Annual #1: "Thicker than Water"

Chapter 1: “Look to the Sky”

Sunny day, low humidity, and a mild breeze, made for the perfect day in Central Park. As Dick and Kory made their way through the park, passing the many people spending their Saturday afternoon in the fresh air, they clasped hands. It had been too long since they had had any time for themselves, and it was well deserved.

So much had happened to the team lately that they hadn’t had a chance to be alone in a long time. Dick couldn’t help but smile at the golden princess as she raised her head up toward the warm sun and smiled to herself. Her smile was infectious, and he had to admit that it made her even more beautiful, if that was humanly possible.

They found a nice spot to lay their blanket down and Dick sat the picnic basket down. He was watching the baseball game that was being played on one of the many diamonds that surrounded them. He squinted to see what the names on the jerseys said. He thought one said Marvel something and the other one was a couple of initials, D… something, but he couldn’t make it out.

He turned back to Kory who had been watching him with those large green eyes of hers. Sometimes he felt like he could fall right into them and get lost forever. She turned away, slightly embarrassed about being caught, but he just chuckled and pulled out two tiny champagne bottles that he had picked up.

“Aren’t open intoxicants illegal?” she asked him with a subtle tease in her voice.

“Yeah, but it’s Central Park; head east a little further into some of the more wooded area and you’d be surprised what the kids are laying around doing.”

Her eyes flashed mischievously. “Oh? Like what?”

Dick blushed. “Never mind. How about we pull out these sandwiches that I made and have ourselves a good old fashioned picnic?”

They sat close, very little conversation between them. It was a perfect afternoon, a perfect day. As they sat there feasting on the lunch that had been prepared by Dick, who was thankful that he had picked up so many tips from Alfred, the sky began to cloud over. It grew dark fast, but the two of them were so intent in their moment that it took them a second to realize the darkness that had grown around them. It wasn’t until they began to hear the shrieks from others in the park that they looked around to see a mob of people looking into the sky as they were running away.

They looked up to see a huge spaceship hovering above them.

“X’Hal, no!” Kory exclaimed as she jumped up.

“Kory, what is it? What’s going on?” Dick shouted over the screaming crowd.

There was a blur of yellow that circled around them once. “Looks like your basic alien invasion,” Kid Flash said as he stopped suddenly. “The rest of the Titans are on their way.”

“They will not take me back,” Starfire was mumbling as she backed up, her eyes wide in terror. “I will die before they take me back.”

“Who?” Dick asked as he grabbed her shoulders. “Kory, who are they?”

The first wave of Gordanian warriors materialized on the grass in the park, weapons drawn, and charging the three startled Titans in front of them.

“Those are the aliens that Gar was telling us about, aren’t they?” Nightwing asked Starfire as he watched them approach; his hand already going for his sticks.

“They are Gordanian fighters, and they’ve come to take me back to the Citadel, or the Psions; either way, I will not go back!”

Dick heard it in her voice; saw it in her eyes as she took to the sky. Her demeanor had changed dramatically on the turn of a dime. Her emerald eyes had started blazing in something more than just anger. It was something else entirely, something very close to rage.

“Starfire, wait,” he called after her, but she was already taking off towards the aliens, of which there seemed to be at least thirty, if not more.

“Let’s go,” Nightwing sighed. “Take out as many as you can and let’s try to keep this contained until the others have arrived.”

A green pterodactyl flew down at that moment, followed closely by Wonder Girl, who was carrying Cyborg; behind them a dark cloud of smoke appeared and as the gentle breeze wisped it away, Raven stood quietly.

“You called, oh fearless leader?” Beast Boy said as he altered his shape back to normal.

“What’s Kory doing?” Donna asked as she watched her friend hurtling into the alien warriors.

Gar turned and looked at the Gordanian’s who had begun to fire their weapons at the warrior princess. “Oh, #@%*! Those are the same things that were chasing Starfire when we first met.”

“Watch the language, we’re not in Vegas,” Dick snapped. “Raven, you and Kid Flash get the rest of the people in this park away from here as quick as you can and then get back here. Cyborg, Beast Boy and I will see what we can do about stopping them. Wonder Girl, I need you to go after Starfire, try to calm her down. She’s terrified and not in her right mind. Someone needs to get through to her.”

Donna nodded without saying a word and took off into sky, chasing after her friend. Raven vanished from her spot, only to reappear a few yards away where several children were playing. She enveloped them in her cloak and vanished again. Kid Flash shot off in one direction, grabbing ball players and running them out of the park and onto Central Park West and West 65^th street before they knew they were even being moved.

As the two Titans continued the evacuation, Dick, Gar, and Vic began their frontal assault on the Gordanians. Starfire was already throwing energy blasts at them as she passed by, but it was apparent that they were not her main goal, the ship was.

Gar morphed into a rhino as he charged into the army, stampeding over several of them on his first run through. “Sorry, just passing by,” he remarked.

Nightwing leapt into the air and landed on top of one of the green monsters, striking him in the back with his sticks as he kept his mid-air momentum going and dodged some kind of energy blast from another green-skinned monster and smashed him in the face.

Cyborg was using a much wider approach as he fired his sonic blaster into a group of them. It caused four of them to fall to the ground simultaneously. He went to fire again but was struck from behind by one of the energy weapons that were being fired by the aliens. He let out a cry as he fell forward and dropped to his knees. He saw them begin to swarm around him, too dazed to do anything, when he heard a noise; a sound that seemed way out of place; the sound of a horse.

Three of the Gordanians were flung backward as they were struck by the green hooves. Vic looked up and swore the horse was grinning.

“Hop on, Kemo Sabe,” the horse said.

“Gar?”

“Gar, Mr. Ed, call me what you want; just get on board before they overwhelm us!”

“You are the strangest dude I have ever met,” Vic said as he jumped on the back of the horse.

“Me? You’re the one using the word dude,” Beast Boy replied as he took off, trampling several of the aliens, while Cyborg held on with one arm and fired concussion blasts with the other.

They rode out of the middle of the fray as Wally appeared, swiping the laser rifles out of several of the Gordanians’ hands. He stopped short when he saw the two of them.

“Not one word,” Cyborg said as he jumped off the horse.

“Actually, I have several words, but I’m just not sure which ones to use first,” the young speedster replied with a smirk on his face.

“A little help over here,” Nightwing shouted as he cartwheeled and leapt between laser blasts.

“Titans together?” Gar asked.

Kid Flash grinned. “Always!”

“Now?” one of the Gordanians asked as they watched the melee from the view screen.

Komand’r smiled. “Now.”

The green scaled creature pressed a button and they watched as a large metal object dropped from the bottom of their ship, hitting the ground right in the middle of their own men, as well as the Titans, and suddenly there was an explosion. Both sides were flung around like rag dolls.

Komand’r watched with satisfaction as she saw that nobody was getting up from the blast. “Retrieve my sister, and bring her to me… and if any of her companions are alive, bring them as well. They may be useful.”

“The inhibitor fields are working perfectly, Princess,” the Gordanian said as he monitored the room where they were housing the two Titans. “The speedster’s powers seem to have been nullified. I believe the other one does not have any unnatural abilities.”

“What about the others?”

The camera switched to show Wonder Girl and Beast Boy in another cell, both awake, and both discussing the same situation, then the screen switched again to show Cyborg lying on a sterile metal table, strapped down, still unconscious.

“This one intrigues me,” the Tamaranean said. “He is a hybrid of some sort. We shall take him with us and give him to the Citadel; they will find him most interesting. Now… the others?”

“The only one left is Princess Koriand’r, who is in her own cell, as you commanded. There was a seventh member, but she was the closest to the blast and we believe she was vaporized with a dozen of our men.”

“Pity,” Komand’r said with no trace of remorse in her voice. “Well, I suppose it’s time to visit my sister. It has been so long, and I’m sure she will be pleasantly surprised to see me.”

Starfire was pacing her cell. Her star bolts weren’t working, which meant the Gordanians were using the dampening fields in the holding cells. Her mind was whirling as she desperately tried to figure out what to do next. Had the rest of her friends been captured as well, or praise X’Hal, had the wretched creatures only taken her, as she had hoped.

She was having a hard time keeping her thoughts straight. Flashes of her imprisonment with the Citadel raised through her mind… the torture… the brutality. She had sworn that she would never allow that to happen to her again. Of course, then she had been sold to the Psions, and everything had become even more horrific.

Two guards were standing across from her cell, the transparent force field allowing her a full view of the guarding area. She heard the door off to the left open up and both guards straightened up. Obviously their superior was coming, perhaps the leader of this ship. Perhaps someone from the Citadel themselves… it would make sense to send someone in the inner circle to bring her in.

Koriand’r was not prepared for the sight of the leader who turned the corner and approached her cell. The long purple robe flowing around her, the long golden hair and dark eyes, the golden skin… Komand’r!

“You!” Kory spit out with a new rage boiling deep within her. “You have done this?!”

“It’s good to see you as well, little sister. I was afraid you had forgotten me.”

“I could never forget such a vile and treacherous traitor as you! You single-handedly turned our world and our people into slaves of the Citadel. I swore then that if I ever saw you again, I would kill you. And with the blessing of X’Hal, I shall do so!”

“Such big words, little one, from someone who seems to be on the wrong end of the battle staff,” Komand’r said, laughing for the first time. “I’m afraid you will not get the chance. My orders are simple: I am to take you back to where you belong, destroying this world in the process as punishment for harboring the Citadel’s greatest fugitive.”

“So you are still aligned with that vile organization. How could you? After what they did to us… selling us to the Psions… allowing us to be used as guinea pigs.”

Kory saw the momentary flash of remembrance in her sister’s eyes, the same pain and fury that she, herself, felt, and then, just like that, it was gone.

“Always the passionate warrior, little sister; the pride of the Okaara. You never did understand how the universe really worked. Until the Psions got a hold of us, I didn’t have the powers or the raw strength that you did. That changed after we were experimented on, though. Now I have the same power that you have, but with the intelligence that you never developed. How unfortunate for you. In the end, your compassion and your emotions have been your undoing. Once I return you to the Citadel, I will be granted what was always rightfully mine… I will be the Empress of Tamaran and will rule it in the name of the Citadel.”

“Our father will never let that happen!”

Another cruel and throaty laugh came from Kory’s older sister. “You’ve been gone too long, Koriand’r. Our father is dead.”

It felt like she had been punched in the stomach, the sound of the air as it left her body was audible. “You lie…” she whispered.

“Not about this, little sister. After you escaped, the Citadel were furious; they took it out on Tamaran. Father was publicly executed.” She turned to walk away and then swung back, her cloak swirling around her. “Just to make that perfectly clear, you killed our father with your actions. Our home world despises you. Now excuse me while I dole out the punishment and destroy this little mudball of a planet.”

Kory watched her sister leave. Her world had been ripped from underneath her. As she felt the ship take off, she collapsed on her cot and began to sob.

“So tell me again how you two actually came to be?” Roy Harper asked the two young heroes that stood before him.

“Do you really think now is the time?” Bumblebee asked in frustration.

As Roy went to respond, there was a small rumbling noise and then the spaceship, hovering quietly this entire time, abruptly lifted up into the air and took off in a westerly direction.

“You might have a point there,” the archer agreed as the ship disappeared out of sight.“You’re sure the rest of the Titans are on that ship?” he asked Raven again.

She nodded silently.

Roy turned his back to the three of them and pressed a finger to his ear. “Major Tom to ground control?”

“Not funny, Red Knight,” came the reply in his ear.

“Our visitors just took off. I need them tracked immediately. If they don’t leave orbit, I need to know where they’re going. I’m going in pursuit.”

“Copy. We can have a team assembled in five minutes.”

“Not necessary, I’ve got a team here,” he said, looking at the blank faces of Bumblebee and Risk and of course the emotionless face of Raven, “I think. Be ready for back-up, in case I need it.”

“Highly unorthodox, Red Knight; going to have to clear this with Red King.”

“I don’t give a damn what you’re clearing, just track that ship… out!”

He turned back to the other three. “Raven, can you teleport us back to the Tower. We can grab the T Jet and head out from there.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Whoa! Hold on cowboy.” Bumblebee raised her arms up. “I know you all are used to this sort of thing, but we’re kind of new at all this. I’m not sure we’re ready to go up against an alien invasion.”

“You’re right, you might not be, we’ll find out when the time comes, won’t we. You two put on outfits like that, means you want to play in the big leagues. Well, it’s your turn at bat. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’ve just become unofficial Titans, and we always watch each other’s backs.”

“I don’t need my back watched,” the one called Risk snapped. “I’m ready, let’s go.”

Raven enveloped them into her dark cloud and they all disappeared.

The T Jet was racing across Canada, following the signal that Checkmate had sent to them; Roy in the driver’s seat, occasionally speaking to someone that the rest of them could not hear.

“Looks like the ship has planted itself off of the shoreline of southern California. It veered off first and went up to the Artic Circle, dropping something into the water and then ended up just off of San Diego. My people are already en route to the Artic; I told them we’d handle the ship.”

Roy was speaking to Raven, who had been sitting next to him, quiet as usual. The history between the two of them had not been the greatest, from nearly the formation of the team. Although Raven knew that Speedy had no ill feelings towards her, and understood that what had happened between them was not of her doing, she could still feel a small amount of mistrust coming from him – and she couldn’t blame him.

“I’m not sure what these things want,” Roy was continuing, “but my guess is that whatever it is, they want it to end with a really huge bang.”

“They wanted Starfire,” Raven said. “It was the only feelings I could read from them. It was almost as if they were of a singular feeling; a driven need to capture her.”

“Don’t worry; we’re not going to let that happen. Right, gang?” Roy called back to the new recruits.

Risk and Bumblebee looked at each other a bit uneasily before Risk answered, “Right.”

Again, the feelings of both rage and fear came to Raven in waves from the man known as Risk. It was as if there was something personal between the young blond and that alien ship itself.

“Coming to San Diego now,” Roy said to everyone. He swung the jet out into the ocean and looked at what was in front of them and then at Raven, who looked back with the same startled look on her face.

In front of the ship, hovering there was a young man with gleaming golden wings; a costume so similar to the Justice League’s Hawkman, that, for a moment, they thought that was who he was.

“Who is that?!” Bumblebee asked, leaning over the front chairs.

“No idea. Raven, can you check it out?”

She nodded and closed her eyes as they watched her soul-self leave her body and the black figure disappeared out of the jet, reappearing in front of them.

“My name is Raven and I am with the Teen Titans,” came her voice out of her dark shape. “Our teammates are trapped in that ship. We would like to know who you are and what your purpose here is?”

The young man looked suspiciously through his helmet, his gold gauntlets gleaming with razor sharpness. “I am called Golden Eagle. My purpose here should be obvious; I’m trying to figure out what is going on.”

“I sense truth in your words. Follow me.” She turned and flew back towards the jet. A second later, Golden Eagle followed.

A few minutes earlier, with Gordanian guards strewn across the floor of the lab, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash had helped up Vic, who was shaky, but otherwise unharmed.

“Where to now?” Beast Boy asked anxiously.

“Cyborg, do you think you can access their computer base from here,” Wonder Girl asked, looking around. “If we’re still anywhere on Earth, this ship has got to be surrounded by now, and dropping their shield is our first order of business.”

“Think so,” Vic said as he walked over to what he guessed to him to be a main terminal. After plugging himself in, he was relieved to find that he was right. He felt his way along, working rapidly so that he would be undetected as long as he could.

“There,” he murmured to himself as he found the main program for the shield generator. As if flipping a switch to turn off the light in a room, he shut it down in a second. In the next second, the alarms began to go off and the voice came on overhead.

“I think we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Kid Flash said.

They felt the ship start to move. “Wally, find us a way off this thing, now!” Donna said as they left the room.

“Back in a flash,” Wally replied and disappeared.

On the beach, looking out across the water at the hovering craft, Roy had somehow become in charge of the local and federal authorities. The orders he was giving were not being questioned in the least, something Raven noted with interest.

“You,” he pointed to Golden Eagle. “What are you doing here and is Hawkman aware that you’ve stolen his costume design.”

“This is my city, and I came to help. As for Hawkman, never met him in my life.”

Truth, Raven sensed in that statement, but there was something more. He may not have met the Justice League member, but he knew of him, she was aware of that. Suddenly several emotions that she had become attuned to, washed over her. She turned sharply and looked out across the ocean at the spaceship.

“Roy, their shields are down! I can sense the others inside.”

“Can you get us in there?”

They saw the ship begin to take off. “Yes, but we must hurry,” she said as she enveloped them all and disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

Nightwing and Starfire were battling their way through the main corridor to the bridge, when a black bolt of energy struck Dick in the side. Had he not been leaping at the time, he would have got it full in the chest. He was propelled backward and rolled onto the ground, dazed and in pain.

Kory turned to see her sister marching down the hall, snarling. “You are nothing, if not annoying, little sister.”

“Stop calling me that!” Starfire screamed as she flung herself recklessly at her sibling.

Komand’r met her half way and they clasped hands, their fingers crackling with energy as they tussled.

“Starfire!” Nightwing shouted as he tried to stand, but fell to one knee. If only he could find his weapons, but he hadn’t run across them anywhere.

Komand’r laughed. “Starfire? Is that what they call you? How interesting. It seems only fitting then that your own flesh and blood take a name as well.” They continued to struggle, rage in both their eyes, neither one willing to break the gaze of hatred that was crossing between them. “How about… Blackfire? Yes, I like the sound of that. Blackfire! It will represent the blackness in my soul that you have put there. It will represent the blackness of every soul on Tamaran that you damned when you selfishly fled.”

“You… you… lie!” Kory said through gritted teeth.

“Do I?”

“My people love me, and I will return to save them.”

“It’s been two years, little sister, and all you’ve done is hide on this rotten planet. You will return, but as my prisoner. I will save the day by handing you back over to the Citadel, and then I will rule Tamaran as I was meant to!”

“I am going to kill you,” Starfire screamed as she let go with a burst of energy that sent Blackfire reeling back down the hall.

“Oh yes, the best trained warrior. You may have been able to at one time, Koriand’r, but not after what the Psions did to us. We are too evenly matched. I could just as easily kill you now, but my orders are to bring you back alive.”

Starfire shot another bolt, but Blackfire deflected it with one of her own. “You’re still pathetic. This ends now…”

However, before Komand’r could make a move, there was a yellow blur and both her sister and the one called Nightwing were gone. She whirled around, confused, and then let out a cry of rage. She flew down the corridors after them as she checked in with her crew.

In an escape pod, far on the other side of the moon, Blackfire glared out of the window as she headed back to the Citadel.

“Goodbye, sister… for now…”

Epilogue 2

Her name was Tula and she was an Atlantean and a good close friend to Garth, who lay on the beach just a few miles north of where the Titans jet was taking off. She watched it go as she cradled his head in her lap.

She brushed his hair. “That was amazing,” she told him. “I didn’t know that your mystical abilities were so powerful.”

A drained Garth laid there, his body spent. “Neither did I, but I knew that there wasn’t enough time to reach both bombs, and the only way to get rid of them was trying to use my magic. I’m just glad it worked.”

“I wish the Titans could have known what you did.”

“Doesn’t matter; all that matters is that the world is safe. Now, help me up and let’s go home. I think I could sleep for a week.”

Aqualad and Tula walked to the edge of the water, waded in, and disappeared…