When Tides Turn

The car rolled to a stop and Raven killed the engine, the transmission rolling over with a final weak groan before leaving them in total silence. She leaned back against the seat, her shoulders relaxing, and closed her eyes tightly.

"Didn't know you knew how to steal a car."

Cracking one eye, she managed to glare at the green changeling in the seat next to her. The witty reply died on her tongue when she saw his face. Even though he was attempting a smile, Beast Boy's eyebrows were knit with stress.

"Neither did I," she said simply. They lapsed into a thoughtful silence and then he spoke again.

"Where do you think the others are?" The fear in his voice was tangible.

"I don't know."

"Where do you think we are?"

"I don't know."

A slight pause. "What do we do now?"

Raven looked out the window, not offering an answer. It's impossible to prepare for a situation you never thought could happen. It had been a normal day, the sun had risen, the Teen Titans had gone about their daily routines. Starfire flipped on the television to watch some gross bacteria documentary, and saw the breaking news. A new kind of terrorism had shown its face in the northwest, and it had been devastating – superterrorism.

A man had set off an electromagnetic pulse and left most of New York and New Jersey in the dark. Cars didn't run, cell phones were dead, buildings were suddenly without electricity. Eventually the police found him the old fashioned way and gunned him down, bringing back the electricity, but the country was in a panic. There were hundreds just like him scattered around the nation, and now they were a threat. The government had issued a warrant for all known superheroes. Local authorities were to apprehend them quickly and quietly. Many turned themselves in at first, only to find themselves treated with open hostility. The death toll was rising, both on the civilian and super sides.

The Titans had done their best to escape, but had fallen into a trap. Just as they were leaving the city, an explosion sent Cyborg's car rolling. It eventually came to a rest on its side, policemen approaching on every side with their guns drawn and ready to fire. The battle had been short and chaotic, the Titans trying to escape without drawing blood, and the authorities doing the exact opposite. Raven remembered finding a car and driving off. Somehow Beast Boy had ended up with her.

She leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly and concentrating on breathing slowly.

"Hey…are you okay?"

Just then a black, four-eyed rat crawled out of the car's console, sneering at them with jagged teeth. Raven glared at it and with frustrated determination, snapped her fingers and the creature disappeared with a hiss.

"I'm scared, too," He said quietly.

Meanwhile, back in Jump City, I pulled the helicopter's door open and jumped out, my partner hot on my heels. Tucking my head and running quickly to the side of the helipad, a uniformed officer greeted me.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," he yelled over the chop of the helicopter's blades, "The mayor was wondering if you would be able to do a brief press conference after you're done with the boy. The city is tripping over itself in fear."

My partner answered. "We don't do press. Just take us to him."

The officer led us down through the complicated jail, pass countless cells and gates, finally stopping when we'd reached a much neater corner of the building. He gripped the door handle and turned back to us. "We've got him hooked up to a restrictor so that he doesn't have enough power to move. Just think and talk."

"Is that humane?" I couldn't keep the thorns out of my voice. My partner sighed behind me.

The officer's eyes narrowed. "With all due respect, ma'am, humanity is for humans." He pulled the door open and stepped aside for us. In the middle of the room was a table, and across from that was a monster. Half of him was dark skin, the other half blue lights and metal alloy. His human eye opened as we walked in, and I could feel the hate rolling off of him. A large machine loomed behind him, countless wires and tubes connecting them.

"What do you want?"

I sat in one of the chairs across from the machine-man. "My name is Jennifer, and this is my partner Isaac." The dark eye skipped from me to Isaac and then back again.

"Are you here to kill me?"

"To help you."

The eye narrowed. "I don't need your help."

"Actually, you do. We are a part of an extremely new government program that deals with gifted individuals like yourself. We're kind of like the bridge between average people and supers, like yourself."

"What do you know about me? Why do you care?"

Isaac produced a tablet from his bag and opened a file, turning the screen towards the boy. "Victor Stone, eighteen years old, half-man, half-machine, accomplished athlete in the past, Teen Titan known as 'Cyborg' presently. Six-foot-six-" Isaac paused. "Would you like me to go on?"

Victor's head drooped slightly. "No."

"We want to help you, Victor, but we want to help your friends, too. Do you know where they are?"

"Even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you a thing." His voice was flat and lethal. "Piss off, Jennifer, and good luck finding them."

I looked back at Isaac and saw that he was just as frustrated as me. "All right." Leaning forward on the table, I knit my fingers together and took a deep breath. "Here's what we know. Rachel Roth and Garfield Logan stole a car and headed east. Richard Grayson and Kori'ander vanished into thin air, as the bird boy wonder is known to do. You were trapped in your car, and knocked a fair amount of policemen unconscious before you were sedated. Now, I am not a hunter by nature. That's Isaac's job, and he's very good at it. I need to find your friends quickly, before someone else does, and I want to do it the easy way. With your help."

Cyborg studied us carefully. "Like I said; piss off."