Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Confidence ( Chapter 25 )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Arc 5: “East”

Chapter 4: “Confidence”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans doesn't belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters of Red Hood, Cerdian (Tsunami), Darkstar, and Kid Flash - along with Micron and the concept of Flamebird - belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers as well. Succubus is the sole character I own.

Author's note: This will probably be the final chapter in this arc, a follow-up chapter notwithstanding. No one exactly expected Cyborg; I wasn't expecting to use him myself, but it fit perfectly into place. If the new Titans East is to become a cohesive unit, they'll probably need the help of someone who's been there and done that. Who better than the guy who practically held the original Titans East together?

Flamebird stood in a circle of flames. The flames licked at her bare skin but she somehow felt no pain. She looked up and saw an orange-red sky with yellow clouds. She heard a voice speak to her within the flames.

“Elizabeth,” the voice spoke. “You are afraid, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Flamebird admitted.

“Of the Darkheart or of me?” the voice asked.

“Both of you,” Flamebird answered. “You're inside me, and I don't even know what you are, what I can do with you inside me.”

“You do not know because you are afraid,” the voice stated. “You are afraid that if you accept all I have to give you, you will lose the thing that makes you human. Do you think of your metahuman friends as less than human?”

“No,” Flamebird replied.

“Then why think the same of yourself?” the voice asked. The flames began to fade away, and with it Flamebird could feel the presence fading. She reached out to the dying flame, but it snuffed itself out.

Flamebird awoke with a gasp, her camisole nearly transparent with sweat. After calming her nerves, she got out of her bed and sat on it, beginning to meditate.

Morning came and so did Vic's voice on the intercom. “Titans East, come down to the dining room. I cooked breakfast!”

The seven teens - now Titans - marched down one by one to the dining room, all dressed in civilian attire. Lian wore a tight black midriff-baring shirt with a red phoenix emblem on the chest and tight red pants. Cerdian was in all black, a T-shirt, pants, boots, and studded belt. Iris wore her customary leather jacket over a red shirt and blue denim pants. Bobby wore a sleeveless green hoodie and khaki pants. Liz wore a black shirt with flames extending from the cuffs of the sleeves and a khaki skirt. Drew wore a gray T-shirt and black pants, along with a sweatband. Lilim wore a white shirt that was mostly unbuttoned except for the last few buttons and red leather pants with white boots.

“Something smells good,” Lian said.

“Glad you noticed,” Vic said, turning to Lian and the rest of Titans East. He presented his masterpiece of cooking to them, which was essentially bacon, eggs, and waffles, all set on eight plates for all eight of them. Immediately, Iris began fidgeting rather unusually, her body vibrating at the edges. “Anyone hungry?”

“Me!” Iris exclaimed, dashing into a seat.

“Glad you're so eager, but you might wanna wait for the others to sit down,” Vic commented good-naturedly. “C'mon, sit at the table.”

The other six Titans found seats, as did Vic. Iris and Bobby were across from each other, while Drew sat on Iris's right and Liz sat next to Drew. Vic sat next to Drew and Cerdian found himself with Lilim and Lian on either side.

“Dig -” Vic started to say, but Iris immediately began eating. “- in.”

Everyone else began eating as well. As they ate, Vic turned to Drew and asked, “How have you been doing?”

“It's been a week,” Drew answered, “since she died. The thing that killed her is still out there and I don't even know what it wanted with me, or with any of us except Liz.”

“We have time to figure it out,” Vic said. “Cerdian injured that monster badly enough that it had to take time to recover. In the meantime, we can prepare for another fight with it.”

Lilim finished her waffles with gusto, only she'd gotten some maple syrup on her face. Instead of wiping it off with her napkin, she licked it off, making sure that Cerdian was looking in her direction. Slow, sensuous swipes of her tongue cleaned her face of syrup. From next to Cerdian, Lian glared at her.

To his utmost surprise, Cerdian felt something rubbing his thigh, edging closer to . . . a place he really didn't want to think about. He continued eating, trying to put up a façade of normalcy. Still, the mysterious thing - which the Atlantean mage-prince deduced to be a foot - continued rubbing him there. He gripped his fork tightly, trying not to lose control.

Having finished cleaning her face with her tongue, Lilim looked at Cerdian, who seemed rather distressed despite a rather impressive effort at hiding it. She looked next to him and saw Lian with a smirk on her face, as though to ask Lilim if she really thought she could outdo her. Lilim glared at Lian, whose smirk of self-satisfaction merely deepened.

The next thing Cerdian knew, the foot that was rubbing him in all the wrong - or right, depending on one's view - ways was joined by another, coming from the opposite side. The two feet competed with each other, trying to see which could rub Cerdian best. The Atlantean boy just continued eating, displaying a rather impressive self-control for one of his age. Then again, that level of discipline was necessary for holding back the dark powers that had been inflicted upon him.

“Something wrong, Cerdian?” Vic asked.

“No, nothing's wrong,” he lied, the falsehood rolling smoothly off his tongue.

“Your body temperature's rising,” Vic said.

Cerdian didn't answer that, as he was too busy fighting off the all-too-pleasurable sensations of two feet rubbing him in that way. At this point, both feet had seized upon his groin and were rubbing against both each other and it. He gritted his teeth, trying to maintain a measure of control over himself. He concentrated on a focusing technique taught to him by his magic instructors and the all-too-pleasurable feelings began to fade into the background. That wasn't actually what happened, but he was able to assert more control over those feelings.

Suddenly, the sensations halted entirely as he heard Vic say, “Lian, Lilim, quit it. This isn't the place or time for that kind of behavior.” Cerdian looked at Lian and Lilim, who looked rather chastised at that point. Lilim looked bitterer at actually being caught, while Lian seemed genuinely shamed.

After everyone had finished breakfast, Vic stood up from the table. “Time for combat practice,” he said. “Change into your uniforms and meet me in the combat simulation chamber.”

Approximately ten minutes later, the Titans East was suited up and in the combat simulation chamber. Vic was there as well, but in his golden metal form. The chamber had taken on the holographic appearance of a cityscape.

“All right, just like before, we're going to practice fighting a common enemy,” Cyborg said. “I'll be that enemy. The seven of you will have to practice fighting me together, emphasis on together. None of that one at a time nonsense.” He looked at Red Hood. “Take it easy, Hood. Your ribs haven't finished healing yet.”

Red Hood simply attached a crossbow-style weapon to her wrist. “They're almost healed. And you might not be saying that once you see what I can do.”

“Come on, then,” Cyborg challenged. “Show me what you got.”

“You heard him,” Red Hood said to the other Titans.

“Titans Together!” Flamebird shouted, using her celestial flame to launch herself into a flying kick. The kick missed, but the next thing Cyborg knew, he was being assaulted on all sides by a Kid Flash that was earning her name. Red Hood waited until Kid Flash had left Cyborg open and tensed her wrist, sending a neuromuscular signal to her wrist-bow to open itself and fire at Cyborg. The bolt by itself wouldn't pierce Cyborg's nanotech shell, but it was explosive and that knocked the metal-sheathed man for a loop.

Cyborg quickly recovered, only to be struck by an optic force beam from Cerdian. The blast didn't pierce his nanotech sheath, but it was enough to knock him back a few paces. Darkstar pursued him with maser blasts, but Cyborg was dodging them all with impressive speed. A blur of black suddenly assaulted him, striking him from all sides much like Kid Flash had just returned to doing.

Cyborg decided to turn the tables, letting the nanotech in his body analyze the situation. It identified the black blur attacking him along with the red blur that was Kid Flash as Lilim. Since the tech could react faster than he could, he decided to let it help him out. He extended the nanotech sheath from his arms and used it to catch Kid Flash and Lilim. It proved useless, since Kid Flash simply vibrated out of Cyborg's grip and Lilim . . . Lilim suddenly put on a burst of superhuman strength that allowed her to bust loose with brute force. She landed on the ground and spun into a fast kick that Cyborg caught due to his own fast reflexes. Lilim didn't give up, her nails extending into long and sharp metal claws that she thrust at him as she swung her other leg into a kick.

Cyborg took the kick as a price for avoiding her claws. He smiled. “That's pretty clever, Lil, making me choose my injury,” he commented. “Nice tactic.” To his surprise, Micron leaped out of the ground with an uppercut to Cyborg's chin, the punch just barely being caught by Cyborg. “Nice move, Micron. Your atomic manipulation skills are improving.”

Micron dived into the holographic street. “I hope you're not going to try the same tactic twice,” Cyborg commented. He looked up and saw Micron coming down at him from the holographic night sky. He caught Micron and tossed him into a nearby holographic building. Micron simply moved through it and came back from another building for another attack. “You can't keep doing this forever, Micron. Eventually, I'll nail you.”

Lilim smirked. “Why, Vic, I didn't know you swung that way,” she remarked before “telekinetically” throwing him into Micron's attack. Micron struck with a hard punch, not hard enough to actually put a dent in Cyborg, but the nanotech-sheathed man could feel it. Cerdian and Darkstar tag-teamed the golden man, assaulting him with powerful and swift blows. Cyborg managed to evade many of their hits, but the ones that connected were pretty strong.

The two young men broke off from their attack on Cyborg, allowing Red Hood and Flamebird to get their licks in. Explosive arrows and fire-wreathed birdlike shuriken flew at Cyborg, who dodged them, only to fall prey to a maser blast from Darkstar. Lilim jumped into the air and flipped as she descended, landing with a hard kick to Cyborg's temple. A microscopic Micron descended upon Cyborg, resizing just before the impact, which surprisingly floored the golden man.

Cyborg chuckled. “You've improved even more than I thought, Micron.” With another chuckle, he added, “End simulation.” The holographic cityscape faded into blank walls, floor, and ceiling. “You mind getting off me? You're kind of heavy like that.”

Micron removed himself from Cyborg and helped him to his feet. Cyborg willed the nanotechnology back into his bloodstream, reverting to Victor Stone.

“Good job, all of you,” he said. “Certainly an improvement over your performance against the Darkheart.”

“Did you have to remind us of that?” Kid Flash asked. “I could live the rest of my life without hearing that creep's name.”

“I know it's after me because I have the Fireheart inside me,” Flamebird said. “What I don't know is why it's after you as well.”

“There is a very simple answer for that, Elizabeth Kane,” a voice, otherworldly and powerful, answered. The voice was soon joined by a body, seemingly made from golden-and-black metal. The head of that body had glowing white eyes and a trail of reddish flame for hair. “The strings of fate and destiny connect you to these six.”

“And who the hell are you?” Flamebird asked.

“Waverider,” the golden being replied. “Watcher and guardian of Hypertime.”

“Strings of fate and destiny,” Darkstar repeated. “Are you saying that the seven of us were destined to come together?”

“Exactly, Robert Troy Long,” Waverider confirmed. “Everyone is connected to one another by these strings, but the connections are stronger in those that are destined to actually meet and unite. The strings that bind the seven of you are stronger than the strings that have connected many others like you. That is why the Darkheart is after all of you. It is not just targeting the keeper of the Fireheart; it is targeting her guardians and allies as well.”

“How do we stop it?” Micron asked.

“It is not the seven of you who will stop it,” Waverider answered. “It is the keeper of the Fireheart. The six of you will be there to help her, but the ultimate defeat of the Darkheart will be up to Flamebird. Beyond that, the future is uncertain.”

“If you're the Watcher of Hypertime, aren't you supposed to be, I dunno, omniscient?” Kid Flash asked dryly.

“An easy assumption to make,” Waverider replied. “It's mostly true, but the future can be clouded by certain circumstances or entities. The Darkheart is one of those entities.” He sighed. “What makes it worse is that it is powered by an all-too-human wrath.”

“That's what I sensed,” Cerdian mentioned. “Another possessing force besides the Darkheart, one that was more human in the nature of its evil. That force came to the forefront when the Darkheart took notice of Lilim.”

“That is because the third component of this twisted merger is Jarrod Jupiter,” Waverider explained, turning to Lilim. “Sibling to your mother, Lilith Clay. He was killed in a battle with a previous incarnation of the Titans, but his wrathful spirit persisted and the Darkheart must have been attracted to it. However, without a corporeal body, both would be helpless to act on their desires, so they took an innocent with just enough of a spiritual taint to sustain their presence in her body. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you already know, the Darkheart will ultimately consume them both, as its evil is too much for anything human - corporeal or otherwise - to survive.”

“How do we get the Darkheart out of her body?” Darkstar asked.

“The key to that lies in the Fireheart's power, if you are not afraid to tap into it,” Waverider answered, addressing Flamebird. He faded away in a fiery shimmer.

“At least we know who our enemy is and why it wants us dead,” Kid Flash commented. “So why am I not feeling any better?”

“Because it kicked our asses last time and the only time it got hurt was when Cerdian went psycho on it,” Darkstar added snidely.

“A psychotic uncle whose existence I was never made aware of,” Lilim grumbled. “And now he's merged with a cosmic evil force that wants us all dead. Bet he's gonna take his sweet time on me.”

“It's not just you,” Red Hood sniped. “Jupiter may have it in for you personally, but the Darkheart wants us all dead and it's consuming an innocent person. Hell, as we speak, it might be too late to save her, and you're concerned about yourself!”

Lilim laughed in Red Hood's face, prompting the archer to ask, “What the hell is so funny?”

“You,” Lilim replied. “You're so transparent, Lian.” Her smile was almost demonic as she reached out to stroke Red Hood's jaw with her finger. “So transparent. You're scared I'll steal Cerdian away from you.”

“Why should I be afraid of that?” Red Hood asked. “He'd never go for someone like you.”

“What do you mean, someone like me?” Lilim asked coyly.

“Did you really think all I did over the past week was sleep and train?” Red Hood inquired with a sneer. “Your M.O. is to seduce metahumans and drain their life energy, like some kind of sexual vampire. You don't kill them, but their powers are copied into your DNA, allowing you to use them about as well as they could. That's where all those powers you have came from, right? Of course, you can't use them together; your body would implode, wouldn't it?”

A telekinetic blast from Lilim threw Red Hood across the combat simulation room. The nanotech in Vic's body analyzed the psionic attack and his eyes widened as it saw something distort when Lilim attacked. As for Red Hood, she willed herself onto her feet and the crossbow-style weapon on her wrist opened, firing an explosive bolt at Lilim, who caught it with inhuman reflexes. The bolt disintegrated just before it could explode and mere moments after that, she was directly in front of Red Hood, a hand at the archer's throat. The archer had the presence of mind to squeeze a nerve cluster in the power mimicker's forearm, numbing it and forcing said power mimicker to release her.

The other Titans, Vic included, ran to the warring girls, Kid Flash and Cerdian making it first. The six restrained both girls, preventing them from continuing their fight.

“Was what Lian said true, Lilim?” Cerdian asked, his distrust evident in his voice.

“Your point?” Lilim asked in a falsely nonchalant tone, her anger evident in her eyes. “I only duplicated their powers. They still have them and they're still very much alive.”

“Not the point,” Vic answered. “If you're going to be a Titan, you can't go around stealing other metas' powers, particularly not like that. As Titans, we're expected to set an example and that is not the example we're supposed to be setting.”

“Don't patronize me,” Lilim hissed.

“And you're not blameless either, Lian,” Vic continued. “You didn't reveal the nature of Lilim's powers for the good of the team. You did it because you were hoping I'd kick her out and then Cerdian would be fair game for you, didn't you?” He paused at the grim set of her jaw, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. “No such luck. You're all Titans and you're all going to act like it, understand?”

He and the other Titans released Red Hood and Lilim. “Training's over. All of you hit the showers.”

Later that day, Lilim watched the sun from the rooftop of Titans Tower, her arm still slightly numb from what Red Hood had done to it. She heard footsteps approaching but didn't turn around to see their source. She didn't even turn around to see who was sitting next to her, although she did see a pair of scarlet-clad legs beside hers. They didn't belong to Kid Flash, though; these legs were too masculine to belong to the redheaded speedster.

“Hey,” the voice of Darkstar spoke.

“Hey,” Lilim greeted unenthusiastically.

“When did you find out you could copy the powers of people you drained?” Darkstar asked.

“It all started on my sixteenth birthday,” Lilim explained. “I had a boyfriend at the time, a senior named Ryan. I gave him my virginity, but I got back his life force. I didn't even know what was happening, but I pulled away from him before it could kill him. So much good that did, he ended up in a coma and I ended up a pariah at the school. The odd thing was that I became some kind of boy magnet, only it felt wrong, like there was something else going on besides the obvious.

“Finally, a few months later, I agreed to one date with a guy. This was after Ryan woke up and broke up with me. I was feeling down, so I figured a date might be what I needed to perk myself up. The same thing happened that happened to Ryan happened to him, too, but he recovered quicker.

“The word went around pretty quickly that I was poison, that any contact with me would get somebody killed. My mother tried to help, but I felt like I was the monster everyone at school assumed I was. She took me to S.T.A.R. Labs to get my powers analyzed, and they found out that I was a psychic vampire. I could lure men to me by way of empathic attraction and then drain their life energy via sexual contact.

“I wanted to get control of my power and I figured that I could do that by using it as often as possible. Hey, practice makes perfect, right? After one of my so-called conquests, I discovered I had telekinetic powers. I went to S.T.A.R. Labs again, and they told me I'd actually gained the power to warp physical reality, or in simpler terms, make the physical world do what I wanted it to do.”

“So you might not have needed those other powers,” Darkstar suggested. “If you hit an object and wanted it to break, it would break, right?”

“Probably, but once I started, it was almost like I couldn't stop,” Lilim continued. “I ended up hitting metahuman clubs and finding metas to seduce so I could copy their powers. My mother was scared for me, but I told her I could defend myself. Still, just to appease her, I took some self-defense classes so I could kick ass if I had to.”

Darkstar reached out and gently took her hand in his. “Hey. I'm not gonna think any less of you. If anyone else does, that's just them being judgmental assholes.”

“Thanks,” Lilim whispered. “How's your mother doing?”

“She's fine,” Darkstar answered. “Roy's actually pretty good for her.” He sighed softly, as though there was something he was thinking that he didn't quite want to speak aloud.

“What's wrong?” Lilim asked.

“You ever wonder why I don't have powers, even though my mother did?” Darkstar asked.

“I just figured Amazonian magic couldn't be transferred genetically to males,” Lilim replied.

“That's what my mother told everyone,” Darkstar muttered. “She actually had the gods that empowered her and Aunt Diana strip my powers from me, all because someone showed her a future where my powers supposedly drove me mad and I became some kind of super-dictator. I only found out when my powers started coming back and that was when I tried to run away from home. Roy talked me out of it, had me come back and patch things up with my mom.

“After that, I found a dying Darkstar while I was out. He told me that he'd been pursuing an intergalactic criminal, but he wasn't prepared for his friends and . . .” He sighed before going on. “He was dying of his wounds when I found him. He asked me to complete his mission for him, so I took his suit and put it on. Then I completed his mission. It wasn't pretty. The other Darkstars were kind of wary about letting a `kid' join them, but I kicked enough ass to convince them. Still a little miffed about my mother stripping me of my powers.”

Darkstar looked at Lilim and changed the subject. “What is it about Cerdian that makes you like him so much?” he wondered.

“He's a challenge,” Lilim replied. “Most guys practically bend over backwards for me. He doesn't, acts like he couldn't care less, all closed off and stuff. Just makes me want to break down his walls and literally screw the resistance out of him.”

Darkstar didn't know exactly how to answer that. He held back a sigh, although he silently observed that Lilim was apparently a classic case of “women wanting what they couldn't have.” Fortunately, he was saved from answering Lilim's statement by an alert on his Titans communicator.

“Lilim, Darkstar, we need your help!” Vic, in golden mode, shouted. “It's the Darkheart again!”

“We'll be right there,” Darkstar answered for them both and closed the communicator. He and Lilim ran into the Tower and ricocheted down the stairway with superhuman agility, finding their way to the scene of the fight. They got there just in time to see Cerdian and the Darkheart charging each other, ricocheting off the walls, ceiling, and floor of the corridor to strike each other in midair with swords created from their respective energies. Cerdian and the Darkheart passed each other as they struck, landing opposite each other. Just as the first time, the fabric of Cerdian's wetsuit darkened with blood.

Red Hood fired her explosive arrows at the Darkheart, enhanced by Flamebird's celestial fire. The arrows exploded with double the force upon impact with the Darkheart, knocking the shadow creature for a loop. Before it could recover its balance, Micron emerged from the ceiling and struck it hard, enhancing the blow by increasing the atomic density of his fist. Kid Flash made her contribution to the Darkheart's distress by attacking it at super-speed. Lilim stirred up a fierce gust to throw the Darkheart around without even touching it and Darkstar shot it with a volley of maser blasts.

The Darkheart roared in anger and pain, generating a wave of force that knocked all the Titans East off their feet and into the walls or onto the ground. It charged at Cerdian at tremendous speed and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him into a wall. Red Hood fired an explosive arrow at its back, but the Darkheart whirled and made Cerdian take the hit for it.

“Cerdian!” Red Hood cried out, anguish evident in her voice. She stared down the Darkheart, shaded eyes meeting burning orbs. The crossbow attachment on her wrist flipped open and she fired bolt after bolt at the Darkheart. Unfortunately, the bolts were deflected by an invisible force field.

“Nice try, archer,” the Darkheart spoke harshly. He blasted her with a wave of black flame, only for that flame to be deflected by a shield of celestial flame. “Fireheart!”

“That's right,” Flamebird answered, a cutting wave of celestial flame making its way toward the Darkheart, who dodged the cutting flame and retaliated with a cutting fire wave of his own. Flamebird dodged the wave with great alacrity and sent knife-like lines of celestial flame at the Darkheart from each finger. This time, the Darkheart couldn't dodge and the lines impaled it through the shoulder, causing it to howl in pain. Despite the pain, that howl became laughter. “What's so funny?”

“You're hurting the girl whose body I own,” the Darkheart answered. “You might want to be more careful about that.”

“It's time to get out of that body,” Flamebird said.

“And how are you going to make me do that?” the Darkheart taunted. “You're not even aware of the full extent of your power!”

“No, not really,” Flamebird admitted heavily. She drew in a sigh and continued, her voice firm. “But I'm not going to be afraid of it.” She wove the celestial flame into the body the Darkheart was possessing, causing it to scream. The celestial flame infiltrated every cell of the Darkheart's host body, filling it with a power that the shadow entity could not withstand. With an excruciating yell, the Darkheart expelled itself from its host, becoming an amorphous darkness that threatened to cover the entirety of the Tower.

“What's going on?” Micron asked. “I can barely see anything!”

“The Darkheart,” Cerdian spoke in quiet horror. “Its darkness is so great that no light is being let in. Even I can't see in here.”

“No light, huh?” Flamebird echoed. “We'll see about that.” She generated a blowtorch of celestial fire and extended into a saber that cleaved the omnipresent darkness. “Time to go . . . both of you. Cerdian, banishment spell.”

“On it,” Cerdian replied, chanting something in the ancient Atlantean tongue. As he chanted, a point of light formed within the darkness, a point of light that grew into a giant whirlpool of radiance. This time there were two cries, one an inhuman roar and the other an all-too-human wail. With a yell, he and Flamebird plunged the errant spirit and the dark force into the portal, banishing them forever. The portal closed behind them, leaving behind Titans Tower in almost perfect condition.

“Are you . . . ok?” Red Hood asked Cerdian.

“It hurt, but I don't die that easily,” Cerdian answered. His demeanor lightened somewhat with the next thing he spoke to her. “Thanks for the concern.”

“Who else never wants to do that again?” Kid Flash asked.

“Me,” Lilim agreed.

“I think none of us quite wants to do that again,” Cyborg said, “but look on the positive side. Your first big battle as a team and you won. That's cause to celebrate, but first we gotta see to that girl.” He turned to the former host of the Darkheart, a disheveled dark-haired girl with bags under her seemingly vacant brown eyes. “Are you all right? Do you remember anything?”

“I remember . . . darkness,” the girl replied.

“How about anything else,” Cyborg prompted. “Your name, where you live, anything like that?”

“I see a mailbox,” the girl murmured uncertainly. “There's a name on it . . . Maddox.”

Cyborg picked up the girl and carried her to the computer ops room of the Tower. He used the nanotechnology in his body to create a neural interface with the supercomputer and search the Steel City residence database for the name Maddox. He soon found an address: 1939 Finger Avenue. “Is this it?” he asked her.

“Yes,” the girl replied. “I, I think so.”

“Then we'll take you there,” Cyborg said.

As it turned out, the girl was amnesiac. The Darkheart hadn't finished consuming her, but it had eroded enough of who she was that much of her past was lost to her. Her parents didn't care about that; they were just happy to have their daughter back. Fortunately, her mind would eventually restore itself, like a computer after being purged of a virus.

When the Titans East returned to their Tower, Cyborg linked the nanotechnology in his brain to the Tower's supercomputer, using it to turn on electronic dance music. As the music came on, the usual illumination was shut off, replaced by multicolored strobe lights. He turned to the seven teens and grinned at them. “We won, you guys,” he said. “Time to celebrate!”

“Sounds good to me,” Red Hood answered.

End Notes: Not for the first time, I end an arc on a “feel good” note. The Titans East of 2031 have gone through their trial by fire and come out of it victorious. Like Cyborg said, it's time to celebrate. There will be a follow-up to this, though, which will have the future Titans you've come to know and love meeting the new Titans East.

Waverider, for those of you who are not avid followers of DC Comics, is a Linear Man, one of a group of beings existing outside of and acting as guardians over the timestream. His first appearance was in the Armageddon 2001 storyline, published in 1991, in which he came back in time to warn the heroes that one of their own would become the tyrannical villain aptly named Monarch. Any further explanation gets too complicated, so I'll skip that.

Jarrod Jupiter and Lilith Clay are part of Titans comic canon. Lilith joined the Titans when the team consisting of Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), and Aqualad (Garth) was active. Jarrod Jupiter was a character that debuted in Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans series - which had a team made up of a teenage Atom, Argent, Hotspot (known there as Joto), Prysm, and Risk - but was placed in the history of the original Titans team through retroactive continuity, more commonly known as “retcon.” Both Jarrod and Lilith were psychics, but Jarrod was primarily an illusionist while Lilith was primarily a telepath, and Jarrod was driven by a pathological jealousy of his sister and the Titans, feeling that they'd stolen his father's love from him.

I figured Micron would be more or less useless in a fight unless I upgraded his powers, so I did. It's now atomic manipulation, which has a variety of uses besides shrinking and growing. He can push foreign atoms out of his way, allowing himself effective intangibility, and he can increase his atomic mass, which increases his density, giving more weight to his blows. The reverse is true as well; by reducing his atomic mass, he can reduce his density, which makes him lighter and thus more agile.

That's enough explanation for the day. In the meantime, feel free to review.