Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. Okay, I lied last time. I do actually have an idea on how to prolong Beast Boy's stay in Nevermore. Am I going to use the idea? Hell yes!
The alarm sounds throughout the tower for the third time that day.
"What is today?! National villains' day?!" Cyborg shouts in annoyance as he runs into the main room.
"It would seem so." Robin says, equally irritated.
"Who is our foe?" Starfire inquires.
"Where is the jerk who interrupted my meditation?" Raven says, holding in a giggle as she phases through the floor.
"He's at the jeweler's on Ninth street." Robin shouts. "It's Mumbo."
Raven's eyes immediately start glowing white. "Then what are we waiting for?" She hisses. "Let's go already!" She doesn't wait for the others to follow and phases through the window, speeding off to the city.
"That girl has got it bad for BB." Cyborg chuckles as he dashes to the T-Car. He opens the door and the remaining Titans pile in.
"Please, what exactly does Raven have? Is she ill? Did Beast Boy do this to her?" Starfire asks in worry.
"Yes Raven is ill, and yes BB did it to her." Cyborg grins. The T-Car rolls out of the garage and into the underground tunnel. "Poor Rae has been bitten."
"That's for sure." Robin mutters, though he too is smiling.
"What has bitten friend Raven?" Starfire asks a bit more calmly. The attitude of the two other Titans seems to indicate that there is nothing to actually worry about.
"The love bug." Cyborg says proudly. "Looks like BB's persistence is paying off."
"What has this "love bug" done to our friend?" Starfire inquires curiously.
"It's an expression Star." Robin explains. "It means that Raven is in love with Beast Boy."
"Oh." Is the only thing Starfire says and there is silence for a few moments. Starfire speaks up again "I was under the impression that this was already common knowledge to everyone but Beast Boy and Raven herself. Did you just discover this?"
"I've had my assumptions for a while." Cyborg says confidently.
"Same here." Robin agrees.
"Would you all hurry up?" Raven's impatient voice sounds over the communicators.
"Coming your highness." Cyborg replies sarcastically. "I better step on it before she bursts a blood vessel." He mutters to himself.
###
'I'm not going to wait around for them.' Raven thinks, seething in irritation. 'Can they not see how important it is to beat Mumbo and reverse the spell on Beast Boy?'
Strangely, her emoticlones are silent.
'You would think that with all these mood swings I've been having that someone would say something. Normally Affection would have spoken up by now.' Raven ponders this as she arrives at Ninth street. 'I suppose I should just be happy for it. I can fight with a clear head now.'
"Mumbo Jumbo!"
Raven narrowly avoids a giant, razor-sharp fork sent her way.
"I could really go for some poultry for dinner tonight." Mumbo quips as he conjures another fork and launches it at the empath. He is standing in the middle of the road with a bag of diamonds beside him.
The half-demon simply disappears before being hit. She reappears behind the magician and blasts him in the back. The magician stumbles forward, but swiftly steadied himself.
"That's no fair! I call fowl!" He tosses napkins at Raven that turn into the nasty dove swarm. She simply destroys the birds with a burst of dark energy. "I know what you want! Candy! And I want you unconscious." A rock-candy is pulled out of Mumbo's sleeve. "Two birds, one stone!" The candy goes sailing through the air at extreme speeds towards Raven. She blocks it easily with a black shield.
"And I thought Beast Boy's bird jokes were bad." The empath mutters.
"He's still under the effect of my spell isn't he?" Mumbo puts on a dramatically sad face. "Poor Beast Boy. Stuck as a little kid. You must feel so sorry for him."
Raven tries to attack the performer during his teasing, but a cage appears out of nowhere and traps the girl.
Mumbo continues, unfazed. "But you don't really know what he's going through unless you experience it yourself." A comedic Lightbulb appears above his head. "Say! There's an idea!"
Raven grows even paler than usual as she tries to escape the cage, but her powers aren't responding.
Mumbo levels his wand at the empath, grinning a lunatic grin. "I'm going to create the Toddler Titans! Mumbo Jumbo!"
###
It came out of nowhere, like a loud fart. One moment they were all normal, the next they were just like him.
Happy was the last to realize the change. She had been too busy laughing at Beast Boy's last joke to notice.
When she finally notices she lets out a squeak. "Look at us! We're so cute!"
Beast Boy agrees silently. The four emoticlones are now two-year-old versions of their former selves. Brave just sits still in a state of shock, Rude is cursing quite colorfully, and Timid is sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, shaking uncontrollably.
Prioritizing, Beast Boy crawls over to Timid and taps her on the shoulder. "Timdis?" He says softly. The emoticlone doesn't respond. Realizing Timid is too terrified to respond the changeling walks around behind her and wraps his arms around her. "Is okay Timdis. Evwytink is gon be okay. No be scawed."
The girl shakes for a few minutes longer before calming enough to stop. She allows Beast Boy to continue his hug without complaint.
"No fair! Why does Timid always get the good stuff?" Happy whines, still grinning.
Timid mumbles an unintelligible response. Beast Boy picks up on something. "How comes yous can tawk nomawy buh I cawnt?"
"Demonic physiology." Says a voice from the back of the room. The yellow-cloaked girl floats over to join the group. "Demons, or half-demons, develop their mental capacities much faster that humans. They also have improved physical development, so while we may look to be of the same physical age, us emoticlones are more physically capable than you."
"Dats jus gwate." Beast Boy mutters. "So why awr you all wittle now?"
"MUMBO! I WILL FEAST ON YOUR CORPSE!" A screech echoes through Nevermore. Rage is obviously not happy.
"Oh." Is the only thing Beast Boy can think to say.
"Should we do something about her?" Brave asks, bored now that her shock is gone.
"Nah. Let's let ol' psyco blow off some steam." Rude suggests.
"Is Waben okay?" Beast Boy interrupts. "Won getting tuwned into a todwah mess wid her powahs?"
"Actually, getting turned into a child will reduce her powers slightly, making them easier to control." Knowledge explains.
"Oh." Beast Boy says once again.
"However, there may be some changes to her mind. We should look around and make sure nothing too damaging took place." Knowledge suggests.
"That means we can show BB around some more! Yaaaay!" Cries Happy. She does a little dance on the couch.
"Both of those sound like perfectly good reasons. I'm in!" Brave says, grinning.
"Why not?" Rude sighs. "Nothing better to do."
"I-I'm coming too..." Timid stutters quietly.
"I shall lead the way then." Knowledge says in an assertive tone.
The emoticlones start flying up the stairs, unable to ascend them by walking anymore. Timid hesitates before leaving. Looking back she can see Beast Boy trying to find a safe way off the couch. Floating over, she lands next to him before summoning a disk of dark energy to carry them.
"Tank oo Timdis." The changeling smiles appreciatively at the shy girl.
Timid doesn't respond. She's too busy hiding her face.
The other four emoticlones have just exited the shop when they remember that Beast Boy can't fly.
"Oops." Brave says sheepishly when Timid and the shapeshifter exit the shop on the floating disk.
Knowledge pushes up her tiny glasses and says "My pardon Garfield. Let us be off to Rage's realm first. We must make sure all of us emoticlones are clear on our new situation before inspecting Nevermore for side-effects and damage."
"Great, we gotta go see Miss Demon Incarnate herself." Rude says with exaggerated irritation. "This day just got ten times better."
The group started flying away from the shop towards the volcano in the distance.
###
"Titans GO!"
Mumbo's gloating is rudely interrupted by a birdarang, starbolt, and a sonic blast. The magician expertly dodges all three attacks.
"In my day children respected their elders!" Mumbo complains. He pulls a large cane and attempts to whack the three Titans over the head with it.
The Titans drop low to avoid the swing before following up with another volley of projectiles. Mumbo sucks the attacks into his hat and shoots it back at the teens.
"I'm like a politician! Whatever you dish out I can send right back at you!" The magician grins. Suddenly the turquoise-skinned man finds himself tied up in tendrils of dark energy.
"You're going to pay Mumbo!" Hisses a very annoyed and quite small Raven from behind the unfortunate performer.
"Really? As a magician I was under the impression that people were supposed to pay me!" Mumbo delivers the pun while waving his wand and sending his gloves after the girl. The enlarged gloves swipe at the irritated empath who is forced to cancel her hold on the magician to defend herself.
"Yaah!" Robin delivers a flying kick to Mumbo who deftly blocks by morphing his wand into a sword.
"En garde!" Cries the magician. Robin pulls out his bo-staff and starts dueling with the sword-wielding villain.
Meanwhile, Cyborg and Starfire are helping their newly shrunk teammate fight off the massive gloves.
"This is getting old real quick." Cyborg complains as he digs himself out of the rubble of a wall for the third time in as many minutes.
"Agreed. I too tire of fighting these hand garments." Starfire says as she lets loose a hail of starbolts on the gloves.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven cries. A wave of dark energy pulses away from the empath and throws the gloves back and to the floor. The annoying, white objects get right back up. "What does it take to stop these things?" She growls.
The three Titans hear a cry of "Mumbo Jumbo!" and Robin comes sailing through the air covered in mustard.
"Don't ask." He snaps upon seeing Cyborg open his mouth. The half-robot closes the offending muscles.
The two gloves shrink back to normal size and go flying back on to the hands of their owner.
"It's always a pleasure Titans, but I've got a schedule to keep. I would say we should catch up over dinner, but it looks like Robin started without us!" Mumbo laughs hysterically as he prances away. He hops down a distant manhole and disappears.
"He got away again." Cyborg mutters in irritation.
"Gah. I can't belie-" Robin stops abruptly when he feels a tickling sensation on his cheek. Glancing to his side the boy wonder's face grows red. " Star..." He says weakly, trying to pull away from the girl.
"Stay still friend Robin. This mustard is delicious!" The alien says before going back to what she had been doing: licking off all of the aforementioned yellow topping.
Cyborg vainly tries to hold back his laughter at his friend's discomfort but fails miserably. Raven, on the other hand, stares spitefully at the manhole which Mumbo had vanished into.
Once again the Titans had failed to stop Mumbo, and now a second team member had suffered the consequences.
Chapter 10 complete. Yes. I went there. I turned Raven into a toddler as well. On to the next chapter!