3.
Kent Farm
September 27
08:59 UTC
Climbing a set of stairs, Conner moved as quietly as he could while carrying a couple if glasses filled with orange juice. Arriving at the guest room he and M'gann shared, he silently moved the door open with his forearm and entered to see she was still asleep. Setting her glass on the nightstand, the Krypto/human went to the other side of the bedroom and peeked out through the curtain drawn window. Outside on the farm's front yard, chickens ran along the ground looking for insects and seed to feed their bellies while Wolf put up with a gang of small chicks nipping at his tail. He could see Martha with her husband, Jonathan, walking about with Carter in her arms as they headed for the horses already in their enclosure for the start of the day.
Letting the decorative blue curtains close, Conner turned and leaned against the wall to watch his wife sleep for a moment. Yesterday, they had both helped Martha and Jonathan with the heavy chores needed to be done. While he insisted on doing them with the Kent elder instead, she made it clear how she wanted to get her hands dirty with farm life, taking a break every now and then to tend to their son, in which Martha accidentally walked in on her and Carter in their true forms in the barn. It was a shock for the first second to see the Martian mother with her Martian child, but after being caught unaware, she went right up to the child in his mother's arms and fussed over him like any proud grandparent would.
Inhaling, M'gann shifted in the bed and moaned as she woke up. Turning over, she felt the spot beside her for her husband but found it empty. Using her mental ability, she turned to where Conner stood and gave him a drowsy smile.
"Morning," she told him with a slight yawn.
"Morning." Moving away from the window, he sat down beside her as she sat up.
"What time is it?"
"About nine."
"Oh, I overslept. I was supposed to be helping with the-" Noticing the crib next to the bed was empty, M'gann mentally searched for her son. "Carter!"
"He's with Martha and Jonathan taking a walk." Stopping her from moving out of her blankets, Conner had her stay beside him for the time being. "Actually, thanks to you, Martha and Jonathan said there's no chores today."
"What?"
"Because you had to show off yesterday with your telekinesis, every chore to the end of the week has been done. They just have to feed the animals and collect the eggs."
Letting out an embarrassed chuckle, M'gann ran a hand through her hair. She just wanted to help, making the list of chores incredibly short with the usage of her abilities. After their two night stay in Chicago with her uncle, their trip to Colorado for a familymoon, and arriving at the Kent farm for a few days, M'gann only wanted to keep busy.
She reflected back on why she and her family were in this current state with the team they once lead back in Jump City without them. It figuratively killed them to not know what was going on with their friends. News of what was happening was slow, in which they figured things were hectic with the teams.
"Any word from the others?" she asked as she grabbed her glass of juice. "Do they know where Kaldur is?"
"Not yet. Terra left me a message this morning. Batman's still got them working hard and still no sign of Kaldur or Lilith. Not even a clue besides possible weapon damage to the apartment."
Taking a sip, Conner leaned back on the headboard. "Then Dick called me a few minutes ago. He said the same thing. And Batman and Blue Devil are still missing."
"What about our team?" M'gann took a sip and swallowed before continuing. "And Gar?"
"They think the split up's permanent. Terra's having difficulty adjusting to her new training regiment Tim worked out for her. Raven feels more isolated since batman told everyone about her father being that Trigon thing, and Garfield's just trying to keep everyone together."
"Can't help but think we handled it with Raven wrong. But we trusted her to tell them on her own. We did the same thing when we first started, and now, she's being monitored by Zatanna. It's different but feels the same."
"Maybe we should have told the others," Conner told her. "We might not have lost-"
"It wasn't our place. She needed to tell them when she was comfortable. With her, we needed to show trust and understanding. Raven was running from something and when she told you about being part demon with who her father was, she needed someone there for her. I'm just worried the others may not see that."
A few moments of silence passed as the two engaged in a mental conversation and drunk their juice. Letting out a soft giggle, M'gann smiled as she felt their son grow excited from seeing and petting a cow. Turning to look at her husband, who was going over the messages on his phone, she took hold of his glass and mentally moved it and hers to the dresser across the room along with his cell.
"What are you-"
Moving from her spot, M'gann straddled his body and sat on his lap. She then wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in close to where their foreheads were touching. "Since we don't have to do any chores today, and since Carter's in good care with his grandparents..."
She then grew a set of extra arms and snaked them from under one of his old shirts she slept in to hold herself closer to her husband and gave him a grin.
"You're using the arms?" Conner grinned.
"You like it when I do."
Raising his hands, he cupped her face and brought her in for a kiss. With him wrapping his arms around her back, M'gann kept one set of arms tangled in his hair with the other set pulling in close around the waist, letting him move to her neck.
"M'GAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN! CONNEEEEERRRRRRRR!"
Breaking the two apart, Martha's voice filled the house from the outside, causing the two lovers to look at each other with wide eyes before quickly separating. Ripping the curtains open, Conner and M'gann expected to see some villain outside when they were surprised by the large face of the main bovine of the farm, in front of the second story window.
Jumping back, the couple were shocked and confused seeing the cow on the other side of the glass pane when M'gann developed a large smile and practically lit up. "Conner! Carter has his telekinesis!"
Forming her bottoms to shorts and reabsorbing her extra arms, M'gann phased through the wall and flew outside to where Martha as holding her son.
Looking past the brown farm animal, Conner saw his wife happily take their child in her arms. His son let out a series of giggles, easy for him to hear with his enhanced hearing along with M'gann telling Martha and Jonathan about placing a mental block in Carter's mind so he would not do something like this again until he is fully trained.
Switching his gaze back to the cow, Conner shrugged and gave an apologetic smile to the animal. "Sorry, Bertha."
The cow responded with a loud 'Moo'.
Dakota City
September 29
13:31 UTC
"I got her! Get the others!"
Flying above a smelting factory, Rocket had formed one of her kinetic bubbles around the blonde southern powerhouse known as Tuppance Terror. Her, her brother, and a couple of others had been spotted in the area after escaping from a prison transport with the dark skinned heroine being the first to arrive on the scene and call for back up.
"Having a little trouble, myself!" Diving out of the way, Robin rolled back up to his feet as Mammoth charged at him and rammed his shoulder into a solid metal wall.
Drawing a trio of Bird-a-Rangs, the current Boy Wonder threw them at the feet of the large meta human to create a net of electricity. His tactics failed to work as the Cobra Venom enhanced villain broke out of it before taking too much damage.
"I got it!" With the ground shaking, Terra focused on burying Mammoth up to his neck. She got as far as cracking the ground under his feet when Robin ordered her to stop.
Dropping from the sky, a green condor shot toward Mammoth like a missile before transforming into a pachycephalosaurus to headbutt the massive villain into unconsciousness when he was sidestepped and roughly grabbed by the tail. Releasing a surprised grunt, Beast Boy felt himself being flung through the air and into the side of a nearby office building. Managing to morph into a kangaroo, the green teen attempted to bounce back into the fight when the wall gave way and he went crashing into the boss' office.
"Ugggh." Beast Boy said as he changed back to his more human-like self with his legs hanging above his head while sitting upside down on his shoulders. "That worked brilliantly."
Outside in the fight, Cyborg was holding his own against Tommy Terror. The muscle bound criminal hammered at the metal covered arm of the cybernetic hero, denting his forearm slightly when he was blasted point blank in the gut. Shaking the impact off, Tommy rushed forward and landed a side kick to Cyborg's chest.
"I think you may be past the expectation date, Tin Man." Reaching over to a parked trailer, Tommy took hold of an iron girder and held it like a baseball bat, "Time to see how fresh you are under that can of yours."
"Just answer me one thing," Cyborg said as he stood up. "Can you fly?"
Raising an eyebrow, Tommy questioned what the metal man meant by that when he heard a flapping behind him. The moment he turned, he saw Raven with her eyes glowing white as black energy enshrouded her hands.
Before the blond mountain of muscle could react, Raven rose her hand in a punching motion and sent him skyward from the force of the explosion she caused with her majicks. With the super strong escapee sailing upwards, Cyborg squatted down and launched himself after him as he deployed a jetpack on his back. Catching up to Tommy, Cyborg transformed his right fist into a reinforced hammer-like mace and smashed the blond criminal in the face, sending him back down to the hard dirt some twenty feet below.
Acting as soon as Tommy hit the ground, Raven wrapped him up in her dark energy and triggered an explosion powerful enough to knock him out. Landing beside the large man, the cloaked teen nudged his head to make sure he was out cold as Cyborg deployed an inhibitor collar from the belt-like wrap on his waist.
"Now that's teamwork, Rae." Standing after attaching the collar to Tommy, Cyborg held up his hand for a high five but was left hanging. "Hey, what's wrong."
"You tell me," Raven told him as she wrapped her cloak around herself. "I know why I'm considered backup."
"Rae," approaching her, Cyborg reached out to turn her around, "hey, you're backup because of your abilities. Heavy hitters like us-"
"I'll be waiting in Sphere." Not bothering to fly, Raven walked back to where Sphere was waiting for the Titan team once they were finished.
As Cyborg watched her walk away, he let out a sigh when an explosion occurred not far from where he was. Shortly after, it began to snow.
Over in the section of the smelting factory made for the storage of replacement equipment, Starfire was descending from the sky with a small blizzard swirling around her. The white flakes covered the ground from several large ice formations being destroyed from the unleashing of a torrent of starbolts.
Touching ground, Starfire had her eyes glow brightly with a vague mist flowing from them as she looked down upon a groaning Icicle Junior. The ice villain was still in his iced-up mode but could not get up to continue the fight he was just in.
"Usually, I would be thankful for a battle such as this, but you were not a challenge in the least." Moving him over with her foot, the Tameranian placed a boot on his large, ice covered arm. "You were not a challenging warrior."
Applying pressure, she cracked and broke the ice surrounding Icicle Junior's arm. She then radioed Cyborg with on her ear mounted communicator. "I have defeated the Icicle Junior, Cyborg. Please apply the collar to inhibit his powers when you can."
"Copy that, Star. On my way."
Ten minutes later, Tommy Terror and Icicle Junior were joined by Tuppence and Mammoth. the four criminals were each placed in inhibitor collars and subdued with a steel girder, complements from Starfire and wielded together by Cyborg.
"What was that?" Walking up to Beast Boy, Robin slipped his collapsible bo staff in a belt sleeve. "What did I tell you to do?"
"I did what you told me to do!" Beast Boy yelled. "I waited until you went to trap Mammoth in that electrical field before I went in!"
"I said once he's trapped, move in! You deployed too early and got thrown into a building."
"Then you should have let Terra trap him."
"She was not part of the plan, she was to make sure no one was present that should not be here. Had it not have been for your impulsiveness and defiant of orders, we would have had him with very little collateral damage."
"Calm down," Cyborg ordered. "Robin, Beast Boy did his best as did Terra. Starfire got her guy, and Raven and I got ours."
"That's not how we do things in the black ops," Robin sternly said. "We follow orders and adjust according to the situation, not take pot shots like you did before I had him set up for the knockout shot."
Holding his arms out, Beast Boy shook his head and scoffed. "We got him, didn't we?"
"But look how much damage he caused before we took him down. And where's Raven?"
"She's back at Sphere," Cyborg told him. "She took Tommy down then went to wait at the rendezvous point."
"Perhaps she was not feeling the cool and needed to rest," Starfire suggested. "Perhaps a hot beverage would do her good. I saw a thin man offer one to a friend of his and it did wonders on the TV."
"Or maybe she's just thinking of other secrets to keep to herself and cost us lives," Robin muttered.
"Take that back!" Beast Boy yelled. There was a small growl in his voice with his teeth becoming sharp for an instant.
"Really. Just cause you don't trust her, doesn't mean she's against us," Terra told the Boy Wonder.
"Her little secret caused the deaths of two close friends of mine and potentially a member of the original team," Robin said as he looked down on Terra. "Had she told us sooner-"
"They might still be dead," Cyborg finished for him.
With Robin still seething, as well as Beast Boy and Terra, Cyborg attempted to put an end to their bickering. "Look, we don't know what would happen if she would have told us from the moment we met her. We still did not know who they were after and we cannot constantly be watching each other in case of danger. Eddie died before we even knew about a cult. Fransisco died trying to catch Silver Banshee. And Kaldur disappeared possibly helping Lilith. There are too many 'what if's' to know how things could have played out if we knew then what we know now, so the best thing to do is work as a team, which we all did, and take down the bad guys. But if this is how you're going to run this team, Robin, you need to take a step back and find a way for all of us to work together in a mutual way and not a singular, one track, sort of way."
Staring at both Beast Boy and Terra, Robin issued his orders once Cyborg was finished. "Understand this, what you did as a team before this, is not how we do things now. We stick to a plan and only change if we have to, never jump the gun."
Leaving the four, Robin headed back to Sphere to have a talk with Raven on why she left when she did before heading back to base.
"Perhaps he is in need of the warm beverage," Starfire commented as she and Cyborg followed the new Titan leader.
"That sucked," Terra muttered.
"Tell me abut it," Beast Boy told her. "We got the job done. If sis and Conner were here-"
Leaving his sentence in the air, the green shapeshifter and blonde Earth mover left the group of recaptured criminals for Rocket and the League to handle.