(AoH) A Stranger in a Strange Land [Fic]

[Titan]

Three weeks ago...

Tai Tsien took a tray from the stack, and moved forward in line. The man in front of him was named Kirby, and he had no eyes. Instead, he wore shaded crystals over his eyes. Tai Tsien watched the man inhale deeply through his nose, and break into a wide smile.

"Mashed potatoes and gravy, eh Annie?" The middle aged woman ladling out the food smiled and nodded to Tai Tsien.

"That's right, Mr. Jackson, and Salisbury steak."

Kirby Jackson turned his shaded eyes towards Tai Tsien, "I love Sundays, Sawyer, damn if I don't."

Tai Tsien smiled slightly and nodded his head. "Yes, Sundays the food is good." He had given the man his name, but he insisted on calling Tai Tsien by this 'Sawyer'. Most of the others here called him this as well, and Tai Tsien answered to it readily.

"Damn right," Kirby said. Tai Tsien was still unsure of the meaning of this phrase, it seemed to mean the opposite of what Kirby used it for. However, he was quite used to hearing it. Tai Tsien pulled the drawstring of his hood tighter. He liked this 'sweat shirt'. It covered his mantle of office, and he liked the color. Tai Tsien had only recently realized that 'Washington' was a place different from the area to the north,, and that the 'Redskins' were a group that competed in a mock warfare. He had considered trying to find a covering that celebrated the group of this city, but he liked the one he had. The picture of the man on the front was stoic and sad, he had a noble face.

He sat down with his food at a table next to the blind man. Tai Tsien had been aghast when he learned that these people could not regrow Kirby's eyes. The misunderstanding had been blown over by Kirby's good nature, and he had been looking out for Tai Tsien for months. The old man thought that he was a bit slow, which Tai Tsien supposed was true. Tai Tsien dug into his food with relish. All around him, the disadvantaged of this city ate. At a nearby table, a woman wailed suddenly.

Tai Tsien looked at her in surprise. The woman wept as though her heart would break. He started to go to her, but Kirby's hand on his arm stopped him. "Leave her alone, Sawyer. It's her boy Jerome."

"Jerome?" Tai Tsien was alarmed. "Where is Jerome?" The boy had been one of the first people Tai Tsien had spoken to on this world, had directed him here to the shelter, in fact, almost nine moon phases ago.

Kirby shook his head in disgust. "Down under the bridge with those friends of his. Them he thinks his friends, anyway. They gonna try to make some trouble with the Yin-Yang kids, I heard. Jerome is in over his head, Sawyer, and ain't nothing you can do to fix it. Least of all by gettin' involved with her."

Jerome's mother was, so far as Tai Tsien had been able to determine, lost to manufactured chemicals. This was a past time Tai Tsien had not been able to grasp, but made him feel enormous pity for Jerome. This possession of a person until their body stopped growing in height simply because they possess half your genetic code was baffling to him in any case. He could not understand why the boy was not raised by professionals at rearing and training the young. All the young humans were entrusted to whoever's genetic code they carried, instead of those best suited to the task, and they wondered why they could not achieve a closer unity with one another.

Still, there was perhaps some action he could take, on behalf of the boy.

[Titan]

"Sawyer? Sawyer? Where you goin'? Get back here, boy!" Kirby Jackson called after Tai Tsien, and many of the other residents of Harbor House turned to look. Tai Tsien pulled the strings on his hooded sweat shirt tight, allowing only a hole to see through. Privacy was a thing that you took for granted until it was gone. On his world, a companion, even family, would never have called after him. And if by some remote chance they had, no one would have turned to look. That was, in part, what had caused Tai Tsien to hesitate for all these months.

He strode quickly through the eating hall, weaving between tables as the pleas from the blind man trailed off. Tai Tsien liked Jerome. In spite of these people's barbaric child rearing practices, or... perhaps because of them, he admitted reluctantly to himself, Jerome was becoming a genuinely good person. He cared for others, and though he didn't fight back against his mother's unreasonable anger, he didn't let her crush his spirit, either. Tai Tsien thought quite a lot of the young Earthman, and was surprised that he was caught up with a group of young people who sought to harm others. It seemed very unlike Jerome.

He reached the exit, and pushed open the door. He lifted off the ground and as he rose, he unbuckled his belt, and let his pants fall, kicking off his boots as well. He shrugged out of his jacket, hovering thirty feet in the air, and it fluttered to the ground. Tai Tsien hesitated, and looked at his hooded sweatshirt. The 'Redskin' man stared back with his one eye. Then Tai Tsien laughed, and ripped it off. The mantle of office twinkled bluely in the sun. Tai Tsien chuckled as his safety flag fluttered free. Imagine becoming sentimental over a thing!

He clenched his fist, and turned in the air, until he was facing the Bay Bridge, with the Golden Gate to his left. Extending his fist, he drew forward, lifting his feet behind him, and flew toward the water.

[Titan]

Tai Tsien streaked towards the Bay Bridge, his safety flag streaming out behind him. As he flew, he tasted the air. A storm is coming, he thought. He looked at the clouds in disgust. On his homeworld, he could make adjustments to the weather that affected hundreds of square miles, because the atmosphere was highly regulated by a cadre of Cloudeners like himself. A well regulated atmosphere could be easily fine-tuned. On this world, the atmosphere was chaos. It took a significant portion of his mantle's power to change anything, and then only in a very small area, and the changes he made were quickly incorporated into the chaos and dissipated. It was humbling, and extremely frustrating. He would have almost felt powerless, except that what little he could do was more than almost any other person on this planet.

He put the weather from his mind as he descended toward the Bay Bridge. He brought his feet under him and hovered upright, scanning for any sign of Jerome. The concrete paved area under the overpass of the bridge was deserted. No, there was a young female curled up against one of the pillars holding up the bridge. He could hear her sobs, and flew lower.

"Hello, child."

The girl looked up quickly, dusty streaks of wet on her brown cheeks. Her jaw dropped as she spied Tai Tsien, and she scrubbed her eyes with the back of a hand.

"Where have they gone?" He asked. It was an assumption, but a good one, he thought. The girl was of an age with Jerome and his 'friends', and she was obviously upset, though it would violate privacy to notice.

The girl stumbled to her feet, pointing north. "We tried to stop 'em, me and Jerome. But they won't listen! They're goin' to the docks to fight the Yin Yang Clan, and they took Jerome with 'em! Said it would make him a man. But, mister! He ain't one of them! You can stop 'em, right? You can stop em, sure! Don't let 'em hurt Jerome, mister!"

Tai Tsien listened gravely. "Jerome is your...friend?"

The girl nodded vigorously up at him. "You gotta save him, mister!"

Tai Tsien nodded solemnly. "I will."

He rose up further into the air, until he was above the bridge. Below him, the girl shaded her eyes and looked up at him. He was glad of the change in her posture and expression. Where she was hopeless before, now she showed hope in every line of her stance. Tai Tsien was determined not to let that hope go unfulfilled. He flew north quickly, towards the docks.

[Titan]

Tai Tsien spotted the two groups of young men from about a mile and a half away. There was a space between them, but as they shouted at one another, the gulf narrowed. He frowned in consternation. When he had first arrived on this world, his complete lack of knowledge kept him from getting involved in localized conflicts, of which the world had plenty. Once he had learned the language and an approximation of the customs, privacy and a natural inclination to avoid conflict had stayed his hand. What he saw before him, however, looked like 'War'.

Like all the inhabitants of Neo Harmonium, Tai Tsien had spent time with the Defenders, so in theory he knew of 'War'. His training included physical violence and the use of his mantle to give violent response to any invasion force that may threaten his homeworld. The thought of using this training against another citizen horrified him. He had read the 'news' papers of this world, he knew of the heroes that had recently appeared, of their exploits, and he was aware that his mantle, his biology, gave him a superiority that easily could be classed as 'superheroic'. Even his mantle and safety flag made him look dressed for such a role. Until today, however, he had hesitated.

Now, as he streaked towards a small war, he picked Jerome out of the group and felt a focus and intensity that he had not felt in his lifetime. He would stop this war before the first blow if he could, but if he could not, he would defend Jerome against harm, violently if he must. Tai Tsien found that he had it in himself to do this thing, and felt saddened by it, but no less determined. He put his head down and rocketed to the gulf between the two groups.

Tai Tsien reversed his speed quickly, just before hitting the ground, and bent his knees with the impact, so that he almost knelt as he stopped suddenly on the concrete. His safety flag spread around him, he placed the tips of the fingers of one hand on the dock to steady himself, then stood slowly. He heard the gasps all around him, and saw both groups back away from him, and was gratified. Then one of the boys spoke, and he felt his control on the situation slip.

"Who the fuck YOU?" The boy was lighter of skin than Jerome and the boys who had brought him here, but Tai Tsien did not think that was why the two groups were fighting. Or, not the only reason. It was territorial, he thought, and pointless. The boy was from a group that Tai Tsien's blind friend Kirby called 'Chinese'. The Yin Yang Clan was a terror on the North side of the City, and perhaps they were expanding south. Whatever the reason for the fight, Tai Tsien had to stop it, for Jerome, but also because it was wrong. These young people should work together to solve their problems, not fight over nothing. The boy looked aggressive, and Tai Tsien turned to him.

The boy pulled a hand weapon from the waistband of his pants.

"WHO THE FUCK YOU?" He fired it at Tai Tsien, again and again.

Tai Tsien felt a flicker of fear, and when the projectiles hit him- in the ribs, in the chest, in the cheek- it hurt. He felt a hard blow to his midsection and a ringing slap to the face. He took it, though it rocked his head back. He brought his gaze back to the boy.

As he inhaled to speak, he performed a complex operation quickly. It was one that was second nature to him, but never before in this context. He used the mantle of office to reach up, up, to the higher atmosphere, where the winds are fierce and cold, and opened a vacuum tube in the intervening air. The rushing wind filled the space immediately, rushing down the voided space towards Tai Tsien, who guided it swiftly towards the 'Chinese' boy.

"I am TAI TSIEN" he said loudly, extending his hand and allowing a blast of hard, cold air to strike the front line of the Yin Yang Clan. The boys on the front line toppled like dominoes. The boy with the weapon fell back and rolled, his gun flung away from him with a clatter. Those Yin Yang on the back edges fled, as did some behind him, in the darker skinned group. This was good, thought Tai Tsien. He turned to the leaders of that group.

"Go home. Leave Jerome."

The boys looked as one at Jerome, whose eyes were round as he stepped forward, out of the lifeless grip of his former captors. Tai Tsien raised his voice until it echoed off of the shipping containers and buildings of the docks.

"ALL OF YOU, GO HOME!"

They did, boys falling over one another, tripping and sprawling only to pick themselves up and run again, away from Tai Tsien. Both groups disappeared quickly, leaving Jerome and Tai Tsien alone with the sound of dozens of running footsteps. Soon, even that faded, and the two looked at one another.

"Sawyer?" asked Jerome hesitantly.

"Your mother was very upset. You should come home." Tai Tsien felt awkward suddenly. He had violated Jerome's privacy, committed violence against another. He would do it again. He felt a faint shame at the knowledge, and was disturbed that it was faint.

"Oh, Sawyer, thank God you came." Jerome sagged suddenly, and his breath became ragged. He looked like he was fighting back tears.

Tai Tsien smiled, and motioned Jerome to come to him. He put an arm across Jerome's back, his hand under Jerome's arm, and held him tightly as they left the ground gently. Jerome gasped as he realized they were flying.

"You really are a superhero! Holy shi- uh, holy crap, you really are!"

Tai Tsien smiled faintly and nodded. "So it would seem."

"Titan is a pretty kick-ass name, too." Jerome wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, but his smile seemed genuine, and Tai Tsien thought that he was over being scared. Jerome pointed at his symbol of office, embedded into the chestpiece of his mantle, "That's what the 'T' stands for, huh?"

Titan grinned. The rushing cloud and arrow of rain that symbolized a Cloudener on Neo Harmonium did look very much like an English letter 'T'. It would do.

"Yes. Titan is a good name. Let us go home."

And they did.