AN: References used: Teen Titans, Marvel/X-Men, Bleach, Final Fantasy (I: Dawn of Souls, VII, X, XII, and XIII), Call of Duty, and Naruto. In this chapter: Pokémon, Nintendo, and 300 (imitation).

Chapter 2 — Light?

Christina found herself running all the way to the bridge that connected Galveston to the Texas mainland. She felt that she needed to be far away from Sly, knowing that she would only be his victim. Various people around her saw that she was distraught, and even they saw what most of the other Titans saw in her. Even in solitude, Christina was in chains, and her mock-goth attire doesn't change a thing.

"Hey... you look sad. What's the matter?" spoke a heavy male voice behind her.

Christina did not turn around. "My brother... he's just a sad case now."

"A sad case?"

"Like... he's supposed to be a leader, but he's always complaining to people he should be loving and respecting. He doesn't talk to my mom and dad all that much, but what's worse is that he doesn't even care for his own sister. It's been like that since I was born. I could just die right now." she pleaded without a care in the world.

"Ah, I see. Well..." the man began, grabbing her shoulder to turn her around. He had pale, yet dark skin, compressed dark orange hair, and fierce golden eyes, all while wearing the white robes of an Acolyte. "That can be arranged."

Christina saw immediately that he was evil. He was about to attack with what he called his Warlock Punch—dark energy generated madly into his fist and it had to go somewhere, by force. By pure luck, Christina avoided the powerful fist by bending her back Matrix-style.

"That was close..." she told herself.

"Humph." the man uttered, raising his leg up to try and drop it on her with great force.

She used Flash Step to avoid his second attack, which broke a small portion of the entire bridge. She appeared over the water below and used a technique that allowed her to float or stand in midair. Mooch explained how to do this to most of the Titans, since he was practically a Soul Reaper; he said that it required using the spirit to float or stand on air, rather than personal energy, which would be more strenuous on the body.

"Don't count yourself lucky..." spoke another voice behind her. It was another Acolyte, pointing at her with a large gray finger. "Hyper Beam." he finished, unleashing the powerful beam of energy from his finger at her.

Christina immediately warped again, back on the bridge. "Two Acolytes?" she exclaimed.

"WRONG AGAIN!" yelled yet another presence, falling down toward her from above and tossing his Acolyte robes aside, revealing the spiked green shell on his back, aimed at her.

"This isn't my day...!" Christina murmured, tossing a Daze Bomb at the third Acolyte, stopping him in his tracks.

While he was halted, Christina ran about twenty yards away from them all, before the third Acolyte dropped on the bridge to finish his attack, which destroyed a fifth of the entire bridge.

"Damn... I'm boned." she assumed, knowing that fighting even one Acolyte is hard enough.

"Right you are." replied the second Acolyte.

Christina was startled. "Please don't tell me you're psychic..."

"I couldn't have heard you otherwise."

"Who are you three?"

The first Acolyte spoke. "Ganondorf, 8th seat of the Acolytes."

The second removed his hood. "Mewtwo, 7th seat."

The third stomped forward, to attack Christina when he got close. "King Koopa Bowser, 9th place in the Acolytes!"

He thrusted his claw on the air in front of him, releasing three energy blades. Christina avoided two of them, but the last one cut into her shoulder, making her unable to use her right arm in the fight. While she was hurt, Mewtwo quickly charged in and struck her stomach with Mega Punch, following with Tail Whip to the back of her head, knocking her down, nearly unconscious.

"I can't get up... why did three high-ranked Acolytes have to come and try to kill me?" she thought, trying not to close her eyes and fade, while taking staggered breaths.

Ganondorf picked her up completely by her throat and put her over the edge of the bridge.

"Ganon said that it could be arranged." Mewtwo reminded her.

"You really should be thanking me..." Ganondorf said, still grasping her. "I'm doing you a favor here. Sly continuously shows this resentment towards you... so when I go through with this, you won't have to deal with such a harsh brother anymore. So, I will only say this once..."

He paused, to throw her straight into the air.

"THIS... IS... YOUR GRAVE!" he shouted, preparing to kick her into the Gulf's waters below with a direct thrust kick.

"RASENOVA!" shouted Sly from afar, firing his signature chakra blast from a Rasengan, hitting all three Acolytes. Immediately after firing it, Sly retrieved his sister and placed her safely on the ground.

"S...Sly..." she managed to say.

"Christina, I'm saying this because I don't want you to die... just rest. I have this covered." he told her.

"And just how do you plan on proving that?" Bowser interrogated.

Sly smirked. "Remember the Aeons that you guys said were obsolete?"

"That's exactly what they are. That's why we brought the espers." Ganondorf said.

"Right... thanks for the gifts, guys."

Mewtwo lowered his eyes in skepticism. "What do you mean?"

"The thirteen original espers you brought are now in the possession of the Legendary 12 and Ears, who has Famfrit with him."

"What's your point?" Bowser questioned, as he, Ganondorf and Mewtwo charged forward.

"You forgot a few." Sly uttered, before a sudden uprising of rock appeared to bar the Acolytes from Sly and Christina.

"What's this? The powers I'm sensing... six of them, and they're all almost off the charts!" Mewtwo exclaimed.

"And three of them are the same three that Psychomech killed. So listen closely to these introductions. Buried from deep within... Titan. Beckoned from the rampaging storm... Tiamat. The legendary swordsman himself... Gilgamesh."

A tall male figure made almost entirely of earth, a six-headed dragon, and a warrior able to hold six swords appeared as Sly called them out.

"You should recognize the last three." Sly continued. "From her icy throne... Shiva. From the depths of the fiery hell... Ifrit! And let's not forget the wyrm that flies the midnight sky with formidable force... Bahamut."

On his words, a pale-skinned woman with light blue hair, an intimidating hell-beast with long horns, and a mighty midnight blue dragon presented themselves to the Acolytes. Christina could not believe what she heard; Shiva, Ifrit and Bahamut have returned... but as espers. How is that possible?

"This can't be..." Ganondorf muttered.

"Sic 'em." Sly commanded the espers.

Before any of them budged, the three Acolytes suddenly retreated to bring the news to Slade, their leader. At the same time, the rest of the New 12 showed up on the scene.

Hoppity traced current events. "Guys... Sly and the six of them made three Acolytes leave. Christina is hurt bad too." she reported.

Slowpoke and Ewey ran to tend to her, running past the six espers.

"Wait a minute..." Bonnie said, looking at three of the espers. "There's no way."

"Believe it, Bonnie. Though their appearances are a little different, Shiva, Ifrit and Bahamut are back." Sly said.

"Who're the other three?" Felix asked.

"He's—"

Sly was stopped by the swordsman.

"No, no. Allow me. I am the mightiest swordsman in all of Ivalice. It is I, GILGAMESH! I have acquired the 'blade of legend', scoured the furthest marches east and west! My travels have brought me here, to you. Inferior weapons and weak spells cannot break any of my blades. I am an elite warrior above all others... with Enkidu, my canine companion!"

A coyote whose fur was painted in Gilgamesh's colors appeared beside its master.

"Wow... so you guys can speak to us?" Lucy inquired.

"All of us can." Titan replied.

"We heard that you Bean Titans were having a spot of trouble, and that you already have the 13 originals with you." Tiamat explained.

Shiva walked up to Ears, giving him cold chills since she was the ice empress. She grabbed the crest on his necklace. "As I thought. This is indeed Famfrit's summoning crest. This rabbit is lucky." she said.

"And that's why 11 of us feel bad. Ears gets a summon and the rest of us just have our gut feelings or intuitions." Bongo complained.

Sly sighed. "That's the other reason why I brought them here. This time, the espers will choose who they want to serve. I have their six summon crests, and they will automatically fly to the Titans of their choosing, as necklaces like Ears's."

Sly placed the crests down, and the six espers disappeared as they approached them. Once they were gone, the crests levitated themselves in midair, spinning rapidly at a certain height before shooting out to the Bean Titans of their choosing. Hoppity got the white crest shaped like an icicle, which meant Shiva chose her. Sly received Bahamut's deep blue diamond-shaped crest. Bongo got Ifrit's red flame crest. Tiamat chose Felix, who found the golden ring-shaped crest. Titan's mountain-marked brown crest was found on Slowpoke's new necklace. Finally, Gilgamesh joined Mooch and gave him the X-shaped silver crest.

"So, the rest of us have to get our own espers?" Ewey presumed, as she, Lucy, Bonnie, Christina and Megan did not get one.

"Apparently so." Mooch said. "Let's all get back home. We'll train up tomorrow."

Getting back to the Home Base, the New 12 decided to rest for the remainder of the day.

Christina was placed in the Bio-Regen Pod in the Healing Chamber until 9:00 PM. She only had a cut shoulder, and that did not take long to fix. Once that was done, she went back to her room.

At 10:30, there was a knock on her door.

The skunk looked at the time. "My Pokie's at the door!" she quietly squealed, using Slowpoke's play name. She opened the door, only to see her brother.

"Hey." he greeted his sister out of weirdness.

"Hey." she replied back, not knowing what to expect from Sly.

"Got a minute?" he asked.

She let him in, with a bit of reluctance. "What is it?"

"Listen. If you think my attitude is from whatever Scaly did... it's not. I had to take some time to myself to get him off of my mind—to give up chasing after him. And..."

"And...?" she repeated after him.

"First off, the New 12 couldn't be the New 12 without you... and I don't think I would like being an only child."

"Well, I'm not dead..." she told him, before she was suddenly embraced by her brother, witnessing this for the first time with her own eyes.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for 19 years of mistreating you. I'm just afraid of seeing you disappear because of me."

Christina was awestruck by hearing him, as she could only close her eyes and hug him back. "Sly... where's this coming from?" she asked warm-heartedly.

"I've been missing some light in my life. I have mom's, dad's, my friends', my wife's... I'm only missing my own sister. We need to take care of each other, and not break each other down." Sly said, now sounding a bit emotional about this.

"Finally..." the skunk thought, hugging him tighter to take in the moment. Of course, she would start sapping up.

The fox heard her sniffles. "Go ahead and let it out. You're already on my shoulder." Sly told her, patting her back.

/-/

Sly has found his lost light. Things will most likely be better for him now.

However, trouble is still on the rise for the Bean Titans. No one is safe in Crisis Central.

Stay tuned.