Titans West

Gar Logan sighed wearily as he walked down the corridor of Titans West headquarters with Bette Kane. "You know, Bette, I need a break after that mess up on the satellite."

"I know what you mean," she replied. "I just hope that Karen figures out what went so haywire up there."

Gar shrugged. "I'm sure she will." He opened his door and stepped into his room, followed by Bette.

Except it wasn't his room. Gar looked around and saw himself in a small shop, filled with objects he could almost identify. A torn red cape with a yellow S. A Green Lantern power battery. Some sort of round shield with a star in the center of a red, white, and blue striped design. Then he noticed that the rest of the team except Mal was already gathered there.

"Finally," Terra said, standing up from where she'd been sitting on the floor. "The big man said he needed everybody here before he'd explain what's going on." Behind her, Risk tried to pick up an old-looking gray hammer. No matter how hard he pulled, it would not lift from the floor.

"What do you mean?" Gar asked. Red Star walked beside him, examining a folded Soviet flag in a glass case.

"She is referring to me." Gar turned and saw a smiling heavyset man in his late forties, wearing a three-piece business suit and smoking a cigar. The man set his cat down on a display case containing a blue facemask and a white smiling fish before taking his cigar out to speak. "My name is Barter. I have gathered you all here because I have a task I need for you to accomplish for me."

"What?" Gar asked. "We've never even met you and you expect for us to do you a favor?"

"Oh, no!" Barter said. "I will be more than willing to give you this in exchange." He held out a small white crystal. Gar took it from his hand.

"What is this?" Gar asked, turning it over and looking at it.

"Hold it to your eye," Barter said, his smile widening.

Changeling did so and suddenly found himself looking into the crystal from a sort of window. He gasped as he saw the face that swirled into view.

"How... how..." was all that Gar could say as Barter took the crystal back and relocked it in its case.

"Now you see why I thought you would be willing to assist me," Barter said. He raised his voice to address the group. "Since the rest of you were unable to see my little trinket, let me inform you as to what it contains. Inside it is the soul of one of your former members. His name was Charley Parker but he also went by the alias of Golden Eagle."

Bette's eyes shot over to Jason. She quickly stepped over to help him sit down gently in front of a case containing an ice sculpture of a man wearing a costume with a large T on the collar.

"Ah, yes. The brother." Barter took another puff off his cigar.

"What do you want?" Changeling asked.

"Simple. I will return you to your headquarters so you may change into your, shall we say, working clothes. Then I need you to split into two teams to retrieve two small objects for me. The first is a white crystal. The second is a single, perfect sapphire. They should be fairly easy for you to locate."

"Why not just head out and pick them up yourself?" Bette asked. "Surely you don't grab a whole team to go get your groceries for you."

Barter chuckled. "You are correct, my dear. However, I believe that these objects will have guardians which you will be better suited to overcome than I."

"What kind of guardians?" Gar asked.

"The crystal is surrounded by crystalline guardians. As to the sapphire, it will likely be surrounded by creatures you would refer to as demons." Barter exhaled a cloud of smoke as the team stared at him.

As the team exited Barter's shop, they walked into the meeting room. As the rest of them took their assigned seats, Gar leaned against the wall at the head of the table.

Jason spoke up first. "We're doing it, of course," he said,

Gar nodded. "Yeah, Charley was one of us, and we're not leaving him trapped." He crossed his arms. "All we have to do is decide who's going where.

"I'll take Risk and Bumblebee to go after the demon-things. Bette, I want you to take Red Star, Terra, and Eagle after the crystal ones."

"Right," Flamebird said.

"Let's get going," Gar said. The teams quickly filed out of the meeting room to get into their uniforms.

"Back so soon?" Barter asked as the team entered his shop. "Well, let's go then."

"Wait a second," Flamebird said. "Where are we going?"

"You, my dear, are heading to a small campground outside of Washington DC. And here we are!"

The door to the shop swung open and Flamebird's group walked out.

"Great. So here we are," Terra said. "Now what?"

"I don't know," Flamebird said. "How are we supposed to find a crystal out here?"

"It would have helped if he'd been more specific," Eagle added.

Flamebird took a deep breath. "Okay, here's the plan. Eagle, why don't you try searching from the air. The rest of us will split up and look around. Beep if you find something." With an assortment of nods, the team split up. Red Star, Flamebird and Terra set off in three different directions while Eagle launched himself into flight. Behind them, a shard of crystal shot up from below the ground.

Changeling's team emerged at the rim of a large crater. "What is this place?" Risk asked.

"I think a plane went down here a couple of years ago," Bumblebee replied. "I know that the tabloids were swarming over it. Something about the DEO."

Gar nodded. "Great. Let's just find this sapphire and get out of here." Together, they started down into the crater.

"Is it just me or is it getting hotter?" Bumblebee asked as a smoking arm rose up from behind them.

Meanwhile, Terra, Flamebird and Red Star were fighting for their lives against the crystalline creatures. "At least they're not overly tough!" Bette yelled as she kicked one's arm off.

"Still, can we hurry this up?" Terra asked as she launched rocks to shatter creatures.

"Try this!" Suddenly a small round device fell to the ground. The Titans barely had time to cover their ears before a sonic wave emerged and shattered their foes.

"Look!" Red Star said as he grabbed a tree branch and ignited it like a torch. "Is this it?" Sticking out of a hole made by Terra's flying rocks was a small white crystal.

"I'm not taking any chances!" Eagle swooped down and snatched up the crystal.

"Good work!" Flamebird exclaimed. "Now all we have to do is find Barter." An instant later, they were in his shop.

"Excellent," Barter said as he gently took the crystal. "Excellent work! Now your friends just need to be successful and our deal will be complete."

At the crater, the team was being overwhelmed by the demons. "This is insane!" Risk yelled. "These things just keep coming!"

"Keep fighting!" Gar responded in the form of a green ape. "We've got to hit the end of them sooner or later!"

"DOWN!" came a yell from above. Gar and Risk dropped as Bumblebee strafed the demons with her stingers. Demons dropped with the needles sticking out of them.

"Good shots!" Gar yelled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something glinting in the light. "Cover me!" he yelled.

"You got it!" Risk replied as he waded into battle with a grin on his face. Gar quickly shapeshifted into a mole and began tunneling into the ground. He quickly reached his destination and returned to normal form, with the sapphire in his hand.

"Whoa!" Gar yelled as the demons approached him. "Karen, catch!" He threw the stone upward and Bumblebee grabbed it. As her hand closed around it, the demons began melting into nothingness.

"All right!" Gar said, smiling. "Now all we need is to get picked up by Barter." A second later they were in his shop.

"Excellent!" the smiling Barter said as he plucked the stone from Gar's hand. "Excellent work!" He quickly locked the stone in a case. "And here you go," he said as he handed Gar the crystal. "Thank you for your business, and I hope that we can do business some time in the future." Barter quickly herded the team out the door.He closed it and walked back to the case.

Smiling darkly, Barter picked up the crystal and the sapphire. "Ah, yes…if they only knew what they had brought me. The very essence of Hank Hall and Dawn Granger - Hawk and Dove." In response to Barter's voice, a light deep within the sapphire began flashing angrily. Barter laughed. "Yes, Mr. Hall, I'm sure you would. But the fact is, now you are mine." The cat came walking up to Barter as his laughter filled the shop.

Back at their headquarters, Bette was sitting at the meeting table with the crystal in front of her. Gently, she let her fingers touch the warm stone. She looked up as Gar and Jason walked in.

"So now what?" Bette asked. "We got this thing, now how do we set Charley free?"

"I wasn't able to get hold of Raven, but I did manage to reach someone else." Bette smiled as the other person walked in.

"Hello, Bette," Lilith said. "I'm not as skilled with souls as Raven is, but I believe that I may be able to help with this."

"All right," Gar said as he picked up the crystal. "What do we do?"

Lilith smiled. "Jason, take my hand." He reached out and did so. Lilith then took the crystal from Gar. In a flash of light, the crystal and Jason were both gone.

"Where is he?" Gar asked. Lilith's only response was a mysterious smile.

Jason looked around. Somehow he'd been transported to a place filled with smoke. "Hello?" he called. He spun around as he was tapped on the shoulder.

"Hiya, bro," Charley said. For the first time in his life, a crying Jason grabbed his brother and hugged him tight.

"Hey, don't worry," Charley said. "We've got a lot to catch up on, but we've got plenty of time."

"How long's he been gone?" Terra asked Gar outside the conference room.

"About an hour." Gar leaned back against the wall again and waited.

"Great." Tara opened the door and walked in. Lilith sat at the meeting table, her eyes unfocused. "Um, Lilith?"

Lilith's green eyes slowly focused on Tara. "Hello, Tara."

"Hi. I was wondering if I could ask you something, if it's not a bad time."

"Of course." Lilith pushed a chair out. "Have a seat." Tara sat. "What can I help you with?"

"This is gonna sound really weird," Tara began. "I've gotta know though. With all this talk of souls, I want to know...do I have one? I mean, I know that the old Terra did, but do I? Or was I just a creation of the Time Trapper?"

Lilith thought a moment. "A few months back I spoke with Raven and she told me that she'd had a similar discussion with Troia. Donna was concerned about her soul, since she had been created from the mirror image of her sister and forced to live lifetime after lifetime at the whims of Dark Angel. Only the assistance of Wally West stopped the cycle.

"Raven told Troia what I feel to be true: everybody focuses on how easy it is to lose your soul. I believe that it is also that easy to grow one." Lilith's eyes closed. "It is time."

In the shadow world, Charley stood. "I've gotta go, bro."

"I know," Jason said. "I just wish we had more time."

Charley smiled. "You never know, I may just pop up again sometime. I've heard enough ghost stories in my time to know it's possible."

"Is there anything I can do for you back there?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, thank Lil for me, and everybody else, too."

"I will." Jason swallowed hard as his eyes filled again. "So this is it?"

"I wouldn't say that," Charley said. "After all, nothing seems to be final anymore." The two brothers hugged one more time, and then Charley started walking away. He stepped into a blinding ray of light and was gone. Jason closed his eyes...

...and opened them again in the conference room. Tara was sitting there with her mouth gaping open. Lilith stood and walked over to Jason. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jason said. "I think I'm better than I've ever been. Thank you, Lilith, and Charley says thank you, too."

Lilith smiled wider. "You're certainly welcome." She looked around the room. "I guess that my work here's done." She picked up the empty crystal and handed it to Tara. "Here's a little something for your trophy room. Take care!" And she was gone.

A tired Gar Logan walked into the base followed by Bette. "If I never see Barter again it'll be too soon," he said.

"I agree," Flamebird replied. "At least everything worked out."

Gar stretched. "Except for this catch in my back." He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "I'm going to bed for about a hundred years. Wake me up then." He walked into the monitor room and stopped. Standing before them was a man in a dark costume.

"Who are you?" Flamebird asked.

"Me? I'm your newest member!" he replied, smiling.

To Be Continued...

Next Issue: Who's the new guy? Find out in a special Origin Issue in Titans West #10!

Previous Issue | Next Issue