An Outsider

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

<Snipped quote by Weird Tales>

What's not to like about her?

@Lord Wraith

She's a smoker, and it's a filthy habit.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

<Snipped quote by BlackSam3091>

I just have this feeling that if Pistolera was in charge the same stuff would have happened. And a real leader makes mistakes and isn't just about the plans, they have to inspire and guide those that need it. That's why Batman and Iron Man aren't leaders of their teams, they're the smartest, but they don't have the qualities that Superman or Captain America has.

@Weird Tales

It's certainly useful to be able to inspire those you're leading, but by know means as critical as being able to lead them well. Your followers thinking you're the bee's knees as you lead them into a fubar situation isn't anyone's idea of a good time. Besides, that's a moot point because Iron Man and Batman have lead their respective teams just as often, if not more so, than Superman and Cap. Batman certainly has.

<Snipped quote by BlackSam3091>

Technically Rose leaving them high, dry, and unprepared got people killed. Taking over command in a situation like that wasn't easy and given the mass of enemies it really could have gone worse.

The twins may have unfortunately died, but JC's leadership kept the others alive.

@King Kindred

Technically Zuggernaut suffering fatal lead poisoning kept them alive.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical conjuncture because while we can discuss all this till the cows come home, it doesn't really mean anything without IC development to back it up. Sure, JC might keep the leadership cap that he assumed, or Pistolera might snatch it off his noggin, or Max might decide he wants to become the boss hog himself, or the whole Team might get annihilated by Luthor. But the only way we'll find out if any of that happens is if it happens in IC.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

Max won't be following pistolera if she acts like an ambitious ass. JC is still leader in his eyes

@Weird Tales

Max needs to wake up and smell the coffee! JC got folk killed son! It's time for a shake up in command, viva la revolution baby!

A real leader doesn't hold you by the hand and whisper sweetly in your ear, telling you that they'll be gentle and not to worry, and how they'll always love you for ever and always. A real leader holds your face down and gives it to you hard, not a thought spared towards your feelings, or even if they're hurting you, all in the name of their teams well being. They ain't your best friend, they're your boss, and if they get those lines blurred then people are apt to die.

Actually, if it ever gets to the point were we have in IC voting for the leader, that there is Pistolera's speech.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

Pistolera

I arch an eyebrow at JC, half way between annoyed and amused that he feels the need to have a dick measuring contest with a girl. By the looks of him I'd still probably win. Must be getting his panties in a bunch, thinking I'm trying to usurp him. Well he's right, but I got good reasons too, namely that his run as 'leader' has been a spectacular failure, the worst in Titan's history. I mean, Robin sure as shit never got the team made into pariahs, outcasts, murderers and traitors. No, a shake up in command structure is an absolute must, whether JC likes it or not.

"Sentinel's not coming with. . .” I begin, meaning to explain that for my plan to work in it's entirety then we have to appear to completely Houdini, but with the heat he willingly brought down on himself I can't be sure we wont be seen if he uses the portal with us. He's already got his orders, and besides, he'll have heard all this anyway, so we can meet up with him later. But of course all that becomes moot when Bat-Boy takes it upon himself to go and fetch our Superman imitator.

I resist the urge to sigh, groan, swear or shoot the flying rodent, or vent my frustrations in any other manner. Instead I just begin to manhandle the rest of the team through the portal before any of the others begin to have some not-so-bright ideas. I take an extra moment on Evan, just to grope him biceps. What, I'm having a stressful day, I need some sorta release!

Eventually it's just me, Magi and Accelerate standing alone in the kitchen. Funny, when I first started I pegged Rufus as the most dangerous one of the bunch, the only member other than Rose who was a real threat to me and my mission. Looks like Rose isn't going to be troubling anyone anytime soon, excepting them not being able to get the day off work for her funeral, and now with my newly discovered responsibility to these kids it looks like Speedy's gonna be the only one I can trust to get things done, and get them done right. Irony, I think.

“Can't leave this portal open any longer, not for those morons. You're the only one fast enough to stop them causing any more of a national incident than they already have. Stop them, do whatever it takes, then meet us here,” I whisper him the co-ordinates for the safe house. I don't bother saying good luck, or giving him advice on how to stop our pair of over-zealous cowboys. Rufus will have his own ideas on that front, and he's probably the type to chafe under too much management.

“Zane, follow me through then close the portal. The boys can look after themselves.” With that I step through. . .

. . . And walk smack dab into someone's back. Might be Stunt Devil, but I can't be sure because we're in pitch black. Smooth. I'm standing in the dank, dark gloom of my Star City safe house. I know it by smell, a heady mix of old diesel and gunpowder. First order of business, lights. Takes me a few seconds to find the gennie in the dark, and a couple more to get it to kick into life, then even longer for the energy saving strip lights to burn away the gloom.

With the lights the safehouse is revealed. A long, rectangular room, the short wall behind me serving as a display for my stache of guns, enough for a small army. Could still stand to get a few more. On the far wall is a series of targets, most of them bullet ridden. Too my left is a doorway that leads to the bedroom/kitchen/living space. I say kitchen, but it's really just a space with racking that holds barrels of purified water, boxes of long life foodstuffs and more than a few crates of candy bars. I've got quite a sweet tooth. To the right is the small bathroom. Not exactly the Ritz, but it'll serve it's purpose.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” I declare, fully aware that this place was not designed for comfort. It was designed to be a safe place for when the world ends, and I gotta say, this situation certainly seems to be filling those criteria. “I'm gonna check the news, see what the world thinks of us now.”

I head through to the living are, and try to get the old portable to find a station.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

Blue Paladin 9 sounds like a username you choose when you're out of ideas.

@Nightrunner

How did you know?

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

<Snipped quote by G3njii>

All accepted characters are currently on the OP in the character tab. The first thing that comes to me off the top of my head that we don't have is a hacker, computer or gadget based character outside of Lian Harper who I just made and have yet to introduce.

@Lord Wraith

*Cough* Mal *cough*

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

You know, I was conflicted if I liked Pistolera or not. But now I've made up my mind.

@Hillan

I like what you did there.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

Pistolera is sick of Sentinel's shit.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

Pistolera

It had arrived last night with a note attached; I had a friend develop and manufacture this. It is a prototype, so bugs may be present. Friend will continue developing more tools for your use. Use it responsibly. The writing was neatly sterile, betraying not a shred of character or voice, the kinda writing that's damn near impossible to identify. Of course it would be, he didn't want to run the risk of anyone intercepting the message and realizing the sort of people he fraternizes with. Wouldn't do for his image or his legend, to be associated with the likes of her. The ultimate potential stain to his reputation, hanging around with a borderline gun-toting mercenary like me. Still, doesn't bother me all that much, I got what I wanted.

A brand new gun.

And it was a beauty. If Apple ever got in weapon designing business I imagine they'd look a little something like this. It's an assault rifle, but the kind you imagine folk blasting each other with in the future. An outer casing of brushed, blueish steel, slightly warm to the touch. That's probably cause'a the alien core vibrating away cheerily inside. The weapon sit's in my arms gracefully, so I can only imagine it was made with my measurements in mind. Slightly worrying how whoever made it knew what my measurements are, but that isn't enough to dampen my ardour for my latest toy.

What? So some might think I'm using my new baby to distract me from the scary going's on outside, to help me ignore the horror that I bore witness to earlier in the week. To enable me to forget the literal cities worth of corpses the team were responsible for. To avoid the small matter of me letting the twins die, all so I could make a more effective end to the zombie apocalypse that threatened to go full on extinction level. So what if I'm repressing! It's worked for me so far.

Course with all these emotional gymnastics I've been doing lately you might forgive a girl for only realizing at the last minute that we've got the United States military rolling up on our front door, eager to have a word and not willing to take no for an answer. I try and muster some shock, but in all honesty I knew it was coming. Buncha kids taking the law into their own hands, one of them wearing a big 'S' on his chest, in Luthor's country? It was never gonna last. It was always just a matter of time before things got heated.

Doesn't take me long to pack up my new rifle and grab my bug-out bag. The military might have us cornered, but I'm confident I can slip away undetected, especially when they get tied up detaining the team. I feel bad about leaving the others, but really why shouldn't I do it? We're not really friends, and technically Luther is right. They did kill all those people, even if they weren't people at the time. Not that I think they deserve to be punished for it, they were just defending themselve's, but it would quell a lot of public unrest if there was at least a show of them being made to answer for their crimes. They'd never do the time for it, not really. The Justice League would never allow it. No, they'd get hauled into Washington, made to say their sorry's, then let off on some superhero technicalities, probably have to do some kind of extreme community service. After all, they did help to save the Western seaboard from a zombie apocalypse (Technically I saved the seaboard, but I'm more than willing to consider them accomplices) No, they'll be fine, even without me.

It's surprising how easy it is to lie to yourself.

I don't even bother grabbing my armour. I've got more stashed away elsewhere, and it's not like I'm going to need it right now. After all, who's stupid enough to fight the military?

"Titans. Gather in the kitchen! We've got trouble! I'm gonna try and buy us some time to get away. Rao help us all."

Of course. Sentinel would be stupid enough to fight the military.

I'm halfway to the kitchen before I realize what I'm doing. That idiot Kryptonian is about to give me the perfect distraction to exit, stage right without anyone noticing, yet I'm running to the rest of the team. Why? I mean really why? I can't understand it. Like I said, it's not like I'm particularly fond of the team. In fact apart from Evan's pert ass there's really not much to recommend the group of misfits. But, I realize, they are my misfits, and are collectively so stupid they'll probably get themselves all killed before the sun's down without me. I pull out my communicator on the way down.

"Sentinel, stand down, right fucking now!" I make my tone as icy as possible, the kind of tone that really brooks no argument. It isn't hard. I'm so sick of this Superman wannabe's macho bullshit that I'm this close to doing my damndest to convince the rest of the team to abandon him to Luthor's mercy. Would certainly solve a lot of our problems.

"Whatever good reasons you think you have for attacking the United State's military, forget them. They are not good reasons. We could have gotten out undetected without you smashing the countries defense budget, but as usual you flew off half cocked without a real plan."

"The team can still get out, but you need to stop before you make things any worse for us. Run now, lose any pursuit, then make a roundabout route to Star City. We'll meet there when I've deemed it safe." I cut off then, hoping he listens but half expecting him to argue. So far every time he's been given the choice between an intelligent, well thought out, reasoned action and a dumbshit, knee-jerk, no-thought-spared-to-the-consequences reaction, he's gone charging happily off in the latter's direction.

"What now?" I hear Stunt Devil ask as I reach the others. He looks lost, dejected, like a puppy without an owner. He's looked that way for days. He's been so miserable that even I've been tempted to give him a hug. I didn't though, perhaps unsurprisingly. Hey, it's not like he was dying or anything!

Cell gave one of her long, disjointed, vaguely foreign, and really time consuming speech. Time, I'd like to point out, we really don't have, but for some reason the others lap her sentimental we-are-a-team-and-we-stand-together stuff up, and by the looks of them all right now they really needed it. Still, I wish it could have waited until after we'd safely gotten away.

"Beautiful Cell, really beautiful. Now everyone huddle in, because we don't have much time and I'm not in the habit of repeating myself. We are NOT fighting the military. At all. Any one thinking along those lines is going to get us all killed. The public hates us enough after we made a ghost town of San Francisco without us attacking their sons and daughters who are just acting on orders. Besides, we do that and we're effectively declaring we believe ourselves above the law." If I'm honest with myself I kinda think that already, but there's no way I'm declaring it out loud. That's the kind of jackass maneuvering that get's you locked up in Belle Reve.

"In fact" I continue, "I imagine that's exactly what Luthor want's us to do. Instead we're just going to deny him the spectacle he wants, and just disappear. Luckily we have a magician who can help us do exactly that." I neglect to mention Sentinel's probably ruined the 'no spectacle' part of my plan, but I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I beckon Zane over and whisper a set of co-ordinates, one's that belong to one of my safehouses in Star City, in his ear. I don't want anyone not in the Titan's overhearing, and who know's what kind of listening equipment is fixated on us right now.

"Teleport us there right now Zane. We can restock once we're there, then decide our next move." Not that I particularly want the Titan's to be snooping around in one of my 'homes away for home', but you know what they say about desperate times. And seeing as I apparently find it a lot harder than expected to ditch them, and there's no way in sweet hell I'm going down with them, then I guess they have to come with me. Not a great loss, I've got other hideaways they don't know about after all, but still a touch annoying. Just another slight Sentinel has performed against me.

Or at the very least I'll decide our next move. After what I've seen lately I'm not sure I'd trust these kids with sorting through a bus timetable, never mind organizing themselves when they've become enemies of the state.

Teen Titans: Divided We Fall

<Snipped quote by BlackSam3091>

But you're not even in East!

@Hillan

Thing's have gotten to hot with West for Simone's tastes, she's jumping ship before anything else goes tits up.