The Teen Titans—Robin, Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg—remained alone in the room long after the two figures had already left. The first to speak was Robin, who, as always, was the one who generally made the best decisions, which was why he was the leader.
"That was nothing like what I expected," he said in a tone loud enough for his friends to hear, even the ones who were still eating something. And Robin did not overlook the fact that those beings knew more about them than they claimed to.
That was the conclusion he reached as he watched Beast Boy eating a vegetarian dish—something known not only among them, but to most people within the superhero circle. The green boy was a vegetarian.
But then, how did a being from another dimension know that? It was the kind of detail Robin had picked up on after observing for just a moment. His mentor wasn't the world's greatest detective for nothing she had drilled into him the habit of studying his surroundings for clues in everything, to the point that he had developed paranoia, something he was not even remotely proud of.
He sighed as he pointed out the problem, along with more observations about the place and the food, dishes that were clearly from Earth.
"Guys, let me ask you something… how did those beings know Beast Boy is a vegetarian?" Robin left the question hanging as he continued, watching the confused expressions on his teammates' faces. Only Cyborg and Raven began to piece it together, noticing the typical dishes and the clear mention of Earth at the start of Adrian's introduction. "It's not a secret, sure—but it's not something regular people would know outside the superhero circle affiliated with the League."
His words stopped everyone's train of thought, even the distracted Beast Boy and the innocent Starfire. Beast Boy stopped eating what he had in his hands, now suspicious of what was in front of them, just like the rest of the team.
Everyone fell silent for a moment silence Robin allowed before he continued with his conclusions.
"Not just that he mentioned Earth before we ever said that's where we were from." That alarmed everyone a little, now that they could think clearly without being watched, at least not explicitly. "And their way of speaking was too mechanical as if they complemented each other, or were talking among themselves without us noticing." Robin was about to continue, thinking back to the questions they had asked those titles or names they mentioned felt ominous. And when they finished speaking, Robin himself had felt the air grow lighter, as if a veil had been lifted—something he definitely hadn't overlooked.
But before he could even form the next words, Raven spoke up.
"I noticed something magical in them. The ones who were armed had an energy I can't quite describe, but I know it's magic," she said, explaining the supernatural quality she had sensed from the beings who had been there moments ago. "A lot of magic—so much that I can't measure it." She spoke before continuing, and none of them missed that she only mentioned the ones who were armed. "The ones wearing robes—[The Fabricator] and Asherah—gave off no energy at all, which is clearly wrong if they're part of this place's ruling caste."
She paused for a moment before giving them another piece of information something that possibly explained how these beings knew so much about them. "The other thing I noticed is that the emotions they emitted were heavily muted along with an almost perfectly controlled calm. And there was a psychic link… extremely complex. I could only tell that it connected them with each other and with others outside."
Raven finished, uncomfortable with being the center of attention and with having to explain what she sensed in this place.
Robin's mind worked at full speed with what Raven said. First of all, the people here were potentially high-ranking magical threats that was without counting the leaders, who were likely equal or superior to the guards or soldiers who had entered with them. What made things worse was that they were almost certainly practically confirmed a psychic hive or a naturally psychic species like the Martians.
That last part was not good at all. If that were the case, then they already knew everything there was to know about the Titans, and the questions they had asked were merely an act. Which didn't make sense either—if they had read their minds, they should've known their actions would seem suspicious the moment the Titans noticed the inconsistencies.
Which made everything harder to interpret. Were all the mistakes intentional? Or were they simply mistakes caused by the nature of this species one they knew nearly nothing about?
No. It couldn't have been a mistake. This "Adrian" had said they didn't see the Titans as a threat, so perhaps they just didn't care if they revealed they had the upper hand. Robin didn't know what to think. The headache from trying to understand what was very likely an alien mindset was wearing him down along with the pain in his broken arm. But he was pulled from his thoughts by his teammates' concerned looks and by Starfire's hand on his shoulder, giving him that comforting look he treasured so much.
He sighed, paranoia eating at him again, but at least he knew he wasn't alone in this his team was with him. They had already overcome issues like this… even if he himself hadn't entirely overcome his own tendencies.
"Robin, if you're calm now, I need to tell you something. While you were talking, I finished scanning everything," Cyborg said, sounding serious more serious than usual in these situations. "I don't want to sound pessimistic, but there's something my sensors detected… possibly the magic Raven sensed in those beings."
Cyborg stopped there, unsure how to explain what he was thinking—until Beast Boy spoke.
"Uh… Cy? You've got that 'I found something I really don't want to say' look. What's going on?"
Starfire, already sitting comfortably beside them, added her voice.
"Friend Cyborg, we know something worries you. Please share with us what you have discovered. We are all in this together."
Cyborg looked at the two most pure-hearted members of the team, feeling the weight of what he was about to say in his non-existent flesh-and-blood heart. With the steady support of Robin and Raven's eyes, he sighed. This was serious.
"…Alright. But listen carefully, because… because I don't even know if what I detected is accurate."
He raised his arm, which crackled before projecting a small screen full of unstable graphs—massive energy spikes vibrating as if they were too large to be represented accurately.
"When those guys left, I scanned the area again. I wanted to see if I could detect anything—even though, most of the time, magic slips past my sensors." He let the thought hang before zooming in on the graphs. "See this? This is energy. A lot of it. But it's not like any energy source I've ever seen."
He clenched his jaw before forcing himself to continue. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice.
"It's like a nuclear reactor." He pointed at the constant spikes on the screen. "Every signature I detected… matches or surpasses the output of a nuclear plant at full capacity. Every single one." He said it, unable to bring himself to look at Robin or Raven's faces both of whom understood exactly what that meant. But as he looked at his other friends, he continued, because they had to know.
"And the worst part is… I only detected the signatures from the soldiers who entered with the ones in white robes. The others… [The Fabricator] and the [battalion commander] … it's like they don't exist. Or their levels are so high that my sensors just can't process the data."
His explanation was cut short by the familiar sound of the door opening. A woman about the same height as the other members of this species entered the room. She wore the same military uniform as the guards who accompanied the Fabricator, with a single distinctive symbol that set her apart: a white emblem with red blocks, reminiscent of binary code. Her posture was identical to that of her kin, but the faint displeasure in her eyes was unmistakable.