Author's Note: This story is set in the timeline of my other two Titans stories, Legacy of the Tamaranian and Colors. This will not have a huge bearing on the story, though, so you do not have to read them to understand this story. Though, I would like you to, of course. References to things such as Speedy changing his name to Arsenal and an encounter with some aliens in Jump City park are nothing more than continuity tid-bits and unimportant to the plot of this story.
Also, this story, at least in planning, will be a bit darker and more mature than my other stories, which is why it has an M rating.
Teen Titans East in
THICKER THAN WATER
Part One: Blood Money
Brother Blood had been right. Everywhere, all around the cold, dark city, the stench of decay rested. It permeated the Pennsylvanian town, betraying a corruption far deeper than the five senses could perceive, something that ran to it's very core and choked and stifled it. Steel City, it was said, ranked with Gotham and Bludhaven among the most corrupt cities on the planet. And it was into this reality that five teenagers had been thrust, expected to bear the burden of a city that even the Justice League wouldn't bother touching.
Karen Beecher sighed at this, her mechanical wings fluttering slightly. As Bumblebee, she was in charge of the Titans East, and as much as she hated to admit it, the responsibility was too much for her at times.
Perhaps no man could bring her down, but a city? Different story. She smirked and turned, leaving the balcony and returning into Ops. Her father had always disapproved of this job, but he no longer tried to dissuade her from it. She was older than she looked, and at 19, the oldest of any of the youths that called themselves Titans.
Roy Harper, who had recently changed his hero moniker from 'Speedy' to the more threatening 'Arsenal' was using a simulated bow and arrow set to target practice on the massive screen in Ops.
The room was otherwise quiet and empty.
"How is it going, Roy," she asked.
"Could be better," he said. "I don't know what it was when we were fighting the Titans West under Blood's control, but I couldn't hit a thing. Did you see how many arrows I missed Robin with?"
Karen smirked. "It wasn't you, Roy. Blood's mental powers—they do something to your coordination. He turns down your abilities just incase you decide to rebel, and it takes a while to get them back."
Roy seemed to accept this, and nodded. "Still, it could get me in trouble. Did you see how that alien we fought in Jump City last week took me out? It only took a single misfire." After a moment, he asked, "Is Garth back from his patrol yet?"
Karen nodded. He refered to Aqualad, who had always simply said his name was Garth, no surname. "He came in complaining about some rude fish and then went to the crime lab with a bunch of cases. I don't know what he's up to."
"He's never been the most talkative. What is it with Atlanteans and having a martyr complex?"
"If you think he's bad now," Karen said, "your should have seen him when we both started working to take down Blood."
"Did you ever figure out what relation he has to Aquaman?" Roy asked.
"None that I can tell. Batman said—via Robin—that Aquaman has no idea who he is."
"Somehow, I doubt that," Roy said, and went back to shooting.
Karen moved away from Ops and made her way towards the elevator. Mas and Menos—or, as their real names were relayed to her, Miguel and Victor Toledo—were sleeping in their room in the north wing of the tower. They had given a lot lately, and it seemed that puberty was actually having some odd effects on their super speed, the most prominent being a pronounced fatigue after basic use. Another, more convenient side effect was the ability to maintain their individual Speed Force auras at a greater distance from their bodies, allowing themselves to move at super speeds when merely in proximity with each other rather than actually in contact. Bumblebee had made a point to post this detail on the official Titans East website; she hoped it would stem the tide of those infuriating incest rumors about the twins.
The elevator door opened and Karen entered and descended towards the crime lab. Upon arriving, she found Garth hunched over some lab equipment, running tests on something she couldn't see.
As she approached, she gasped in surprise… it was a fish!
"Aqualad, what ARE you doing? I thought fish were your pals."
He looked up at her with a glint of anger. "Bumblebee, please. No fish jokes today. Something is seriously wrong. The fish—they're angry. They say that there is something new in the water lately. Ever since Carmen Vasquez opened that new industrial plant by the river, fish have been becoming more aggressive, or worse, simply keeling over and dying."
Karen sighed. "Look, Garth, I know you're big on protecting the oceans, but Vasquez does have a permit for everything he's done so far."
"Everything he's done on the records," Garth said in a correcting tone. "I've been running tests…"
"And?"
"Some of the chemicals in these fish are illegal to even produce, let alone dump into public water."
That hit Karen and she felt her eyebrow rise. She had always assumed Vasquez wasn't entirely legit. Still, it was hard to make a case when someone with as much publicized bias as Aqualad, whom many even suspected of having an Atlantean political agenda. "In that case, the EPA will deal with it. This isn't really our field of expertise."
"You said yourself Vasquez—and who knows who else—have half the police in this town on their payroll," Aqualad shot back. "What's stopping him from doing the same with the EPA?"
Bumblebee narrowed her eyes at him. This was getting bothersome, not because Garth was wrong, but because he seemed on the edge, like he wasn't thinking clearly. There was an edge to his voice that made her wonder if he wouldn't try something rash. "I said I suspected that Vasquez was paying cops off. I don't have any proof of that yet, and neither do you. And accusing him is more likely to get us into trouble than to help out your friends."
Aqualad snapped and slammed his fist down on the table next to his small aquarium, causing the water to shake. Karen waited for him to calm down, not taking her eyes from him. When he had breathed heavily for a moment, he sighed and spoke again.
"Sorry. I'm on edge. I guess it was whatever was in the water." Garth looked at her stern gaze a moment and decided he should add, "Not that I expect you to believe that."
"I don't doubt what you're saying is true," she said, "I'm only saying that we need to go about investigating this in a more collected manner. Get your data ready and enter it into the computer. It's late. Get some rest, and we'll go over it tomorrow."
"You're right," Aqualad said. "This unitard is getting itchy anyway." He proceeded to clean up his work, preserving the dead fish by putting it in a cryogenic chamber, then fed the fish in his aquarium, conversing with them telepathically for a moment. He left the lab and Bumblebee, and proceeded to bed.
Karen watched him leave, shut down the equipment and followed.
Back in the relative comfort and privacy of her room, Karen removed the yellow and black shirt striped like her super heroic namesake, and then unfastened the super-light metal harness that strapped her wings and shrinking mechanism to her body, the tiny neuro-fibers that hardwired it to her nervous system sliding out. She placed the shirt in the automated laundry chute, and set the mechanism that gave her her powers on its recharge stand—underneath she only wore a simple black lace bra that did little to add to or detract from her already pronounced figure.
But as she studied herself in the mirror, she was immediately struck by a realization so obvious that she wondered why it hadn't occurred to her before: Those huge balled-up pigtail… things looked utterly ridiculous. They had to go!
"No wonder criminals tend to laugh at me," she said dryly.
Karen finished undressing and pulled on a silk nightgown her father had given her, and undid the ball-pig-tail things for the last time. She's see about getting a haircut or a new style tomorrow, she promised herself as she lay down. But before she could decide on a new look, she had drifted off to sleep.
oooo
For some, the night wasn't so restful.
Far on the other side of Steel City, a man sat, obscured by the darkness of the room he resided in. Carmen Vasquez was a fool, he decided. Dumping the experimental toxins into the water and hoping he could pay of the EPA agent was not an effective way to test volatile compounds.
What would the fish do with it anyway? Terrorize the guppies?
The man sighed bearing his teeth—most of which were purest white save for one golden tooth on the top left side of his mouth that flickered in the only light in the room—that of the monitor he studied intently..
The screen showed images from the underwater security cameras, images of the Atlantean, the one who dared call himself a Titan and fight 'crime'. What a sham. And yet the man was worried. This aqua kid may have been naïve, but he could still cause trouble. If the samples he collected were examined with care…
Vasquez would have to be punished eventually. But this?
This required immediate attention.
The man in the darkness removed a cell phone and dialed a number. And on the other end, his contact answered. "Good evening," he said, his voice smooth and deep, "Vasquez' foolish blunder may cost us the contract…. No. I don't want him eliminated. Not yet; he may yet be useful. But I do have a target for you, my friend—one I'm willing to pay a very high price for."
The murmuring voice on the other end of the line picked up. A feral grin stretched across the man's face, his golden tooth shining in the light of the monitor's image.
"They call him, 'Aqualad.'"
oooo
The Titans East understandably picked up many of their practices and habits from the original five, and one such habit was going out to eat in public while still in full hero gear.
And though Garth didn't really have a secret identity, and Mas and Menos were too fast to be caught anyway, Roy most of all felt very uncomfortable in doing so. Sure, he was good distance from home in Star City, but what if he was recognized regardless?
Not that anyone he knew would vacation to a dump like Steel City.
The quintet of Titans had decided eventually on a fancy Japanese restaurant on the south side of town…
"Ay!" exclaimed Menos loudly, drawing the attention of the restaurants other patrons. "Que malo!"
"Si, hermano," replied Mas. "Y Entonces, nos dijo, 'Pero… Pero… TODOS SOMOS TOLEDOS!'"
At this, Menos burst into a fit of laughter, drawing more unwanted attention. Roy could feel his skin turning red, and he swore he saw a vein throb on Karen's forehead.
"Would you two shut your big mouths!" she barked at them. "Silencio!"
Mas and Menos shut up and stared in fear and apology at Bumblebee for a moment, and then continued eating.
After a while, Aqualad spoke. "So, Bee. What's with the new hair style?"
Roy had also noticed she had donned a different hairstyle today; it was now tied back in a pony-tail, but hadn't really thought much of it. Girls changed their hairstyles all the time.
"Just a personal thing," she replied.
"Su pelo es bonito," said Mas, drawing a few raised eyebrows.
"Sutil," Menos said sarcastically, smirking at his brother. Mas sweatdropped.
Suddenly, a loud screeching of car tires rang outside, followed by the shrill scream of a pedestrian… Then the world went white and the wall exploded inward…
Roy rolled to his feet in a crouched position as soon as he could think again, and drew his bow and arrow and pointed it at the gaping gash in the wall. He gritted his teeth in anger when he saw a waiter with a blood stained shirt face down in the carpet in front of him, two glasses of Mountain Dew pouring their contents on the carpet. Gradually, his ears stopped ringing, and he heard the screams of the other patrons.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the smoke clearing and the rest of his team getting up. Mas and Menos were no worse for the wear, but they were livid both, and Aqualad stared in shocked anger at the dying fish from the destroyed aquarium and at the waiter the blast had killed. It occurred to him that it was amazing they'd even gotten Garth to come to a restaurant that served sushi.
Bumblebee wiped a small cut on her left arm clean and stuck a special insta-bandage her father had developed on the wound. She'd have time to heal later, after whatever did this was brought to justice, Roy knew. He was just thankful now for Ollie and all his lectures on the importance of armor—he'd felt a piece of shrapnel hit him hard in the chest through the armor, and knew it would have done worse otherwise.
"Titans, report," Bumblebee barked, her eyes busy scanning through the clearing smoke for a follow up attack.
"Fine and mad as Poseidon," Aqualad snarled.
"Somos ilesos," Mas y Menos said in unison.
"Same here," said Roy. He ached a bit, but nothing serious.
"Then let's find out who did this and—" Karen was cut off when a crossbow bolt streaked right past her head and slammed into the wood of the booth divider behind her. The Titans glanced at the projectile long enough to realize…
'bomb'
BOOOOM!
A second explosion rocked the restaurant, and the fleeing patrons and pedestrians began to flee all the faster.
Still, it wasn't seven times the speed of sound, which was the approximate speed that Miguel and Victor Toledo could run.
Mas and Menos had the Titans out of the building in the fraction of the second it took for them to see the bomb and react to it, and the Titans would let them know how thankful they were for it.
Later.
Because once the were out of the building, they were immediately confronted by their attacker..
"You guys really are good," an infectious voice—the kind that makes you skin crawl just hearing it—said to them. Then he appeared, and the Titans could do nothing but facevault.
He had fallen from the roof a building across the square from the restaurant, and was dressed in a loose black tunic and long pants. The tunic was open slightly at the top, revealing a bullet resistant vest underneath. Across the tunic he wore what appeared to be a bandolier… of piano keys.
His mask/helmet covered his head and his face down to his nose, his eyes a pair of blank black goggles, and his helmet had a crest of two conjoined 8-Balls on it.
"Who are you supposed to be?" Arsenal barked. "The Pianist?"
"Hardly," the man said.
"Let me guess," Bumblebee tried, "You're just 'Piano-Man."
No verbal reply, but a knife flicked out with amazing speed and clipped Karen's face so closely that she didn't even feel the contact before the blood started to run. The Titans gasped at this.
"The call me Crazy-88," the man said. "I'm here to kill Aqualad. And anyone who gets in my way, of course. Let me have your fishy friend and the rest of you will be left alone."
"After what you did to that restaurant!" Roy blurted.
"Eres loco!" Mas y Menos finished.
"Who would want me dead?" Aqualad asked.
"Doesn't matter." Bumblebee hovered above the area drawing her stingers. This in turn drew a smirk from Crazy-88. "You saw that man in the restaurant, Titans. This psycho is going down."
"Just try me," he said, drawing knives from his belt.
"Titans, TOGETHER!" Bumblebee barked. And forward they charged.
Wow. This first chapter was dissapointingly short, but this seems like a good place to end it for now. This story may be slow-going since I have so many other projects, but hey, it might come faster. Who knows?