I'm back with the penultimate chapter. Looks like they're all going to be longer than the first few chapters. I also put in a few easter eggs; see if you can spot them before the end of the chapter.

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Chapter 9: Answers

Robin didn't like this. There was something fishy going on here. These soldiers weren't like any army or militant group that he was familiar with. And that Colonel clearly harboured less than friendly intentions.

"What do you want with him?" asked Robin cautiously, playing for time.

"That does not concern you." The Colonel said evenly. "What matters is that we are taking him from you, with or without your consent."

"We won't hand him over without answers." Raven added.

"Silly girl, you don't seem to realise who you are dealing with. Now hand Frostbite over or things will get very messy."

As if to illustrate the point, all the troopers flicked off the safety switches on their guns and prepped them to fire, making very loud, intimidating metallic noises.

Robin looked back at his friends, who all gave the same determined look. They had no intention of handing over Frostbite either. Robin turned back to face The Colonel.

"You'll have to get through us first."

"Very well." The Colonel said emotionlessly, walking backwards into the shadows. "Spare Frostbite. Pump the rest full of lead!"

All the soldiers opened fire at once, the noise of the thousands of bullets deafening to the ears. Raven quickly erected a wall of dark energy around her friends and Frostbite, but the sheer amount of ordnance being fired into the shield was rapidly taking its toll.

Finally, the firing ceased as the soldiers paused to reload. Raven fell to the ground in exhaustion, and the shield faded.

Robin knew there were too many of them to fight. Even at their best, they would only be able to bring down half of the soldiers before the other half reloaded and riddle them with more holes than Swiss cheese. There was only one course of action to take.

"Titans, get Frostbite and fall back to the T-Car!"

With that, Robin lobbed a smoke disc into the crowd, stinging their eyes and irritating their throats. Cyborg used his enhanced strength to slam his fist into the ground and uproot several soldiers out of the way to clear a path. Beast Boy picked up Raven as a gorilla and ran through the clearing with Robin and Cyborg, while Starfire picked up the unconscious Frostbite and flew overhead.

Cyborg pressed a button on his arm, and the T-Car raced across the tarmac and came to a stop in front of them. Cyborg would normally have taken a moment to admire its sleek curves, shiny electric blue cybernetic surface and killer stereo system, but the ping of bullets at their feet reminded him of the urgency of the situation.

"Friends, I can carry Frostbite to the prison…"

"No!" Robin said quickly in the malestrom. "We'll take him back to the Tower. We'll meet you there!"

Starfire nodded, and flew off over the skyscrapers. The others got into the car, the bullets slamming into its reinforced armour.

"STOP SHOOTING AT MY CAR!" Cyborg roared, activating the giant sonic canon and blasting several of the soldiers away. The others were not deterred, and kept firing even as the car sped away into the night.

The Colonel walked up to the scene of the fight. The commanding officer gulped silently. That man really freaked him out. He had heard horrible rumours about him. Frankly, he'd be freaked even if a quarter of them were true. He braced himself for the worst.

"Th…they got away, sir." he stuttered.

The Colonel looked at him sharply for a moment, then dismissed him. "It does not matter. We can still complete our mission. After all, we know where they live."

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The T-Car drove into the Tower's garage, and came to a stop. It wasn't a pretty sight. Both backlights were smashed along with one of the front floodlights, and there were a countless number of ugly black bullet holes that riddled the whole back and right side.

Cyborg let out a barely suppressed sob. "So…many…dings!" he sniffled.

Robin was much more stoic. "Let's get to the infirmary. Starfire's waiting for us along with our guest."

"Dude, why didn't we just drop him off at the police station?" asked Beast Boy, helping a dazed Raven out of the car.

"Because if we had, The Colonel and his goons would be all over the place like flies. The police wouldn't stand a chance. Now, we'll check up on Frostbite, set up the security systems and get some shut-eye. It's been a long night."

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Early the next morning after breakfast, the Titans went back to the infirmary and took a look at the still unconscious Frostbite, who was strapped down to the bed. The remains of his jacket and polo-shirt had been taken off (because Starfire had seared through it), exposing his deathly pale white skin, which was criss-crossed with what looked to be surgical scars. His ribs were clearly visible, and he was very thin and skeletal looking. He was still holding onto the scrap of cloth that had once been his mask.

"Man, he looks like he hasn't had a bite to eat in months!" exclaimed Cyborg.

"Are you able to help him, friend Cyborg?" asked Starfire worryingly. She hated to see anyone in such a pitiable condition.

"Help him? I wouldn't know where to begin!" Cyborg said solemnly. "I ran several scans over him. His organs are radically different to ours. His metabolism, too. He has no body heat at all. For all intents and purposes, he's clinically dead."

"And yet, he's alive." noted Raven, seeing that Frostbite was still breathing.

"So did you find out anything else?" Robin asked Cyborg.

"Yeah. He has excellent bone and muscle structure. Possibly genetically enhanced. They're stronger than industrial strength steel."

Robin nodded. "I couldn't find out anything else about him. It's like he doesn't exist!"

"DUDE! I totally know what he is!" Beast Boy exclaimed excitedly.

Raven raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't involve zombies, alien invasions or government conspiricies, does it?"

"…Um, yeah."

"I'm not…a…zombie." Frostbite growled drowzily, half-unaware of where he was.

"He is awakening!" Starfire exclaimed.

Frostbite opened his eyes slowly. He was still very sore from Starfire's killer punches, but he was a fast healer. Another benefit of genetic enhancements.

"Are we awake?" Cyborg asked.

"That depends." Frostbite answered wearily, still half-asleep. "Are we robots?"

Cyborg decided to play along. "Yes, we are."

Frostbite looked slightly disturbed. "Well, then, we're awake. But very puzzled."

Frostbite tried to get up, but the leather straps held him down. He then realised where he was, and bolted wide awake.

"YOU! RELEASE ME!"

"Calm down!" Cyborg said "We're trying to help you!"

"What? You spend an entire week trying to pound me into the ground, and now you want to help me? Nice try, but I don't buy it."

"We got you away from The Colonel." Robin added strictly. "Is this anyway to repay us?"

"After all that's happened? Let me think for a moment. YES!" He roared. "Now let me go!"

"You do know that's just leather straps?" Beast Boy said.

"LET ME GO OR… oh." Frostbite finished quietly, looking at the puny straps.

"Now that you've calmed down, do you mind telling us what's going on here?" Robin said, getting back to the chase. "First you break into a bank, then you trash an apartment with Slade, nearly freeze a scientist to death and blow up a warehouse. And now this Colonel is after you. I want answers, and I want them now!"

Frostbite listened passively, considering his demands. Then he said, "Release me, and I might be a little more talkactive. I will not be held a prisoner."

Robin thought about it. "Alright, but we're watching you. And don't think about escaping. The automated defences in the tower will fry you before you can blink."

Starfire moved to remove the straps. Frostbite followed her movements coldly. He was still resentful toward her, mainly about frying his scarf-mask, the remains of which he put carefully into his pocket once he was freed.

He sat up, stretched, and stood up. He was taller than Robin, but only reached up to Cyborg's chin. The others watched him cautiously, ready for trouble. But Frostbite just stared back.

"What are you looking at?"

Starfire coughed. "I apologize, but do you require food? You look like you are starving."

"I always look like this. It's not going to change." he said sourly. "But some food wouldn't hurt. What've you got?"

"I still have some leftover bacon I can fry up." Cyborg said.

"I have tofu waffles that are way better than Cy's nasty strips of dead innocent pigs!" Beast Boy shoved in.

"And I have the dish of Trobligtarp stew with Zorka berries!" Starfire added eagerly.

"I don't suppose you are into herbal tea?" Raven asked.

Frostbite considered. "Okay… I'll have the tofu waffles…"

"YES! In your face, Cyborg!"

"…with a side of bacon."

Beast Boy and Cyborg both looked as if Ozzy Osbourne had burst into the room and started biting the heads off of bats.

"That… is so wrong." Beast Boy said quietly.

"You can't… is that even possible?" Cyborg stuttered, a thought bubble in his head running the equations. Tofu + Bacon = X. Eventually, Cyborg's head sparked under the paradox of combining his culinary delight with its worst enemy and went offline, just standing there with his head and arms sagging down. Beast Boy was curled up into a ball whispering "The horror! The horror!" over and over again.

Frostbite stood there for a few seconds confusedly, then bent sideways and whispered to Robin:

"You have really weird friends." That earned him a glare from the Boy Wonder, but he said nothing. He stood back up straight.

"Herbal tea it is, then."

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The sentry sat listlessly at the checkpoint. This was so boring! When he had joined the navy, he had expected to spend half his life sailing the seven seas, traveling to strange new lands, meeting new people, and then blowing them to smithereens. Instead, he was stuck here, giving trucks clearance to enter the military drydocks to service the ships moored there. This was a dead-end job, he decided. No chance of any excitement.

Just then, a large, blacked out truck pulled up at the checkpoint. The sentry sighed and walked toward the driver's side.

The window was winded down, and the sentry was greeted with an intimidating combat shotgun pointed at his nose.

"Good morning, comrade." said The Colonel breezily. "So sorry to disturb you, but I hope that you do not mind us borrowing some military hardware?"

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It was an odd sight, a virtual skeleton drinking a cup of tea as if it was water, in the Tower's living room, on the couch. Now there's a sight you don't see every day, thought Raven.

Frostbite stared back at Raven. "See, this is why I cover myself up. I hate it when people stare. It's real off-putting. Don't you have anything I can wear?"

Raven shot him a glare. "No."

Frostbite sighed. "Look, just let it go, alright? You were in my way, being unco-operative, and I had to remove you."

"You fractured my ribs!"

"You're okay now, aren't you?"

"An apology would be nice."

"Why? For you not having had the common sense to get out of my way? People tend to get broken bones when they get in my way. Or frostbite."

Raven's eyes shone white, and was tempted to chuck him out the window, but Robin intervened, saying "Enough! We didn't let you into the tower just to pick a fight. I still want answers."

Frostbite reclined back onto the couch, admiring the high-tech equipment. "This is a real nice place. You really have it made here."

"Frostbite!"

"Oh, right. What do you want to know?"

"For starters, what you were doing with Slade."

Frostbite shook his head. "I still can't believe he actually told you his real name. It's real unprofessional of him."

"What do you mean, his real name?" inquired Robin, curious to know more about his arch-nemesis.

"That's just it. His name is Slade. But in the criminal underworld, he's known as Deathstroke, or Deathstroke the Terminator from back in the day when he was a professional assassin. Perhaps the greatest of all time."

Robin found the news exciting and disturbing at the same time. He had information to work on, but had found a new side of Slade that was frightening to say the least. He then showered Frostbite with questions about Slade, so fast that he had trouble keeping up.

"Why are you so obsessed with this guy? It's very unhealthy to obsess yourself with him, you know."

Robin's eyes narrowed. "He's caused us a lot of pain and trouble. We have to take him down."

"Same here, and when I get my hands on him, he'll be wishing he'd never left the army."

"He's wronged you, too?"

"Who hasn't he wronged? He's made a lot of enemies over the years, but few of them are still alive to plot against him."

Robin was about to ask some more Slade related questions, but Starfire cut across him, wanting to know…

"What happened to you, Frostbite? You look so… broken."

Frostbite was a little taken aback. He had expected the question, but it still startled him. "That's a story far too long for me to tell."

"We have time."

"No you don't. Very soon The Colonel will try to get back at me, and I don't want to stay here longer than I need to."

"Who is the Colonel?" asked Cyborg, who had been revived an hour ago with Beast Boy.

"He's an ex-Soviet army commander now working part-time as an arms dealer that hates my guts. And he'll try to assault the tower and get back at me. He has huge resources at his disposal."

Beast Boy snorted. "He can't get us here."

"We are in a giant "T" overlooking the city, and we are sitting ducks." Frostbite argued.

"Relax. I have state-of -the-art security in place here."Cyborg boasted. "He'd need an army to break in."

"Well, I for one am relieved that's not an army." Frostbite said sarcastically, pointing out the window.

Sure enough, in the distance were several helicopter gunships and several amoured troop carriers all headed straight for the tower.

Cyborg looked wide-eyed at the large force.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" said Beast Boy disapprovingly.

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Review time. Please click the attractive green button below. By the way, here are the references:

Cyborg/Frostbite dialogue "Are we awake?… but very puzzled." Blazing Saddles.

"...let me think for a moment. YES!" The Mummy.

"The horror! The horror!" Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

"…he'll be wishing he'd never left the army." Reference to Deathstroke's origin story in the comics, when he joined the army during the Korean War. Yeah, he's that old and still young!

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" From the Teen Titans episode "The End, Part 1" when Cyborg scolds Beast Boy for jinxing them. How ironic.