Teen Titans
By The Mauve Lantern
Chapter 0: And So It Begins…
It's warm. Summer has come, and brought with it hot nights; nights spent under the stars. Two figures are staring at the stars above them, one looking for constellations, the other looking for signs of trouble.
"Do you think it was smart to come back so soon?" says the more careless figure.
"Of course. After all, we are the only ones that know what is going to happen." The cautious one turns towards its companion. "And they would have found out too late. They need to know of this right now."
"But how will they stop this thing? They might not be ready. I mean, you and me, we're ready; heck, we've been ready. The question is: are they?"
Underneath its hood, the cautious figure smiled, and replied, "Were you ready when it happened? Was I ready? Have faith; they will know when the time is right." It turned its gaze towards its companion. "After all, they don't let just anyone join the Teen Titans."
Meanwhile…
Hundreds of miles away, in the same evening, under the same stars, at a beachside somewhere in Florida, a streak of fire plummets from the sky and heads earthward. The group of teenagers sitting on the beach watches the sky longingly, everyone's rapt attention a combination of narcotics and alcohol; they don't realize what is going to happen in 1 minute…
"Hey man, check it out! A shooting star!"
"No way, dude! That's gotta be, like, the Human Match or whatever!"
"Nah, dawg, I see it too."
"Jake, baby, make a wish!"
45 seconds…
"A'right, babe, wadda you want?"
"Mmm…I want something new. I want adventure, I want excitement!"
"Well, let's head back to the hotel, and we'll get to that excitement!"
"OH-HO-HO, Playa's gonna GET some!"
30 seconds…
"Hey, shut up Brendan!"
"Chill, J; I was just playin'!"
"Gawd, Brendan, you're such a loser!"
"Hey, anybody notice that star is getting closer?"
15 seconds…
"Yo, Brianna, what's your problem?"
"My 'problem' is you acting so stupid all the damn time!"
"Hey, guys settle down!"
"Uh, guys?"
10 seconds…
"Ken, what is it?"
"We gotta move, Lexi…like right now!"
"Why-OH SHI-!"
BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM
A giant hunk of metal crashed down right where the teenagers stood just a minute ago, barely missing them. The kids got up from where they fell, all of them terrified at what just happened. Jake spoke first, "Di-did that just fall from the sky?"
Brendan replied, "Y-yeah, dawg; I think it did!"
Brianna stared at it and said, "What the hell is it?"
Lexi stared at it as well, and noticed something happening to the hunk of metal. "HOLY &#, IT'S OPENING!" She was right; the debris was opening up. A hatch on top was slowly coming apart from the rest of the metal, letting a cloud of smoke come from within. The entire scene looked like it belonged in some cheesy horror film.
They all moved in a little closer towards the machine, unsure of what to do next. Suddenly, a white hand reached out from the craft, and grabbed the side of the ship. Everybody screamed, including the owner of the hand. It withdrew back into the ship, followed by what sounds like alien cursing. The teenagers looked at each other, and only Ken dared to ask the obvious: "I-is he cussing out his ship?" No one answers.
A few seconds later (though it feels like an eternity), the hand reemerged, only this time it was contained by a red glove. Another hand was produced from the hunk of metal, and soon the teenagers were staring at what they thought was an alien.
This 'alien' certainly didn't look like any extraterrestrial the kids had seen before. Aliens were supposed to be gross and misshapen; the creature before them was large and muscular. Anytime they saw an alien on the news, it looked nothing like a human; this was the one exception. It (the alien) resembled a human; in many ways, he looked like Superman's younger brother! It was six feet tall, had red irises, and black hair that had a slight curl to it; it had a chiseled face and a body built like an athlete. On its body, it wore what looked like a blue jumpsuit, with red gloves, a red belt, and red boots. There was an insignia on its chest, and it resembled a 'W'.
He stared at the teenagers, opened his mouth, and said, "Haunms, uoy ehva ightnon ot reaf!"
The kids stared at it, and Brianna said, "&# did he just say?"
It cursed again, and reached to its belt, where it pulled out a metal band that had a green symbol in the middle. It placed the band around his forehead, and suddenly, his eyes turned green and he said, "Sorry about that! I have only just arrived, and so have not had time to prepare my lingual skills. Now then: Humans! You have nothing to fear! I am Yders A'lok."
Brendan asked, "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means, sir, 'Boy of Wonder' in your language."
"So, you're, like, Wonder Boy?"
"If you insist…"
"Cool…"
Wonder Boy leapt down from his ship, and told the kids, "I am here on an important mission: to detect the source of these mysterious energy waves that have been stemming from this planet."
Ken asked, "Energy waves?"
"Yes, energy waves. They are causing great disaster on my home planet, so I have been sent to put an end to it!" He marched proudly forward, and then collapsed in the sand. The group of teenagers rushed over to him, and asked if he is all right. "Yes," he replies, "My body is simply adjusting to this planet. I should be fit within twelve of your Earth hours."
Jake said, "Are you going to stay here with your ship?"
"Sadly I cannot, as my ship has been badly damaged by your solar system's asteroid belt. I shall need accommodations for a while. May I stay with you?"
Jake looked at his friends, who all shrugged their shoulders and left the answer to him. He turned back to Yders and said, "It's cool if you stay with us for now. We're out at the beach without our folks, so you can stay if you have to."
"Many thanks for your kindness." He then fell right into slumber. The group looked at him, then at each other, until Brendan said, "Soooo, who's he roomin' with?"
Meanwhile…
Fifty miles off the coast of Florida, fifty miles from where an alien just landed on Earth, the water stirs. Just below the surface, a giant shark does battle with a beautiful girl; a battle observed by five men, who watch from a safe distance.
The girl has a slight, but muscular, build, and looks to be of Asian descent. She wears green armor that looks like it was made from a giant green fish: her arms are adorned with green scales that connect at her chest to form a sort of chain mail; her left hand is covered with a glove that has razors attached to the end, and resembles a fin; her legs are covered by armor that seems to be a mix of medieval and aquatic, giving her both mobility and protection. Around her waist is a plethora of deadly weapons, ranging from a dagger made of coral to a deadly hookstaff. In this fight, however, she uses a massive sword that is more than half her size.
She swings the blade at the beast, and slices deep into its head, but it simply continues to fight. Tiring of the battle, the girl raises the blade high above her head as the shark charges toward her, and brings it down just before the shark reaches her. The blade burrows deep into the monster's head, and brings its existence to an end. The onlookers swim towards her, and a few applaud her; they are both proud and terrified at what they had witnessed. This was a beast that would require the strength of ten Atlanteans, at least, to bring it down. Tula had killed it within five minutes, without any help.
Talos, the leader of the men, approached Tula first, and said, "Well done, Tula, well done; your strength has improved in the past few months. In fact," he says as he motions to the others, "We believe you are ready for your mission."
Tula replied with a curt, "What is it?"
Shaken by her response, Hufyrg, another observer of the fight, answered her question: "For three months now, our underwater kingdom has felt these strange waves of energy, energy that has never before been produced from the mortal plane. We needed to investigate the
waves, but we required a strong enough soldier. Tula, you are perfect for this mission. Do you accept?"
She nodded her head and simply said, "Yes."
Jaris, the smallest of the men, held a mirror in his hands, and said, "Take this with you, Tula; it will allow you to track this energy and-" but before he could finish describing the powers of the mirror, Tula had taken it and smashed it in her hand.
The vicious girl glared at Jaris and spoke through her teeth, saying, "I do not need tools like this; I will find the source my own way." With that, she swam off through the waters, leaving the men alone.
They all looked at each others' eyes with fear and concern. Now that the Sea Devil had been unleashed on the world, there was no telling the havoc she would cause.
That same evening…
A young man sits in his hotel room. He has been traveling for the past few days, trying to reach his destination soon, before anything bad can happen. His name is Scrap, though that isn't his real name. He's not even sure he has a real name!
You see, at a very young age, Scrap was left alone at the DEO, a government agency that dealt with the things no regular human could handle. He, along with other orphans, had been sent there so that he could learn about his powers and how they worked. So far, he had learned that his magnetism had become enhanced and allowed him to do many things his friends couldn't do, like fly through the air. He was becoming more powerful almost every day, it seemed. To prove this, the 15-year-old levitated the remote control over to his hand, focusing on the batteries inside.
It had been a while since he was taken into the DEO, and it was only last month that he became qualified to go on missions, like the others. Scrap had leapt at the chance to go out and see the country, and seeing the country he was: he had already traveled from his loft in San Diego to this small town just outside of Gotham. During his trip, Scrap had stopped every so often to take out any criminals his bosses thought might be linked to the mission at hand; they needed as many leads as they could get if they were to discover the source of the strange energy waves the DEO had been picking up.
Speaking of his bosses, his communicator went off. "Finally," he said to himself, "Finally gonna get some action!" He flipped open the two-way, and said, "What's the situation, boss?"
"First off, Scrap: don't call me boss. You know I hate that!" Alex really did hate that nickname. "And second: there's a robbery going on in your area. Find it, shut it down; you know the drill."
"Ma'am, yes MA'AM!" With that, Scrap shut the communicator and grabbed his costume from his bed. It was a bodysuit that was red on the right side and white on the left, with the letter 'N' on the red and 'S' on the white. He had a pair of goggles that were red themselves, and he had a belt that was filled with metals of varying size and shape, some like bars, others like little BB pellets.
The young hero quickly changed into his costume, and headed to the window of his room; he opened it, and shouted, "YIPEE-KI-YAY!" before he jumped from his fifth story hotel room.
Acting quickly, Scrap used magnetic forces to stop himself from falling, and then to propel himself through the air towards the crime scene.
That same evening, not too far away…
"AAAHH! HELP, SOMEBODY!" An older lady had been walking through the streets of Jump City, coming home after her shift ended at the diner. She had walked by an alleyway, and was now surrounded by a group of thugs, with weapons ready.
"Shut up, lady, and give us your money!" shouted the biggest one.
"Yeah!" "Yeah!" "Give us your money!" was echoed amongst the muggers.
Suddenly, the woman sank into the ground, and came up a few feet away from the muggers. All of them stared at her and the figure that had saved her.
A lanky boy stood next to the woman, his light-brown hair blowing in the evening breeze; a black mask covered his face, but other than that he had on pedestrian clothes. A black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a pair of black Chuck Taylor's were his costume. Two fingerless gloves adorned his hands, and he had a black scarf around his neck. The boy turned to the woman and told her, "You can go now, I can handle these creeps." He then stared at the crooks, and said, "Don't you guys have anything better to do than take women's purses?"
The lead mugger shouted, "GET HIM!" and the group rushed the boy, only to find him vanishing before their very eyes. They stopped and stood puzzled for a second, until he popped out of the shadows of the building and punched one guy square in the face. The crooks tried to grab the kid, only to have to him slip away into the shadows.
He jumped out of the shadows again, saying, "That the best you got?" and kicking a mugger in the stomach, and landed, ready to retreat, when the lead mugger grabbed his scarf and yanked him to the ground. He was then lifted into the air by the criminal, who laughed as he strangled the hero with his own scarf.
"You're gonna die, kid! Die!"
The boy gasped for air, but managed to say, "Heads…up!"
"Huh?" BAM! The crook was hit in the back of the head and fell to the ground unconscious. Sucking air back into his lungs, the boy had never been happier to see his partner before. She stood in front of him with a red leotard and a yellow tunic, with yellow gloves and boots, and a hair band around her blonde hair.
She offered a gloved hand to her partner, and smiled, saying, "I told you the scarf was a bad idea."
"Hey, Geist did it, so do I!" said Geist.
She rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. 'Geist is my hero, so I have to emulate him as much as I can!' I've heard it before."
"Yeah, well, I don't give you any crap for copying Fury!"
"Well who in their right mind would?"
Geist grunted and mumbled, "Whatever." He then looked up into the sky, where he noticed something odd. He turned to Fury, and asked, "Hey Nicole, do we have any kids that can fly in this city?"
"Umm…I don't think so. Why?"
"'Cause there's one flying right above us!"
Fury turned to the sky, where she saw a boy fly over her head. He had a red and white suit, and had a blue energy around his body. As he flew away from them, Geist and Fury nodded to each other and moved out, but not before Fury had tied up the crooks with a metal pipe.
Out in the desert…
The careless stargazer has turned to his companion, and said, "If you think these guys are ready, then I guess they must be. I mean, 'cause you know everything!"
The cautious one smiled under her hood, and replied in a mysterious voice, "While I do not know everything, I do know the future and what it holds. It is time for a new league of heroes. A new age of young justice. A new age of Teen Titans!"
A circle of light opens in front of the two, revealing the dead Titans Omen and Osiris. Osiris, seeing the portal open, shouts, "YAHOOOOOOO!" and flies in head first. Omen smiles even more, and floats into the portal herself, ready to greet the newest Titans…
To be continued…