TEEN TITANS
"From Jump City With Love"
Set during season 3, not long after the events of "Revolution" and "Wavelength".
Chapter One:
Security Breach
"Cyborg? Do you read me?" said a frantic Robin into his com.
"I sure do, Robbie. What's the problem?" The message was being fed directly into Cyborg's part-robotic brain.
"I can't get through to the others! Something's messing up their signals!"
Supposing he was going to have to fix whatever was jamming the com system, Cyborg strode over to the entrance of his room, but for some reason it wouldn't open. "Something's jammin' my doors!"
"I'm trapped in the living room. I would say whatever's blocking the com must be affecting the doors, but that's crazy! I'll bet someone's doing this deliberately."
"No doubt about it! Now all we need to work out is which one of our enemies would want to do something like this…that could take a while…"
Robin turned to see a transmission spring onto the giant television screen. At first it was mostly static, but then Robin started to make out a familiar face. "Or maybe not…" He put away his com.
"Prepare to meet your doom!" said the figure upon the screen, who had long auburn hair, bushy sideburns and was wearing a dark grey coat with broad metal shoulders, holding up a weapon-like remote control, "Now that I've hacked into your systems, you will be trapped in your stupid tower FOREVER! Don't even bother trying to call for help – I've scrambled your com. Before long, you'll start to run out of air. In a vacuum, no-one can hear you scream…"
"This has to be your most cowardly plan yet, Control Freak," responded Robin.
"My plan's not cowardly – it's INGENIOUS!" Control Freak's eyebrows arched menacingly. "I can't believe I didn't think of such an easy way to get rid of you losers before. Admit it – I truly am your greatest enemy!" He threw back his head and laughed maniacally.
Robin only raised an eyebrow at this hammy display. "I wouldn't count your chickens just yet. Your remote control may be able to hack into our systems, but a machine is no match for one of the most skilled hackers in Jump City…"
He whipped out a keyboard and began tapping at a rapid pace. After about a minute, he took out his communicator. "Cyborg! Try the doors now."
"They're working again!" replied Cyborg, as he raced through them.
Robin inserted a wire into his communicator and his fingers flew across the keyboard some more. After ten seconds, he picked up his com and said, "Starfire? Do you read me?"
"Robin! Thank the goodness the com is working again!"
"Not for much longer…" said Control Freak, raising his deadly remote.
No sooner had he done so did Starfire's chirpy soprano voice become replaced with a deep, monotonous one. "What was blocking the channel of communication?" There was then the sound of heavy breathing.
If Control Freak had tried that trick earlier, I would have realised it was his doing immediately! thought Robin.
"Control Freak has hacked into our systems," he responded.
"Robin…why is it that you are talking like the duck named Donald?"
When I get my hands on Control Freak, he's going to wish he was never born, thought Robin, placing the wire into his communicator and punching the keys once again, more furiously than ever.
Cyborg came charging through the doors at just that moment. "Control Freak?" he cried, catching sight of the face on the television, "Oh man! I shoulda known."
"Cyborg, I need your help here!" called Robin, still tapping at a remarkable pace.
"I'm on it, Robbie!" Cyborg picked up another keyboard and began typing at an equally high-speed rate.
Control Freak wasn't fazed. "You can type all you want, but you'll never outwit me! My remote control has more tricks than your puny minds can imagine – HEY!"
Suddenly, the screen went blank. Robin smirked. "That's the last we'll hear from him!"
He picked up his communicator. "Raven, can you hear me?"
"Not so fast, loser! You didn't think you could get rid of me, did you?" responded a voice that definitely didn't belong to Raven.
"WHAT?! How did you-" Robin then realised he didn't need to ask.
"Tough luck, Robin! No-one can defeat CONTROL FREAK and my remote control of doom!"
"I've had enough of this." Robin threw down his communicator and began tapping his keyboard once more. "I'm going to put that gloating geek back in prison if it's the last thing I do!"
On the screen appeared a map of Jump City with a flashing dot in the middle. Robin tried to hone in on where the signal from his communicator was coming from, but as a result of his concentration, he wasn't paying any attention to what Cyborg was doing.
The half-robot had inserted a wire into his circuitry and connected it to the game dock, typing as furiously as Robin. "Boo-yah!" he cried all of a sudden.
The dot on the map vanished before Robin even had a chance to see where Control Freak was located.
"Cyborg?! What did you do?"
"I only kicked his butt! I figured if I could block the signal from that remote control, that crazy coach-potato would have to go back to the drawing board. He can't make our systems go berserk if he can't access them!"
Cyborg was expecting Robin to say something along the lines of, "Cyborg, you're a genius!" (which probably would have been a more than accurate description, considering how they could possibly use the same method to prevent any further crimes by the infamous fanboy) so it was a real shock when Robin's reaction was the exact opposite.
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?" the boy wonder practically erupted, "I was about to locate Control Freak!"
"Relax, Robbie! He can't hurt us now."
"He can't hurt us. What if he uses his remote to go on a crime spree or interferes with the radio signals of everyone in Jump City? I can't believe you'd do something so selfish."
"I was just trying to protect our systems from being hacked into by that crazy dude! He could have gotten into our files using that remote of his. I wasn't the one who was too selfish to consider the possibility of our private data getting into enemy hands!"
The pair turned into fuming chibis in a headlock, veins bursting, when Starfire wandered through the door at the other end of the room.
"It is most reassuring that our technology is working again!" she said thankfully, before a puzzled expression came upon her face, "Friends Robin and Cyborg? Why are you in a state of anger? Surely the problem has now been fixed."
Her team-mates' heads grew bigger and sharp-toothed snarls came upon their faces, accompanied by alarming growls. Starfire's eyes went blank and a massive sweat drop appeared on her forehead.
Without warning, there was a strange noise from one of the orange-patterned walls. Everyone turned their heads to see what on Earth was going on, when one of the panels popped right off to reveal a green mouse, which promptly turned into none other than Beast Boy. "Uh, sorry I had to go through the tunnels, guys. The door to my room was stuck!" He saw that Cyborg's circuits were still connected to a keyboard strewn on the floor, which was next to another keyboard as well as a communicator. "Er, what happened while I was gone?"
It was at that moment Raven drifted through the door on the right side of the plasma screen (from where Starfire was standing). "Something was up with the doors and the com system," she stated, catching sight of what the boys had left in front of the television, "But I figure it has been fixed now."
"All thanks to Cyborg," said Robin venomously, looking daggers at his team-mate.
"Hey, what you looking at me like that for? I wasn't the one who was so concerned with catching Control Freak he nearly let him hack our data files! I saved our butts, man!"
"You weren't supposed to make the decision for me! I am the leader of this team, if you haven't forgotten."
"So, it is the Control Freak who was to blame for our problems?" interrupted Starfire, but the boys weren't listening.
"Well, maybe I should join another team!" continued Cyborg.
"What other team is there to join?"
"Maybe I'll make my own team!"
"Good luck with that. We happen to be the only superheroes in Jump City, unless you're thinking of siding with the bad guys. We hardly know anything about your experiences at the HIVE academy…"
Cyborg was so stunned he didn't even answer. Robin had really done it now. The Teen Titans, who had stood in horror for the last minute watching the argument unfold, were just thinking that Cyborg was about to blow a fuse (probably literally) when mercifully the map on the screen abruptly disappeared, being replaced by a transmission from a man in uniform. It was the Jump City police commissioner, who bore a stern expression.
"Titans! This is an urgent message."
Robin swivelled to face him, abandoning the quarrel. "We hear you, loud and clear."
"What you are about to hear is classified. Today, various TV broadcasters across the globe have spotted an anomaly in their signals – almost as if someone was trying to hijack them at the same time."
Robin briefly turned to Cyborg. "Now do you see what you've done?"
The commissioner looked confused for a second before continuing. "Their authorities were at a loss to unmask whoever tried to hijack the signals, but there is one link between the countries we have discovered that is too significant to be ignored. All of them once belonged to the British Empire."
A small map of the world appeared in a corner of the screen, with the countries whose signals had been hijacked coloured pink. This included India, Egypt, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and many other smaller territories he could not identify.
It was now Robin's turn to look bewildered. "But…why would Control Freak try to specifically target countries with that tie?" Another question on Robin's mind was whether or not his remote was even powerful enough to do something like that.
"This is not Control Freak's doing. The reason the Jump City police force was alerted of this phenomenon was because it suspiciously fit the motif of a particular supervillain residing in the city. You will remember that you thwarted him recently when he attempted to control the population via hypnotism – a move which we fear he was trying to repeat by hijacking television signals of countries he would want to gain domination over."
"Mad Mod," hissed Robin, his eyes narrowing.
"If this criminal is not stopped, he could re-attempt to hijack the signals, resulting in mass hypnotism across the world. There are rumours that he has been spotted in certain areas of Jump City…"
The chart of the world turned into a more localised map, with a translucent pink blob over where Mod had been sighted.
"No-one in Jump City knows this supervillain better than your team. We need you to go on a mission to locate Mad Mod and turn him over to us before he is able to accomplish his plans."
"Mission accepted," responded Robin, turning to face his team-mates, "The only way we're going to search that area in time is by splitting up. Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, you need to search the top three roads. Starfire and I will take the bottom two." He pointed to the exit. "Titans, GO!"
With that, Robin raced out of the door, followed closely by Cyborg, Beast Boy (in greyhound form – or rather "green"-hound form), Starfire (in mid-air) and Raven.
"Do you suppose Robin has now forgotten about the raising of voices he had with Cyborg?" Starfire asked Raven on the way out.
"I doubt that very much," replied the young half-demon.
Starfire's face fell. "Then I fear this mission will be filled with the bitings of the back and the falling out of friends Robin and Cyborg."
"Probably. At this rate, it will be a miracle if we even manage to find Mad Mod…"