"Guys, I'm hungry."
"We know."
"Will you please shut up about it?"
"All I'm saying is that I'm hungry."
"WE KNOW!"
"You have told us this several times, friend."
"Stop repeating yourself, you're just making the rest of us hungry!"
"But I can't help it! I'm so hungry and there's nothing for me to do but – POPPIES!"
"What?"
Cyborg the tin man was racing, arms a-flap, towards a field of bright red poppies. Robin in a blue dress, Starfire the scarecrow, and Beast Boy the cowardly lion stared after him.
"POPPIES!" they heard him scream again, but his voice was like a foghorn stuffed with a pillow because he was so far away at this point.
Robin looked at Toto. Toto shrugged at Robin. "Okay, poppies it is." And he linked arms with Starfire and Beast Boy and off they trotted.
"Muah ha ha ha!" Slade muah ha ha ha-ed. "They will soon fall into my irresistible poppy trap!" He was watching them with a sinister gleam in his mask. Their images shimmered and swirled in his magical evil cauldron. Slade zoomed in on Robin's pig-tailed face with a wave of his wand.
"Rooooooooobin," he crooned, "You shall soon be mine! And your little dog, too! Actually, I don't care about your dog so much. I didn't even know you had a dog. When did you get him?"
And he peered expectantly at the foolishly grinning, trotting Robin in his cauldron as if waiting for the watery image to answer his question.
"You realize that he can't hear you, right?" snapped a flying monkey.
"Silence! I am expecting a very important call!"
The multitude of flying monkeys hovering about all glanced at each other. Even Cinderblock looked confused. Although it is a theory of some popularity that Cinderblock's face is simply one of permanent confusion as if to ask the question before the onlooker can even think it: "What the hell is that, a walking anvil? Why does such a thing even exist?"
But then the phone rang, so the flying monkeys relaxed a bit. But Cinderblock still looked confused. He smashed the phone with one of his giant and completely unnecessary fists.
"DAMN IT, CINDERBLOCK!" Slade shrieked. "THAT WAS PROBABLY THE IMPORTANT CALL I WAS EXPECTING!"
"Sowwwy master," Cinderblock said, and then made a new facial expression like a punctuation colon followed by a number three, thus shattering the popular theory about Cinderblock's face.
"Oh, forget it! Nothing ever goes right, does it – WHAT IS THIS CRAP?" he screamed. He was looking back at his cauldron, watching in horror as Robin and co. devoured all of his irresistible poppies.
"NOOOOO! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SMELL THEM, NOT EAT THEM!" And he sunk, sobbing, into the chair. That was there. In Slade's lair. "That's my snare! It's not fair! I don't care."
"Mmmm, these poppies are delicious! I wonder why I ever doubted you, Cy!" said Beast Boy through a large mouthful.
"Bleghhh rehh uuugooduh," Cyborg replied through an even larger mouthful.
Beast Boy blinked. "Well that clears that up."
"I was telling you to look over there," Cyborg said patiently after swallowing several thousand poppies.
The group all paused and looked over their shoulders at a tall, green, spiky cityscape in the distance.
"Ah ha! That must be Oz!" declared Robin. "Come on, guys, let's go see that wizard!" And so, they all linked arms again and skipped off through the poppy field.
"Um. Where is everybody?" asked Robin apprehensively, peering around at the spooky and evidently empty city.
Beast Boy hummed the theme from "It Came From Black Lagoon 2: The Creature's Thoroughly Planned Vengeance Upon It's Previous Victims Who Escaped the First Time as Well as Upon Other Characters You Couldn't Care Less About".
"Stop," advised Cyborg.
Beast Boy stuck out his bottom lip.
"Friends!" Starfire cried, pointing towards the center of town. There stood the tallest, spikiest, greenest building of them all, and enticing music and shimmering lights were wafting out of it.
"That's probably where the rest of the town is," Cyborg suggested.
"I… guess," Robin said with a frown.
"Let's link arms again," Beast Boy said, thrusting his arms out at ninety degree angles from his torso.
"I don't feel whimsical anymore," Robin told him. Starfire and Cyborg linked arms with Beast Boy anyway, and they trotted happily off. "Wait!" Robin whisper-shouted after them, but they ignored him, so he seized Toto by the ears ("Of course," sighed Toto) and bounded after them.
They stopped when they reached the building, though, because from what they could see through the large open doors, nobody was inside it either. And now the lights looked threatening and the music sounded eerie.
"Friends, I no longer think that going inside of this building is a good idea," Starfire said, fiddling with some of her straw.
"I'm with Star," said Beast Boy,
"Me too," said Cyborg.
"But… but guys!" Robin protested. "I want to get out of this dress! And also I want to go back to Kansas."
"Jump City," corrected Toto.
"Yeah whatever," gurgled Robin.
"But Robin, how do you know that the wizard is inside this building of green and nightmares? Perhaps the wizard of Oz is elsewhere!"
"Well, we won't know until we try, will we?" Robin said, and his determination inspired his friends. Sort of.
As they strolled down long, green, echoie hallways, Beast Boy hummed the theme from "It Came From Black Lagoon 3: It All Ends Here (DISCLAIMER: unless this movie makes a sizeable enough profit to suggest to the studio that further sequels will also be profitable; in which case it does not in fact end here)".
"Beast Boy, can you maybe -" But Robin wasn't able to finish telling Beast Boy to stop because the hallway, after a sharp turn, ended in an enormous room where a huge, smoky face hovered in the air glaring down at them.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" the voice boomed.
They were all speechless for a moment.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" demanded the large face again.
"Uhhh, um, well, you see, what it is, is that -"
"Guuuh, I don't really - I'm not - I don't have - I'm here with -"
"I can't seem to remember what -"
"Oh please do not be angry, we are simple travellers -"
Toto rolled his eyes and pranced to the front and centre.
"Robin wants to go home and to not be wearing a dress anymore. Starfire wants a brain. Cyborg wants a heart. And Beast Boy wants to be able to morph. We were told by some very persistent short people that you could help us, so we came here. That is all."
The face made a face. It was not a happy face made by the face.
"I FIND YOUR REQUESTS RIDICULOUS! WHO WOULD EVER WANT TO LEAVE OZ? AND THERE'S NO POSSIBLE WAY FOR SOMEONE TO BE ALIVE WITHOUT A BRAIN OR A HEART. AND YOU ARE STILL ABLE TO MORPH, YOU JUST HAVE TO TAKE THE STUPID LION SUIT OFF! IT'S TOO THICK TO ALLOW YOU TO CHANGE SHAPES!"
"But I put the suit on after I found out that I couldn't shapeshift -"
"SILENCE! I'M NOT FINISHED BERATING YOU!"
But Robin was no longer listening. He was looking at a small green curtain, behind which a bald man with a sinister grin was darting about.
"Who's that?" Robin asked the large face, pointing.
"YOU MEAN, 'WHOM'S THAT'."
"No, I really don't, I mean, 'who's that' as in who is that old bald guy behind that curtain?"
"ERR, PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT BALD OLD GUY BEHIND THE CURTAIN! I AM THE WIZARD OF OZ! THOSE STONER MUNCHKINS SCREAMED THIS AT ME THEMSELVES, AND IF THEY DON'T KNOW, THEN NO ONE DOES!"
But the huge smoky face began to sputter and pop, and then all at once it exploded, as did whatever equipment the bald man was fiddling around with behind the green curtain.
"Robin, it's Mad Mod!" Beast Boy exclaimed.
The four Titans took their attack stances and turned to face him as he emerged, fanning the smoke away from his face with both hands.
"Mad Mod!" greeted Robin in his menacing villain-greeting way, as the other three bared their teeth behind him.
"Oh come on, now, my duckies!" he spluttered. "I was just having a laugh!"
"But how is Robin supposed to get home?" demanded Starfire indignantly. "If the Mad Mod is the wizard of Oz, then what hope do we have of solving our problems?"
Before anyone could answer her there were two loud POOFS! And there, standing next to them, was Raven, the Good Witch of the North, and Slade, the Wicked Witch of the West.
"Slade," greeted Robin in his menacing villain-greeting way, and the other three faced their attack stances at the masked man.
"Mod, you were supposed to call me when they got here!" Slade spat.
"I called you when they got to your poppy field, but it only rang twice and you never picked up, my ducky."
"No! I wanted you to call me AS SOON AS THEY GOT TO OZ, not when they got to my poppy field!"
"But I thought you'd appreciate knowing the moment they got to your poppy field!"
"I could see them in my poppy field using my cauldron!"
"Well then why did I even have to call you in the first place, if you could have just used your magical cauldron?"
"… Shut up! Robin, I'm about to get you, my dearie, for dropping a house on Sladette!"
He took a step towards Robin.
"Not so fast, Slade!" Raven monotoned. "He's still wearing Sladette's fancy shoes. You can't get him while he's wearing those shoes."
Slade cocked his head at her. "Oh come on, that's bull." And he leapt at Robin.
Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven all leapt in front of Robin and Toto protectively, and fought the simultaneous attacks of Slade and the old bald Mad Mod, who was just swatting at anyone who came near him with an umbrella.
"Robin!" yelled Raven as she zinthosed Slade, "Click your heels together three times and chant, 'There's no place like home!"
"Why?" Robin said with a masked eyebrow lifted in confusion.
"Because it'll transport you back to Kansas!"
"We don't want to go to Kansas!" bellowed Toto.
"Why don't you just use the dark energy to get us all back to the T Tower?" Beast Boy suggested helpfully before he chomped on Slade's leg.
Raven shrugged and the Titans began to gather, but then Mad Mod caught Robin with a glancing blow from his umbrella.
"Wh- where am I?" Robin muttered groggily. His four teammates were crouched around him, peering anxiously at his face.
"Oh joyous circumstance!" Starfire cried, clapping her hands together in delight. "We though you wouldn't wake up for at least one more day!"
"What?" Robin asked.
"You were training on one of the machines – not sure which one – and you accidentally launched yourself into the air and you hit your head on the ceiling," Beast Boy explained, "Dude, you left a crack the size of an extreme-size vegan pizza in the ceiling."
"I had the strangest dream!" Robin said, awestruck. "You were there, and you were there, and you were there, and you were there, and Slade was there, and Mad Mod was there, and Killer Moth was there…." Toto squirmed his way in between Raven and Beast Boy.
"Well, I certainly hope I wasn't there. Your dreams are always really irritating experiences," he said.
"Ye- no, you weren't there," Robin told him. "Wait, who are you?"
Toto rolled his eyes. "I'm Toto, you idiot."
Because none of Robin's friends said anything to elaborate on this statement, and because none of them looked confused in the least, Robin simply replied, "Oh, right."
I wrote this at work. So technically, I got paid to write parody Teen Titan fanfic. Not a bad deal, really.
Also, Rent reference ftw.