JLA Watchtower (Archive)

"Bart?"

Bette looks at him, confused, "Are you in the right place? Kon and the others are meeting in the lobby..."

Not that she wouldn't mind some fo the pizza.

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"Yeah, kid - this one's business. Pizza Party's outside - and save me a few slices of pineapple."

Vic takes his seat at the table.

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kidflash2.livejournal.com

"No promises. Digestion is nine tenths of the law!"

And in a flash, he's gone again.

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Bette gives a grin to Vic as she calls after Bart, "You could just leave one here!"

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Robin must have come in while Bart had everyone's attention, because he's sitting at the table too.

"Ummmm. Hi."

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"Nice to have you back here, Boy Wonder. Mind filling me in on where the hell you've been?"

His tone isn't accusatory, he's just understandably confused about Tim's recent absence.

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Hoo-boy, here it goes...

"Hell?"

He looks around.

"No really, I was in Hell..or 'a Hell'."

Might as well put it all out there.

"Neron had my soul...I think. I'm not clear on the details."

He braces for the response.

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"What, what? Really?"

Flamebird sits up straighter at that. "Do we need to have Raven look at you?"

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...actually that's not a bad idea.

"Yeah, I think that would be a smart move. I planned on seeing if Doctor Fate or Zatanna could give me a check up but your right, Raven would know allot about the status of that kind of thing." or at least that was Tim's take on Raven's kind of magic, a subject that he shared Batman's opinions on.

He squirms a little in the chair as he tries to sift through the hazy sulphur-touched memories of the last year.

"Most of it is like a blur of a really bad nightmare, but I do know that Lady Shiva and Richard Dragon followed me down and beat Neron at his own game to get me back."

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Cyborg listens, impassively, and thinks a moment before responding.

"Zatanna AND Raven. We're not taking any chances. I know the League had a trip to Hell recently - brought back Carter Hall. Seems like there's a lot going on down there, and we want to play it carefully."

Vic shares the distaste for magic, obviously.

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Enthusiastic nod.

"Gotcha. I'll have them both give me a close look. I want to be certain there aren't any lingering effects or hooks.

When we got back to 'here', we found ourselves in the middle of a Gotham occupied by Darkseid and his Anti-Life effect. I picked up a few other people and then Superboy and K.F. showed up. That's when Scarab joined us and we fought our way through the city to disarm Blackfire and then take on Darkseid. We were lucky that taking Blackfire down seemed to have weakened Darkseid significantly, otherwise I'm not sure we would have made it out."

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"Good idea. Let me know if .... Well, I doubt you need anyone helping you get in contact with anyone but... if you do, let me know." Bette grins a little.

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There's a popping noise, and suddenly a big green teenager's standing there! "Nrgh, I hate long flights as a fly. Do you know how bad a mid-life crisis is when you only live for about a day? Not. Great" Beast Boy clapped his hands together to try and get some feeling in his fingers. SO, good news or bad news first?"

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Cyborg almost cracks a smile. Almost.

"You mean you have news for us, or are you asking which one we want to tell you first? Because I don't remember promising any good news."

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Beast Boy rolled his shoulders, making an 'ow' face and trying not to worry about Vic's double shot of stoic this evening. "If it were up to you, tin man, everything'd read like a report card. "Sloppy technique, poor form, did not tip hat while catching screaming girl, all and all a mediocre rescue effort C-" and all that."

Taking a second to snicker at himself, Gar perched on his chair in an apelike crouch, scratching his ear with his foot a few times before realizing what he was doing. "Uh, right." Ahem. "We found the lab, and smacked Mammoth and Shimmer around for a while, but Sivana had already bailed. The computer's still crunching the data but hopefully the old man left some kinda clue."

"We did find something valuable, though.~"

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"Yeah? Let's hear it."

Nightwing sometimes acts way, way too much like his mentor. When the heck did he come in?

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"Gah!" Gar tripped over himself, half leaping and half falling onto the table in a tangled pile of limbs. Struggling for a few seconds, Beast Boy morphed into a jellyfish, but its tentacles were actually tied in knots! He then tried a turtle, but that was stuck on its back! Still, its legs were apart, and Beast Boy switched back to his default form, going from laying on his back to standing and pointing an accusatory finger at Nightwing with acrobatic grace.

"DUDE, uncool!" Beast Boy managed, his tongue a bit tied after the rapid fire shapeshifting. "Man disco bird how is it you're there when I smelled you over there..." Beast Boy jerks his thumb towards the All Concealing Shadows across the room, "...when I came in!"

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That brings a crooked smile to Nightwing's weary - and somewhat fight-scarred - features. You gotta love Gar. " Head cold? Fleas?" he offers with a chuckle.

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Bette winces as Gar flails about some. God knows Nightwing has made her feel /exactly/ like that more than enough times, even if she didn't have the actual physical reaction. Pressing her lips together, she leans back from the table a little bit.

"So, Gar, you were saying...? You found something...?"

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Cyborg nods to Dick - happy to see him. It's been too long. Then he turns his attention back towards Gar.

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Tim just watches the back and forth like a silent tennis spectator.

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"Obviously your new cologne's so bad I block out everything but the lingering stank..." Beast Boy mutters, crossing his arms and outright pouting at Dick pretty much owning all over him. He winks at Flamebird just in case she's thinking it is not all a gag.

"Oh right! Heh heh." Beast Boy pulls out...is that a letter? It smells vaguely like saffron to the attentive. "/Some/ jailhouse cutie was writing /some/ body a note! What do you think Cyborg should I read it for the team? There could be valuable strategic information!"

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"We're missing out on the pizza for this, Gar. And Bart's already been out there ten minutes. Out with it."

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"Don't you love me no more?" Beast Boy sniffles a little, but dumps the letter out on the table. "Lemme know when you upgrade your sense of humor back to industry standard, at least; it looks like your typical rambling, vaguely threatening supervillain sorta letter, right? But check it out."

Beast Boy folds the letter together; what was once angry teenaged scrawl looks a heck of a lot more like a set of coordinates and a date. "The way I see it, 's probably a trap, even if Jinx does want to come in out of the cold. But its also the closest thing to a solid lead we've had on what the Five're up to all month, so..."

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Nightwing covers his mouth to hide both a yawn and a grin at Gar's attitude before glancing Cyborg's way. "Thoughts?"

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Bette looks around at the different people in the room and then leans back in her chair. Pressing her lips together, she wishes she had something to drink right about now. Not alcohol, mind you but like water or... something. Maybe just to have something to do with her hands.

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"Nothing is done without a purpose, even if that purpose is unrealized by the perpetrator." Tim pipes up, quoting sometime Bruce told him years ago.

"There are easier and less obvious ways to code information in communications."

He gestures to the letter.

"This sounds like a setup."

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"Any lead's worth following up on. If it's a trap, we turn the tables and take them down."

He looks around the room.

"One other piece of business, then - we have a potential new recruit. He calls himself the Scarab, works out of Texas. Some kind of sentient adaptive machine intelligence gives him a wide array of powers. Obviously, given the alien origin, we should be cautious, but with that kind of potential power, I'd say he needs the Titans. Anyone disagree?"

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"Saw him in action. Good kid but he needs some supervision," opines Nightwing before sending a glance Kon's way. "Like others I could mention.

"About the lead...I'll see what I can dig up on it. Any volunteers for scouting around, doing some leg work for us?"

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"I think I should mention that Scarab said that the alien symbiote that makes up his armor was damaged at one point. There's some kind of data architecture that it was separated from which resulted in it developing a personality independent of it's original programming. It even has a name, 'Khaji Da'. I get the sense that there might be others of it's kind out there, and I have to wonder what it's original directives were.

I do think Scarab is sincere and has serious potential to become a major hero, and I don't want to alienate them but I do think we should keep a polite eye on their behavior and how they develop."

He pauses.

"We should also try to learn all we can about Khaji Da. How it works, where it comes from. In case others of it's kind come looking for it and turn out to be unfriendly."

"I can help out with the lead doing online snooping. I'd really like to devote the rest of my time to Gotham for a few weeks though. ...There's allot I need to catch up on and the city is in a bad way."

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Nightwing simply looks at the floor, features dark and deliberately impassive.

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Beast Boy sends a look Cyborg's way; it could be about spying on Scarab, the Gotham situation, or if it'd be racist to try and grow matching soul patches. Or maybe all three.

He sounds surprisingly reserved, though, when he actually says, "Yeah, okay Robin, fair enough. But we tell the kid that's what we're doing. All that secrecy crap's what turns these things from 'watching a friend's back' into 'team shattering blow ups'. Because if we have another one of those, I swear to God I'm calling Dr. Phil and giving him a visitor's pass to the tower."

Gar's only half joking, visibly resisting the urge to fidget while crouching on the chair. "I'm sure between Cy and me we can handle the online angle, by the way. -speaking of which, is there anything the Titans can be doing to help out with the Gotham thing? Like, I don't know, raising money or organizing volunteers or something."

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That suggestion catches Cyborg a little off-guard, but he's instantly on board.

"Absolutely, anything we can do."

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"I was planning on going back to help where I could already but we could make it more official."

Yeah, she was planning on risking a Batman 'get out of my town' yelling at but the place seemed to need help. Bette tucks her legs up into her chair. It isn't like she's making official decisions or anything here. Nope.

"So, we're all good with Scarab, then? Just to make it clear?"

Edited Date: 2011-02-19 01:46 am (UTC)

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Vic nods.

"Yeah. I think it's a good fit. Anyone opposed?"

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"Let's do it. Where's he hanging right now? Pizza?"

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