"Robin!" - Regular Speech
'Starfire…' - Thoughts
"Report!" - Radio talk
Chapter 1: Phantom of a Ghost
Early Morning
Titan's Tower, Jump City
The peace and quiet of the tower's Command Centre/Kitchen/Lounge was shattered by the shriek of an alarm, one that was quickly piped into every room in the tower to summon its residents.
First to arrive on the scene was Robin, the Bow Wonder. His short cape flapped in his wake as he entered at a run. He briskly headed to the nearest computer terminal to discover the source of the alert.
Swift on his heels was the alien princess, Starfire of the planet Tamaran. The exotic beauty, in her usual purple outfit, flew in and hovered next to her leader as she awaited his findings.
"Friend Robin, what is the cause for the alarm?" she asked, her emerald-green eyes peering over his shoulder as she spoke.
"A bombing…a big one." Robin replied as his fingers danced across the keyboard, "A plastics manufacturing plant."
"Dude, we're up already!" Beast Boy grumbled as he tottered into the command centre. The green shape shifter wore his uniform from when he was a member of the Doom Patrol and still looked sleepy. "Can you cut the alarm already? I'm getting a headache!"
"Once everyone gets here, yes." Robin replied uncompromisingly.
"Yo! Rob, Star, what's the emergency?" Cyborg asked as he came in, his mostly-metal body surprisingly silent as he walked.
"Maybe if we give Robin a chance to finish gathering the data, he could tell us." Raven said as she appeared from her soul-self, a large black bird. The half-demon-half-human was dressed in her usual black leotard, blue hooded cloak and blue boots.
This silenced the rest of the Titans quickly. Raven, although acerbic and blunt, rarely scolded them seriously, so they tended to listen to her when she did. Plus, she had probably had her meditation interrupted by the alarm, so she was very likely grumpier than usual.
"As I just told Star, a plastics manufacturing plant was just blown up, on the outskirts of the city, not ten minutes ago." Robin said grimly, "It was a subsidiary of GothCorp, one of the biggest companies in Gotham City. This message was delivered to the Mayor of Jump City shortly afterwards."
With a press of a button, the main screen was on and displaying the message.
"Pay $5,000,000 in Cash
OR the Jump City Bank is next.
Signed,
The Mad Bomber."
"Five million dollars!?" Beast Boy yelped, "Is this guy nuts?!"
"He's gotta be." Cyborg agreed, "No way can Jump City raise that kinda cash, not without time."
"I am confused." Starfire confessed, "I was under the impression that the governments of this planet disallow the payment of money to the mailers who wear black?"
"Blackmailers." Raven corrected her, "Generally true, but this demand is odd in several ways. Usually, the notice is sent before they blow something up. Also, though I hate to admit it, Beast Boy is right, the amount is absurdly large."
"Which means there's more to it than some whackjob trying to strong-arm cash out of a city." Robin added, "Whoever is behind this is making a point…and I know who he is."
More tapping of keys replaced the message with a thin, geeky looking man with blond hair and glasses.
"His name is Ted Dymer." the Boy Wonder stated grimly, "Also known as the Mad Bomber. He waged a terror campaign in Gotham City before Batman caught him."
"He does not appear to be physically imposing." Starfire remarked, "Why then did the Batman not catch him immediately?"
"He was never at the scene of the crime, Star." Robin replied, "He used remote-controlled cars packed with explosives. He was -and presumably still is- obsessed with toys, and he took the idea from an episode of an old TV show called 'The Grey Ghost'. Batman tracked down the man who had played the lead role of the grey Ghost himself, Simon Trent, and enlisted his help in deducing Dymer's identity and catching him."
"Remote-controlled cars, eh?" Cyborg grinned, "If he's just using commercial transmitters and receivers, I can use my built-in equipment to trace the source of any large origin points, easily."
"But...if he was caught, should this 'Mad Bomber' not be in jail still?" Starfire questioned.
"Unfortunately, no." Robin replied, changing the screen to display an article from a Gotham newspaper, "Arkham Asylum had a mass breakout two months ago, and the Mad Bomber was one of those who escaped. A week later, Simon Trent was killed in a car bomb incident."
"He took revenge on the man who helped put him away." Raven said with narrowed eyes.
"More than that." the leader of the Titans said, "A couple of days after Trent was killed, his teenaged grandniece vanished from Trent's home, where she had been living with him."
"Kidnapping?" Cyborg asked.
"The GCPD assume so." Robin replied, "It is odd though…the report states that there was no sign of forced entry before the police managed to get in. Kidnapping is only in the cards because the neighbours reported the sounds of an argument and a scuffle."
"Murder, kidnapping, arson…" Beast Boy said with a shake of his head, "This dude is one bad apple."
"Agreed." Starfire nodded determinedly, "We must capture this 'Mad Bomber' before more innocent lives suffer at his hands."
"Right." Robin said with a sharp nod, "Cyborg, get the T-Car ready for dealing with exploding cars. Starfire, Raven, you'll be on aerial patrol around the building. Beast Boy, you'll be the ground response unit. I'll be coordinating and acting as a mobile reserve if needed. Dymer usually strikes at dusk, midnight or dawn. Get ready for a long night, Titans."
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Sundown
Jump City Merchant Bank
Beast Boy yawned loudly. "Dude, I'm beat!"
"We all are, Beast Boy." Robin said as he scanned the surrounding, not looking slightly tired, "Suck it up."
The day had been long and tiring for the entire team. A plethora of Jump City's villains had been acting up all day…Doctor Light, Mumbo the Magnificent Magician, The Hive Five, Killer Moth and Kitten, Mad Mod and even Private Hive had shown up.
Doctor Light, still terrified of Raven, had been easily dealt with. Mumbo, as long as you dodged his spells, was just annoying. The Hive Five, without Jinx to be the brains were all power and no brainpower, Gizmo aside. Mod, Private Hive and Killer Moth had taken time, but had also been dealt with.
The less said about Kitten, the better, in Starfire's opinion.
"Cyborg here." he chirped over the communicators abruptly, "There's been a sudden spike in usage of the radio-frequencies that are used for radio-controlled toys. Looks like it's playtime."
"Roger that." Robin answered tensely, "Star? Raven? Any unusual sightings from up there?"
"Nothing sighted to the north or the east." Raven replied.
"The south and the west are equally deserted of anything unusual." Starfire added.
"Keep your eyes and ears peeled." Robin ordered, "Last time, Dymer only used Grey Ghost Bomb Cars because they were the easiest to get his hands on. This time, he could use cars, planes helicopters or who knows what."
Beast Boy shifted into a bat and headed off to do a patrol around the building, leaving Robin alone with his thoughts. He was going over the actions of Ted Dymer and was puzzled. Although his serial bombing and obsession with toys had earned him a spot in Arkham Asylum, all of the psychologists reports Robin had read in between the various fights today hadn't mentioned anything about a desire for revenge, let alone to the point of murder and kidnapping.
The Boy Wonder frowned. That was another thing. Simon Trent had been living with his grandniece ever since her parents had passed away and she had just…vanished into thin air. The report from the neighbours suggested a fight of some sort had taken place, but the GCPD report he had 'found' had stated that there was nothing unusual about the house, aside from it being deserted. No signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, nothing.
It set off his well-trained paranoia.
The sound of small motorised engines jerked him from his thoughts. He looked around and saw a small convoy of cars zooming towards the bank. They were saloon cars with a small camera attached to the roofs.
"Titans!" Robin pulled out his communicator, "I have ten presumed bomb-cars heading my way! Get ready!"
Drawing a birdarang, he hurled it at the lead car, cutting the front half off easily. The cars scattered even as Robin drew another birdarang.
(BOOM!)
The car blew up, sending fragments and pieces of concrete flying left and right. Robin dodged them agilely, muttering a curse under his breath.
"They detonate if you disable them!" he warned his team.
"We know." Raven bit back with a bit of strain in her voice, "I'm under attack by what look like autogyros."
"I've got tanks over here." Cyborg put in, the sound of his Sonic Cannon firing in the background, "They actually fire armour piercing shells!"
"I have several biplanes pursuing me." Starfire added.
"Dude, these toys are after us, not the bank!" Beast Boy puffed, "What gives?!"
"There must be another group headed for the bank while we're distracted by these ones." Robin said snarled, "Raven, Star, any sign of anything?"
"Kinda busy here Robin." Raven said dryly, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"
"I see nothing, Robin." Starfire reported, the sound of her starbolts humming in the background.
Robin scowled as he leapt into the air and drew a double-handful of birdarangs, throwing them at the cars, striking each with unerring accuracy and slicing them in two.
Landing well clear of the explosions, Robin ignored them, drew his grapnelling hook and fired it straight up until it latched onto the side of the building. He hit the retract button to make it pull him up rapidly, giving him a higher vantage to spot his prey.
"There you are." he muttered as he spotted the lone remote controlled car speeding towards the bank. Dislodging his grapnel, he retracted it and launched himself towards the car, throwing another birdarang at the car.
With ease, the car dodged it and sped on. Robin was about to throw another one, when a beam of white and blue light obliterated the car. As he landed, the Boy Wonder looked and saw a grinning Cyborg with his right arm transformed into the Sonic Cannon.
"Booyah!" the biomechanical teen said, "Y'know Rob, you should really look into upgrading your gear. Something that isn't a birdarang woulda been useful for this kinda thing."
"Not my style." Robin retorted, "Any luck tracing those signals?"
"Yup; it came from the docks." Cyborg replied as he reverted his arm back to normal, "Wish we'd thought of this when Slade was using his ninja robots."
"Robin shook his head. "Those things use their own onboard A.I. for tactical decisions. Besides, knowing Slade, he has a bunch of routers set up all over the city to make tracking his command signal pointless. For now, let's focus on the Mad Bomber. Slade can take a backseat until then."
"Speaking of, looks like BB and the others put the Bomber's toys away for him." Cyborg remarked as he looked at the locator signals the other Titans were giving out on his built-in tracker, "They're heading this way now."
"Good. Once they arrive, we'll take the T-Car and pay a visit to Mr Dymer." Robin said darkly as he pounded his fist into his palm for emphasis.
"Rob, you're being almost as intense about this guy as you are about Slade." Cyborg remarked.
"Villains from the big cities -Gotham, Metropolis, Star City- make the ones we deal with on a daily basis look tame by comparison." Robin replied grimly, "Even Dymer, a minor villain, is more dangerous and ruthless than any we've faced before, aside from Brother Blood, Slade and the Brotherhood of Evil."
"Don't forget Trigon." Cyborg pointed, "That dude used our tower as a seat!"
"True." Robin acknowledged, "Regardless, I am going to make sure that Dymer can't hurt you all. I won't give him the chance."
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Later
Abandoned Warehouse, Docks, Jump City
"OK, something ain't right about this place." Cyborg said as he tapped away at his controls.
The Titans were outside a warehouse, the eventual destination that Cyborg's instruments had narrowed the signal that had controlled the remote controlled bombs on their attack on the bank.
"What's up?" Robin asked.
"The security system - a very advanced security system that this warehouse has no business having, might I add- has already been compromised." the cybernetic teen replied, "Anyone could walk in there without setting off a single alarm right now."
"Any signs of who did it?" Raven asked.
"Nope." Cyborg replied, "Me'n'Rob could do a better hack, but this one is better than average. No Joe off the street did it."
"Looks like we have a party crasher." Robin said in surprise. The Teen Titan were the only hero team in Jump City…the only heroes point blank. This was odd…
"Move in!" he ordered.
The doors were unlocked and were easily opened. The interior of the warehouse was full of smashed crates, broken machinery and assorted detritus, all covered by a thin layer of dust. In the centre of the large room, a trapdoor laid open beckoned to them.
Beast Boy shifted into a bloodhound, sniffed around and then shifted back to human to report, "Two people have been here recently. A man and a woman. The male scent is probably Dymer's, but the woman came through here no more than five minutes ago, and she is mad. Madder than I've ever seen Raven."
This was a cause for concern.
"Move." Robin ordered.
Cyborg took the lead, his Sonic Cannon deployed and ready to use. The corridors of the underground base were very cramped for the cybernetic teen, constantly scraping on his metal body.
"Man, this bites." he complained as he dinged his head off the ceiling again, "Talk about bargain-basement building."
"How did Dymer build all this?" Robin wondered aloud, "All of his assets were seized when he got arrested."
"He stole it?" Raven deadpanned, "He is a criminal, after all."
"No." Robin shook his head, "All of this would have taken longer than two months to set up. The base, the army of toys, the explosives…none of this would have been easy to smuggle in under our noses. Dymer isn't a smuggler; he wouldn't have a clue how to do this. Someone recruited him to do this, probably engineered the breakout from Arkham to get him."
"Slade?" Raven asked darkly. She still nursed a grudge against the masked man for helping her father, Trigon, to coerce her into almost destroying the world…and her friends.
"Could be." Cyborg agreed, "Brother Blood's up there too. Just about the only one of our big enemies off the table is the Brotherhood of Evil. All of the high-ranking leadership, including The Brain, is still on ice."
"Where he's staying put." Beast Boy growled. He hated the Brain, ever since he had been a member of the Doom Patrol.
A loud scream came from ahead.
"HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!"
"Titans, go!" Robin ordered.
The five superteens raced to the end of the passage and slammed the doors open into a vast room filled with computer consoles and toys…all smashed to pieces.
At the far end of the room, Ted Dymer, the Mad Bomber was cowering against the wall. He was dressed in a white lab coat, jeans and a t-shirt and he was wide-eyed in terror.
Looming before him was a grey-clad figure in a wide-brimmed fedora hat and a long cape. Robin's eyes widened in shock as he recognised the figure.
"Impossible…!" he breathed.
"Wh-Who are you?!" Dymer screamed in fear.
"I…am who you think I am." the figure responded through a voice scrambler.
"Impossible…it's impossible!" the Mad Bomber shrieked, "Simon Trent is dead! DEAD!"
"Simon Trent is dead…but lo and behold…the Grey Ghost lives!" the figure pointed a gloved finger at the cowering man, "You really should have known better...you cannot kill a ghost! I am here to put an end to you, Ted Dymer…permanently!"
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Next Chapter: The Grey Ghost vs. The Teen Titans
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