As expected, the streets of Jump City are deserted and devoid of pedestrian life, leaving the Titans responsible for producing the only disturbances that penetrate the urban atmosphere as they head to their destination. Raven drums her fingers against the portion of her cloak resting on the car seat until the T-Car rolls to a stop at the next intersection. Blinking, she averts her gaze from the dreary red light illuminating the empty streets over to the driver on her left, allowing the engine to overwhelm the silence for a couple of seconds before she speaks.
"You're… really paying attention to the stoplight right now?" She straightens her posture and looks over her shoulder, noticing naught but the long stretch of darkness that comprised the major city streets– they all trailed back into oblivion with buildings lining each side. "We've got the lead."
"Regardless of who gets there first, Robin's ass is still somehow gonna be the first one jumping into whatever this mess is. I'm really not countin' on this bad guy to be a handful, and I'm tired. If he wants to play solo hero tonight, so be it." Cyborg's words are lilting. It's a song he's performed many times before and with only slightly different lyrics; the tune remains the same.
The empath feels as if she should smile in retaliation, but the hard truth only renders her expression remarkably stoic. "...Valid point."
Indeed, they could opt for going two miles an hour for the remainder of the commute, and Robin would fail to notice their absence until he maybe had the audacity to stop in the midst of his adrenaline rush and perhaps assess that ⅘ of his team was MIA.
This mission most certainly would not necessitate all of their presence for a single human criminal, if recent events were any indication of such.
But she doesn't have to formally invade any of the others' thoughts to know that they'd all rather deal with their team leader's wrath tonight, rather than endure it first thing in the morning after this horrendous, repetitive wake-up call. Even if the most they did was get into a fighting stance and simply allow Robin to have the satisfaction of thinking they got anywhere tonight with this mystery, it would be well worth it in the long run.
...Until this pattern of oddities decided to plague the heroes again, that is.
The light eventually switches back to green after waiting through the designated period for a couple nonexistent cars to cross the intersection.
"Cyborg, come in."
The half-robot tenses at the radio call, exchanging another look with Raven before clearing his throat. "Yeah, Robin, copy."
"We're going to try this a different way this time. I want you and Raven to circle around to the back; find a loophole or something that'll get you inside the construction zone from there."
Raven answers this time. "Alright."
"Raven, you'll be Southeast. Beast Boy, come in from the East. Cyborg, Southwest; Starfire, West. I'll take head-on. We should have our bases covered, so on the chance he tries something different from the cycle, he's bound to run into someone regardless of direction. Are we all clear?"
"Crystal," Raven deadpans.
Cyborg grunts his affirmation.
"That is fine, Robin."
"Squaaawk!"
The half-robot then switches the radio back to standby mode, putting some more pressure on the gas pedal. "Let's just get this over with."
And there is nothing to warrant it, necessarily, but Raven momentarily finds solace behind her eyelids–– bracing her tolerance for a whirlwind of emotions to come in the next fifteen minutes or so. One by one, the Titans flash before her eyes, only similar in the expression that they all share.
Solemn.
Battery: 42%.
By some miracle, Cyborg has been conscious of conserving his battery. It seems to be mostly out of obligation, now that the team is in the midst of a stakeout and he can't really afford to be deadweight at any point. He and Raven had parted ways upon parking the T-Car a decent distance away from the construction zone, exchanging one final look of exasperation before turning their backs on one another.
One glance at the coordinates on his arm indicates that he'd angled his direction correctly. Robin's tracker was to his right and slightly angled outward, meaning that Cyborg himself was, in fact, heading Southwest. He swivels his head a couple of times to do a quick scouting of the area, but the air remains motionless, unwilling to betray any indication of their target.
Now, he could only wait for that to change. Cyborg quickens his pace, effortlessly slipping through a gaping hole along the rusty metal gate after jerking at the door latch. His feet sink into mud as he walks, leaving behind pronounced footprints. His T-communicator makes a brief static sound while coming to life. Already, Robin is impatient for results.
"Starfire, have you landed yet?"
"I am... reaching the ground as we speak."
"Were you able to detect any movement from up above?"
"No, there was nothing perceived. Though, I am not sure if Beast Boy yielded similar results?"
The conversation comes to a halt there, and Cyborg grimaces; he can picture their leader scowling at his communicator, awaiting an answer from the changeling at being mentioned.
"...Cyborg reporting. Y'hear that, BB? Give us a– uh, whatever noise you can make. What's the status man?"
Additional static. Whereas Cyborg had attempted to keep some vague semblance of lightheartedness with their contact, Robin remains at his wits end. He hisses for all remaining members to take in, "Beast Boy, report!"
"...Beast Boy reporting in, dudes. "
"Are you... whispering?" Raven is unwillingly joining in to ask what all the Titans are thinking. "Why?"
"There's a––" And the word is cut just a millisecond too short for anyone's liking, promptly followed by a groan of pain.
"Beast Boy!"
Cyborg doesn't know who called out first, nor does it really matter. All that registers is a conscious effort that puts his weakened battery second to the plight of his friend. He assembles his sonic cannon and lifts it towards the darkness with a newfound fury, grinding his teeth. "Alright, who's messin' with us tonight?! You're gonna run into one of us eventually!"
"—Youareunwelcome!"
Never mind the harsh chill that racks through his body as an afterthought; fortunately, the direction of the sound registers in just enough time for him to stumble out of the trajectory of a boulder flying through the air. Cyborg then regains his stance and fires, only for the blast to be offset by a sphere of green energy, the resulting backfire sending him tumbling into a car. He clutches his head with a grimace, beginning to rise from the concave dent that the impact had produced. "Yo, wh-wha–"
"Cyborg?! I am sorry!" Starfire scurries toward him and crouches forward to help him to his feet, the glow in her eyes dimming. Confusion is clearly fixed on her features, as if the gears turning in her head are also spinning mid air before her. "I thought––but–– it was not you; you were not…"
Cyborg winces once more, the pounding in his head slowly subduing but simultaneously triggered by his teammate's frantic, high-pitched voice. "I just heard a voice, wasn't you or any of the others," he interrupts, rolling his shoulders back.
The alien falls silent, grateful for the words she cannot otherwise fathom in the heat of the moment. She nods her head. "Yes, I heard it as well. Something had shouted that I was... unwelcome—"
"Yeah… same here." The corners of his lips fall. "Wait, Star." He glances at her, then brings up the coordinates from earlier. "Remind me where Robin placed you."
"To the West."
"Right, right. So, uh," he taps a few choice buttons on his geographical map, "then maybe we heard the same voice?"
Starfire rises an inch or two off the ground, digging her fingers into her palms but not yet readying starbolts again. "It is odd, though." Nothing about their predicament is making sense, so much that the thought of taking another risk with a melee attack only has her fearing that she'll hit another Titan. She decides to mention just that. "The voice was in such close proximity to me, but I turned around and unintentionally targeted you." She cocks her head to the side after giving their surroundings another cautious onceover. "Please, do you recall where you heard your unusual voice?"
"Uh… I guess it was in your direction, I mean, it definitely was." It's all coming back to him now that he's fully immersed himself back in the moment. He's still sensitive enough to all but relive the timbre reverberating from just beside his ear––he knows he wouldn't have blindly fired without a certain justification behind the aim. "Could've been the size of a fly for all I know, but it was creepy, bein' so close. Maybe… could BB have run into the same thing?"
She opens her mouth as if to offer more insight, only for her head to whip back around. Cyborg follows her movements with his canon, seeing a green light illuminate out of the corner of his eye. "Did you hear it again?" He whispers.
"I hear… something."
"No."
A wave of dark magic emits from Raven's fingertips, reaching out and ultimately entrapping the intrusive figure in its center. She levitates a little closer to where the stranger is pinned, lowering her hands only slightly to better assess who exactly she'd caught. "You are the unwelcome one," she murmurs, shattering the pregnant pause that'd ensued after the voice had caught her by surprise.
Her captive doesn't move, not even a flinch to indicate their awareness of being seized. From here, all she can make out is the essence of a head slumped over. Whoever this is, their inactivity is concerning. Still, Raven wills her guard to remain as strong as ever; they had caught more than enough villains to know that many considered this a game. "Reveal yourself," she commands, beginning to approach again. There was simply no way that this is over. Not this quickly. Not when another Titan had yet to utilize their communicator to share an update of the sort.
Not when Beast Boy is still MIA.
The unsettling reminder has her lowering back onto the ground, kicking a discarded, aluminum can aside. As if reeling back a rope, the empath pulls the unknown entity closer, but it doesn't get very far before she's letting out a gasp and allowing the reigns to dissolve in wisps of black. There, in the dim light of the stars, lay a straw dummy with crudely sewn button eyes. No longer being forced into an upward position by her power, it slumps onto the uneven terrain before her.
What?
Raven raises an eyebrow, folding idle hands across her chest and opting to nudge the dummy with just enough pressure to roll it onto its side. Not even a mouth stitching. No wonder it hadn't replied.
Even worse, she'd been trying to intimidate it.
"...This has to be a joke." The air that surrounds her is still, though she strains to make out the taunting laughter of teenagers, or even the melodramatic sneering of a villain who had only used this as a decoy. When neither appears to exist, Raven heaves a small albeit exasperated sigh through her nose. She had heard something, that much is true. It'd been an eerie breath, close enough to ruffle the fabric of her hood and cause her to retaliate without a second thought. This dummy looks so blatantly pathetic in every aspect of the word, yet there's absolutely no reason why she would have aimed in its direction without probable cause.
She holds her T-communicator close to her mouth, backing away from her stagnant counterpart after narrowing her eyes at it. "Um. Can we… reconvene? I just found something… unexpected."
Her question is only met with static.
"...Hello?"
Nothing. Violet eyes flit towards the night sky. Had the others stumbled upon pranks of their own?
"Yah!"
A bo-staff strikes the ground before her, rough enough to emit a cloud of dust. Raven swipes a hand through the air to summon a shield in preparation for a second round. There's a brief flash of yellow. "R-Robin, stop!"
And stop he does, with three birdarangs wedged between his fingers and reeled back, eager to whip through the air. As the two teenagers come to acknowledge one another's presence, Robin grabs and retracts his staff, pulling it back to his side just as Raven's shield is withdrawn. Much unlike her own unruffled appearance, the leader is frazzled, and only redirects his sights to another random spot, preparing himself to attack again. The question of why exactly he had nearly hit Raven is there, certainly, but adrenaline clouds his rationale. With flared nostrils and a heaving chest, he only composes himself long enough to address her with words spat in quick succession. "Someone's out here, Raven. I think that's what Beast Boy ran into. I swear, there was someone standing here!" He regards said position with a flick of his wrist.
"...Me?" She humors the male, letting her hood down.
Robin's lip curls, and he turns his back to her. "No."
This time, her magic manifests in the form of a black sphere, which weaves through the air and leaves the the dummy suspended in the air. Raven watches as Robin doesn't visibly react to it being laid by his feet. "Well, this is what I found. I heard a voice, followed it deeper into the construction, and thought I had it cornered."
A silence befalls them next, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. Robin doesn't have to say it; ironically, his lacking body language tells more than enough. Robin knows her––knows her to an extent that, even amid his own indignation, it would be wrong to assume Raven is being anything but dead serious. She had been just as aware as he, scouting out their supposed danger, and had inadvertently fallen for an unusual distraction…
...And, Robin had, in his own way, been duped too.
"Robin," she addresses him again, a tinge of assertiveness in her tone as the potential seriousness of it all is sinking in, and she isn't going to waste any more time enabling him. "...What if splitting up was a bad idea?" She lifts her chin and projects her voice, "assuming this is only one perpetrator for the time being, things are going one of two ways. We're either being toyed with..."
"Or they're picking us off," Robin finishes. "It's not impossible."
Maybe she's imagining it, but the empath swears she sees a crease form just over his mask. Concern.
"Beast Boy must've got the bad end." And before Raven can explain her other predicament, Robin reaches for his own T-communicator. "Titans, status report. We need to meet up."
Given the circumstances, of course, had it not been for her standing a few feet away, Raven wouldn't have caught any of that. And it's that very bristling static from her own device which catches Robin's attention. He stiffens, jabbing a thumb onto the call button multiple times.
"You've got to be kidding me. The signal shouldn't be shot."
"No, not usually. Unless... our friend was expecting us to come out here tonight."
