Chapter 4, guys. I am on a roll and still posting Unbeta'd. (But hey, I read it over and try and catch any mistakes, again feel free to PM me if you find what I didn't catch)
Based on episode one, Divide and Conquer.
Also, I am glad you guys find my writing to be IC. It has been forever since I watched the Teen Titans series, but I watched a few episodes and tried to do my research before writing this, so hopefully that paid off.
Thanks again for your reviews guys, it makes me happy to know you took the time to write them. :3
As for 'romance', still iffy on that. For now I'll plant hints now and again, but otherwise nothing truly romantic will happen.
Hope you enjoy this chapter:
Chapter 4: Divided and Gross
Danny sat across from Raven, trying to keep a blank expression as he mimicked her pose, levitating in the air in a meditation position. He could feel his resolve wavering, his fingers twitching slightly.
"How long do you think he'll last?" Cyborg whispered to Beast Boy.
"Five bucks says he won't last another minute." The changeling grinned at his taller friend.
Two minutes passed before Danny's eye twitched and he hovered away, looking slightly intimidated.
"Five bucks." Cyborg grinned, Beast Boy handing the money over.
Danny glared at them, smacking Beast Boy over the head.
"Your form was off." Raven spoke up, eyes still closed.
Danny's face turned green in a blush. He hadn't realized Raven had noticed him there, he had been so quiet.
"I sense things," The dark-clad girl reminded with a sigh, opening one eye to look at him. She closed it again, settling back into her meditation.
Danny let out a sigh of relief, trying to calm down. When he had, he turned his attention back to Beast Boy. "Alright, I did the dare. Now, truth or dare?" His neon eyes flashed dangerously as his expression turned wicked.
He never wanted to try 'meditating' again, especially around Raven, when she was prone to be annoyed by their shenanigans. His leg had cramped after the first few minutes and after that embarrassing exchange, he already had ideas of revenge.
"Truth." Beast Boy smiled innocently, still rubbing the spot Danny had hit him.
"What's your middle name?" Danny smirked.
Beast Boy paled, realizing his mistake. Of all the things Danny could have asked, he picked that? If he told the ghost boy, he wouldn't hear the end of it.
"Come on BB," Danny practically sung. "Tell us."
"I'm curious too, Grass Stain." Cyborg grinned, an evil glint in his eye.
"We're all waiting." Raven couldn't help but get involved. So much for finishing her meditation.
Beast Boy swayed back and forth, playing with his fingers. "It's um… It's Ma-" The siren went off, the room filling with its sound. "Saved by the bell…" The green Titan whispered to himself.
(Break)
"You know Cinderblock, normally the bad guys break out of jail." Beast Boy spoke up as they spotted the giant.
"And I can think of six good reasons on why you wouldn't want to break in." Robin added, jumping down from where he'd been hiding.
The rest of the Titans made their entrances, Danny being six as he landed.
"No matter how you do the math, it all adds up to you going down." Robin contributed his witty banter. "So are you going to go quietly,"
"Or is this gonna get loud?" Cyborg finished for him.
Cinderblock's battle cry was the only answer they got as he rushed at the team.
"Titans, go!" Robin commanded.
The teens raced towards their foe, Danny gritting his teeth. "Come on…Yes!"
His hands lit up like he'd wanted. He held back as his team distracted Cinderblock with various attacks, gathering the energy. Finally, after Raven had tossed some of the ground at Cinderblock, Danny unleashed the ecto ray while grinning. His smile faltered when Cinderblock was still standing, Robin and Cyborg getting knocked away as they tried another attack.
He tried gathering the energy again, flying at Cinderblock when Starfire was captured. The rocky man attempted to swing his arm at Danny, who went intangible.
Something went wrong though, as Danny 'crashed' into the golem. Cinderblock's eyes changed color, taking on a glowing green. "Wow…" The ghost boy didn't get much time to ponder on this new ability as he received a kick to the face from Starfire, sending him flying out of his host while Cinderblock crashed into a wall.
"I'll feel that in the morning," Danny grumbled after he landed on his back.
He got back up in time to witness Robin gripping Cinderblock around his neck. The leader of the group jumped away before a grater could be smashed into him.
Cyborg got the same idea and got into a grater fight with the villain. The half-robot teen was sent flying as Cinderblock got the upper hand.
Starfire was the one to melt Cinderblock's weapon, giggling.
"Didn't know she could do that," Danny whistled to himself while Cinderblock ran off in the opposite direction.
"Me neither…" Beast Boy caught up to him.
Cyborg and Robin had gone off ahead, leaving Danny, Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy to catch up to them just as they attempted a maneuver they'd practiced during training, the Sonic Boom.
Someone's foot caught the other's, causing them to screw up, their weapons now pointed on their teammates. Cyborg's sonic canon blasted Beast Boy and Starfire while Robin's attacks went after Danny and Raven. Danny managed to grip Raven's cloak and turn them intangible on time, but still found himself blinded when the device went off.
The screw-up bought Cinderblock enough time to run into and destroy many of the prison's walls, freeing prisoners.
The teens were still slightly disoriented when all of the prisoners ran in their direction, trying to make their way to freedom.
(Break)
"Well, things could be worse…" Danny grumbled as the situation was finally under control.
"Jail break? I don't see any jail break." Beast Boy tried.
"None of us would have seen one if Cyborg hadn't messed up." Robin crossed his arms, annoyed.
"Me? I messed up nothing, you got in my way!" Cyborg turned away, mimicking the action.
"Oh no…" Danny groaned. He had an idea where this might be going.
Robin and Cyborg continued to argue, blaming each other for the mess up. Starfire decided to be the brave one, stepping between them. "Stop, no more mean talking."
The teens stopped, still wearing pissed expressions, backs now turned to each other.
"Yeah," Beast Boy tried to be funny. "If you two are gonna fight, we're gonna need to sell tickets."
"Come on, everyone makes mistakes." Danny pitched in. "Though, it's usually me or BB…" Especially when his powers liked to act up. There was a reason he was exempted from washing dishes.
"Hey!" The changeling protested, only to get an innocent grin from his friend.
"Cinderblock escaped. No amount of yelling will change that. So stop acting like idiots, let's go home." Raven finished.
"Hmph." Both Cyborg and Robin walked off in opposite directions.
"Well, it could be worse…" Danny sighed.
"Loser." Robin grumbled.
"Jerk." Cyborg spoke to himself.
"What'd you say?!" They both shouted at the same time.
"Me and my big mouth." Danny whispered to himself.
The arguing escalated. It was intimidating to him and the rest of the Titans, who had all gathered in a small group against the wall. As if huddling would protect them from Cyborg and Robin's wrath.
"I don't even know why you're on this team!" Robin yelled without thinking.
"That makes two of us. I quit!" Cyborg declared, astonishing everyone.
Danny's eyes widened as the half-human stomped off. Nobody spoke up, as if speaking would bring finality to the situation.
Cyborg was gone.
(Break)
Danny sulked on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. His hands shot up to his hair, fisting his currently black hair. "Uuuuuuugh." He couldn't believe Cyborg was gone.
Just this morning they'd all been fooling around with the stupid game of truth or dare, and the night before he had been watching Cyborg drawing altered blueprints for the portal. He didn't even know what half the words Cyborg had used to describe some of the changes he was making to the designs, but he had still found it interesting nonetheless.
A spoon was shoved into Danny's mouth, full of some horrible tasting goop. The half ghost started choking on it, accidentally swallowing said spoon. He turned his hand intangible, pulling out the obstruction. "What," Danny coughed, making a face. "W-what was that?"
"Pudding of Sadness." Starfire, the offender of attempting to 'Kill' him with a spoon, replied.
Danny handed her the spoon back, sighing. "Warn me next time, you could choke someone with that."
Starfire heeded his advice when she pounced on Beast Boy next, giving him the warning of "Taste!" before his mouth was assaulted with the same mixture.
Danny couldn't help but chuckle as Beast Boy coughed it up, calling it 'Cream of Toenail'. That description seemed to fit, though the ghost boy would have compared it to the food at Casper High, mixed with ectoplasm and sweat.
He watched the alien girl attempt to get Raven and Robin to try it, to no avail. The whole situation was making Danny depressed when he realized Cyborg would have found it funny.
After Robin left, the halfa sighed, getting up to head for his room. Maybe talking to Sam and Tucker for a bit might brighten his mood.
(Break)
As he remembered too late when he was greeted by two offline icons, Sam and Tucker were most likely still in school. Danny tried his hand at playing Doomed by himself on his laptop as a distraction, but soon the sad feelings came back. He put the laptop down, sitting on his bed.
One of his friends was gone and he couldn't do anything about it.
Danny glared at his hand as it went invisible on its own for the fifth time since he'd come up from the main room. He had already come to terms that his powers were a mix of thinking and emotions, though they didn't need to remind him of his mood. He felt like disappearing into nothing, where he didn't have to feel these stupid emotions nagging at him.
He could have done something. He could have tried to get Robin and Cyborg to make up. Heck, he could have followed Cyborg, to make sure the other Titan didn't get into trouble or something.
'But it wouldn't have helped', he finally decided as his hand returned to visibility. 'The only ones who could fix this is Robin and Cyborg themselves..'
Danny glared at his pillow, blasting it with an ecto ray. God, he felt so frustrated.
He didn't even care when his whole body went intangible and he sunk through the floor to the room below.
Alarms went off as Danny found himself being pulled out of the ground by Starfire, who had resolved to help him when he got stuck. They both blinked before the ghost boy transformed quickly, flying out of the hole intangibly.
The five remaining Titans gathered around the computer, Robin being the last to join them.
"Cinderblock strikes again?" Robin asked, not noticing the horrified looks taking over his teammates' faces.
"You wish." Beast Boy looked disgusted.
(Break)
The five of them found themselves facing a giant monster of some kind of purple sludge, Plasmas.
Danny felt sick watching that thing drink down the cans of some kind of glowing green liquid: Even ectoplasm looked more appetizing than whatever the villain was downing like energy drinks.
Starfire sent a star bolt at the latest can after they realized the humanoid was getting bigger.
"That stuff can't be good for you." Robin commented, drawing attention to them.
The monster gave a loud burp in reply. "Nice one." Beast Boy and Danny couldn't help commenting, a grin on the changeling's face
Everyone jumped out of the way as whatever sewage-like substance Plasmus was made up of was fired at them, Robin dodging quite a few shots until telling Starfire to "Let him have it."
She gasped when the big star bolt left a hole in Plasmus's chest. "Did I let him have too much?" She sounded horrified.
The hole healing up answered before Beast Boy's comment of, "I'm thinking not enough."
Plasmus's hand shot out, extending to grab for Starfire. Raven pushed her out of the way while Danny tried firing a few ecto blasts at Plasmus. Like Starfire's attacks, it healed over though the healed spots glowed green with a tinge of ectoplasm.
"Maybe he just needs to chill!" Robin exclaimed, throwing one of his freeze discs at Plasmus's extended arm.
Plasmus didn't look amused at all, simply breaking the frozen arm off. The fight continued, every attack the Titans sent at Plasmus having seemingly no effect except making him angrier.
"Ew." Danny commended when he, Robin, and Beast Boy ended up covered in the purple ooze. He tried to phase it off, but found he couldn't.
Looking it over, he noticed flecks of green. "Oh," He mumbled, realizing they were small traces of ectoplasm. Well, at least his parents had been right about ectoplasm being effective against ghosts.
The strategy switched, the Titans now attempting to restrain Plasmus. Beast Boy and Danny distracted the mutant, while Robin sent a birdarang at it, successfully restraining him. Beast Boy rammed into Plasmus to knock him down, while the girls bent graters to trap him to the ground.
"Did we win?" Danny asked, landing.
"We did it!" Starfire exclaimed as a confirmation, floating above the team.
"Nice work, team." Robin smiled.
"Didn't think we'd pull it off without-" Beast Boy was shut up by Raven elbowing roughly and Danny blasting at his mouth, the ectoplasm stopping him from talking.
"… Why didn't you do that earlier?" Raven gave Danny a look. She would have loved if he had gotten Beast Boy to shut up on other occasions.
"We finished just in time." Robin informed, not even noticing the changeling struggling to get the ectoplasm off. "Cinderblock's been spotted down town. Come on," He ran off, prompting the rest of the team to follow.
Beast Boy was the last as he finally scraped the green goo off, though he turned one last time to witness Plasmus melting down and turning into five beings.
"Uhhh… Heads up." The changeling sounded nervous.
The five of them ran to the door, closing it on Plasmus. "Five against five, think we can take him?" Beast Boy asked nervously. It had already been difficult to take him on five on one.
Danny was starting to doubt it. That thing could probably hit him now and his attacks had seemed ineffective against it.
"Forget the numbers, we need a plan." Robin decided.
The pounding was getting louder as was the inhuman noises the mutant was making. Tendrils broke through the door, making Starfire scream. Without much time, Robin came up with a plan.
"Titans, separate!" The leader exclaimed.
The five of them split up as Plasmus's pieces broke the door open, Danny flying by himself through a corridor. He found himself being chased by the head, of all pieces, making him groan. "Okay Phantom, you can do this…" He dodged sharp legs extending at him, the ghost boy slashing back furiously with the heels of his boots. It left marks on the mutant, but they quickly healed back.
"I can't blast it, that only gives it something to use against me." Danny grit his teeth, hands subconsciously lit up. "Wait, duh. Eat this, ugly!" He fired at their surroundings, making pieces of metal fly at the creature. It slowed it down, but not enough.
Somehow the passage had led to where the others were currently fighting their own ooze monsters, sans Robin. Danny was distracted by seeing the others get taken one at a time, noticing too late as a mouth clamped down on his cape, his body being dragged inside. Danny couldn't help the scream he let out as his world went dark and ooze-covered.
(Break)
Danny spit up some of the purple ooze, his eye twitching. 'Gross, Star's pudding was delicious compared to this'.
He eyed the body next to him warily, inching away from the sleeping man. The other Titans around him seemed just as cautious, none of them making a noise. Nobody wanted to wake Plasmus's human form up.
The police soon arrived to take the 'human' in, Danny feeling a little tired as he watched them prepare the cryogenic tank. The ghost boy gathered with his teammates, all of them watching as Cyborg and Robin made up.
"Glorious!" Starfire was excited by the turn of events. "I wish to initiate a group hug!"
"Pass." Raven said with her usual monotone.
"Ditto." Danny shrugged. Not that he couldn't do group hugs, but he wasn't in the mood to have his spine broken by Starfire at the moment.
"Yeah, yeah, warm fuzzies all around." Beast Boy was serious for once. "We still need to stop Cinderblock."
"No we don't." Cyborg smiled. "Thought I'd bring a present. Incase you were still mad." Cinderblock was lifted up by a crane as he said that, bound by bent pieces of metal.
"Thanks. But there is one thing that's still bothering me." Robin frowned.
Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Danny all turned pale. 'He's not going to bring up how they screwed up the first time, is he?' Danny thought.
"Breaking into jail, using Plasmus to distract us?" Robin continued, unaware of his teammates' worries. "The whole plan seems to be a little too smart for Cinderblock." The boy wonder concluded.
"I've been thinking the same thing," Cyborg mused, the rest of the Titans letting out a sigh of relief.
"Someone must have been pulling the strings," Robin smiled, glad that he and Cyborg were on the same train of thought. "But who?" He held his chin in thought.
"Well, whoever they are, they're no match for the Teen Titans." Cyborg concluded in a proud voice.
"I heard that." Robin gave his fellow Titan a high-five.
"So…" Danny spoke up after a moment of silence. "Does this mean ribs for dinner as a celebration, Cy?"
"Wouldn't have it any other way, Spooky." Cyborg grinned, walking over to smack Danny on the back.
Danny almost fell over, though managed to hold himself up. Several growling stomachs around them approved of the idea of food. It was getting late.
(Break)
The Titans were enjoying their meal. Cyborg had indeed made his famous ribs for celebration, with a side of the same sauce for Beast Boy to put on his tofu.
This was one thing Danny loved about living with the Titans: Sure, they had some strange food at times, but it could be a very good meal at other times. Plus the food never attacked back.
He was currently gnawing on his fifth rib, a pleased expression on his face which was currently covered in the dark red sauce.
Starfire was attacking her own meal with a very hungry expression, Raven was nibbling on her first one still, Robin was eating at Danny's pace, and Cyborg was on his second rack.
'Yup, this is the life. I hope things stay this way forever, all six of us just having a great time together...' Danny thought between bites, before a piece of tofu hit his head.
Beast Boy snickered as Danny phased it off, glaring at his green friend.