be unusable. You would have to cannibalise most of them to get even a fifth of them properly operational again. Shitty workmanship, she put it down to. The artillery fire had stopped after the spectacular deaths of one crew, the explosion of another cannon, and the god Cthulhu advancing on the city. The god had of course been a clever illusion, and Menthis now felt it was a little tacky, but she had been in a hurry and the good tentacle-monster-god had been the first one to spring to mind. The gates were open for her, and she entered slowly, wreathed in an aura of dark fire to impress whoever the natives were this time.
Humans, it so turned out, and lots of them, shambling from homes and cowering in fear at her. Most of them were dressed in rags or poorly maintained clothes, but a group of soldiers, wearing shabby but serviceable uniforms and peculiar symbols branded around their faces trotted up to her, weapons live and ready.
"Oo's this then?" the man's accent was lop-sided and primitive, as if he felt more at home speaking in grunts than any civilised language.
"Ask that question again, properly the next time, and maybe you can keep your tongue instead of having it sliced off." Menthis replied calmly, ignoring the dozen or so guns raised at her as she insulted him cleanly. "Put those weapons away if you all want to live. Bullets are fast, but I'm faster."
"Shad it!" the leader snapped, still in that lilting dialect.
"Do you want me to do to you what I did to the gunnery crew?" Menthis asked politely, "or do you want to lower those weapons and even get to kill something, maybe?"
"Oi, listen, shad ya yap-" he doubtless had something more to say, but Menthis didn't like him very much anymore. She moved, a dark blur against a dark background, Asa cackling as it cut the air and then flesh and bone, sailing through the leader with its wielder and all, finishing the brief sprint behind the group.
It took a moment or so for the sound and sight to catch up. A line of light traced across the man's midriff, followed seconds later by a slash of blood before the human crumpled in two pieces. The others were too stunned by the movement to react the way they had been trained.
"Now…" Menthis continued, wiping her sword on the dead man's combat fatigues, "would you like to share his fate, or follow me and learn to speak properly?"
One of them, presumably whoever was second in command, dropped his gun, the plasteel clattering loudly on the peeling concrete, the man gulping in air several times before finding the courage to speak. "S-sorry, ma'am, is there something we can help you with?" his speech was halting, and had a viscous quality. He was making a visible effort to avoid the idiolect his commander had used.
"Damn right there is!" she snapped, "who the hell is in charge around here?"
"That would be- you just killed him."
"In that case, I'm taking charge. What are the markings for?"
They played it safe, and didn't mention her new authority. "They are symbols, of ar- I mean our god, holy Tzeentch."
"Get in touch with him then, I want to talk to him."
The man laughed hollowly. "He doesn't listen to us. His power is unmatched – we are but worms in his eyes."
Menthis grabbed him by the collar, lifting him from the ground to gain the extra foot of height so she could look him in the eye. "I don't care how powerful he is. He only exists because I do, and I don't care if you need to bleed this shit-pit dry to get to talk to him, just do it. If you do not…well, you will have no existence, no body, no soul. You will cease to be and with it any appreciation your god may or may not have for you." She threw him hard onto his gun, and he grunted as the attachments on the side dug into his spine.
She wheeled from him, curling her lip in disgust, marching away into the depths of the hive city, kicking aside a car to prove her point.
"It didn't go well, then?"
"Unfortunately not. They still do not want me to pursue it."
"Are you going to listen?"
"I'm through with listening to them. I'm going to look into things further.
"Should I prep the flotilla for departure?"
"No. I'm going to look into this alone. It requires something of a subtlety. Eleanor will take charge while I am gone."
"Of course. Anything else?"
"Yes. What is the status on locating the other entity?"
"We have yet to make significant progress. She conceals herself well."
"Look for disturbances in life in general. If searching for her essence is not yielding any results, we look using less direct means."
"As you command. Will that be all?"
"For now. Send Eleanor up here – I have something to discuss with her in private."
"As you command."