Thanks for the reviews, guess that means I'll keep going.
Frostbite seems real nasty, but trust me, you haven't seen anything yet. It's only the beginning.
Oh, and if you have any suggestions for the story, put them up on reviews and I'll look into them. On to Chapter Four.
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Chapter 4: The worst song in the world
Raven was rather irritated. Okay, sure she had a fractured bone and dark black and blue bruising, but a few nights of sleep, relaxation and meditation, and she'd be right as rain. She thought that the others were overreacting; Starfire most of all, her arms bristling with bandages, bottles and other Tamaranian cures that she was sure would finish her off if the ailment didn't.
"Really, I'll be fine." Raven said patiently on the hospital bed back in Titans Tower, but her left eyebrow twitched all the same.
"Sorry Raven, but we need to check if any of your organs were damaged. You'll have to stay here for at least a day just so we can be sure nothing's wrong." Cyborg replied from the monitor.
"Frostbite did hit you rather hard." Beast Boy added.
"Please, friend Raven, try some of this Gloptark soup. It will have you springing back in the jiffy!" Starfire exclaimed happily from behind a large bowl of what looked like…oh….umm…ugghhh…oh my…holy crud…
You don't want to know.
"Okay. I'm cured. I'm going to my room." Raven said quickly, ripping off the blanket and attempting to jump off the hospital bed. But she let out a yell of agony as she tried to sit up.
"No. You're not." Robin said sternly from the doorway, back from research. "You stay right where you are."
Raven sighed in defeat and banged her head against her pillow.
"Did you find anything out about Frostbite?" Cyborg asked.
"Nothing yet." Robin replied angrily. "Whoever he is, he's someone new. And it gets weirder."
"How so?"
"He broke into a high security vault, pounded half the guards, but he didn't take anything."
"Perhaps our presence dissuaded him?" Starfire reasoned.
"I don't think so. He was willing to take on all of us. Speaking of which, we have another problem."
"What's the problem?" Cyborg asked.
"We should have handled Frostbite easily. We've beaten Slade, Brother Blood, Trigon and the Brotherhood of Evil, yet when we fought against Frostbite…"
"We had our butts handed back to us, I know." Cyborg finished. "But the point of that is to learn from our mistakes…"
"Which can cost lives." Robin interrupted angrily. "If you recall, a person nearly froze to death today!"
"Starfire thawed him out."
"He's still in hospital suffering from hypothermia! And Raven, what were you thinking? You went right after Frostbite without waiting for us!"
"A woman was about to have her fingers snapped off," Raven said, looking ever more bothered and incensed by Robin's display of angst, "and he was breaking into the bank. I was the closest person on patrol in the area, so I intervened. You'd rather I hadn't?"
Robin paled. "I'm sorry, I got carried away. But my point is that… I feel as if we failed everyone today. That I failed everyone. We just went in after him split up hopelessly with no plan of action, and not only did he get away, but you got hurt as well."
"This is a risky job. We're bound to get a few scrapes." Raven said calmly.
Robin nodded grimly "But I think we were way out of practice. I'll schedule some training sessions for tomorrow. But you're going to stay out of them until you're better."
"Agreed."
Beast Boy groaned loudly. He had a bad feeling that he wouldn't be seeing the Gamestation in a long time.
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Frostbite entered the dank, dark room and collapsed onto a moth-eaten couch. He took a few deep, ragged breaths to calm himself and go over all that had happened rationally.
He had been an impatient fool, he admitted it. He had just barged into the bank, bared his teeth and had been beaten back by a bunch of damn teenagers (of all things). He had not done his homework, had not expected the unexpected and had paid the price of failure.
But what really rubbed salt into his wounds was his source; he would soon pay dearly for this debacle.
He had to admit though, those teenagers intrigued him. He would be sure to find out all he could about them. He didn't want to make the same mistakes again.
Frostbite got up after a few minutes and took a look at his surroundings. Apart from the sofa, there wasn't much else there. Just a desk covered with papers with a laptop, a plain wooden chair, a chest of drawers and a doorway leading to a mouldy bathroom. The windows were boarded up. It wasn't five-star accommodation, but Frostbite didn't care. He had to hide somewhere.
Frostbite headed for the shower, but felt a pain in the side of his head. That damn kid, that Robin, had hammered him with those odd-shapped grenades. The orange one, Star Fire, had grazed him with one of those energy blasts.
He went to the mirror to take a look. He hated doing this, his reflection always reminding, always taunting. He grabbed the scarf-like mask, and pulled…
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"Hey Raven, I know what'll cheer you up!" Beast Boy smiled.
"Why would I want to be cheery, I'm stuck in the infirmary with you." Raven said grumpily. Beast Boy had taken it upon himself to pester Raven on her road to recovery while the others respected her wishes to stay away. Talk about kicking me while I'm down Raven thought bitterly.
Beast Boy pretended to ignore her. "I got a special song that always cheers me up when I'm down! And trust me, it's funny."
Raven groaned. "Your brand of humour is not funny."
"We'll see." Beast Boy said, grinning like a madman. He pulled a disc out of his pocket and inserted it into the radio beside her bed.
What followed could only be described as two and a half minutes of torture:
Hold a chicken in the air! Stick a deck-chair up your nose,
Buy a jumbo jet, and then bury all your clothes,
Paint your left knee green, then extract your wisdom teeth,
Form a string-quartet, and pretend your name is Keith.
Raven immediately hated the song (and Beast Boy's ridiculous dance moves), and promptly covered her ears. But the she swore she could feel the lyrics creep insidiously inside her brain:
Skin yourself alive! Lean to speak Arapaho,
Climb inside a dog, and behead an Eskimo,
Eat a Renault-Four, wear salami in your ears,
Casserole your gran, disembowel yourself with spears!
By now, Raven wished that Frostbite had finished her off so she wouldn't be subject to this crime against music, and dumped her pillow over her face. The next line kind of summed up the song really:
The disco is vibrating, the sound is loud and grating,
It's truly nauseating, let's do the dance again!
"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY AND SACRED, NO!!" Raven screamed, her eyes glowing a ghostly white. The radio (and half the infirmary) then exploded, showering Beast Boy in glass and various medical paraphernalia in the middle of what looked like the Egyptian dance.
Beast Boy emerged from the mountain of supplies to find Raven propped up on the bed, surrounded by creepy black tentacles. The shadows in the room also seemed to to advancing on Beast Boy, which freaked him out. Raven spoke in a deep, ethereal voice:
"Beast Boy, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but so help me, if I hear that song ever again, I will send you to another dimension. Clear?"
Beast Boy gulped, and nodded. "Crystal."
The tentacles disappeared, and Raven returned to normal, rubbing her temples. "If you really want to help me, bring me a cup of tea. My nerves are shattered at the moment."
"Sure thing. I'll be right back." Beast Boy said, his smile returning. He walked out of the room.
Raven sighed, and hit her head against the pillow. She really hated the infirmary now. And Beast Boy was often the worst person to help a person recover. Except for Starfire, Raven thought, shuddering at the multitude of horrific "cures" at her disposal. Though, it isn't fair of me to criticise Beast Boy, he does try his best.
Suddenly, as if trying to change her mind, the radio crackled back to life for a moment, but it was enough to scar her memory for life:
Now you've heard it once, your brain will spring a leak,
And though you hate this song, you'll be humming it for weeks!
"DAMN YOU, SPITTING IMAGE!"
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The song is called "The Chicken Song." Yes, it's a real song made by a British sketch show that satirised all the crappy summer holiday songs that were in vogue in the 1980's, especially those made by Black Lace. It was voted one of the worst songs of the 1980's; boy, talk about not getting the joke.