These Girls and These Boys
Koriand'r took in a deep breath. Concentration was needed for this. It was not often that she had either an opportunity or the thought to engage in this particular tactic, but she was training all of her skills and abilities, was she not?
This may not include the demands of aerial maneuvering or hand-to-hand combat, but it was a useful skill to have when options were limited.
Her eyes were glowing, or so she had been told before. In her experience, she felt a concentration of heat within her optic organs and once she reached a…threshold…
Twin beams of life energy fired from her eyes and struck the target. The Tamaranean clenched her jaw as she focused on maintaining the beams. This was for endurance as well as control. Right now, the size of her optic emissions were equivalent to how far back she would restrict her eyelids.
However, she needed to do more, know more, about this ability's capabilities. Her brow furrowed and the twin beams reduced in diameter. If she peered through the energy, she could note the scorch marks left behind as well as the widening tendrils of smoke that began to rise from behind the shrinking beams.
The target was made from an Earth-based metal alloy. She did not know which, but she had been assured it had been selected for durability. Curiosity was prompting her to further test it and see how true the claim was.
Her eyes narrowed more, her face creased and contorted in concentration, and the muscles of her body tensed with strain. The optic beams' diameter continued to decrease, becoming pinpricks where they struck. The metal was starting to glow…
"What'cha doing? Oh hey, you're doing one of those Superman things—"
Bart's voice broke through her concentration, Koriand'r's eyes widened, and so did the diameter of her beams. Raw life energy slammed into the target, and then she stopped the concentration in her eyes. Once she felt the power in her optic organs decrease to an acceptable level, she slid her eyelids shut to cut off any possibility of potentially harming her speedy teammate.
Belatedly, she noted that her ears were…vibrating internally though that term did not seem to fit human nomenclature. She put her hands to the side of her head, fingers pressing against her ears and applying pressure. This may not accomplish anything, but the act implied that she was doing an act of some worth.
Slowly, as the vibrations in her ear canal weakened, the Tamaranean lowered her hands and opened her eyes. Eyelids blinked, vision returning into focus. Directly in her sight was the metal alloy target, blackened but still standing.
"Whoa, I didn't know you could do that," Bart said.
Koriand'r did not know what meaning she could receive from the metal-based target. So, she turned to the perpetually moving adolescent male who was remaining in one area. He was also looking at the burnt target just as she had been. She noticed how close he was standing next to her which initially put her on alert, but recalling that his power of accelerated speed allowed him to get to such close proximity without her notice relaxed her.
"I was engaged in a series of training activities to improve upon my skills and powers," she explained, answering a question she was not sure she was asked but felt was an appropriate answer. "Forgive me, but you caused a minor strike of anxiety when you interrupted me. Is there something you need?"
Slowly, Bart looked up to her, his brown eyes that were of such a light hue that they did not appear to be natural for a human were wide. They also had a sheen to them, one she had been told was called glaze. What glaze was, she did not know or how it was related to the eye, but it made the treat called the donut quite tasty.
Bart shook his head, blurring the authoritarian limb. "I finished with more of that school stuff and was running around, found you here, wondered what you were doing, and then got a crash light show and do you think you can do it again? For science?"
But was that not what she was doing? Testing in a methodological manner based on observation and predictions on what will happen once all other variables were eliminated?
"I do agree more testing is needed," Koriand'r told the younger male, "but I do not wish to endanger you while I use your science to improve my combat capabilities."
"Oh? So what are you trying to do?" the young male asked.
Staring at the smoking target, "I am seeking to learn the limits of my energy-based powers. I have learned much through using my hands as conduits, but I am seeing how using another, my eyes, will be suitable first in a safe environment and then in a more rigorous combat setting. Using science, I am trying to see what manipulations I can enact with an optical based conduit."
"You know what the crazy part is? I understood that all. Twenty-fifth century education is totally crash. So you're trying to figure out all the funky things you can do by shooting lasers out of your eyes?" Bart held up a hand to the underside of his chin and was stroking that region of skin. "I think we can have some fun with this."
Koriand'r donated an expression to her human teammate. "What does fanciful merriment have with my training?"
Bart patted her on the shoulder, a symbol of camaraderie that was not limited to this planet. "Take it from me, Star, there's more to having a superpower than just having it. You gotta be creative with it, you know? That's why Flash is always a step ahead of his rogues or anyone else who think they can take him! Did you know that one time, there was a bad guy that was making a getaway on a plane? And took off? Got off the ground before Flash could reach 'em? Now I know, Flash is a speedster and so he's all about running and being on the ground, right? So do you think he just gave up and called it a day?"
The Tamaranean listened to the rambling story patiently. While not understanding everything, she grasped that the Flash of which Bart spoke of was someone of high esteem, and a member of the Justice League if she recalled correctly. Still, she did not know what the meaning of this tale was, so she remained quiet and waited.
As if taking her silence as a cue to continue, "No! No, he found a way to get up to the plane. You know how? Clouds. See, clouds are like this mass of tiny water droplets and other stuff that float around in the sky, but when you get down to it, it's just water in another form. And you know what Flash is? A guy who can run so fast he can run on water! So that's what he did. He got high enough, used some low hanging clouds to get his footing, then ran from cloud to cloud until he caught up with the plane and once he did, game over! Bad guy caught, day saved, and Flash is the number one superhero in the world! Gotta love 'em!
"But the point! Nobody ever thinks about running on clouds when they have superspeed! So no one expects it coming until it's too late! It takes creativity and a willingness to do something crazy and no one expects the crazy! Unless you're from some weird place like, I don't know, Gotham, don't understand why people think it's so special, Central City's got it going too, but anyway! Creative! With the eye lasers! No one's gonna see that coming if you can do crazy things with it!"
Now her curiosity was redirected. "What kind of crazy things are you thinking of?"
For a second, she was concerned that the smile Bart made would cut his head in half. "Oh, when you want to talk crazy, talk to a guy from the twenty-fifth century. We're doing a lot of crazy things then, so lucky you, you got yourself a guy from the twenty-fifth century who knows a thing or two about crazy so let's do something crazy! Okay? Okay!"
Was it her imagination, or had Bart's rate of breathing gained weight? There was an elevated energy emitting from his eyes, and his smile might very well complete the splitting of his head. Koriand'r found she was staring at the younger male, her eyes wide and not blinking to moisten them. Oh, he had an expectation of any answer from her, yes?
While she did not truly grasp this concept of crazy, she did understand the story of which her young friend had described. To use what skills you had in unique ways was an idea to contemplate.
Comparing the two of them, Blackfire was the superior in hand-to-hand combat. Weapons, short and long distance, tactics, and brute strength were areas that the older Tamaranean excelled in. However, if she recalled their fight amidst the chaos that her sister had enacted, there had been one time when she had overcome her and then claimed victory. It had been by surprising her, doing something that the elder sibling had not foreseen.
Could it, perhaps, even be called crazy?
She gave a nod of her head, knowing that this was the correct head gesture to do. "The let us do the crazy."
School was out, and the only two members of this team who were stuck having to do the traditional methods of learning were strolling their way down the sidewalk, the quiet of suburbia surrounding them with its oppressiveness.
Hm, Cassie didn't consider herself the poetic type so where had that come from? Now that she thought about it, neither was she the brooding type. This deep-thinking stuff was just not her style. However, walking right beside her was one of the things that had her doing this thing. Last night had pretty much gone down the way you'd expect; they parted ways, she dropped off those ball things with the camera lens and told Victor to have fun. Then, it was going back to doing normal stuff to keep up that alter ego thing.
Tim was used to it. Her? Not so much. But like hell would Mom let her drop out, the so called internship with the Titans be damned. And school was just so boring, not that it had ever been anything but. Even the people she used to hang out with, they weren't as…it was like she was drifting away.
And it wasn't a real loss, which was surprising. She wasn't missing any of them. Not when there was the team who could fill that need.
Her eyes drifted to the guy who in part bore a lot of the responsibility for dragging her into the life, but for once there was no grudge. It was a simple statement of fact. Hell, she could have left at any time, but had time and again chosen not to. From breaking and entering and stealing to the life of a superhero teen, life had been very funny in bringing her here.
Naturally, it couldn't stop being funny. Not with her. Whenever that mask wasn't on his face, she could see that his eyes weren't too bad to look at. He looked less like an asshole and more like…more approachable. The boy next door who happened to have a secret night life. Before you think it, no, mystery was not something she would ever find herself drawn to.
If anything, mystery pissed her off. Some would argue a lot pissed her off, but really, if she defended herself, it wasn't that she kept running into everything that ticked off all the boxes and was doing so in a short period of time.
Which is when you knew you needed a break. A change. Something to mix it all up and get your mind away for a while. Tim might be able to have a one track mind, but she wasn't Tim now was she? Deep down, she was a girl and one that wanted to find a good time, especially if adrenaline was involved. She had some magic armor, didn't know or understand half of what it did and didn't care. She might have no interest in life and death matters, but a good fight to work out the stress did wonders.
She also liked to relax and not all fun had to involve a fist to the face. When you were in a world where people had superpowers, science did weird stuff, and aliens, normal could be the kind of getaway you needed.
She had something normal in mind.
"You have anything going on this weekend?" she asked aloud.
Had she interrupted Tim? Had he been saying something important? Did it have to do with last night or what they were going to be doing once they got to the Tower? None of that mattered, not right now. She was a woman on a mission and woe be to anyone who got in her way.
Tim was looking at her now, not that she had to look at him to know that he was. "Um, depending. We still need to figure out what was really happening at the mall and what the point of it was. So, maybe?"
No sooner had he finished talking that the two of them arrived at the bus stop. No, not a stop for a school bus, but a bus bus. One for the city, so it was going to be a while. No one else was here, so keeping her voice low was not needed.
"You gotta get out more, Red." She scuffed the bottom of her shoe against the pavement. "Aren't there other things out there? Things you're interested in that doesn't involve your night life?"
"What's made you so interested all of a sudden?" Cassie could hear it in his voice; there was some curiosity, but there was also amusement.
The blonde glanced at her dark-haired guy friend. "Mostly bored. The Junior Justice League has its moments, but there's gotta be more than that, right?"
A sigh started Tim's answer. "Do you have something in mind?"
Well, at least he wasn't being or acting dumb.
"Friday. There's a special on the boardwalk. Mind coming with?"
"A special? What kind of special are we talking about?"
There was an overwhelming desire to roll her eyes. "Half off. I haven't been to the boardwalk in a long, long while. I don't think you've been there before either. So, you me, Friday. Unless Kori's sister figures out a new way to destroy the world, I'd like it if you could come with me and be a teenager for a night. No costumes or armor, no stupid arguments about whose better, Batman or Flash, just something simple, nice, and fun."
No sign of the bus yet, so Tim had some time to think about it, however he shouldn't take too long making up his mind. Cassie didn't want to admit it, but she was feeling a little vulnerable here. Normally, if there were any invitations involved, they were being given to her, not her giving one to someone else. It was making her feel a little antsy.
"What's on the boardwalk?" the other teen asked.
Her answer was immediate. "The usual. Games. Cheap food. A roller coaster. Like a small theme park or something. There's a diner close by, makes the best pies around. You're missing out on it. I'm gonna fix that. So. Coming?"
"You make it seem like I don't have a choice." He was trying to make it sound like he was joking, and he was failing at that.
"Of course you have a choice. I know this sounds weird coming from me…but I'd appreciate it if you would come." It was suddenly very warm. Was it the sun? She was gonna blame the sun.
Another glance at the teenaged boy found him looking very uncertain, hemming and hawing, and then she focused her gaze straight on him. One way or another, she was going to have an answer, and when he caught her eye, any noises he was making came to a swift end.
Tim noticeably swallowed, and then finally said, "Alright. Okay. Sure. Friday."
Cassie favored him with a smile, and was it her or were his cheeks turning a little red? Looking back out to a street that had no bus waiting for them, the blonde found herself saying, "It's a date."
"I feel so fried!" Garfield complained, shoulders slumped as he trudged down the hallway.
It was another day in that hellhole of a classroom, doing his best to complete the assignments and feeling like he was missing something. It was as if he had missed the most important class of the year and without it, everything hinged on that little bit of information and so made everything all that much harder.
Well, except a lot of the science stuff. Why'd he find that so much easier, he had no idea. But math, history, English…why one class about a language he could already read and write and speak? Shouldn't there only be one class about learning it and once you learn it no more? And what was he going to do with history? Not make the same mistakes again?
Now, he wouldn't admit this part, but he felt a little jealous of Bart. Growing up in the twenty-fourth and a half century or whatever gave him a leg up and the speedster was relearning what he already knew. Just flying by and making it look all easy. And of course, because he finished early, he could leave early because Cyborg wasn't that big of a dick to keep him there.
At least he still had Terra for company. She at least waited for him to finish up. And hold on, she hadn't said anything to him yet. Not after his justifiable complaint.
Looking to the thin blonde that he found he was taller than—whoa, cool, he could finally tell he was growing, sweet—he put all his thoughts on pause the best he could and really took her in. Walking at the same pace as him? Well that was just being friendly and nice. Not acknowledging with a simple grunt to tell him that she had heard him? The absence was noted and it looked like it wasn't coming any time soon. Dark bags under the eyes. Kinda how he felt when he woke up in the morning. Every morning.
Hmm. Those bags looked a little dark. And he was only noticing them now. That made him feel a little bit like a douche, you know? Some of the earliest memories he had involved this girl right here. Sure, there was a little tough love, but as he looked back on it, it had been needed. There was no need for it now, and it showed itself with the fact that Terra was so much more chill. She tended to go along with whatever he wanted to do, at least when they weren't being superheroes.
But she had gone out of her way to look after him once. What did it say about him that he was dropping the ball? Really sucked and made him feel bad. So! Let's do something about it. It was way past time for him to look after her, right?
"Are you feeling okay? You look a little tired," the shapeshifter asked.
Terra's lovely blue eyes shut and she slowly turned her head from right to left and back to right again. "I'm okay. I don't think I've been getting much sleep though."
Not a lot of sleep? Well that definitely explained why she seemed so tired. "Is it the bed? The room? The pillow?"
"No, no, that stuff's all good. Okay, really good," his friend told him. "I don't know what's going on. I'm just…I'm just tired."
"So is it the patrol stuff we do? I can talk with Red, see about letting you stay so you can get some more sleep," he offered. Whether he had the clout or not, well, Terra didn't need to know about that part, right?
"I'm good with the patrol. And the sometimes having to stay up all night because we find one of those big plan stuff that some bad guys are trying to pull off. Once I find my groove, I'm good. I'm just tired now. It's…it's not the end of the world or anything." Terra rubbed at one of her eyes, which only made her look more tired to his eyes at least.
But bad guys and their big plan stuff, that brought back some fun memories. He almost had a goofy smile on his face as he recalled a few, like a certain biker bar. Anyway, no, no getting off track. The shapeshifter eyed the girl who literally moved the earth, zeroed in on the noticeable bags and decided to go for it.
"Well, it's not like those bags under your eyes can hold groceries yet so it's—"
"What bags under my eyes?"
Too late did he realize just what line he had crossed. He had been trying to make a joke, you know? A cardinal rule was that you didn't make jokes about a girl's looks because you were just asking for trouble by doing that. Girls could be really sensitive about that kind of stuff. Like cancel culture sensitive and by culture it was you, and by cancel it was your untimely death.
Plus, how sharply Terra just spoke gave away that he had stepped on the landmine.
"It's not that noticeable. I mean—"
"Noticeable? Noticeable like what? Do I look like a raccoon?!"
"Terra, please! The only one who looks like a raccoon here is me! Watch!" One quick shift later. "See? Now who looks like a raccoon now—"
"Is that what I look like?!"
"No! I mean—wait! Terra! …and she's gone."
A sad-looking raccoon sat on his haunches, ears drooping as his longtime friend vanished around a corner. You know, he never really took Terra to be one who cared about her looks. Girls. He could never really understand them.
"I never thought anyone could strike out that fast and that quickly but you have proven me wrong. Congratulations, Garfield."
His little shoulders hunched while his ears went into the alert position. Practically spinning around and shifting back to his more handsome self, the shapeshifter exclaimed, "I was just trying to make her feel better! How come she took it the wrong way?"
Raven, covered up in that cloak of hers and with the hood over her head, stared back with the blankest face imaginable. "I'd say you failed miserably. Or how is the kids these days put it? Ah yes, epically."
"But I didn't mean to!" Give a huff, Gar crossed his arms and looked away from the dark. brooding teenaged girl, which didn't that describe every teenaged girl around? Say, maybe he could make a joke out it—
"There is no way you'll ever be funny in this life or the ten next ones. Don't even try."
He eyed her, trying to give an evil eye that would never live up to the evil that was sure to be living in Raven's heart. "How'd you… Oh, you're doing that mind reading trick of yours again."
"And for the last time, I don't read minds. I just know how you feel when you're trying to come up with a sorry excuse for a joke. Unfortunately that's been seared into my mind."
"You know, one of these days you're going to have to explain how those powers of yours really work because I still haven't figured it out."
"And I'll tell you when you can tell me where all that mass comes from when you change into an animal ten times your size."
"Also a very good question!"
Now that Raven had pointed it out, where did all that mass come from? Gorilla, elephant, humpback whale, he had become a lot of big animals before, some that definitely had a lot more muscle and teeth and tusks and occasional baleen. And was there that thing, you know, something about matter not being created nor destroyed? Hmm maybe however he did it couldn't be handled for too long because maintaining those larger forms really did take a lot of concentration and energy out of him the longer he stayed in those forms.
But you know what, now that he was thinking about it, and since Raven brought it up, where did all his mass go when he became something small? This was really starting to get to him, wasn't it?
"It seems there's another on the team who's not curious about their abilities," Raven said.
"Hey, who said I wasn't curious? I just never thought of half the stuff," Gar defended himself. "Just because I don't know all the tiny little details doesn't mean I'm gonna hurt somebody with them!"
"You have access to the whole animal kingdom and last time I checked, a lot of them are very dangerous," Raven said.
"Of course they are! Why do you think I don't change into some of them? That I keep using the ones I do all the time?" the shapeshifter asked. "If I'm not careful, I could poison somebody. I really thought long and hard about that one. Do you know what poison dart frogs do to a person?"
"And I'm surprised you know about poison dart frogs." Raven was back to facing him now. Good, he had her attention for…why did he want her attention again? Oh yeah, he was defending himself here. But why? Whatever, it was the principle at this point. "But tell me this, big cats and pachyderms. Why?"
"Because anyone with a brain cell would know to get out of their way! Are you going to stay in one spot if a lion tries to maul ya? I don't think so. Snakes freak people out. Only crazy people or really superstrong assholes stand in front of an elephant, and how was I suppose to know Kori's nanny wouldn't be crushed under a whale? I was trying to knock him unconscious!"
Raven was blinking. A weird sight, that. "I feel like I'm missing context here." Again, with more weirdness, she shook her head from side to side, like she was trying to make sense somehow. Make sense of what, beats him, but she would totally get it if she had been there.
"The point is, I'm constantly trying out new stuff! I bet you wouldn't know half of what I've tried! Do you really think I just sit on the couch and watch TV all day? Terra right next to me, putting her head on my—"
"Yes. You always are whenever I walk in." Rude much? Interrupting him like that? And people said he had no manners!
"They're documentaries! About animals! Don't you think I should know a little about the animals I turn into? Yeah, check my history! Documentary after documentary!" There, try to argue about that one!
"Are you sure those were documentaries? What was the point of the exposing that duck's—"
"We don't talk about ducks! Those guys are freaky!" he cut in.
"Fine. Be that way. And what about all that anime?"
"Terra likes watching anime. What about it?"
"You two are always together it seems. Attached to the hip."
"Is there something wrong with that?" He didn't like how she had worded that. It was putting his hackles up, and humans didn't have hackles. "She's a friend, like everyone else here. She's the first friend I remember having. Literally. She was looking out for me when she didn't have to. Now I can do that for her."
"What makes you think she needs looking after?" Was it him, or was there an intensity in her eyes? Why would she be intense about this?
"She's been gone for a long time, Raven. Barely remembers digging herself out of Blood's underground lair. She's been wandering around, looking for help, and she found me. She's done a lot for me, a lot of stuff you have no idea about, and friends help each other. It's what we do. You don't need to be a Titan to do that." Maybe Terra didn't need him to defend her, but he was going to do it anyway.
Raven was having some kind of beef, he had no idea what it was, but he knew she was giving the others a hard time. Red, Wonder Girl, now him, and maybe Terra next. These ears weren't for decoration, you know.
"She's absent from your life, our lives, for an unknown period of time, and just shows up one day. How did she even survive?"
Survive what? Bringing down Blood's creepy mancave? "She controls earth, duh. If she thinks it, you think any rock will touch her then? She's the safest person in the world if she goes underground."
Raven didn't seem to have an argument about that. However, as the seconds ticked by and the two of them stared each other off, the hood-wearing girl blurted out, "You know she sleepwalks."
"And I talk in my sleep," he shot back, then kinda regretted it because what did that have to do with sleepwalking? And what was so special about sleepwalking anyway? Was it something important?
Once more, Raven was silent, facing off with him. Then she turned away and either walked or floated down the hallway. It was hard to tell which since her cape or cloak or whatever was blocking off her feet.
"You're right about talking in your sleep. I don't think Alien Invader #1 is worthy of an Oscar."
Was that what that dream was about? Hey wait a minute, did she just insult the acting career he daydreamed about when Cyborg was busy trying to homeschool them? Okay, okay, gotta come up with a snappy comeback—ooh, he had one!
"It so totally—and she's gone."
He stood there in an empty hallway, one arm stretched out and pointer finger extended and all for an audience of zero as he probably looked like the idiot Raven thought he was.
How long had he been thinking of that comeback? Ugh, Cyborg better not hear about this fail or he would never hear the end of it.
But seriously, had someone been peeing in Raven's Wheaties lately? What was up with her?
Girls…
From windows, you could watch as the sun made its way to the ocean and the horizon beyond. It wouldn't be long now for evening to become night, which made this one of the better times for a briefing.
Like many times, the team had gathered in the rec room, a terminal peeking out of the floor in front of the U-shaped couch that was the typical hangout area. A hologram was emitted from the top, giving the lowdown.
"So after the ringer I put these things through, the best that I could figure out was that these are cameras. Someone put them up to watch the fight, and three guesses as to who put them up," Cyborg told them.
Being caught on the way to recharging by Wonder Girl hadn't been something he had expected the night before, but it had given him a lot to do over the day. While the others were busy with school, he was doing all the scans and data mining to figure out their functions. There were times when being a cyborg was a benefit and multitasking happened to be one of them.
Gesturing to the holographic image, he continued, "They don't have any recording function, so there was no footage to download from it. Were we being watched? Yes. I found a signal emitter with no receiver. Our little brawl in Highland was being broadcasted."
"Were we on TV?" Beast Boy asked, sitting up straighter, eyes widening.
"If we were, it would be all over the news," Wonder Girl spoke from where she straddled one of the couch arms, arms crossed over her chest. "The only thing those vultures are showing is the outside of the mall. Nothing on the inside."
Cyborg gave a short nod to the armored blonde. Someone was keeping up on that front. Red too, he bet, but so far their leader said nothing to confirm that. "Whatever signal it was using, it was encrypted. High level stuff. Someone wanted to be sure no one would be able to hack it."
"Did you try cracking it?" Red asked, looking thoughtful.
"Can't. The signal needs to be active, otherwise I might as well hit my head against the wall all day long and still get the same thing." Already, he knew what the next question was. "Right now, all of these things are off, which tells me they were either programmed to shut off, which I found no proof of, or someone else turned them off remotely. If I turn them on and make the signal active, it'll tell whoever got the broadcast that we found their toys. Right now, I have them all under a signal jammer so no one will be able to spy on us without our knowing."
You could call it a dead end, but if they wanted to risk it, they still had the option so not quite dead. It just meant doing so would tell whoever was watching them what their cards were. It gave more credit that there was something bigger going on and you knew that he didn't like that.
However, there was more he needed to tell.
"There is one other possibility about why these things are turned off," he mentioned. "Some of my earliest diagnoses picked up an energy signal, one that's not a part of the camera. I had to run through the database for a bit and compare it, and guess what? We do have a record of that signal. It's identical to whatever funky mojo that Jinx uses."
"Which means she's the one that nearly crushed us with the roof," Red summed up. "When she did, her power might have interfered with the cameras. Right now, they're still off…other than the damaged one, did you find any damage to the others? Shorted out? Burnt out circuits?"
"So far, nada. We might have lucked out and they only turned off," the cybernetic teen reported, giving a grim smile. "But turning them on is risky if Jinx did turn them off, whether on purpose or accident. There's a chance turning them on could make them explode. See, these things are way too big to only be a camera."
With some digital mastery, the image of the spherical camera became transparent and showed off all its little insides. You could see the lens and how big it was, the receiver and transponder the circuitry, the wiring, and a dead zone in the center.
With a finger, he traced around the deadzone. "See the center? That's not chocolate we're looking at. There's barely any connections to it, and it was really difficult to get a read. So I changed the scan criteria and tried to figure out what it's made of. Saving you guys a long explanation, it's an explosive. It gets triggered, blows the whole thing up."
Now Red was frowning. "They put a bomb in there?"
"And we brought it back here?" Wonder Girl said more than asked.
"Again, someone had to trigger it, it has a receiver, and the fact that none of them went boom means that hasn't happened or Jinx's power affected that too. Guess you could say we were really lucky here," Cyborg soothed.
"If we're lucky, then who's unlucky?" Oh hey, nice little quip from Raven over there.
"Um?" Cyborg found himself turning to Beast Boy, Terra at his side. "There's more than one? And we have them all here? Are we safe?"
Cyborg rolled his only human eye. O ye of little faith… "You'd think I'd leave a bomb ready to blow here? What do you take me for? As soon as I found out what they were, I disarmed them. Gave them their own signal jammer just to be sure. We're perfectly safe here so long as no one tries to be stupid and mess with them."
Multiple eyes found themselves on both BB—sorry man, but you could be really irresponsible—and Kid Flash. The latter of the two frowned. "Why is everyone looking at me?"
"So anything explosive is safe now. We're still left with a lot more questions," Red cut in before anyone could answer the speedster. "If we want answers, we're going to have to go to the one who made them."
"Ask Gizmo?" Cyborg asked, already feeling skeptical. The loudmouth midget was not going to be easy to interrogate. First, the attitude, all the insults, and then there was the fact that JCPD had him. So no, it was not going to be a walk in the park here.
"Who do you think set these cameras up? Mammoth?" Red now took all the attention, and he stood next to the hologram opposite the cyborg. "Of all the people we saw there, Gizmo is the only one we know for sure has the tech know how. Either he built these things himself, or he was doing someone else's dirty work, and we already know he has done that before."
From behind the couch, her hands on the couch's back, Starfire asked, "So we are going to the city's gaol?"
There was a pause, because that world sounded familiar but they could all hear the g.
"That's the old word for jail. It's pronounced the same," Raven spoke up blandly.
"My apologies, but I was unsure if that was the correct word and the correct pronunciation," the Tamaranean apologized.
"You don't gotta," Kid Flash dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Do you know what they call jails in the twenty-fifth century? It's not jail. See, we call them—"
"Something we can find out later. JCPD plans to transfer Gizmo and the other two tonight. They don't want to take any chances, especially with Alderman raising a stink," Red cut in thankfully.
"You have a plan?" Raven prompted, once more giving Red that intense look that he had been seeing her give their glorious leader lately.
Strangely, Red returned the look, not speaking up immediately, but then saying, "I do. It'll be risky going inside to the holding cells, so not everyone goes in. Cyborg, you hack in and identify which cell Gizmo is in specifically as well as the floor plan."
So far, it sounded like it had been thought out. However, there was one role that hadn't been mentioned. "So who goes in?" he asked.
Cyborg didn't know if he liked the smirk that was flashed his way.
