Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Side Story 8: Rose and Thorn ( One-Shot )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Side Story 8: “Rose and Thorn”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters Nightstar, Mercury, and Hawk II do not belong to me. The concept behind Rose and Thorn does not belong to me, either, but the character I've invented as the latest Rose and Thorn does. Nightstar and Hawk II belong to DC Comics, while Mercury belongs jointly to DC and Marvel.

Author's note: Of the Grayson twins, Nightstar gets a lot of my focus. In this side story, Bladefire will be getting the majority of my attentions. I do have to flesh him out a bit and this is a good opportunity to get inside his head, especially as he relates to girls. And man . . . will he be relating to a lot of girls in this story.

Now let's have fun putting him through his paces.

Heather Piers stood on a table in the outdoor dining area of Jump City High, surrounded by a large number of her fellow students. She had a piece of paper in her hands and was reading its contents to the rapt audience.

“`He lays me down on the bed/The fabric of the sheets soft against my naked skin/He kisses me/His scarlet tresses fall forward, blanketing me in their silkiness/I arch against him in delight/Eagerly awaiting his -'”

The beach-blonde girl stopped. “What I wouldn't give to be in that situation.” She snickered.

At this point, a girl of average height with curly dark tresses and darker eyes broke through the crowd, wearing baggy clothes that hid her figure from onlookers. “Give that back! That's mine!”

“Excuse me, Rosita -” Heather spoke, accenting the name with a mocking Spanish accent. “- but I found that in Joh'n Grayson's locker. Did you misplace it? Or were you hoping he'd find it and be utterly spellbound by your writing skills?”

“Give. It. Back.” Rosita spat out each word as though she was spitting bullets.

Heather let out a brusque laugh. “Please. Like he'd ever fall for someone like you.”

“I think I'd be a better judge of who I'd fall for than you,” a stoic, almost emotionless voice answered.

The crowd shifted and a boy with long red hair in a ponytail and indigo eyes moved into view.

“And if you don't mind, I'd like it very much if you gave Rosita back her paper,” the red-haired boy added sternly.

With a chastised expression on her face, Heather gave Rosita back her paper as the crowd parted and went their separate ways.

“Vipers,” he muttered. “Vipers and vultures.”

“Thanks,” Rosita said softly.

“It was nothing,” the boy - Bladefire - responded. “I don't like her. Spoiled diva.”

Rosita snickered lightly.

“Anyway, I'm gonna get back to my friends,” Bladefire said. “You're welcome to join us . . .”

“No, thanks,” Rosita answered. “I'm . . . I'm more comfortable by myself.”

“Oh, ok,” Bladefire answered nonchalantly.

The two went their separate ways, Rosita going back to her own lonely table and Bladefire going to join the other Titans.

“She likes you,” Cipher stated simply.

Bladefire merely gave him an inscrutable stare.

“I'm with him,” Inferno said. “You ought to have asked for her number.”

“I don't do civilians,” Bladefire answered.

Mercury laughed out loud. “Oh, God! Do you know how that sounded?”

“Yes,” Bladefire replied. “This proves that you have a very perverse mind, Peter. In all seriousness, involving yourself with a civilian is not a good idea. It ends up leaving them vulnerable to the dangers of this life we lead.”

“My and Inferno's dads both married civilians,” Mercury stated. “You gonna call them wrong for doing that?”

“Not quite,” Bladefire answered. “I'm just not going to do that myself.”

“So you'd rather date someone like us,” Nightstar spoke up.

“If I had to, yes,” Bladefire replied. “But I've done just fine without being romantically involved with anyone.”

“What about friends with benefits?” Beast Girl asked. “You can have a friend with benefits, can't you?”

“That wouldn't work out for me, either,” Bladefire responded. “One of us would inevitably become attached to the other, jealousy would set in, and it would turn into a big mess. Better not to have attachments to anyone.”

“You're attached to us,” Samara reminded him.

“You're different,” Bladefire answered. “You're my friends, my family. I prefer to keep it at that.”

“You're going to end up very lonely if you keep yourself restricted to us,” Nightstar said. “It's better if you make some connections outside us. Maybe with a special someone?”

“Not interested,” Bladefire answered curtly.

That night, Nightstar watched as Bladefire immersed himself in tracking down the supplier of the meta-steroids. With a bitter sigh, she stalked off to find Beast Girl and Samara.

“This has gone on long enough,” she said after gathering the other two Titan girls in her room.

“What has?” Beast Girl asked.

“Joh'n,” Nightstar replied. “He's gonna end up like Grandpa Bruce. Stuck in a lonely cave, living for nothing but `the mission.'”

“What do you suggest we do about it?” Samara asked. “If he's happy like that, that should be fine by us.”

“Nobody should have to live like that,” Nightstar answered firmly. “Nobody. As much as I don't like the fact that my dad married Barbara, at least he's trying not to let his grief over my mom turn him into a copy of Grandpa Bruce. Joh'n . . . we need to find somebody for him. Somebody who can make him take a break from all this and realize that he has something to live for besides this.”

“You are aware that we can't force him to go out with someone if he doesn't want to,” Samara stated.

Nightstar went to her PC and opened a program, typing rapidly on the keyboard.

“What are you doing?” Beast Girl asked.

“Finding somebody for Joh'n,” Nightstar replied.

“Holy crap,” Samara drawled. “A dating program.”

The screen showed images of three young women. One was a dark-haired girl in a black leotard with a red “S”-shield on her chest and a red cape around her shoulders. Another was a girl with reddish-pink hair and dressed in white and red. The third was a blonde girl dressed in flame-decaled skintight red and a goggle-styled birdlike mask.

“Them?” Samara asked mildly.

“Why not?” Nightstar replied. “According to the program, they're most compatible for Joh'n. I'll just call them up and set up the dates and times.”

“Is this how you picked Raziel?” Beast Girl asked.

Nightstar aimed a death glare at Beast Girl that would have made her figurative grandfather proud.

“I wonder what Clark will have to say about Joh'n going out on a date with his little girl,” Samara remarked with an amused smirk.

The next night, Bladefire was flying solo . . . literally. In addition to working the meta-steroid case for the Titans, he was also following shipments of heroin and cocaine that were coming into the city. From the look of it, he'd have to say that it was one of the infamous Colombian drug cartels.

He fought down a shudder. Super-villains with delusions that they could run the entire world were one thing, but sometimes humans themselves could just be utterly inhuman.

And these guys are about the worst, he thought.

His vision was extremely acute, far more so than a human's would be, and so he could see what was going on just fine from his vantage point in the air. Every last little detail was open to his eyes.

How many kilos is that? Bladefire asked himself.

As he pondered that question, he noticed a figure skulking in the dark. The aforementioned figure didn't exactly look like he - or she - belonged there.

Yes, upon closer look, it definitely was a she - a she with curly black hair and dressed in skintight black with white stitching reminiscent of the thorns of a rose.

The black-clad female snuck up behind one of the men guarding the drug shipment and pulled out a switchblade. Seeing the glinting blade, Bladefire descended swiftly, which alerted the shippers and the guards.

The guards pulled out their weapons first and opened fire. Unfortunately, an experienced flyer and acrobat such as Bladefire was very difficult to hit.

As the guards engaged in their firefight, the men who were receiving the drug shipment wisely chose to flee with what they were able to load into their vans. Seeing this, Bladefire swore under his breath and continued evading the bullets.

The black-clad female dropped low and kicked one of the guards' legs out from under him. That drew the others' attention to her but before they could begin shooting, she twisted low to the ground and kicked another guard in the stomach. The other guards began shooting at her, but she moved acrobatically, evading the bullets with an agility that bordered on superhuman.

Bladefire materialized an energy sword and sliced apart the guns of a few guards. He whirled into a kick that knocked out one guard. He fired an optic blast that melted the remaining guards' weapons and proceeded to generally incapacitate the lot of them.

The black-clad female lunged at one of the guards that was holding on to consciousness and pinned him, holding a switchblade to his throat.

“If you want to live, you'll tell me where those vans were going.” The sentence was spoken with a low, frighteningly yet sultry Spanish accent.

“Not telling you anything, bitch,” the guard answered, spitting in her face.

The female wiped the saliva off with one hand while digging the blade into his throat so hard that he began to bleed.

“Where?” she asked. “I won't ask again.”

“I'm not telling you,” he answered.

“Be that way,” she spoke with a cold finality in her voice. Just as she began to slit his throat, Bladefire was there like lightning and he knocked the blade out of her hand.

“What do you think you're doing?” he asked. When he got a good look at her face, his eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Rosita?”

The girl looked at him, dark eyes aglitter with fury. “Thorn.”

“All right, Thorn, what do you think you're doing?” Bladefire asked. “That's twice now I've had to prevent you from killing.”

“Who do you think you are?” Thorn asked.

“I've been at this for a few years now,” Bladefire replied. “I'm more of an expert than you are, but you've got moves. I respect that, but I can't let you kill anyone.”

Thorn let out a short, scornful chuckle.

Bladefire knelt down and narrowed his optic blast into a fine laser that cauterized the guard's wound.

“Your compassion is admirable,” Thorn acknowledged, “but wasted. Do you know what he'll be doing as soon as he recovers? Helping men like the ones that got away with that shipment do exactly that. Helping them addict people to poison.”

“Regrettable,” Bladefire answered. “But life is an essential right. And I have no right to say who deserves it more.”

He looked up and Thorn was gone.

The half-Tamaranean sighed and flipped open his communicator, tapping into the police frequency.

“JCPD, this is Bladefire. I have some people you might want to bring in for questioning. They'll still be right here when you arrive.”

And to make sure of that . . . he added silently as he began the arduous process of tying up the guards with strong-as-steel cords. Only someone with superhuman strength could get out of these and even then they would have some considerable difficulty. Once that was taken care of, he flew away. He wouldn't be able to find that shipment tonight; the men driving the vans had had too much of a head start on him. He figured he'd go back to the Tower, do some investigating, and hopefully get a bead on where the drugs had ended up so that he could shut it down there.

He'd also figure out what was the deal with Rosita, or Thorn as she had called herself tonight.

The next morning, Bladefire went down for breakfast.

“Three-day weekend today,” Mercury said. “I'm gonna kick back, relax, and watch every single DVD I got.”

“Sounds good to me,” Beast Girl said.

“Figures you two would want to rot your brains out,” Samara sneered. “I have to visit the bookstore. Haven't been in a while. You wanna come, Jeremiah?”

“Sure,” Inferno replied.

“You can do that later,” Nightstar said. “Right now, training exercise. But first, can I have a word with you, Joh'n?”

“All right,” Bladefire answered.

Nightstar guided Bladefire into the Main Room, where they could be alone.

“What is it, Mar'i?” Bladefire asked.

“You ought not to spend the rest of your life alone like Grandpa Bruce,” Nightstar replied. “So I've taken steps to make sure you won't. Namely, I've got you set up with three girls I know.”

“All at once?” Bladefire asked.

“No, you pervert,” Nightstar answered with a playful punch to the shoulder. “One at a time. You're going with Hawk tonight and she's got two tickets to Ghostslayer's concert in New York City.”

Bladefire silently fumed. “And what, Mar'i, gives you the right to plan my love life?”

“Come on!” Nightstar exclaimed. “Do you really want to be all alone in a cave like Grandpa Bruce?”

“Fine,” Bladefire grumbled. “I'll do it. But I promise not to enjoy it.”

Nightstar laughed. “I think you'll enjoy it more than you think.”

Before he had to go on his date, he returned to the Titans Tower mainframe, looking up Rosita's records.

He found that her father was Eduardo Varela, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency that had gone undercover to shut down the same drug cartel that was presently operating in the city. The leader of the cartel had discovered his true identity and killed him in a rather gruesome manner. After that, Rosita had been sent to live with her father's brother Fernando, who lived a rather simple life as a mid-level office worker.

No wonder she wants this cartel shut down so badly, he thought. He looked at the clock. It was almost time to get ready.

That night, Bladefire flew to New York City, dressed in a black denim jacket over a maroon shirt and dark jeans. His hair was styled in a tighter ponytail than usual, almost similar to that of a samurai.

He landed a few blocks away from Madison Square Garden, where he was confronted by a girl dressed in a brown duster over a fishnet suit. A very short leather skirt covered her hips and a tiny black tube top prevented her breasts from being completely exposed. Her hair was reddish-pink and spiked in the back while her green eyes glittered with mischief. A nose ring was her most notable feature, aside from her outrageous outfit.

“Your mother let you go outside looking like that?” was the first thing Bladefire said.

“Mother?” the girl asked with a snort and a rough British accent. “Funny and sexy. Like the look. It's rather `biker samurai.' `Cept you're a little too pretty to carry it off that well.”

“I assume you're Hawk,” Bladefire said.

“Ix-nay on the awk-Hay,” the girl hissed. “Not all of us are running around with the public knowing their real name. Call me Holly.”

“Holly Daze?” Bladefire quipped.

“Ha, ha, real funny, pretty boy,” Holly retorted. “Heh, if I'd known you were gonna be this hot, I might've tried to dress up a little more.”

Bladefire raised a tiny, oval eyebrow. “You call that dressing down?”

The two went into Madison Square Garden, awaiting the beginning of the concert. After about fifteen minutes, Ghostslayer arrived, instruments and all, ready to begin the concert.

Only five minutes later did one of the most infamous features of rock concerts begin.

The mosh pit.

And Holly was dragging Bladefire into it.

“Come on, don't be scared, love!” she shouted over the harsh techno-industrial music.

“I am not scared!” Bladefire shouted back. “People just happen to die in those things on occasion!”

“On occasion!” Holly echoed. “As in, once in a while! Quit being chicken!”

Bladefire growled. Now, he liked to think he was enlightened. He liked to think that he was beyond the call of his more primitive instincts. However, if there was one thing that men all over the universe were not good at, it was resisting the urge to shut up somebody who wanted to challenge them.

To that end, he marched into the mosh pit with Holly, figuring that his strength would keep him from getting hurt too badly. Holly immediately got into it, merrily jumping about and shoving anyone near her. Bladefire himself had to hold back quite a bit, not wanting to injure anyone. Still, he found it surprisingly enjoyable.

“Fun, isn't it?” Holly shouted over the music.

“Yeah!” Bladefire yelled back.

After the concert was over, Bladefire and Holly went to a nearby CD/DVD store. Holly picked up a CD, scanned it at a listening booth, and put on the headphones, banging her head to the 30-second sample.

“How'd you like the concert, love?” she asked once the sample was finished.

“It was . . . exhilarating,” Bladefire admitted. “I had more fun than I expected.”

“I did, too,” Holly answered. She handed the headphones to Bladefire, who slipped them on his ears. He selected a song and began to listen to the sample, turning down the volume to avoid hurting his sensitive ears.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” he said.

As Holly and Bladefire walked out, Holly briefly closed her eyes. Bladefire looked at her in confusion.

“It's Dawn,” Holly replied. “She's calling. Looks like she's gotten into a jam. See you later, sexy.” She pulled him in for a brief kiss on the lips and was on her way, running down the street. With a cry of “Hawk,” her clothes shifted into a skintight white suit with sharp red streamers extending from her shoulders, red gloves and boots, a red belt, and a red mask. She jumped very high into the air and landed on top of a skyscraper, running faster than a normal human possibly could.

Bladefire took off into the air and flew back to Jump City.

Time to get back to business, he thought.

He returned to Titans Tower and immediately went to the mainframe. He slipped the headset on and scanned the city grid for any heroin/cocaine refinement and distribution centers. He managed to find a few scattered around the city. He mentally instructed the computer to narrow it down to the most likely centers where the cartel would be refining and distributing the heroin and cocaine.

Not too far off, he thought. He removed the headset and exited the Tower, taking flight once again.

When he reached the refinement center, he found “Thorn” in the middle of a fight with armed guards, who were shooting submachine guns that fired exploding rounds at her. She was dodging extremely well, but her moves were those of a novice. She had not yet learned the finer points of avoiding bullets . . . and she was too close.

Bladefire shaped his energy into a two-sided blade with edges that curved in such a way that the blade vaguely resembled an “S.” He threw the blade at the guards' guns, slicing them apart. Because of the design of the blade, it returned to him and he dissipated it.

“Hey, sexy,” Thorn greeted with a smirk and a cartwheel. “Thanks for saving me.”

Bladefire looked around, seeing much destruction and death around. He sighed with regret before trapping the guards that were attempting to flee in Flexisteel cords.

“I'm going to have to turn you in, you know,” he said once he finished. “Can't let killers operate.”

“`You work for the devil, you'd best be prepared to die for him,'” Thorn answered. “That was something my father taught me.”

“Your father,” Bladefire spoke. “Eduardo Varela? Undercover DEA agent? Got himself killed trying to infiltrate this cartel?”

Thorn looked at him askance.

“I decided to track down your records,” Bladefire explained. “You don't have to do this, Rosita.”

“Rosita's asleep,” Thorn answered. “You call me Thorn.”

Rosita's asleep? Bladefire echoed silently. Either she's talking metaphorically . . . or she's serious. X'Hal. I'm dealing with a split personality.

“What's your real name?” Bladefire asked.

“Thorn,” Thorn replied.

“I was right,” Bladefire murmured. “She really does have a split personality.” Speaking aloud, “Look, you've trashed the refinement center. They won't be able to distribute now. I'll call the police and they'll be arrested.”

“Do you think the police will come?” Thorn asked. “They've been paid off not to interfere. And if by chance these people should be arrested, all they have to do is call up their lawyers and they'll go free.”

“Look, you can get help,” Bladefire said.

“Help for what?” Thorn asked harshly. “I don't need help. I need this cartel crippled. And the way to do that is to cut the snake's head off.”

“I won't let you kill any more people,” Bladefire stated somberly.

“Be that way,” Thorn answered. A second later, she was gone . . .

. . . and a second afterward, Bladefire had a foot slamming hard into his stomach. He looked down and saw Thorn balancing herself on one hand, parallel to the ground as her leg was upright, forcefully pushing the foot into his stomach.

Bladefire jumped and flipped back, shifting into a fighting stance. Thorn slid low to the ground and twisted into another kick that Bladefire managed to block. She simply twisted to her other side and kicked him again, but he blocked again. She flipped backward and spun into a sweeping kick that Bladefire managed to jump over, coming down with a brutal strike to the head.

Thorn staggered a bit, trying to regain her bearings. Bladefire seized the opportunity to attack, Thorn defending herself as best as she could despite being disoriented. With one brutal jab to her gut with his knee, Bladefire knocked her unconscious.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. He took her in his arms and flew her back to her house, knocking on the door with his free hand.

A middle-aged man answered it. “Bladefire? What are you doing with Rosita?”

“You need to get some help for her, Mr. Varela,” Bladefire answered. “She has a split personality, a very dangerous one.”

Fernando Varela sighed. “I was afraid this would happen.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“When I heard that that drug cartel was being attacked, I thought it was her,” Fernando explained. “You have to understand, she had a lot of repressed anger over what they had done to her father, my brother. She never talked about it, almost like she preferred not to think about it. All that had to come out somewhere. I'm just sorry . . . it was this.”

“Just get her someplace she can get some help,” Bladefire said. “I'll do my best to keep it under wraps.”

“Thank you,” Fernando answered as Bladefire gently gave the still-unconscious Rosita/Thorn to him.

Bladefire flew away remorsefully, drifting through the sky. The beep of his communicator jarred him out of his thoughts and he grabbed it from his belt, flipping it open.

To his surprise, he saw a very familiar silver-haired young woman, a woman whose singular eye glimmered with sinister amusement. Her rose-colored lips were curled in a wicked smirk and she was biting the tip of her index finger.

“Ravager?” he hissed. “How did you get this frequency?”

“I have my ways, Blade,” Ravager answered. “Now why don't you come over so we can . . . talk? I'm sending over the coordinates right now.”

Ravager's face vanished, replaced by a map of where she wanted him to go.

What the hell? Bladefire thought. She wants me to come down to Colombia, huh?

He programmed the communicator to send a decoy signal, something he had regrettably learned from Nightstar's run as would-be assassin Rubyhawk, before replacing it in his belt and flying down to Colombia at such high speeds that he looked like an indigo streak.

The coordinates he reached were those of a very large mansion surrounded by smaller cottages, a pool, and other trappings of material success. He looked down and he saw Ravager wading in the deep end of the pool, all the way up to her shoulders. She smirked up at him.

“Why don't you join me, Joh'n?” she asked as he landed beside the pool.

“What are you doing here, Rose?” Bladefire asked.

“The cartel you were pursuing,” Ravager replied. “I killed their leader. Combined with you and that girl Thorn, it'll take quite a while for them to set up shop again.”

“How did you know about me and Thorn?” Bladefire questioned.

“I like to keep an eye on you,” Ravager answered.

“Let me guess, someone hired you,” Bladefire deduced dryly, switching from what was a slightly uncomfortable subject for him.

“Well, yes,” Ravager replied. “I'm a hired killer, after all. And he was a very bad man, anyway, so I hardly regret it. Now why don't you come in? The water's cold.”

Bladefire looked at her hesitantly. Ravager just glided through the pool until she was at its edge.

“Please?” she asked with a smirk. “For me?”

Bladefire crouched to look her in the eye, only that was a mistake because she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into the pool with her. His startled cry, cut off by his plunge, was music to her ears and she laughed merrily.

He rose to the surface, glaring at her through wet bangs.

“That was cold.”

“I know,” she answered with a smirk.

Bladefire wiped that smirk off her face by pulling her in for a passionate kiss. It was at that moment that he discovered - as he had been somewhat oblivious to it before - that the only stitch of clothing Ravager was wearing was the patch over her missing eye. Ravager pressed her nude form against him, deepening the kiss.

By the time Bladefire was able to return to Titans Tower, it was close to morning. Feeling worn out by his activities with Ravager, he was looking forward to climbing into bed and getting at least an hour of sleep.

“Hot date?” Samara asked, sitting in the dark.

“Don't you sleep?” Bladefire asked.

“Don't you?” Samara rejoined.

Bladefire sighed and went to his room, where he collapsed on his bed and promptly fell asleep.

When morning came, Nightstar went to see her twin.

“Enjoy the date with Holly?” she asked, leaning on the doorframe of his room.

“Yes,” Bladefire admitted.

“Good,” Nightstar answered, “because I have another girl for you to go out with. Remember Mia Cir-El?”

“Supergirl?” Bladefire asked.

“Yeah,” Nightstar confirmed. “I just set you up for dinner for two at Romance” - she pronounced the name with an impressive affectation of a French accent - “at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It's a pretty ritzy restaurant, so I'd suggest you dig through your wardrobe for a suit. Have fun.”

She sauntered off and Bladefire lay down with a sigh.

Oh, well. It wasn't as though he could tell her that he was already involved with someone, considering that someone was an assassin aligned with the Titans' worst foe.

Romance is hard, he thought.

End Notes: There are really two plots in this story. One is Bladefire confronting “Rose and Thorn” - a girl with a violent second personality. The other is Nightstar trying to set up Bladefire with various super-heroines out of the fear that he'll end up as alone as Bruce Wayne. Of course, she doesn't know that Bladefire's been carrying on a secret relationship with Rose Wilson, alias the Ravager and the “Daughter of Deathstroke,” whom animated Titans fans know as Slade.

Hawk is Holly Granger, the more aggressive half of the Hawk and Dove duo. Dove is her older sister Dawn. This present incarnation of the duo was first seen in Teen Titans v3 #22-23, during the Titans' confrontation with Dr. Light, if you need a reference.

The original Rose and Thorn was a villainess who could control plants, a kind of proto-Poison Ivy. For a time, the evil Thorn personality was subdued, but Rose ended up taking her own life to prevent Thorn from hurting her children. The second Rose and Thorn was a vigilante and the inspiration for the Rose and Thorn that appeared in this story.

Mia Cir-El, who has only been mentioned thus far, is a semi-original character. She's based on Cir-El - the Supergirl just prior to the modern revamp of Kara Zor-El - the supposed daughter of Superman from the future. In reality, she was a human girl with Kryptonian DNA grafted to her genetic code; her human name was Mia. Therefore, I combined the two names - as Kryptonian females typically added the names of their fathers or husbands to their own names.

And the blonde in flame-decaled red with the bird-themed mask is Flamebird the Second. Her mother, the original Flamebird, is essentially a tennis star who became a superhero because she was such a big fan of Dick Grayson, the original Robin and now Nightwing.

Anyway, I hope you'll let me know what you thought of this story.