The sound of the blast reverberated across the halls of the expo and startled the three remaining titans. Each of them followed the sound and converged in the atrium to see the man who had, unbeknownst to them, flung their teammate back in time.
The mysterious figure immediately aimed his weapon at the first titan to enter the atrium:Twila. She narrowly avoided being hit by the red beam and returned fire with a flurry of starbolts. Michael took advantage of the villain's focus and generated a ring of quakes around him. Lastly arrived Jack, and when he appeared the villain knew he was outmatched. He took what appeared to be a grenade, but golden with a red analog timing mechanism, and threw it to his own feet.
The titans fell back at the sight of this, and a bright red flash erased the villain from the scene while leaving everything else pristine.
It took a few moments for the titans to get their bearings.
When each of them came down from the stress of combat, they noticed a curious absence.
"Where the fuck is Crow?", blurted out Michael.
"Didn't he hear the blast? Not like him to up and ditch us", said Twila.
"I'll call him", said Jack and he took out his phone and selected "Marcus(Crow)" on his contacts list. It rang for a few seconds, then it gave him an absolutely bewildering response. "We're sorry, but the number you are trying to reach has been cut off or is no longer in service". Now he was really confused.
"What did it say?", asked Twila.
"It said his number is out of service", replied Jack, clearly confused.
"Doesn't Night pay all of our phone bills? Obviously yours works, so did he just forget about Crow's or some shit?", interjected Michael.
"The payments are automatic, and Nightwing and its not like he's going to come up short after inheriting the Wayne fortune. Any way you slice it, it just doesn't make sense" said Jack.
"Maybe we should ask my father for assistance?" suggested Twila.
"Well, he is a damn good detective and I, for one, am stumped. So, seconded", said Michael
"I don't see what choice we have", said Jack.
Nightwing gently caressed the screen of his brand new central computer. It had a very sleek, black, modern look and was roughly the same size as the old one that Bruce had used. Naturally, Moore's law had worked its magic since then, and this machine was exponentially more powerful.
Nightwing heard the ringing and felt the buzzing of his phone. He took it out and saw his daughter's face. He answered the call.
"Yeah, sweety?", he asked.
"Hey, dad", she said, slightly awkwardly, "we need your help with something.
"What is it?"
"You know Crow, right?"
Nightwing's face contorted in slight confusion,. "Changeling and Raven's kid?", he asked.
"Yeah", she replied
"What about him?"
"Well, he's kind of...missing"
"Missing?", he inquired.
"Yeah, just vanished from our mission. Snap called him but it said his number was out of service, but you pay all of our phone bills"
Nightwing was now both confused and intrigued in equal measure. "That's odd, hold on let me try something", he told her and placed his phone down. He attempted to track Marcus's phone signal from his mainframe. He was blown aback when the computer responded with "No Signal Match Found".
He also had bio and soul scans for each of the titans. He ran each, and both came up empty. Now this was especially strange.
He picked his phone back up and said "Twila, something weird is going on here"
She raised an eyebrow, "what do you mean"
"I've scanned for his phone signal, bio-signal and soul signal and each have found, well...nothing"
Her heart sank into her stomach, "You don't mean he's..."
"No, no. If he was dead his bio-signature would still be detectable", he reassured her, "Even if he was vaporized there would still be about 72 hours of residual bio and soul signals left. And that still doesn't explain why I'm not picking up his phone signal. My scanners have a range of about 12 light years, so he's somewhere outside of our local cluster of star systems".
Twila breathed a sigh of relief, then her face scrunched up even more. "Wait, how's that possible? He was only split off from the group for a few minutes!"
"I haven't faintest clue, honey, to be completely honest. Just stay there. I'll be there for an on-site investigation soon, and try not to touch anything until I get there.
"Alright, Dad", she replied and looked back to Jack and Michael, who had been listening in on the phone call, "Alright, you heard him, don't touch anything until he gets here"
Jack looked at Michael, and received the reassuring words:"I won't leave a fingerprint here, herr kommandant".
And so, they waited.
