8279/Titan Memories 2012: In the Beginning

Titan Memories 2012: In the Beginning
Date of Scene:	17 October 2021
Location:	Centennial Park, Metropolis, The Past.
Synopsis:	It's 2012 and the Alien Alliance invasion is in full swing. While the adult superheroes plan their way of dealing with things, a Khund assault team in Metropolis discovers that there are a few younger heroes left behind who have no intention of sitting this one out. Heroics are performed, the first real step to the founding of the Titans is taken, and it all ends with a BOOYAH!
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild, Victor Stone, Dick Grayson, Rachel Roth

---

Donna Troy has posed:
The Jules Verne Museum of Alien Life, earlier today.

    The Museum is having one of its quieter days. There's only a single school group, and it's a relatively small one. The Groups and Events coordinator, a man in his late thirties who looks like he wouldn't have been out of place as a linebacker a few years previously, has decided to lead the school group himself, just for a change of pace. It's a good working environment and a fascinating place, and he loves his job. The tour is coming to and end and this is the part of the museum he loves best. Not the battle-barge outside in the gardens, though that's the true star attraction, but the Battle of Metropolis Hall.

    "The Battle of Metropolis was a footnote in the history of the Alien Alliance invasion," he tells the small swarm of youngsters. "But it's important to us, because it was right here in our city. The Alien Alliance fleet made four big assaults, in Australia, China, Turkey and India. But they sent down smaller forces to sixteen other major cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, and right here in Metropolis."

    There's a joke the tour guides normally make at this point. About how the citizens of Metropolis like to joke that Gotham just over the other side of the Delaware was meant to be a target but it already looks like such a warzone that all the aliens just assumed one of the other races in the alliance had already invaded. And how, on the other hand, Gothamites claim that there in fact had been an attempt to make a bridgehead in Gotham too -- but the invaders landed in the wrong alley and nobody heard of them again. He thinks for a moment about this joke, and decides it was a bit dark for the school kids. Maybe in a few years.

    "These smaller invasions were intended to create what we call 'bridgeheads'. A secure location in enemy territory from which a larger invasion can be mounted. Each of the assault teams was supposed to construct a Teleportal that would allow much larger forces to be sent down to invade the city without having to land ships. HEY! Uh... don't touch the exhibits there. Stay behind the tape please."

    One of the kids looks back guiltily from where she had been leaning over the rope surrounding a Khund shield platform, reaching out to try to touch a dent in its side. "It's not like I'm gonna put another dent in it," she responds a little sulkily. Then she smirks a little. "Do I look like Fairchild?".

    The tour guide is a little impressed, despite himself. The kid must have an interest. He nods his head slightly in her direction. "There were six of those things. The Khund had come down in Centennial Park, and that's where they were building the Teleportal, right on the north-west corner of the park. The supers -- lead by Batman, Superman and the Fantastic Four -- were not around. The Khund had the Teleportal platform surrounded by these, projecting force-fields outwards, while they were trying to get it operational. The army had a dozen tanks surrounding them, and some attack helicopters coming in from the naval base in Bakerline just kind of flying around in the air above. This was the third day of the invasion, and it was during the ceasefire. I can tell you from personal experience, because I was there -- it was a strange, strange thing. The world was at war, but it hadn't really reached us yet. Nobody we knew had been hurt yet, but here were these aliens, just getting ready. There must have been a thousand civilians in the area, just looking on, the Metropolis PD trying to make sure they kept well away from the Khund lines. We all knew the ceasefire was due to end in a few hours, but figured we were safe until then. But... Yes?"

    The same girl has her hand up. "It was Superman who broke the ceasefire, wasn't it?" she asks.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Perhaps," the tour guide says, grinning slightly. "That's what the history books say, certainly. The Alien Alliance said they'd end the invasion if we handed over all the metahumans. A 24-hour ceasefire was arranged while we decided. The feeling around the world was there was no way we were going to give in to those space bullies, but the metas themselves told us they wanted to consider it. six hours before the ceasefire was due to end, at six PM our time, Superman lead a surprise assault on the aliens in Australia, and that was the beginning of the end for the invaders. But the Battle for Metropolis started about the same time, and nobody is entirely sure if it was coordinated with the other Supers, or if it started the moment news came through about Superman's attack in Australia... or if /certain people/ right here in Metropolis had the same idea of taking the aliens by surprise."

    The girl grins wide at him. "The Titans," she states.

    He nods back, smiling. "That's right. The Titans. Though they weren't called that yet..."

Diana's Metropolis Apartment, today

    The Titans have all been here before. It's where Donna lived during the early days of the Titans, before she moved in to Titans Tower, in an apartment belonging to her sister. Back then the other Titans only knew of Donna's sister to be a collector and restorer of antiquities. Now they know she's Wonder Woman. It's a good spot to use for a small private party to celebrate Raven's birthday. Something quieter and more relaxed than is generally the case for Titan birthday parties, with just the original Titans in attendance, and a rare opportunity for Dick to take off his mask and be himself.

    There has been a meal. A rather large and delicious meal, catered by a minotaur, because that just seems to be a thing. Now there is coffee, and harder drinks - Themysciran brandy, inevitably. Time to sit back in comfort to digest, relax, and reflect.

    "This is good," Donna says. "This has been good. I mean..." she waves a hand dismissively at the room they are all in, a comfortable dining room, as tastefully appointed as you'd expect from Diana. "...I mean this, today, yeah. Great food, the /best/ company. Happy birthday, Rae. Today was good. But I mean... all of it. It has been nine years, almost exactly. Yeah... three of those we kind of forgot we were Titans, but we're back, and things are good. Things are /amazing/. It's everything we dreamed of." She raises her glass of brandy high. "Titans GO! We fuckin' rock."

    She's in a good mood. Also possibly just slightly drunk.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's sitting on the floor with her back against a bookshelf. There isn't a lot of furniture that's built on her scale (outside of Asgard, anyway) and it keeps her from looming over people while sitting.

"It's so weird, it feels like the Invasion was just yesterday," Caitlin muses. "Well, I mean-- a few months ago, anyway," she amends. "It's hard to believe we've been doing this as long as we have." It's getting just cold enough in New England to bust out the winter wear, and Caitlin's donned a grey skirt and black leggings along with a fleece vest under a long-sleeve white shirt. Practical, waterproof brown hiking boots are near the door. "Now we've got... golly. Fifteen people on the active roster? Another ten in reserve?" she hazards. "We have -brand recognition-." She shakes her head and takes a sip of coffee from the mug curled in her fingers.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Titans /Go!/" Vic responds to Donna, with a grin. He's got some brandy in his coffee and he's eaten a /lot/ of the excellent meal. And of course he looks like he always does, shiny and chrome, the red light on his chest glowing softly. He's in a good mood; he's /been/ in a good mood. The Titans are riding high.

    "Man... next year it'll be our tenth anniversary. Are we gonna have to do some big public thing? Like... /brand recognition/, I mean. Signing action figures or something." It's a weird idea.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    With a grin, Dick raises his glass as well "Yes we do. I wouldn't have imagined how big our little family would get, but sometimes it's nice to get the old folks together." He chuckles, as 'old' for a Titan pretty much counts as 'young adult' for just about the rest of the world. "We've taken a group of overeager teenagers and made it a force to be reckoned with, and that's a heck of an achievement."

    He pauses a moment, then continues "And we've had our setbacks, to be sure, but I think we're probably even stronger today because of them." Looking over at Vic, he smirks a little and answers, "I'm thinking that actually having some kind of anniversary event would be just asking fate to smack us upside the head, but that's just me." He looks around the room, "Any thoughts on Vic's idea that are more adventurous than mine?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Normally, suggesting the action of throwing a party for Raven's birthday- the mere /suggestion,/ mind- warrants a swift and frightful trip directly into the heart of the Ganges river. It is not fully known what punishment is doled out for daring- as nobody is verifiably courageous enough to have attempted it- to throw Raven a surprise party.

    The current rumor is that this is what happened to one Terry Long.

    Raven acquiesced to this event at Troia's insistence, something that she has not done in the near /decade/ that Raven has known the rest of the Titans. Indeed, this is the first time her birthday has actually ever /been/ celebrated. When she arrived, it was in a different sort altogether. Of course, Raven was here with Donna when the others arrived. That was to be expected. What wasn't was what she was wearing: The apartment is warm enough that she doesn't need her sweater, even though the weather is cooling down. Still in the same stocky boots and comfortable, if... tight and stretchy pants as normal, Raven has apparently procured... From somewhere... A black t-shirt that has, on its front, a reclining, squawking raven, with a conical party hat strapped to it. Likely, against its will.

    Since greeting the others, the party has commenced, but Raven has had little to drink- instead storing these experiences in perfect clarity for later use as ammunition in the battle of attrition that is her relationship with Troia. By now, her partner is no longer entirely upright. At Raven's insistence, Donna's head spends most of its time resting on Raven's lap as a pillow. Raven herself has had her legs curled under her on the sofa, and for the most part... She's been smiling.

    "I don't know. We recruited Vorpal and nobody closed the door, so Beast Boy got back in. I told every last one of you if you feed him, you'll never get rid of him, but here we are. Do we know if the lease on the tower even lets us have two pets?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Ah c'mon Dick," Donna says with a laugh. "You think we could get away dodging our tenth anniversary? I doubt the press would let us. Not to mention all the new Titans. Fifteen? Fifteen, Cait?" She repeats her laugh. "Closer to twenty five, when you count all our latest newbies, like Irie, Pol and Kaida. Remember how I used to say we'd be as big as the league one day? Do I need to say 'told you so'?"

    She grins and takes another swig of her brandy. "I don't know about an event. A big private party sure, but... I don't know. I'm sure the marketing people will be harassing us for tie-in merch though. But yeah, I'm with Vic. Titans Go!"

    Donna stretches a leg out from her comfortable lounging to toe-prod Caitlin where she sits on the floor. "Are you sure it's /the/ Invasion that feels like yesterday? I mean we've had a few more since, they kind of blend together after a while. Alien fleet, must be a tuesday. A lot has happened since then. Things have changed. /We/ have changed. I mean look at you. You even learned to brush your hair." Donna raises her head to stick her tongue out at Caitlin.

    "Do you know it was only the third time Cait had seen action?" Donna looks up at Raven as she speaks, then turns to Dick and Vic as she expands. "Seriously. Second time, if we're honest. First time was when she and I first met, and she didn't know what she was doing. I persuaded her to let me give her some training. Showed her how to throw a punch, things like that. Eventually I persuaded her to go out on a patrol with me. It was a bust. We saw some people looking like they might be about to cause some trouble and terrorized them a bit until they stopped, but that was it. So disappointing. That was about a week before the Invasion. When the ceasefire happened and everyone was just going down to the park to take a look at the aliens, I suggested we go too. I think it must have been the third circuit of the Khund defenses before she realized I was checking out their defenses out of more than just curiosity."

    Centennial Park, 2012.

    In one corner of the park stands an alien construction, being worked on by a dozen brutish-looking, reddish-skinned humanoids. Surrounding it are six mobile shield platforms, hovering on anti-gravity fields in a circle around the construction, each projecting a shield glowing faintly yellow in the air, creating a dome a hundred feet across. At four points around the outside of the dome are Khund troopers with tripod-mounted beam weapons.

    Surrounding them at a distance are a number of Abrams tanks. Three had been disabled by those beam weapons before the ceasefire had started. Two by now removed, one still on site, its tracks being removed by army engineers who hope to have it back to working condition before the ceasefire ends.

    It's not enough. Experience has shown that a few shots from one of those beam weapons will disable an Abrams tank. Metropolis is going to need reinforcements, and the supers are all out of town.

    Beyond the US Army forces is a veritable crowd of citizens of Metropolis, watching with a mixture of curiosity and fear as nothing much happens. There are more than six hours until the ceasefire ends, so it feels safe, but with the sense that safety is a very temporary thing right now.

    "The large road," Donna says to Caitlin. "I do not know the name of it, this one here. Notice how they have closed the side roads? They intend to use this to bring more of the tanks in. This is foolishness. The tank vehicles are unweildy. The enemy will know this is the intended route, they will block it off at the ends, trapping the American vehicles there. They should be bringing in their reinforcements already, ceasefire or not. The aliens do not stop their work on the device they use to bring more of their numbers to ground, it is foolish to not be doing the equivalent.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna and Caitlin stand out in the crowd of onlookers - mainly because of Caitlin's height, her red hair towering above most of the crowd, though Donna's confident movement, and slightly predatory attitude, stands out too. Donna carries a large sportsbag over her shoulder -- large enough for several tennis rackets -- and that stands out a bit too. Donna has dismissed the bag to Caitlin as containing 'stuff.'

    It's the third circuit they've made of the alien defenses, and Donna has been studying everything with an intense focus that Caitlin is only just starting to get used to. The rest of the crowd has been largely static, sight-seeing rather than seeking out tactical weaknesses. Though close-by there are other people observing the same scene with similar attention. Three people in particular who have a little bit more reason than Caitlin and Donna to keep out of sight of the aliens. Dick, Victor and Raven are of course just here to /look/ -- at least that's what Dick would tell Bruce if asked. Much closer to the super-community than Donna or Caitlin at this point, the three have been left behind while the supers go to their secret meetings to decide what to do. The 'kids' have been told to keep out of trouble.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's chewing her thumbnail. She's not making much progress; it's a nervous tic, worry writ large on her earnest features. The redhead turns in place, looking around, committing various landmarks and positions to memory.

"Well they keep hitting the tanks so it's not-- the tanks, they're-- it's not nothing," she tells Donna. Her tone and body language are very deferential, shrinking into her shoulders so she's not looming over the dark-haired woman. With her frizzy hair back in a sloppy ponytail and wearing old green military coveralls, she certainly doesn't *look* like the hero many in the crowd are expected.

"U-um if we take out the, um, the shields," she begins again, delicately. "M-maybe we can sneak in and, um, not sneak, but we can--" she makes a vague gesture, hand snaking forward. "Go in under the dome and take out the shield? Then the tanks can shoot from way furthur away, maybe out of range of the-- of the crew guns. Maybe?" she winces, already mentally undercutting her own suggestion.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    There's another trio looking over the alien beachhead as well, but they've set up on the roof of the building closest to the park to get an overview of things without tromping through the crowd. Nightwing is currently pointing out the same problem Donna noticed... The army's entry points to the impending battle are way too obvious, especially with the power of the alien weapons ranged against them. Looking to Raven, he points out the shield generators and asks "Do you think your magic could overcome the shields? The tanks didn't do too well, but I'm guessing that kind of attack is exactly what they are designed to stop. Have you gotten any hints that they use any magic of their own? They have to have some kind of weakness, hopefully."

    Looking to Victor, he adds, "You're probably our biggest gun here with all the other heroes at the main invasion sites, any thoughts on what we can do if the fighting starts again? I know we were told to keep our heads down, but honestly, I'm not going to do that. If I can fight supervillains, I can fight aliens. Dunno about you guys, but I'm not ok with these guys showing up and thinking they can make demands of our planet."

    He's currently marking targets with the HUD in his mask and uploading them to the Bat-Computer, because it never hurts to collect intel should things turn ugly. This cease fire at least gives the Earth heroes a little breather to figure out exactly what they're up against.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic glares at Dick for just a moment. He's not over the glaring and sulking yet; he's known Dick and Raven for a while, but he still seems to be on tenterhooks waiting for them to declare him a monster and tell him to get lost. But it's a brief break in his own survey of the beachhead. He's been going ahead and using his cybernetics to zoom in on the alien emplacements, his brow furrowed slightly.

    "The whole 'hand over your metas' thing kind of includes..." He glances at Raven. Does she count under the aliens' demands? He shakes his head. "Like hell we're just gonna let them /do/ this. As for what to do..."

    He hesitates a moment. Frowns, sweeping the perimeter again. "If we can use magic to overcome the shields, maybe we can..." The frown deepens. "You think we could overwhelm one of those weapons and turn it against them?" He indicates one of the for emplacements of tripod-mounted beam weapons. Hey, it works in movies and stuff, right?

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven has been on this plane of existence for only so long. An aloof and quiet individual, Raven takes few actions, and says even less. It was days before Vic and Dick even saw Raven without her hood: Something that, today, nobody else is likely to get such a privelege. Covered from head to toe in a long, blue cloak, the sorceress floats ominously behind her two compatriots in silent contemplation.

    "I do not know if I can break their shield... But if Victor is confident that he can suppress their technology, all we need is to draw their fire and I can get him to where their shields are controlled."

    This comment aside, Raven has no plan on how exactly to not get plastered by the invaders should they assault them properly. Quite plainly, they're outnumbered: So Raven's advice here may not be of much use.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "The third shield from the North," Donna says to Caitlin, pointing at one of the shield generators platforms. "It is on a small rise in the land. Where the land slopes away from it there is a gap. Do you see? It's very faint, but you can see it does not extend all the way to the ground. It would be possible to get beneath it by... a roll. " She twists her hand in a rolling motion, demonstrating, but it's an unconscious gesture, her attention focused on the alien defenses. "Then... put these vehicles on their side. If even one is on its side, there is a gap in the dome, and the tanks can attack the construction. There cannot be stealth though. This is why they have the guns on the... I don't what this is called. The legs. But notice the distance between them. They did not put enough guns. When you are close to the dome, only one gun can target you, the dome is in the way of the others. So... rapid frontal assault on the gun by the shield with the gap." That doesn't sound like a fun plan.

    Donna gives a 'Tchh!' of annoyance. "This 'cease-fire' is foolishness. I do not understand why the heroes you admire so much would agree to such a thing. The offer the aliens made will not be accepted. Cannot be. How many people are there with powers who are not known of? Many. It could not be agreed to hand them over even if this choice was made."

    "This moment is when the aliens are most vulnerable. When they cannot yet have easily access to the place of battle. Those here are isolated until the teleport device is completed, and we give them time to complete their teleport device, while making ineffective plans to reinforce our own defenses. Americans are not good about tactics, I think."

    Donna and Caitlin come to a halt at the end of the third circuit, in front of the third shield, the one Donna had mentioned had a gap. A nervous MPD cop in the thin line surrounding the encampment takes a step in their direction, holding up a hand to indicate they should get no closer. Donna puts her large gym bag down carefully, and reaches inside it to pull out a pair of water bottles, holding one out to Caitlin. "We should attack them," she says levelly. "Before they can complete their device. Before the cease-fire has ended. If I deal with the alien with the gun, could you run in and push over one of these shield vehicles on your own? Or will it take both of us? The problem is... we are outnumbered. We cannot do this ourselves. We rely on the American warriors following our lead. If they target the construction as soon as we remove the shield, we will win. If they do not... then it will be bad."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I... don't know," Caitlin admits to Donna. She eyes the vehicle warily. "I've never tried t-too lift something that, um, big. There isn't much in the, um, iron yard that weighs over a few tons."

She looks around; there aren't a lot of other good options presenting themselves. The redhead draws in a breath of air, exhales it steadily through pursed lips. "I think I-- I mean, I can do it," she says, forcing herself to use affirmative words. "We've got to start somewhere. I guess."

Caitlin casts around and finds a slab of armor that had blown off one of the tanks. It's dented and scorched, but serviceable. She picks up the half-ton of steel with a minor grunt of effort and grips it like a tower shield. "Okay. Okay. I'm good. I'm ready. One, two... three!"

Caitlin breaks into a jog, then a run, and then starts *sprinting*, like a cheetah. The acceleration she generates in such a short distance is quite improbable and it tears up chunks of asphalt and dirt in her way.

"Aiiiiyyeeaaaaahooo!" she squeals-- and slides under the barrier, holding the armor to deflect her from the weapon fire, and picks up her sprint with little loss in momentum. Two aliens try to stop her and are promptly steamrolled by the big redhead. She hits the vehicle hard enough to rock it onto one set of wheels, then grabs the frame and lifts with an immense, straining effort. She doesn't completely lift it off the ground... but she walks it over far enough to topple it onto its side, destroying the emitter mechanism atop it.

Naturally, this puts her at the center of the enemy embankment and makes her a very convenient target of opportunity.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    As he's marking targets, he replies to the alien weapon idea, "Yeah, that seems like a plan, otherwise I'm going to be fighting alien invaders with a couple of sticks. I think I'd prefer something a bit more significant for this battle." Even as he speaks, he picks up movement and focuses on Cait, with her impressively large armor chunk charging into the alien staging area. "Well crap, looks like we better hope we can do something, cause we've got action going on. Give it your best, cause here we go."

    Pulling out a line shooter, he fires it into a tree near the closest tripod gun, then ziplines down it. He drops to the ground and rolls, coming up with those sticks he spoke so disparagingly a moment ago. They're actually metal batons with high capacity batteries that deliver a serious stun, at least to beings that have a problem with electricity. Looks like he's about to discover if these aliens have an issue with it, as he kips up to his feet and strikes at what appear to be the least armored parts of the enemy.

    Hopefully Raven can get Victor where they need to be, as it's pretty likely the aliens are currently pretty focused on him and especially the vehicle flipping Cait in their midst.

Victor Stone has posed:
    The time for talking and formulating plans is over; the time for action has begun. "Alright," Vic says to Raven. "Let's do this." Suppress the technology? Well, he's got the sonic cannon, and that's not nothing. And if they've got a computer he can interface with it. Probably. Hopefully.

    No time like the present to find out, right?

    "Dick and that red-head's got their attention; you keep them off me if they notice us." And then he's moving, not flying just yet, running through the crowd in the direction of the shield controls.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    "Right."

    Raven begins, allowing the other two to begin their plan. As they leave, their eyes no longer upon her, Raven brings her hands up out of her cloak for a moment, the blood-jeweled gloves she's wearing, and her palms, suddenly becoming altogether interesting to her in that moment. She stares at them for some time, before slowly closing her hands and drawing her hands back into her cloak.

    It was not her fault that Victor hadn't necessarily understood that they would not be going for the vehicle the traditional way. After all, that Raven can even do this is not entirely general knowledge. It's convenient: But not very fun at all. As she flings herself into the air above her teammates, she lets Dick do as he will to draw their fire. Her cloak flings open, revealing nothing but inky blackness, and this darkness expands such that she takes the shape of a massive, black bird.

    Frankly, a Raven like this in the sky is quite a sight indeed: More interesting still is when it descends upon Victor, covering and then... Seemingly making the Cyborg disappear with it, discorporating from the material world and traveling along the ground as an inconspicuous shadow beneath the feet of the combatants, heading for the vehicle itself.

    All it needs is but a single crack, and then it infiltrates this weakness: Before delivering its payload of Victor Stone, Cyborg and, admittedly, one hell of a problem in close quarters.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Cait... wait!" Donna calls out. Caitlin is nervous. Caitlin needs encouraging. Donna was /not/ expecting Caitlin to have fired herself up so quickly. Donna was preparing a speech to encourage Caitlin. Donna's not quite ready yet.

    In years to come, Donna will learn about 'Leroy Jenkins', but before she ever heard that name, she learned that sometimes Caitlin goes Full Fairchild. Without hesitation she dives into her bag to pull out the sizeable contents she had hidden therein. If Caitlin were looking back, she'd probably be surprised. Donna starts trotting after with a sword in one hand, slipping her other arm into the straps of a shield. Once the shield is on, she puts on a sudden burst of acceleration, closing on the Khund with the tripod-mounted gun.

    A sword and shield? Caitlin had picked up a chunk of tank armor, and it was known that could survive two or three shots, but a small shield? That seems like a very bad idea. These aren't Nazis, and she sure doesn't look like Captain America.

    The crowd close to where Caitlin and Donna were surges back, and the MPD officer surges forwards, attempting to intercept Donna, just as the Khund gunner fires at her. Without breaking her pace she knocks the cop to the ground and steps over him, ducking low and raising her shield to shield herself and the downed cop, intercepting the ruby beam. To the probably surprise of anyone watching, notably the Khund gunner, the shield holds. She springs forwards with a burst of sudden acceleration, jinking to the side to dodge the next shot from the gun, and meets the third shot head on, advancing into the beam as it pours energy into her shockingly sturdy shield. The black and white enamelling on the surface of the shield, a pattern of four stars, starts to bubble and blister with the heat of the beam. But Donna keeps advancing, and the Khund keeps firing as she gets closer and closer...

    And then the firing stops as Nightwing appears just behind the Khund gunner, and sends enough current into the alien's legs to drop him.

    Donna comes to a halt, staring at Dick, her eyes taking in his costumed appearance. Her shield still glows with heat, and he can hear the faint 'tink' sounds of metal cooling. "My friend telled me all you American heroes were out of town for some meeting," the strange young woman tells him in a voice that's all smoke and honey, and very foreign sounding. "Perhaps you slept in and missed your flight? Lucky us. Deal with the other gunners before they can move their guns." With that, she leaps upwards.

    No... she /flies/ upwards. Dick has spent years looking for other young hero types, making friends and connections. These two he has never seen before, never even heard rumor of. Yet the redhead just tipped over a vehicle weighing several tons, and the dark haired one can fly.

    Up... up... and straight down again, in the gap newly opened in the shield dome where Caitlin had tipped the platform over, right next to where Caitlin stands, a dozen Khund with hand blasters converging slowly on her. Donna raises her shield to intercept some incoming fire and yells to Caitlin, "Behind the vehicle! Take cover, force them to come close to us! Throw things!"

    Elsewhere in the failing dome, the shield platform operators hurry to try to move their vehicles around and close up the gap the toppled generator has left in the dome. It will take them just a minute to reconfigure the five surviving projectors -- but that's the minimum number required. One more vehicle down and the shield has a permanent gap. And on one of those vehicles the darkness of Raven's soul-self pools and gathers in an ominious shadow that discharges Cyborg right onto the flatbed by the shield generator.

Donna Troy has posed:
    A hundred yards away, the army line is thrown into confusion, soldiers milling around and yelling for orders. Above, one of the attack helicopters comes in low, hovering over the alien encampent. A few hellfire missiles fired promptly through the gap in the shield could wreck the teleportal platform before construction has been finished... but the missiles are not immediately forthcoming. A voice, powerfully amplified to be heard over the whomp of rotors, booms out "The cease-fire is still in effect! You have no authority to attack. Pull back at once! This is not an official hostile action, repeat, this attack is unauthorized!"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's hunkered down when Donna makes her approach. The tank armor at least holds off the handheld weapons, though a solid hit from one of those big crew guns will slag the steel. The redhead's grimacing and clutching her ribs where fresh scorch marks have ruined the rugged old canvas coveralls.

"Throw--" her response to Donna is cut off by the din and tumult, and she flinches away from more gunfire in her direction and reflexively tries to hide behind the armor plate and what minor cover the terrain offers.

Then Donna's off again, leaving Caitlin to decipher her brusque instructions. It's possible some wires got crossed because Caitlin scrambles backwards, almost crab walking to get out of the line of sight. She can't lift an alien war tank, that's way too heavy for her.

There are, fortunately a lot of other options that were left abandoned on the clogged traffic route.

Five seconds later, someone's light truck (with a bed full of produce) sails overhead in a glorious arc, hurled like an Olympic hammer-toss, and aimed right at one of the alien emplacements. One of the onlooks screams, grabbing his head and falling to his knees in despair.

"No! My cabbages!"

Dick Grayson has posed:
    "Man, why does everyone else get to fly?"

    Nightwing allows himself one moment of flight envy, then he's at the controls of the gun, using the uplink in his mask to see if the Bat-Computer can make heads or tails of the alien controls. Fortunately a gun is a fairly straightforward mechanism, so the firing controls are obvious. The computer gives it's opinion on the other controls, so he shrugs, jabs a couple buttons and finds the gun can nullify it's own weight, making it easy to push around the dome far enough to target the next emplacement. Since the alien manning that gun is currently staring at the redhead wreaking havoc inside the supposedly impenetrable shield dome, the heat beam from Nightwing's gun takes him completely by surprise, and now there's one emplacement in human hands and one melting all over the grass.

    Not sure if the next alien is paying attention or not, he moves the gun further around the shield dome. Unfortunately for him, the next gunner is in fact paying attention, and a beam slashes into his gun as soon as it clears the dome. Diving away from the doomed gun, Nightwing figures he's at least caused a gap in the gun coverage. He pulls out the ascension gun again and fires up into a tree, then dives for a gap in the dome before it can be closed. It's about here he starts having second thoughts about his whole 'no cape' look, given that Batman could glide through that gap. As it is, he hits the ground inside the dome and rolls to absorb as much impact as he can, but that's gonna bruise. Popping to his feet he pulls an explosive wingding from his utility belt and sends it flying into the propulsion unit of the nearest shield vehicle. Maybe he can stop or at least slow it down, leaving the gap open that much longer.

Victor Stone has posed:
    For a moment, Cyborg is /confused/ and more than a little terrified. It's... weird, what Raven did. /Weird/.

    But then he's /right/ on top of the enemy, right there on the flatbed, in the middle of the aliens, and he /grins/. It's not a thing he's done much this past year. "This ain't an attack," he says, as much to the circling helicopters as the aliens. "It's a /draw play/. And you're about to find out how Americans play with home field advantage."

    He's aiming the sonic cannon while he quips, right at the shield generator Raven's dropped him on. It took a moment for the arm to reconfigure--he was going to do that while he was running--but then there's a whirring sound and slight kickback and a blast of light and sound from Cyborg's main weapon.

    Well, so much for /that/ shield generator, anyway.

    Of course, that moment he took to quip, and rev up the canon, might be enough for the aliens on the flatbed to swarm over him--but he's got backup, and he's forcing himself to trust Raven. She took her hood down the other day. That's /got/ to count for something.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Travelling via the Soul-Self Express is not at all pleasant. It is quite similar to being effectively flung through a tunnel of shadow as imagined by Stanley Kubrick. It lights up the nerves and, similarly, there's a more than moderate amount of the same sensation as being molecularly deconstructed and put back together. Over the years, you just sort of get a little used to it.

    This isn't now, though, this is then, and in the sense of then, Cyborg has not built up a tolerance yet. Sadly, Raven is not altogether the merciless sort. She is, however, the useful sort.

    The great bird that is Raven deposits Cyborg, and then dips forward, swooping over the battlefield and accelerating violently. Its wings extend and it flies right at the flatbed- Raven's soul-self formed directly into a battering ram, in hopes that the aliens are not able to resist the impact very well at all.

Donna Troy has posed:
    For a few moments, Donna is left in the thick of things as the Caitlin retreats on a mission for ammunition. The Khund assume the redhead is retreating and concentrate their fire on Donna. The are armed with lighter weapons than the tripod-mounted guns, but there's a lot more incoming fire to cope with, and at least one shot gets past her guard and hits her shoulder. Then Donna charges at a group of the Khund grunts.

    Previously Donna had moved fairly quickly, but this time she's virtually a blur. One moment being shot at from medium range, the next right in the faces of four Khund - outside of Superman and the Flash, it's possible the others have never seen someone move so quickly. She arrives in the midst of the knot of Khund ducking low, shield held slightly over her head, and pivoting on a foot in a spinning crouch. Her sword lashes out at the hamstrings of one of the Khund soldiers, who drops with an agonized cry. Immediately she springs upwards, leading with her shield to smash it into the face of another Khund while her sword swings up in an arc that severs the hand of another. While her assaults with a bladed weapon are sub-lethal, the girl is obviously not afraid of shedding some blood - and has the training to make sure it's not hers being shed.

     Finally she lashes out behind her with a foot that makes contact with Khund knee with a sound of cracking bone. She looks up as a flatbed truck sails over her head, and raises her shield to knock aside a cabbage tumbling from it in her direction, then sprints towards the construction platform in the middle, where Khund engineers work frantically at the Teleportal.

    Vic's arrival on the shield platform is unobserved; humans are not supposed to have teleportation capabilities, after all. His first attempt with the sonic canon is less effective than he had hoped -- apparently the Khund make good armor -- but when he focuses on the projector itself, he can identify the electromagnetic signature of a high-current power coupling, and pulse-modulates his sonic cannon to collapse the magnetic field, overwhelming the input coils and blowing out the power connection to the projector in a spectacular shower of sparks.

    Just beyond Victor, another projection platform is being urgently driven out of the way of a flying truck when, for some reason, the power to its drive sputters and dies. The truck smashes into it, and when the cause of the dying drive, Nightwing, steps past the wreckage to join the fight inside, there are only three projectors left and the dome is done.

    As the driver and engineer of the vehicle Victor had assaulted climb from their seats, guns at the ready to deal with him, the dark shape of Raven swoops around and onto them. When the dark wings unfold again, the pair are lying prone on the ground. One is stunned by the impact, the other getting quickly to his feet -- but this is an experience that's altogether unfamiliar to the alien warrior, and rather than attempting to engage a cyborg and a giant shadow-bird, the survivor bravely runs away.

    The Khund are shocked at the rapid successes of this small force attacking them, but Khund are fine warriors and don't waste time regretting their losses. The survivors cover each other as they retreat to the construction platform, while the last of the gunners who Nightwing hadn't been able to get the drop on moves his gun to a defensive position there. The last three field projector vehicles close in too, projecting their fields towards the construction platform to protect it as long as possible while the engineers rush to finish their work. Donna is almost at the steps leading to the platform when one of the shield projectors gets set up, and she bounces back from the newly created force-field. The Khund have gone on the defensive.

    In the air above, the voice from the Apache attack helicopter continues its complaints. "You are /ordered/ to stand down! Stop attacking the aliens, this attack is unsanctioned. If you do not stand down at once, we..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    There's a click as the amplified voice cuts out suddenly. The helicopter remains hovering there for a few moments before suddenly veering away and taking up station a couple of hundred yards distant. Something has happened.

    Donna takes in the situation as Nightwing approaches from one side and Caitlin the other. "We needed to be quicker," she comments "Now, they will try to delay us. But now they cannot cover it all. We need to force them to readjust their defenses until they leave a gap. Do you have an idea, stick-man?" Apparently 'stick-man' is what this foreign cape calls Dick. She can't be too familiar with the local cape scene.

    Her eyes flick back to where Victor and Raven stand victorious over their corner of the fight, studying the two figures for a few moments before she turns back to Dick. "You have a... uh... /goes/... user of uh.. /goeteia/, I do not remember the English word. One who speaks words of power that can hurt or aid? And a soldier. He looks well armored. I thought your people might have forgotten the art."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's limping along, clutching a rib. Her old canvas jumpsuit is burned and torn in several places. She's moving on her own power and on her feet, but clearly in pain from the impact. Fighting these invaders with fist and fury is one thing, but Caitlin's regard for Raven is wary suspicion. That woman is doing things to physics that should probably be reported to law enforcement somewhere.

"Ow," she informs Donna and Dick, and rests her hands on her thighs to take a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. "Th- that was scary. I'm-- I'm okay. Really." She straightens.

"Nope, sorry, one--" Caitlin whirls towards an overturned vehicle and retches, mercifully mostly out of sight of the others.

It takes her a moment to return, pale-faced and shaky. "I think I'm dying," she informs Donna and Dick. "When's the-- where's Superman? When are the big guns getting here?" she asks of both of them. Caitlin looks positively green at the gills from the exertion and the intensity of the fight, and reflexively stays in Donna's orbit as a reference point of stability.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Looking around at the assembled group and noting that they mostly seem to be about his age, Nightwing is kind of impressed that they've done so well up to this point. So much for the army.

    "I'm Nightwing, one of Batman's proteges. Superman and the rest of the League are headed to the major landings, so we're basically on our own." He takes a moment to glance at the smoking wreckage of alien technology and grins, "Really, we're doing pretty well so far."

    When Cait gets sick and says she might be dying, he looks up quickly and asks, "How badly are you wounded? I carry some basic first aid supplies if you need them. Same offer goes for all of you, speak up if you're wounded. Then we can figure out how to break through the remaining shields."

Victor Stone has posed:
    As soon as the shield generator is destroyed and the guys on the platform are dealt with by shadow-bird--for which Vic gives Raven a thumbs-up--Cyborg launches himself up to hover a little bit, scanning the area for Dick. He may be surly and grumpy half the time, but he doesn't want to lose the potential friend he's only just starting to warm up to, certainly not to aliens.

    Ahh, there's Dick, over by the tall red-head and the brunette with the shield. He flies over that way, to land behind Dick as he's introducing himself.

    "Cyborg," he says shortly. Then, to Dick, "I figured out how to take down the shield generators with pulse modulation. Shouldn't be too hard to do it to another one, maybe even one of those tripod guns if they use the same power source for everything." Why, yes, he's being /terribly/ rude, focusing on his companion and not the girls at all.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven recorporates from her shadowy battering ram, the avian form of her soul-self surging into the air before collapsing upon itself. When she re-emerges, she looks over to Cyborg for a spare few moments. She notes the thumbs-up, but doesn't have much of a reply for it. Instead, she looks to where he is headed, and when he lands, she is not far behind.

    She makes no introductions, instead looming quietly in the air, her cloak concealing her entirely save for the lower half of her face and the two, piercing eyes that seem to be alight within the shadow of her hood. What can be seen is utterly, incomprehensibly pale. For a moment, she simply stares at Troia. Then, her attention is on Nightwing.

    Clearly, she is a woman of few words. She awaits what their next move will be, and expects that there may be some butting of heads in the near future- after all, there are five here now, and two of them were leading their individual groups, however small. Plans are bound to differ, and yet, despite this, she does nothing to stop it from happening.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives a nod to Nightwing. "Batman is the Gotham one, correct?" she asks, as if anyone wouldn't be certain. "I am Troia. My friend is Caitelin." In the few months she has known Caitlin she still hasn't quite figured out the lack of a vowel sound between the 't' and 'l', but she's getting closer. 'Troia' though? That's a new one on Caitlin.

    She too glances at the wreckage. "Not bad," she concedes, "...but we needed to be faster. It is a pity I did not know there were others here who would help. If we were able to coordinate we would have won this already. Now there is more to do."

     Donna - or Troia, as she has introduced herself - glances at Victor, arching one eyebrow. "Does this 'pulse modulation' work if we are on the wrong side of this shield? If not we must look for gaps in the shield geometry. Or go beneath. They do not extend below the ground, so if we remove some ground they have a problem."

     She turns to look at Raven, head tilting to the side with curiosity, dark eyes studying the shadowed half-demon with an odd intensity. "Or perhaps with your /goeteia/, your... power, there is a way to put us beyond the shield? It would be ideal to attack them from more than one direction. Those larger guns must be our priority." Raven, even at this point in her life, has studied much. She may recognize the word Donna is using, an old Greek word for magic. But not the more common /pharmakeia/. According to some sources, /goeteia/ implies a darker form of magic. Maybe just a random choice of word, maybe dialectal differences, or maybe she has enough familiarity with magics to tell?

    Donna steps to Caitlin's side, checking her wound with a brusque and business-like manner. "You are not dying, Caitelin. The injury is minor. Caitelin. Caitelin! Look at me. In my eyes. And listen." She rests a hand on Caitlin's arm, a somewhat clumsy gesture with the shield on her arm limiting its motion. "Your body reacts to the danger. It is unfamiliar to you, so you react more strongly. This is all. You have acted very bravely. If you need to go now to recover, this is fine. I will see this task completed. Already you have done important and brave things, acts that will be remembered by myself and many others. But this... what you feel is just in your mind. You are strong and you are capable. Take some deep breaths of air. Calm yourself. If this is too much -- it is okay. I believe if you take a moment to recover you will be fine to continue, and be a great help to us. But do not risk yourself if you do not feel that you can safely continue. Okay? But I will be glad if you feel strong to continue. If you can... stay close to me now, okay? And I will ensure you remain safe."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's grievous wounds are ... largely superficial. By far the one on her ribs is the worst. A bad burn, the sort of thing you might get from a mishap playing with fireworks. Delivered by a heavy plasma-based weapon that had slagged some heavy vehicle armor. Amateur and unnerved as she is, Caitlin clearly can take a hit like no one's business.

Dick's probing gaze and the offer of help coincides with her ears blushing bright pink, and the best she manages at Dick is a quick, negative shake of her head at the athletic fellow. Then Donna is poking at the injury and Caitlin fights the urge to recoil away.

"It hurts," she whimpers at Donna. The pep talk does seem to help and Caitlin tries to steady herself with some purposeful breathing. It's very clear that this amount of violence is something that the brawny redhead simply isn't mentally prepared to deal with. Dick, Victor... they're like Donna, with that cool poise in the middle of a fight, planning their next move without fear or haste.

Of course there's Raven, floating and being ominous, and somehow her lack of concern for the situation is all the more unnerving.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Hearing Troia's diagnosis of Caitlin's wounds, Nightwing turns his attention back to the shield problem. "Cyborg, will you try and blow out one of the remaining shield generators, let's see if it works from outside the shield. If not, we'll have to find another way in."

    He looks over to Raven and asks, "Can you get this whole group in there, or can you only move one at a time? And while we're considering possibilities, does anyone have a fast method to dig under the shields? It'll have to be really fast if we do it that way, or every gun they have will be trained on the spot we emerge from."

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg peers at Donna for a moment. "The pulse modulation works to take out the generator itself, so I kinda have to be right up on it, but..." He nods to Dick. "I can blow them out, yeah. Dig under...?" He frowns thoughtfully. He doesn't have any easy solutions to that.

    His gaze tracks over Caitlin and he frowns briefly. Not that he's used to combat himself, but he's used to high-stress situations and pumping yourself up and all that. Letting the adrenaline carry you until the end of the match. He takes another look at Troia, mismatched eyes still thoughtful. Re-assessing them both, maybe.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    The impartial gaze of Raven returns to Troia at the word she uses. Raven is well-studied. She knows it's the wrong word for a general spellcaster, but she is at least polite enough not to plumb the meaning from Donna without her consent. To Caitlin's dismay, Raven has yet to show any inflection or even a shade of emotion. Whether she's taking this seriously or considers it a mundane task is not apparent- though her lack of reaction speaks to the latter, and somehow, isn't likely to make anything any better.

    Once again her attention returns to Nightwing. "I can take all of us there. It will be unpleasant." That, she lets linger, for a short while. Not long enough for a response from anyone, but long enough for them to begin thinking about her words, before she clarifies. "For you."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna nods her head. "To go inside is good, but to be unable to go outside again without ease is not good. Also this task becomes easier if your soldiers decide they will participate. For this, the shield must come down."

    She turns to stare through the shield at the defenses the Khund are arranging. She studies them for a few moments, then looks back to Raven, and starts rolling her shoulders and adjusting her shield. "Can you move us to different places within?" She asks. "I believe it is best if this 'pulse modulation' can be done on the shield that is nearest to us. If this one..." she gestures to Victor. "If he can be placed close to the generator to disable it while the rest of us keep them distracted, this is good. The two large guns are either side of the platform. This presents a clear strategy. You and the... Nightwing behind the gun that is furthest from us, and deal with it. Myself and Caitlin to the gun closest to us. This is where the greater concentration of the enemy stands. Caitlin will deal with the gun and I shall charge the soldiers and keep them occupied. While this happens, the tall one in armor creates a hole in the shield before joining the attack. Is this plan acceptable to you all?"

    It's the kind of plan that might have been possible if Hawk and Dove and Aqualad had been available, but even then it's a bit... head-on. Still, these two obviously super-strong and resilient women seem to do the head-on thing rather well. Nightwing may just have found the missing pieces for his puzzle.

    The crowd watching the aliens had initially scattered when the fighting had started, but during this brief lull at least some of them seem to have returned to a cautious distance, and something odd is happening. It's only a few voices as yet, and it's far away -- but it's growing, and slowly impinging on the consciousness of the soon-to-be Titans. There is /cheering/.

    There is also something going on with the army forces stationed at a safe-ish distance. The soldiers seem to be talking hurriedly amongst themselves, and a humvee is speeding from the command and control detachment on the main road towards the tanks at the front line. Reaction to the attack on the aliens? Something else?

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Do it."

Caitlin's outburst provokes a defensive expression at the outburst of command she gives Raven. The rest of the little crew gets a hapless shrug.

"Just do it," she says, again. "I'm gonna be sick if I just stand around and I don't want to think about what's going on here. So-- screw it, just do it. Get us in position and we'll wreck their plans however we have to."

The green-gilled redhead takes a few steadying breaths and braces herself, trying to get ready for Raven's magic to take hold.

"Please, before I puke again," she mumbles.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    Nodding as Troia lays out her plan, Nightwing looks to Raven and says, "As long as I can function once we're in there, I can deal with unpleasant. It's important that we stop them before they finish and start bringing in reinforcements."

    He tucks his batons into their sheaths on his back and takes out a pair of explosive wingdings, one for each hand. The very second they're inside, one of them is going to be flying into one of the guns and the other into one of the shield generators. He'll worry about aliens after that, but the devices have got to go first.

    "Ok, we can do this. Look at how well things have gone already, half of their force is already down." Short pep talk done, he nods to Raven, indication he's ready for the unpleasantness.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "It sucks," Cyborg nods to Raven, "but it'll get the job done." He checks to be sure he's got his sonic cannon adjusted properly, then actually looks up and smiles at Caitlin.

    "Like Nightwing said--we got this," he says, confident. Even if he's not been the friendliest guy, he trusts in his team.

    Then he turns to look at Raven, nodding. Bracing himself for what's to come. Ooof.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    The worst part of Raven's presence, perhaps even worse than the silence, is that she just doesn't blink. Her eyes have not closed since she arrived, and does not seem likely to do so anytime soon. Why, oh why, can't they get a friendly mage of considerable power, like that one in the tophat and fishnets?

    Regardless, the two new players are soon to find out that dealing with Raven is something you can hardly prepare for. At least not without knowing in advance. She is not much one for pretense or warning. The others accept the plan. She executes.

    Raven's arms fling her cape open, and there is naught under the cape but an impenetrable darkness that seeps out, bursting and occupying the space with the nascent Titans. It swallows them whole, and then the lot of them are gone, with barely enough time to brace, if there were anything to brace against.

    It is, well and truly, unpleasant. It is cold and there is nothing within the realm that the others travel to, contained within Raven for mere moments and feeling as if piece by piece they have been deconstructed and then reconstructed. Each finds themself emerging from the shadows- both already present and conjured from Raven's soul-self when necesary- where they ought to be.

    Raven and Nightwing emerge at the furthest gun. Cait and Donna at the closest. Vic some few seconds later at the shield generator- just so that the aliens have time to realize that everyone except Victor is present, and focus. By the time he emerges, it'll be too late and he'll be too disruptive, perhaps, for them to refocus.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives Caitlin a grin and a gentle shoulder-bump of encouragement, and flashes Nightwing a smile of approval. This approval may be somewhat misplaced as it comes from a degree of relief that he's not arguing, which she reads as these people she is unfamiliar with simply having the smarts to accept her obvious tactical mastery. In the months and years to come she will realize that it's more that Dick didn't see anything worth changing about /this particular/ plan. In future battles Dick will have the chance to show his own grasp of tactics, and eventually she will come to accept that /maybe/ he's actually a bit better at it than she is -- though it will be a while and some frustrating discussions before she is entirely happy that the rest of the Titans tend to look to him, not her, for the final say on tactical decisions.

    She rolls her shoulder twice more, raises her shield and sword and readies herself in a crouch, her breathing slowing and a look of intense concentration coming over her features. "Remember Caitlin, you go for the gun as soon as we are in. I will cover you," she announces as Raven starts to perform the magic that will get them into the shielded area.

    The journey via Raven's soul-self is not pleasant, and it takes a few moments to cope with the transition. Nightwing, who has done the trip a few times before, is first to recover and react. His wingding takes out the gunner on the far gun before any of the Khund are even aware their defenses have been breached. The second wingding provides the distraction Cyborg needs to get the shields down without the Khund on the generator having a chance to interfere. Then the Khund know they are there, and three Khund soldiers with blaster pistols and energy axes bear down on Nightwing and Raven.

    At the other side of the shielded area, Caitlin and Donna drop through behind the other gun. Donna fights back a moment's queasiness, but it passes quickly - she has a certain robustness when it comes to magical effects too. After just a couple of seconds she explodes forwards, exhibiting that same sub-speedster superspeed she had employed before to get herself right into the mass of the main group of Khund soldiers, barging through with a shield charge, slashing out with her sword and lashing back with a vicious kick. Before they even know they're under attack one lies unconscious, battered by the shield; another lies screaming on the floor clutching a broken knee; and a third gapes in shock at the stump wrist of its severed gun hand. The Khund close in on her.

    Outside the shield wall, the two attack helicopters that had previously backed away wheel and return to the immediate area, the pair of them circling the shield dome, the sound of helicopter blades clearly audible even over the hubbub of battle. Unnoticed by the battling heroes, the large video screen on a building opposite the entrance to the park has cut away from the studio discussion of the conflict that had been showing there for the past hour to display shaky, hand-held footage, with the caption 'Breaking News' scrolling prominently along the bottom. The footage, shot at ground level by a brave camera man in Australia, shows Superman flying into and through a Dominator landing ship, leaving a bright explosion in his wake, while behind him what looks like it must be almost every super in the planet follows in on a surprise attack on the main Alien Alliance landing site, wreaking havoc.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
The transport effect leaves Caitlin staggering with nausea for a few moments, until an over-aggressive Khund tries to physically restrain her. Sharp claws rend and tear at her cover garment to no real effect.

"Ow!" Caitlin hisses. "That hurts!" The Khund balks, uncertain what to do; Caitlin follows suite. Neither of them seem prepared for how obdurate her skin is.

Caitlin lays the Khund out with a right cross. The Khund is launched back like he just got kissed in the mouth by a semi truck.

"ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh," Caitlin repeats. She /definitely/ hit that Khund harder than she meant to. Hands steeple over her mouth and nose in apology and she starts looking for Donna.

Donna's busy. OK, apologies will have to wait. Caitlin ambles over to the emitter array as if unsure of what to do with it. It's given a weak, hesitating kick, then a more certain one, and then a stomping blow. For lack of knowing how to do it better Caitlin just smashes the machinery apart until nothing but scattered components remain.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    This form of transportation will never be a favorite, but it proves darned effective when blocked from your goal by things like force fields. Once the two wingdings fly to their targets, Nightwing rolls forward to the large gun that has just lost it's gunner.

    Somewhere in the roll he pulled his batons out, so when he arrives, he's ready to fight. His goal is twofold: Make sure no enemy mans this gun again and provide distraction while Cyborg does bad things to the shield generator.

    Using the gun emplacement as cover as other Khund try and shoot him, he flips and rolls, not only avoiding the shots and keeping them busy, but also doing his best to hide behind what look like important bits of the gun. If he's successful with his plan, the Khund will blast the control panel in short order, and this gun will be finished.

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg doesn't like the soul-self transportation any more than he did the first time, but he's... not used to it, at all, but at least aware of what's coming. So he's /slightly/ less disoriented when he comes out of the travel, but only slightly, because it /does/ take a few moments longer than last time.

    But then, well, the Khunds are focused elsewhere, and he turns to aim his sonic cannon at the generator, charging it up, properly modulated to blow up the generator on the first try this time, one hopes.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    At their gun, Raven is the most appealing target for a short while, a scant few seconds, until Nightwing has recombobulated and begun his assault. This, however, is not a sign that she is actually an easy target.

    "Each other." she speaks into the wind, and upon the air, drifting, seem small shards of floating ink. Like burnt paper carried with the air.

    The two nearest Khund suddenly realize that they /despise/ one another, for reasons that later on in their lives will be minor, and unimportant: But right now, are as if grave crimes upon each of their persons. The two aliens twist, level their weapons, and fire upon their comrade, falling unconscious moments later- alive, but in a great deal of pain.

    "Sleep."

    The small drifting feathers of darkness multiply as Raven exerts her control over the rest of the aliens, whom do not lose consciousness- but do become slow, sluggish, and tired: All of their will to fight sapped and replaced with a need for a good night's sleep. Easy targets for Nightwing.

Donna Troy has posed:
    With the second plasma gun down and crushed beneath Caitlin's foot, the Khund are limited to hand-held weaponry - though that's still pretty dangerous, their offensive capability has taken a severe knock. Abrams tanks stand up to Khund blaster fire reasonably well, and the remaining Khund force is now something the army attachment would be able to deal with successfully, if it wasn't for that force field.

    While Nightwing's acrobatics keep the Khund occupied, these are professional soldiers and they aren't shooting wildly, so there's no easy win on disabling the gun completely. As much as they want to hit him, they're trying not to hit the gun. Two get in dangerously close to him and he's forced to be more offensive with those batons - blocking an inswinging blow from a power axe while jabbing the other shock stick into his attacker's solar plexus. This drags him out of cover and into the sighs of another Khund with his blaster at the ready -- but that's the chance Dick needed. He's now in front of that control panel rather than behind it, but a deft backflip takes the attacker by surprise and takes him over the blaster's beam. When he lands he can see with satisfaction that his plan, with minor necessary modifications, worked -- the shot aimed at him almost point-blank has left a smoking hole in the control panel, and the final plasma gun is out of action for good.

    Donna is a whirl of motion at the heart of the bulk of the remaining Khund soldiers. She has forced them into very close-quarters combat, which limits them to the power-axes rather than blaster fire, and the sheer speed and precision of her sword-work is giving them a hard time -- but she's being swarmed. She has done a good job of making them angry and they want her blood -- but this means she has fulfilled her promise to Caitlin to keep her own assault covered. Nobody is fighting Caitlin, and she now has a free run at the mass of Khund surrounding Donna, most of them with their backs to her.

    The Khund engineers on the platform where the teleportal is being worked on keep up their work at a half-panicked pace, and they seem to be making progress. A shout goes up in the alien tongue and engineers rush away from the teleportal to man the controls. Energy starts to flow into the teleportal equipment, filling the air with a hum.

    Raven's sorcery is something unfamiliar to the Khund, something they have no answer for. Khund soldiers fighting amongst themselves, Khund soldiers falling asleep. There are just two left at the side of the platform Raven and Nightwing have been tasked to deal with, and they are both now suddenly sleepy and increasingly nervous, and don't seem like they're going to be much threat to Nightwing.

    Vic stands on the shield projector platform, ultrasonics blasting into the machinery that powers the force field. This time he has the measure of it and knows how to make this work. Sensors following the impact of his pulse-modulating attack on the equipment, he fine-tunes the modulation, reaching that critical frequency that causes the machinery to overload. For a moment he is surrounded by a shower of purple sparks that scatter and bounce off his chrome skin, and then the shield is down.

    The swarm of Khund around Donna is thinning, but it's still coming on -- until Caitlin crashes into them from behind like a ginger tidal wave. The rank is scattered and the two amazonian women close in on them in a flurry of fist and sword that sends Khund bodies flying.

    On the platform the teleportal lights up with rows of red lights on either side, and a field of glowing light appears at the center. Has it all been for nothing? Were they moments too late? In the center of the field a dark shape starts to manifest -- a shape that has been seen at other locations, but not yet in Metropolis, a Dominator battle-wagon. Heavily-armed and deadly, these floating platforms had been seen wreaking terrible destruction in Australia....

Donna Troy has posed:
    There is a bright light in the sky and a sound of something tearing the air. The, suddenly, a boom and a shockwave spreads out across the battlefield, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth. The two army helicopters have started to launch hydra rockets at the platform, now unprotected by the forcefield.

    The fourth boom of a hydra rocket is shortly followed by a larger cracking boom as the teleportal explodes. The powerful blast spreads out across the battlefield, sending the Titans -- and the few remaining Khund -- sprawling. And before the TItans can get to their feet to finish the battle, they know they are no longer alone, as the shouting of soldiers and the rumbling of a dozen tanks closes in to help them finish the fight.

Dick Grayson has posed:
    The remaining Khund are pretty quickly dealt with now that the Army doesn't have to contend with force fields and can reach the aliens. Nightwing ends up taking down one or two more, but the fight is mostly over now that the teleporter is destroyed. Once they are all in custody, he makes his way over to Troia and Caitlin.

    "Thanks, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have been successful without you. I'm thinking we younger heroes should make a team, since the big ones like Superman don't think we're ready yet." He gestures at the alien wreckage and captive Khund being loaded into trucks and continues, "I think this might change their tune. We may not quite be up at their level yet, but I think we could do a lot of local work to free them up for the world shattering events." He hands Troia a card that he pulls from his utility belt, "This is a private number, if you guys are interested, give me a call and we'll all meet somewhere and talk it over."

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg's right there near the center of it all when the army starts attacking, so he's thrown pretty wide. Scorched skin, scorched chrome, but he clambers to his feet and looks upon the battlefield with a wide grin.

    The moment calls for something. A cheer, an acknowledgement of success. It calls for...

    "BOOYAH!"

    One hand goes in the air, victory stance. The other... well, mere seconds after he makes his cheer, there's a Khund soldier that tries to sneak up on him and gets sonic cannon to the face instead. Ow.

    He glances over, notes Nightwing doing the recruit, and nods thoughtfully. They'll be good teammates, the both of them. Friends? Time will tell.

    Not that Cyborg could ever have guessed that one day he'd navigate a whole other dimension with those two and the literal Cheshire Cat. How times will change them.