Nope, this ain't one of those stupid hokey Teen Titans/fantasy story crossover things. I know it sounds like one… But to anyone who actually WATCHED Calling All Titans, the chess allusion will make sense. Really and truly, the "White King" is none other than… Robin (BTW, this is a very long AN but if you can struggle through it the fic, and maybe even Season 5,will make a lot more sense).
Yes, yes, I heard the tales of horror; how bad Season 5 was. I heard the tales long before I ever saw Season 5, the episodes being shown here in Britain a whole seven months after the US got it – we actually just finished recently. And yes; there were some abysmal episodes in there. Lightspeed, for example, or Hide and Seek… episodes that just strayed too far away from the… um… Teen Titans (you know, those five kids the show is named after? Remember them?).
But while I hated an awful lot of the season (incidentally I disliked more episodes in this season that those I dislike from all of the other seasons put together), I do not condemn it so coldly and ultimately as everyone else seems to. I thought some of it was seriously genius. In case you're wondering what I've been taking, I'll clarify; the communicators. My brother/friends and I have long laughed since Season 2 and Winner Take All about Robin's dumb-ass habit of giving everyone communicators; it was always our joke that he deliberately took them everywhere with him to give to people to make himself look popular (like people who force their phone number onto people they don't even know; "Call me!"). Seriously, he's like a lil' drug-pusher…
Seasons 2, 3 and 4 pass and we laugh, we cry, and we nitpick at the animation goofs; furthermore, we laugh some more at those communicators. Season 5 comes along and we realize we were freakin' on to something! Robin giving everyone a communicator wasn't one big fan joke that the writers didn't notice; it was an underlying storyline the whole freaking time! And that realization by our oh-so-smart Boy Wonder in Calling All Titans – "It's my fault. I'm the one who got us into trouble…" – seriously had me wide-eyed. Season 5 has its craptacular moments, but if you ask me, it's freaking ingenious too. The communicators have always been a little gadget that has been overlooked; in fact, if you look at Season 1, right up until Apprentice Pt I, Robin is the only Titan who actually has one (Starfire is seen with one in Apprentice Pt I). And that's because… they're like… irrelevant. Right? Nothing special. They have similar comm. devices in shows like Totally Spies and Kim Possible. But that's the beauty of the storyline; that something so simple – the little device they use to keep in touch with one another – is their downfall. And the placement of Go! did far more, I think, than simply show how the Titans met. It showed the introduction of the communicators – designed by Robin (surprise, surprise) and created by Cyborg.
And it showed how they were perhaps doomed right from the start because of them.
So between that and the "chessboard metaphor" for the expanded Teen Titans team of Season 5, I may stand alone in saying that, overall – the retarded episodes that didn't include the original Titans aside – Season 5 was pretty damn good. And as for that metaphor… Yes, the idea of a talking gorilla and a Dalek rip-off playing chess does seem ridiculous and cliché until you look at the context of it. The Teen Titans are the white pieces, representing the good which they fight for; the other Titans are the pawns/castles/bishops/knights (you see white pawns being taken by black pieces as Argent, Aqualad and Speedy are all defeated), Starfire is the White Queen (Monsieur Mallah takes the White Queen right after you see Starfire being defeated by Kitten) and Robin is the White King (the White King is put into checkmate by the Black Queen right before Madame Rouge shows up to beat the crap out of Robin). And later, of course, when Robin is actually captured, The Brain refers to him as the "king"…
Whoo, that was long and uncalled for. I hope that AN didn't just put you off…
The White King
("…It is you who has been defeated. I have captured the king. Your pawns cannot save you. You have lost…")
Have they truly lost?
They have saved the world countless times. From Slade. From Terra. From Brother Blood. From Trigon.
Have they truly lost… to a brain in a jar?
More than anger, or pain, or humiliation… he feels disgust. How could they have lost?
But have they…?
It isn't over. It's never over. They are Titans, and they will fight to the end.
He leans back against the glass of the canister they have imprisoned him in. There is no way to get out. He has tried; his explosive disks are useless, the birdarangs simply ricochet dangerously off the rounded sides, and even running head-long into it has only proved to give him a near-concussion.
There is not a scratch on the glass.
So he simply sits at the bottom, his back against the glass walls, his dark head bowed, and awaits his fate. He knows what they are going to do to him. He was forced to watch them do it to Speedy, and to Argent and Aqualad. He has already seen Hot Spot and Wildebeest.
He knows that he is next in line.
And he knows that he has no chance of escaping. He will be frozen and put on a shelf like an action figure.
But that doesn't mean the others will be.
He has seen this before. Villains getting a little too sure of themselves. A little too confident.
It is ironic, he admits. Chess, Bruce has always said, is a game that requires a brain. There is no luck, like in Monopoly. There is no physical prowess required, like in baseball. You can't learn the rules and hope to bluff your way through to victory.
There is strategy. Planning. Cunning. Both scrutiny and assessment is required before every move.
It's not an easy game to win.
You need a brain.
He allows himself a smile.
Heh. Brain. How ironic.
Yes, you need a brain. And for this particular game… a brain is what there has been right from the start.
This villain – The Brain, as he calls himself – is strategic. What else can he be? He… if it is even a he… It is a brain in a jar, as Beast Boy has put it.
Beast Boy knows what he is talking about. Knows what he is dealing with.
And yet Beast Boy is not the king. Beast Boy was never the one The Brain wanted.
As in chess, The Brain waited, biding his time and gathering information. He asserted the positions of both his own pieces and his opponents.
Black vs. White.
He, of course, sees himself as the Black King. This is logical; the role of the king on the chessboard is to be the centerpiece. That which stands behind the rows of pawns and bishops and knights and castles; giving orders to defend and protect.
Or, in the case of The Brain, attack.
Madame Rouge is the Black Queen. This is logical too; as the queen is potentially the most powerful piece on the board. She is sent to all four corners of it; taking other pieces. Defeating and destroying them.
Rouge has most certainly done that. First she took the pawns Wildebeest and Hotspot; then was relieved by the other black pieces. The black bishops and knights and castles. General Immortus. Monsieur Mallah. All of those other villains that the Teen Titans have faced and defeated since their birth as a team.
Then, when the time was right, the Black Queen was put into play again. This time after a much more valuable white piece.
The White King.
Oh yes, The Brain is one to sit back and scrutinize his moves. He had planned moves in advance for this. He studied the set-up of the board and worked his way through the ranks. First he took the white pawns; these "Honorary Titans". Then he took the white knights, the white bishops, the white castles… The Titans East. The other four real Titans.
They have not been apprehended; at least not those four.
Cyborg. Starfire. Raven. Beast Boy. The white defenders. They are either dead, or they are still out there fighting.
To The Brain, this is trivial. The pieces – dead or alive – were pushed aside. The defense was broken and scattered.
The White King was left corned in susceptible Checkmate from all directions. From all eight surrounding squares and beyond.
The Black King sees his opening and moves in; sends the Black Queen to do his bidding.
The White King sits now, still at the bottom of his glass case, awaiting his sentence; and remembers his defeat at the hands of the Black Queen. Closes his eyes and reminds himself of his taking.
She was merciless. Undefeatable. He dropped boulders on her and she squirmed her way through the gaps between them and reformed. He froze her, then smashed her to thousands of shards of Black Queen, and she reformed and came after him once more.
Checkmate it had truly been. No matter which way he moved, there was no escape. He had known that; and had used those precious few moments he had managed to steal to send that signal through all of the communicators – those accursed communicators – and break off the contact.
He had been taken then.
They do not know how to find him. They don't know where he is. He could be dead; perhaps drowned at the bottom of the ocean, or broken and bleeding at the bottom of a precipice. This also works vice versa; he does not know if they are still alive.
All he knows is that they are not about to meet the same fate as he.
He hears The Brain's robotic voice now. It would appear that the villain is working his audience up. The speech is hardly inspiring – The Brain does not exactly have an inspiring voice; there is no tone, no accent and no emotion – but the audience (comprised of nearly every villain the Teen Titans have ever faced) is getting excited all the same.
The White King allows himself another smile; this one bitter.
He gets an audience.
He is not sure whether to be flattered or embittered further.
On one hand, he knows they cheer because of all the trouble he has caused them, which proves, if nothing else, that he is doing his job correctly. He is clearly infamous among the villainous society as the spanner who can always be relied on to put a stop to the works. That satisfies him enough to bring a smirk to his face.
However… he is obviously also highly unpopular because of this. He may be unpopular for all the right reasons – he being a hero, leader of the Titans, the sidekick of Batman – but still, a raucous cheer accompanying the news of your defeat, capture and fate is not an uplifting moment. He feels both irritated and dejected that they will find it so entertaining to watch him being frozen.
There was no audience for Speedy, Argent, or Aqualad.
The Brain – the Black King – is making a spectacle out of him.
Why?
Because the Black King knows that is what the crowd wants to see.
"…And for your part, a gift. I give you… Robin."
The White King gets to his feet as the canister suddenly lurches along the conveyor belt and comes to a sudden halt again, right in the center. He is now in full view of all who have come to watch him freeze. He is astounded by how many of them there are; they are all cast in shadow, grinning and leering.
He knows they will enjoy this little show.
They cheer again and he dips his dark head in disgust. The White King hates to lose (a lesson learned long ago, from another Black King) and grits his teeth and clenches his fists at this; for he has not only been beaten…
…Everyone knows it. They have all come to watch it.
His fury and frustration spill over.
"This isn't over!" He yells angrily, pounding his fists against the glass walls imprisoning him.
Down below, the Black King turns to him; and that thing cannot smirk, but if it could, it surely would be right now.
"For you… it most certainly is…"
Looking up desperately, the White King sees that the tube of the freezing machine already attached to the top of his canister. Again he knows there is no escape for him now.
He looks towards the shelves and sees eleven other teenaged superheroes already there; those who have met the same fate as he is about to now.
Hot Spot. Wildebeest. Speedy. Bushido. Tramm. Aqualad. Argent. Thunder. Lightning. Killowat. Menõs.
On the topmost shelf – the smallest – there is only Menõs. There is a space to the left of him and somehow the White King knows that that will be his display position.
But he knows other things too.
With a sudden brittle whooshing sound, his canister is suddenly plunged into the interior of an icy near-opaque cloud as the freezing solution is forced from the tube into it.
He gasps out in shock and instinctively throws up his arms and then realizes too late that he has already begun to freeze up. It starts at his feet and rapidly works its way up his body, locking everything in place as though, like Kole, he is being turned to a solid crystal sculpture.
It reaches his waist and he realizes that he cannot move his legs. It reaches his chest and he finds it hard to breathe; eventually he takes one final gasp and then his lungs freeze up too and he is unable to take in any more air. Then his heart begins to slow up too, his blood freezes in his veins, and by the time it reaches his neck he is almost unconscious.
His mind, however, keeps working until every last inch of him has been taken; until the whole of the White King is a cold silver statue, his face frozen in that horrified gasp, his masked eyes wide.
Right up until the last second, he knows that this is not over.
The Black King has been too cocky; too confident. He has likened this whole plan of his to a chess game; with he and his allies the black pieces, the enemies – the Teen Titans and all of their honorary members – as the white pieces.
He has pitted himself – the leader of the Brotherhood of Evil – against the White King – the leader of the Teen Titans.
His mistake?
As much as he may find it so, with all of his allies – Rouge, Mallah, Immortus – being so much less superior to him, the Titans are not like chess pieces.
The Brain believes that by taking the king, the other pieces will surrender.
Perhaps, with the black side – their side – it would happen.
But the whites?
They are not taught that way. They are a team, and they will keep fighting. They will not give up, even though they have lost contact with their leader. The Brain has put himself as the king because he believes the king to be the most important piece on the board.
He has foolishly handed Robin the white crown.
It's not over with the taking of just one piece, king or not. The whites will not have lost until the blacks have taken every last one of their pieces.
Which, the White King knows, is unlikely.
And so…
…there will be a Checkmate in this game.
And, more importantly…
…Game Over.
END
…Or not the end, as it were…
Know what I love about this "novelizing" of the show (that is that this is, technically)? I can be lazy! I don't have to resolve anything! You all know what happens next (that awesome fight scene with ALL of the Titans), and if you don't, you can just go watch Titans Together to find out. Mwa ha…
Look, it's long and kinda pointless. But the "chess" analogy really interested me when I was watching Season 5, soooo… You get this. Congratulations.
Well, I have written five one-shots – TaranTEENo, Submit, Black Diamonds, Every Day I Love You Less and Less and this – in just over 24 hours, and this is the last of them… I know that doesn't really sound like a lot but all of them apart from Submit are pretty long, considering they are one-shots…
What a ride…
- RobinRocks xXx