The Titans Tower training room had always been advanced. But this—this was something else.
The holographic combat simulator shifted around me like a breathing world. The environment had been set to a city skyline—sunset light filtering through virtual clouds, casting golden hues over concrete rubble and shattered glass.
And at the center of it all stood Mark a simulation of him. His cocky grin was the same. So were those cold eyes. But even knowing it wasn't the real thing, something inside me still tightened. My fists clenched on reflex.
Conner stood beside me, adjusting the output levels of his TK field. His breath was steady, his aura calm. I could feel how practiced he was. How efficient. Me? I was still adjusting.
Everything felt explosive. The moment my Viltrumite powers awakened, my body became a live wire. Every motion was faster. Every hit stronger. I had to focus to not get lost or drunk on the power thinking I'm invincible or something.
Conner threw the first punch. Mark dodged. I moved in, trying to flank him. My muscles responded with terrifying speed, but I stumbled slightly—still overshooting, still learning. "Focus!" Conner shouted, landing a solid hit on Mark's jaw.
"Roger!" I called back, slamming a fist into Mark's side. He buckled. For a moment, it felt good. The two of us traded blows with the hologram for several minutes. Mark's simulation was tough, but not overwhelming. Either I'd gotten better thanks to Ted's training—or this version was nerfed. I took a few blows but didn't really feel anything.
Conner said I have to set my TK field to a point where I can feel the vibrations and small pressure from the changes around me or it dulls my senses making me more sloppy and a open target. Still Adjusting I breathed slowly and focused on the small sensations and when I think I got it. Mark punched me through a building and Conner said "I said focus not meditate mid fight." I grumbled and said of course and flew back into the fight.
We beat him. He fell to one knee, then flickered out of existence. I didn't have long to breathe. Because Omni-Man appeared behind us and in three seconds, he destroyed us.
Simulation over.
I lay on the mat, groaning. The pain wasn't real—but the hit felt real enough. Conner sat up, brushing himself off. "Don't worry," he said. "That's normal. Especially the first time." I glanced at him. "That was your first time getting decapitated?"
He grinned. "No, I meant your first time sparring with a fully upgraded Viltrumite sim. And I run that one on a higher difficulty setting. Helps push me." I groaned again. "Why would you do that to yourself?" "Prepare for the unknown," he said. "Plus, it keeps me grounded. Reminds me I've got work to do."
I laughed. "Let me know if I can help." He stood, extending a hand. "You're already helping. I'm not as strong as Kara—but with you around, that might change." I raised an eyebrow, reading something in his voice. "How's that going, by the way?"
Conner looked away. "Probably the same way it's going for you." I blinked. "Meaning?" "She avoids me," he said. "Barely talks. Won't make eye contact unless she has to."
I chuckled. "So she's being subtle. Got it." He rolled his eyes. "I remember the first time we met—she hit me so hard it dislocated my jaw." "Lucky." I said. Conner stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "Okay, crazy. I'm hitting the weights."
I followed him across the gym to a massive press machine—easily twice the size of a car. Reinforced steel. Graphene composite. Looked like something out of a sci-fi armory. Conner patted the bench. "Cyborg built this. For the League and Titans members with superstrength. It auto-adjusts based on power levels."
He stepped under the bar. "My max? 550 tons." I blinked. "Tons?" "Donna's second. 500. Supergirl's at 900. Wanna try?" I cracked my knuckles and stepped under the machine, lying down and grabbing the cold metal bar. The whole machine rumbled softly as it calibrated.
"Let's go," I said
I gripped the bar, every muscle in my arms and chest burning like wildfire. The massive weight above me groaned with pressure, pushing down like a living mountain. Conner hovered nearby, spotting me with practiced ease.
"That's ten," he said. "You're at 400 tons. That's already more than most metas will ever touch." I clenched my teeth. "Keep it going." He gave a small smirk and pressed a button as the machine and added more resistance.
My body screamed. But I didn't stop. I pressed again. Again. Sweat poured down my face, soaking through the compression shirt. My arms felt like concrete—solid, burning, and heavy—but I kept going. Until I couldn't.
I finally let the bar stop itself and move back into place and collapsed my arms back onto the bench, gasping. My muscles twitched involuntarily, still tense from the strain.
Conner offered a hand. I took it. "You maxed at 700 tons," he said, grinning. "You're now the second strongest in the Tower."
I sat up, stunned. "You serious?" He held up a hand. I slapped it, a victorious grin breaking across my face despite the aching in my arms. Just then, the door to the training room slid open with a mechanical hiss. "Yo," Cyborg called out, stepping inside. "How's it going, heavy lifters?"
We both turned. "Pretty good," Conner said. "Cain just benched 700." Cyborg raised an eyebrow. "Not bad. You're catching up." Then he turned to Conner. "Oh—and correction? Kara's record isn't 900."
Conner blinked. "It's not?"
Cyborg smirked. "Nah. She hit over 900 tons. But—" He raised a finger. "—she was still supercharged from a solar flare that day and kinda broke the machine. So we don't count it. Officially."
Both of us stared at him.
"I'm upgrading this baby tomorrow night," Cyborg said, patting the side of the machine. "It'll be better calibrated for Viltrumites, Kryptonians, and Martians. Real pressure-tested stuff. But only a few of you get access to it." He turned to me and held out a small black device—sleek, streamlined, with a glowing 'T' etched into the center.
My new communicator. "Dick filled me in on everything," Cyborg said. "Glad you're here. Thanks for trusting us." I took it and turned it over in my hand. It looked like something out of the Teen Titans cartoon—but sleeker, more refined. The weight of it felt good. Solid.
I kept that thought to myself and nodded. "Thanks, man. For everything." He gave me a nod, then motioned to a console nearby. "Now, I hear you're trying to get into space?" I scratched the back of my head. "Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to fly from Earth to somewhere like the Moon without getting lost. Or, you know… dying."
Conner chuckled. "I'd help, but… I've never actually done it myself. Not all the way."
"No problem," Cyborg said, already tapping into the terminal. "I'll calibrate your visors with basic trajectory mapping and atmospheric density readouts. That way, until you guys get used to space flight, you won't get overwhelmed."
He handed us both new visors. They slid over our ears and eyes like sleek goggles, syncing with the communicators. "Just don't fly to close to the Sun Conner might be okay but I still wouldn't test it," Cyborg muttered. "This is a test flight since your our only heavy hitters besides Kara that can fly into space."
Conner and I shared a look.
I smirked. Then we walked out to the Tower balcony, facing the open sky. "Ready?" Conner asked. I took a breath. Then we launched. The wind screamed past me, the sky shifting from blue to black as the stars unfolded above.
We broke through the atmosphere like it was paper. And to my surprise… it didn't hurt at all.
It felt like freedom.
I never thought flying to the moon would feel… peaceful.
Cold silence. No wind. No air. No up. No down. Just motion, gravity, and instinct.
I held my breath as we broke atmosphere, not from panic, but because I had to. Viltrumites can survive in the vacuum of space by holding their breath for nearly two weeks, if the stories are true. Still don't know how—no food, no air, no sleep. Maybe it's just part of the genetic cocktail. Or maybe the Empire just trained their warriors to become machines.
Conner flew beside me, arms tucked close, holding his breath with ease. We neared the moon fast. "How's the breathing?" I asked telepathically, reaching into his mind with surprising ease.
He flinched in the void, then turned to me with raised brows. "You can do that?"
"All Viltrumites can. Low-level telepathy—useful for space travel and language transfer. We share thoughts when sound doesn't work."
"Convenient," he said. "Saves me a lot of sign language." We touched down on the moon's surface a moment later, kicking up a puff of lunar dust. The silence was eerie… but calm. Cyborg's voice came through the visor audio a second later. "Thirty minutes to the moon. Good. Eventually, I want you both down to ten."
I tried to respond—nothing. Conner laughed inside my mind. "He can't hear you. You can't talk back to Cyborg without the proper relay." "Guess I'm stuck being the quiet type," I thought.
A flight path lit up across our HUDs. "Best route back to Titans Tower," Cyborg said. "Be careful on re-entry. You're fast, but the planet doesn't care how cool you are."
"Race you," I said to Conner with a grin. He grinned back. "You're on."
We launched.
The moon cracked behind us, dust flaring like an explosion as we pushed hard, flying faster than I thought my body could handle. We hit the upper atmosphere like twin meteors. The heat didn't hurt—it was like rushing through a hot shower. Wind buffeted me. Clouds shredded in my wake.
But then I realized something.
"Hey, uh… Conner—I don't actually know how to stop." "Use your TK field—push outward and slow your inertia! Angle your body downward—aim for water!" I barely managed. Just enough to avoid face-planting into a mountain range.
I managed to stop inches above the water but the force of my re-entry didn't stop and hit the water with a thunderous impact, a huge wave rippling out in every direction. When the beach of the tower tide returned to normal I saw two figures surfaced, soaked and coughing nearby.
Karen(Bumblebee) stood on the shore in a black bikini with yellow accents, her arms crossed. She was soaked. And not happy. Her dark skin shimmered in the sun, curly hair matted from the wave. "I wasn't planning to get my hair wet today, new guy," she said with mock annoyance, though I caught a glint of humor in her eyes.
Donna was laughing, brushing wet strands from her face. "That was fun," she said, spinning in the surf. I blushed. Karen looked even better in person than any version of her I'd seen in the comics and shows. Her earlier flirtation played back in my head. I kept the thought to myself.
Then Karen smirked. "You calmer now? You seemed a little… tense earlier." I smiled. "Yeah. I'm doing better." Both women exchanged a glance I couldn't decipher, while Conner finally landed next to me, shaking off water like a dog.
"Twenty minutes flat," Cyborg buzzed through. "Solid progress. Do it a few more times."
Donna and Karen not wanting to get get wet flew to the top of the Tower rolled out towels on the Tower roof, tanning under the sun while we launched again.
We did ten more round trips each one slightly more faster. By the last run, our time was consistently under twenty minutes. Later that evening, we found ourselves in the Tower's communal showers. The place was surprisingly spacious—high-tech, clean, and clearly built with meta-level strength and stress in mind.
"Didn't expect something this nice," I said, stretching.
"Starfire's idea," Conner replied. "Said post-mission showers should be social. I think she meant well." We laughed.
Then the door opened with Donna and M'gann walking in. I felt a weird a shift in the the room when M'gann and Conner noticed each other. "Uh…" I turned to Conner. "Yeah. No big deal," he said. "We used to date. Ended things last year. Still cool."
The two girls gave us a wave and took the far end of the showers. Still, the mood was… somewhat tense. Then Samantha walked in, towel slung over her shoulder, and stopped dead in her tracks.
"Oh," she said, blinking. "Thought it'd be empty." She looked ready to leave, but M'gann and Donna waved her in. She hesitated, then joined them.
I tried to focus on rinsing off—but something prickled at the back of my mind voices and thoughts. I focused on the feeling then it became clearer.
"This is so weird." Samantha and M'gann both thought.
"How are you holding M'gann?" "I'm fine Samantha me and Conner ended things on I guess good terms." "Then why have you two been avoiding each other unless theirs a mission it's been a whole year." Donna said. Samantha said break ups are difficult for some people Donna.""
Especially when you still have feelings and cant act on them." Samantha would then say "I didnt expect the two over there to be so big." Donna would say yes Conner has been getting stronger every year since the incident and Cain had been very blessed with two great linages." M'gann would say "I don't think that's what she meant Donna."
M'gann would look at Cain with a quick glance "Cain's… huge like his manhood." Donna would elbow the two and mentally say it's rude to stare ladies and disrespectful to the men especially to Cain who just came back after all these years." It's just an observation is all Donna no need to get rough.
Then Samantha would say I know there are no men of Paradise Island so I get that you dont understand the type of man Cain is. Donna would say yes it has been a view years but from what I heard from batgirl.
Cain is a great man and you say a lot of good things about the company he runs for his mother. Yeah in our society he would be considered a Unicorn. Donna would say that I meant Unicorns that wouldn't like that comparison.
Samantha would say "That's not what I meant but please introduce me to some Unicorns later please. But what I mean Donna is that Unicorn is a term in the dating world saying a man has alot of the qualities most woman want in their future partners. " He's tall, dark, powerful, rich, and definitely blessed."
I blinked then saw flashes of mental imagery. Glances at me while my back is turned. Questions to how big I am with other curiosity popping up in their heads. I would smirk under the hot water hitting my head. Conner looked at me. "What's so funny?"I didn't answer.
Instead, I turned to the women and said calmly, Hey ladies, and they all half turned covering their chest but Donna just turned her head. I then continued "It's rude to gossip about a person when your literally right behind his back and I turn completely turn their way not hiding anything.
Donna kept eye contact but I could tell she saw everything and didn't bat an eye. While the other two obviously stared shocked I would expose myself. "My eyes are up here, ladies. And it's rude to talk about us like that through a psychic link." All three girls froze.
M'gann's cheeks flamed. Samantha covered her face with both hands. Donna raised a brow and shrugged. "Your right Cain I'm sorry about these two." Conner looked confused. "Wait—what's going on?" "I heard them," I said. "All of it. The link. The gossip. The compliments."
"That's not supposed to be possible!" M'gann protested. I shrugged. "Guess I'm special." Samantha stammered. "We didn't mean anything. It was just harmless girl talk…"I stepped out of the spray, grabbing a towel. "It's your minds—I can't control your thoughts. But next time, maybe don't link up and discuss us like we're models in a catalog."
Donna nodded. "Fair." I smirked. As Conner and I walked out, I heard one last comment behind us. "Nice ass," Samantha thought casually. Conner groaned. "It's not usually like this." I laughed. "No complaints. At least now I know what people actually think."
"Where to now?" "My stomach's louder than that wave I made. Got food?" "Rec room's this way." We walked off, fresh, not even sore, and lighter than I'd felt in weeks.