Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, or any references to films/ TV, etc made, in any way, shape or form
I know I don't have the characters personalities' right, but I'll try to work on that.
This is my first fan fic, so…hope you enjoy, and please REVIEW
The Forgotten
Part 1 – Breakfast, interrupted
This takes place before an Infinite Crisis, occurring during a seemingly more innocent time, just after Beast Boys and Girls…
My name is Cassie Sandsmark, and I'm a hero. My life isn't all peaches & cream, like you'd think. I never knew my dad, like, at all. He just met my mom and they clicked. They did, y' know, then wham, bam, thank you m' am, and my mom has to juggle me & a career. She never knew who he was (and if she did, I hope that she had one hell of a reason for keeping it from me).
How I got to be a hero is a short story – my mom became friends with Wonder Woman (or former - Princess Diana of the amazons to friends), Diana has connections with the Greek Gods, I asked Zeus (the big cheese himself) to give me powers, and he granted me my wish. Although, it has a price – my mom knows & can take them away whenever she wants, but that's okay, even though things became harder for her when my identity was leaked (I was forced to fight at my old school).
I hooked up with Young Justice, a group of kids with powers like me, & I met Conner, better known as Superboy, and we clicked. Young Justice broke up, but me, Conner, Bart (Impulse, fastest boy alive) & Tim (Robin, Boy Wonder) joined a new version of the Teen Titans, and we're still together.
What can I do? I'm strong (like, almost Wonder Woman strong), I fly, I'm very fast, but not Flash fast, and my magic bracelets deflect bullets & magic. It's funny, sticks & stones won't break my bones, but bullets go right through me. That and I have Amazon training, making it a big mistake to get into a fist fight with me.
Saturday, (Titans' Tower), 9:45AM. The teamwere getting some well earned rest. The last week was a particularly hectic one, due to a mad scientist turning every kid in San Francisco under 13 into Beast Boys and Girls. That and most of the members had to save the world with their mentors, so they hadn't really had time to relax.
A young blonde girl awoke first. At first glance, she would seem unremarkable, just another, average height, blonde. A closer look would confirm that she was a very muscular young blonde. At a third glance, she would seem familiar, like she was someone famous. A fourth glance would confirm that she was who you thought.
In her 'casual' cloths, it would only take one look. To the world, she was known as Wonder Girl or, if you watched the news & read the papers in the past months, Cassie Sandsmark, daughter of Helena Sandsmark (a renowned historian) & superhero extraordinaire (in most teenage boy's opinions, anyway). Unlike most of her peers, she didn't have a secret identity, due to her being forced to use her abilities in public by a psychotic (or rather, confused & misguided) super-villain. When she had one, all it took to hide her identity was a black wig and a pair of sports goggles.
Right now, she looked exhausted.
Without even thinking about it, she changed into a set of clothes in which the world was more accustomed to seeing her in; the red tube top, red pants and black boots of Wonder Girl. It's weird. She thought, as soon as she realised what she was changing into. I never really think of these as a costume, more like a … second skin, or a badge of honour.
After a moment's hesitation, she picked up a long golden rope. This was hers, the lasso of Ares. It was a gift… from one of Wonder Woman's greatest foes.
Why would he give this to me? She pondered, staring at it. It's indestructible & can call Zeus' lightning when I get mad. It's handy, very handy.
He says he's teaching me to feel anger, to fuel me when I need it, but for what…
After what seemed to be an eternity, she put it on. Every time she picked it up, she could feel a twinge around her spine. It was the same twinge she got when Diana saved her for the first time. It was fear… and excitement. What am I afraid of? She asked herself while tip toeing past the bedrooms. She could hear Gar & Bart snoring, loudly. Someday, she planned to do something about that.
She hadn't told her team-mates about Ares. What was she supposed to say: 'Hey guys, I took a gift from a lunatic who wanted to start World War 3. What's on T.V.?' Hell no. Even if she could tell them, if things went wrong they couldn't stop him, not without help.
Would Donna ever do that? She wondered, while creeping downstairs, Would Donna, or Diana, ever take a gift from Ares? Whether or not Donna Troy (the original Wonder Girl) would have, Cassie would never know, due to her being dead, murdered by a Superman android. Diana…that was a different story, as she would have probably done exactly as Cassie did, if, as Ares said, there was a battle coming.
She helped herself to an apple from the fridge and was washing it at the sink, still looking her gift horse in the mouth. Twice, she'd glanced at the sinks reflective surface. Ares had a bad habit of spying on her through reflective surfaces. She found nothing, thankfully.
Why? A thought struck her. If he isn't my father…could he be doing this as a favour…or job… for my father?
She quickly dismissed the idea. After all, it made no sense. Ares only looked out for number one, and one of the few he would consider obeying was Zeus. She already asked Zeus if he was her father, and he denied it, so that ruled him out. IF this was a task set by Zeus, why ask Ares to do it, when there were a number of people who he could put more trust in (mostly Amazons).
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Then someone made a small fake cough. She made a mental note to pay more attention next time she entered the kitchen.
Thanks to Amazon training, she had turned around, drawn out her lasso, and assumed a combat pose in the time it took most of the population to blink.
He simply clapped his hands.
He wasn't very imposing, despite being about 6ft, wearing what looked like silver armour with black arms and legs. He wasn't even doing anything threatening, just buttering toast at the table.
However, his face gave Cassie, who'd seen things in this line of work that you wouldn't believe in your worst nightmares, goose bumps along her neck. He was wearing a silver, almost featureless, mask, with a dark visor made of glass or plastic. Through this visor, she could see his eyes. They were blue, pupil-less, eyes (ala Starfire). Not blue as in 'sky blue', but glowing a vivid electric blue. She felt as though these eyes were staring right into her, and, for all she knew, he could have been.
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She quickly recovered. "Who the hell are you, and how did you get in?"
"Simple," he replied, with a voice that sounded eerily distant, yet close, "I got in."
"Answer the question!"
"I've got a better idea, Cassie." he said, in a way that sounded like he was talking to a small child. "Why don't you press the panic button nearby and wake the others?"
She was taken aback by his manner, wondering How can he know the tower layout, but didn't let it show. "Here's my idea…" She quickly looped her lasso round him, and then pressed the button, all the while not taking her eye off him.
A couple of seconds later, the entire team assemble (fully dressed) downstairs. Cassie moved the stranger to the living room. He was complaining loudly. She was starting to get annoyed and fighting the urge to electrocute him.
Why couldn't this thing have a stun setting? She thought, angrily. The lasso only had one voltage level: barbeque, and if he couldn't handle it, he'd be no good to anyone.
"You know, you could at least let me finish breakfast. Is this how you treat all house guests?"
"You're NOT a guest!" She hissed through clenched teeth.
He was probably going to give a smart ass remark but was cut off by Starfire pointing a glowing hand in his face.
"You will tell us why you are here and how you got in." She had that look on her face that clearly said "if you don't give me what I want, I'll kick your ass."
Meanwhile, the others prepared for a confrontation.
Cyborg was pointing his sonic cannon
Superboy clenched his fists
Robin held a batarang in his hand
Kid Flash was in a boxing position, twitching at super-speed
Beast Boy changed into a grizzly bear and was growling
Raven, on the other hand, stared at the stranger, as if he was an unknown species.
I really wish Raven wouldn't stare like that. Raven's strange powers were often unnerving to people who didn't know her, and Cassie was no exception.
The stranger simply looked from one to another and spoke in a voice that sounded like he had a smirk beneath his mask. "… Ah, the Titans' ass kicking poses. Alright, do you want to know?"
Yes, dammit! Cassie thought
"Yes." Cyborg answered
"Alright, my name," the stranger's eyes scanned the room, "is… Aftermath." He paused.
Cyborg cocked his eyebrow. "And that means…what to us?"
"It's a name, take it or leave it, and as for why I'm here, let's just say I'm here as a…favour for Dick. A very big one, considering how he's now wasting his time with a team that has a Terminator for a member"
All the Titans tensed up as one. If he meant what they thought it could only mean trouble.
Dick? The mention of the former Titan and current leader of the Outsiders brought all kinds of mixed emotions to her. On the one hand, he was kind of like an older brother, seeing as he was the first Titan to 'graduate' and get out of his mentors' shadow.
On the other hand, he was currently the leader of the team employing a …the soulless killing machine responsible for Donna Troy's death. From the looks of things, she thought, tightening her grip nobody saw that coming.
Shellshock would have been a better description of the looks on some of the Titan's faces. Starfire, seeing as how close she and Dick were, looked like she'd gone 2 seconds with Doomsday. Gar reverted back to human form from the shock. A few gizmos she didn't know Cyborg had, suddenly popped up.
"What," Kid Flash slowly asked, "do you mean 'a favour for Dick'?"
The stranger or 'Aftermath' looked straight at him. "I'd think spending your time in libraries would have improved your deductive powers…Bart! Maybe you should finish Sherlock Holmes." His eyes flicked to Robin. "Tim, you probably know that I'm no friend of Dick's, otherwise he'd have told you, or" his eyes flicked around the room "at least Kory, or Victor, or Gar, or possibly Raven if he's in a good mood, considering..."
Kid Flash's jaw dropped at over 75mph, and then closed just as fast.
No one spoke, and it was obvious to Cassie why. Knowing who Gar and Victor were was easy enough, but Dick, Tim and Bart…that meant he knew their secrets.
Cassie quickly moved over to Raven. "What are you picking up from him?" Cassie whispered to her.
Raven paused before speaking. "Nothing, nothing I can recognise anyway."
"So…is he, like, a …robot." If Raven couldn't sense his emotions, that either meant he was resistant to empathy, or he wasn't alive.
She shook her hooded head. "I can tell that he has emotions, and that he is alive, but I can't sense what they are exactly. It's like…trying to listen to a badly tuned radio."
Okay, so…he's not human… or is he?
Superboy was the first to recover from him playing the 'Dick card'.
"What the hell are you talk- -"
"Come on, Conner." He chuckled, while flexing against the lasso. "Maybe living on that farm and eating corn has simplified things a little too much."
After a long pause, Beast Boy spoke. "How do you know about us? Are you, like, spying on us?"
"No."
Suddenly, Aftermath was free of the lasso.
He just came free, like the knots had been loosened. How the hell did that happen?
No one knew how, all they saw was that one moment, he was bound, the next he had an arm around Beast Boy's shoulder.
Cassie crouched, getting ready to pounce, until a look from Ti—Robin froze her in her tracks.
Aftermath continued, without missing a beat. "I've gotta tell ya, Gar…I LOVED space trek! I never saw it on TV, but I own all the DVDs. One of my cousins, a girl if you were wondering, thinks you're adorable."
He turned and placed both of his large hands on Gar's shoulders, making him flinch.
The team got ready for anything.
"However," he addressed Gar in a more serious tone, "if you EVER go to a reunion with the cast, and play Tork again, for any reason, other than charity, I'll kill you the year after you do it!"
"Why would you do that if you liked Space Trek?" Gar almost yelled, as his grip had nearly cut off his circulation.
Aftermath noticed and dropped his arms to his sides. "Because," he spoke slowly & deliberately, as he walked towards the kitchen, followed by the whole team, "everyone knows these reunions never work, and, if they decided to resurrect the show…well it just wouldn't be Space Trek. Besides, then I could stuff you, and send your corpse to my cousin as a unique birthday present. You'd be the last piece of Tork memorabilia in existence, worth more than this tower's weight in gold. Don't tell me you're not tempted."
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"You're sick, you know that!" Cyborg spat.
He pretended to look offended. "Don't you know that saying things like that hurts my feelings?"
"I don't care."
"Oh, well, if young Frankenstein doesn't mind, I'm getting breakfast. Do you want some toast?"
Starfire blinked "What?"
"Do you want toast, a grilled bread product? You see, toast is a form of bread, which is made from ingredients including a plant called--"
"We know what toast is! Just tell us what you want!" Cassie yelled. Lightning crackled along her lasso.
Aftermath looked in the fridge, before replying "I wouldn't mind any pancakes. Or waffles, waffles are good. Got milk? Or—"
Conner yelled this time. "What do you want with us!"
"Oh, that."
"Yes, that! Now tell us you creep!"
"Why don't you tell them your dirty little secret first? Scared that would make you, as you so eloquently put it, a 'Titan's wacko'?
Conner flushed.
Cassie looked to Conner, "What does he mean?" The thought that Conner, one of her closest friends, could be keeping secrets was enough to make her forget all about Ares, and his agenda.
"It appears," Aftermath explained quickly, while buttering some toast, "that his creation…had flaws in it resulting in a soft spot right between his ears."
Cassie turned back to him, her eyes blazing with fury. Who the hell does he think he is, playing with my feelings like that? Who does he think he is--
She hadn't noticed Conner wiping sweat from his brow (imagined, since kryptonians tended not to sweat) and shooting a quick glace at Robin from the corner of his eye.
Raven, possibly due to sensing the tension cut in. "What is it you seek here? What did you hope to gain, and why?"
"The same goes double for me. Now make with the answers!" Kid Flash chimed in.
Aftermath simply put both feet on the table. A circular hole opened in his mask, revealing nothing except darkness and several needle-like teeth, and he popped a piece of toast in it. After a few moments of chewing, he answered "To put it simply I'm an insane--"
"As if we didn't know that by know." Kid Flash muttered under his breath
"— an insane lunatic," he continued, "with power beyond your limited imaginations—"
"Limited?" Robin cut in this time
"Well, more limited in Conner's case, considering that his head is denser than a Neutron star."
Conner glared at him, his eyes gaining a reddish tint, indicating that he would have loved an excuse to fry him with heat vision right then.
Aftermath appeared not to notice.
Everyone else had noticed, however, that his mask was still open.
"Now where was I?" he tapped his mask, where his chin would be located. "Ah, yes. I'm an insane lunatic, with power beyond your limited imaginations, who's here…to thank you."
"For what, we've never even met you before." Starfire retorted.
He nodded. "You did, just not as I am now."
"How were you before?" Raven asked.
"Different. That all changed, thanks to you."
"Then why not send a gift basket?" Robin phrased delicately, while reaching for a gas bomb. He gave discreet signals via his hands to the others. Everyone moved back a couple of inches.
Still caught in his rant, Aftermath apparently hadn't noticed. "In case you never noticed, Tim, no one sends gift baskets anymore. Besides, what I'm selling is a million times better. I'm giving a good old – fashioned - -"
Robin threw the gas bomb at him.
After being hit, he simply sat there, at the table, unmoving. Then he tilted back his head and laughed, long and hard.
"You still got it Tim! I thought you were slipping after letting your pencil - neck father push you around, and letting your girl friend, what was her name…sprawler, do your dirty work."
"Her name," Robin said in as dangerous a tone he could manage "was Stephanie, and she called herself Spoiler."
"Whatever." His mouth hole sealed itself. "But, just to let you know, I liked her. She had spirit, just didn't help her too much. And, your little Tom Cruise impression… it's no match for my Cruise missile." He swiftly reached behind his back pulling out a missile launcher.
A large missile launcher
A missile launcher he couldn't possibly have been carrying.
He then proceeded to demonstrate it was real by firing a missile at them.
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Raven teleported the Titans out of the way before the missile hit, resulting in one of the walls being demolished. The resulting hole led outside, over fifty feet above their outdoor training facility.
"Why'd you that, you maniac?" Cassie yelled, swinging her lasso around her, while she used her flight power to rocket into Aftermath, knocking him into the opposite wall. She pinned him to it with her arm, making him drop his missile launcher.
"Way to go, Cass!" She heard Superboy whoop
"You go, girl!" Beast Boy cried out. There was a slapping sound, like a high five
"What they said!" Kid Flash yelled.
"Why Cassie," Aftermath said in a cheesy southern voice that reminded her of a car salesman she met years ago, "rushing in, willy-nilly, not thinking. That sounds a lot like Bart, very Impulsive. Speaking of Bart…" He tilted his head towards Kid Flash and called in his normal voice. "Hey! Bart! Your old name rocked, but your old costume sucked!"
"What do you mean, my costume sucked?"
"You looked like a toddler." He threw back his head and laughed like a maniac.
Cassie tightened her grip on him. "Just what were you thinking? We're the Teen Titans; we practically eat missiles for lunch!"
He looked at her with those electric blue eyes.
"Nothing, I just always wanted to do that. I always wanted to do this, as well."
Suddenly, he grabbed her by the throat with his right hand, cutting off her airway. She gasped for breath, scrabbling for a hold. His grip felt like a steel vice.
The other Titans started to rush forward. He simply raised his left hand, which, out of the corner of her eye, she saw glowing an eerie red.
"CHAOS BLAST!" He yelled, as a glowing red energy wave shot from his hand, knocking the other Titans through the hole and outside.
Cassie managed to loop her lasso around his wrist while he was distracted, before sending a lightning-bolt through her lasso. The electric burst caused him to release her and sent him flying backwards into a wall. She leapt on top of him before he could recover, punching him twice in the face. He caught her fist on the 3rd punch.
Suddenly, she fell to her knees as a sharp, piercing pain shot up her arm. The same red energy that hit the others was now working its way from his hand, along her arm. It felt like it was on fire. Taking advantage, he clenched her, hard, by the shoulder, slamming her back to the wall so hard she saw stars.
He then punched Cassie five times in the stomach & chest, in rapid succession, knocking the wind out of her and breaking some ribs on the 5th blow.
He then flung her like a rag doll towards the hole. She was too stunned to fly, or do anything else.
She heard him cry "I like you, Cassie, but you're no Donna Troy. Oh, and I know I ripped off Shadow the hedgehog"
She flew, out of her control, over the bay and towards the sea. When she landed, the impact was hard enough to liquidate ordinary persons' bones many times over.
Despite hitting the water at the wrong angle, she skipped across the water like a stone. Each impact was hard enough to drive what little air she'd accumulated out of her lungs.
She stopped bouncing on the 7th impact, and began to sink.
In her case, she wouldn't need to worry about broken bones, but drowning and whatever damage landing on top of broken ribs would cause.
He played me, he played us
Can't breath… ribs broken, falling down… somewhere… I'm sorry, mom.
I'm sorry, Donna, Diana, Conner…everyone…I wasn't strong enough
As she fell deeper, lapsing into unconsciousness, she only thought one more thing; Why?
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So it began.
He'd made the first move. He'd practically declared war on the Teen Titans, the most powerful (alright, potentially the most powerful) team on the planet. One day, they would be able to move mountains and beat up guys like Darkseid, Brainiac, Despero, etc, without any trouble.
For the moment, they were tough, but not unbeatable.
Getting past the high-tech security was, pardon the phrase, 'child's play'. Beating the snot out of them would be a small step
Right now, however, he couldn't lose to them, it was too early. He had to repay his debt to them. After all, he hated being in someone's debt…and he always believed in giving as good as you got.