The scarlet skyline painted a beautiful picture across the large window of Titans tower as the sun descended. It had been a few days since their return from Tokyo, and trouble had yet to rear its head. Suffice to say, they were savoring it.
Robin and Starfire simply sat at the counter and talked, with the occasional peck. Raven was absorbed in a worn book that must have been no less than two-hundred years old. Garfield and Cyborg were locked in a racing game, but were only giving it half their attention, as an argument was occupying the lion's share of their brain-space.
"Changeling? Hah! How long did it take you to come up with that one, grass stain?" teased Cy.
"Well, it's more creative than my last proposal" he replied
"Which was?"
"Beast Man"
That just made Victor burst out laughing with such intensity that he would have struggled to breath were his respiratory system not mechanically enhanced. He definitely lost the racing game though, as he dropped the controller in his amusement. He hardly cared though.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up" said Gar in a half-annoyed, half-joking tone.
Eventually, Victor's laughter subsided, and he simply said "I'd suggest sticking with 'Beast Boy' for the foreseeable future. It's a more accurate reflection of your maturity than 'Changeling' or especially 'Beast Man'"
"Whatever" was Gar's only retort.
Each of them were surprised by the opening of the door to the commons room. First, each of them were accounted for. Second, none of the security features in the tower alerted them to an intruder. These thoughts almost immediately subsided, as the most strange thing absolutely dwarfed the others.
The similarity of this stranger to Raven was immediately apparent. He looked just like her, but male and with blond hair and with emerald green eyes.
All of this was strange enough on its own, but Raven was situated the closest to him, and thus the one to whom his attention first wandered. The stranger's face contorted into a confused expression, then a surprised one. But nothing was more surprising than what the stranger said to Raven. He looked at her and softly uttered a simple, one word question: "Mom?"