Tales of Cyborg, etc. etc... hooray, everybody.

Chapter III

Cyborg

Cyborg strained against the heavy load he was benching.

It was a several hundred ton weight, designed to push him to his very limits... and beyond. He was testing out a new system, one which would revolutionize his cybernetic body.

As sweat poured down his face, he pushed as hard as he could. He wasn't content with merely holding the weights up. He wanted to push it back.

As he reached the peak of his power, his com beeped.

"Mutha'-," he gasped, loosing some of his leverage. He blinked, bringing his new HUD in his bionic eye up. A simple reset later and the weights retracted into the wall. He leaned on his knees, gasping and panting. His com still beeped.

"I'm coming," he heaved. "I'm coming."

He took a deep breath, and pulled out his com.

"Yeah?" he asked shortly. He was expecting Beast Boy or Spider-Man, maybe Nightwing to tell him that there was trouble.

What he hadn't expected was Hal Jordan, Green Lantern.

"Cyborg?" he said. "It's the Justice League, making good on its promise to call on you when we need backup. Well, we need backup. Can you get to these coordinates?"

"Wha...?" Cyborg panted, stunned. "Uh, yeah, yeah... sure."

"Patching coordinates to you now," Green Lantern said. "Don't dawdle."

When Cyborg arrived in the middle of Los Angeles, he could tell Green Lantern hadn't been joking. The Justice League was engaged in a full out battle with some massive red monster. Its roar almost deafened Cyborg, and he felt static in his body.

"Yo!" he yelled. "What are you... Godzilla's nephew?"

It spat a glob of red plasma at him. He dove out of the way.

"Whoa!" he ejaculated. "This thing means business!"

"Cyborg!" yelled Wonder Woman. "Regroup on me!"

"You got it!" He got to his feet, making his way towards her. So were the others. The red monster began to lumber its way to North Hollywood.

"What is that thing?" was Cyborg's first words when he arrived. Superman was covered in the gooey red plasma, although Cyborg knew it would burn his skin off if he was human.

"Some kinda alien," Green Lantern answered. "It arrived from a distant planet. I think it used to be a pet..."

"Feed it too much kibbles?" Aquaman asked sardonically. Cyborg agreed.

"I think its some distant warlord's execution animal," Superman explained. "Of course, this is pure conjecture..."

"Well, how do we stop it?" Cyborg asked.

"Good question," Flash said. "I have no clue. Supes and I both used super speedy attacks. No good."

"And we can't bring it down by brute strength," Wonder Woman said. "All of my Amazon power did not avail me."

"The powerful force of the waves cannot be accessed here," Aquaman lamented. "There would be too much destruction."

They all fell silent, contemplating the problem before them. Cyborg noticed a certain gadget on Batman's belt.

"Hey, is that a power conduit?" he asked, pointing at it. Batman nodded. A light bulb went off in Cyborg's head.

"I've got an idea," he said. "Superman, is that pure plasma?"

"Yes, it is," Superman told him.

"Great," Cyborg said, rubbing his hands together. "I've got a plan..."

"This had better work," Aquaman said tersely.

"It will," Cyborg assured him, though secretly he hoped he was right. It was one thing coming up with a plan among the Teen Titans. If he screwed up, one of the others would pick up the slack and no one would be worse off. But now Cyborg was playing with the big boys, and he felt like this was some kind of test. He knew there were some of them that doubted him, despite being a new teammate. He could not afford to let them down.

The monster hadn't been hard to follow. The wake of destruction was direction enough. He was making his way to the Pixar Studios, ripping through the buildings and highways.

"You know, this begs the question of how he got here?" Flash pointed out. Cyborg shrugged.

"Don't know," he said. "Don't care. We got to get him out off this planet."

"Yes sir!" Green Lantern said, flipping him a mock salute. Cyborg went red, thinking he had gone too far, but Lantern winked to show he was joking.

"On my mark," Cyborg said, fixing Batman's circuit breaker to his wrist. He raised it to shoulder height. He was desperately focusing on not saying Titans, go!

"Wonder Woman," he said simply, and she flew off, throwing a large chunk of debris at the monster's shoulder. It merely bounced off, but it got its attention. It roared again.

"Justice League," Cyborg yelled. "GO!"

Superman and Green Lantern took off, flying around the monster, inflicting small blows on it before flying off again. Wonder Woman joined them, while the Flash ran around the red monster's calves, cutting into them with his fast-moving arm. Aquaman blinded it with sewage water from below, and Batman swung by on his grappling hook, tossing Batarangs with deadly accuracy.

In the infinitesimal second before Cyborg fired, he suddenly remembered one thing.

Bruce Wayne is dead.

The memory of Dick's adventure in Gotham raised itself in his mind. This Batman wasn't Bruce Wayne. Nightwing had said that there was a new Batman. Who was he?

But then the red monster began to glow, bringing more of its red plasma to the forefront of Cyborg's attention. He remembered what he was supposed to do.

The plasma was stored up energy. When the monster shot the plasma at things, it tapped into its energy supply. With this shot, Cyborg would overload it with power, hopefully blowing it up or knocking it out of commission.

Of course, it could also just super charge the monster and he would become unbeatable. But they really didn't have other options.

As the monster glowed with its energy, Cyborg fired.

The blast of blue power left Cyborg's arm with a loud skreeee. As it raced to the monster, Cyborg knew that it was going to work.

"It's gonna blow!" he bellowed. Superman and Wonder Woman understood, and they grabbed the others and pulled them out of harm's way.

The energy bolt hit the monster.

Cyborg's eyes were blinded as a massive white light filled the air. He felt, rather than heard the scream that followed. It was unbelievable...

As it went on, he realized that his systems were absorbing the energy that hit him, raising his metabolic rate and other live support systems. If he survived this, he would be almost invulnerable.

He did survive. It ended with a loud whoosh.

The Justice League of America stood there, dazed by what they had just seen. The monster was nowhere to be seen, vaporized by its own power.

"That was anticlimactic," Green Lantern said at last, and when the others stared at him, he said, "I was joking."

"That was incredible, that's what it was," Flash said, clapping Cyborg on the back. "Way to go, rookie!"

The others congratulated him as well. He felt a swell of pride in his chest, a stupid grin on his face.

"Hey, where'd Bats go?" Aquaman suddenly noticed. Cyborg's suspicions came back quickly. Batman was gone.

Figgers. He's know I knew he wasn't the real guy.

Should I tell the League? Ah, that'd give away Wayne's identity, even if he is dead. He didn't want the League to know. I'll respect his wishes.

He would have to find out for himself who this new Batman was...

NEXT: Nightwing!