A shifting destiny(Athena Logan)

[Johnny Gardner]

Jonathan Gardner was one who would do whatever it took to see that his family would survive. Given that Cadmus had a bomb in his neck and the only method of treating the disease his mother Ice had, which was a side-effect of her abilities he was required to do things a hero normally would find objectionable. Such as now, for example when he was lowering himself onto the roof of the tower of the Titans, clad in his costume, and a set of goggles he had been loaned that would work as his "mask" for the time being. Gritting his teeth and muttering several obscenities directed at Cadmus, and their board of directors, and at the Titans, and at the Justice League he landed on the roof top. Well landed was too generous of a word. More like he crashed into the roof at high speeds, but without breaking through it. Really he needed to work to get a hang of the ability of flight. 

"Hmm. Introduce myself to the Titans, well that will happen soon,"  said Johnny, looking over the Tablet that held his assignments for the day from Cadmus.  "Fight the leader of the Titans. Haven't done that yet... but soon." 

He'd sigh, and shift into his stance. Hopefully the battle would be an easy one. 

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

The roof of the Tower was reinforced for hard landings – with so many Titans and allies who could fly, the roof was sometimes more of a hot spot than the living room. The volleyball court on the roof sat on the far left of the layout, with the door and stairway that led down into the Tower in the middle. A few chairs and extra blankets were scattered around the roof, left out from a late summer party. Shift frowned at the alarm that said someone had landed, hard, on the roof, without a Titans’ communicator on them. Almost all their allies had one, or they were registered in the system as an ally so the Tower alarms wouldn’t constantly be going off.

It was something she had better check out, the Titan decided, striding up the long, metal stairway to the roof door. Tapping in her password, the console beeped cheerily and the door swung open. The green furred Teen Titan stepped out into the sunlight, raising a hand to her eyes and squinting as they adjusted. After a moment, she caught sight of an unfamiliar figure – taller than her and broader, too, but neither of those were hard to accomplish. “Hey! Do you need help? What’s your name?” Shift called out, letting the access door swing shut as she started walking towards Johnny.

The early fall sun was still hot enough to be noticeable, and it went double for Athena, covered in sparse green fur. Her eyes, a dark brown with specks of green, trailed from the HIVE recruit to the destruction his crash-landing had left – another repair job for Jump City’s construction workers. But she’d deal with that later; her eyes focused back on Johnny as she waited for his answer, still making her way closer to the boy.

words: 302 | tagged: Johnny Gardner

[Johnny Gardner]

"So you are the leader of the Teen Titans,  "Athena "Shift."  Logan."  said Johnny, as he looked at her. Truthfully he had expected more from the leader of a superhero team. However, he knew she was likely to pose a challenge if she knew his real reason for being on the roof. While he did find fighting a woman distasteful, and would normally make such extremely evident there were a number of factors that prevented him from doing so. One of them was the explosive in his neck. Now, if it were an ordinary explosive, he would ignore it. However, it was powerful enough to blow up six city blocks. So, he was not willing to put others at risk by breaking orders.  "You can call me "Construct."  As to why I am here, well, I've come to challenge you, and put you on notice. " 

He'd pause for a moment.  "Should you or your team become like the Justice Lords, or any similar groups, my team and myself will be forced to stop you. I may not be a hero, like my dad was, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to play the role,"  said Johnny as he looked her over for a moment.  "Ready yourself, as an assignment of mine involves us sparring. Well, fighting, actually." 

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

wildly lawful

Oh, so he did recognize her. Athena nodded, confused if he was asking or stating – it wasn’t like she could blend into a crowd, normally. A forest, maybe… The heroine was distracted from her thoughts as he kept talking, an uncomfortable look on his face that clearly took him an effort to mask with a more determined set to his chin. She wondered what Construct wanted, and was opening her mouth to ask when he said he was here to challenge her, and...put her on notice!? As if she and her team were children who couldn’t handle their own problems? The insinuation made her pride wrinkle, followed by a crease between her eyebrows as the Titans’ brows furrowed.

“Okay, listen, I don’t know why you’re here, Construct, and I appreciate you being a fan and all, but that’s not how this works.” She spoke up, incredulous laughter in her voice. Not amused, but shocked that he would say something so strange. “You can’t just go around challenging people, and you can’t put my team on any kind of 'notice' – we don’t even let the Justice League do that.” A few feet away from Johnny, Shift stopped walking, using disdainful air quotes around notice. They were close enough so neither of them would have to yell to be heard, but far enough away that she felt somewhat at ease. She would have felt better with her teammates, but that’s what she got for going up to the roof alone, she guessed. Better plan ahead next time, she thought to herself.

Her hands went up and out as a gesture of peace – palms facing out, it was a clear signal the Titan meant no harm. “Is this some prank? Did my team put you up to this? I’m not fighting you.” She shook her head, tight dark brown curls flying at the motion, showing a glimpse of her pointed, pierced ears.

credit to Dark Raveness of adoxography

words: 319 | tagged: Johnny Gardner  

[Johnny Gardner]

So she didn't want to fight him. This was good, because it meant his preliminary evaluation of her and the Titans was wrong which meant he could report that to his superiors. It should allow him to show them some mercy, and not do the plans that they had for the Titans, at the very least. Of course, the plans would be likely to happen anyway, if the Titans continued to get power houses added into their ranks. This was a difficult situation for him. On the one hand he wanted to show mercy to the Teen Titans, and to their respective allies. Yet on the other hand, the explosive in his neck was just one of his problems. The bomb that had been implanted could level six city blocks and likely would endanger several hundred, if not more innocents should it go off. Allowing it to detonate was not in his best interests, in any form of the word.  

Johnny looked at her for a moment and sighed. In truth he hated it that Cadmus had such a tight leash on him. Between the bomb and the treatment for his mother's disease though...he could ill afford to disobey. A tear came to his eye which he roughly wiped away, and he stated. "Make no mistake, I am not a fan. I am an agent of the government, and soon to be leader of a team you were at odds with, the HIVE. Only this time they'll be government sanctioned, with the purpose of handling you should you and your team go rogue, turn into monsters, or get otherwise turned against humanity. Know that I take no pleasure from it, but don't have a choice in the matter."  

He'd then assume his fighting stance, and say to her.  "As I believe in fighting fair, though due to your lack of experience,"  Jonathan removed the grenades he had on his person, the two hand guns, and the Kris knife, before setting it down, as well as the brass knuckles on both of his arms.  "I shall refrain from using anything but my abilities." 

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

wildly lawful

He looked relieved, so she relaxed, falling out of her tense stance as he seemed to be thinking something over. Shift was already planning how she could get her prankster teammates back for this joke – sending someone to act like he wanted to fight her, please. She could do way better than that! It was…kind of a weird joke, though, the shape shifter mused. Not really Titan style. Hair dye, short-sheeting someone’s bed, changing the sugar to salt, that was more their speed. This was a lot more involved. Athena opened her mouth to ask Johnny about her team – mostly, how much they’d paid him – when he wiped at his face.

She took a step forward, feeling guilty – she hadn’t been too harsh on the kid, had she? Guilt swelled inside the young woman and her hand reached out toward him when Construct looked up again, a dark set to his face that she didn’t like. Just as her hand dropped down, Johnny started talking, outlining his true role. He wasn’t some kid her teammates had bribed into pranking her; no, far from it. He was an agent – of the government? She scoffed at that; since when did they recruit kids…and who’d heard of the HIVE in years? They’d disbanded a long time ago, their last hide-out a ruined old mess that developers had been poking at for ages.

Again, the Titan held up her hands, palms out, though she had a more serious look on her face now. Ugh, she should have radioed for help. But if the roof caved in, at least the rest of the team would definitely be awake. “Construct, listen to me. My team isn’t going to go rogue. We’re the good guys! Why should I fight you, if all you want to do is help us protect the city? That doesn’t make any sense.” The heroine pointed out, spreading her hands out in an encompassing gesture. As his implements dropped to the ground, the Titan felt a phantom pain in the wound on her right shoulder – thanks to a rooftop fight with Blacklist years ago, she’d been wary of knives ever since. Her stance moved to a sturdier one, more grounded, ready if he came towards her to block a fist.

The Titan didn’t want to fight, but she would if she had to.

credit to Dark Raveness of adoxography

words: 390 | tagged: Johnny Gardner

[Johnny Gardner]

"Unfortunately, whether I like the assignment or not, learning what you are capable of is my mission. My handlers have recommended I do so "by combat" against you, for some reason. I ultimately have no choice in the subject matter,"  said Johnny, looking at her forlornly. "But there is one thing you could do that would allow me to beg off for now. You see, over the years you Titans have collected quite an assortment of toys. Slade's Robots, Control Freak's remote, Red X's suit, many other things. These worry the governmental people who have forced me to do this job,"  said Jonathan to her. 

"They told me to seize all those possessions, and destroy a good chunk of them save for the Red X suit. Now, if it were up to me, I would leave you alone. However, as their orders have....consequences for more than just me if I disagree or even don't follow through with just one of them,"  Jonathan began. "So I will leave it up to you. Shall we fight about the items, or will you hand them over without any sort of fight?" 

[Athena 'Shift' Logan]

wildly lawful

He didn't look like he wanted to do it - that must have been why he hadn't just attacked the Tower, or found her on patrol of the city and jumped her. He was trying to work around it, as best he could, and she was grateful for it. His landing had been rough on the Tower roof, admittedly, but at least he hadn't totally wrecked a hole through it, so that was something. (It was way better than some of their more intense volleyball games with the Titans' East team. Not that she was pointing fingers or anything.) Then Construct kept talking about what his...handlers?...wanted, and she grew much less thankful, and much more wary.

"They...can't have those. That's not how that works. That's not how that's, like, ever worked." She exclaimed. They couldn't just hand tech like that over to someone in the government - no superhero did that. It was just tradition! The Teen Titans were all about breaking musty old traditions, but this one was a fun one, and it kept the tech from spreading - either to the black market or to unscrupulous military or black market instillations, and it made the baddies they'd taken the stuff from have to build it over again, which gave the heroes a little bit of a break, too. They handed over the really dangerous stuff, like creepy alien tech or nuclear lasers or giant skyscraper-sized turtles to the appropriate institutions, of course, they weren't stupid, but keeping some toys from their baddies was a long-standing thing. Batman did it, and he was one of the oldest heroes around!

Making a note to tease whichever Bat-spawn she ran into next, Athena raised her hands. "Nope. I can't let you have them. Better get ready to tell your handlers you get beat, Construct." She replied, shaking her head and tensing for a fight.

credit to Dark Raveness of adoxography

words: 308 | tagged: Johnny Gardner

[Johnny Gardner]

Cadmus was most certainly not going to be happy that the heroine had not surrendered the equipment without a brawl when he had began negotiations. However, the data on the fight between them was likely to be placating enough to convince them that he still had some value and was not to be eliminated right off the bat, surely. Jonathan sighed though. Honestly he had hoped to do without any form of violence against her, thus why he had sent Shei to serve as a distraction. Plus there was the fact that he hadn't wanted to get outnumbered by the heroes. One on one was going to be difficult enough for him, especially if he had a lot to learn about the emotional spectrum that the "Real Lanterns" were able to do. In that way he was nothing more than a flawed attempt for them to tap into something that already existed. 

Unfortunately their best efforts hadn't worked, to his knowledge. Still it was a good thing that he had some of the abilities, or he'd have been destroyed by the ones who trained him, and the accord he had struck was likely to have ended by now. For his mother's illness he had to do a lot of things he'd not normally consider doing. One of these involved engaging this heroine in battle, since she was not likely to surrender the equipment either. 

"Before we begin, can we move the battle off of your tower?"