TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2408 NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI The bad guy hit the ground like a ton of bricks, which was strangely appropriate, thought Robin, given that he seemed to be made of a material rather like concrete. "Boo-yah!" Cyborg declared, pumping his fist. "Another one bites the pavement." "Making New Avalon once again safe for democracy," Raven observed dryly. "You guys have fun mopping up. I've got things to do." As the dark-cloaked figure turned and melted away into the night, Starfire stood and watched her go, head tilted in puzzlement. "Where do you suppose she goes when she is not with us?" she asked anyone within earshot who cared to answer. "Who knows," Beast Boy replied with a shrug. "Probably to feast on the flesh of the living or something." Starfire turned to him, a look of startled horror on her face. "Do you really think so?" she asked. "Uh... no?" Beast Boy replied, giving her a wary glance. "Well, it's not like we can find out," Cyborg observed. "To follow -her-, a person'd have to be One With The Night or something." Starfire nodded in glum concurrence. There was a momentary thoughtful silence. Robin became uncomfortably aware that everyone was looking at him. "... What?" he asked, then got it. "No." "Please?" Starfire asked. "We have known her for nearly a year, and yet... in many ways, we do not know her at all." "No!" Robin repeated. "I'm not going to spy on a teammate." "We're not asking you to -spy- on her," Beast Boy protested. "Just... find out where she goes. What she does. You know. How she's living." "In other words," Robin said dryly, "spy on her." "Well... yeah. But in a good way!" Robin stared at his green teammate for a second, then turned to look at the other two. Cyborg gave him a couldn't-hurt-could-it shrug and Starfire had on her most imploring expression. The Boy Wonder gave his teammates a grumpy look for a moment, then sighed, his shoulders slumping. "(... make me feel like batman,)" he grumbled, reaching to his utility belt for his jumpline launcher. "What?" Starfire said. "Nothing," Robin replied; then he fired a line off into the night and disappeared. I have a message from another time... /* The Ventures "Secret Agent Man" _Walk, Don't Run_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited and Bacon Comics Group present UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT TITANS Vol. 1 No. 2 "Welcome Home" scripted by Benjamin D. Hutchins pencils & inks by your visual cortex letters by Benjamin D. Hutchins editor: Benjamin D. Hutchins Bacon Comics chief: Derek Bacon (c) 2004 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited It was surprisingly easy for Robin to pick up Raven's trail, but then, she wasn't really trying not to be followed. It was obvious to Robin that she simply didn't expect anyone would -be- following her. ... Because she trusts us not to snoop into her private life, he grumbled to himself. Still, he had to admit that Starfire had a point. It struck all of them - even Beast Boy, who was the only one who could really claim to know her - as a bit odd that Raven chose not to live in the Tower. As far as they knew, she had no other home in the city; she was from another dimension. So where -did- she go, and what -did- she do, when she wasn't with them? That -was- worth finding out, and not just for security reasons... but it still made him feel like Batman. As it happened, that fact probably affected the way he played the rest of it. Raven moved silently through the dim and cluttered corridors of the building. It had been an office building once, on that nebulous fringe between New Avalon's commercial and industrial zones, but its unimpressive location and a couple of gang wars in the area had seen it abandoned back in the mid-2390s. The interior still bore the scars of occupation by both gangs at various points since then, but neither gang used it as a hangout today. No one went near it. The word on the street was that the old Coopertronix building was haunted. And so it was, in a manner of speaking. She turned the corner into the one room in the ruined, serially vandalized building that could be considered even vaguely habitable today. It had once been the executive boardroom, but now the only sign of its former glory was the picture window, which looked out past a small balcony to a thoroughly uninspiring view of the least picturesque part of the harbor. It was as barren as the rest of the building - more so, because it had been stripped of most of the clutter of broken furniture, scattered papers, and discarded drug paraphernalia that decorated the rest of the place. The walls and floor were bare but for spray-painted graffiti, peeling wallpaper, and the occasional scorch mark. Most of the tiles were missing from the ceiling, exposing the wiring (useless with the mains power turned off) and structural beams. As she entered the room, Raven relaxed just a little bit and flopped back her hood. The Titans' work might be over for the evening, but hers was only beginning, and this space, for all its squalor, at least offered no distractions. The only objects in the room were a single circular cushion placed exactly in the center of the floor and a small crystal ball on a stand just in front of it. Well, those were the only objects that were -supposed- to be in the room, anyway. Raven recoiled, startled - and it took a lot to startle her - before she realized what the dark shape standing near the window was. Then she flipped her hood back up, her eyes narrowing in its shadow, and demanded in a soft but unwelcoming voice, "What are -you- doing here?" "I came to see how you were living," Robin replied, his voice similarly hushed - his "work voice", he called it in lighter moments. "Why?" Raven asked, a touch of scorn seeping into her voice. "Because you don't trust me?" "No," Robin said. Then his silhouette seemed to thaw a little bit, standing a little less rigidly upright, and he added in a much more human voice, "Because I'm worried about you. We all are." Raven arched an eyebrow, though the gesture was more or less lost in all the darkness in the room. "And I can see now that we had good reason to be," Robin went on, one hand emerging from under his cloak to gesture vaguely at the room. "Look at this place. Never mind that it's -freezing- in here - how can you live like this, alone and unloved in filth and squalor? Even Old Man Wayne isn't this solitary." Raven let the half-understood part of the remark pass without comment. "I've -always- been alone and unloved." "Doesn't mean you have to stay that way." Her eyes narrowed again. "What is this, an intervention?" "No," Robin replied flatly, shaking his head. "I'm not going to try to make you do anything you don't want to do. I'm just offering you an alternative. You -have- a room at the Tower... " "The Tower," Raven replied dryly. "Sure. That's a good place for concentration. Any -other- suggestions?" Robin thought about it for a second. Then, barely visible in the darkened room, he slowly smiled. "One," he said. And so, without really understanding why she was doing it, Raven followed Robin to Claremont. Of all New Avalon's districts, Claremont was the one where Raven came closest to feeling comfortable. In a city less than 30 years old, Claremont somehow managed to feel much older, like the shadow-haunted central quarters of cities fifty times its age. If there could be ghosts anywhere in New Avalon, they would be here; but there was little sense that those ghosts would be sinister. Claremont was odd and quirky, dark and mysterious, but in a strangely friendly sort of way. Raven found it curiously welcoming. Though the hour was getting late, the shops and cafes of Claremont were still bright and bustling. The time of year was wrong for sidewalk cafes, which lessened the district's resemblance to Montmartre a bit, but there were still a lot of people out walking about, their breath trailing behind them in the crisp night air. They paid the two oddly costumed youngsters walking among them little mind; those who did recognize the two as members of the heroic Titans just smiled and waved. Robin led the way off Strange Street, the district's main drag, and down a couple of darkened side streets. At a corner, they came to a townhouse. There he unhesitatingly mounted the stoop and rang the bell. After a few seconds, the light above the door came on and the door opened. From her position down on the sidewalk, Raven couldn't make out much about the person who opened the door, other than that he was humanoid and rather tall. He and Robin had a short discussion, and then Robin turned and beckoned to her before following the other figure inside. Raven felt an unaccustomed sense of trepidation as she followed the Boy Wonder and their host down a nicely paneled and carpeted hallway into a book-lined study. Not that she was wary of a trap, because, for all that she didn't trust easily, she did trust Robin that much - but because this house concentrated that weird-but- welcoming feeling she got from Claremont itself, and Raven was so unfamiliar with feeling welcome anywhere that it made her uneasy. When they arrived in the study, the man who had let them in turned to face them, and Raven got her first good look at him in the light of a roaring fire. Her initial assessment of him as somewhat tall was correct, though it was exaggerated a little bit by the fact that she wasn't. He looked just a bit shy of middle-aged, but hard-traveled, with a silver streak in his auburn hair. When he turned his head a little more and the firelight caught his eyes, though, she knew that his apparent age was a fiction. Those eyes were a lot older than "a bit shy of middle-aged". The training she'd received from the monks of Azarath kept her from shifting uncomfortably under their gaze, but it was a close thing. She felt as though they were looking straight through her - or worse, straight -into- her. Robin seemed to have missed that, though she wouldn't have bet on it, as he made an introductory gesture. "I want you to meet a friend of mine who moved here from New Gotham not too long ago," he said. "This is Jason Blood." Blood surprised Raven by giving her a respectful bow. "Welcome," he said. It took Raven a moment to find her voice, and when she did it was nearly inaudible as she replied, "... hi. i'm raven." Blood smiled just a tiny bit. "Indeed. Hmm." He gave her another of those uncomfortably discerning looks, then nodded with an air of faint satisfaction. "I can see the traces of your struggle, as I'm sure you can see the marks of mine. Robin was wise to bring you to me." "... um," Raven said. She turned her head to get Robin's take on that - but he was gone. The older man chuckled. "Annoying habit, isn't it? They all do that. At any rate, the discussion we're about to have would only have bored him. The Unawakened do get so restless when our kind talk shop, don't they?" Raven wasn't sure she particularly -wanted- to talk shop with this guy - conversation was never something that came easily to her - but since he seemed willing to be the one to go first, she decided she might at least hear what he had to say. An hour later, she finished saying what she had to say, then sat silently above the cushion of an armchair, waiting for his response. Jason Blood sat opposite her (he was actually sitting -on- his chair), fingers steepled in front of his face, regarding her thoughtfully. Then he smiled a little bit - many of his mannerisms really did remind her of her own - and said, "I understand. Well, I can't invite you to live here. My solitary nature and yours would have us banishing each other to the Planes of Shadows every couple of days. Fortunately, there is an alternative... " For the second time that night, Raven found herself following someone through the streets of Claremont. By now, many of the cafes and almost all of the shops were closed, though some of the coffeehouses were still open and the sidewalks of the main streets were still fairly busy. Jason Blood led her to the corner of two of the district's principal streets, Strange Street and Fate Avenue, and, producing a brass key from his pocket, unlocked the shop that stood there. Raven looked up above the old-fashioned shopfront at the carved wood sign, which she could just make out in the light of a nearby streetlamp: STRANGEFATE BOOKS Jason Blood, Proprietor Blood stepped inside and switched on the lights, and Raven paused in the doorway to take in what lay beyond. /* Jerry Goldsmith "The Sanctum" _The Shadow_ */ (begin at 01:38) She hadn't been in a proper occult library since her exile from Azarath, and even that had been a rather cold and austere place compared to this. Strangefate Books was like an extension of Jason Blood's house, paneled in warm wood and floored in creaky hardwood with expensive rugs. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and the shelves were full of old-fashioned books, some bound in leather, others in cloth, many sporting metal straps and hinges. In the middle of the shop there was a counter with an antique brass cash register, and comfortable-looking, rather worn leather armchairs were scattered here and there. In a back corner, Raven could see what looked like a couple of trophy cases and the golden glint of an Egyptian mummy coffin. Near it, an iron staircase spiraled up through the ceiling. If Blood's house had concentrated the welcoming sensation of Claremont, this place practically distilled it. Raven hadn't felt so much at home anywhere since her tower in Azarath, and the feeling almost took her legs from under her before she mastered herself. Blood diplomatically failed to notice as he locked the door behind him and pocketed the key. He led the way to the stairs and up the equivalent of two flights. They ended in a little vestibule faced by a sturdy-looking door. This he opened with the same key. Then he swung it wide, gesturing Raven in ahead of him. She went, trying to make out the shape of the place in the dark. A moment later, she didn't have to, as Blood turned on the lights. It was a loft apartment, done in the same rich dark wood as the shop downstairs. The apartment was basically one big room, with a miniature kitchen tucked into one corner. Its main open space was divided into two "rooms" not by walls, but by an elevation change. The end farthest from the stairs - toward the front of the shop - was two steps up from the other. The ceiling was high and dark-raftered, and the walls to either side sloped a little bit. All that drew the eye inevitably to the loft's dominant feature - a big round window, maybe ten feet across, in the wall facing the street. It had a curious design worked into the crossbars that held it in place; Raven thought it looked familiar, like any of a dozen common sigils, but it wasn't quite any of them. The apartment was bare but spotless, nothing like the cold and lifeless chamber she had been retreating to in the Coopertronix building. Seeing it for the first time, Raven felt as if she had returned from a long trip to a well-loved haven. Downstairs had felt as welcoming as her tower in Azarath. This place felt -better-. She turned to Blood, trying and just slightly failing to keep the jumble of emotions crashing through her head from showing on her face, but again he only smiled his dark but unthreatening little smile. "Originally, I planned to live here, but I'm old and set in my ways, and decided I needed more space. I've done quite a bit of work on wards and symbols for it, though of course you'll want to check them and lay on your own," he explained. "My... my own?" Raven repeated haltingly. Blood nodded. "This is your home for as long as you want it," he said. Raven's natural skepticism kicked in and brought her back from the edge of an unseemly display. "What am I to do in return?" she asked. The man's smile widened slightly. "Keep the shop tidy. Make sure the books are where they need to be. Deal with the occasional inadvertent Darkling Summon - customers are forever muttering aloud as they read," he added with a gesture combining irritation and resignation. "Oh, and keep an eye on the artifacts. Tomes are hard to shoplift, but every now and then someone will try to lift St. Dunstan's Tongs or the Ruby of Cyttorak." She gave him a searching look. "That's it?" "That's it. I don't expect anything else from you. Do we have a deal?" Raven regarded him for a moment from the shadows of her cloak, not hesitating, but considering. Then she nodded once. "Yes," she said. Blood smiled. "Excellent. Then I'll leave you to get settled." He bowed to her again, as he had when they'd first met. "Good night, Raven." Then he took a small vial from his pocket, twisted off the cap, and carefully poured its glittering powdered contents onto the floor, drawing a neat circle around himself. Pocketing the vial, he worked his hands in ways Raven found very familiar, and when he spoke again, his voice had a hollow, ringing quality about which she felt likewise. With a dull WHUMP, the circle of glittering dust turned into a ring of fire around him, then spread so that he was standing on a disk of blazing orange-yellow flame. Blood smiled at his new acquaintance through the flickering circle of fire, then dropped out of sight behind it as though he'd fallen through the floor. As suddenly as it had appeared, the fire went out. The floor was undamaged, without any sign that a small inferno had just been blazing upon it. The flames were gone as fast as they had appeared, and they took with them any trace of Jason Blood. Well, any trace but one; as the sound of the fire vanished instantly to silence, there was a bright metallic "ting!" as the brass key to the shop's front door fell to the floor. Raven stood looking at the spot where Blood had been for a moment before calling the key to her hand. He certainly knows how to make an exit, she thought. When she turned, she wasn't surprised to find Robin standing by the big round window, shrouded from neck to floor in his black cloak. "Is this better?" he asked quietly. It wasn't a gloating rhetorical question, but a genuine inquiry, and Raven couldn't help but smile just a little bit. "It is," she said. Robin nodded. Before he could disappear, Raven added, "Robin." "Yes?" Raven hesitated, but only for a moment. "Thank you." Robin smiled. "You're welcome," he said, and then he was gone. Raven looked around her new domain for a moment, then set to work summoning her few possessions. Robin didn't discuss what he'd found or exactly what he'd done about it with his teammates, and knowing that the Boy Wonder could be almost as inscrutable as Raven herself when he chose to be, they didn't press much. Anyway, that wasn't really important. What was important was that Raven thereafter seemed... more at -home- in the city than she had before. She still vanished after Titans occasions, but now they knew the place she called home, and knew that it was comfortable. Her disposition didn't really change, but there was an air of something like contentment (albeit dark, vaguely sinister contentment) about her after that. She started spending more social time with the other Titans, too. That was a gradual process, like most social things were with Raven. First she started accompanying them sometimes when they adjourned to the Tower, only to slip away later in the evening. Then she did that more often than not. Then she started occasionally staying in her room in the Tower - but only occasionally, and that's where the progression ended. Well - almost. After a few weeks of that, spending an average of two nights a week at the Tower, she shocked everyone by actually -accepting- one of Starfire's automatically-tendered invitations to spend an evening at the home of her New Avalon host family. Martin and Eiko Rose were accustomed to having odd youngsters of various sorts passing through their house, and took their lodger's curious guest in stride. Martin, after all, knew Raven already (as much as anyone could be said to know her), thanks to his position as semi-official New Avalon Police liaison to the Titans. They made her feel welcome without crowding her; for the most part, they did what parents do when their teenage daughter is having a sleepover, that is, stay as far out of the way as possible. The evening was a success, in a low-key kind of way, and Raven retired to the guest room at the end of the upstairs hall feeling an odd sense of accomplishment. When she first met Koriand'r, she would have sworn that the two of them would probably come to blows one of these days... but a few hard-fought adventures together had carried them past their superficial mismatch and given them a common ground that, for all that it was hard for outsiders to see, made possible a considerable bond between them. Although there -were- still times when Raven wished the Tamaranian would just shut up for a second. Some time later, Raven woke with a start, then lay still for a moment trying to figure out what had roused her. It was no good - she knew vaguely that it had been a dream, but all the details had vanished as soon as she reached consciousness. The disturbances in her dreams were getting more frequent and stronger, which she found disquieting, to say the least. Raven was accustomed to having full control over her thoughts. To have her subconscious mind not only churning around in there, but not sharing with her whatever was bothering it to boot, troubled her immensely. Even her skill at dream exploration had availed her nothing in investigating this. She could quest the dreamlands all she wanted, but there was no sign of whatever it was that kept coming to her when she relaxed fully into sleep. She sighed, got out of bed, and went downstairs to get something to drink. Raven was mildly surprised to find that she wasn't the only one awake. She wasn't sure what time it was, but it was certainly past midnight. Eiko's job started at an inhumane hour of the morning, and if Hammer was up at a time like this he was usually out roaming the city, looking for evildoers to scare the pants off of. But she could see from the stairs that the living room light was on, and the faint, indistinct sound of a voice reached her halfway down. She rounded the corner into the living room and saw to her further surprise that the person awake in there was Koriand'r - and that the Tamaranian was on the phone. And apparently not having a pleasant conversation. "But, Mother," Kori was saying as Raven entered, "I do not -wish- to come home." She paused, apparently listening to what her mother was saying at the other end. Her brow furrowed in annoyance. "Komand'r's irresponsibility is not my emergency!" she said - snapped, actually, which was another mild surprise for Raven. Kori was normally the most even-tempered person she knew. If anything, she was usually too damn nice. All the same, the remark brought a hint of a smile to the corner of Raven's mouth. It was always a bit amusing, in a sweet sort of way, to watch Kori trying to be informal. That particular construct ("so-and-so's is not my emergency"), Raven had been told, she'd picked up from the Roses' across-the-street neighbor, who was no less a personage than the First Lensman, the man called Gryphon. Raven had yet to meet the man in person, but she'd heard about him frequently, and Kori seemed to harbor something vaguely like a form of worship for him, apparently because of something to do with her home planet's history. Raven was a bit fuzzy on the details. "Yes, that is it exactly, Mother," Kori said after a few more moments' listening. Her normally sunny voice dripped with a level of icy sarcasm Raven wouldn't have thought possible as she added, "I am just like my sister. I do not wish to leave New Avalon because that would interrupt the non-stop chemically altered rave that is my life here. Truly I am living La Vida Loca." Raven reflexively suppressed a smirk. Had any other friend of Kori's been standing in her place, an involuntary bark of laughter would probably have been the result instead. "Yes," Kori said. "No. NO! Mother, I have NOT," she said in a tone of more-than-mild offense. "I would not. ... Only under extremely specific circumstances which are quite frankly none of your affair." Raven arched an eyebrow, wondering what the missing context for -that- remark could be. Apparently it drew a sharper reaction from Kori's mother, since the Tamaranian scowled and said, "-I- am not the one who raised the subject of my - hello? Mother? Hello?" With an inarticulate noise of annoyance, Kori turned and plunked the phone down in its cradle. As she did so, she caught sight of Raven standing in the doorway. Instead of reacting with surprise, though, Kori just said, "Are you capable of accepting this waste material as truth, Raven? My mother hung up on me." Raven came through the arch into the living room, took up a lotus position at the end of the couch opposite the armchair Kori was sitting in, and observed mildly, "Sounded like you were having quite a debate." "Debate?" Kori replied sharply. "-Debate-? She practically accused me of being a twelkarb." "Harsh," said Raven. She had no actual idea what a twelkarb was, but from context it seemed like the appropriate response. Koriand'r slumped back into the chair and threw up her hands in the universal gesture of exasperation. "Mother cannot distinguish between me and my sister," she said. "Just because one of us turned out to be a thieving, carousing, planetary-government-destabilizing kreltharklor... " Raven nodded sympathetically but said nothing. She hadn't met Kori's sister - did not, in fact, know she possessed one until just now - and she got the sense that Kori wasn't really looking for comment on that point anyway. "She opposes my desire to stay in New Avalon for a third year," Kori went on. "What does she think you're doing here that's so bad?" Raven wondered. Did she -know- anyone whose lifestyle was more blameless than Kori's? "Oh, X'hal only knows," Kori replied, sighing. "She keeps saying I am too young, but declines to explain what for. Obviously not for coming here, unless it has eluded her that I was younger two years ago than I am now." The Tamaranian sat up and gave her friend a thoughtful look. "Does your mother ever behave in such an arbitrary manner?" "I wouldn't know," Raven replied, her tone offhanded. "She died when I was born." The questioning expression on Kori's face froze, then slowly changed to a look of mortified embarrassment in the long, awkward pause that followed. It seemed to take Raven a couple of seconds to realize what was wrong. Then she gave her Tamaranian friend a very small smile and said softly, "Don't worry about it." That seemed to shock Kori out of her stunned silence. Haltingly, she began trying to apologize for her insensitivity. "It's OK," Raven said. "There was no way you could have known. It's not like I've ever told you before." She thought for a moment, then ventured, "Maybe -I- should apologize. I could have phrased my answer better." "So, then... " said Kori hesitantly, as if unsure whether to continue the thought. "You... you never knew her." Raven shook her head. "I've seen a picture and heard a few stories, but... no. I never had a mother or a father. I was raised in a monastery." "I am sorry," Kori said again, looking down. "I did not mean to pry." Raven regarded her in silence for a second, then made a decision - one that came more easily than she would have believed possible a few months before. "No... it's all right," she said. "I have good reasons for being secretive, but... " She raised her dark violet eyes to the Tamaranian's emerald-green ones. "I don't think they apply to you." Then she looked around the room, as if determining that it really was empty but for the two of them, before leaning forward slightly and saying, "So. You tell me your life story, I'll tell you mine?" Kori brightened immediately, the lingering traces of her embarrassment wiped away by this gesture of trust from her often mysterious friend. "That sounds wonderful!" she said. Then she composed herself into a storyteller's attitude and said, "I am the second of the three children of King Myand'r and Queen Luand'r, rulers of the planet Tamaran... " Raven came out of her shell even more often after that. Though there were still very solidly defined boundaries within which she expected no one to come, the rules were getting easier to understand and work with for all her friends. She spent more time with them, gave them little glimpses into her life, and generally seemed to get more comfortable with the idea that she had them in the first place. They even stopped by Strangefate Books sometimes, though even then, they never went upstairs. The Titans' second spring was an eventful one. It wasn't really true that there was never a dull moment for super-heroes, as the public often believed, but there were only occasional lulls between battling bad guys, keeping a lid on street crime, sniffing out criminal conspiracies, providing backup for IPO operations, teaming up with the Utonium sisters, and so forth. Along the way, Beast Boy gained, lost, regained, misplaced, recovered, renounced, re-regained, reconciled with, then ended up long-distancing with a girlfriend, all to Raven's recurrent consternation. Apart from that, things were relatively quiet in Titans Tower itself... at least until Founders' Day. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2408 Founders' Day 2408 was a gorgeous day, so the Titans spent it outside - mostly in the city, in Veterans Park. They had a cookout in one of the park's public barbecue pits, played a little football, hung out with some of their other friends, and generally had a fine time before adjourning to the Tower at 6ish to get some dinner and prepare for the fireworks. The mood of merriment was fractured somewhat when they emerged from the elevator into their living room to find an intruder already there - one about whom the security system had said precisely nothing. "... so I said to the guy - WHAT the - ?!" Gar Logan blurted, first catching sight of the figure standing at the far end of the room. The windows were in blackout mode, so even in daylight the room was plunged into near-complete darkness. The Titans slipped into defensive mode instantly, fanning out so that they weren't all clustered in the elevator door, readying themselves for a fight... ... until Robin recognized something in the way the dark shape was standing and held up a hand. "Hold it," he said. Then he touched a control on his utility belt and the windows unblacked, filling the room with light. The Titans - all except Robin, anyway - drew back with various exclamations of surprise at what they saw. "It's... " said Cyborg slowly. "It's... " Beast Boy echoed. "It is the Batman!" cried Starfire, clapping her hands in delight. Indeed, the figure standing before them matched that name, but not the way they might have expected. They'd all seen Batman, the legendary defender of New Gotham on Kane's World, in news clips and such before, and they knew he'd trained Robin - but the one they were familiar with wore a sophisticated suit of black powered armor decorated with a silver bat on the plastron. This guy wasn't wearing a powered suit; his costume looked more like the kind of light utility suit Robin himself wore. It was grey with black boots, gloves, and trunks, and featured a black cowl and cape with a black bat on the chest. Instead of the built-in equipment compartments ringing the waist of the modern Batman, this one was wearing a many-pouched belt, like an earlier version of Robin's utility belt. He stood straight and looked very tough and strong, but the half of his face visible under his nose-up mask was lined with age, whereas the modern Batman had a young man's chin. The other Titans took a couple of seconds to realize what Robin had known before unblacking the windows and Starfire had seen immediately on catching sight of him: This was the -original- Batman, the one who had established the legend and protected New Gotham decades ago. He was an old man, but they all had to admit he still looked like a serious badass. All but Robin, who looked irked and muttered, "(Well, -a- Batman, anyway,)" under his breath. The white eyeslots on Batman's mask narrowed slightly. "What do you want?" Robin asked in a tone that wasn't a hundred miles from hostility. "To talk to you," Batman replied. "Privately." Robin shook his head. "These are my teammates," he said. "Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of them - or you can leave. Your choice." Batman's eyes narrowed further, drawing a dark little smirk from Robin. "We're not in your cave now," the younger hero remarked. "I don't have time for games," Batman said flatly. "Neither do I," Robin replied in a voice just short of a snarl. Starfire, who had been looking from one to the other with a look of increasing concern throughout their exchange, couldn't contain herself any longer. "I do not understand!" she burst out, her voice plaintive. "Why do you speak to each other with such hostility? You are Batman and Robin! The Dynamic Duo! The Caped Crusaders! Your friendship is a thing of legend!" Raven dragged her Tamaranian teammate back a couple of steps, pulled her head down to whispering height, and said into her ear, "(Starfire? Haven't you noticed that Robin hasn't even BEEN ON KANE'S WORLD for the last TWO YEARS? Anyway, this is the wrong Batman.)" Starfire blinked. "(... Oh,)" she said, as though the significance of that fact had just occurred to her. "(Yes. There -is- that... )" Robin cut in. "He's -not- Batman. Not any more. Not really." Batman's mouth quirked in an ironic little smile. "Well, then we're even, Tim," he replied calmly, "because you're not Robin any more either." That brought Robin up short. He blinked and replied a bit lamely, "... Come again?" "You quit; you've been replaced," Batman told him. "I came to tell you to stop wearing the suit." Now it was Robin's turn to narrow his eyes. "Like hell," he said. "I thought you might see it that way," Batman replied. He nodded slightly - and another person stepped around him to confront the group. The newcomer was a girl - that much was obvious right away - with a head of thick jet-black hair chopped into a careless pageboy bob. She was so small and slender that she had been completely invisible behind Batman's bulk, and she moved with the kind of grace that meant she was either seriously bad news or a very good actress. Since she was with Batman, the Titans supposed "A" was a lot more likely. "Meet your replacement," Batman said - a trifle unnecessarily, since the girl was wearing a Robin costume almost identical to the one Tim Drake, the Titans' Robin, wore. "She's the most talented martial artist I've ever seen," Batman went on. "You should know what that means better than anyone else here. If you insist on it, she'll challenge you for the name." Batman smiled darkly. "I wouldn't recommend insisting." Drake snorted. "I don't have to play your stupid game, Bruce. I could just walk away." "You could - but you'd never make it to the elevator," Batman said. "To Robin, this is a matter of honor. I assure you she's taking it very seriously. She takes -everything- very seriously." Drake gazed levelly at Batman for a few seconds, ignoring his "replacement" entirely. "So it's going to be like -that-, is it?" he inquired. "OK. Fine. I'll fight your new Robin." Then, his face hardening, he added, "But as soon as we're done, you get out of my city and never come back." "Midnight," said Batman flatly. "The roof of the Hammond Tower. If you're not there... we'll find you." He made another slight gesture of his head, and then he and the "new Robin" stepped back and disappeared out the window. The Titans stood there in a sort of stunned silence for a few seconds, and then Beast Boy burst out, "... Can you believe the nerve of that guy?! Who does he think he IS?" "Batman, Gar," Raven replied in her long-suffering why-do-I-put- up-with-you voice. "He thinks he's Batman." "We don't have to stand for this, do we?" Beast Boy demanded, turning to Robin. "Can't we report it to the Chief or Hammer or something?" "Never mind -that-. Let's just show up at his little rendezvous and show him what happens when you mess with the Titans," Cyborg proposed, flexing one of his metallic fists with a nasty grin on his face. "Yeah!" Beast Boy agreed. "Good idea, Cy. You pick a fight with -one- of us, you - " "No." The green Titan did a double-take in Robin's general direction. "Excuse me, did I just hear you say 'no'?" "Yes," Robin replied. "So you mean you intend to just show up and fight this chick by yourself? No help from your friends? Let the old guy play you like a harp?" "Yes." "Is this some kind of idiotic kung fu macho thing?" "Yes." The direct answer seemed to take the wind out of Beast Boy's sails. "... Well, at least you're up front about it," he said after a startled pause. "I have to go get ready," Robin said. He turned and left the room, pausing at the doorway only to turn back, point, and say, "Don't call the Chief." "Fine," Beast Boy said, a trifle sullenly. "We won't call the Chief." The elevator door closed behind Robin. Beast Boy waited a few seconds for it to leave the top floor, then turned to his teammates and said, "Somebody call Dick." 8:49 PM TITANS TOWER Tim Drake sat at the edge of the tower's roof, watching the evening lights of New Avalon come on one by one, and collected his thoughts. He -did- understand what Batman's statement about the capabilities of his "replacement" implied, and it worried him. Bruce Wayne had fought alongside and against the greatest martial artists of the galaxy. In his prime, he'd been one of them himself. For him to say that the petite girl in the other Robin costume was the best he'd ever seen... that was saying something, something very unsettling. He heard the sound of shoes on the rooftop behind him. Turning his head, he saw Koriand'r approaching, her face full of concern. "... Tim?" she said. "May I speak with you a moment?" Drake nodded. "Have a seat," he said. Kori did as she was asked, lowering herself beside him. Despite her opening question, Kori didn't speak for some time. Not long after she took her seat, the Founders' Day fireworks started, emblazoning the sky above the city with color and sound. Koriand'r loved fireworks, and the business that had brought her to the roof was put aside while the show was going on, in favor of taking in the spectacle with occasional sounds of delight. Drake didn't mind. He enjoyed Kori's talent for taking pleasure in simple things, and he, too, liked fireworks. He felt himself relax, just a little, despite the ordeal he knew he was facing later in the night. After a half-hour of glory, the fireworks show wound up, leaving the sky dark but for the city's nightglow and silent but for the faint sounds of traffic and the almost subliminal thrumming of airships. For a few more minutes, all was quiet on the roof of Titans Tower. Then Kori said slowly, choosing her words with care, "If you will not accept my help in the struggle you face tonight... will you at least tell me what happened to turn you and the Batman against each other?" Tim sighed. "Nothing happened, Kori. That's... that was the Old Man, the original Batman. I worked with the -current- Batman, his successor. Actually, his successor's successor. But... " He sighed. "This is going to get too awkward to tell if I try to tell it that way. OK, look. You heard me call the Old Man 'Bruce', right?" Kori nodded. "Well, the current Batman, -my- Batman, his name's Terry. He's the one who recruited me. Actually, I sort of recruited myself, but that's another story. "The point is, Bruce never liked the idea of me being Robin. He has his own ideas for what Terry needs in a partner. I'm not a natural acrobat like the first Robin or a natural fighter like Terry. I do what I do with hard work and determination rather than talent. Bruce doesn't think that's enough. I finally left New Gotham because of that. It wasn't anything that happened between me and the guy -I- think of as Batman. "Bruce isn't a -bad- guy, he's just... there's his way and the highway, you know? He has his own ideas about how everything has to be done, and even though Terry's succeeded him, he still tries to run the cave. I got to the point where I couldn't stand it any more." Kori nodded slowly. "I... think I understand," she said. "Bruce sounds very like my mother, actually," she added thoughtfully. Tim let out a strangled snort of laughter. "There's an image," he remarked wryly. "So you will fight this person Bruce has arranged to be your replacement," Kori said. "Yes." "And you will not accept help from your friends in the battle." "No." "Bruce is abusing your sense of honor for his own ends." "I know." "You are a fool, Timothy Drake," she said, but her voice held no scorn - only a sort of resigned fondness. "I know," Drake repeated. "And," she added in a quieter voice, "you may be the noblest living person I know." Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, got up, and flew away. "... Thank you," he said to no one after he'd recovered from his surprise. Then, a moment later, he looked deeply puzzled and murmured, "... ('living'?!)" 11:55 PM HAMMOND TOWER, DOWNTOWN The Titans arrived to find Batman and his protege waiting. "I see you brought your friends," Batman remarked dryly. "They're only here to watch," Drake told him. "Just like you." Batman nodded. "Shall we?" The other Robin stepped out of his shadow and crossed to the middle of the roof, then stood there and just... waited. "Before you begin, there is something I wish to say," Starfire said. Paying no attention to the girl in the Robin costume, she strode across the roof until she stood squarely in front of Batman. "You disappoint me enormously," she told him, her voice full of scorn. "I had always believed that the Batman was a hero who only sought to frighten the wicked. I would never have imagined that he could be such a heartless bully to those who are supposed to be his friends as well." "You couldn't understand," Batman replied coldly. "I would not want to understand, if it would mean becoming like you," Starfire shot back. Then, turning on her heel, she went to stand again with her friends. "(Nice,)" Raven murmured as Starfire took up a position beside her; but Starfire's attention was entirely riveted on the two Robins, and she made no response at all. Drake faced off against his opposite number and put all the others out of his mind - Batman, his teammates, even the observers on the rooftop across the street, of whom his teammates were, he would wager, entirely unaware. "Ready?" he asked. By way of answering, the other Robin attacked. /* Juno Reactor "Hotaka" _Odyssey_ */ (begin at 03:16) Within a few painful seconds, he'd discovered exactly why old Wayne had said this girl was the most talented martial artist he'd ever seen. It wasn't just that she was fast, strong, agile, tough, well-coordinated and exquisitely trained, although it was obvious from the outset that she -was- all of those things. Tim Drake was all those things too. This girl was more than that. She wasn't just reacting to Drake's moves in time to do something about them; she was reacting to them before he made them. He wasn't sure how she was doing it - a psionic talent, perhaps, or a level of kinesthetic instinct well beyond anything he had believed possible - but at the moment, the "how" of it was a bit academic. Drake held nothing back. He used all of his skill, all of his agility, and all of his anger (and right here and now, goaded into this pointless fight by Bruce Wayne to further some shadowy agenda of the old man's, he had plenty of that) to fuel his efforts to win this fight, but it was futile. With the girl seeming to know what he was going to do before -he- did, he was never able to really get his feet under him, so to speak. He tried a flying kick; she went under it and countered. He tried a spinning backfist; she matched it perfectly and turned it into a judo throw. He rolled upright, popped his collapsible staff, and switched styles, but she was never where his attacks were and always where his guard wasn't. After about 45 seconds of that, he noted ruefully that this was probably about how ordinary scrubs felt fighting -him-. OK, then, he told himself. You're never going to beat her in a straight fight... but nobody said this had to -be- a straight fight. The next time she hit him, he threw his weight back, rolling with the blow, and came down on his shoulder blades. Kicking his feet up and over his head, he rolled onto his knees and sprang upright again, throwing a handful of gas pellets down as he did so. The Titans gasped as both Robins vanished in a cloud of green vapor. Drake held his breath, switched his mask's optics to thermographic mode, and hoped he'd timed the move so that his cloak, falling over him as he rolled, had obscured the move with the gas pellets from the girl's view. If it had, and she was reading body language instead of actually seeing the future, he might just have given her an unexpected faceful of gas. There she was near the edge of the cloud, looking around, trying to find him in the haze. Either her mask didn't have thermographics, or she hadn't thought to use them. He lunged forward, his cloak streaming behind him, and swept the girl from behind at the knees. He got a piece of her, but it was obvious she'd realized he was there - perhaps she'd heard him coming - because she'd started a jump by the time his staff connected with her legs. She turned with the blow, somersaulted in mid-air, and somehow managed to kick him in the face before landing. The combination of moves carried them both out of the fast-dissipating gas cloud. He rolled through the kick, managed to avoid losing any teeth, switched his mask out of thermo mode, and whirled, going for her head while she was still busy landing. She was already gone. This is gonna hurt, Drake told himself just before her fist came out of nowhere and snapped his head around. Another couple of exchanges and he'd lost his staff. He kept at it, doggedly trying different fighting styles, but it didn't seem to matter what he did. There just didn't seem to be any answer for her ability. Sooner or later he'd reach the end of his endurance and she'd bring him down. Well, at least nobody will be able to say I didn't give it everything I had, Drake thought as he watched another punch coming straight for his face. Before it could connect, the rooftop shook, causing Drake to lose his footing, the girl to miss, and the Titans to make sounds of inarticulate surprise. Drake felt a pulse of heat against the side of his face and turned his head to see a fireball rising from the roof of a building a moderate distance away. The roar of the explosion hit him a second later, followed by the tinkling sound of broken glass falling to the streets. The girl tried to hit him again; moving on sheer instinct, all his conscious mental bandwidth devoted to the explosion, he avoided her, put out his hand, grabbed a handful of her cape, and yanked her to a halt as she began to go past him and set up for another attack. Turning his head, he looked her in the eye (or at least came as close as possible, given that they were both masked) and said in his least warm-and-friendly voice, "-Stop it-." To the surprise of the part of him that remained an impartial observer, she did. Drake took a pair of miniature electrobinoculars from his utility belt and trained them on the burning rooftop. He saw pretty much exactly what he'd expected to see. "Sky Raiders," he growled. Instinct took over. Ignoring Batman and the replacement Robin entirely, he put the binoculars away, turned to his friends, and snapped out a series of quick, precise instructions: "Cyborg, take the right. Beast Boy, take the left. Raven, come in from above. Starfire, you're with me - we're going straight up the middle." Without waiting for acknowledgement, he drew his jumpline launcher from his utility belt, then turned to the other Robin, who was watching him with a hard-to-read expression that might have included just a faint note of awe. "If you want to help," he told her flatly, "come on." Without waiting for her answer, he barked, "Titans! GO!" Then he fired his grapple to the next building over, thumbed the retractor, and vanished. She stood looking after him for a second, then glanced at Batman. He didn't react at all, merely stood watching to see what she would do. She turned back, gazed for a moment in the direction Robin had gone... ... and then followed. During the wild melee that ensued, Tim Drake learned something else about the girl who Bruce Wayne intended to replace him as Robin. That same ability to predict people's actions that made her such a deadly adversary in a fight -also- made her one hell of a -partner- in a fight. She could read the moves of someone on her side just as well as the enemy's, then adjust her own tactics to suit. He realized partway through the battle, as he and the mystery girl in the matching costume completed a three-way alley-oop to confound four Sky Raiders and take out their group forcefield generator, that he was working with her as smoothly and instinctively as he had at the peak of his partnership with Terry, before Old Man Wayne had screwed everything up. The only other really trained martial artist among the Titans was Raven, and though she and Robin got along all right, they didn't really click in cooperative battle. When Raven did hit her mixed battle stride, it was usually in -aerial- combat alongside Starfire, and the resulting destruction was often very impressive indeed - but that did mean that as a Titan, Robin more often than not fought solo. He'd forgotten how fulfilling a good old-fashioned martial-arts team-up could be. He was working with this girl like they'd been fighting together all their lives, and he didn't even know her name. Some part of him found that a bit disturbing, but the rest was too busy reveling in it. He half-turned, smashing down a Sky Raider's shock baton with one gloved hand, and dropped the man with a roundhouse kick. Turning his head just a bit to the left, he saw the girl finish a nearly identical maneuver with nearly identical results, like a mirror image of his own attack. She glanced at him, saw the little grin on his face, and responded with one of her own, the first show of emotion he'd seen from her yet. By the time the New Avalon rocket cops arrived on the scene, the Titans and their impromptu helper had cleaned up the Sky Raiders. "Thanks for catching this one, Robin," the ranking rocket cop said with a nod. "They're getting more ruthless, or more desperate for cash," Robin mused. "They've never blown up a whole office building just to get at a bank vault before." Captain Stephanie Galloway nodded. "Big Fire's giving them a serious squeezing in the Docklands. It takes a lot of money to go up against the Black Hoods. Thanks again for collaring them for us." "No problem," Robin said. Galloway glanced at the rest of the team, who were off to the side letting Robin do the talking, as usual. (Sometimes Beast Boy worked up the courage to talk to Galloway; tonight was not one of those times.) "Who's the rookie?" Galloway asked, angling a thumb. Robin turned to see his prospective replacement standing with the others. She had her cloak drawn, draping her from throat to boots in black, so the police couldn't see that there were sort of two Robins on the scene. "A friend from out of town," Robin replied. "It'd be just as well not to mention her in your reports. If we add a sixth member officially, I'll be sure to let Commissioner Gordon know." Galloway nodded. "No problem, Boy Wonder." Then, chuckling, she added impishly, "Isn't it past your bedtime?" Robin laughed. "It's summer vacation, Captain," he pointed out, then turned and grappled away. He went back to the roof of Hammond Tower; by the time he got there, the others were already waiting, including Batman, who didn't look like he'd moved at all. The girl was standing right where she'd been when their match began, silent and expressionless. In fact, it occurred to him that she'd never made a sound since they'd met, not during their fight, not during the battle with the Sky Raiders. No kiai, no challenges, not even a grunt of effort. It was eerie. But then, many things about this girl were eerie. "That was incredible," Beast Boy remarked as he arrived. "I thought watching you guys fight each other was pretty cool, but the way you took apart those Sky Raiders together was -awesome-." "She'd make a hell of a Titan," Cyborg said. Starfire nodded. "I agree," she said. "Your abilities in battle complement each other spectacularly well. It is such a shame you must be adversaries." She gave Batman another hard look across the rooftop. "Yeah. Too bad about that," Raven observed glumly. "Can nothing be done?" Starfire asked plaintively. "I don't see how," Robin replied, shrugging. "Once she beats me, she'll go back to Kane's World to be Terry's new partner." "Hey, don't talk like that," Cyborg protested. "You might beat her. I mean, she showed you a lot of her tricks in the fight with the Raiders." "She doesn't have tricks, Cy," Robin told him. "She's just -better- than me." He sighed. "Guess I'd better get this over with." Then, trying to put a good face on it, he cracked a grin and added, "Start thinking of new names for me." Then he stepped away from his teammates and went out to the middle of the roof, where the girl with dark hair waited silently. "Well, -that- was fun... trust the Sky Raiders to liven up a party," said Robin wryly. Then he added with a resigned air, "I guess you and I have something to finish." She looked impassively back at him for a moment, then shook her head and spoke for the first time since he'd met her. "No," she said. Her voice was low and soft, not quite as husky as Raven's but even quieter. Robin looked surprised. "'No'?" Batman loomed up behind the girl, his eyes white slits against the black of his mask. "I taught you never to leave things unfinished," he told her sternly. She turned around, unintimidated by his presence, and replied in a halting but firm voice, "This -is-... finished. If you make me... fight him again... I'll lose." Batman's eyes narrowed further, almost disappearing, as his jaw set in annoyance. "You never lose," he said. The girl shrugged offhandedly. "Don't... usually want to." "You won't wear that suit if you don't earn it," Batman told her flatly. She cocked her head thoughtfully at him. "Fair enough," she said. Then, reaching to the breast of her tunic, she tugged off the "R" patch and offered it to him. "I quit." The Titans were treated to a rare sight indeed: the sight of Batman flabbergasted. "Save you... the trouble... of firing me," she added with a faint smile. He didn't take the patch. Instead, he recovered his aplomb, gave her his hardest look (which didn't appear to faze her in the slightest), and said, "We'll discuss this when we get back to Gotham." "Mm... hard to do," she mused, "since I'm... staying here." Batman stared at her for a moment, his face like granite, but she just looked back at him with calm unconcern. Then he said, "I'm very disappointed." She shrugged again. "Sorry." Batman gave her another second of the stare, turned it to Drake for a moment, then vanished into the night. The girl stood facing in the direction he'd gone and raised a hand. "Bye," she said. Then she turned to the stunned Titans, took off her mask, and favored them with a little smile. Without the mask on, they could see from her almond-shaped brown eyes that she was a human most likely of Asian descent, and pretty in a careless, mostly-unaware-of-it sort of way. "So," she said. "Can I... crash?" Tilting her head slightly, she added, deadpan, "I'm... very quiet." The Titans glanced at each other as if unable to believe what they were hearing. Cyborg was the first to speak. "Uh... yeah, I think we can arrange that," he said. A beaming Starfire levitated to the new girl's side and seized her, to her visible shock, in an embrace. "Welcome, my new friend! My name is Koriand'r and I am pleased to meet you!" Then the Tamaranian blinked and backed up a bit, a questioning look on her face. "What is your name?" The girl looked back at Koriand'r's earnest face for a second, then smiled a little more. The range of her facial expressions was already reminding the Titans of Raven, but this girl's smile had a bit more whimsy in it, as opposed to Raven's usual air of dark, private amusement when she smiled. "Cassandra," she said. "Cassandra Cain." "Welcome, Cassandra Cain!" Kori repeated, hugging her again before returning to her place. "We are thrilled to have you doing the hanging out with us. Are we not, fellow Titans?" General agreement followed this assertion. Cassandra looked down at herself, her face thoughtful. "Guess I'm... out a costume," she said with a small grin at Robin. Someone new emerged from the shadows where Batman had disappeared. "I might be able to help you with that," she said. "Guh!" Beast Boy cried, reeling back. He squinted at the new arrival, and as she stepped into the orange light of the giant HAMMOND TOWER sign, he slumped visibly as he recognized her. "Sergeant Gordon!" he blurted. "How long have you been standing there?!" "She's been here since midnight, Gar," said Robin patiently. "And so has Dick," he added as another figure, this one a man in a long coat, came up behind her. Sgt. Barbara Gordon of the New Avalon Police Department's Special Crimes Unit smiled. "Been a long time since I saw anybody stand up to the Old Man like that," she said to Cassandra. Her partner, Inspector Dick Grayson, grinned boyishly. "Same here. Nice job, kid." "Wait a minute," Cyborg said. "How do you know the old Batman?" "Oh," Grayson said airily, "we go way back." "More so for him than me," Barbara added with a smiling nod to her partner. "What did you say about being able to help with a costume?" Raven asked, raising an eyebrow. Barbara Gordon's smile widened. SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2408 10:45 PM Titans Tower G-OS UNIX 45.5.1 login: notrobin Passsword: ********** Welcome to the Titans Tower Master Computer! last login: Sun 6 July 2408 02:49:30 AST (GMT -0500) Titans Tower Message of the Day: I just want it on record that I did NOT cause the huge mess in the hangar bay. - Cyborg > mail No mail. > trn No unread news in subscribed-to newsgroups. > batlink Routing connection to bativac through the Zanzibar Sector, the Phantom Zone, and points north, hang on a second... OK, route established, encrypting... !````~TXlcar /* loif (*polygon_indor (index=0;index> polygon->vertex_count && p polygon_index, polyg?%~~? is infiltrat3on_index));nS_TRANSPARENT(line)) {polygon= get_polygon_data(*polygon_index);<\P> Yt-c469d02l;12 EOT Just kidding. Connection established. This is bativac.batcave.kw last login: Wed 02 July 2408 05:19:39 GST (GMT -0200) bativac.batcave.kw Message of the Day: Welcome to the Batcave! Your host: alfred@batcave.kw Please report abuse to catwoman@batcave.kw % batchat Welcome to the Batcave Chat Center! There are 17 users on 5 channels You are entering channel #batcave Users: BatmanBeyond @Catwoman @Alfred VFries ccain Hey! It's Cass! Hey, kid. Heard about your little adventure. I'm surprised your account still works! Good evening, Miss Cassandra. It's good to see you again. Need I remind you, Miss Helena, that I control who has access to the Bativac, not Master Bruce? Shh! Don't say that where -he- can hear you. He's already in enough of a snit as it is. hi how bad is it? Oh, no worse than usual. He's grumping around the mansion, being snappish with Terry and me, as if -I- had anything to do with it. All bark and no bite, like a big old dog. I can see why Mom left him. (HHOS) No need to be mean, Lena. Hey, he's my dad and I love him, but he can be an awful old poop sometimes. :) You weren't here for my can't-do-anything-right phase. * Catwoman thanks Bast for small favors. victor's quiet tonight He's out. I wish he wouldn't do that... -> Catwoman has set VFries away -> VFries is away: Chillin' snrk that's awful He'll give me that Look when he gets back and sees it, too. LOL -> Opening query with BatmanBeyond >ccain< how's it going really? >BatmanBeyond< He'll get over it. You know how he is. He has to feel personally betrayed for a couple of days. >ccain< mm >BatmanBeyond< Can I ask you a question? >ccain< sure >BatmanBeyond< Why'd you do it? Decide to stay in New Avalon, I mean. >ccain< to learn >BatmanBeyond< OK... expansion, please? >ccain< i'm better than anyone else at the beating-people-up part. we all knew that already. but being a real crimefighter takes more than just being good at that part. without the rest of the skills i'm no better than shiva >BatmanBeyond< Debatable, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument. >ccain< did bruce tell you about the sky raiders? >BatmanBeyond< Yeah. He said you were pretty impressive. >ccain< i learned something in that fight. i'm better than tim at the beating-people-up part... but he's better at everything else >ccain< i can learn those parts from him >BatmanBeyond< You could learn them from me, too. I mean, I don't want to sound stuck-up, but -Tim- did. :) >ccain< true. but this way i can do it without bruce looking over my shoulder - and yours >BatmanBeyond< That's true. >BatmanBeyond< Congratulations, Cass. You graduate. >ccain< what? >BatmanBeyond< I agreed to let you go along with Bruce's cockamamie plan to have you fight Tim hoping that you'd see him in action with his friends and draw exactly that conclusion. And you did. >ccain< you set me up? >BatmanBeyond< If you want to look at it that way. I wanted you to meet Tim, get to know him, and learn from him, but I knew if I just said "Hey Bruce, let's send Cass to take some lessons from Tim," he'd blow up in my face. >BatmanBeyond< So I happened to mention to him one day that it was too bad you couldn't fill in as Robin until Tim came back. I knew that would wind him up. ;) >BatmanBeyond< The rest of it was just a question of whether you'd spot your cue, and you did. >ccain< very clever. i suppose i should resent being manipulated, but i'm glad you did it >BatmanBeyond< That's good to know. I -was- kinda worried that I'd set up a repeat of the whole Bruce-Tim thing, but I had to take the chance. >ccain< well, i'll let it slide if you promise not to do it again >BatmanBeyond< Deal. How's it working out with you and his team? >ccain< i haven't really been here long enough to know, but they seem to be ok with me. we're doing a lot of training so that when i start going out on jobs with them we'll already know how things work >ccain< it's been a lot of fun so far >BatmanBeyond< Good. I'm glad. Keep me posted, OK? >ccain< will do >BatmanBeyond< 'Bout time for Helena and me to hit the streets. Do you know what they're going to do for your costume yet? >ccain< i'm supposed to find out today >BatmanBeyond< Email me a pic. :) >ccain< ok >ccain< good hunting >BatmanBeyond< You too, kid. Catch you later. - Query terminated by BatmanBeyond * BatmanBeyond & Catwoman -> patrol I was wondering when you'd get around to that. See you downstairs. Good luck in New Avalon, Cassie! thanks night all Good night, Miss Cassandra. -> You have quit (Quit: Leaving) % logout > logout Cassandra got up from her desk, stretched a minor crick out of her back, and surveyed her small domain. It was a bit sparse yet, but Raven had promised to take her for a cruise of Claremont's shops on Monday to see about scaring up some decor, since she knew the district better than any of the others. The doorchime bleeped. "Come in," she said, and the door opened to reveal Tim Drake in his civilian clothes, looking cheerful despite the fading black eye and general scuffing and bruising he still sported from their fight on Friday night. "Barb's here," he said, pointing with a thumb back over his shoulder. "She's got your new gear. Ready to try it out?" Cassandra smiled. "You bet." THE BATCAVE OUTSIDE NEW GOTHAM CITY, KANE'S WORLD Terry McGinnis came out of the equipment room suited up in his armored Batsuit, helmet tucked under one arm, and crossed to the platform where the Bativac stood. "OK, Alfred, what've we got?" he asked. A slightly transparent image of a bald, elderly man in an old-fashioned tuxedo appeared beside him. The big central display on the Bativac's multiconsole blinked to a street map of New Gotham's South Side, complete with a number of flashing red dots. "The raids on technology companies in the South Side are continuing," Alfred reported. "Master Bruce's analysis indicates that these are the most likely places for another strike this evening. He recommends that you and Miss Helena patrol them from east to west." The map zoomed out to show the rest of the city as well. A pulsing blue dot appeared in the northern end. "Dr. Fries is still investigating the unfortunate death of that researcher chap in North Parkhurst." McGinnis nodded. "OK. Upload this plot to the Batmobile and we'll see what we can find. I imagine Helena's already in the garage?" "As always," Alfred confirmed with a slight smile. McGinnis chuckled. "All right, Alfred, thanks. We'll keep you posted." "I'll be here," Alfred replied dryly before his holographic image winked out. McGinnis turned to go, then pulled up short at the sight of Bruce Wayne standing by the bottom of the stairs leading up to the mansion. "Bruce," he said. "Alfred gave me the briefing. Figured you were taking the night off." "I am," Wayne replied gravely. His eyes bored into Terry's as he added, "There was something I wanted to say to you before you left." "OK... shoot," McGinnis said. Wayne kept staring at him for a couple of seconds, just long enough to convey the impression that he was trying to unnerve the younger man. Then he smiled. "Congratulations, McGinnis. You graduate." Terry blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?" "You're the galaxy's greatest detective," Wayne replied, still smiling. "You figure it out." Then he turned and slowly climbed the stairs to his house, humming an old song. McGinnis stood looking after him for a moment. Then, just as the door shut behind the departing old man, he snorted, then chuckled, then guffawed, his laughter echoing all around the cave and setting flocks of bats to flitting about. "I love this job," he said, then put on his helmet and headed for the garage. SATURDAY, JULY 12, 2408 POLICE HEADQUARTERS NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI Seven costumed figures and one without stood arrayed on the roof of New Avalon Police Headquarters. "Commissioner, Hammer, I'd like you to meet the newest member of the Titans team," Robin said proudly. Sidestepping, he made room in front of Police Commissioner Gordon and the purple-cloaked senior hero for a slim female figure dressed all in black. She had a scalloped black cloak and a twin-pointed cowl with a mask that covered her entire face. The only bits of color on her person were her chunky-pouched utility belt and the outline of a bat on her chest, both in bright yellow. "Gentlemen," said Robin with a grin, "say hello to Batgirl." /* Shirley Walker "Main Title" _Batman: Mask of the Phantasm_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited and Bacon Comics Group presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT TITANS Vol. 1 No. 2 "Welcome Home" Tim Drake (Robin) Victor Stone (Cyborg) Raven Princess Koriand'r of Tamaran (Starfire) and Garfield Logan (Beast Boy) also featuring Jason Blood Bruce Wayne (Batman) Captain Stephanie Galloway, NAPD Detective Sergeant Barbara Gordon, NAPD Detective Inspector Dick Grayson, NAPD Terry McGinnis (Batman) Helena Wayne (Catwoman) Alfred Pennyworth Commissioner James Gordon, NAPD Detective Chief Superintendent Martin F. Rose, NAPD (The Hammer) with Sky Raiders Assault Force 1750 and introducing Cassandra Cain as Batgirl written by Benjamin D. Hutchins with notion wranglin' and concept control by the Usual Suspects Bacon Comics chief Derek Bacon (Lightnin) with much owed to lots of people TITANS Vol. 1 No. 2 BACON COMICS GROUP 2408 E P U (colour) 2004