A Basic Assault On Everything Superhero Plots Are Ever Based On.
Yes, another bank robbery. Yes, another cheesy villain. No, no sanity left in Raven's head. What will happen next?
Sleepy. That was the one word to describe the day. It was that overly calm, pure sleepiness that draped its aura about the entire city. No crack or crevice was safe. To some, it was a perfect example of the world going too slow; to others, it was a rare break from the hectic existence of a businessperson. To Raven, it was a signal that the unending note of boredom had to end soon.
The alarm went off. She had predicted correctly. Robin jerked out of his psychological stupor and shrieked his famous catchphrase. A robbery at the bank. That was the fifth time this week. Raven groaned and rubbed her temple. Her migraines had been acting up lately. Best to just rush to the scene, beat somebody up, dump them in jail, and then head back home as quickly as possible.
The Titans took to the air. Starfire carried Robin, Beast Boy flew in bird form, and Raven assisted Cyborg via a platform of black, pulsating energy. Everything was proceeding normally, everything was going the way it should.
Unfortunately, such was not the case at the bank. The ground was overrun with rippling, melted plastic. While people never got stuck, cars did. (They later learned that this was due to the way the substance was controlled.) A nearby parking lot was struck into a panic as people frantically tried to open their car doors.
"Welcome, Titans!" shouted a man standing on the roof of the bank, waving his arms around to force the flood into its weird dance. "I've been expecting you! Meet your new arch-nemesis!"
"Who?" Beast Boy asked, cricking an eyebrow.
The man looked nonplussed. "Why, me, of course! PLASTICO!"
Everyone, from titan to citizen, stared. Plastico lowered his arms and the wave below subsided. "All the good names were taken. But now that I have begun my career as a supervillain-" he paused as if to relish the word "-all will know the extent of my control over the most important substance known to man!"
"What?" Beast Boy asked, cricking an eyebrow.
At this point, something vitally important inside Raven snapped. She didn't know what it was. She didn't know how it worked. All she knew was that she lost control completely. More than completely, even. She was at her own mercy.
A cruel irony, no?
"ENOUGH!" she hissed. Waves of black energy cascaded down, making her cloak look many times longer and thicker that it was. Garbage cans, fences, car engines, shingles, everything was obliterated. Her voice echoed across the street. "Always the same, always! There's never any variation! Something goes wrong, nobody calls us, it gets worse, they call us, we come, we fight the villain, we look like we're going to lose against the villain, we make a heroic escape at the last minute and dynamically fix whatever went wrong, the villain gets sent to jail, we win again. It's STUPID! I'M TIRED OF IT! NEVER ANYTHING NEW! NEVER!"
Plastico was looking decidedly scared out of his wits now. The wave was shrinking, the flood dividing itself up to seek the nearest corner.
Raven was still at it. Nobody knew how she drew breath between rantings. She was louder now. "AND WHAT'S WITH THE SUPERVILLAINS ALL THE TIME ANYWAY? IT'S ALWAYS 'PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM' OR 'YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME.' WHAT HAPPENED TO NORMAL VILLAINS, JUST VILLAINS INSTEAD OF SUPERVILLAINS! WHY ARE PEOPLE ALWAYS SAYING, 'CALL TEEN TITANS' INSTEAD OF PLAIN OLD 'CALL THE POLICE'? SO STUPID!" The last word was the loudest yet. The plastic dissipated into the air and formed a cube that Plastico jumped onto, flying into the sunset, never to be seen again. And not in the heroic way, either.
The world was safe from Plastico. But it was never safe from Raven.
END