Saving Grace

Mind Games

Starfire sat in the ops room. Staring at the city out the window and sighed. She kept having a feeling that at any moment, Robin would jump over the couch and sit next to her. Then with a small smile and a pat to the shoulder, he would ask, 'are you alright?' and then she would confide in him her worries and fears. Afterwards, he would comfort her with some words of wisdom. Then Beast Boy and Cyborg would proceed to make fun of him.

Problem was, he never came. She sighed for the umpteenth time in the last hour. She wanted her best friend. Galfore was much too far out of reach, too. Her other friends were working on this case as well. She had been for awhile, assigned to scour the city for some sort of sign. Cyborg had asked her to come back after she started scaring people with her worry.

She had just emerged from an alleyway when she plowed over an old lady. "Many pardons ma'am!" she helped the woman to her feet and collected the items from her fallen grocery bag. "I was not watching we're I was going!"

"You are one of the Titans, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I thank you for protecting our city. Now if I may be so bold, what are you doing out here all by yourself?"

"I am looking for someone."

"A criminal?"

"No...A friend." Star spoke sadly.

The woman put a chocolate candy in star's hands. "You are very distraught over this friend, I can plainly see. But you must take heart. They will come home safely."

Cyborg had mindlessly been monitoring her progress until she had burst into tears and hugged the old woman. He then called her back to the tower an ordered her to sit in the ops room and cool down, claiming she wasn't sane enough to continue with the search. She did not argue.

So she sat, staring at the skyline, hopelessly waiting for her love to come home.

Beast boy had been sniffing around evidence room. He was looking for a match of cologne, leather, and oil. So far he had no luck. Control freaks remote reeked of pizza and sweat. Mumbo's hat of stage makeup and some other powder that made him sneeze. Mad Mod's cane had the same cologne smell, but no leather or oil. Johnny Rancid had the leather and oil smell, but the oil smelled cheaper, greaser. And no cologne. He was beginning to suspect that this was a new villain, until he reached the far back corner of the room, designated to the big enemy's they went up against, like Trigon, brother blood, and the brotherhood. There he picked the scent back up, it was very faint coming from an old piece of evidence, one of the first villains they had taken care of.

"No way..." he whispered in horror as he saw whom the evidence piece belonged too. To make sure, he thundered into the basement and found one of many boxes dedicated to the man. It was potent, and Beast Boy was confident he knew who it was. He ran as fast as possible to the ops room.

Raven had gotten nowhere with the mental link and fell back on the video footage. The picture was fuzzy, that much was sure. She was able to determine that he came from the south part of the city, which was mostly abandoned warehouses and factories. In other words, every criminal's hideout. She ran the picture through multiple filters, trying in vain to sharpen the image. Eventually, she got to a point where she could run the image through an archive and cross-reference it with other villains. The result was less then pleasing. "You have got to be kidding me." She hurried to the ops room to announce her find.

Cyborg had furiously been typing away, trying to find some clue of the owner of the boot. It was a standard model, not custom like Batman's sole. But, the brand was high quality and super expensive. The narrowed it down to the big league villains. Great. They didn't have much information on the real names of some of their criminals, but they had a few. And he could also type in the name of any suspects and get a picture.