Out of Breath (Open to Titans East)

As the door opened, surprisingly JaK Sage would be seen standing in the doorway. His left arm was still bandaged with gauze, but it wasn't in a sling however. He had regained the ability to move it slightly after the first day back and after a couple more he gained the ability to move it freely and touch objects without wincing. Now all he was waiting for was the skin to grow back. He was wearing his old typical outfit from when Grace first met him and had thought of skewering him for being rude. As he came into the room he would let it close and looked at the girl longingly as if wanting to help her, but then just spoke his concerns instead.

"Ya know, if you keep training so hard were gonna have to make Will buy us new equipment. I get what you're trying to do, really I've been there, but I'm telling you now working yourself half to death won't help. Were a team, it's about how we use are strength's and weaknesses to defeat our enemiess that make all the difference. Not getting rid of our weaknesses all together."

Obviously, JaK had been noticing how hard the girl had been training lately and knew how she must've felt. She took a bit more of a beating then the rest of the team other than JaK and he knew personally it can make you feel inadequate not being at the caliber of others on the team. On his old team he had Dan a mini superman in his own right, Blossom who could control the plant life for miles, Lance who could move Earth like it was water, Karrmy an alien that could make a tornado based on her very mood and Will who's actual potential still isn't known magically. All these powers made his ability to protect himself by just absorbing material around him made Sage seem like a Delta class metahuman. A schmuck in a way, not belonging in a leage of all star Alpha or Beta classes. But, he had to learn the hard way to deal with these issues if he was going to lead the team back then and now Grace needed to deal with her own if she was going to be a member of it.

"The first mission is never easy for anyone. You have wicked powers Grace and I'm sure you're going to get better and better over time, there's no rush."

JaK would then walk closer to the now sole female member of the team, she was occupying Karrmy's old room. It looked much better without all the pink and he kind of digged Grace's style. As he neared her he would put his hands in his pockets while thinking of his next answer carefully so she could understand.

"I'm not gonna pretend that I have all the answers Grace, but from experience I know one thing. We may not be people in the normal sense, but we are still human. And as human beings we can't be perfect no matter what we do, how hard we try, and how much we train. I'm not saying don't train your butt off or work hard because it's pointless anyway. What I'm saying is to do it with respect to what you can and cannot do. My powers for instance leave me without any type of projectile weapons. Dan has laser beams, Rocky can make the very ground pop up anywhere, Will can do a bunch of stuff, and you can shoot ice bullets correct? Well I'm only good for being shield in those situations. My strengths are close quarters combat. Now that could be viewed as a weakness, but instead of trying to change it, I work with it. Most of the time by having my teammates throw me at the guy that's to far away for me to hit. My armor making me a projectile weapon all in itself. So ya, bascially what I'm trying to say is don't try to get rid of all your weaknesess. Work with them and allow your team, no, OUR team to help turn them into your biggest strengths."

JaK himself was actually surprised at how good he had done with this explanation. Maybe being a gladiator had helped to humble him after all, or maybe he was just still feeling kind of mellow after that kiss Kat gave him.

"You have a brother? Is he a metahuman too?"

JaK was dumbfounded by this statement, not because Grace happened to be related to apparently an EXTREMELY powerful Meta human, but because he couldn't quite fathom how ice freezing could be translated into time freezing!?!

"Wow, Nazar would be jealous..."

Sage would then notice Grace's cluelesss expression and realize she hadn't actually met Nazar and if anything had just reviewed his profile on the Titans mainframe.

"Uhh ya, never mind. What I don't understand is, if your brother Argo is so uber-powerful. How come I've never heard of him? I mean I thought the league kept watch over all metahumans, especially super high level ones. Ya know, to make sure there's not some kid out there who can sneeze and blow up a city, but nobody knew about it until one day he had his last case of the sniffles."

As Grace said that the part about the league, JaK would drop his head. In a way it kind of brought him back to a place he had been before where he didn't even really consider hismelf a hero. I mean even during their 'discussion' with the JLA. They seemed to be more talkitive to Lance and Psychosis. Probably because Lance was technically leader now and Will was rich. So most of them probably knew his family through charity events or some ritzy affair. Superman was always at those things, but the others; Batman especially, seemed to look down on JaK as they got the full story. As if it was somehow his fault they even got put in that situation in the first place and at the time he wasn't sure if they were just showing him tough love because he got captured and needed to be more careful or if they just felt he didn't belong in the same class of the rest of the teen heroes.

"Ya you're probably right, they must be keeping it on the down-low or something so not to many people know about him. Ya know for his own safety."

JaK would say in a nonchalant manner as if sure in his answer, when really he was just trying to blurt out something so they could change the subject. As he was invited to sit down he would do so and grab one of the cookies assuming Grace had made them herself and took a bite of one. It was obvious if she did make them that she never ate her own cooking, which showed physically on her sexy thin exterior.

"Jeez, you really are a maid at heart aren't you? Haha"

By this he was referring to how tidy maids were and how they were always cooking snacks for their employers, also he heard that had been her job before.

"Oh no, just kinda odd to me I guess. The idea of someone cleaning up after someone else, the way I grew up the way we cleaned anything was by busting open a fire hydrant and soaking it and ourselves. Yup every other week I would look forward to wash off day. We would've done it more, but Gotham PD would get kinda pissy that we were wasting gallons of water."

JaK could see he might've offended with that last statement and decided to elaborate more on the subject to explain why anyone actually cleaning for a living was kind of absurd when you could jut bundle up most of the dirty stuff and spray it with a hose cleaning it in less than 15 minutes.

As she fell back, JaK thought this would be a good a time as any to go. He had at least formed a mutual relationship with Grace and hopefully helped her with her issues. Although, they really still weren't as close as he and Lance or Will were. All it would take was time and soon she'd feel like part of the family or was it the other way around now. Seeing as she's been here and JaK had been gone for a month or so.

"Well, I'll let you relax and clean up. I know how you cleanly people hate to be filthy for to long. Just remember Grace, there's only one Superman on this planet and the future Superwoman lives at the other tower. Just do you, the very best you, you can be and things will be fine. I'll always be here to have your back and of course the rest of the team too...Especially Lance.

As JaK would say this he would head for the door to leave, lingering a moment in case she had something to say. If not he'd let the electronic door close behind him and exit the room.