Relativity 12
as Duplicate ran towards the titans extensive garage, her mind raced from the combination of hormones and endorphins
"just how bad is Mumbo?" Robin opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by an intercom
"very low priority, his powers include the use of energy manipulation and some dimension altering capabilities most notably in his top hat, which can act as a door to a independent dimension, but he has very little control over the powers and often uses less than harmful methods of stopping the titans, to put it in perspective my danger algorithms have placed him on the same danger level as control freak" CP sounded very much in control and vocally proud of his danger algorithms, but still left robin scowling
"thanks, CP, I do have a brain and a mouth, miraculously I can articulate just as well as you can"
"harsh" the intercom clicked off just as they reached the door, a sign on it saying garage, after a finger print recognition had deactivated the lock they stepped into the cool, surprisingly large garage, they all got in the T-car, except robin and jumped on , roaring away just as the T-car's motor started up, the on-board computer running a quick diagnostic, before it to pulled out of the garage, albeit at a slightly slower speed than the R-cycle.
As the scenery sped by Duplicate had a chance to allow stress and a lot of anxiety to flood her system, CP had said Mumbo was 'low priority', for the titans presumably, her mind already showing her being utterly humiliated by Mumbo, she was so out of it she failed to notice raven's concerned look as she felt the poor girls emotions roll out across the psychic plane, indeed she failed to notice anything until cyborg shook her roughly.
"hey, get up we got work to do" cyborg almost smiled remembering the nerves he had when first being a super-hero, she shook herself snapping out of her trance and prepared to face Mumbo, robin was already out looking for clues as Mumbo had just disappeared, though it didn't take long
"and for my next trick ladies and gentlemen, I'll shoot the boy wonder with this gun, if he comes out alive I've won" he came out of the alley, and the original titans gasped, instead of his pseudo joker outfit, he wore tribal war paint and an army uniform, WW2 two German wehrmacht lieutenant uniform, according to cyborgs visual analysis, his hat remained perched at a precarious angle, true to his word he carried a massively undersized water pistol, which he pointed at robin, who, along with the rest of the titans fell into a ready stance. Mumbo took aim and fired the small water pistol, out came a clear liquid that fell on the pavement, instantaneously it melted through, leaving nothing behind, Mumbo shook the water pistol and sighed before throwing it away, he mumbled something along the lines of
"never trust a joker, that's what mama always said, shoulda done right by those words, never trust a joker" he spoke them softly
"never you mind about that one gambrolli, I'll get em on time...he he...time ged it? Time HA HA HA , time away from family" he almost sang the last part as the titans just looked at each other and then at the super-villain, who was lying on the floor laughing so hard, robin moved in, much to their surprise the villain edged away almost shaking with fear
"n..n...no papa I'll be good, I promise I'll be good, just you see" with the last word his eyes snapped on robin an almost predatory gleam entered them he lunged at robin grabbing the first thing that came to hand, which was his wand. He pointed at the boy wonder shakily, almost screaming
"STAY AWAY, go...go I can't see you, I can't see you, he he he" he was singing this to the titans and the bewildered civilians trying to get away, and then he fired, the blast ripped robin off his feet as the others moved in to engage. duplicate, duplicated herself 5 times, each one trying to get near the deranged villain to engage him, meanwhile he concentrated on raven, hitting her black shields again and again, never leaving her time to counter attack, so cyborg wisely hung back to call for reinforcements
"yo, CP Mumbo's gone nuts we need 'forcements now"
"this is hack but I'll find someone, hoe fast you need them?"
"like know"
well let's see, hey DarkStar, you can teleport right? Yeah I thought so, go down to err... down town you should find them easy enough. Ok DarkStar on his way"
"thanks hack"
"just doing CP's job"
cyborg scanned the area, while keeping an eye on the battle, he knew that they needed astrategy for this new much better, or worse, mumbo and after a couple of seconds saw DarkStar, right in the way of one of Mumbo's blasts. it hit him square in the chest forcing the body to lurch backwards while his arms and legs followed afterwards, he smashed through some upturned tarmac and into one of the many shop front where he lay motionless, all of them, through the wonders of peripheral vision saw at least a blur, but at the moment they had to concentrate on mumbo who was still bombarding raven's shields. With a quick sonic burst Cyborg charged into the fight, hitting mumbo in the side, this caused an uncomfortable gap where both participants remained stationary until mumbo shot to the side, hitting a building, he then crumpled, lying in the broken bricks of the authentic Italian restaurant. Raven stood still as well, gasping for a few seconds before collapsing out of sheer exhaustion, robin ran over to her, once he had ascertained she was simply exhausted from the very strange attack from Mumbo he concentrated on DarkStar, who still hadn't moved from the uncomfortable position he was in, robin first checked his heart beat, which was incredibly weak, his breathing had almost completely stopped except for quick shallow breaths every so often, accompanied by a hacking cough
"we got trouble, cyborg?" cyborg stepped forward allowing his suite of sensors an unobstructed view, very quickly the analysis was complete
"this is bad, we got one collapsed lung and 5 broken ribs, one of em's pressing against his other lung and a partial cranial collapse it'd kill him if we moved him" robin nodded, as he made his decision
"cuff mumbo and take his wand and hat, raven can you..." he trailed off, realising she was in some sort of coma while her body recovered
"oh...who else can keep him alive?" the assembled titans all shook their heads, so robin took out his communicator
"CP?"
"this is hack, and no, neither of us can help, how much time has he got?" robin glanced at cyborg, he did another scan
"he's got a couple minutes but he has major internal bleeding, if we do anything them we'll have to do it now" robin looked troubled even with his mask on, around them cop cars were pulling up depositing JCPD cops, ready to arrest mumbo
"he's over there" robin pointed over to the destroyed authentic Italian restaurant "but call a ambulance, we've got a titan dying here" the cops got to work taking mumbo to the SWAT van that was a few seconds behind the police cars while another cop radioed for a air ambulance. Due to it being about 5:15, which was the primary reason the cops were late. The titans gathered around DarkStar, watching the reclusive titan slip further and further
"he's gone into a coma" an automated warning had flashed up for cyborg after around two minutes, just 3 minutes later the air ambulance arrived, its crew moving as fast as they could, both listening to cyborgs analysis and preparing DarkStar for moving, though as the delicate operation was going on his slipped faster and faster until
BPM flat line detected, current BPM: 0 flashed up for cyborg, he quickly informed the paramedics, but eventually they had to admit defeat, restarting his heart was almost completely out of the question as almost any weight on his chest would have caused the other lung to puncture.
"we're sorry, we did all we could, but the injuries were too grievous, if we had been informed earlier we may have had a chance" the titans nodded numbly, most of them going into shock
"err.. what about raven" his shock robin out of his stupor, he glanced at the chief medic before answering
"she's just recovering, she'll be fine" the medic nodded, who knew the machinations of half-demons? He didn't certainly
" we'll need to take the body back to the central hospital for post mortem" robin nodded still staring at the closed eyes of DarkStar, it could have been him, easily.
After a while they were the only ones, and an annoying buzzing reminded robin that the others didn't know yet
"come on, we've gotta get back to the tower, the others don't know yet" the others just nodded dumbly, not really seeing where they were going, but they all managed to get back to the tower, when they reached the main room the rest of the titans were assembled, so robin broke it quickly
"mumbo's much more powerful and..and DarkStar's dead" every bodies heads shot up staring at him intently
"we may have to rethink our tactics"
AN righto sorry for killing of a character this early, but this was the best way I thought of to show that mumbo is much more powerful, but don't worry, I won't kill off a character every time a villain gets more powerful.
I will need feedback for this, it is a bit drastic and mumbo is very OOC, but it will be explained, promise.