Chapter 4
A/N: I am so sorry for the amount of time it took to write this chapter. I had trouble incorporating Gizmo, Mammoth and Jinx into this correctly. Also, real life came into play and I was swamped for a while. Thankyou for the suggestions you give me. The one I shall mention in this note is that a guest has proposed a rather interesting idea for the Anodite form. MANAfest it is! The forms yet to be named are Beast Boy's, Raven's and the Osmosian (Kevin's powers) and I am still looking for names for those. As usual, I don't own Teen Titans or Ben 10. Enjoy!
"Awww man, come on! It's gotta be around here someplace." Cyborg yelled. Beast Boy shifted to a Labrador retriever and began sniffing the ground as Kevin and Cyborg lifted up the couch.
"I don't believe this! How could you lose the remote?" Kevin asked the green teen as he pointed a finger at Beast Boy accusingly. "Me? What makes you so sure I lost it?" he asked as he shifted back to human form.
"Uh, cause you're you." Cyborg countered. Beast Boy was quick to be defensive. "Hey! Just because I lost that videogame…"
"And the toothpaste, and my football, and the waffle iron…" Cyborg listed. Kevin finished with "not to mention my favorite shoes went missing," then he muttered "I'm pretty sure he stole those to chew on." To Cyborg, who wasn't listening.
Beast Boy shrugged "Things disappear. How am I supposed to know where they go?"
Kevin decided that no one had heard him and, for once decided to let it go. "Well how are we supposed to watch TV without a remote?" he asked. Raven slammed the book she had been reading shut and irately said "Simple, you just get up and change the channel."
Beast Boy, Kevin and Cyborg all shared a glance. "Don't even joke like that." Cyborg stated.
Raven simply responded "I wasn't joking." To which Cyborg yelled "Well good, 'cause it wasn't funny! Now either help us look for the remote, or go back to your nasty old book and-"
"This is a pointless argument. You are all disrupting my meditation patterns," Said Gwen, who had been hovering off to one side, observing the flow of mana, "Not to mention the device in question is useless."
At this point the argument resumed as Ben and Starfire walked into the room "I thought I was the only one who knew the secret to traveling faster than light. Glorious!" she exclaimed as the argument began to escalate further.
Ben rolled his eyes and walked over to the fridge "We'll find the remote later, besides, I think it's lunchtime anyway." He said as he opened the fridge. Several blue moss covered foods that looked very much alive shocked him into shutting the fridge. "What did you see that frightened you so much as to shut the fridge?" Starfire asked him.
"You don't want to know." He said breathing hard. "Oh but I do, please to be stepping aside?" she said. Ben smiled. He couldn't get out of his head that she sounded kind of cute when she butchered the English language, so he stepped to the side and opened the fridge. Starfire looked on for a moment and did nothing until the food in front of her moved of its own accord. Then she blasted the fridge with a starbolt, and the entire thing blew up, covering the entire team with blue gunk.
Robin walked in at the precise moment the fridge blew up "Hey guys, what's for lun- nevermind. Let's just go out for pizza."
Turns out everyone had their own ideas on what was good on a pizza. "I'm telling you I'm not eating meat." Beast Boy was saying. "Dude, how can you deny me the all meat experience?" Cyborg countered. Kevin was on Cyborg's side. "We can't all eat tofu for eternity, just because a snot colored kid won't eat pork, or steak or chicken or… "
Beast Boy cringed. "Dude! I've been most of those animals!"
Starfire spoke up next "I suggest a large pizza with pickles, bananas, and mint frosting!" she smiled. Everyone else looked at her like she was crazy. Ben slid over and whispered "Uhh… Starfire, not everything on the menu's a pizza topping."
"Oh." She said as she blushed, putting one of her arms behind her head.
Suddenly a loud horn was heard as a bus began driving down the incline near the pizza place. As the titans stood up, the cries of a small child in a baby carriage were heard at the end of the road.
"Titans, Go!" Robin yelled. He didn't need to say anything else.
Starfire swooped down and pushed the carriage out of the way while Cyborg ran up to the bus and dug his shoes (A/N: or are those just his feet?) into the street as he tried to stop the bus from crashing into the pizza place now that the baby carriage was out of the way. Raven raised a hand and cast a necromantic spell on the stick shift, which shifted into park. When Gwen saw that the bus was still going to hit the pizza place, she used a mana disk to cause the bus to get a flat tire. They stopped it from crashing just as it reached the end of the incline.
Kevin shoved the door of the bus open. "Dude! What's your prob- ummm, don't buses normally have drivers?"
"And don't baby carriages normally have babies?" Robin asked, picking up a green plush teddy bear out of the cart that had odd yellow glowing eyes.
"Are you pit sniffers normally this stupid?" A voice asked from the teddy bear as it shot an electric blast out of its eyes. Robin, Starfire and Beast Boy were blasted through the air and landed across the road.
At this point, the bus that had previously been stopped was picked up from the back and was smashed down on top of Raven, Cyborg and Gwen. Gwen only had enough time to raise a mana shield before she was knocked down under the front of the bus.
"Gwen! NO! Who are you? Come out and fight like men, cowards!" Kevin shouted. A punch in the face from an enormous fist that emerged from the smoke knocked him down, but thankfully not out.
A giant of a man along with a pink haired goth and a small boy wearing some sort of advanced tech on his back and shoulders walked into view.
"Heh, that was too easy! What a bunch of cludgeheads. You guys want to go get pizza?" the short tech wearing kid gloated.
"This isn't over!" Robin said catching the trio's attention. A blast was fired upwards from the bus' wreckage as Cyborg and Raven, along with Gwen took battle stances.
"We're just getting started!" Cyborg yelled.
Beast Boy, who had managed to land in a trash can, threw a banana off of his head. "Who are these guys? And what's a cludgehead?"
The small boy spoke first "We are the HIVE!"
The giant smashed his fists together "Your worst nightmare!"
The goth with pink hair jumped in between her two partners in crime "And this is attack pattern Alpha!"
Several shots fired from the guns that had emerged from the tech on the boy's back as he began flying around the area. This caused the walls in the alley that Beast Boy, Robin and Starfire were in to crumble and block their exit. Starfire pushed the rubble out of their way just in time to see Cyborg struggling with the giant man with Neanderthal hair pushing Cyborg around. Just as it seemed Cyborg was winning the struggle, the huge man asked him "What do you call an idiot with a rocket on his back?"
The kid who had the tech strapped a metal rocket to his back and while laughing said "Duped!"
Cyborg was sent flying around in random directions high above the city. "Cyborg!" Starfire cried out as she went after him.
The pink haired goth danced around Raven, attacking with a rather graceful style. As she blocked Raven's punch, she smirked "You fight like a boy."
Raven didn't realize the small kid was behind the goth with a energy shooting weapon of some sort until it was too late. He smiled wickedly "And you're gonna croak like a frog!" He fired and she barely avoided the shot, but was blasted backwards into Robin from the shockwave of the attack. Beast Boy ran up to them and tried attacking as an elephant, but the huge man with long hair picked him up like a paperweight. "Mammoth's gonna make you extinct!" and Robin was knocked over a second time as he tried to rush in with another attack.
"Is it just me, or did Ben ditch us before this went downhill?" Beast Boy asked as he stood up.
"It's just you." Ben said as a green flash appeared as if out of nowhere and he materialized in between the trio of villains and the remaining heroes.(A/N: No he isn't just suddenly holding the power of invisibility. he used Ghostfreak, then was visible again when he changed back to Ben) "Listen up guys, I have a plan, but-" The techie shot at the remaining heroes and they all flew backwards even further. "Gee scrumbuffer, I don't know how you just appeared like that, but I sure hope your fancy plan includes getting fried!"
Ben gave the genius midget a cocky grin "You'll just have to find out, squirt."
"NOBODY CALLS ME SQUIRT! It's Gizmo! Pfffft, idiot! Mammoth, Jinx, let's take care of this moron." He aimed his gun at the ground several feet in front of Ben and fired. The girl with pink hair, who had been identified as Jinx swept her arms across where the impact of the shot had hit and several waves of pink energy shot across the street like a ripple across a pond. Then Mammoth, apparently the giant, jumped up and smashed his fists into the ground.
Everywhere the street had been hit with their massive attack caved in, and Ben shouted as he fell down the huge chasm into the sewer. When Beast Boy, Raven, Gwen and Kevin walked to look down the enormous hole, they couldn't find him anywhere. "Ben!" Gwen shouted down. There was no response.
"Well, later losers!" Gizmo said as the villainous trio departed.
Raven and Gwen walked Beast Boy and Kevin respectively into the tower. Robin looked extremely angry as he stormed past the group. "I need to do research on those three." Was all he said.
"That didn't just happen… tell me that didn't just happen." Beast Boy said rubbing his leg. It had taken its fair share of damage in the fight.
"It did happen. We cannot change the truth, no matter how much we dislike it." Raven said. She reached down and used her necromantic power to repair the damage done to Beast Boy's leg.
"Heh. Who knew we had a doctor in the house? Thanks." Beast Boy smiled, but his sadness hadn't left his face.
"Ugh, that Mammoth guy can punch! Oww." Kevin said rubbing his nose. He had forgotten to absorb anything to guard his body from harm, so his nose was broken from the impact.
Raven put her hand up to his face and healed his broken nose with the same powers she had used on Beast Boy. "Thanks… now what?" Kevin asked. The door opened again and Cyborg walked in.
"Maybe y'all should call me Flyborg. I was halfway to Gotham City before Star zapped that thing off my back. So what'd I miss?" he asked.
Everyone's eyes went to the floor besides Starfire and Cyborg's. "Tell me how we kicked their butts. C'mon I gotta have the play by play."
Starfire noticed something "Where is Ben?"
Beast Boy was the one to respond. "Ummm… Star, we're not sure."
"Not Sure, why are you not-" Starfire began.
Raven interrupted her "We searched everywhere, but all we found was this." She held up Ben's green trademark jacket with the ten on its left chest area. It was tattered and torn up.
Starfire Gasped in surprise. Cyborg started a long drawn out version of "If I was there this wouldn't have happened." Starfire on the other hand, got angry.
"I do not understand. How could you not find him? People do not just vanish! He has to be someplace so go there and look!" Starfire was yelling now.
"Easy Star, this is Ben we're talking about. He's been through worse than this and always come out fighting. I'm sure he'll turn up any second." Kevin said, more for her comfort than being sure of himself.
A lock mechanism on the door was heard. "Awesome timing! Kevin, how did you know?" Beast Boy asked.
"Ben!" Starfire joyfully said as she flew over to the door. The door exploded inwards knocking her back as it did so.
"Oh, no." both Beast Boy and Kevin said in unison, reminded of their prior injuries.
"Oh yes." Jinx responded. Mammoth cracked his knuckles. Kevin Immediately absorbed the nearest metal object, as he didn't want another broken nose.
"You guys got lucky last time, but you're in our house now!" Cyborg shouted. Robin ran into the room and yelled "I heard an explosion. Is everyone allri- Oh crap!"
"Yeah, nice place. We'll take it." Gizmo smirked. He shot a blast at the Titans that forced them to step back and knocked Beast Boy to the ground.
"Split up, we outnumber them!" Robin yelled. Raven, Gwen and Starfire took off through the tower and both ended up in the gym. Starfire sealed the door shut with her starbolts. At first the girls thought they were safe. That was proven wrong when Mammoth smashed a hole through the opposite wall.
"Hello ladies!" he said before grabbing them and throwing them out the window.
Robin and Cyborg eventually cornered Gizmo… sort of. He ended up hacking into Cyborg's systems without very much difficulty, even though Robin had been attacking him the entire time. Gizmo was even able to eject Cyborg's right arm before he and robin got similar treatment to Raven, Gwen and Starfire.
Beast Boy and Kevin were running through the tower being chased by Jinx. Every time she waved her arms, something went wrong with anything those pink ripples came into contact with.
Beast boy turned into a cheetah in order to get away more quickly. "Here kitty kitty! What's the matter? Afraid of a little bad luck?" She sent another string of pink waves of energy towards them. Beast Boy got away, but Kevin wasn't so lucky. A large section of the wall came crashing down on him. He was still coated in metal though, so it didn't crush him, it just hid him from view.
Jinx bent down and in a hushed voice said "I'll come back for you later, you delicious hunk of a man." Then she began the chase after Beast Boy. Kevin gritted his teeth under the rubble "I have a girlfriend, and you sure aren't her!"
Beast Boy stopped running "Phew! Lost her!" he said. A pink wave of energy caused a ceiling tile to collapse on his head and he fell over in a daze, rubbing his head.
"This just isn't your lucky day." Jinx smirked. Beast Boy's rebuttal was simple. He turned into a T-Rex and roared. Jinx's did several back handsprings, and her eyes lit up with a pink glow, and the floor underneath Beast Boy caved in.
Unfortunately the floor below was where mammoth was, and he threw Beast Boy out of the tower quite easily.
As Gwen, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, Robin and Starfire landed in the water, the HIVE Trio was standing at the top floor of the tower, and Kevin was being tied up by Jinx, like some sort of trophy.
Gizmo yelled across the ocean "Have a nice afterlife, ya snot eatin' losers!"
When Jinx finish tying Kevin up, she waved her arms across the bay, and the resulting pink ripples caused a tidal wave that sent the heroes across the bay and onto the neighboring land mass.
Beast Boy crouched down and joked "So, who else never wants to go surfing again?" Cyborg gave him a look and said "Not now man."
"Hey, I was just trying to-" Beast Boy started, but Raven silenced him by putting a hand on his shoulder. Cyborg's finger reconfigured itself into a blowtorch, and he began to repair the water damage done to his leg.
Starfire tried to remain positive, and giving a small smile asked "Perhaps I could be of some assistance?" to which Cyborg said "I got it."
"But you are so damaged and-" She wasn't able to finish. "I said I got it!" Cyborg interrupted rudely.
"Hey, she only wanted to help. What is your problem?" beast boy asked.
Cyborg started to yell "What do you think? We got kicked out of our house, a pint sized poindexter took me for a joyride, and in case you haven't noticed, I just became left handed!"
"Enough!" Gwen and Raven said simultaneously. Raven looked slightly miffed, while Gwen was practically bubbling over with rage. Raven looked towards Gwen and added, "We need to control our emotions."
"Or what? Our bad vibes will keep you two from meditating?" Cyborg countered.
"We can't fight amongst ourselves, team!" Robin said trying to calm down the fight that would probably ensue. Cyborg lost it "Who died and said you were the boss, spikey? As far as I'm concerned we aren't a team at all!"
Starfire looked at the ground and quietly, but not so much as to not be heard, said "I wish Ben were here."
"Well he's not! Don't you guys get it! They won, we lost. It's OVER!" Cyborg wasn't helping the mood at all.
Everyone was thinking the same thing, but Beast Boy was the one who voiced it "Then, the Teen Titans are finished?" he asked.
"Not yet!" An all too familiar voice said confidently "Not if I can help it!"
Starfire ran, or rather zoomed up to Ben and gave him a death hug. When he recuperated from getting the air squeezed out of him, he said "I'm glad you are ok, but those hugs are going to kill me one of these days."
When she let go of him, he turned to Cyborg and asked "Cyborg, can you control your arm remotely?"
"Yeah, I can do that. What exactly did you have in mind?"
At the tower, Kevin was struggling to get out of the ropes that were tied around him, while Mammoth was raiding the fridge. Gizmo was busy going over the Titans music collection. "Crud, snot, mega crud, snot!"
Jinx was trying on Raven's hooded cape. "Does she have anything that's not blue?" None of the HIVE villains noticed Cyborg's arm making its way across the room, and Kevin was too busy trying to untie himself to notice.
As the arm jumped into a chair near the main computer, it began triggering the alarm system and cabinets started randomly open and closing. CDs also began shooting out of the storage unit, which did two things, one CD slashed the ropes binding Kevin, and several others knocked Gizmo backwards.
"What the hairball?" Gizmo exclaimed. The he noticed the mobile arm. Before he could run, it shot coils of wire around him and he was soon rocketed through a ventilation shaft screaming.
Jinx was the next to be "escorted" to the roof via Raven's dark powers. Once that was done, Gwen ran into the room and shot a blast of mana energy at a distracted Mammoth, while Starfire used a barrage of starbolts to knock him to the roof with his teammates.
"Sorry to interrupt the victory celebration squirt, but you really shouldn't play in the big leagues at your age." Ben said as the Titans surrounded the HIVE operatives.
"STOP CALLING ME SQUIRT!" Gizmo yelled.
Kevin walked onto the roof and up to Jinx. "Don't start what you can't finish." He said as he absorbed a nearby metal pole and knocked her out cold. Mammoth tried to punch Kevin, but was stopped by Cyborg firing his sonic cannon at his massive chest, sending him skidding backwards for a moment, that is until Gizmo jumped onto Cyborg's back.
"Hey robowimp, feel like getting hacked?" Gizmo asked, pulling a hacking device out of his pocket.
"Nope. How 'bout you?" Cyborg responded. "Ben, now!"
Ben hit the dial of the Ultimatrix, then changed into Upgrade and latched onto Gizmo's back. Upon Upgrade's attachment, he began electrically reconfiguring his systems while Gizmo screamed things like "Cut it out, it's gonna crash my system!" and "Stop, get it off me!"
Mammoth decided to attack Raven, but she just floated over him as he lunged for her. When he turned, intent on attacking her again, Kevin slugged him so hard with his metal fist that he was knocked across the roof of the building. Beast boy then scared him into running back the other way by turning into a T-rex again. Starfire then shot a double fisted starbolt at Mammoth, and Robin kicked him into Gizmo, where the two villains hit the unconscious form of jinx and laid there in a pile.
"Cramit, I'm callin' Slade." Gizmo said, taking a device from his tech. before he could call, though, Ben stomped on the device and picked him up by the neck of his shirt. "Who is Slade?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, Barfbrain!" was the response.
In the large room full of gears, a woman, presumably the one behind Gizmo, Mammoth and Jinx's attack on the tower was talking to the man in black and silver armor.
"I assure you, such failures are not tolerated within the HIVE. Once the agents have been retrieved from the authorities, they will be disciplined." She made a fist, hit her open palm and continued "Strictly disciplined."
"Actually, your agents served my plans quite well." The man answered, "They were merely messengers, and the message has been received." He flipped a switch on a small device in his hands, and several screens began showing pictures of Ben asking "Who is Slade?" over and over.
"Nooooo! This is the worst thing that could ever happen!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "My tunes! They've been… alphabetized. How am I ever going to find anything?"
"Dude, I can name at least twenty worse things than that." Kevin said. "Like the fact that we still can't find the remote, even after the whole place gets cleaned."
"You're telling me! Now we'll never be able to change the channel!" Cyborg said lifting the couch up to look for the remote.
Raven walked into the Ops room holding one of her hooded capes. "They went into my room. No one should ever go into my room."
Starfire opened the fridge and gasped, then exclaimed "Someone has disposed of all our blue furry food!"
"Does anyone know where the remote is?" Cyborg asked. Ben whistled, then pointed to the table where the remote was front and center.
As the Titans sat down to watch TV, Cyborg asked "I guess we really ought to be training for battles, tracking down clues and trying to figure out who Slade is, huh? "
"We will, but right now, I'm just happy to be part of the team." Robin replied before turning on the TV.
Ben suddenly held his head and dropped to his knees. Starfire was the only one who noticed. "Ben! What is wrong? Can I help?"
Ben looked up in surprise "I-I'm fine. Just having a little trouble thinking, that's all!"
"If you were truly alright, you would not be in such a position." Starfire said. Ben chuckled then replied "I'm alright, really." Then he fell over holding his head in his hands. Everyone ran over worried, especially Gwen.
"Ben! What's wrong?" Gwen asked "If you don't tell us, we can't help you."
Ben groaned "My head. Make it stop! Get them out of my head!"
For a moment, it seemed like no one knew what to do. Then Raven seemed to remember something. "Ben, can you walk?" She asked.
"I-I think so." He said. "Where do we n-need to go?"
"My room." She answered, shocking everyone. Without another word, she used her necromantic powers to transport Ben and herself to her room, leaving the other Titans to wonder what was going on.
A/N: I know this was not the best way to end this chapter, but there is a reason I left it like this. For those of you wondering, I will be skipping the "Sum of his Parts" episode as it is centered around Cyborg specifically. The next episode I will use is "Nevermore" which is one of my favorites and should explain why I left the chapter ending where I did. I will also need a name for Raven's alien form BEFORE I can post the next chapter, so the time it takes for that chapter to be posted depends on the VIEWERS! Merry Belated Christmas and Happy Early New Year my valued readers!
-From the desk of
Stormez The Wolf