Teen Titans in COLORS
Chapter Twenty: Boiling Point

Thursday, 11:49 PM

"This one is one of the worst," the unattractive middle-aged woman said, handing the key to the prisoner's cell to the officer in front of her. Trent Brown accepted the key with a nod, and turned to give his subordinates orders. "Smith, tell the vehicle to prepare for his arrival. Johnson, come with me."

Smith left to get to the truck in time, while Johnson turned and followed Trent down the hall.

"So, boss," began Johnson after a bit of silence. "Who exactly is it that we're moving this time."

Trent sighed. He'd read the report and knew that the Leap Canyon Penitentiary wasn't enough to hold this man. That he would, eventually, escape. Usually the worst ones had names to match, but this guy simply called himself…

"Flare," Trent said. "Real name Hideo Kawabe. Japanese immigrant, advanced pyrokinetic. He suffers from a severe case of schizophrenia. He literally believes that he's the son of the god Raiden, and that everyone else is his plaything."

Johnson's throat produced an audible gulp. "Previous escape attempts?"

"Two," Brown said. "Six guards were injured in the first. Twelve in the second. That's why we're taking him to Stonegate."

Johnson removed his energy pistol from his belt and adjusted the settings. "I see."

"Funny thing is, since the first two, he's not tried to escape again in nearly two months."

Johnson and Brown arrived at the cell of Hideo Kawabe. It was certainly unique—the entire thing was air-tight, sealed off from all gasses but oxygen and water vapor. The room had an automatic flooding system if it got too hot, and a duo of remote control spray nozzles on the northwest and southeast corners of the room.

Flare himself stood somberly in the middle of the room as two men in flame-retardant suits fitted him in a straightjacket.

"Let's go to work," Trent said.

After everything was set up to transfer Kawabe to Stonegate, Brown and Johnson grabbed their equipment and led the sullen prisoner out of his cell. At 21, Kawabe was still in his physical prime, and had metahuman talents to boot. So Brown's men took extra precautions, lining the tube that would transfer the teen to the cryo-freeze truck with fire-retardant material, not to mention the solid steel underneath would take a lot of heat to melt. Oxygen was the only gas in the chamber, and the neither the agents' clothing, nor the straightjacket that Flare wore would combust in it.

It should have been a perfect, fool-proof set up….

But outside the makeshift corridor that led to the truck, a storm had begun. And against all odds, lightning struck in the worst possible place, blasting several of the bolts off the outside of the corridor. Nobody on the inside noticed the damage; the lights just flickered and the thunder was deafening, but there was no further indication anything was amiss…

If only.

"My father is pleased with me," Flare said, suddenly turning and looking at them with a grin.

Trent Brown leveled his pistol on the psychotic teenager. "Listen, kid. Try anything, and I will not hesitate to blow your brains out. I've dealt with your type enough to know that nothing but death will cure your disease."

Foolish man," Flare said. "You are mortal. And you are powerless against me."

Three things then happened at once.

Flare blinked.

Trent fired.

And flames exploded. Hydrogen from the air outside poured in, combining with the oxygen inside and forming fire—simply because Flare was willing it to happen.

The explosion of fire blasted Brown and Johnson backwards, even as Flare escaped into outside air through the hole he had blasted in the transfer corridor. Two guards appeared, revolvers drawn, and fired at him. But the criminal dived out of the way and exhaled, causing two streams of fire to fire out and incinerate both guards in an instant.

His arms were still bound in the straightjacket, but unlike most pyrokinetics, he had complete control over the explosions around him and did not need to make gestures for the flames to obey his thoughts.

Thunder cracked across the sky, and Flare felt a drop of rain hit his face. Perhaps his father was not pleased—perhaps the great Raiden had allowed him to escape, only to slay him with a deluge of water the likes of which had not been seen since the Meiji Restoration…

Another explosion. Flare saw it as a sign, this time. A sign that he should leave, and that the deluge was not there to kill him, but to cover his escape. "Thank you, father," Flare said to the inanimate sky.

Flare hovered off the ground, flames exploding around him, and blasted away, burning any guard that got in his way.

His next objective, of course, was revenge—revenge against those teens that dared call themselves Titans, who had dared to oppose him. But first, he needed to lay low while the coming rain storm rain its course.

Friday, 3:30 PM

Large white clouds drifted through a blue backdrop, lit by the brilliant afternoon sun, and Davis smiled broadly, taking it all in as he dragged his suitcases outside. He couldn't imagine a more perfect day to join the Teen Titans.

Except…

"I told you once, Helen, there is no way Davis is ready for this!" the loud, harsh voice of his father reached him through the half-open window.

"So you'd rather him go out alone and get himself killed?" his mother shot back bitterly. "Honestly, dear you're being irrational. Just because Nathan got killed—"

"You think this is about Nathan?" Davis' father was either disgusted by the remark or in denial; Davis couldn't tell. Nathan was Davis' cousin, the son of his father's brother. Davis' dad had loved his nephew almost as much as his own son, but Nathan had gone into law enforcement and ended up getting killed by drug smugglers.

Though he knew his dad was only looking out for his own best interests, Davis shook his head. Did they think he couldn't hear them? Or maybe his dad was trying to guilt Davis into not joining the team... Did it really even matter? Davis had been given the opportunity of a lifetime—granted more for his own protection than any help the Titans thought he'd be to them.

Still, that fact didn't hurt nearly as bad as the fact his father still insisted he wasn't cut out for it. Nathan died because he got unlucky, not because he wasn't ready. Davis decided he'd have to learn to be even more ready. Maybe then his dad would see things differently.

Suddenly, a loud honk caused the stretchy teen to jerk his head forward, and Davis saw a large black sedan at the edge of his walkway. "Yo, man, get in the car!" shouted the driver, a large black teenager with a shaved head.

Davis instantly recognized the voice…

"Cyborg?!"

"Yeah, man," the driver said. He leaned forward as Davis approached the vehicle, a big grin on his face. Suddenly, the right side of his face seemed to dissolve away into the familiar half-metal mask. "Holographic technology," Cyborg explained

Davis glanced at the other two passengers in the car—riding shot gun was a short guy with red hair and dark skin, and in the back, was a blond-haired kid that kind of resembled Eddie Munster…

"Robin? Beast Boy?" Davis identified them.

"Yeah, shout to the world you're a Titan, dude," Beast Boy scolded. "Get in the car—I'm missing Robot Monkey Force."

"Thanks for the hospitality," Davis muttered, throwing his bags in the back and climbing in opposite of Beast Boy. Cyborg shifted the car into drive and pulled away, heading towards an unpopulated area of town before deactivating the cloaking shield around the car and returning it to it's normal T-Car coloration.

"Pretty nifty to have, huh?" Cyborg glanced back at Davis.

"Yeah," he said absently; Davis had already pulled out his DS and begun a game of Meteos.

Cyborg frowned. "Well, don't make yourself sick."

After a few minutes of driving, Robin frowned. "Is it just me or does anyone smell alcohol?"

Beast Boy briefly turned into a snake and tasted the air. "Oh, man, I do."

Davis, finally a bit more aware of his surroundings, looked up and sniffed. "Hm…"

He reached down and pulled up a section of his coat and sniffed it. "Oh, crap, the vodka…"

"Davis," Robin said. "Please tell me you're not drinking hard liquor at fourteen. I will not tolerate that on my team."

"NO!" Davis blurted, putting his DS in sleep mode and turning to the Titans leader. "It's not mine. My dad got mad last night and threw his vodka bottle at the wall by the coat rack."

Robin glared at him a bit, and then nodded. "I believe you. But if your dad continues doing things like that, you need to tell us. There's no reason for him to be so upset. We're going to make sure you're equipped to handle this job." Robin smirked. "Even if it kills you."

Davis' audible gulp was the last sound anyone in the car made until they reached the Tower.

Friday, 4:00 PM

No alarms had gone off all day, so while Cyborg and Beast Boy ran off to play some video games, Robin took Yin into the T-Tower's gym and started him on a basic workout regimen. "You have to balance this," Robin explained. "Too much working out and you'll be exhausted when there's trouble. Too little and you won't be in shape when it counts."

After taking off his jacket, Davis nodded, having absorbed the Boy Wonder's words as though they were being spoken by the Pope himself. Even if they did have a harsh edge to them... "I understand. I've been doing a little weightlifting, you know, preparing for this. And like I said, I know some karate."

"Remember to fall back on that," Robin said. "But at your age and strength level, you should rely on your metahuman ability all you can."

Davis nodded, but by this point, his attention span had run out, and he had already wondered over to a rack of wooden bo-staffs and began examining them..

Until he accidentally dropped one and knocked all the others off the rack trying to catch it.

"Oops.."

"Davis, pay attention!" Robin jerked the bo he'd caught from his hand and put it back on the rack, along with all the others. "This isn't a game. You can't be a klutz or people will get killed."

"I know that!" Davis snapped, though not without a strong tone of apology… "Sorry. You seem… upset."

"Well, one," Robin said, "I don't like this the idea of having you on the team. I probably dislike it about as much as Raven. But unlike her, I see that you have potential—if you pay attention."

"Is there a two?" Davis asked…

"Yes," Robin said. He sighed heavily, and turned his back to Davis. "Last night, a dangerous criminal known as Flare escaped during a prison transfer. He's an extremely powerful pyrokinetic, and he wouldn't hesitate to melt you. In other words, he couldn't have picked a worse possible week to break out of jail."

"I see…" Davis frowned. "Well, shall we get started?"

"Right." The Boy Wonder walked over to Davis and brought him over to the corner of the gym… then he smirked. "First we're going to start with a drill I like to call the hara-kiri."

Davis let out another audible gulp.

And for his part, he survived, though only after sweating profusely and crying in shame.

Friday, 8:50 PM

The sleek copper-colored ship made another pass around the ancient Thanagarian frigate and blasted three times, the particle cannons below the cockpit reducing the much larger ship to atoms in a matter of seconds. Target practice was in session.

"BOO-YAH!" Cyborg cried as the ship exploded. "This baby packs a punch."

Robin smiled, and nodded. "You think Atomic Man did the right thing giving a bunch of teenagers one of the most powerful spaceships on earth?"

"Who cares?" Cyborg said with a mirthful smirk. "It's mi—I mean… ours."

Cyborg might have said more, but the com-link activated in front of the two teens, and Robin turned it on. The face of Mr. Terrific, the current operations officer of the JLU Watchtower, appeared on the ships small communications screen.

"That thing is mighty impressive, kids," said Terrific. "I might have to rescind my status as third smartest man if this Atomic Man character is really this good."

"Actually, I think the ship was designed by another hero named 8-Ball," Cyborg said. "He's a cyborg like me, so I guess great minds... have similar life-altering accidents."

Mr. Terrific shrugged. "If you say so. By the way, guys, I wanted to run one last test from that list of armaments you sent me. What is the 'Defibrillator Pack?'"

Robin pressed a few buttons and found the item on his list. "Beats me. We only have two of them, and the tech manual has so much techno-babble even Cyborg can't make heads or tails of it."

"A low ammo supply implies a heavy payload," Mr. Terrific said. He seemed to lean forward on the screen and press a few buttons. "I found this enormous ship within the Phantom Zone a few days ago; I'm bringing it out."

Mr. Terrific, the heroic code name of one Michael Holt, was referring to the jury-rigged mechanism he'd used to deploy ancient ships into the real world. Projecting Superman's Phantom Zone portal directly through the JLU teleportation matrix allowed him to beam the ships into space outside the Watchtower—just as he had the Thanagarian ships Robin and Cyborg were blasting.

Effectively, he was giving Robin and Cyborg target practice. Thankfully Superman was away on a mission to a foreign planet, and Holt had the tower essentially to himself. (The only other guy up there was Booster Gold, and he wouldn't tell anybody.)

The teleporter activated on schedule and the gargantuan ship materialized in space, Thousands of miles closer to the moon than to Earth, just as a precaution.

"Alright," Robin said, as he approached it. "We'll give it a shot."

As the Titans' brand new ship, which Cyborg had dubbed the T-Defender, neared their target, it was immediately clear whoever had built it, probably eons ago, knew what they were doing. The ship was at least a quarter of a mile long and armed to the teeth, great arches arching over the top of the hull and creating a rail gun across the top middle—which was reinforced by thousands of particle cannon banks all along those arches.

"We're talking Star Wars-level stuff here," Cyborg said. "Dang."

Robin nodded, brining the T-Defender down over the much larger ship. "Okay, I think this is something that we drop from the bottom bay," he told Cyborg.

"Then let's get'r done!" Cyborg said, reaching out and pulling a lever faster than Robin could react to stop him, opening the bay that send the oddly-named attack down towards its target.

"Cyborg!" Robin turned the control stick and opened up the throttle; by the time the ship was far enough away that Robin felt comfortable, the Defibrillator Pack was already attaching to the ship's hull..

When it did, a signal caused the communication screen to change into a simple black background, on which a cyan box appeared. It read 'CLEAR' in stark white letters.

Robin shrugged, and reached out, tapping the screen once...

And for a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then, Robin noticed a bright glowing red spot appear on the side of the ship, where the pack had struck—no, two points. Apparently the payload split apart like a pair of its namesake…

And then, everyone watching gasped when red cracks began to spread across the hull of the massive ship, until the entire surface was criss-crossed with a spider-web of glowing red lines.

KRAKABOOM!

Robin and Cyborg both let out muffled words of awe, even as beams of red energy erupted from the ship, each fragment scattering across space as the whole thing exploded like a ball of glass; chunks of metal the size of minivans slammed into the moon, even as other debris headed for Earth..

"NO!" Robin shouted, leaning forward in his seat. "Vic, we have to go blast that into smaller pieces before it get to the atmosphere…"

"One step ahead of you," Cyborg returned, preparing to attack the debris they'd created. "In the words of Han Solo, 'YEEEE-HAW!" The ship rocketed off towards the meteors, all its weapons charging…

So went the T-Defender's maiden voyage…

Saturday, 7:50 PM

"Rats!" Beast Boy cried, even as Cyborg's Mangler Brothers character blew his away with a finishing move.

"Boo-yah," Cyborg said smoothly. "I've told you a thousand times, little green man: you ain't got nothing on these mangling skills."

"You just got lucky." After a beat, Beast Boy glanced across the room at with a devilish smirk. "I bet the newbie could beat you!"

"No way, no how," Cyborg said. "Besides, we only have two controllers." He referred to the Gamestation XL, which had controllers that cost over eighty dollars; nobody in the Tower was willing to pony up the cash for more.

"I'll opt out a game, just to see you get beaten," Gar said to Cyborg.

From across the room, Yin declined, still absorbed in his DS game. About that moment, The door to the ops room slid open with a pneumatic hiss and Raven and Starfire walked in, both carrying a bunch of bags stuffed to the brim with clothing…

"Raven!" Yin called, immediately putting his game away and joining stride beside her. "Where have you been all day?"

Raven craned her neck to look out from behind the bag at Davis. "I've spent all day with Starfire. At the 'mall of shopping'…" Raven's tone was acidic, but it lightened when she arched her eyebrow. "Yin, why are you wearing a Wii Remote and Nunchuck around your neck?"

The newest Titan heard Starfire giggle from behind her stack of bags, but answered Raven nonetheless. "They asked me if I wanted to play Mangler Brothers, so I went and got my controller. Didn't know they meant the GSXL version."

"That would be a good thing to ask," came a new voice from behind Yin—well, not exactly a new voice. But it belonged to the only Titan he hadn't been formally introduced to yet.

"Hey, Ragnar-what," Yin muttered, pronouncing the last syllable quietly because he wasn't quite sure how to say it.

Ragnarök walked over and extended a hand. "Congratulations, dude. You've usurped my position as the greenest Titan. Well, figuratively speaking if not aesthetically."

After a few more minutes of Yin playing his game and Beast Boy and Cyborg playing theirs, Robin, Raven, and Starfire returned to the Ops room and found Yin and Ragnarök on opposite sides of the room, both looking dour.

"Did you two have a fight or something?" Raven asked Ragnarok.

"What? No…"

Yin glanced up, puzzled. "Fight with who?"

"With Ragnarök," Robin groaned. "You know, the guy in the bright green armor?"

"Um… I really don't see any point in socializing…" Yin said absently…

"But you have barely spoken to Friend Collin all weekend," Starfire said.

"He's not my friend Collin," Davis said.

Robin shook his head. "This team is built around mutual respect and support. If there is a chink in that, then the team is not working at its maximum efficiency."

Davis frowned. "He's not a Scientologist is he?"

Robin goggled. "No! Where did that come from?"

"I just don't like Scientologists," Davis explained. "Is he a Jehovah's Witness?"

"NO!"

Davis winced. "A Mormon?"

"NO!"

"…a Catholic?"

Raven made a noise with her teeth that roughly approximating the sound metal makes when it is frozen and snapped in two. Then she grabbed Yin with her dark energy and threw him across the room into Ragnarök's chair.

"Now you're just grasping for straws. You have no reason not to get to know someone you'll be fighting crime with. I had to learn that the hard way, and it nearly got me killed despite the fact I'm a lot more powerful than you. Don't repeat my mistake."

With that, Raven vanished to the rooftop to meditate.

Beast Boy and Ragnarok helped Davis to his feet. "She does that sometimes," Rag said.

"Yeah, you get used to it," Beast Boy said. "Just be thankful she didn't turn you pink."

Saturday, 9:13 PM

Davis leaned back, his character in Mangler Brothers having just bought the farm again. "I just can't get used to this pad. I'm too used to the Wii version."

"Too bad for you," Beast Boy said gleefully, finishing off Cyborg with a massive hammer smash.

"This isn't happening," Cyborg muttered. "I lost… to Beast Boy… no… must be a dream. Yeah. A dream."

Davis put the controller down and walked over to the fridge, opening it and examining its contents. But of all that was in the refrigerator, he went straight for a single remaining can of Coke. "I'm bored," he announced.

"How can you be bored?" Beast Boy asked. "We've got the greatest game of all time sitting right here in front of us."

"But it doesn't have motion controls."

"It has better graphics than the Wii version."

"Who cares? Using two thumb sticks to aim is old hat."

"Will you two please knock it off," Raven said, sighing from the nearby easy chair where she was absorbed deeply in a book about metahuman psychology. "If you don't want to play a game, what exactly do you want to do, Davis."

Davis scowled. "I was kind of hoping the alarm would go off. I've been at the tower all weekend and not so much as a bank robbery."

A stunned silence filled the room.

Finally, Beast Boy broke it. "Dude, did you just say you wanted a crime to happen so you could fight it? What's wrong with you?"

"I'm just glad we've not had a major crisis for a couple days," Cyborg said. "Wishing for a new crime is… crazy talk."

"But what's with all the Boo-Yahs and the Titans Go if you hate fighting crime so much?" Davis asked.

"It's complicated," Raven said, interrupting any chance for Cyborg or Beast Boy could answer. "But those of us who chose this life because it's fun rarely last more than a few weeks. Because though winning can be fun, it takes more than thrill-seeking to be a superhero. That's why I never wanted you on this team in the first place."

"Whoa, that's harsh, Raven," Beast Boy said. "He means well."

"Good intentions aren't enough," Raven said. "And I understand having an itchy trigger finger. The first time I had an honest-to-God chance to bring down my father, it was a thrill. But again, if you do this for the thrills, you won't last long."

"I'm not doing it for the thrills!" Yin shot back. "I'm just… eager to do something with my powers. Something other than show them to Robin and let him type things in that computer of his. I feel useless. I finally make the Titans and all I do is sit here all weekend."

"Make the Titans?" Beast Boy said, arching his eyebrow. "This isn't a cheerleading team, dude."

Cyborg shrugged. "BB has got a point. You are only on this team because Robin doesn't want you on the streets getting yourself killed."

Beast Boy walked over and handed Yin a controller. "The only lower reason I can think of for being on a team is like, a court order or something. No offense. I'm just saying, when the good times are here, you need to relax and enjoy them. Like me and Cyborg."

"Fighting crime is just our day job," Cyborg said. "At night, we're teenagers just like everyone else on the planet between 13 and 20."

Unfortunately, Cyborg's words were quickly proven an oversimplification; the Tower alarm immediately began blaring, and the signal from the Gamestation was cut out and replaced by a map of Jump City with a blinking light in the northwest side of town. Then live video feed appeared, where a shopping center was being terrorized by a young man with flaming red hair and an F burnt into his threadbare shirt.

Yin blinked. "Looks like we're working overtime."

Flare had just got done roasting a hot dog… stand… when the Titans arrived. Their retaliation was surprisingly swift; none of the hesitation of Flare's first encounter with them. Their leader, the short wiry one in red and green, glared at Flare with an intense hatred, threw his finger skyward and shouted, "Titans, GO!"

And so the five—no, six… no… there were seven of them now—charged at Flare, determined to stop his rampage.

Just as Flare had planned.

Flare feigned backwards, then blasted forward, wreathing himself in flames as he slammed into the Titans; his foes scattered and spread apart. Now he just had to pick them apart one by one and then—

"OOF!" Flare's train of thought was cut short when a powerful burst of sonic energy slammed into his midsection and sent him careening into a nearby milk truck. Flare hit the vehicle hard, and bounced off, rolling on the ground and coming up firing. Two balls of fire arced out at Cyborg, and the mechanical teen dodged out of the way, even as Raven appeared where Cyborg had been.

"Azarath, Metrion…" she raised her hands.

At first it looked like nothing had happened… and then a loud metallic lurch caused Flare to glance over his shoulder and see that the truck he had just dented was now hovering above him, covered in Raven's dark energy.

"ZINTHOS!" Raven shouted; the truck smashed into Flare with enough force to stop a rampaging elephant, and Flare one again went airborne.

But this time, he hadn't been caught off guard, and immediately used an explosion of fire to right himself.

Nonetheless, the Titans were more formidable foes than he had remembered. He would have to be more careful; he needed a plan….

Robin charged towards the psychopath, smashing his staff into the ground and using it to pole-vault towards the pyrokinetic villain. Flare blasted Robin with a massive flame attack, and the Boy Wonder went sprawling onto the asphalt.

"Cyborg," Starfire said, flying up and making sure Robin was okay. "Call the department of red fire-extinguishing trucks, please! We need their assistance."

"I already called them," Cyborg spat. "Flare already disabled all the trucks!"

Ragnarök swore. "The guy's got foresight if nothing else."

"He has something else." Raven's eyes glowed. "He has an incredible amount of raw power; and he's psychotic enough to use it in ways that make our job very difficult."

"And of course, I'm useless in this one," Davis said. "I can't fight a pyrokinetic—I start melting if I stay out on the beach too long."

"You can recoil like a rubber band, right?" Beast Boy said, smirking.

"Hm? Yeah." Davis raised an eyebrow.

"Then throw things at him, dude!"

"That will have to do for now," Raven said. "Just don't attack unless you're sure you can hit him, and try to stay out of the way."

"Titans go!" Starfire cried, helping Robin to his feet. The Tamaranian princess blasted off, hurling starbolts at Flare with all her might. But the pyrokinetic dodged them with surprising grace and returned fire, forcing Starfire to fall back.

Cyborg got a bit closer and took cover by a transfer truck before unloading with his sonic cannon, and Beast Boy transformed into a humming bird and flew up to a perch on a nearby high-rise apartment's flag pole in order to act as support.

Unfortunately, BB had taken his mind off the fight for too long and was nearly scorched when Flare slammed into the same flagpole and snapped it in two. He quickly flew away from Flare, but then transformed into a gorilla and smashed the pyrokinetic with both fists..

Flare slammed into the ground hard and rolled away from the impact site, melting the asphalt of the road as he moved; he punched into Cyborg's gut, denting the metal and staggering the mechanical teen. Robin tried to compensate for Cyborg's injury by distracting Flare. He charged forward, his birdarang sword blazing. Robin through the air in what seemed like wild, random motion to Flare—but Robin made every movement with the utmost care, making sure he didn't deliver a fatal wound to his enemy. Crazy as Flare was, Robin wasn't ready to cross the line and authorize lethal force just yet.

And so, a few nicks and cuts turned Flare's annoyance and distraction into anger, and the teen was suddenly wreathed in fire; the force of the explosion blew Robin clear, but his exposed skin began stinging and the hair on his arm was singed off.

Raven landed beside him and used her power to heal him as best she could. "He's not as powerful as he was the first time, but I can feel him getting stronger with each minute."

"And we've got no easy access to water to douse him with…"

Raven closed her eyes briefly. "There are water mains below the street here. I can break them open."

"Do it," Robin ordered, then ran off to get Flare's attention again.

Currently, said attention was held by Ragnarök, who was strafing their adversary on earthen stilts that let him move faster than normal running. But it still wasn't fast enough to avoid all of Flare's shots. Ragnarök was hit in the chest by two or three of Flare's small fireballs and recoiled, hurling a flurry of rocks in retaliation.

Flare batted them out of the air with flaming whips and blasted towards Ragnarök who was sent skidding across the intersection by Flare's fist.

Beast Boy jumped on Flare's back as an orangutan and began trying to choke him, but Flare elbowed the ape in the solar plexus and threw him into a jewelry store… then hurled a massive fireball through the hole in the window.

But Robin finally got close enough to get Flare's attention and did so—by kicking him in the back of the head. Flare let out a grunt and staggered forward, shoulder-rolling onto his feet and blasting Robin in the chest with a fire blast. "I told you mortals are powerless against me!" Flare cried. "You didn't listen! You doused my divine flame with water pumped through your mortal weapons. No more!"

"You might want to rethink that," Raven hissed from behind him. Her eyes were aglow with white light and her hands were surrounded in dark energy. "AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!"

The water line burst from the ground and its liquid contents spewed out towards Flare. But just as the water got within five feet of him…

KRAKABOOM!

An explosion of fire surrounded the teen, the massive wave of heat instantly evaporating the water and sending Raven careening into a stop sign. Her head slammed hard against the metal, and she fell unconscious.

Robin had similarly been blown clear of the area and up onto a building, but he had managed to land on his feet—and to see that Ragnarök hadn't fared so well. Rag was leaning against a billboard, breathing heavily. Worse, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire were nowhere to be seen.

The fireball had been bigger than Robin had realized, and the smell of burning filled his nostrils. Most of the intersection where the battle had largely taken place was scorched now, burn marks and melted objects everywhere.

Suddenly, a fast moving metallic disk slammed into Flare's back, and Robin looked down to see a green gorilla and Yin, the latter strung up between two street lights like a slingshot, firing manhole covers at their attacker. Where did they even get those?

Robin made his way down from the roof and drew a birdarang, then attached an ice disk to it. "Make sure none of those hit me," he called to Beast Boy.

"Will do," Yin answered for the massive green ape.

Robin muttered a curse as he jumped down onto the awning of the roof and then down onto the road itself, running past Beast Boy and Yin towards the fight. Starfire had come out of wherever Flare had blasted her and was now trading ranged attacks with the pyrokinetic madman. Starbolt slammed into fireball and exploded in the air, causing Flare to rethink his strategy and fly straight towards Starfire. But rather than being baited into his game of chicken, Starfire flew sideways and sliced across Flare's chest with a pair of eyebeams. Flare cried out and recoiled; Starfire hadn't used enough power to shatter bone, like she had when she'd severed Delirium's wrists, but she left a stripe of melted flesh across Hideo Kawabe's chest with her attack. Needless to say, Flare found it unpleasant.

"You truly must be a descendant of the gods to have wounded me!" came Flare's shrill voice. "I shall prove my worth to my father by destroying you utterly!"

"I am sorry, but I know nothing of your father or the gods you believe yourself to be a descendant of," Starfire said. "You are a truly bad, crazy man who I wish to knock out now."

"SHORYKUEN!" Flare cried; fire surrounded him and he delivered a massive blow to Starfire. The Tamaranian princess tried to block, but even with her guard up, Flare's attack sent her flying across the city. She slammed into the distant pond in Jump City Park and did not come up out of the water.

"STARFIRE!" Cyborg cried, when he saw the attack connect. Robin's voice crackled over his arm communicator.

"You go after her, Vic. You'll cover the ground faster. And after what he just did… Flare is mine!"

Robin hurled himself at Flare, now the only Titan there; Rag, Raven, and Starfire were down for the count, Cyborg was busy, Yin was tied up—literally—and Beast Boy was looking for more projectiles to shoot. Apparently he found them, as Robin dodged a strike from Flare's fist only to watch another manhole cover hit Flare in the side. But this time, Flare didn't shrug it off—he retaliated. A fireball lanced out of his hand directly towards Yin and Beast Boy. Yin swung up and detached from the streetlights, and Beast Boy dived out of the way. And the fireball missed them.

Unfortunately, they'd opened the cover to the sewer system. And when the methane they'd unleashed and the fireball got together, the result was predictable.

KRAKOOM!

Robin gasped when he heard the rumble, and that was a split second after the bright white flash and the ball of smoke and fire filled his vision. He was almost distracted long enough to let Flare smack him across the face with a backhand, but he anticipated it at the last minute and was able to deflect the pyrokinetic's punch and reverse it into a shoulder throw that landed Flare in a puddle of water. The shirt he'd made from his own straightjacket soaked up some of the water, and Flare screamed as if it were burning him. "You fool!" he cried, lunging at the Boy Wonder. Robin rolled backwards with the lunge, hitting the ground hard on his back and kicking Flare over his shoulder

And the two continued to fight, a flurry of fists and kicks; Robin was clearly the more skilled, but Flare's fire-talent more than made up for that mismatch..

And Robin was getting tired. He hadn't slept well since the battle in Miami and he was exhausted from the intensity of his battle with Flare. But with all the other Titans out of commission—or worse, he feared—he had no choice but to fight alone.

Flare smiled. "Once I have defeated you, warrior, my father will have no choice but to notice me!"

Or maybe not. Robin heard his com link crackle to life, so he stepped back into the puddle he'd thrown Flare into earlier and used his foot to splash water into his enemy's face. Flare cried out again, and Robin delivered a karate chop to his neck, hoping to put Flare down. But more importantly, he put as much distance as possible between himself and his enemy, and pulled out his communicator and answered the call…

"Robin here."

Heat and light had filled Yin's world, and then only darkness. For his second time since he'd started his hero work, he thought he was dead. Then he realized that he still felt heat and something on top of him. That something quickly shrunk into Beast Boy, who rolled over and helped Yin to his feet.

"Thanks."

"No problem. The ankylosaurus isn't my favorite dinosaur for nothing."

"Did you see Robin?" Yin asked.

"What about him?"

"He's getting tired. I can see it in the way he's throwing his punches. He won't last much longer against Flare if we don't do something."

"But how?" Beast Boy asked. "Every time we try to douse him with water he blasts it away."

"I know—I think that's why he hasn't just fried us all yet. He's conserving his power so that he can vaporize any water that comes his way."

"Then what do we do?"

Yin shrugged, and together they ran outside and watched Robin and Flare continue fighting. The two were a bit closer now, going at it. Occasionally Robin managed to get Flare a bit wet from a puddle nearby…

Which gave Yin and idea.

"What if we make sure he's not expecting the water that hits him?" Yin walked towards the middle of the street and cringed when the remaining heat from the earlier explosion slammed into him. "Wow, that's still unpleasant." Yin extended his neck and looked around the block, saw what he was looking for, and then retracted his neck down and looked at Beast Boy. "There's a Chevy Silverado around the corner over there. The keys are in the ignition, I think somebody just abandoned it."

"You want me to drive? I don't have a license yet!"

"You think I care?" Yin barked. "Just get in or this won't work."

"Hey, stop bossing me around, I outrank you."

Yin frowned and pulled out his communicator, and began buzzing Robin, who was still fighting. Robin kicked some more water into Flare's face, then managed to get away long enough to answer.

"Robin here," came his voice from the com link.

"Robin, it's Yin. Me and Beast Boy are okay."

"How did you survive that?!"

"Beast Boy turned into an ankle dinosaur and knocked me away from the blast. Listen, I've got a plan that I think will beat him. Just lead him south and keep him in front of the fire hydrant on the corner of Wolfman and Perez."

A grunt of acknowledgment came from Yin's communicator and the rubber Titan realized that it was all he would get now that the battle between Flare and Robin had picked up intensity again.

Yin ran over to the fire hydrant and extended his arm, making it thin and wrapping it around the nozzle of the hydrant as tightly as he could. And he extended the rest of his body as best he could around a streetlight on the corner of Wolfman and Main—and then through the cab of the Chevy. Beast Boy now occupied the truck's driver seat.

"When I tell you to, I want you to floor it," Yin shouted.

"What? I'll tear your arm off!"

"Better than Flare turning us all into charred metahuman remains," Yin reasoned.

"Dude, you're suicidal, reckless, and crazy. We're gonna get along great!"

Robin and Flare got ever closer, Robin getting weaker by the minute, and Flare less and less convinced of his need to hold back.

Robin barely dodged a huge stream of fire that lanced out and took down several cars on Perez Street, and Robin realized he was finally close to the hydrant.

At first he didn't even see anything unusual, until he saw that Yin's arm was wrapped tightly around the nozzle. Which means… He followed the arm around the corner and saw Yin's head barely peaking around it. Yin's eyes widened, and that cued Robin into an incoming attack from Flare. It barely missed as Robin flipped away from it and kicked Flare in the face. The two began struggling, and Robin was getting closer and closer to being on the losing end…

"DRIVE!" Yin cried, his head suddenly beside Beast Boy in the cab of the truck. Yin reached down with his head and used his teeth to put the truck in Four-Wheel Drive.

The truck leapt forward and then stopped, stuck by the pulley that Yin's body had become. And pain, horrible searing pain spread throughout his arm muscles and his joints. But being roasted alive would be worse, and that thought allowed Yin to dig deep, grit his teeth. His eyes watered profusely, but he refused to let go until the nozzle was off.

Robin faintly heard the sound of tires screeching and saw Yin's arm stretching to its limit, but he could do nothing to help. A well placed punch from Flare knocked him on his rear and his body protested as he started to get up.

He got up anyway. He got up and kicked Flare square in the chest. The villain staggered back towards the fire hydrant, and Robin realized that he now had Flare's full attention. Bad for him, but good for their chance of victory…

"You won't survive this!" Robin said. "It's an ice explosive disk!" He pulled out a normal incendiary explosive disk from his belt. He had no ice disks left, but Flare didn't know that. And he walked forward on shaky legs, holding the disk in a threatening manner towards Flare. "I'll blow it up now. Freeze us both. I'm prepared to die to take you out."

"Then you are a fool, mortal."

"You are just as mortal as I am, Kawabe!" Robin spat. "I know about you. How you lost your family. I know how it hurts—my family is dead too. But that doesn't mean you get to torch people alive."

"MY FAMILY IS THE THUNDER GOD HIMSELF!" Flare bellowed, his eyes spewing fire—literally.

Robin just bared his teeth and kept walking forward... Hurry up, Yin!

He smelled burning rubber and worried at first—then realized it was the truck tires. Then he felt heat on his hand and realized that Flare was indeed near him. He couldn't see how close—with his eyes closed and still leaking tears of pain, he couldn't see anything. But he felt the nozzle start to give, and even if Beast Boy couldn't hear him, he shouted for him to give it more gas…

And then, he felt a loud pop reverberate throughout his body; his arm became loose and he rocketed forward, slamming into the rear glass of the truck and falling unconscious…

KRACK!

Beast Boy gasped when he heard the noise—it sounded like Yin's arm had snapped in two! And when the truck blasted off straight ahead, he realized he was going so fast he had absolutely no control over it. He jerked the wheel hard right and slammed on the breaks, crashing into a Mustang and coming to a violent stop..

Robin saw the nozzle fly off the hydrant and saw the liquid pour out. He dived out of the way at the last second and still got rained upon as he lay on the ground. But Flare? Flare got hit right in the back by a torrent. The water exploded out of the hydrant and slammed into him, washing over the insane pyromaniac and sending him sprawling forward onto his face.

Robin crawled over to him and bound their enemy with his trademark bat-cuffs.

Then he turned over and pulled out his com link again. "Congratulations, Yin…"

Beast Boy heard the message from Robin, and didn't have the heart to tell their leader Yin was still out. But he'd relay the message when the newest Teen Titan woke up.

"—Your initiation," Robin said, "is complete."

Author's Note: Sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter out. I had to trudge through it. My mind is on other things right now. No promises on when I'll start the next arc, but I do promise to get it out once I've begun in a more timely manner. See you then!