Disclaimer: Even with the current economic crisis, I could not convince people to sell me the Teen Titans.
Author's Note: Hello once more to everyone, and I apologize for the length of time it has been since my last update. I was very badly ill for most of January, and therefore had to put off the writing of this chapter by about a month. So it goes at times, I am afraid. I wish to warn all those who read ahead, this chapter, in addition to the usual provisos for quality, is something of a departure from what has come before it. That does not mean that I wrote it differently, or that the events here were not planned out ahead of time, but merely that this will be something of a... new direction from your perspectives, I should think. I fully anticipate that not everyone will like this chapter (not that I believe everyone will like previous ones), but I wish to ask that readers bear in mind that this is a lengthy narrative arc, and I have planned this and all the following steps out in great detail. As always, all criticism, of any sort, length, or subject, is most welcome, and I beg and plead that you will find the story compelling enough to leave a review behind. My deepest hope is, as ever, that you will enjoy this chapter. Thank you very much.
Chapter 29: Be All My Sins Remembered
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
devoutly to be wish'd.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1
O-O-O
In her own way, she was always floating.
It was a funny thing to realize now, but she was. Always. Even when walking on the ground, she seemed to be floating, as though temporarily conceding to gravity's laws only because it was expected of her. She moved like a dancer, like an angel, her green eyes sparkling like emeralds, her red hair framed by the sun in a halo. She was running, and yet she seemed to be moving in slow motion. Somehow, he had plenty of time to study the expression on her face, the glowing green energy around her closed hands, the deep swirling gems of onyx and obsidian adorning her bracers and gorget. A vision of light in the descending darkness, a valkyrie coming to rescue him and take him home. He wanted to reach out to her, call out to her, something, but his body and voice would not obey any longer. It was all he could do to force his eyes to remain open long enough for her to reach him, gathering him up in her arms, screaming his adopted name with enough force to shatter glass, though it registered as nothing more than a dull echo. The world around could fade, or burn, or crumble like stale bread, but she was here, and nothing else mattered.
A strange fate indeed, to realize it only now, when it could no longer make a difference, unless of course realizing it made all the difference in the world.
O-O-O
"But, Robin," said Starfire, "I do not understand. You have told me many times of the adventures you had alongside the man of bats. Surely, even if you and he are no longer teammates, he would be willing to come to our assistance?"
Robin sighed. "He probably would, Star," he said. He expected Starfire to ask the obvious question, but apparently she could tell the answer from his tone and expression.
"Except that you are not going to ask him for assistance, are you?" she said, a question that was not a question.
"It's not that simple," he replied.
Once again he expected the obvious question, and once again she was not forthcoming with it. Indeed she was quiet for long enough that he raised his head to look at her. "You don't want to know why it's not that simple?"
"I know that you do not wish to speak of it," she said. It would have been a rebuke from anyone but Starfire, who followed it up with a sweet smile. "You have the look upon you."
Robin raised a mask-covered eyebrow. "Look?" he asked. "What look?"
"This look," she said, and tried to imitate an exaggerated expression of brooding concentration. So incongruous was this on her light and almost bubbly features that Robin actually laughed, which, he realized belatedly, was probably the point. A moment later, and she was laughing too, and the weight on his shoulders seemed to lift, as it always did when she laughed.
"But if you do not wish to ask the assistance of the man of bats," said Starfire, gently returning to the point, "then perhaps instead I could ask Galfore. All I need do is ask, and he would come at the head of a host of Tamaranean Warriors to fight alongside us."
Robin felt the weight return. He was still thinking of how to say what he knew he needed to say when she answered her own suggestion.
"You... do not wish for me to do this either," she said.
He didn't answer.
"Robin..."
"Star, I've been talking with Raven about this, and she doesn't think that any army or other hero we bring will help if it comes down to a fight."
A worried look briefly crossed Starfire's face. "Raven believes that there is no hope at all."
"And she's wrong about that," responded Robin, "but she's right about one thing. We can't fight Trigon directly, not even with an army of Tamaraneans."
"So then what are we to do?"
"We're not going to fight him at all. We're going to make sure he never appears. We'll build a saferoom in the Tower, use Cyborg's security systems and Raven's spells to make sure nothing gets in. When Trigon's servants come for her, we'll meet them on our own turf and stop them from using her to summon him."
It sounded so simple in theory, though both of them knew it was not, and yet Starfire penetrated, as usual, to the heart of the matter with one question.
"But surely, Robin," she asked, "the assistance of either the man of bats or the Tamaranean royal guard would be of as much assistance in fighting Trigon's minions as they would in fighting Trigon himself?"
He didn't answer.
"Robin, please," said Starfire after they had walked along another thirty feet in silence. "I simply wish to understand what your intentions are." She approached him cautiously, laying a hand on his shoulder, and he stopped. "There is no shame in asking for the help of our friends to fight against Trigon the Terrible. No one will think any less of us as heroes if we request such a thing. I know that... that you do not wish for us to be perceived as unable to protect ourselves or this city, but if you and he were truly comrades in arms, then that is not what he will - "
"I already asked him, Star," said Robin without turning around.
Starfire hesitated. "You asked for the assistance of the man of bats?"
"I tried to," said Robin. "I tried the entire Justice League. They're not available."
"Not... available?"
"Their message just said they were on some other planet dealing with an interstellar threat of some kind. It wasn't specific, except to say that they won't be back for a month or so."
"Then I will speak to Galfore," said Starfire with a nod. "If the Justice League cannot assist us, then the Tamaranean Royal Guard will."
Robin simply shook his head. "Galfore sent me a message last night."
Starfire blinked. "He sent... you a message?"
"The Citadel have attacked Tamaran."
Robin winced as Starfire was struck dumb by the news, gasping in horror. "What?" she exclaimed. "Why did you not tell me of this immediately?"
"Because he asked me not to," said Robin as quickly as he could. "He said it was just a minor raid, so minor that he was worried that it was a plot of Blackfire's to get you to go running off to Tamaran or something. He said he couldn't figure out any other reason why the Citadel would launch an attack that the Tamaranean army will have dealt with in a couple of weeks."
The surprise on Starfire's face began to be replaced with realization. "... except," she said carefully, "that if the Tamaranean army is occupied with the Citadel for that long, they will be unable to come to our aid before Trigon is scheduled to return."
Robin nodded, exhaling slowly. "Exactly."
"And... it is the same with the others?"
Robin nodded again. "Dr. Light announced yesterday that he has a new Superweapon being built in Antarctica that he's going to use to destroy Steel City. The Titans East went down there to stop him. And all of the other honorary Titans are either busy with random attacks in their home towns, or aren't responding to their communicators."
"You believe that Trigon has arranged all this?"
"I'm certain of it," said Robin. "Terra told David that Trigon has servants besides Slade, and Raven said there's an ancient order that worships him. Either he set this all in motion himself, or he used his agents to do it. Probably both."
Starfire took a deep breath. "Then," she said, "we are alone?"
Robin could only nod in reply. "It looks that way."
And to his surprise, Starfire's response was to lift her head, smile, and nearly crush the air out of his lungs with her version of a light hug.
"Then we shall emerge victorious by ourselves," she said, with perfect certainty and warmth, "and reveal to Trigon that all his efforts have been wasted."
Robin, who had been bracing for Starfire's anger rather than this, was temporarily unable to speak (partly because he could not draw breath). He had been afraid that she would either become furiously angry with him, or (perhaps worse yet), invoke the silent treatment on him, as only she could.
"But, Robin," she said with a smirk as she released him. "Regardless of what Galfore said, you should have informed me of what his message contained."
Robin could only rub the back of his neck and look sheepish. "I didn't want you to worry."
"My only worry, Robin," said Starfire with another beaming smile, is that you will once again begin failing to confide in us when you know that you should. So long as you do not do that, I do not care what plans Trigon believes he has. There is no force in the universe that can stop us together." And with that, she walked on down the street, leaving Robin to wonder if the temperature had actually just increased, or if it was just his imagination...
He caught up with her after a few moments, and they walked the next few blocks in silence. Battery Street had been fully repaired since David and Cinderblock's destruction of most of the waterfront, and the sparkling white sidewalks and freshly-laid asphalt seemed to sparkle in the late summer sun. It was unseasonably good weather, and the public were out to take advantage of it, families picnicking and playing in the small park between Battery Street and the waterline, acknowledging Starfire and Robin with smiles and stares and the occasional bashful request for an autograph, but mostly minding their own affairs, content in the knowledge that they were under their protection, and that with the Titans once more on patrol, all would be well today.
Robin was grateful for the apparent break, because while he would have liked nothing more than to give them all a long rest to recover from what had happened, the alerts kept on coming in, and the patrol routes still needed to be run. Fortunately, one benefit of having six Titans, rather than five, was that they could be divided up into three different patrols without leaving anybody by themselves. And so, after a bare two days, he had ordered a resumption of their civic patrols, though this time he set aside all pretense and assigned them manually, rather than by lottery. Cyborg and David would cover downtown, he figured David was in need of a little sanity after everything that had happened, and Cyborg was the best person for that sort of level-headed assurance. Against his own best instincts, he had paired Beast Boy and Raven together to cover the suburbs. Normally that was like pouring nitroglycerin over open flames, but Beast Boy had been so... single-minded in trying to open her back up after the big revelation that he figured it was worth a shot, even if the only reaction Beast Boy got was convincing Raven to blow him up.
And of course, just by coincidence, that left Robin and Starfire to cover the waterfront.
"It is a beautiful day, is it not?" said Starfire.
It was, of course, a beautiful day, even considering that this was Southern California, where warm sunny days were a regular occurrence, but while Starfire was taking in every sight with the same enthralled wonder, Robin couldn't keep his eyes off of her. Star had been on Earth for several years now, had been patrolling Jump City for almost as long, and yet it was as though every time she went on patrol with him, she was seeing the city fresh, for the first time. She no longer asked him why people put hot dogs on their mustard (yes, that's right), or about the purpose of parking meters and the reason why people so diligently fed them on all days but Sunday, but she had lost none of her wonderment at the sight of the city alive with all its people, nor in her determination to make sure everyone with her felt the same wonder she did, by one means or another.
"Robin?"
Robin snapped out of his musings, suddenly realizing that Starfire had said something else that he had completely missed. "Uh... what?" he asked, flustered, but Starfire merely smiled.
"I asked if you believed that the others were managing well."
It took Robin a second to re-orient his brain around that subject. "They'd call us if anything was happening," he said.
"That was not precisely my meaning," said Starfire. "I am... worried, about Raven in particular."
Robin nodded. "Me too, Star," he said. "But I think getting out and doing something will help her take her mind off things while we get everything ready for..." he hesitated, "for whatever happens."
Starfire seemed, if not convinced, at least partly mollified. "I hope that Beast Boy is able to assist her."
"I hope we all can," said Robin, an unthinkable statement to make to the others, but with Starfire it was... different. They both knew that.
"Perhaps we should determine if their patrols have proceeded uneventfully?" asked Starfire, brightening. Robin wasn't sure if it was a good idea to disturb them or not, but Starfire was clearly worried, and even though they had all promised to alert one another at the first sign of danger, surely it couldn't hurt to check in...
"Titans, come in," said Robin as he opened his communicator. Static filled the screen for a moment before it was split in half by a black dividing line, and the faces of Cyborg and Beast Boy appeared.
"What's up?" asked Cyborg. "You guys got problems?"
"Just checking in," said Robin. "What's the situation?"
"Dude, this place is like a sitcom," said Beast Boy in what Robin hoped was mock disgust. "We haven't even had a jaywalker."
"Same here," said Cyborg, "even the beat cops are lookin' bored. How much longer we gonna be doin' this?"
Complaints were good, Robin reminded himself. Complaints were normal. "We're gonna run a full patrol route," he insisted. "I want Slade and his minions to see that he hasn't scared us off, and I want the citizens to be able to relax. We'll rendezvous back at the Tower at dusk. Until then, we show the flag."
Cyborg grumbled, but oddly enough, Beast Boy did not. Indeed Robin caught him looking up from the communicator every couple seconds, as though watching something else.
Robin wasn't the only one who noticed. "Yo, BB, you got something goin' on over there?" asked Cyborg, sounding almost hopeful.
Cyborg's question jolted Beast Boy back into the conversation. "Uh, no!" he yelped. "No, it's... it's nothing." He glanced up from the communicator again, and there was a muffled crash from somewhere off-screen. "Look um... I'll call you guys back in a little bit, okay?" he said quickly, and closed the communicator once more.
Robin and Starfire shared a quick look. Star looked worried. But before he could ask Cyborg the obvious question, Cyborg answered it.
"Just leave 'em be," he said. "They'll be all right."
"Cyborg, if there's a problem..."
"Trust me," said Cyborg, in that voice of his that meant an argument was brewing if Robin chose to push it. "Y'all can help best by just stayin' back for a while. Let BB handle it."
A glance to Starfire, who gave him the slightest of nods, indicated that she concurred. "All right," he said reluctantly. "Where's David?"
"His com unit's having problems. I'm workin' on it. He's fine."
"Put him on for a second, I want to make sure - "
"Robin," said Cyborg, letting the name hang for a moment to ensure he had Robin's full attention. "I got this one, okay?"
Robin and Cyborg stared at one another for a few seconds. "... fine," said Robin at last. "Check back in an hour."
"Roger that. Cyborg out."
The screen went dark, and Robin clipped his communicator back to his belt, grumbling softly to himself. The soft touch of Starfire's hand on his shoulder brought an end to that, and he turned his head to see her smiling serenely at him.
"Since the others are not in danger, Robin, and since there appears to be no crime being undertaken presently, might we not proceed to the carnival grounds?" she asked. "It is the next place we are to visit, is it not?"
It actually wasn't, and Robin knew it, and for that matter so did Starfire, but it was nearby, and something about the way she said it made the prospect suddenly a tempting one. "Um... I, maybe when we're done with our route..."
"Robin," said Starfire, "surely if our intent is merely to show that we are not afraid of Slade, then there can be no harm in our expanding our patrol to include the carnival? I believe... it would be of benefit.
In the back of his mind, Robin was wondering when he had completely lost control of the team, and yet right now that didn't seem half as important a thought as it probably should have been. Right now in fact, there was very little he could think about except Starfire's sweet smile and sparkling emerald eyes as she entreated him. And before he even knew what was happening, he was walking down Battery towards the carnival, Starfire literally floating next to him. In the back of his mind he knew that he was being played by Starfire and Cyborg, if not by the others, but given the prospect of just spending the day with Starfire, he really couldn't bring himself to care.
And that's when the van exploded.
An unmarked gray van, parked on the curb, blew up with the force of an artillery shell, blossoming into a mushroom of fire and smoke, and sending a shock wave rippling up and down the street. Windows shattered, branches broke, and a hail of shrapnel rained down upon Robin and Starfire. Robin reacted by reflex, grabbing the side of his cape and swirling it around himself, the unbreakable titanium polymer weave easily repelling the bits of aluminum and steel, while Starfire raised a hand to protect her eyes, fragments bouncing off her as though she were made of cast iron.
The two heroes spared only a glance to one another to see that they were each all right, and then instantly both were off, racing towards the demolished vehicle as fast as they could. Robin had only taken half a dozen steps before he realized that something was up. The blast had been powerful, but a real car bomb, the kind used by terrorists, would have leveled half of the block. As it was, it had done nothing more than scorch the walls of the nearby buildings and smash a few windows. No civilians (thank God) had been close enough for the blast to injure them, nor had the bomber waited until he and Star were within danger range themselves. So then what could have been the purpose of -.
A prickling in the back of his neck made Robin stop in his tracks, and slowly turn around.
"Well just look what we got here..."
Starfire turned around and landed next to Robin, looking back up the way they had come, as one by one, a series of figures emerged from the smoke and dust. A countless army of identical teenagers filled the street from one side to the other, each one clad in a solid red jumpsuit with a black and white division sign emblazoned upon it, all of them smirking and snickering to one another.
"Looks like we got y'all outnumbered," shouted one of the dozens of identical clones. "Just two o' you, and as many o' me as y'all can handle."
"Billy Numerous," called Starfire back to the crimson duplicator, her fists igniting green as she stared him down. "For what purpose did you destroy that automated conveyance?"
"Billy didn't destroy anything," came another voice, from the other direction. Robin turned back to see four more figures advancing out of the dust, not clones this time, but individual teenagers, strutting like arena champions as they walked down the street in unison. Their leader, in the center of their line, was a pace or two ahead of the others, her cat-like eyes darting back and forth between Starfire and Robin, like a predator deciding which prey animal to eat first.
"Jinx..." said Robin, narrowing his eyes. "What's the matter? The Hive run out of parking meters to rob?"
"Oh, we're not here to steal, Robin," said Jinx. "All we want is the two of you."
"Big mistake," replied Robin, sliding around Starfire until they were standing back to back. The sea of Billy Numerouses spread into a semicircle, enclosing the two Titans in the middle of the street between themselves and the four other Hivers.
"How do you figure that, stoplight?" asked one of the Billies. "I got you a hundr'd to two right here."
"Then we'll each beat you fifty times," replied Robin. "And we'll let the others do the same when they get here."
All five Hivers exploded into laughter, the chorus of Billies drowning out the others. "You think we didn't plan this out?" asked See-More. "This here's a trap, bird-boy. The others are gettin' jumped right now, just like you."
"You two are worm-food," snickered Gizmo, practically giggling with anticipation.
"We're gonna waste you, and all four of your friends at the same time," said Mammoth, cracking his knuckles in preparation for the festivities to come.
Robin turned back to look at Starfire, who was now pressed back up against him, ready for anything. They exchanged no words, this was hardly the time for them after all, but Starfire gave him the slightest nod, and Robin took a deep breath, and turned back to face Jinx, drawing the telescoping bo staff out of his belt, and extending it to full length.
Jinx took a step or two forward, grinning evilly. "I know you Titans think you can take us all out whenever you want," she said, "but your friends aren't gonna help you this time. You really think the two of you can handle all of us at once?"
Robin's only answer was to look from one Hiver to another and back to Jinx, and then to smile.
O-O-O
"Roger that, Cyborg out."
Robin's face disappeared as Cyborg deactivated the communicator built into his arm. Only then did he turn back to David, who was standing some five or six feet away, in the shadow of a storefront awning, watching the older Titan carefully, and fiddling with his own communicator, presently closed and silent. "Thanks," he said almost sheepishly.
Cyborg chuckled and shook his head. "Don't mention it, man," he said. "I know how it can get."
"Yeah," said David, "I guess you do." He seemed disinclined to elaborate further, and Cyborg moved on down the street, David falling in beside him. They walked on for another half a block, taking their time. Civilians stopped, pointed, and stared, but that had long-since become normal to Cyborg, and clearly David had enough on his mind to render him completely oblivious.
"So how you holdin' up?" asked Cyborg.
David laughed, shrugging as he did so. "Honestly, I don't know."
"Your head ain't botherin' you again, right?"
"No," he replied, "it's been fine. Which is kind of weird, since it turns out there's something living inside it that wants to kill me."
"Long as he ain't gettin' in your way, and does what you tell him to do, don't much matter what he wants to do," said Cyborg. "Way Raven tells it, that thing needed her to do the dirty work."
David didn't reply, and they walked on another half a minute or so before Cyborg asked another question.
"You and her gonna be... all right?"
David didn't answer immediately, sighing softly and massaging his temples with his hand. "I don't know," he finally said. "I mean..." He trailed off and glanced up at Cyborg, who was still waiting for his answer. "I'll be okay."
"You don't gotta be okay, man," said Cyborg. "There ain't no excuse for what she did, even she knows that. You got every right to be mad."
"Yeah," he said, "but I do have to get over it. And I will... eventually." He sighed again. "It just might take a while."
"You know you can just talk to her," said Cyborg. "Even get mad at her. She ain't gonna blow you up. Hell, way I hear it, she can't blow you up."
"I'm not ready to test that," said David. "And besides, that's... that's just not my thing. I just want to..." he trailed off for a moment. "I don't know what I want."
Cyborg laughed. "Well until you figure it out, man," he said, "how 'bout we do what I want, which is to finish this damn patrol and get back home?"
"Sure thing," said David with a laugh of his own, a bit weak, but something nonetheless. He seemed a bit less down, which was something, Cyborg supposed. Things like this didn't work themselves out overnight after all.
"Don't worry so much," said Cyborg. "We've dealt with all kinds of stuff before. No matter how bad it looks, we always come out on top."
"Raven doesn't agree," said David quietly, glancing furtively up at Cyborg to see if such sentiments were all right to air between the two of them. All this time, and the kid was still watching his words like a hawk.
"Raven said the same damn thing when BB and I went into her head," said Cyborg. He wasn't about to lecture David on the need to keep up face, but they couldn't have him going around thinking they were all screwed. Robin was right about that much. "She's usually pretty calm, but any time somethin' o' hers goes wrong, you'd think the world just ended."
"It... is ending, at least according to her."
"It ain't," said Cyborg. "We ain't gonna let it, all right? None of us came this far, and kicked butt this many times just to let some four-eyed devil reject come down to wreck our shit. Don't matter what it takes, we're gonna drop this guy like a sack of flour and make him wish he'd picked another planet."
David didn't say anything, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. "Hey," said Cyborg, putting a hand on his shoulder, and the psychokinetic raised his head. "He sent a goddamn army at us in Yellowstone, right? Look at all the good that did him. He thought he'd scare Raven into workin' for him instead of trying to fight it, and just managed to get her good and pissed off. And what about you?" He smiled. "Thought you were just some kid he could push around like a chess piece right? And now look." He took a step back, as though admiring David's getup, uniform, baton, communicator, and all. "Next wannabe devil punk gets in your way's gonna wind up in the ER. You think that was all 'part of the plan'?"
David smiled and shook his head. "No..."
"No. That's right. He didn't think we could do that. He didn't you could do that, now did he?"
"No, I guess he didn't," said David.
"You don't gotta guess, he didn't," said Cyborg with a grin. "So you see man, what you have to learn from this little situation is one thing. One very important thing. You know what that is?"
"What?"
"You have to learn that Cyborg," said Cyborg, "is always right."
David burst into laughter, which was of course partly the point. Cyborg merely widened his grin. "Oh you think that's funny?" he asked, in mock anger. "You don't believe me? Do I have to make this more clear?"
"No," said David sarcastically, still coughing down laughs. "No, I believe it."
"Say it with me then."
"You're always right," said David, managing not to roll his eyes this time.
"Who's always right?"
"Cyborg's always right."
"That's right," said Cyborg, "say it again."
"Cyborg is always right," repeated David, a bit more clearly.
"Make me believe you, man."
"Cyborg," said David, forcefully this time, a broad grin on his face, "is always right."
"There you go!" exclaimed Cyborg theatrically, and he clapped David on the back. "Now you got it. Now you see that this ain't no thing at all, because I said so. And why does that make it so?"
"Because Cyborg," said David, laughing again, "is always right."
"My man," said Cyborg. "That's the way. Now come on, I wanna show you somethin'." He led David down the street, towards one of the shops ahead. Something there had caught his eye a week or so ago, but he had refrained from mentioning it until now. This seemed, to him, to be a good moment to bring it up.
The shop in question was a comic book store, one Beast Boy frequented fairly regularly. In addition to the usual comics, card games, and miniatures, the store also sold memorabilia of the various superheroes the country and the rest of the world. Being as it was located in Jump City, much of the merchandise was dedicated to the city's local protectors, the Titans, the sale of which helped the city partly recoup the cost of whatever property damage the Titans and their enemies caused whenever they fought. There were T-shirts, bobblehead dolls, framed photographs, and a hundred other items dedicated to the Titans. None of this was out of the ordinary.
"Check it out," said Cyborg.
David looked over the displayed merchandise in the window of the store and looked puzzled. "I... don't get it," he said. "What are you - "
And then he saw it.
It was hanging on the wall behind the cashier. A series of glossy posters, two feet high and photo-realistic, probably taken with a digital camera. Each poster was of one of the various Titans, caught in a combat position, the background behind them painted up to look vibrant and dramatic, color-coded for the convenience of those who could not instantly recognize which Titan was which. But it was the one nearest to the door, the one with a background of orange and red, the one that had only been there for a week or so, that David was staring at. The one that was a city-sponsored, collectible poster, of himself.
"I think they did a pretty good job, don't you?"
David was unable to answer. He was staring wide-eyed at the poster like he could not believe what he was seeing. On reflection, Cyborg wondered if that wasn't close to the truth. God-knew where the shot had come from, probably some citizen with a cell phone camera, but it was of David standing on a ruined stone staircase, flames and rubble littered all around him. His burning baton was in his right hand, held back and low, and his other hand was extended forward and up, towards some foe unseen, while his eyes had that thousand-yard-stare to them that Cyborg knew indicated that he was presently manipulating something mentally in preparation for an explosion. He looked serious, dangerous, ready-for-action, exactly the sort of thing that would sell well to the kids or whoever else frequented this shop. Not that any of those thoughts were likely passing through David's head right now. He looked like something had just broken his brain.
"You okay?"
David honestly looked like he wasn't sure himself. "I..." he stammered. "I... what the..."
"Hey, least it's a good shot. You should'a seen the first one they made of Robin." He patted David on the back a few times, as though trying to jump start him. "C'mon man, don't tell me you actually didn't expect this sorta thing."
A single look at David's thunderstruck face was enough to confirm to Cyborg that no, he hadn't. As always, the practical implications of his new role had escaped him until he found them staring him in the face.
David was spared further embarrassed sputtering by the intercession of two young kids. No more than eight or nine years old, they were exiting the store, chattering to one another, and one of them carried a rolled up copy of the very same poster David was staring at. The instant they spotted Cyborg and David they both stopped dead in their tracks, and gasped. "Whoa!" shouted one. "Cool!" the other, and then instantly they rushed over and began exclaiming as rapidly as they could, how awesome they thought it was to actually meet two of the Titans, talking over one another breathlessly until Cyborg had to marvel how it was that neither of them passed out.
Cyborg took the lead in talking to the kids, he'd done this a thousand times before after all, and David needed a moment to regain the use of his vocal cords. Both kids swore to Cyborg that they already had his poster up in their bedrooms. He asked them their names, if they had a favorite Titan, the usual, and even agreed to demonstrate shifting his hand into sonic cannon and back, a trick that never failed to produce "oohs" and "aahs". By then, David had recovered enough to awkwardly contribute to the conversation. Some people never got used to being the center of attention, but he was clearly doing his best, and the kids didn't notice anything wrong.
After a couple minutes, the kid with the poster asked (inevitably) if David would autograph his new acquisition. Obvious though the request was to Cyborg, it (of course) caught David by surprise, again, and he was left to sputter for a second before Cyborg providently pulled a pen out of one of his compartments and handed it to him. "Go for it man," he said. "I'm gonna get a hot dog. You want one?"
"Um... no... no thanks, Cy," said David, and when he turned his head to face Cyborg, he had a look of such astonishment in his face that Cyborg had to suppress a laugh, and yet gamely, David took the pen and turned back to the kids, asking them in they wanted him to write anything in particular, and managing, barely, to keep the shock out of his voice. Cyborg laughed and shook his head, and walked across the street to a hot dog vendor, and ordered two hot dogs anyway. If David didn't want one, then he'd have them both. After he got his hot dogs, he turned back to look, and saw that the kids had convinced David to show them his baton up close. He had 'ignited' it for them, and one was gingerly touching the business end with one finger, obviously not entirely convinced that the flames were just an effect. Cyborg chuckled and wolfed one hot dog down in two bites, and was deciding whether or not to do the same to the second one when he heard something from his left, turned to see what it was...
... and dropped the other hot dog.
Standing in the middle of the street, where Cyborg knew that five seconds ago there had been nobody at all, was a young man in a massive red suit of armor, twelve or thirteen feet tall at least, and presently bent over a parked sedan, reaching underneath it. Before Cyborg's eyes, he hefted it into the air over his head as though it were a barbell, and turned towards David, still chatting amicably with the two kids, and unable to see the threat that had just... somehow materialized behind him.
"David, look out!" shouted Cyborg at full volume, and he dropped to one knee, extended his hand, morphing it into his sonic cannon, and fired full blast at the center of the figure's chest.
Too late.
The young man grunted with the effort, and threw the entire car straight at David an instant before Cyborg's shot hit him dead center and blew him off his feet, sending him flying thirty feet down the street straight into another car. But David had only a split second's warning. Turning around to see a car flying straight at his head, he did the only thing he could do, and snapped his baton around like a tennis player. The car exploded like a bomb barely ten feet from David's head, and an instant later, the blossoming mushroom cloud of flames and oily smoke engulfed David, both kids, and the entire storefront, and nothing more could be discerned save for the sound of shattering glass and high pitched screams.
The man in the red armor slowly picked himself up, laughing despite the blast he had taken as he gazed at his own handiwork. "That's what you get when you mess with Adonis!" shouted the young man, grabbing a manhole cover off the ground and throwing it at Cyborg like a discus. Cyborg easily shot it out of the air, but did not pursue Adonis, instead racing back across the street, swatting the smoke out of his face, trying to find any sign of -
"Marcus..."
Cyborg stopped short, Adonis froze, and an instant later, a gust of wind blew the smoke clear, to reveal David, standing exactly where he had been a moment earlier. His baton was pointing forward like a fencing sword, crackling with red energy, and his other hand was held back towards the two little kids who were cowering on the ground together behind him. David's face and uniform were splattered with black motor oil, as were the kids. The storefront had been utterly destroyed, and pools of flaming gasoline and bits of red hot debris lay scattered about like the aftermath of a missile strike, yet neither David nor the two boys appeared to have been harmed in the least, and David was staring directly at Adonis like a rifleman staring down a mad dog.
"Marcus," said David again, and he stepped forward into the street, shaking his head slowly, his voice sounding pained and disappointed, like a teacher addressing a juvenile delinquent who had finally crossed the line. "Oh, Marcus," he repeated a third time, "that was such a bad idea..."
Adonis looked, if not scared, then reasonably put out of sorts, and as the realization slowly dawned on him that he was now outnumbered by two extremely irate Titans, he took a careful step backwards, even as the asphalt and concrete under his feet began to warp and shake at David's command.
A predatory grin slowly crossed Cyborg's face. He stepped into the street as well, raising his sonic cannon and slowly walking towards Adonis.
"My man..." he said, and then it began.
O-O-O
"Look um... I'll call you guys back in a little bit, okay?" said Beast Boy, and without waiting for Robin's inevitable objection, he closed the communicator. Immediately he ran over towards the streetlight that Raven was standing next to, carefully stepping over the broken glass from the car window she had just blown out. Raven was standing with her arms folded against the streetlight, her hood pulled up over her head, which was lowered onto her crossed arms, breathing erratically and shaking.
"Whoa, Raven," said Beast Boy, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Are you O-"
"Don't touch me!" screamed Raven, snapping her head around to reveal flaming red eyes. Beast Boy yelped and jumped back as the streetlight overhead exploded, raining shattered glass and carbon filament down onto Raven's head. Raven didn't even bat an eye as one of the falling fragments cut down her cheek deeply enough to draw blood, which, even as it trickled down her face, was actually boiling away into steam, leaving a red smudge behind.
Beast Boy had seen Raven hurt many times, but he'd never seen that before.
Slowly the fire went out of Raven's eyes, and she seemed to master herself once more. Shaking visibly, she drew her cloak around herself, sucking air in and out through clenched teeth. She looked up at Beast Boy again, but plainly didn't know what to say, and finally opted for nothing at all, turning and walking on up the street, leaving stunned civilians to stare and Beast Boy to follow or not as he wished.
Beast Boy followed her at a distance, trying to think of what to do. She'd been almost completely uncommunicative since the revelation last week, even moreso than usual, and so far nothing he'd done or said had managed anything but pissing her off. And when Raven got pissed...
But no, there was something else going on here. She hadn't blown up over the story he'd been telling her. She hadn't even been listening to it. She had just stopped as the call from Robin came in, and then suddenly everything nearby started to shake or shatter. For once, it wasn't him.
The realization gave him the courage to catch up to her and fall in alongside. "Um... Raven?"
She didn't answer.
"You uh... cut yourself there..." he said, pointing to his own cheek. She turned her head slightly, and brought her hand to the side of her face. Closing her eyes, she whispered her mantra to herself, and her hand turned blue. She rubbed at her cheek for a few seconds, and when she lowered her hand, there was no sign of the cut, merely the red smudge of boiled-off blood.
"Yeah," he said. "You um... got it..."
Still she said nothing, preferring to walk on in silence. Beast Boy followed closely, racking his brain to try and figure out what to say or do. Parking meters quivered as she walked by, windows rattled in storefronts or homes, even the fire hydrants seemed to creak. It wasn't ever hard to tell when Raven was on-edge. Symptoms resembled the early stages of an earthquake. But it had been like this off and on for three days, and judging by the intensity of the tremors, it was getting worse. Beast Boy could care less about the property damage, but what it signified was troublesome enough that he knew he had to do something.
But what?
"So um... after we get back to the Tower," he said, largely speaking off the top of his head, "do you maybe wanna try Mega Monkeys Five? It's the sequel to that one that you and I played that one time..."
No answer was forthcoming, nor even an acknowledgment that he had spoken, and so he persisted. "Uh... well if you don't wanna do that, I could show you this cool TV show from a few years back that someone showed me. It's about these people on a spaceship, and there's horses and cowboys and zombies and everyone speaks in Chinese and - "
"Just leave me alone, Beast Boy," said Raven all of a sudden, and while this was hardly something uncommon for her to be saying, the fatigue dripping from her voice stopped him short. Her voice, so tightly controlled normally, sounded like it could barely be summoned forth from her throat.
"Raven, what's wrong?" asked Beast Boy automatically before he could stop himself and think of a better way to put it. She didn't answer, didn't even look at him, indeed she seemed to draw her hood and cloak tighter around herself. "You can't still be worried about Trigon, can you?"
She turned sharply to look at him, and he gulped and took a step back. "Okay... so maybe you can still be worried about him," he said, and she shook her head and walked on, leaving him to catch up.
"Seriously though, Rae, we're gonna find a way to stop him. You don't have to worry," he said, but even that didn't engender a response, not even a demand that he not call her 'Rae'. "Robin and Cyborg were saying that we can build this big room and - "
"Beast Boy, please," said Raven, a request that was not a request. "I don't want to talk right now."
'Oh no you don't', thought Beast Boy as he crossed his arms. "Well that's too bad," he said, "because I'm not gonna stop asking you what's wrong until you tell me." Left unsaid was the second option that occurred to him: 'or you throw me into the bay'.
Fortunately, it seemed that Raven hadn't thought of that option either. She groaned softly and shook her head. "Beast Boy..."
"Raven, c'mon. It's gonna be okay. You know we're gonna do whatever we have to do to stop your dad, right? So why are you all - ?"
"Because you shouldn't have to."
Beast Boy stopped. "What?"
"This was my problem," said Raven. "I should have dealt with it. I shouldn't have dragged you all into the middle of the apocalypse."
"But, Raven, you did try to deal with it."
"And I should have succeeded!" she exclaimed, causing people to stop and stare and the sidewalk panels to tremble. "I've been preparing for this thing my entire life. All the training that the monks on Azarath gave me was so that I would be able to face this. I've been making plans about it since I was five! And now it's happening, and I can't do anything except force you all into it."
Beast Boy tried to mollify her. "But Rae..."
"Will you stop calling me that?" shouted Raven, cracking the pavement he was standing on. "I have a real name!"
He refused to be baited. "Raven, I know you didn't want to tell anyone about all this." He neglected to mention that she was now shouting about it to anyone within earshot. That much wasn't going to help. "But we want to help you. You're not forcing anything on us. And we're gonna do it whether you like it or not. So please stop worrying."
His words fell on deaf ears. He could tell as much the instant he said them. Raven simply pulled her hood back up over her head, retreating back into shadow. "You can't help me," she said. "None of you can stop what's coming."
"If he's anything like that guy from your head, we beat him once already," said Beast Boy, trying to sound confident.
"He's not," said Raven. "He's not like anything you've ever seen. Not like the worst villain we've ever fought. Not even Slade. He's..." her voice caught in her throat, and she had to stop walking. "He's like a plague. He's the incarnation of pure evil. And there's nothing any of you can do to stop him. Anyone who's ever met him and survived can tell you that."
"Yeah?" said Beast Boy, "well he's never met anything like us either." He grinned. "You always say that there's nothing as annoying as me in the entire universe, right?"
Raven raised one corner of her hood to stare at Beast Boy with a raised eyebrow. She didn't laugh or smile, but that was all right, this was at least more like her normal reaction.
"You're not funny," she said acerbically.
His grin only broadened. "Doesn't mean I can't try to be," he said.
"No, Beast Boy, you're really not funny. This isn't a laughing matter."
"Pft," scoffed Beast Boy. "Of course it is. You'll see. We're gonna build a safe room in the Tower and Cyborg's gonna - "
"This is the end of the world!" shouted Raven. "Don't you get it? I'm the end of the world! No safe rooms, no second chances, it's all gonna end because of me!"
Silence fell as Raven's voice echoed over the streets full of now-frozen pedestrians, men, women, children, even pets, all staring at Raven like she'd grown a second head. Her outburst over, Raven only now seemed to realize what she'd just yelled, out loud, in public, but before she could retreat back into her hood once again, Beast Boy grabbed her wrist and, giving the astonished public a nervous smile, quickly dragged her into an alley between two apartment buildings.
"Raven," he said in an urgent near-whisper as soon as they were out of earshot and sight of the startled civilians. "Come on, even if your dad wants to destroy the world, that doesn't mean it's your fault."
"It's all my fault," said Raven, eyes downcast, speaking in a hollow voice that sounded almost on the verge of tears. "I should have... I should have left, or never come here in the first place. I should have found a way to stop it from happening. I had plenty of warning..."
Raven had been acting strange ever since the last encounter with Slade, but this was actually frightening. Beast Boy knew that Raven felt responsible for everything that was happening, but he'd never seen her like this before. It scared him to see her this upset, particularly this upset with herself.
"Raven - "
"Do you remember what I told Robin the first time we all met?" she asked.
He remembered it perfectly well, and furthermore she knew he did, for she didn't bother to remind him what her words had been:
'Trust me. If you knew what I really am... you wouldn't want me around.'
"Raven, we know what you are now, and none of us care. You're our friend. It doesn't matter who your dad was or what some old prophecy says about you. We're all gonna get through this together. No matter what."
Even as Beast Boy was speaking though, he could see that it wasn't working. Raven raised her head slightly, and there were tears running down the sides of her face, though these at least weren't boiling. "Beast Boy, I'm a monster," she spat angrily. "I'm half-demon! Daughter of Trigon the Terrible! Don't you see? I'm a nightmare, Beast Boy!"
The words poured out of her like water from a breached dam, angry words, bitter words, savage, biting, bladed words, all directed at herself. He didn't know if she couldn't stop them or didn't want to, if she was trying somehow to scourge herself enough with this torrent self-hatred to purge away the guilt she quite obviously felt in buckets. People occasionally lashed out at one of the Titans in word or print, castigating one or more of them for all manner of crimes or moral turpitudes. More often than not, their target was Raven, for she was an easy target to pin the ills of society on. And yet never had Beast Boy read or heard or seen anyone attack Raven with as much violence, as much hatred, as much loathing to their words, than Raven herself was doing now.
He wanted her to stop. He wanted her to hear what he was trying to say, that they couldn't care less what she was, that they never had cared about that, that what was happening wasn't her fault. And yet she couldn't. The feelings of guilt and presumed sin was just too much. Whether or not he believed a word of it, she plainly did. He wondered for a second if she always had.
It didn't matter. She was wrong. She was so wrong that to hear these terrible things being said about her, even from her own voice, was enough to drive him mad. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, scream even, something to knock the sense back into her, something that would let her see herself the way he saw her. She was the strongest person he'd ever met, the tower of strength and assurance that had dragged him back from the depths that Terra's death and return had dropped him. She was brilliant, she was caring, she was scary yes, but they all were in some way. And on top of everything she was beautiful. He didn't mean she looked beautiful, though... she did. He meant 'filled with beauty'. In every sense. He wanted to make her see that. He wanted to tell her that.
But Beast Boy wasn't good with words, and didn't know how say any of what he was thinking, and so when he stepped forward to try and think of something to do or say to stop her, instinct or something else took over, and he leaned in and kissed her.
... and... well... it worked.
He was nearly as surprised as she was... well probably not... and he wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing until he did it, but then he was doing it, and even though he knew he was probably going to be electrocuted or skinned alive, he didn't want to stop. She went as rigid as a board, her tirade fell silent like a plug had been pulled, and he could hear her heart beating like a snare drum, but she didn't move to stop him, didn't move at all even, until finally he drew back, hot blood rushing to his face, as it was to hers. The thousand terrible fates that were probably in store for him now raced through his mind, and yet he didn't feel an urge to run or shift into a paramecium. She looked... well she looked stunned. The torrent of words that had been pouring so freely was utterly staunched, indeed she looked like she had forgotten how to speak. Her mouth moved, but no sounds emerged, and he knew he probably should be taking this opportunity to either explain himself or beg for mercy, but instead he took a deep breath, and just waited for her to say something.
"W... Why did you do that?" she asked in a quiet, shocked voice.
He had no idea how to answer that. And so, groping about for something to say, he decided on something that he thought sounded closest to the truth.
"'Cause... I like it better when you're mad at me," he said.
Raven appeared to not know what to do, which made two of them at this point. Not that Beast Boy had any objection to not being vaporized, which was he assumed she would do as soon as she recovered her equilibrium. He had no idea of what else to say, and clearly neither did she, and so they stared at one another, Raven in some kind of shock, Beast Boy scrambling to find something to say to alleviate the sudden awkwardness of this situation..
A roar from out in the street, and the sound of civilians screaming in terror.
'Oh thank god'.
He ran out of the alley, and Raven followed him, though he could tell she was moving on autopilot. To his right, the source of the screams was instantly apparent. A huge, purple monster, vaguely bipedal, stood in the middle of the street, having torn a sewer pipe out of the ground, and was gulping the noxious effluent from it down its massive gullet. Civilians ran in every direction, abandoning their cars, but the creature took no notice of them whatsoever, its form swelling larger and larger with each successive gulp. Despite everything that had just happened, Beast Boy grimaced at the smell and sight. "Ew... nasty!" he said. Behind him, Raven contributed no comment. He wondered if she could.
No time to worry about that. He shifted into the form of a cape buffalo, snorted once, and charged towards Plasmus. As he ran, he saw another huge form looming up behind Plasmus, a humanoid as well, but no more human than the first monster, a sparking monolith made of ball lightning. Overload...
He couldn't abort his charge now, not with this much mass and momentum, and so he put on the accelerators, racing towards Plasmus, who noticed him coming, dropped the pipe, and roared loud enough to wake the dead. Beast Boy leaped up, planning to shift into something a dozen times more massive, a whale or elephant perhaps, but Plasmus was too fast. He lashed out with his tendrils of sludge, seized him by the horns, and slammed him into the ground like a steer wrestler, even as Overload moved around to electrocute him on the spot.
And then suddenly something went terribly wrong with Overload and Plasmus' plan.
The ground heaved and kicked, and then all of a sudden a section of street fifty feet long and thirty wide uprooted itself from the ground just behind Beast Boy. Cars, fire hydrants, streetlights, even a delivery van rose into the air, and as Beast Boy turned back to look at the cause of this occurance, he saw Raven standing in the middle of the street, sheathed in black like a fountain pen, her eyes washed out white, raising the entire street into the air with one hand stretched into the air. As he watched, the massive divot of earth and asphalt floated over past Beast Boy, and tipped, dumping every single object on it onto Overload, who fell back, crushed under a hail of vehicles and municipal infrastructure. And no sooner had Raven done this, than she swept her hand around and dropped it, and the entire section of street flipped over and landed on top of Plasmus like an enormous hydraulic press, instantly smashing him to jelly.
Beast Boy resumed human form and stood back up, doing his best to wipe off the Plasmus-sludge that had been splattered all over him, and looked back at Raven. She still looked like she was in shock, to be honest, but there was a ferocity in her stare that had not been there before. One he didn't recall having ever seen before, to be honest. And while it was certainly scary... it was also kind of cool.
It was mostly cool because she had decided to destroy someone other than him, but he would take his victories where he could get them.
He smiled, broadly, even as Overload began shoving the empty vehicles off of himself, and Plasmus slowly started to re-coalesce. And as he turned back to the rising monsters, he could help but turn his smile into a feral grin as he crouched low, already deciding what to shift into next.
"Wow," he said, "did you guys ever pick a bad time..."
O-O-O
"I know you Titans think you can take us all out whenever you want," said Jinx, "but your friends aren't gonna help you this time. You really think the two of you can handle all of us at once?"
Robin's only answer was to look from one Hiver to another and back to Jinx, and then to smile.
"Watch us."
Robin jumped.
Skilled martial artists could perform amazing vertial leaps. Very skilled martial artists could do so without even looking like that was what they planned to do. Robin was one of the latter, and his leap caught all five Hivers by surprise. Neither See-More nor Gizmo nor even Jinx thought to shoot him before he was up, flipping through the air, and pulling a half dozen flash bombs from his belt, even as he heard the telltale sounds of Starfire leaping into the air behind him. She knew what to do, he trusted that much implicitly. All he had to do was his own bit.
He rained the bombs down like confetti, shrouding the entire street in flashes and smoke. The majority of the flashers he threw at See-More, who withdrew several steps, his arms raised to protect his oversized eye. The residual flashes were enough to hold the other Hivers for a couple seconds, and he threw his weight to one side so as to land next to See-More. As he came down, he swept his staff around at eye level, smashing the very tip of it into See-More's visor. The lens shattered like glass, the frame crushed like a tin can, and See-More spun halfway around with the blow. A second stroke, with the butt of the staff, hit him in the back of the neck, and sent him crumpling to the ground, out like a light.
And then Robin landed.
The other Hivers stared at Robin like frozen mannequins flatly unable to believe what they had just seen him do. He planted his staff and smirked. "Had enough yet?"
"Tear him apart!" shouted Jinx, and Robin swept his staff up and back around to a ready position, and everything hit the fan.
Gizmo launched a barrage of rockets as a good fifty copies of Billy came charging in from all directions, several of them leaping up over the others to cut off his escape. Robin crouched low and lunged forward like a coiled spring, spearing one of the Billies in the throat with his staff and slamming him back into the ground, using him as a pivot and his staff as a vaulter's pole to crash right into and through three more Billies, titanium-soled boots first. The rockets crashed to earth behind him, knocking two dozen more copies of the copyist sprawling in all directions.
He landed and rolled, springing back to his feet, but a monumental shadow loomed over him, and he had to dive to the side to avoid Mammoth's fists. A Billy kicked at him as he rolled, and he grabbed its foot and twisted, spinning the unfortunate clone around like a glassblower, and using him as leverage to get back up. He spun around to face Mammoth, but Mammoth was no longer there. Starfire had shot him in the chest with a pair of energy beams from her eyes, and the bruiser was presently hanging half-out of a newspaper kiosk on the other side of the street, his flight path strewn with toppled Billy clones.
Starfire was up in the air, hurling Starbolts down at Jinx like a vengeful deity. Jinx skipped around the projectiles like a dancer, summoning and flinging hexes back up at Starfire, who danced around them in turn in all three dimensions. Several Billies climbed onto one another's shoulders and leaped at Starfire, three of them managing to grab onto her as she flew. They soon regretted it however, for not only could Starfire support their weight, but she used their own momentum to spin around and hurl all three into and through a storefront window, recovering fast enough to dodge Jinx' latest hex, and return a starbolt which struck the Hive leader square in the solar plexus and practically smashed her into the ground.
Another tide of Billies closed in, and Robin reached up and fired a grapling hook at an overhead neon sign, connecting and flying up into the air in the nick of time. One of the Billies grabbed his leg, but he kicked it in the face, and it fell away. A second later, a laser from Gizmo's harness severed the grappling cord, and Robin found himself falling again. Starfire dove to catch him, but a missile caught her first, and she was blown off course into a wall, and rolled down it to the ground. Robin tried to spin around to see where he was about to land, but before he could do so, something hit him in the side like a wrecking ball, and the next thing he knew, he was thrown bodily into a series of trash cans on the side of the street, and Mammoth, chest still smoking from where Starfire had shot him, was grinning and cracking his knuckles as he approached.
His staff was somewhere in the garbage, and he had no time to search for it, so instead he drew a pair of smaller sticks from the back of his belt. Shorter than his staff, these were Escrima sticks, retractable police batons designed to be used in one hand each. Though functionally identical to David's baton, Robin had no intention of using these as mere power props...
.. a fact he proceeded to demonstrate.
Mammoth charged him, and he spun to the side like a matador at the last moment, whirling around to strike Mammoth in the back of the knee with one stick. Mammoth gave a shout of pain as eight copies of Billy came up to support him. Robin turned on them, spinning around and lashing out with both sticks, aiming not at specific targets, but at the areas he knew from experience that his attackers would be most likely to occupy. A skilled martial artist might have tried something unexpected, but Billy was no such thing, and within seconds, four of the eight copies were sprawled out on the ground, the other four drawing back from the spinning sticks. Braver than Billy, Mammoth chose to attempt them, lunging in with an enormous fist. A serious mistake. Robin stepped into the punch and slid around it to the right, driving the tip of one of his batons into Mammoth's stomach before smashing the other one into the giant's temple. To Mammoth's credit, he did not immediately fall, though the blows would have dropped even the toughest boxer like a broken puppet. Instead he staggered back, stunned and disoriented, groping blindly for something to steady himself against. Robin charged him, dodging the clumsy swipes of several more copies of Billy, jumping up, spinning around, and slamming the heel of his boot into Mammoth's temple.
This time he fell.
The whine of machinery spinning up was all the warning Robin got before a concussion grenade hit him in the back. The polymer cloak absorbed some of the shock, and of course he knew to relax his muscles the instant the blast hit him, but the shock was still enough hurl him into a brick wall, clouding his vision and destroying his balance for several, crucial seconds. They might well have been his last, had not Starfire bodily hoisted Gizmo, harness and all, into the air a moment later. Gizmo screamed bloody murder, slashing at Starfire with his mechanical spider legs. They were bladed, but the blades might as well have been made of styrofoam for all the good they did. Starfire peremptorily smashed the blades to pieces with her fists, then ripped all four legs off of Gizmo's harness for good measure, throwing them down to the ground like toothpicks.
Understandably enough, Gizmo panicked, pressing a button on what remained of his harness, and blasting a compartment of tear gas into Starfire's face. He had chosen both wisely and poorly in selecting the gas, wisely in that Starfire was not immune to it, poorly in that she was not amused either. Coughing and retching, she nonetheless maintained enough wherewithal to blast Gizmo out of her hands with a pair of point blank starbolts, flinging the diminutive gearhead into the hood of a car hard enough to crush the windshield and rock the car on its suspension. Gizmo moaned softly and did not get up.
Two more Billy clones now got in Robin's way, obstructing his view of Starfire. One went to grab him by the throat and he folded his arm up and hit him in the throat with his elbow, dropping it instantly. The other one managed to grab his other arm, but Robin had managed to recover his balance, and stepped around him and twisted before pitching him over his shoulder in a Judo throw. He turned back, only to see dozens more Billies rushing towards him, too many even for him to handle alone, but fortunately, he wasn't alone. A green flash overhead heralded Starfire's assault, and she simply blazed a path through the crowd of Billies with starbolts flying, sending dozens of copies scattering like bowling pins. For a second, it looked as though she was going to either join Robin, or grab him by the arm to pull him to safety, but then there was another flash, pink, not green, and Starfire's flight was halted as though she had struck a brick wall. She tumbled to the ground, landing hard enough to carve a furrow in the asphalt. And behind her, Robin saw Jinx, standing with hexes in hand, just for a second, before the sea of Billies closed between them again, and Robin could see no more.
"Starfire!" he shouted, and without regard to his own safety or anything else, he rushed four dozen copies of Billy Numerous by himself. Billies lunged at him from every direction, caring nothing for how many of them he might clobber or beat, attempting only to bury him in bodies and drag him down by weight of numbers. He lashed out with both sticks, every swing connecting with something, and yet he simply could not advance, pressed back by the sheer number of his attackers. Falling back again, he spun and struck and spun again, laying Billy clones out by the dozen and the score. Two of them managed to uproot a mailbox and chucked it at him, but he simply slid under the throw and let it cream three more of the clones before it stopped. Two dozen more pooled their strength and managed to lift an entire car into the air, but Robin simply threw a flash bomb into their midst, distracting several of them long enough for gravity to do the rest, and pinning the lot of them beneath the dropped car. One climbed onto a restaurant's awning and leaped down onto Robin's back, but Robin ducked and slammed him down onto the ground like a throw rug, before picking him up and throwing him into his fellow clones. Around and around he spun, striking clone after clone down, until the fallen Billies were piled four feet deep in a ring around him, and the few clones remaining were unwilling to climb over the unconscious forms of their fellows to face his sticks and fists any longer.
He assumed that the clones had thinned out because not even Billy could replicate indefinitely, but when he finally turned to find Starfire, he realized what the real reason had been.
Starfire was on the ground a good fifty feet away, on her hands and knees, with an enormous mass of Billies dogpiling her, trying to force her down. Not even with thirty clones could Billy easily overcome Starfire's Tamaranean strength, and gritting her teeth, she managed to throw one arm back, tossing four of the clones into the air like dolls. It was not enough however, as the remaining clones forced her down again, and Robin saw Jinx approaching her, stepping around the fallen Billies as she raised one hand with a razor-sharp hex, and hurled it down into Starfire's upturned face. The shock was enough to make the ground itself tremble, and Starfire shuddered for a second, and then fell still, as Jinnx prepared another hex to finish the job.
That was as far as she got.
Robin raised his arm and shot a grappling hook at Jinx, catching her throwing arm and pulling as hard as he could. Jinx's hex flew off into the pile of Billies and scattered them, as she herself was dragged down onto the ground. With a cry of defiance, she severed the grappling cord with another hex and scrambled to her feet, but Robin was already on the move, clotheslining a Billy clone as he ran with one of his sticks, and stepping around another one only to backhand him in back of the neck. Both Billies fell as Robin ran on, and the look on his masked face was apparently enough to make even Jinx think twice. She fell back behind a protective screen of Billy clones, hoping thereby to delay Robin, but Robin would not be delayed. He sprang into the air, flipping over the Billies, and dropping a series of explosive bombs in his wake to scatter or disable them. Before Jinx could conjure another hex or even react, he raised one hand, and brought one of his escrima batons down on Jinx's raised arm.
He felt the bone snap through his baton.
The Hive leader let out a scream that could have woken the dead, but Jinx was no civilian or novice to the arts of fighting, and even a broken arm did not dissuade her from attempting to defend herself. She brought her other arm around with a searing hex glowing in her palm, intending to throw or smash it into Robin with all the force she could muster. Too late. Robin stepped into her swing, blocked it with his own arm, seized Jinx by the collar, and spun around like a top, hoisting Jinx off of her feet and hurling her as hard as he could into the tile-covered wall of the Jump City public library. The tile facing, already weakened by the car bomb, shattered, raining bits of masonry and glazed ceramic onto the ground, as Robin completed his spin and came to a halt facing Jinx, both batons held in an automatic ready position. Jinx, covered in ceramic dust, bleeding from the head, her broken arm dangling uselessly at her side, clearly disoriented, managed to stagger back to her feet for a few seconds. She tried to conjure another hex, but plainly her fragile consciousness was no longer up to the task, and the hex sputtered out like a quenched flame moments before she pitched over and collapsed onto the ground, motionless, surrounded by the fallen bodies of her teammates.
Quiet descended on the street as Robin slowly lowered his weapons and looked around at the scene. It resembled the aftermath of some hideous massacre or brutal battlefield. Dozens of red-clad bodies lay scattered around, some folded around lampposts, some hanging halfway out of broken store windows, others littering the street and sidewalks. Dotted amongst them were the unconscious forms of the various other Hive members. And somewhere in this pile of beaten warriors was...
"Starfire!"
She was laying on the ground, half buried in Billy clones, yet even at this distance, Robin could see that she was breathing and moving slowly, stunned or unconscious, rather than dead. Robin thanked whatever lucky stars he had for that, and quickly began to rush over to her, picking his way around the dozens if not hundreds of other moaning, sleeping bodies he had to navigate to reach her, already retracting his batons and putting them away, already sliding the communicator off of his belt to call the others and see what the situation was with them, already making plans for the next step in countering whatever evil plot this was.
He never saw the Man in Gold.
O-O-O
The Man in Gold crouched on the rooftops, and watched as Robin and Starfire destroyed the Hive Five. He watched as Starfire's starbolts and energy beams struck down the red-suited clones in droves of tens and twenties, even as Robin dealt with each of the unique Hivers in turn, one after the next. He watched as Gizmo made an ill-fated attempt to contest with Starfire physically, and failed, and watched as Jinx managed to disable Starfire, but was herself disabled in turn by a furious Robin. He smiled at that. Ever the White Knight, Robin, reserving his greatest anger for those who harmed his precious Starfire.
Only when the fighting was finally complete, did the Man in Gold reach down to his side, and lifted a pair of thick ear protectors, which he slid over his ears carefully. He slid the pair of LCD sunglasses on his forehead down, covering his eyes, and plugging the the small cord attached to them into the massive piece of equipment next to him. He watched as the link was activated in a quarter of a second, and the equipment began feeding him data directly to his glasses, and he smiled as the telescopic lens revealed a close-up picture of Robin scrambling over the bodies of the fallen Hivers, racing to get to Starfire, to ensure that she was all right.
How perfectly typical.
He waited, he bode his time. There were precious seconds of time here that he had to savor, and savour them he did, as the EM coils cooled down and the superconductors powered themselves up. Even then he still had time, time to watch every move Robin made, time to see him slowly drawing his communicator, time to see him holster his weapons, time to watch Robin believe that he'd won.
And then... just like that... it was time.
The Man in Gold took a deep breath.
"Grayson!" he shouted.
Robin stumbled in mid-step, recovered his balance, and turned around to see who had shouted that name that he had believed nobody knew. He watched in slow motion as Robin's head inclined up, up, up, to the rooftops, to the figure in shining gold, outlined by the setting sun, that had not been there a minute ago, and to the blurry object next to him. The Man in Gold watched him do these things, and watched through the telecopic lens for the exact moment when the flash of recognition, impossible to mask or hide, came over Robin's features.
And then he pulled the trigger.
O-O-O
Adonis hit the side of the car hard enough to cave it in, and shattered glass from the window and windshield spilled all over him like a waterfall. His pitted and dented armor groaned as he slowly stood up once again, turned around, and tried to lift the car. He had not even gotten it an inch off the ground before Cyborg's sonic cannon speared him in the back, slamming his head into the crushed car door and forcing him to drop the vehicle again.
He roared in frustration and leaped up again, though what he intended to do to the two Titans standing in the middle of the street fifty feet away was unclear. As it happened, he hadn't managed more than three or four steps before David blew the ground up under his foot and flipped him four times through the air, only to dump him on the sidewalk beneath a streetlight.
"You're makin' this a lot harder than it's gotta be, man," said Cyborg. "Why don't you give it up now and we'll all go down to the jail."
"Up yours, bucket-head!" shouted Adonis. "Nobody arrests Adonis!"
"Wrong answer, Marcus," said David, and he extended his baton towards Adonis, and twisted it like a screwdriver. The piece of equipment mounted in Adonis' chest groaned, shook, and exploded outward, sending a shower of electrical components scattering over the ground. A moment later, the magnetic locks that held the various pieces of Adonis' armor together all failed at once, and the armor fell apart like a glass sculpture struck by a baseball, leaving a disheveled young man in a dark blue jump suit sitting in the middle of a pile of assorted bits of armor.
Cyborg raised his human eyebrow, and turned to David. "Now why the Hell didn't you just do that in the first place?"
"Because I didn't know what it was until just now," he responded. Cyborg crossed his arms and raised his human eyebrow, as though unconvinced. "What?" protested David. "I don't build these things! I was just looking for... you know... anything strange. I figured thorium had to be the power source."
Cyborg blinked, then slowly turned his head back to Adonis. "... Thorium?"
"Yeah," said David with a smirk, "and a cast iron frame."
This time, Cyborg did a double take. "A what?"
"You heard me."
The half-mechanical Titan exploded into laughter. "Cast iron. What the hell Adonis? Lookin' to join a Dickens revival or somethin'? What's the matter? Couldn't find any steel in the scrapyard?"
"Hey, screw you, asshole!" screamed Adonis. "None of you wimps have what it takes to fight a real man, anyway!"
"Well hell, Adonis," said Cyborg with a grin as he began to walk forward. "Find us a real man, and we'll go fight him."
"You don't have the guts to face me for real!" repeated Adonis,turning to David, who was watching the proceedings silently. "You! 'Devastator' or whatever you call yourself these days. You're nothin' without that stick and those fancy explosions. Why don't you come over here and fight me like a man?"
"What?" asked David.
"C'mon!" goaded Adonis, raising his fists towards David. "Fight me like a man, if you've got the guts!"
Cyborg sighed, but stopped and turned back to David to see what he wanted to do. David was standing stock still, his baton still in hand, staring at Adonis evenly, as though trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. Cyborg let him stare, and was about to open his mouth to tell David that this sort of thing really wasn't necessary, when David answered.
"No."
The ground under Adonis' feet burst like an overinflated balloon, sending Adonis rocketting upwards to a sudden face-first encounter with the streetlight above his head. The light shattered as his head crushed it, and Adonis got a nasty 20,000 volt shock, a moment before gravity took over and he plunged back to the ground, landing on his stomach, his hair smoldering, and coughing up smoke.
"You just tried to murder me and two little kids with a suit of power armor and a car, and you want to tell me about fighting like a man?" said David. His voice was low, but he sounded good and angry as he walked towards the downed supervillain. "You were bad enough in school, Marcus. Now you're going where you belong."
"I shoulda killed you when I had the chance, you freak! When I get back out you're dead! You hear me! Dead!"
"Oh, shut up," said David, as he knelt down over Adonis, planting one knee on Adonis' back to keep him pinned down while he slid a pair of plastic zip-cuffs off his belt and fastened them around Adonis' wrists. Only once Adonis was properly restrained did he stand up and haul Adonis to his feet. Adonis tried to shake David off, just to be defiant, but his head was still shakey from the impromptu flight he had taken, and despite the fact that David was considerably smaller than he was, he couldn't even muster the strength to do that much. Not that it would have mattered with Cyborg standing right there.
David frog-marched Adonis over to Cyborg, who was watching the proceedings with crossed arms and a broad smile. "I just don't get you, man," he said.
David paused as Cyborg grabbed Adonis' wrists with one massive hand. "What don't you get?"
"You do somethin' like that, and you don't see why they'd put you on a poster?"
David blinked, clearly missing something. "I... just arrested him," he said. "Isn't... that how I'm supposed to do it?"
"No, no, no, that ain't what I'm talkin' about," said Cyborg. "I'm sayin' you go out here and get it done, just like the rest of us, you gotta expect people're gonna start lookin' at you different. It comes with the territory, man."
David actually blushed, to Cyborg's amusement. "I... I know that, Cy."
Cyborg laughed and shook his head. "No, you know it, but you don't know it, you follow? You keep thinking like you're some regular Joe, and then you come out here and serve it up like one of us. I just don't get it..."
David lowered his head. "Sorry," he said.
"Ain't nothin' to be 'sorry' about, man," said Cyborg with a chuckle, patting David on the shoulder with his free hand. "There's nothin' wrong with it. I just don't get it is all." He laughed. "I guess we all do it different. Back in the day, BB used to - "
Cyborg's story was cut off all of a sudden by a thunderous blast, coming from somewhere to the North. Cyborg dropped Adonis, who was too shocked by the sound to remember to run, as all eyes, hero, villain, or civilian, turned to the north, where a small plume of smoke seemed to be emanating from somewhere near the waterfront...
O-O-O
Overload's screams mixed with the sound of electrical equipment shorting out into a hideous static screech, but Beast Boy didn't let up, sucking water out of the pool formed by the ruptured hydrant, and spraying it with his trunk into the sentient electrokinetic computer. The sprayed water mixed with the puddles of slime that were splattered all over the places, forming a disgusting slurry that Beast Boy avoided stepping in, but this wouldn't take much longer in any event. Sure enough, Overload's capacity to handle the water soon gave out entirely, and his electrical frame collapsed, leaving behind a small, waterlogged circuit board.
Only once he was convinced that Overload wasn't getting back up again, did Beast Boy turn back around to ensure that Raven was still all right. She was still floating in her lotus position over the street, completely covered in Plasmus' sludge, which was dripping off her (as it was him) like sticky tar. The sleeping form of the human at the center of Plasmus was laying at her feet, laying where she had deposited him after blowing Plasmus' body to shreds with her soul-self while Beast Boy was dealing with Overload. He had not known that she was able to do that.
Add it to the list...
He reverted to his human form, and slowly approached Raven. She hadn't said a word to him since the fight began, but given the... verve... with which she had torn Plasmus to bits...
Well... it could be said that he wasn't sure what kind of a reception he was about to get.
"Um," he said, "are you... okay?"
Raven slowly lowered herself back down to the ground, and landed lightly, brushing the sludge out of her bangs absent-mindedly, and nudging Plasmus with her foot before furtively looking back up at Beast Boy. "I... think so," she said, sounding extremely unsure.
"Oh," he said. "Uh... well, good!" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "So... should we uh... call the others or - "
"Beast Boy," said Raven all of a sudden, and then suddenly she was staring directly at him. He couldn't tell if it was the look of a friend or a predator.
"Look, Rae... uh... Raven... I..."
"Why did you do that?" she asked. He still couldn't tell if she was going to melt him or not, but there was fear in her voice, though what she was afraid of was beyond him.
"Because I... I wanted to," he said, having considered about seven thousand other possible answers in a half-second or so and rejected them all.
"Why?"
That one caught him by surprise. She sounded... well to be honest he didn't know what that sound in her voice was supposed to be. It might have been disbelief. Whatever it was, it drove all thoughts of joking or dodging the question out of his mind.
"Because you're not a monster," he said, as calmly and as sincerely as he could. Sincerity was not his strong suit. He preferred to dance around things like this with a joke and a smile, but he made the effort for her sake. "You're not a monster or a nightmare or any of those other things you said you were. You're... you're just not, okay? You're... the best person I know. I've lived with heroes my whole life, and you're the best person I've ever met. Not because you're all powerful or brave or anything... but... just because you are. Because you put up with me even when you don't want to, and you always think about other people even though you hate other people thinking about you." He scuffed his shoe on the pavement and took a breath. "I don't... I don't know how to say this kind of stuff, and... I know you don't believe me because you think you shouldn't have come here and that all this is your fault and everything but... even if you're right, and it turns out we can't stop Trigon from doing his thing, even if that's true, which it's not, but even if it is, I'm still glad you came here, and that I got to know you." He grinned sheepishly and lowered his head. "That's... why I did it."
He expected... honestly he didn't know what he expected. And apparently Raven didn't either, for she simply stood there, staring at him like he'd suddenly turned blue before his eyes. For a good half a minute, neither one of them moved or said anything, until finally, Raven's mouth trembled, and she managed to say a few words in a halting voice, tears welling up in her eyes.
"B... Beast Boy..." she said.
She got no further.
A tremendous blast, like a missile strike, echoed from somewhere to the east, and as both Titans whirled around to face it, they saw a towering cloud of smoke rising from somewhere beyond the immediate skyline. Beast Boy blinked, and turned back to Raven to ask her what the hell that could have been, for undoubtedly she had a better idea than he did, but no sooner did he lay eyes on her than the question died in his throat, for Raven's eyes had bolted open, her breath had frozen in her lungs, and she had a trembling hand clutched to her chest as she stared off into space. And as Beast Boy opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, her eyes suddenly focused on him with a look of the most profound terror he had ever seen in anyone's eyes, and right then he knew that something horrible had just happened.
But he had no idea how horrible it was...
O-O-O
In her own way, she was always floating...
Starfire woke up very slowly.
Tamaraneans were not knocked unconscious lightly, but when they were, it tended to require some time for them to come around. She had no idea what had happened beyond the fact that the Billy Numerous had sent dozens of his clones to pin her down, and she had been struggling against them when Jinx had walked up and shot her in the head with one of her illuminated magical spells, like the lowly Clorbag she was. She raised her head, slowly, to try and determine where said Clorbag had run off to, or if Robin had subdued her while she was asleep, and only then did she notice that she was all but alone.
That fact pierced the slowly-clearing clouds that fogged her brain like a Wusserloop darting through the water. There had been dozens if not hundreds of fallen copies of the Billy Numerous scattered about where either she or Robin had disposed of them, to say nothing of Gizmo, Mammoth, and See-More, all of whom had fallen in the battle prior to Jinx rendering her unconscious. And yet while the street bore the obvious signs of battle and destruction, there was no sign of any of their fallen assailants scattered about. And where was Robin? Had he gone in pursuit of the HIVE? Or been forced to retreat to another location? Or... or had the HIVE overcome him as well, and captured him for nefarious purposes of their own? The thought suddenly galvanized her to action, and she raised her head and shoulders up to look around, to find some sign of what might have become of Robin...
... and her heart stopped.
Robin was laying in the middle of the street, on his side, his cape crumpled and stained, his combat batons laying at his side, untouched, though only scarce inches from his hands. But from where Starfire was laying, she could see a puddle of some sort of dark fluid, dark red fluid, that Robin was presently laying in.
"Robin!"
It was a funny thing to realize now, but she was. Always. Even when walking on the ground, she seemed to be floating, as though temporarily conceding to gravity's laws only because it was expected of her. She moved like a dancer, like an angel, her green eyes sparkling like emeralds, her red hair framed by the sun in a halo.
She was on her feet in a nanosecond, and raced to his side with such alacrity that the very laws of relativity bent around her. She knelt at his side, and gently, gently as she could, rolled him over onto his back, and when she did, a horrified gasp escaped her lips.
There was a half-inch hole drilled through his chest.
Somehow, he had plenty of time to study the expression on her face, the glowing green energy around her closed hands, the deep swirling gems of onyx and obsidian adorning her bracers and gorget. A vision of light in the descending darkness, a valkyrie coming to rescue him and take him home.
"Robin..." she said, stunned to near-silence, and she blindly groped for her communicator, which was already soaked through with Robin's own blood. She tore it open and hit the panic button, shouting into it for the others to come, to come as quickly as they could, that Robin was hurt, and yet there were no responses, and she could not determine why. Human physiology was beyond her. She had no idea what to do, what she could do, save that humans were so fragile that moving Robin would likely be instantly fatal, and so she held him in her lap, and tried desperately to staunch the flow of blood which refused to cease.
"Robin!" she shouted, screamed even, her Tamaranean vocal cords powerful enough to sunder glass at need, and yet not enough to pierce the veil descending over him. "Robin, can you hear me? Robin!"
He wanted to reach out to her, call out to her, something, but his body and voice would not obey any longer. It was all he could do to force his eyes to remain open long enough for her to reach him, gathering him up in her arms, screaming his adopted name with enough force to shatter glass, though it registered as nothing more than a dull echo. The world around could fade, or burn, or crumble like stale bread, but she was here, and nothing else mattered.
He said nothing, and moved only slightly, raised one gloved hand weakly, and she took it in hers without hesitation, squeezing him hard enough that he had to have felt it, and yet he didn't react. Yet when his hand fell away, he had left behind something. Something that had been in his hands when she arrived. She glanced at the object in question, a small round disk of polished gray metal, perfectly smooth save for the fact that it had been marred by an ugly, jagged crack down the middle of it. She had no idea what this thing was, nor why Robin had just given it to her, and presently she didn't care. Where could the others be? Or the paramedical personnel that should have already been making their way towards this location as soon as hostilities began?
Robin coughed, a horrible, truncated cough that caused bubbles of red fluid to emerge from his lips, and he shuddered as his face began to pale. A small crowd had by now gathered around, and in desperation, Starfire turned her head to them. "Please!" she cried, "Assist us! He must be taken to a hospital!" But none of the civilians moved or stirred themselves, perhaps too deeply in shock at what had just occurred, perhaps unable to materially assist... or perhaps cognizant already that there was nothing they or anyone could do.
Robin's breathing slowed, as did the rate of blood flow, and through the tears welling in her eyes, Starfire clung to the hope that this might somehow be a good sign, that the wound was cauterizing or that he was otherwise going to get better. And yet, no matter how tightly she held him, no matter what cries she uttered in what language, there was nothing she could do but look on as Robin's body stiffened and quivered for a few moments, and then with a soft, almost inaudible sigh, his limbs went limp, the air slipped from his lungs, and then...
... and then, between one moment and the next, he was gone.
Starfire threw back her head and screamed, screamed as loud as she could, shattering windows and driving back the small crowd of onlookers. And so it was that a few minutes later, the other four Titans found her, sitting in the middle of the street, tears rolling down her face, covered in red human blood, and cradling Robin's lifeless body.
A strange fate indeed, to realize it only now, when it could no longer make a difference, unless of course realizing it made all the difference in the world...
O-O-O
Six hours later...
"How's that feel?"
Jinx grimaced as she gently waved the cast up and down like a penguin's flipper. Her arm still throbbed relentlessly, though the painkillers had helped a bit, as had stabilizing it. And compared to what had happened to Gizmo, she supposed she should count herself lucky.
"It's okay."
See-More nodded and put the medical kit away. "So," he said. "That sucked."
Despite everything, Jinx laughed. "Yeah, didn't go so well, did it?"
"No," said See-More, though he was also smiling at the sheer absurdity of the situation. "It really didn't."
"You gonna be all right?"
"Need a new visor," he said. "And about six tons of Tylenol."
"Well don't worry," said Jinx. "That's the last of our 'special' operations."
See-More let out a sigh of relief. "Well I'm glad to hear that," he said. "I'd rather go after Fort Knox than go through that again."
"Well we're not gonna be doing much for a while, anyway," said Jinx, looking glumly down at her cast-encased arm.
"I think after this one, we deserve a rest, don't you?"
"Maybe," said Jinx. "Anyway, go find Mammoth and see how Gizmo's doing, will you? And remind him not to use too much - "
The entire HIVE Tower shook.
Jinx and See-More froze for a second, and then turned to look at each other. "... earthquake?" asked See-More.
Another shock tore through the tower, prolonged, and accompanied by the sound of rending metal. Definitely not earthquake sounds. Jinx and See-More had only enough time to glance at one another once again before there was an ear-splitting screech, and suddenly, something peeled open one of the infirmary walls.
And one look at who it was told Jinx that this was about to become the worst day of he life.
The infirmary was at ground level, and the fall wall formed the outer wall of the HIVE Tower, twelve inches of solid titanium steel, impervious to everything from meteor strikes to tank shells. Yet before Jinx' eyes, a section of the wall eight feet long and six feet high was simply ripped open as though someone had taken a can opener to it. And there, in the resulting hole, there stood five of the six Titans, all of them but Robin, staring into the infirmary at Jinx and See-More with expressions that, for all her claims of unflappability, made her want to run screaming and hide under a bed.
Particularly Starfire's.
Starfire was glowing, literally. Her eyes and hands were encased in radioactive green energy, and her teeth were bared and snarling, like some kind of predatory animal. Next to her, Cyborg was staring daggers into Jinx' eyes, his hand in the form of his Sonic Cannon. Nothing, nothing she had ever done or seen, no event she had borne witness to, had ever inspired the look that Cyborg was giving her now, a look of absolute rage, one so profound it seemed to extend even to his robotic eye.
For a moment or two, the Titans and Hivers simply stared at one another, the former seething, the latter simply stunned. Finally, Jinx gathered enough of her wits to speak. "What the hell?" she said, and she conjured a hex in her good hand almost reflexively, as See-More reached for something, a weapon perhaps, or a communicator.
As it turned out, that was a serious mistake.
Starfire moved so quickly that it looked to Jinx like she had just teleported. One instant she was in the impromptu doorway she had just torn open, the next she was right in front of her, her hands fastened around Jinx's throat. She screamed something in another language, some guttural and violent, and lifted Jinx into the air before reversing her momentum and slamming her down on her back into the medical table so hard that the table collapsed into a heap of sparks and metal panels. Meanwhile, the table See-More was reaching for was summarily vaporized as Cyborg shot it with a full-power blast of his sonic cannon. He then charged into the room like an enraged rhinoceros. See-More avoided getting his head punched clean off only by backing into a corner and raising his hands in abject surrender. Honestly, Jinx couldn't blame him.
The other three Titans entered the room after Cyborg and Starfire, and quietly took up positions on either side of the room, saying nothing, and staring at Jinx and See-More like the witnesses to an execution. A very palpable chill ran down Jinx' spine as she stared up into the merciless gaze of Starfire, who seemed to be trying to gauge whether or not to literally bite her head off.
"Who employed you?"
The words shot out of Starfire's mouth like cannon shells, no flowery verbiage , no comically superior register of language. She did not so much say the words as snarled them at Jinx.
"What the hell are you talking about?" coughed Jinx.
Wrong answer.
Starfire shrieked some kind of war-cry-of-the-damned, and smashed Jinx headfirst into the ceiling, shattering one of the ceiling tiles and raining plaster into the room. She followed up on this by kicking the ruined medical table aside (an impressive feat, given that it was bolted to the floor), and pinning Jinx up against the wall like a tapestry.
"Hey!" shouted See-More. "Leave her alone you bi-"
No more words did See-More get out, for Cyborg simply reached out and backhanded him in the head with an enormous metal arm, hard enough that Jinx felt it. See-More collapsed like a house of cards, stunned by the enormous blow, and Jinx' eyes darted to each of the other Titans in turn. None of them seemed to be in any hurry to restrain Cyborg or Starfire. Probably for the first time ever, she wished Robin would show up.
"This was a setup operation," said Cyborg, his voice even despite his fuming rage. "Adonis, Plasmus, and Overload ain't part of your little club. Somebody hired your asses to do this job. You're gonna tell us who it was and where we can find 'em. Right now."
"What the hell's going on in here?" Mammoth and Billy Numerous stormed into the room from opposite ends at the same time. Mammoth still had his neck brace on, and Billy was a unified whole, a rarity for him, but a necessity, considering the collective beating he'd taken.
Neither one lasted more than two seconds.
Raven turned to Mammoth and raised her hand, not even bothering to recite her magic words, and suddenly Mammoth was lifted bodily into the air, flipped over, and driven like a pile driver headfirst into the solid metal floor. Raven dropped her hand and let Mammoth fall like a dead weight to the ground, where he remained, motionless, and moaning softly.
Billy on the other hand, got a much more simple solution. Devastator took the baton from off his belt, slid it into his left hand, and the instant Billy's head appeared inside the room, he smashed it into the bridge of Billy's nose as hard as he could.
Raven's blow had been harder perhaps, but it was Devastator's that stunned Jinx, for Devastator she had actually met, spoken to, even fought alongside. She had pegged him easily as the weakest link in the Titans' chain, the one who was still holding back, afraid of violence and the consequences thereof. There was no sign of that here. Billy went down like puppet with its strings cut, his nose bleeding profusely, hollering and clutching at his face.
"You broke my goddamn nose, man!" shouted Billy through the injury. Devastator simply lowered the baton, pointing it like a sword at Billy's throat, and ignited it, his eyes never deviating one millimeter. Cyborg and Starfire turned back to Jinx and See-More.
"Who hired you?" asked Cyborg. "Tell us right now."
"After what she did to Gizmo?" spat Jinx. "I'm not telling you a damn thing!"
"Where's Gizmo?" asked Beast Boy, from behind Cyborg. He seemed to be at least slightly under control of his own faculties, at least it looked that way.
"He's in a coma," said Jinx. "Where's Robin?" To hell with appearances, this was insane. She needed to talk to someone who could be counted upon to be rational at least.
Starfire hoisted Jinx up and brought her fist back. "Robin is dead," she said.
And among the hundred thoughts that burst into Jinx' mind at that bit of news, the foremost one was the sudden realization that she was almost certainly about to die.
"For what purpose was Robin given this?" asked Starfire, and she pulled out a small disk of metal, cracked down the middle by some unknown force.
"I... I've never seen that before..." said Jinx, her eyes darting from Titan to Titan. "Look, we... we didn't kill Robin!" she said. "He beat the hell out of all of us, and when we woke up, we were back here. I swear!"
"Do not lie to me!" screamed Starfire so loud that the glass face on the wallclock shattered. She slammed Jinx up against the back wall again and pinned her there, pulling her other fist back as though preparing to punch Jinx' head off.
"She ain't lyin', man!" insisted See-More. "It's the truth!"
"It sure is!" chimed in Billy from where he was laying on the floor.
"Who was your employer?" demanded Starfire.
Jinx hesitated just a second too long. "We didn't have an emp-"
Starfire hit her, hard, right in the stomach. She felt the wind leave her lungs and gasped for air desperately, her eyes threatening to pop out of her head.
"You better tell us who hired you, Jinx, or you won't live to join Brother Blood," said Cyborg.
"I... I c... I can't..." stammered Jinx, still struggling to inhale. "I can't... I can't tell... tell you..."
"Well then you better find a way to tell us," said Cyborg, "before I decide that you were behind the whole thing."
Jinx looked around the room, desperately looking for an out. None was immediately forthcoming. "I can't tell you. There'd... we'd be... you don't understand!"
"No, I don't think you understand, Jinx," said Cyborg. "I'm gonna have to - "
"Asian guy," blurted See-More suddenly. "Brown eyes, black hair. Maybe five-eight. Hundred forty pounds. Wore this weird-ass armor all the time..."
Everyone in the room slowly turned to look at See-More, including Jinx, who had actually just forgotten about Starfire for a moment. See-More looked around at the Titans and Jinx, and chose to address the latter. "These guys mean business, Jinx. We gotta tell 'em."
"Nevermind that," said Jinx. "How the hell do you know what he looked like? How the hell do you even know he existed? I never told anybody!"
"Because I've been spyin' on you, okay?" shouted See-More. "You've been actin' weird for a month solid. Ever since that diamond thing. You keep obsessing over jobs that I can't even figure out why we're doin', and runnin' off on 'errands' all the time without sayin' a word about where the hell you're goin'. You think nobody noticed?"
Jinx honestly didn't know what to think right now. "If... you saw what I was doing," she said, "then you... you know why we can't tell them what - "
"Look," said See-More, turning back to the Titans. "Like I said, this guy's kinda small, but he's got weapons all over the place. Lasers and things pop up out of his armor. And he can teleport. I dunno if he uses somethin' to do it or just 'does' it, you know, but I've seen him do it." Only then did he turn back to Jinx. "What the hell's that guy gonna do to us that these guys here ain't?" he asked her.
"You got a name?" asked Cyborg.
See-More shook his head. "I never heard it," he said.
Jinx sighed in resignation. "He never told me his name either."
The Titans glanced at one another, seeking some kind of positive identification from one of them, but none was apparently forthcoming. Jinx took the opportunity to turn back to See-More. "I can't believe you spied on me."
See-More seemed to deflate, and shook his head slowly. "I was worried about you, okay? You were actin' like somethin' really big was goin' on. I just... I wanted to make sure you weren't in over your head with somethin'. None of the others knew, I didn't wanna tell 'em. But then I saw you meetin' with the gold guy and I thought - "
Jinx felt Star go rigid, and Cyborg turned back to See-More instantly. "Gold guy?" he asked.
See-More blinked his single eye. "Uh, yeah... like I said, this guy wears this armor? Well the armor's all gold-lookin'. Like polished gold. Has a helmet too."
One by one, lights of recognition appeared in each of the Titans' eyes, all except Devastator, which Jinx supposed was only to be expected. Starfire slowly let her go, and looked down at the small metal disk in her hands, and when she raised her head again, the green glow in her eyes was gone, and her rage seemed totally replaced by surprise. She turned to Cyborg, who was evidencing the same shift.
"It... it cannot be..." she said.
"I thought... he was gone," said Cyborg.
"Who?" asked Devastator, which saved Jinx from having to ask the same question.
Starfire turned to Devastator, and her voice was quiet and thin as she spoke a single, simple name.
"Warp."
The name meant nothing to Jinx, but plainly it meant plenty to the Titans, as each one save Devastator's eyes widened. Cyborg and Starfire seemed to be running the possibilities over in their minds, when Raven asked a question of her own.
"Why did you agree to do what Warp asked?"
Jinx stared at Raven contemptuously. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "Because this 'Warp' guy is working for Trigon."
"So you're working for Trigon then?" asked Raven. There was a hint of suppressed anger in her voice, a slight tremble that augured very bad things.
"We're working for ourselves," replied Jinx. "He offered to arrange to spare us when the world ended if we helped him with a few jobs. We were supposed to steal that diamond for him, but that one," she pointed at Devastator, "switched the rocks on me." She turned back to Starfire. "So he told us to fight you and Robin. Just fight, not kill. He said we weren't supposed to kill anyone, but just get in your way. You guys knocked us all out, and we woke up here. Whoever killed Robin, it wasn't us."
Starfire looked like she was about to say something unkind, but she was pre-empted by Raven. "That doesn't matter," said Raven, stepping towards Jinx. "All of you are dead."
Even the other Titans seemed taken aback by this, and Jinx felt her heart leap into her throat. "You... you can't," she said. "We... we didn't kill anybody!"
"I don't have to kill you," said Raven pitilessly, her voice like the pounding of a judge's gavel. "You tried to make a deal with Trigon. Trigon never keeps his promises. Ever. He's gotten what he wants from you, and now he's going to throw you away like any other pawn." Raven leaned forward, staring Jinx squarely in the eye. "You're all gonna burn with the rest of the world," she said. And with that, she turned around, and contemptuously floated out of the jagged hole Starfire had torn in the HIVE Tower wall. One by one, the other Titans followed, last of all Cyborg and Starfire, who released See-More and Jinx only after all the others had left. None of them said anything on the way out.
Clearly, none of them had anything to say.
Once the Titans were gone, See-More slowly limped over to Jinx. "Jinx, you all right?" he asked.
"... yeah," said Jinx noncommittally, staring at the hole that the Titans had disappeared through, her mind far away from the HIVE tower.
"Look," he said, "I... I understand if you're pissed."
"See-More, honestly, right now I don't have the juice to get mad," said Jinx.
See-More chuckled nervously. "Yeah," he said, "I know what you mean. I mean... I thought Robin was like immortal or somethin'. I can't believe he's dead."
"I can," said Jinx, her eyes not moving from the hole in the wall. "Warp, or whatever his name is... left Starfire that disk thing. It was a clue to who he was. And he had to know they'd come here to ask, right?"
"Prob'ly," said See-More. "But then he won't mind if they know, right?"
"I think he wanted them to know," said Jinx. "But there's something else."
"What?"
"He teleported us all back to the Tower while we were out," said Jinx. "And I'm assuming he's the one who killed Robin, right?"
"Sounds right," said See-More. "So?"
"So," said Jinx, turning to See-More for the first time. "We knocked Starfire out before Robin took us down. So if he was there, and he killed Robin, why didn't he kill Starfire too?"
See-More thought about it for a second. "I don't know," he said. "Why wouldn't he do that?"
Jinx turned back to the hole in the wall. "Because I don't think this is about Trigon at all," she said. "This is personal."
"Somethin' between him and Robin?" asked See-More.
"No," said Jinx. "Between him and Starfire."
"Hrm..." said See-More as he considered it. "Well... whatever this thing is, Jinx, what do you think's gonna happen next?"
Jinx took a long, slow breath. "You want my opinion?" she asked.
"Yeah," said See-More. "What do you think?"
Jinx hesitated a moment before replying.
"Armageddon..."
Author's Note: Thank you once more to all who have read this far, and I ask once more to please leave me a token of your opinion that I might improve Chapter 30. As always, may all your endeavors know nothing but success. Good day.
