8029/Titans: There May be a Pattern

Titans: There May be a Pattern
Date of Scene:	24 June 2019
Location:	Titans Tower living quarters
Synopsis:	The Titans start to suspect that someone's conspiring with all their most irritating c-list foes.  Kían learns about prisons, and thinks even less of planet Earth than he did before.  Raven doesn't make coffee.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Kian t'Kaeh, Raven

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Stardust has posed:
    As is the tradition, Colette can be heard before she can be seen.  She's in a ranting mood.  "Stupid.  So stupid.  I know he can do that kind of thing.  Should have taken precautions.  And you see what I mean about the whole insanity thing?  I mean how do you deal with someone like that without being willing to use violence?  Don't worry though.  I promised.  Not trying to persuade you."
    Colette and Kían appear, coming down from the roof, not a surprise from two of the team's flyers.  Colette is blinking repeatedly and rubbing her eyes.  "Not your fault.  Mine.  Ran into him before, a while back.  He kidnapped Robin, believe it or not.  The main thing to know is that if you have some kind of energy lasso, it's best not to use it on him.  One of our members—you haven't met her, she hasn't been around for a while—made that mistake.  Powered him up some.  He's not really all that, just kind of tricky."
    Colette marches over to the sofa and throws herself into it with a sigh.  "He must have been watching us take off from the tower," she says, still rubbing her eyes.  "Sorry, Birdy Buddy.  We'll do a proper patrol another time.  Some night when I can see something other than after-images."

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    "For someone who says she's not trying to persuade me," Kían says evenly, seeking out ice, water and a large tumbler (not necessarily in that order), "you seem to be doing a lot of trying to persuade me."  Fortunately, simple observation has been enough to teach the birdman where things are in the kitchen.
    He perches on the armrest of a different couch and sips his water.  "Had I known there was only light involved, I might have been able to interfere.  Light is easy.  It's only electromagnetism.  I would have taken action to prevent his attack from affecting you had I known what might happen.  I could not have attacked him directly, but I could have tried to block his attack on you."
    Hindsight, even with a hawk's vision, is only 20/20, alas.

Raven has posed:
    Raven is present—having, likely, just emerged from her room in order to fix herself coffee.  Unlike usual, of course—the two arrive when Raven was genuinely there minding her own business.  She doesn't walk out of some dark corner or just happen to have been there when someone took a second look.
    Raven turns, though, as they start to describe some sort of encounter.  "Waiting for you outside of the tower?  That's braver than he normally is… but just about as stupid."  There is, then, a pause.  Raven seems to be considering something for a moment.  "Didn't we deal with him pretty recently?" she asks, taking a sip from her coffee.  "It is… very soon for him to be skulking around."

Stardust has posed:
    "Like I said, my fault," Colette replies to Kían.  "I should have given you the lowdown rather than just telling you to track him from above.  But that's why I want to do these patrols.  So we can figure out how to work together.  I…."  She falls silent for a few moments.  "Yes."  Her voice becomes less animated, rather resigned, and clearly no longer aimed at Kían.  "I'm too hot-headed.  I'm aware of that, thank you for letting me know.  Impetuous!  Yes.  Such a good word.  Colette the impetuous.  Unwisely rushing into the danger that you keep encouraging me to be par…"
    Colette's monologuing is interrupted by Raven speaking up.  As is so often the case, Colette was not aware that Raven was there until she spoke.  As far as she's concerned it's 50/50 whether Raven was there until a second ago, but Colette has long since stopped letting that worry her.  "Heya Rae.  Not far off a couple of years.  It was just after I joined.  But yeah.  He's supposed to be in jail, so not exactly expected.  He wasn't just outside the tower.  We flew over the river and he met us on the other side.  Right where we landed.  So I'm assuming he was watching the tower.  Started giving a speech about the Titans, but I didn't give him a chance to finish.  I think he was surprised exactly who did turn up, I don't think it was very well planned.  Any chance of a coffee?"
    "Nope," Colette says to Kían, shaking her head.  "Not trying to persuade you."  She makes odd and slightly ridiculous faces as she opens her eyes as wide as she can and blinks repeatedly at the ceiling.  "Simply commenting on my difficulty figuring things out.  You've stated your feelings on violence.  I respect them.  Now it's my job to figure out how to respect them at the same time of making use of your obvious talents to help stop the crazy people without expecting you to zap, punch or otherwise violence them.  Come to think of it, it's lucky you're a pacifist in this case.  If you'd zapped him, he'd probably have absorbed the energy and fired it back at me.  Maybe why his initial blast didn't stop me.  I think last time he was hopped up on some kind of energy booster thingy."  Ah Colette, master of the technobabble.  "Froze me for a good few seconds that time.  This time it was short enough that you probably didn't notice it happening.  Don't think he did.  Probably why he panicked.  I think I worried him a touch last time, and he wasn't happy his bolts didn't work on me this time."

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Kian nods once. "Everything happened so quickly.  And I was at some distance.  I could sense the energy being released, but it was gone just as quickly.  I only had enough time to identify it, and then it and he were gone."
    He takes a long pull on his water.  "And we did learn something.  Before, we spoke only about search and rescue.  Maybe I can also serve a defensive role."
    Without getting down from the edge of the couch, he inclines his head towards Raven, a mini-bow of greeting.  "Is this something that happens often, someone waiting outside here in ambush?"  He can't keep a slight tremor out of his voice.

Raven has posed:
    "That is the joy of having a lair that is a tower shaped like a giant T.  I think they might be on to us," Raven says, her voice as monotonous and deadpan as usual.  Still, she looks at the cup for a moment, and then returns her attention to the pot.  As she made coffee for herself, it's empty.  Raven is an Empath, so for whatever reason, she actively chooses not to make any for anyone else.
    "They're all supposed to be in jail," Raven mentions, somewhat off-handedly.  The silence, of course, means that Colette will have to make her own coffee.  It's a slippery slope—if she starts making more than one cup at a time, people will start expecting it.  Raven is nothing if not pragmatic.  "We do not get ambushed often, but we live in a logo on an island.  It is not as if we are hard to find."

Stardust has posed:
    Colette is aware of the lack of coffee appearing in her hands.  She doesn't point out that she makes coffee for Raven sometimes, even though she considers it.  She's sure Raven has a good reason for ignoring her request, though her assumption is that Raven probably worries that coffee will keep Colette awake and noisy rather than it being a pragmatic avoidance of becoming designated coffee-maker.  She decides to say and do nothing.  She'll go without coffee, it seems easier all round.  Maybe tomorrow she'll replace the coffee maker with one that makes larger pots at a go.
    "Actually almost never, Kían," Colette reassures the avian.  "I mean I'm sure people keep an eye on the tower.  We're not exactly keeping our location secret as Rae says.  But most people aren't that dumb.  I mean why would you even do that?  It's basically… how can we ambush some Titans in a place we can be sure they are most likely to be able to get reinforcements quickly?  Also, you might not have noticed, but the Tower itself has some pretty serious defenses."
    Colette hops up and heads to the fridge for a sofa.  That's a good way to avoid the coffee issue.  "Yeah what's with that, Rae?  Was there some recent amnesty for supervils I didn't hear about?  That's the fourth villain who's supposed to be behind bars I've got into a fight with in the last few weeks.  I mean… Rebus.  Rebus!  Fighting him once was annoying enough.  There's a guy who deserves thirty to life just for being a pain in my ass."

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    "I suppose that makes sense.  As much as anything else does around here," Kian muses, relaxing a little.  He drains off the last of his water and hops up lightly to get more.  "I don't know the word 'jail'.  Or the phrase 'behind bars'.  Are those your terms for redaction, for fixing a broken mind?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven does not have, surprisingly, a good reason for everything.  Sometimes, she's just being somewhat mean.  The coffee machine can make a generous amount of coffee—Raven, herself, just doesn't.  Others might be thankful, because at least it means she leaves her room.
    "Rebus was… a problem on various levels.  Sadly, they can't put bars on his mother's basement.  If they could, we could keep him there indefinitely.  It would solve a lot of issues.  Many of these villains are… not harmless, but as close to it as they come.  It is why they choose areas that we patrol.  They think we'll be easier… but it does not make sense.  Light should still be in prison.  Rebus should not have been released as quickly as he was.  There were no stories about either one being free."

Stardust has posed:
    Colette looks at Kían with that expression that gives away she's feeling slightly embarrassed about her planet.  Kían has a tendency to get that reaction from her at times.  "Kinda?  I mean… not exactly.  There are mental hospitals.  But if someone's so broken that they are a serious danger to other people, the first thing is to put them in a place they can't hurt people, and keep them there until it seems safe to let them go.  That's a jail.  The bars are to stop them leaving and hurting more people.  Except that basically we're primitive savages who love money too much, so generally speaking the authorities don't bother with the actual healing part because it's too expensive, and tend to use the jails as a mode of punishment for past sins rather than prevention for future ones.  It's what we have to deal with unfortunately, so we make the best of it."
    Difficult moral quandries out of the way, she turns her attention back to Rae… and Rebus.  "Ground him?  That sounds like an awesome plan.  We should find out who him mom is and have a word with her.  The cops said there was a riot at the prison he was held in and he escaped when someone blew up a wall.  Maybe Doctor Light and Constructo and that butterfly dude were in the same prison?  Or maybe someone's trying to annoy us by busting out all our most irritating nemes… foes."

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    The glass falls into the sink with a loud clatter; Kian says, with genuine horror, "You lock people up?  Inside a building, can't get outside?"  Eyes: wide.  Skin: bloodlessly pale.  Expression: shocked.  "That's… that's…!" he splutters, failing to describe what he thinks 'that' is.
    Without warning, his wings come down and he flits to the main window.  It will look like one less wall to him.  "That's…" he tries again, and does not succeed in finishing the sentence this time either.  "It's bad enough being closed inside.  But being sealed inside… c'Rhys'yw.  Now I wish I had redaction training, maybe I could fix them so they didn't have to be… that."

Raven has posed:
    Raven is, for the moment, idly sipping coffee.  Empathically, she's rather active.  She can feel the room, as it were, and its general mood.  It is rather surprising to her that Kían's reaction is so intense.  Her brow raises a bit, it's so startling.  Still, it's not as if she isn't about to be Raven about it.
    "Oh, yes.  We place them in a large cage.  However, it cannot be constructed of simple bars.  Those are too flimsy.  Instead, we have to make almost all of the enclosure out of stone, or metal.  Then, one wall of it is barred so that they can be let out… into the larger, complete stone enclosure.  Like freedom, but not."  Sip.

Stardust has posed:
    Colette is obviously not comfortable trying to explain—or even more justify—this to Kían.  It's one of those things she tries not to think about too much.  "Well, humans, Kían.  We're not as a species quite as troubled by small spaces as you are.  You've mentioned that before… redaction you called it?  That some of your species train as sort of psychic healers, right?  Well.  We don't have that.  So, what do you do if there's someone who's so insane that if they are allowed to go free they will hurt people?  I mean on Akiár, how does it work… you can't just instantly heal people, right?  So you have to stop them from wandering off and hurting people.  And this planet is full of crazy people.  I mean way more crazy than us guys you hang out with.  Doctor Light, for example?  He would happily blow up a building full of innocent civilians if someone paid him enough money to do so.  And there are plenty of people who would pay him to do that."
    Soda now held in hand, Colette retreats to the sofa to bury herself in it where hopefully she won't be asked to explain Earth morals, which she's not really that much more convinced by than Kían is, when it comes to it.  Raven's empathy isn't needed to tell that much, her body language says it all.  Raven's senses do let her know that she's finding the moral quandry a useful distraction from thinking about the break-out question though.  Colette had previously considered the option that someone may be targetting the Titans in a rather weird way, and is desperately hoping that nobody's going to expect her to be the one to do detective work here.
    Raven's empathy can also probably tell that Colette is actually kind of a little hurt about the lack of coffee thing, but probably isn't even admitting that to herself.

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    At 'large cage', Kían looks wobbly, like he might faint, but he manages to master himself, and straightens up, though he remains close to the window.  Raven doesn't need to be an empath to tell that Kían is horrified.
    "Actually, Colette, in most instances the redactors can heal nearly instantly," he says in an almost normal tone.  "First off, you can't miss a mental problem in a world of telepaths.  The vast majority of problems are caught when they're small, usually even before the victim's First Flight and can be adjusted without problems.  If something develops later, or if there's physical damage that causes mental damage, that's rare.  I don't think there's been a case during my lifetime.  But I've heard of cases where redactors accompanying Imperial Security were able to subdue, study, and repair the poor victim, sometimes even on the spot.  In extreme cases, they might be pushed into a medical coma while a treatment was figured out."
    He slumps back against the window, and slides down to a semi-seated, semi-kneeling position on the floor, wings spread out.  "This is another of those intellectual against emotional things.  I know Earth doesn't have redactors and can't fix the damaged minds, but I just can't get my head around restraint."

Raven has posed:
    Raven is still sipping coffee, of course, but there is something altogether alien about how she's watching Kían.  The gaze could be called 'assessing', after a fashion.  Still, it doesn't last particularly long.  Instead, she finishes her coffee, and sets the mug back down into the sink for a moment.
    Altogether suddenly, perhaps even too suddenly, she seems to be making her way towards the hallways and stairways past which is her room.  "Right.  Well.  I'm going back to my room."
    To be fair, it's as much of a farewell as Raven is likely capable of.

Stardust has posed:
    Colette watches Kian's slump sympathetically, but doesn't really know what to say to him.  "I don't really know what to say to you," she confirms.  "I mean… if you don't have a good solution available, you fall back on the least bad solution, right?"  She obviously wishes she could be more comforting to her 'birdy buddy' on this one, perhaps odd given she's got something of a penchant for trying to shock him into new ways of seeing things, but Colette is nothing if not self-contradictory.
    Raven's farewell elicits a moment of mild surprise from Colette, and after a quick "Seeya Rae," she watches the sorceress' departure for a few moments before turning back to Kían.  She gives a quick shrug of her shoulders.  "Well.  I guess it would be a good idea to do some research into what's going on with these prison escapees.  Which Robin do you think we should volunteer?"

Kian t'Kaeh has posed:
    Kían tries to latch on to the change of subject, but for one problem, made plain with his comment: "I… don't know any of them well enough to know.  And I'm not sure if this is a research job or an observation job or… well, I don't know."
    He sighs heavily, unable to leave the prior unpleasant subject.  "The only thing keeping me from just leaving and becoming a hermit somewhere," Kían says, and it's hard to tell if he's joking or not.  "The knowledge that you haven't any other option, not the way your society has developed.  And if I expect you to respect my ways, I must respect yours.  Whether I like it or not."