Element and the Gamer
By
Teen Tyrant
Description: Two twin brothers named Element and the Gamer join the Teen Titans. With their highly unique powers, they both make great additions to the team. But while Element seems to have found his place on the team, and a little understanding from one Titan in particular, Gamer may turn out to be a problem in the long run for some of the other Titans.
Author's Note: The characters of Element and the Gamer are both my creation and both are based on myself, in physical appearance and in a little bit of their attitudes. Even so, please remember that they are both fictional characters and insights into their psyche in later chapters of this story are not necessarily issues that I have to deal with myself. So please, no reviews filled with sympathy about my life. It's all just a work of fiction after all.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans. Since my character the Gamer is able to change into characters from existing videogames, I'm going to put a disclaimer at the beginning of every chapter for each game character he turns into. None of them are mine. For this first chapter, Resident Evil is property of Capcom and is not used for any gain. This is a work of fiction. Both Teen Titans and Resident Evil are being used unofficially for pure entertainment purposes.
Wow, long intro. Finally, on to the fic...
Chapter 1: New guys in town
The sun was shining brightly down on Jump City on this wonderful Saturday morning. Out in the bay, on a small island, stood a tower shaped like a T, and inside this tower, five young superheroes nervously awaited the arrival of their leader.
These young heroes, known to the world as the Teen Titans, were hoping that their plan to have this day off and be "normal" teenagers would come to fruition. Cyborg sat at the end of the couch in the common room, drumming his fingers on the armrest, hoping that Robin would live up to the agreement.
On the other end of the couch sat Beast Boy and his recently returned girlfriend, Terra. Neither of them were really confident that Robin would live up to the agreement. If so, they'd just have to go out on their own later on.
Starfire sat in the middle of the couch, hoping perhaps more than the others that Robin would allow them to spend a normal day in the city. He had been really absorbed in his work lately, even with the recent decline in the crime rate, and she was worried about his state of mind.
Meditating by the window, Raven, in typical Raven style, couldn't care one way or the other whether Robin would allow them a day off or not. If he did, okay, she'd go into town with them. If not, okay, she'd stay here and meditate and then read a book. Big deal.
The door to the common room opened and Robin stepped out. Having woken up later than the others today after a long night of solitary training, he had just showered and was now ready to deal with the whining and begging from his team to let them have the day off. But first, he'd have a little fun with them.
"Morning, everyone." he said to them, before making his way to the kitchen area.
"Good morning, Robin." they all responded, like a class full of children saying good morning to their teacher. Pouring himself a bowl of cereal, Robin ignored their stares and continued to pretend that it was just another typical day. Halfway through eating his cereal, Robin realized that the others had all crowed around the table, staring at him. All except Raven, that was.
He looked up at them. "What?" he asked.
Starfire clasped her hands in front of her chest. "Robin, do you remember what we talked about several days ago? About how we could all use, what you call a 'day off'?" she asked tentatively.
Robin nodded to her. "Yeah, I remember."
Cyborg crossed his arms. "And remember how you said that if the crime rate stayed low until Saturday, you'd consider letting us all spend the day in the city as normal kids and let any problems that might come up be handled by the authorities for a change?" he asked his friend.
Again, Robin nodded. "Yeah, I remember that too."
Beast Boy and Terra leaned in. "Well-" Beast Boy began.
Terra finished for him. "Those conditions have been met. So can we do it?" she asked.
Robin put his hand under his chin and seemed to be in deep thought for a moment or two. Then he looked up at his friends with a serious expression.
"Sure." he said.
"Oh, come on-!"
"But you said-!"
"Please, please, please-!"
"Dude, that's so unfair-!" Then…
"Wait, what!" they all asked at once.
Robin smiled. "I said, 'sure'. We can have today off. As long as no major villains attack, like Slade or Killer Moth, we won't be superheroes today. What? Did you guys think I'd say no?" he asked.
"Um… yeah." Beast Boy answered.
--
It was almost noon, and the Titans had all gathered at their favorite pizza place. Terra especially liked this, as she had never had a chance to eat here with the Titans before.
After her memory had finally returned, along with her powers, she had gone back to the tower, thinking she'd never be welcome again, but needing to know just the same. To her astonishment, they all seemed to want her back. Even Raven, who had given her something of a cold shoulder at first, had seemed to accept her completely after a few days.
Now, almost a month later, she was just hanging out in town with them like she had always been part of the team. And she couldn't thank Beast Boy enough for it. He had tried so hard to make her feel welcome, to make her feel needed.
Turning to him now, she held up a piece of pizza to him. "Another slice of mushroom and cheese, BB?" she asked him sweetly.
Beast Boy's eyebrows went up and down. "Sure." he said smoothly, taking her offering.
Cyborg couldn't help but chuckle. "Aww, isn't that sweet. You two are just as hopeless for each other as Robin and Star, you know that?" he asked, hearing Robin immediately cough as he began choking on his pizza.
Beast Boy and Terra both turned interesting shades of red.
"You know, Cyborg," Raven began in her usual monotone voice, "You and BumbleBee have been known to get a little googoo-eyed yourselves.".
This caused the human side of Cyborg's face to turn red, and Beast Boy and Terra started to return his earlier chuckle.
Now he knows what its like. Robin thought. He watched as Starfire poured a little more mustard onto her pizza.
As nice as all this was, the chance for a normal day that the Titans were hoping for was about to be dashed. A high-pitched, arrogant sounding voice suddenly rang out through the air.
"Hey, scrum buffers! Hope we're interrupting."
The Titans all dropped their slices of pizza and went to the edge of the roof of the pizza joint and looked down at the street. Down below, looking up at them, obviously ready to start trouble, were Gizmo, Jinx (wasn't she supposed to have joined Kid Flash?), Mammoth, See-More, and Billy Numerous.
Cyborg whined, "Aw man, why couldn't these guys wait until tomorrow to mess around?".
Robin frowned down at their old enemies. "Titans, move." he ordered. He, Cyborg, Beast Boy and Terra all jumped down to the concrete sidewalk below and faced the five young villains who stood in the middle of the street. Starfire and Raven both floated above and behind their friends, Starfire's eyes already glowing green.
Robin stared right at his enemies. "You know, there are six of us now. You couldn't beat us when it was fair, and now we've got you outnumbered. So why don't you take the easy way out and just leave now, before this turns ugly." he suggested to them.
Billy Numerous addressed them in his hillbilly accent. "I think y'all are forgettin' something." he said. Billy then multiplied himself into five separate entities. "Now we've got y'all outnumbered."
Jinx smiled at the Titans. "We've been doing some serious training since our last battle. Now we're ready to take you down once and for all."
Gizmo smirked. "So get ready to have your sorry butts kicked good!" The Hive Five took their fighting stances.
Robin pulled out his staff and extended it. "Titans-" he began.
"Hold it!" a shout rang out. Both the Titans and the Hive team all looked down the street, where the shout had come from.
Walking down the middle of the street, straight towards the two teams, were two boys. They were obviously twin brothers. They both looked to be about Robin's age, around sixteen years old. They had green eyes and brown hair, combed and parted neatly. Both of them wore jeanshorts and plain white tennis shoes. The one on the right wore a plain red shirt; the one on the left wore a plain gray shirt.
Both teams looked on this pair in puzzlement.
"Who are these two jerks?" Mammoth asked in his deep, gruff voice.
The boy in the red shirt smirked in a cocky I-know-something-you-don't manner. The boy in gray simply frowned at them, almost seeming to scowl.
"We're your worst nightmare." the boy in red answered Mammoth.
Robin didn't know what these guys thought they were doing, but they were going to get hurt if they didn't back off from the Hive team. "You guys get back, now. You don't know what these guys can do." he said to them, wondering why they didn't take the hint of the battle that was about to take place. Surely they recognized the Titans.
Red shirt looked at him. "Take it easy, Robin. We know who these dudes are. We've done our research. Trust me; they are the ones who don't know who they're messing with. And I'm not talking about you Titans." he said, rather smugly. However, there seemed to be just a hint of nervousness in his voice. Not fear, just nervousness, like he was about to try something he knew he could do, yet had never done before and still had some doubt.
The boy in the gray shirt finally spoke up. "You Hive guys had better just go. Even if you do manage to take us down, there's still the Titans to deal with. You have no chance of winning here unless you've got a nuke hidden somewhere on you. And that's not likely." This boy spoke in a different tone. His voice seemed to be slathered with distain and resentment, like he held a grudge against something.
Gizmo had had enough. He didn't know who these two dorks were, but they didn't know who they were dealing with. And one look at them told him that they couldn't defend themselves against the Hive Five. Even that wimp Beast Boy looked more threatening.
"Alright, that's it. These snot munchers are going to get it first. Then we'll take the Titans." Gizmo declared.
The boy in the red shirt grinned at Gizmo. "You're the tech-boy, right? You've probably played a lot of videogames. Tell me, have you played Resident Evil?" he asked.
Gizmo cocked his eyebrow beneath his goggles. What did that have to do with anything?
"Yeah, I've played it. And it stinks!" he shouted back.
Suddenly the grin dropped off the red shirt boy's face.
"What!" he said, clearly angered by this response.
The boy in the gray shirt shook his head. "Oh boy. You don't know how bad you just messed up, kid. Saying that Resident Evil stinks? Why didn't you just tell a redneck that NASCAR sucks? It would have been a lot less painful." he said, sounding bored and irritated at the same time.
His brother reached behind him and pulled something out of his back pocket. Holding it in front of him, everyone could see that it was a controller of some kind.
Cyborg nudged Beast Boy. "Isn't that an N64 controller?" he asked.
Starfire was confused. "What are these boys attempting to do?" she asked.
"I don't know," Terra responded. "But their about to get their butts kicked. We'd better attack now, while the Hive Five is distracted."
Raven, who had been listening closely to the tones of the two boys' voices, knew different.
"No. They're not. They're hiding something. Something big. I think the Hive Five is in more trouble than they are."
Robin turned to look at her. "What do you mean?" he asked her.
Raven shook her head. "I don't know, but I think we're all about to find out.".
Gizmo looked at the game console controller that the kid held in his hand.
"What's that?" he asked mockingly.
The red shirt kid grinned again. "The source of my power, and your immediate pounding. I hope you have a first aid kit in that backpack of yours, because you're about to be in some serious pain you little midget." he said.
The boy then began to push the buttons on the controller in a seemingly random manner, while rotating the control stick with his thumb. After pushing all the buttons in whatever inconceivable pattern he was using, the boy then pushed the START button in the middle of the controller.
The boy was immediately consumed in a brilliant white light. The Titans and the Hive team could all see that something was happening in the middle of that light, but they could not see what it was. Then the light suddenly winked out.
The boy was no longer standing there. In his place stood a humanoid creature that was ten feet tall. It wore no clothes and seemed to be genderless. Its skin was as white as a fish's belly, with red veins coursing along it. Its right hand looked normal, while its left hand was huge, looking as big as Cyborg's torso. Its fingers were tipped with six inch claws. Its heart was outside its body, on the right side, pulsing in rhythm. The face had two dead-looking eyes, covered over with cataracts. It had no lips, and its teeth were exposed in a sick smile.
As both teams looked on this abomination, they all felt a measure of fear. "W-what… what is that thang?" Billy Numerous asked, shaking.
Gizmo was also shaking. "Its- it's the Tyrant! The final boss in Resident Evil!" he answered in fear.
The boy in the gray shirt stood behind the creature that his brother had transformed into. "I'd run, if I were you." he said.
Mammoth stepped forward and took a fighting stance. "The Hive Five never runs." he said. Gizmo extended his mechanical legs and lifted himself off the ground. Billy and his four copies gathered around Gizmo and Mammoth, ready to combat this new threat.
With a roar, the Tyrant rushed forward, running unbelievably fast for a creature of its size. With a single swipe of its huge claw, the Tyrant hit Mammoth right in the chest before he had a chance to do anything. Mammoth was picked up by the force of the blow and went flying through the air, landing several city blocks away.
Turning to Gizmo, the Tyrant slashed with its claw, shredding Gizmo's mechanical legs like paper. As the small villain fell to the ground, he was caught by the Tyrant's "normal" hand. Then the Tyrant flung Gizmo in the direction that it had knocked Mammoth, and Gizmo sailed out of sight.
All five Billys then jumped on the Tyrant, trying to tackle it down.
While the other boys had tried to deal with the Tyrant, Jinx and See-More had circled around and now faced the other boy.
"So, let's see what you can do." Jinx said to him, mockingly.
Extending a hand, she shot a pink arc towards a telephone pole. Suddenly, the wires at the top broke free in a shower of sparks and, defying the laws of physics, began to swing towards the middle of the street, straight at the boy in the gray shirt.
"If you insist." said the boy. Reaching out with his arm, he caught the live wire in his bare hand, the exposed part of the wire against his palm. Jinx winced, expecting to see him fry before her eyes under the electric current.
Instead, although the electricity swam through him, he seemed to be unaffected. More than that, his body began to change. His flesh took on the form of the electricity that was pouring into him! In seconds, the boy was gone and in his place was a somewhat humanoid creature made purely out of electricity. Jinx immediately thought of Overload.
Dropping the telephone wire and raising a crackling blue hand, the electro-boy extended the power current his body was now made of and struck Jinx in the chest, giving her enough juice to singe her, but not really hurt her. Jinx screamed as the power poured into her.
"Jinx!" See-More yelled. Turning to the thing in a sudden rage, he fired a laser beam from his eye. It hit the electro-kid, causing the electric current of his body to crackle loudly for a moment, but having no other noticeable effect. The electro-boy raised his other hand and See-More fell victim to the same strike as Jinx.
Adding a little more power into the attack, the electro-boy zapped See-More and Jinx into the air, where they flew away in the same direction as Gizmo and Mammoth.
Flinging all the Billys off of its body, the Tyrant back handed one of them, knocking it back into another and another. All five Billys collided, causing them to form back into one. Reaching down with its right hand, the Tyrant gripped Billy Numerous by the throat and hurled him through the air to join his other fallen teammates several blocks away.
The Teen Titans, having watched this rather short and one-sided battle, now faced the Tyrant and the electro-boy, ready to fight if needed. Cyborg activated his sonic cannon. Beast Boy turned into a green gorilla. Terra's hands and eyes glowed yellow, while Starfire's glowed green. Raven's eyes showed just the faintest hint of a red light in them.
Walking up next to each other, the two inhuman creatures turned to the Titans. Suddenly, the electricity around the boy in the gray shirt faded away and he stood before them, normal again.
The Tyrant was enveloped in that bizarre white light again, and when it faded, he too was returned to his original human form. The game controller, which had disappeared along with the boy during his transformation, was now back in his hand.
"Ta da!" the boy in red exclaimed before bowing to the astonished Titans.
Robin retracted his staff and put it back into his belt. "Ooookay. Who are you guys? And what do you want?" he asked them.
The boy in the gray shirt answered him, waving a hand at himself, then at his brother.
"We are Element and the Gamer. Our real names are Kyle and Cody. We're twin brothers, in case you couldn't tell." he said, seeming to be uncomfortable talking to them casually about their identities.
Gamer continued. "Yeah, we just got here in Jump City the other day. We're kinda on our own. After we got our powers, our family thought it would be best if we went somewhere else for a while. Everyone in our neighborhood seemed kind of freaked out with us around." He looked a little sad saying this part, but then he brightened again.
"We've got some cool powers though. I can turn into any character from any videogame ever made. I don't know how or why, but I somehow know the code that's needed to change into it. So-" he held up his controller, "I punch it into the buttons, hit the START, then bingo; I'm a living, breathing videogame! I can be a boss, a gamesprite, or even the user character. I also get all the abilities and weapons of those characters!" he said excitedly, clearly trying to show off and be impressive.
Element rolled his eyes at his brother's eagerness for attention. "I can form my body into, or join with, the elements of all things." After saying this, his feet suddenly changed and melded to the asphalt of the street that he was standing on.
Terra's eyes went wide at this. "Whoa!"
After a moment, Element's feet changed back to normal. "I can slip into the element of a surface and pop up anywhere else on that surface. Or I can add things to myself, like a pile of bricks, becoming a brick-pile monster."
All the Titans were wide-eyed at this. "Those do sound like cool powers." Cyborg said, clearly impressed.
Beast Boy was curious. "So why are you guys here?" he asked.
The Gamer stepped forward. "We came to meet you guys. We've been fans of the Teen Titans for a long time." He stuck out his arm and shook hands all around. "Robin. Cyborg. Beast Boy. Terra. Raven."
Coming to Starfire, he stopped and stared at her for a moment, a huge smile spreading across his face.
"Hello Starfire. I've been wanting to meet you since I first saw you on the news. You're my favorite Titan. This is a huge honor. I'm probably your biggest fan." he said, and put out his hand.
Starfire smiled and shook his hand in return. "Thank you very much! I did not know that I had any 'fans'. Tell me, do you wish to be my friend?" she asked excitedly.
Gamer nearly jumped into the air. "Of course I would! You… you guys are all the reason Element and I decided to come to Jump City."
Robin detected the tone of Gamer's voice, and couldn't help thinking that meeting one particular Titan had been the reason behind Gamer's desire to come to their city.
Element stepped forward, shaking hands around as well, although saying nothing more than "hi.". He clearly was not very comfortable with this, either shy or distrusting of people. But as he reached out to shake the last Titan's hand, Raven's hand, he seemed to brighten just the slightest bit.
"Hi Raven." he said, then quickly let go and turned away. Everyone noticed this subtle change, especially Raven.
Cyborg spoke up. "So, now you've met us. You want our autographs or something?"
Gamer turned to him. "No. Actually… we were kinda hoping to join you guys. You know, become Teen Titans.".
Robin looked ready to say something, but before he could, Element held up his hand.
"First, we know that we can't just expect you to accept us in right away. We're not asking to immediately move in with you guys. We just want a chance you show you what we can do and how we could help you if you let us join. You already saw a small example of our powers."
Gamer continued for his brother. "Yeah, give us a few more chances to prove ourselves to you, then decide if you want us. We'll be around. If there's any trouble, we'll help you out. I suppose we'll see you guys later. Come on, Kyle."
He turned around and started walking down the street, then stopped and turned back around to wave.
"It was nice to meet you, Starfire!" he yelled. Starfire waved back.
"It was nice meeting you as well." she said, then giggled that wonderful giggle of hers. Gamer almost tripped over himself upon hearing that melodious sound.
Element started to follow him, but then turned his head back around and looked at all of the Titans, his eyes remaining on Raven a moment longer than the others.
"Bye." he said, then continued following his brother. His tone suggested that he might have wanted to add a name after that, but none of the Titans could tell for sure. A few suspected, however, that he did. It was clear that both brothers had their own particular reasons for wanting to come to Jump City and join the Titans.
"Well, those guys were pretty cool." Terra said with a smile.
Beast Boy nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and they've got some awesome powers too. They might be a big help to us if they did join."
Robin, still thinking of the attention that the Gamer had been showing Starfire, wasn't so sure he liked the idea.
Starfire beamed. "Oh, it would be wonderful if our new friends could join us. They are our fans." she said happily.
Robin sighed. "Yeah, they might be a help to us. But I'm not so sure we should make our decision just yet. We'll need to see what else they can do. One thing is for sure; those guys are going to make things a bit more interesting around here."
Raven nodded. "No doubts there." She said.
End of chapter 1. I hope my new characters are interesting enough for you to want to read more. Please review!
In the next chapter, the Titans are called away to deal with some old foes. But when Element and the Gamer show up to help, what could have been a losing battle turns into an incredible triumph. The Titans must now start to seriously consider allowing the two brothers to join them.
Plenty of action and hints at future relationships are to be found in the next installment, Element and the Gamer Chapter 2: Battle for membership.
See you guys then!