Chapter 36: The Good Die Young
When the man who had once been named Neil Richards said that in the end it was the rotten bastards who came out ahead, it wasn't a taunt to him. It was a reality.
He knew it all too well, from what he'd seen in his many years on the planet.
And it was a hard learned lesson. Mod hadn't always been the way he was now. Bloody hell, when he'd started out, he was a lot more like his hated enemies the Titans then he ever cared to admit (and fortunately he only had those thoughts when he'd had a pint or three too many).
Though it wasn't like he'd had grounds to have such a mindset, it would seem. Mod had been born in the early 30's. By the time he was approaching the age of reason, World War II was consuming the world and the London Blitz was well underway. Appeasement had only led to Hitler amassing the mightiest army that the world had seen at that time, and government arrogance and incompetence had quickly led to the downfall of France. Now Britain was alone, and the Nazis were determined to wipe the whole island off the face of the earth, leaving nothing of the once mighty empire but ruins and ash.
The Titans thought they had it bad? Even their Final Night mess didn't compare to the terror and horror of having thousands of pounds of bombs dropped on you nightly. At least that lunatic Lord of the Night had been somewhat clean, and most people had never known what hit them, and he'd only had ONE night of destruction. Mod, wondering if he was going to survive into the double digits, had spent many a night cowering in basements and various underground places, hoping and praying that any direct hits would find other targets. As defiant as the British had been, even their traditional stiff upper lip couldn't hide the fear that lay behind every set of eyes. Many had believed it was the end of the world, and they really weren't that far off. When the sight of a ruined body being feasted on by rats was not a once in a lifetime sight but a weekly occurrence, who couldn't say the end times were nigh?
But of course, things did not stay that way. Hitler's slowly disintegrating mind led him to attack the Soviet Union, breaking a peace pact he'd had with them and starting his downfall. Less then six months later the Japanese had reduced Pearl Harbor to a broken shell of its former self and the Americans were in the fray, finally coming out of their isolationist shell that the country often adopted in those days to join the war (and frankly, if Mod could change one bit about history, he would have kept the damn Yanks in said mindset of neutrality: with Europe in ruins after the war's end they'd grabbed onto the top spot on the planet and never looked back, and grown infuriatingly smug and arrogant about it. Mod couldn't even go watch war films any more, as every one that came out of Hollywood depicted the Americans as the lordly saviors of the foolish Europeans who'd let their asses get kicked by the Third Reich, single-handedly turning the tide and winning the war. If anything, the Communists had done more to turn the tide then the bloody Americans, but you wouldn't know that watching Saving Private Ryan! God, he hated Americans almost as much as he hated children and young folks, and he was damned determined to live long enough so he could see them fall from their wretched greed and swaggering hauteur). The war turned and Hitler was crushed. The world was pulled back from the brink of the abyss.
And Mod, who had somehow not lost any family in the terrible attacks, found his young teenage self filled with hope and optimism from it. They'd survived and won. New days were ahead. Anything seemed possible.
And Mod believed he could grab a part of that anything, and as the 40's came to a close and Mod approached adulthood, he'd made a toss at it. He'd always been intelligent and creative, and when the war was done Mod had found himself interested in clothing. For a few years he sketched and drew, and finally he showed off his designs. He thought they were new and interesting, and could potentially be a hit.
Everyone pretty much told him the opposite: they were stupid, ridiculous, and damn it why was he designing clothes, was he a fag? (No, Mod was quite heterosexual, and the abuse he'd taken on the suspicion of being gay had actually given him quite the tolerance for them: lord knows what THEY'D been through). Stop being a dreaming poof and get a real job, Nellie, they'd said.
Mod had been upset and angered, yes. But at the time, he'd taken it. Maybe they were right on some things. Maybe he should get his hands dirty and pour some sweat off his brow before he started focusing on such things as design. So many of his elders had sacrificed so much so he'd have this chance, maybe he should do his own hard work first. And so he'd taken a job at a factory, the first of several rather menial jobs he'd had over the next decade. He didn't LIKE them, but he felt satisfied that it was good, honest work, and that he was probably learning some essential skills. And he never forgot his original interest in clothes, though as time passed and Mod grew more worldly, he began to have new interests in other fields, such as mechanics and electronics. That was where the future lay. But his heart always had a soft spot for his designs, and every now and then he'd look them over, or sketch a new idea.
By the time the late 50's had rolled around, Mod was a foreman at a shipbuilding factory, and while it wasn't No 1 in the country, Mod was content that he was doing a good job running the place and its many young workers. His interests hadn't faded, though at the time Mod had started focusing more on automobiles and electronics (he'd had a few ideas regarding improvements on transistors for example), writing down and sketching his ideas when he could. He kept several journals at work for that purposes, filled with various scribbles, with a few of course devoted to his clothing ideas. He was saving his money with the rough idea that he'd quit in a few years and work on developing a prototype or two, and seeing where that got him.
Then one day a bad fire sprang up in the factory, and Mod's office was very badly scorched. Mod had consigned himself to the idea his journals were lost, which upset him some, but not too much: he had a few dozen more back at his flat and he'd been able to recreate most of what he'd come up with by memory. He swallowed the loss and returned to work when the factory was repaired. And life went on.
And then several months later they appeared.
HIS clothing, on the backs of teenagers as a new fad swept through England. His journals weren't as destroyed as he'd believed. Someone had gotten ahold of them, somehow, and taken the designs, placing them among other clothing types such as Italian suits, and as Mod had once dreamed, they'd caught on, as young people married them to certain brands of music and created a sub-culture. Its name was mod, short for Modernism.
At least that was what Mod believed: he never really had any proof that someone HAD come across his books and stolen his ideas or if someone had somehow come up with the same concepts and had a better time to try them out. In the end, Neil Richards, as he was still known then, didn't really have a problem with that, or with the music mixing, or the fact he never made a penny off of it (though not at the beginning). No, what ultimately brought Mod around to the viewpoints that would define the rest of his life was that he didn't get a single ounce of credit in the creation of the culture. Not even a little. Not even the tiniest mention in some third-rate newspaper or a line in some dusty history book. His creations had been taken from him, and he'd been completely cut out.
And oh, how he'd raged at that fact. He'd tried to prove it, of course. But no one would believe him, even with his old sketchbooks. He'd been laughed out of the patent office, he was laughed out of the newspapers, and the kids who had so wholly embraced his creative fruits laughed at the hardest at him, when they weren't mocking him for being old ( HE HADN'T EVEN TURNED 30 YET! HE WASN'T OLD!), unable and unwilling to believe that HE was, if not the, at least ONE of the fathers of their culture.
But the ones that had the farthest-reaching effects on him were his young workers at the factory, more then a few who had embraced the mod style themselves. They quickly learned of his claims, and it became a joke at his place of work as well. They even gave him a nickname behind his back. Richards claimed to have created the mod lifestyle, so therefore he wasn't just a mod, he was THE Mod. And now he was furious at this so-called theft of his work, all the time, which really made him a bit crazy, didn't it? Therefore, he was the Mad Mod.
It was in those terrible months that Mod finally learned the harsh truths about the way the world worked. And what he realized most of all was that the truth and reality didn't really matter. All that mattered was what people thought, and in most cases, merely what they saw would do: no thought was needed. And who most often reaped the rewards of such a viewpoint? Why, the people who could lie and screw over the best to ensure it suited them: it was the rotten bastards who came out ahead, not the honest, hard-working ones. And who so often swallowed those lies and believed them without thought? Why, the youth, the idiotic, self-righteous, self-satisfied, youth, who not only didn't know the truth but didn't give a damn. The endless youth, swallowing up the world in the baby boom after the war.
And in these realizations, Mod in turn realized what he would do with his life. If that was what the world rewarded, then Mod would make damn sure he got his share. And he'd make damn sure everyone else regretted that fact as badly as Mod regretted his wasted years.
And so Mod had completely changed gears, throwing away his old work except where it suited him. He began new studies into perception, learning about hypnosis, hallucination, illusion, misdirection, and every other trick of 'the eye' he could. And he learned that you didn't always have to be the biggest and baddest when you had the tools and the talent to build things that would serve those tasks for you. In time, he did quit his job (called Mad Mod by his co-workers to the end), and he did build some prototypes.
He used them to rob a bank blind, and followed that up with new technology and techniques unseen anywhere else on the planet at the time that ensured not a single cent of the money was traced to him. Flush with his new funds, he began further work on his prototypes.
And hence was his life for the next few decades, as Mod built his machines and used them to take whatever he wanted. In the process, with his parents dead and his siblings not that close to him, Mod gradually severed all ties to his previous life, erasing every single record of Neil Richards' existence. It ceased to be his name: he had a new one. He was the Mad Mod, now and forever.
And as technology advanced, by his hands and others, Mod did everything he could to combine and enhance, creating smaller, more powerful, and more complex tricks involving the altering of perception and view. This made sure that he was never linked to any crimes: his devices or patsies did the work for him, and over time his bank accounts grew into the hundreds of millions, money Mod used to indulge his twin desires for revenge and improvement, always seeking to create something bigger and better. But anything he did make that he couldn't use, he locked away: society had stolen his initial work, it would never see anything of any future work he made.
And his resentment of youth only grew deeper and more virulent as time passed: he didn't expect his culture to last forever, but he was still offended when the youth finally discarded it, moving on like it never existed (true, there was always a niche for it somewhere, but hell, there were still people who thought Hitler was right, and Mod knew firsthand what idiots they were). And when his country had embraced punk and all its nihilistic nonsense, Mod had seriously considered using his machines to have the Sex Pistols murdered in their beds. In the end, his work distracted him, though his hatred remained as fierce as ever.
Something else was working at him too. Time. He'd been mocked by those teenage idiots as old long ago, but now he really was starting to get old. And he was getting to the age of reflection, where after so long sustaining him, the angry passions that had driven him were finally burning out. When he'd had too many beers, he sometimes wondered if he wasted his whole damn life, a thought that ceased occurring to him the next morning when he woke up with a hangover, the fresh pain adding new fuel to his dysfunctions. But technology was still advancing, and Mod was eager to see what he could make next. So he had to deal with the problem of time.
So he trained his tremendously potent noggin on it, and after seven months of focus he'd finished the first prototype of his Chronological Energy Transference Device, a mechanism he'd improve over the years to the point where he could fit it into his cane (he tended now to just call it his 'Chronocane'). The device used a complicated method of combining various energies to literally 'drain time' from living creatures, transferring it to other creatures and quite literally making their biological clocks run in reverse, even as the clocks of the target suddenly sped ahead several hours. After a great deal of testing, Mod had finally used it on himself, and found to his great joy it worked, turning back the clock to when he was a young man.
Unfortunately, as Mod found out, the problem was he wouldn't stay that way. On this plane of existence, time was one of the fundamental forces of the universe, and it could be damn stubborn when it came to it being manipulated. Eventually, no matter how hard Mod tried, the chrono-energies he'd stolen would leave his body, returning it to its original, aged state, while it returned whatever he'd stolen the energy from to its proper age. Despite all his efforts, Mod found he could only become young for a few days at most: expanding that or making it permanent seemed beyond his ability. Still, it was a damn useful trick from time to time, not to mention an effective disabling and intimidating factor whenever Mod had to actually meet with like criminal minds. And so he'd gone on for several more years.
But, as the millennium passed, Mod found that even that wasn't keeping him going any more. Becoming young just made him more aware of how old he was in natural terms, and he could swear that when he was younger his brain didn't seem as sharp and effective as it did for him in old age, polished by decades of study, thought, and creation. Not to mention superheroes were making his old-style robberies nearly impossible to pull off: even if they never traced it back to him (and they'd tried, Mod had had a flew close calls, as much as it irritated him), it was just easier to electronically hack into bank accounts and transfer the money elsewhere, and where was the fun in that?
It seemed even his beloved England was turning on him. It had fended off the Nazi threat that had marked his childhood, but sometimes Mod thought the cure had seemed worse then the disease, as the war's ravages started the country's long, slow decline. Not to mention it's cold weather bothering his aging body and its government becoming the toady and puppy of the hated United States. Indeed, he'd nearly had a stroke when a trip to a doctor (under a false identity) led to the doctor recommending he find a warmer climate to live in if he wanted a longer and more comfortable old age.
Like Florida.
But after a great deal of grudging thought (not to mention aching joints), Mod had finally decided he would at least try it, and had flown over to Florida.
He'd never expected to find renewed purpose there, but than again, he never expected this would be his life to begin with, as within a week he'd seen them in a newspaper.
The Teen Titans. Youth were bad enough, and superheroes almost as much so, but YOUNG SUPERHEROES? Mod hated them on sight. One would think that after his rage for several decades at the failings of young people a group that went out and did good things might appeal to him, but to Mod, a career criminal stuck in his ways (which were never that balanced and sane to begin with), it struck him as a personal insult. Rotten kids pretending to not be rotten? And mucking around in his life's work? How dare they!
And so, Mod found a new reason to go on. He had more then enough money, and making new things was a 'you had to be there' process. Now, he had one goal: teach these little bastards a lesson.
And so Mod had set up a masterwork inside an old oil rig, combining his life's work on perception and mechanics to create a nightmare classroom taught by him (or rather, a hologram of his young self clad in the clothing HE'D invented), even figuring out ways to nullify the Titans' powers and sneak into their Tower in the process. And so he'd kidnapped them, to break their minds for their personal insult.
…and he'd lost. The leader, Robin, had somehow seen through the illusion and wrecked it all. And since Mod had needed to be right there to keep everything going (micromanagement worked best, whether in running a factory or trying to break down children's minds), for the first time in his life he'd been caught.
The Titans probably would have insulted him less if they'd all spat in his face. Indeed, their victory made Mod angrier then he had been in decades.
He didn't stay in jail long (once captured the Titans turned their attention from him onto other things, and the police, stifled by a lack of records, quickly fell victim to his contingency plans that broke him out), and with renewed vigor he set to work on a new master plan. And as time passed, Mod decided he'd kill two birds with one stone and take a shot at the bastard States as well, and unveiled a new magnum opus of illusion and deception combined with force on that Fourth of July. He even pulled out the old chronocane, using it on Robin for his insult of foiling him last time (and using a hologram to put various suits over his own once he'd become youthful again). Unfortunately, while Mod had compensated for the fact that by then three new members had joined the Titans, it wasn't enough, and he lost once more. Robin even stole his youth back with Mod's own cane before breaking it (though Robin would have just had to break the cane to do that instead of putting the process in reverse: the problem with reducing such a complicated device down to such small levels left it immensely delicate, and despite his efforts Mod would always find his 'youth charge' immediately dissipating if his cane was broken), and the Titans had actually chased him around the street a bit before throwing him back in jail.
Once again, Mod swiftly broke out, but this time he retreated from Jump, his anger boiling within him. Next time would be different. The third time would be a charm.
It was with those thoughts that Mod had hidden in a small hotel on the coast of Florida.
And it was on his second night sleeping there that he'd suddenly woken up with a gigantic flash of creative insight that felt like a bomb going off in his head. He'd flown to the closest desk and spent the next fifteen hours writing furiously as thoughts poured one after another from his brain, the beginnings of what would eventually be his quark gluon plasma generator. Indeed, he'd written so furiously that when studying the notes later he had trouble understanding about a third of them.
Once the epiphany stage had passed though, Mod was uncertain just what to do with such a theoretical power source. However, believing that surely he had been struck by these thoughts for a reason, Mod had continued with research, study, and insight into the machine…and quickly come up with a solution: if he could properly build such a machine, he could potentially build a robot that used it as a power source, a robot so overwhelmingly strong that the Titans would have no chance against it. His masterful setups had failed twice: perhaps this time he should just cut to the chase. And so Mod had thrown himself into finalizing the generator and creating the robot prototype that would be needed to harness and utilize its power.
He'd been working on it for just over a month when he had the headache, an agony ripping through his skull so intense he was left with a bloody nose. Mod was no idiot, and quickly assumed another one of his false identities to go to the closest 'best' hospital he could for treatment
Despite himself, he never thought of the possibilities until the CAT scans came back.
He was dying: his brain was infested with a tumor that had rooted itself over his frontal lobes, plaguing it like a malignant fungus. The tendrils it had driven into the tissue were too deep to remove, and killing the 'unprotected' rotten tissue was ultimately pointless: unless they got it all it will simply return. The doctors couldn't give him a time frame until he died, but they suggested he put his affairs in order, and that he might want to prepare himself for constant medical care in his last few months.
Mod thought he had been mad before: his anger at this revelation was so intense it was amazing he didn't fry the tumor through sheer force of will. This couldn't happen, not now. Not when he had a surefire way to destroy the Titans.
But it had: time had seemingly punished him for his defiances of it by ensuring Mod would not have enough to finish his final master plan.
Like hell he'd let it.
Mod quickly acquired his own medical equipment, built a new chronocane, and tested his last hope as he drained the first young person he could and had new tests done on his own. He did several just to be sure, and found to his immense relief that what he theorized was true: when he was young, the tumor vanished, 'rewound' out of existence. But this still left the original problem: his time drains were limited, and Mod couldn't live going from victim to victim, he'd surely get caught and risk end up dying in a prison hospital. He needed something more permanent…but WHAT?
It was in those days afterward that Mod found that his time reversal had negative side affects as well: he no longer could work on his generator or robot. New ideas simply would not come, and he found that even doing technical work was immensely confusing unless he consulted his notes. What he had theorized was apparently true: while he retained memory when he became young, his intellectual abilities dropped down, lacking the polish of a long life. An annoying factor, but one that paled in comparison to the reaper's scythe hanging over him. So Mod let himself stay old to do his creative thinking, as he tried, desperately, to find a solution.
And amazingly, he did. While his chronocane (and the transference technology in itself) was immensely advanced, it was obsolete in several areas already, technology forever forging ahead. Studying several new mechanical techniques and advances, Mod finally came across an answer to permanently transferring youth to himself…all he would need to do is drain all the power off all the electrical grids of the States to do it.
Or…invent a brand new power source that would provide him with that much energy.
Like his generator. He'd already started working on the answer.
But that wasn't the end of his problems, oh no. By that failed Fourth of July revolution, Mod had exposed his time-sucking technology: it was known now. Even if he build a permanent transfer machine, the finding of a child suddenly transformed into an old man would surely provoke the fury of the police and by extension the superheroes. They'd give him no peace in attempting to hunt him down and reverse the process: he'd have a new life but wouldn't be able to enjoy any of it for as long as it lasted.
But Mod wasn't giving up when he had answers in his grasp, and a few more weeks' work finally gave him a new solution. The main reason his chronocane had failed in permanent transference was that Mod lacked the power to permanently bind such energies to himself. As a result, Mod often took all the youth he could in one shot, as it wasn't going to last. But his initial studies hadn't made this the only option: Mod could theoretically take as much time as he wanted (to a certain limit of course: Mod's early tests had realized the deep hazards of taking too much. If he drained the energies of something to the point where it literally ceased to exist, not only did he risk ending up as an infant himself, but the energies would have no vessel to return to when they left him, and lacking a home, they would promptly enter anything in the vicinity, causing spontaneous acts of unnatural aging that wouldn't be good for ANYTHING. Mod had, early on, tried to work out what would happen if he somehow sucked up enough chronological energy so that both he and the target ceased to exist, hence eliminating both the original vessel and the receiving one. When early answers indicated the potential complete unraveling of the fabric of the universe ala Back To The Future, Mod had made sure to put severe safety measures in place). He could even take time from inorganic matter if he chose, though he never did: time affected things like rocks and trees different then humans, and it created too many risky variables. So taking a child's whole life seemed to invite more trouble then it was worth…why not take just a little?
And while studying that possibility, Mod stumbled across another strong theory: in basic terms, while it was 'easy' to return such stolen energies if they were taken in one big dose (via the natural state of order, or the reversal of his devices), if Mod took a little from multiple people, all at once, the unique energies would act like ingredients in a mixing bowl that had just been subjected to a blender: it would be left a combined entity, unable to separate the original ingredients out from again. Basically, it would be nearly impossible to suck the youth back out of him if he stole it from a bunch of people at once in a properly synchronized array.
He had his answer: with his quark powered generator, a modified chronological transference device, and enough targets, Mod would not only defeat the tumor, he'd give himself a second life.
But acquiring so many targets, aka children…that would be a task in and of itself.
For that, Mod would need a few new things. Like help.
And so that was how it came to pass that Mod had recruited Jonathon Renard, or as he much preferred, Johnny Rancid. It wasn't the first choice Mod would have made: Rancid was close to the ages Mod detested and also fully enamored of the punk lifestyle that Mod had also gravely disliked. But Rancid had a great aptitude for mechanics, he hated the Titans as much as Mod did, and Mod paid him enough to keep him in line, especially with the other promise Mod made to him: if Rancid helped him complete these tasks needed to give himself a new life, Mod would give him his initial generator and robot to use as he saw fit. The concept of the hell he could raise with such things, combined with the fact Rancid could only wrap his mind around the lower concepts, insured that Mod had something of a dependable partner. At least at the moment.
And he needed it, as Mod now had four large tasks stretching before him: complete the generator, complete the new transference array, kidnap enough children to make it all worthwhile, and not get caught in the process. And in the last one, the big problem was always going to be those accursed Titans.
And in that, Mod had his final epiphany. He could combine all the tasks into one massive master plan, and do everything at once: save his life and destroy his enemies. His original plan of a superpowered robot was fine, but it lacked spark. It might be able to slaughter the Titans, but there would be little satisfaction in that, especially after the grief they'd given Mod. They deserved worse. They deserved to have their spirits destroyed as well as their bodies. But after all they'd endured, Mod knew that'd be harder to do then theorize.
But they were still stupid kids, and part of them still held onto concepts like justice and fairness.
That was his answer. That was the chink in their armor that Mod would slip a dagger into. That was what he would create his greatest scheme ever around.
And so Mod threw himself into the work. He, Rancid, and his robots worked tirelessly to assemble the generator piece by piece, only planning to fully put it together and turn it on at the right time. Mod went into his schematics and studies on perception and began modifying and creating the devices he'd needed. Mechanisms to hide the power output of the generator. Mechanisms to aid in the swift kidnapping of children and leave behind no witnesses of any kind, human or electronic, as well as forensics of any type. Mechanisms to reinforce the wonderful trick he was about to play. While some of those were tricky, creating the modified chrono-transference setup was almost simple to Mod.
But the majority of the work went into creating the ZP units, the robots that would masquerade as new, incredibly powerful heroes that would integrate themselves into the Teen Titans. Knowing the power of cynicism and the lure of hope, Mod decided to make them children, young fans of the Titans who had been given powers by miraculous means, and hence now wanted to be everything they believed the Titans were. While on one hand this would prompt more suspicion, Mod believed the payoff would be far more effective when the truth was revealed.
And to hide the suspicion, Mod created as meticulous a background for the Zap Pack as he could. He created robots to be their parents and placed them in a suburb of Jump, hypnotizing the surrounding blocks so they believed the proper backstory of when the units had arrived with their children (who were played by simpler models until the actual ZP units had been finished). He contacted the Calculator, the information source for the underworld, and made a massive payment to him to create and insert the needed computer records, as well as actual hard fakes later when it was needed. He even swallowed his pride and contacted outside sources, trading information and schematics for anything that would help him make the most realistic, flawless robot fakes he could, for the parents and ESPECIALLY for the Zap Pack.
The outside help had convinced him of the viability of the scheme, as he'd gotten a fair bit of it. Thomas Oscar Morrow had shared with him immensely useful information on creating and programming the AI's. A mysterious contact that simply gave themselves as L.Dafoe, upon being traded several of Mod's power schematics, had provided an immensely long analysis on human psychology and the weaknesses Mod could exploit. Mod had even been given various information on robot models and concealing their true nature by another, nameless contact, though Mod had strong suspicions it was actually Lex Luthor, perhaps acting on a whim, or bored in his office one day. Mod had made sure to hold back enough details so no one figured out what he was doing, or so he thought (in reality all his important contacts figured it out almost immediately, but had no reason to tell anyone, yet).
The overall message was that dedication was the thing. Simply programming his robots to impersonate their roles wasn't enough: it was better to go the extra mile and actually MAKE them their roles. As long as Mod maintained master control over them, actually inserting them completely into their concepts would work far better then just trying to pretend being them. That went for the parents as well.
And so Mod had done that. He'd created AI's so complex he believed the Nobel Prize Committee should have given them their next ten year's worth of awards just for them. If he actually figured out how to make human brains, he couldn't have designed them much better then the electronic counterparts he'd made. While deep down the Zap Pack and the AHDD-CM that had become the final version of their parents knew they were robots and what their ultimate purpose was, it didn't get in their way. The parents acted like parents, and the Zap Pack acted like hero-worshipping kids. It was virtually seamless. Mod was so impressed with his own work he sometimes forgot the falseness at their core himself.
He would have enjoyed it more if the tumor hadn't become more and more deliberating as time passed. Mod needed to be old to work at his highest level, and that became more and more strenuous as the tumor advanced. The headaches became more frequent, Mod had trouble keeping food down, he would have random phases of weakness in his arms and legs, and later on he began suffering blackouts, waking up to find hours had passed. Time was breathing down his neck, and he was pressed to finish this final task and do everything right.
The other problem was Rancid. Despite how much Mod had paid him, Rancid was a creature of chaos, loving the feel of causing a little havoc, and he'd only put up with keeping his head down and doing endless menial work with the promise of all his dreams coming within his grasp when it was done for so long. Mod had been able to distract him for a while with the kidnappings (Johnny liked doing ANYTHING that could be called wicked), Johnny utilizing the cloaking/distorting and evidence preventing devices (the latter mostly done via a personal shield that prevented any trace evidence from being left behind: similar devices were on the modified van they'd used and a large one had been around the Bonaparte house) in tandem with Mod to randomly locate and take kids to their various hideouts. He also got a kick out of transporting the kids from city to city in large trucks as they drew larger in number, partially for the risk and partially for how stressed said risk made Mod. The kids weren't much of a problem: Mod kept them quiet and pacified with various hypnotic technology and promises to let them go when he was done with the 'favor' they were going to do for him (and Mod meant it: he may have been a criminal and he may have hated kids, but he wasn't a monster, or at least that kind of monster), setting up each hideout in advance and moving between each perfectly, no one suspecting a thing on the nature of the kidnappings until it was needed.
But even those had failed to pacify Rancid, and he began pushing to at least go out and raise some hell. Mod had done his best to discourage him, pointing out that if he got caught, he could screw up their scheme, and that would end without him having superpowered robots at his beck and call. It had worked, somewhat, but Rancid had no patience and began getting antsier and antsier, especially at the length of time Mod was spending to set up the Zap Pack. They had the generator, they had the timewhowhatis, they had lots of kids, why not just do the deed and send the robots to smash the Titans flat?
Mod had spent two hours trying to explain the more satisfying end his plan would result in, and Johnny seemed to buy it. But Mod had been feeling the pressure. They were finally in Jump, the generator was ready, and just a few more children needed to be taken for Mod's optimum conditions. And spending time in his natural body was getting even harder.
Worst of all, while the setup for the Zap Pack was amazingly detailed, it was not complete. Mod was still struggling to figure out how to conceal their nature from several types of scans, including the sensing abilities of the witch Raven. It was immensely aggravating: if he could figure out a way to conceal or fake out the enhanced senses the shape shifter Beast Boy could adapt, surely there was a way to fake out the witch's abilities to sense emotions, or the robot's deeper scanning ability!
But he had been coming up blank on those. Maybe he didn't have the time to fully do his plan. Maybe it might be smarter to listen to Rancid.
In the end, life had once again answered for him.
Mod had been keeping an eye on the Titans, even in other cities, and especially in Jump. And he saw what happened when the Titans abruptly left, and then returned without one of their members, the white haired 'Savior' (stupid pretentious git, like a rotten kid could save anything). Mod had good enough recon to puzzle out he was either dead or disabled for a considerable period. And then, as if life was granting him a wish, the witch and the robot both left, one after the other, heading out of the city. It seemed like too tempting an opportunity to pass up, but after all that had happened, Mod didn't want to risk jumping the gun and having it all fall apart…
And then Kurai had attacked. Mod had been so focused on his own plan and keeping it hidden, it seemed, that he hadn't heard anything through the underworld grapevine about others.
And once it started, Mod knew he had a serious problem. Kurai was powerful enough to potentially beat and kill the Titans at full strength, let along the reduced numbers they were at now, and that wasn't even considering the massive robot army and minions of Slade he'd assembled as backup.
If Kurai killed the Titans, the heart would go out of Mod's plan. Sure, he could still be young, and his foes would be dead…but it would lack satisfaction.
And so Mod rolled the dice, turned on the generator, and sent out the Zap Pack.
And in the end, it had worked better than Mod could have ever hoped. Sure, the Titans were suspicious, especially the idiot Gauntlet (Mod had nearly had a heart attack when he'd labeled the Zap Pack as 'evil'), but not overtly suspicious. And the sudden jump into action had forced Mod to contact the Calculator and tell him to put the hard copy fakes in place immediately, something Calculator had grumbled about, hating being put on the spot (Mod sweetened the deal with an extra 10 million dollar bonus). In the end, Calculator had actually done pretty well in getting his 'outsourced work' to place the carefully prepared fake documents…but with the rush job needed, even he hadn't been perfect. But he'd done well enough to fool Robin, and the holes discovered by Gauntlet (indeed, the identical report cards and lack of tax records had meant something after all) were rendered irrelevant by who he was. Fortunately, the nature of the Zap Pack gave Mod several days to properly set up the parents at the houses as well as the Zap Pack's fake origin. The 'mystery sky metal' was actually just a piece of prepared titanium and steel Mod had irritated with energies from his chrono-transference machine and quark gluon generator: it left a strange non-radioactive signature that baffled most modern computers until it faded away, hence leaving Robin with a mystery he was destined never to solve. Though in the end he'd forgotten the picture thing Gauntlet had brought up, but that had once again proven relatively irrelevant due to how Gauntlet was. Indeed, it was as if life was telling him he would win: Raven and Cyborg, the really hard ones to fool, were out of town, and the paranoid and distrusting Savior was out of the picture it seemed. Even if Cyborg or Raven had returned, by then the Zap Pack would have entrusted themselves to the Titans, and neither would have a reason to look beyond the surface (at least that was Mod's theory, though he preferred that the two not come back at all until things were done). That left Robin, and the whole plan was set up to fool him: the rest of the Titans, as Gauntlet had accurately pointed out, could easily be dismissed.
And Robin, for all his brains, still had that hope Mod could exploit, the hope that sprung from the sorrow and weariness of watching bad things happen, and of wanting a balance, wanting it bad enough to ignore things when they shouldn't have. And so the Titans had accepted the Zap Pack, with the exception of Gauntlet, and all Mod had to do was press a button here and there and Robin did the rest, kicking Gauntlet off the team and ensuring anything the teenager claimed would be believed as false and selfishly delusional.
It was going perfectly, though Mod regretted having to beat up so many of his fellows united in hatred of the Titans. But it was a necessary evil. Now all Mod had to do was grab a few more kids and finish up a few last little details…
And then Rancid had finally been unable to take it any more and run off to indulge his deviant urges. Mod had tried to stop him, but Rancid had blown him off, saying that with the Zap Pack around, he was essentially untouchable: they wouldn't try and stop him, and even if things went badly he could always use them to break out or get away. It could be blamed on childish error, and he'd have free reign to do whatever he wanted.
It was sad, really. Mod had not been planning to betray Rancid. He kept his word: that was the sign of a proper adult. When this was done and Mod had been made young again, he HAD been going to give Rancid the Zap Pack and the quark generator to do with as he wished (he might not have been as smart as he was now when he was young, but Mod had compensated for this by writing comprehensive notes of every single aspect of the process, right down to the smallest detail, on paper and in the computer. Even with his reduced intellect, he would be able to re-create his greatest inventions via that method). But Rancid had simply assumed too much: that the Zap Pack as they were then would keep him from being caught or held, and that hence the information Rancid possessed of their true nature would not fall into the wrong hands. Mod couldn't risk it.
And so he'd had sent the Zap Pack after him, making Blaze 'accidentally' break his jaw to keep him from talking. With Rancid's violent nature, he would surely be tied down at all times in the prison hospital, and no none would think to even given him a crayon, let alone pen and paper: with no jaw he wouldn't be saying or writing down anything incriminating. He'd tried, yelling "I'VE BEEN BETRAYED!" as he was taken away via ambulance, but the Titans had had no idea what he was saying, and hence Rancid had been removed from the picture. It was regrettable, but the man had brought it on himself. Young people had no patience nowadays, even the ones Mod thought weren't half-bad (in relative terms).
Of course, without Rancid, Mod had found himself without the pair of strong, steady arms that had helped him with a lot of the practical details. There were still a few kids left to kidnap, and now Mod had to do it himself, and even with the help of his devices that wasn't going to be easy. Plus he now had to set everything up himself: his robots would help but only to a degree, and Mod was loathe to call in the Zap Pack or the parents lest it screw up the plan. Perhaps the worst part of the whole thing was the part that Mod wasn't even aware of: the tumor had long ago started eating away at the part of Mod's brain that controlled rationality, and Mod's ability to be straightforward and lucid was starting to come and go. Indeed, it was that fact that had resulted in Mod's 'epiphany' over the ridiculously complicated nature of his scheme: Robin had claimed villains who were smart hated needless complications, but that didn't really apply to a villain whose old gray matter ain't what it used to be, as one might say.
And hence instead of a straightforward line of task-doing and wrapping up, Mod's plans became twisted and distorted as he veered from lucidity to madness and back, not even aware of it half the time. He'd had the sense to locate a being-transported Overload and use an old nanomachine device he'd invented earlier to supercharge him, hence tying up the Titans so he could carry out the remaining three kidnappings (which had actually gone well), but then, falsely believing he needed to, he'd later released an old robot he'd built back in the 50's that he'd mothballed ages ago for…well, just because (having a shrinking and teleporting mechanism was very useful in making a robot pop out of nowhere). Upon releasing the robot, he realized that he should probably go kidnap one last kid in the process. Except he'd been struck by another terrible headache as he was dragging him away and he'd dropped his distorting device, letting the kid wake up. The kid had promptly bit him (and could you blame him? As well as being dragged off, Mod at the time was old and his grip was very high on the 'pinch' factor, hence the kid describing it as 'painful') and Mod had cursed at him, calling him a 'little rotter' (a spot of beneficial mis-remembrance) and then activating his backup device, at which point he decided he was better off without one extra kid then with the extra hassle and ran off, leaving the kid behind. Driving back to his base, his mind cleared up enough that he realized the best thing to do was drain the first person he saw and then use his clear-thinking young self to properly predict that his failure would surely put Robin on his tail, so he'd best put the plan into its end stages.
And that was just what he'd done.
True, there had been one last (metaphorical) headache when Gauntlet had broken into the parents' house. Mad Mod, multitasking on keeping an eye on the approaching Titans AND keeping the various blocking and distorting fields properly synched so he could communicate but the Titans couldn't, had tried on top of that to feed the proper things to say into the ears of the parents. It had almost worked, but Mod had outsmarted himself and accidentally given Rob's real origin instead of the cover story, which had blown the whole thing up and forced Mod to activate the combat attributes of the robots and ordered them to destroy Gauntlet. Whether they succeeded or failed didn't matter: the mice were sniffing at the cheese and even if Gauntlet beat the robots, figured out where his friends were, and ran over, he'd just end up in the same fate the Titans were destined to.
Which was finally coming to pass. After all his work, all his trouble, all the hassles including a defiant partner and a brain that was turning to rot, Mad Mod had pulled it off. The Titans had bought his story and Mod had yanked the rug out from under them, and the look on their faces as they realized it made Mod feel better then he had perhaps in decades.
And it was just beginning. The beginning of the end.
"Destroy them."
And now…you know the rest…of the story.
(Author's Note: Sorry to interrupt, but I figure I should point this out to possible new readers: yes, Jump City is in California. CANON Jump City. When I first started making my Titan world back in Season 1, a communication snafu caused me to place it in Florida, and by the time we had precise confirmation of its location in Season 5, it was too late to change it back. So yes, that means Titans East doesn't make a lot of sense…but pobody's nerfect. Hence, in my fanon world, Jump is in Florida. Also, Mad Mod's just given origin was also overhauled by me: he had virtually none in the comics and none in the cartoons, so hey, open field. Sorry for the interruption, but at least I didn't stick it right in the narrative, right? Why didn't I put it at the beginning…because it would spoil the upcoming writing, that's why. Story continuing! Back to the deep poop the Titans are in!)
"I'm still not sure what the hell is going on here Rob." Cyborg said as he frantically chased Gauntlet around.
"Didn't you hear the voice? Mad Mod built superrobots and he's tricked our friends into thinking they're heroes, and now he's going to turn said superrobots on our friends and kill them!"
"Mod…what…why him…"
"Oh read the above narrative! DAMN!" Gauntlet said. "I didn't have time to triangulate Robin's position: I don't have any idea where he is! Cyborg, can you track them?"
"I'll try." Cyborg said, still in the dark about what was going on, but if it was serious enough to make Rob act, well, serious…
"…damn it. Something's jamming their tracking and location devices. I can't get a firm signal." Cyborg informed the frantic teen, which didn't help his mood.
"Great. Where the hell could they be?" Gauntlet said, banging his hand on his forehead. "Wait, maybe Mod had his base rise out of the ocean or something!…no, scratch that." Gauntlet said as he ran over to the window and scanned the sea.
"Uh Rob…?" Cyborg began.
"Maybe Robin left a subtle clue somewhere. Quick Cyborg, let's take a look at the contents of the fridge!" Gauntlet said as he opened said appliance. "Okay…if we assume that that can of juice is Titans Tower, then we can conclude that that old steak is City Hall…but what would the goal be…AHA! Last week's leftovers! No wait, that would put us right in the middle of…"
"Rob…!"
"Wait, I know, Robin probably foresaw this, so he must have stolen Doctor Doom's time machine! Using the Cosmic Treadmill and the aid of Kid Flash, he could break the dimensional veil and steal it! He must have left it around here somewhere so that we could go into the past and find out where he went!"
"….WHAT?"
"Now it's been a while since I saw Doctor Doom's time machine, but the only room that could have it is…ACK!" Gauntlet yelped as Cyborg walked over to him, seized him by the ear, and began dragging him across the room.
"I was TRYING to tell you, Robin's room is lit up. I know that glow, it's his computer. And if I know Tim…" Cyborg said, as he pulled Gauntlet into Robin's work room…revealing the large computer screen, still adorned with the same coordinates that Robin had worked out and headed off to, in such a hurry he hadn't even turned his computer off.
"We could just use THOSE." Cyborg said.
"…Sorry. Being right about this crazy conspiracy is throwing off my Occam's Razor. Let's go! I'll drive!" Gauntlet said as he ran off.
"Oh no, you being right does NOT give you THAT right…!" Cyborg yelled as he chased after the blonde teen, who had pulled out Cyborg's communicator and was fiddling with it.
"I just realized, we are very badly outmatched." Gauntlet said to Cyborg.
"So what are you doing?"
"Calling Young Justice." Gauntlet said as he finished the call and put it to his ear.
BEEP!
"Hi, this is Superboy and you have reached the Young Justice hotline. We're sorry, but our team has been disbanded to make room for a Teen Titans comic. Please make a note of it."
"DAMN YOU GEOFF JOHNS!"
"Destroy them."
The fact that Robin didn't immediately see his vision go black and his sense of being cease to exist took a bit to register to him, as he found he'd actually closed his eyes when Mod had spoke.
He'd already accepted he was dead. Gauntlet had been right, and the little kids who Robin had actually believed were just that were in fact agents of one of their bitter enemies. And considering all he'd analyzed, Robin had been certain of his own demise as soon as Mod had given the order.
But the attack hadn't come.
And Robin found it still wasn't coming as he looked up at Mad Mod, the Zap Pack floating around him. And for the first time he noted their expressions.
They weren't smiling, wickedly or otherwise. In fact, their faces didn't show any malice at all. Instead, all there was…was confusion.
"…did I stutter? DO IT!" Mod yelled. The Zap Pack looked at Mod, and a look of confusion crossed Mod's own features. "WHAT?"
"But master…they're the Titans." Blast said.
"Why?" Blaze asked, and Robin's eyes widened a bit. Blaze's tone was actually underscored with pleading.
A fact that clearly registered to Mad Mod as well, as his anger went from restrained to raging.
"I KNOW IT'S THE TEEN TITANS! I MAY BE OLD AND DYING OF A BRAIN TUMOR BUT I'M NOT GOING BLIND! DESTROY THEM! WIPE THEM FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!"
"….but…" Blast said.
"Stop thinking about your care and admiration for them! It's false! It doesn't exist! I created it for you to play a role, just like I created every aspect of your beings! It only exists because I said it existed! And now I'm saying it doesn't! STRIKE! KILL THEM!" Mad Mod raged, stomping on his platform.
As Robin leapt and struck, his fingers snapping out as Robin yanked out his metal disc weapons, the little projectiles sprouting between his digits before he hurled them all rapidly directly at Mad Mod, hoping and praying he'd get one hit through and that if the head was cut off, the body would die.
The Zap Pack were caught off guard by the sudden attack, but in the end that meant nothing, as the discs all slammed into a shield that was surrounding Mod's platform, the invisible barrier rippling as Mod yelped and jumped from the attack. When he recovered, he looked even madder.
"DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID? IF I HADN'T HAD A SECOND SHIELD…ARGH! ATTACK! THAT'S AN ORDER! ATTACK NOW OR I'LL FRY YOUR AI'S LIKE CHIPS IN A PAN!" Mod yelled, as he lifted his cane and appeared to press something on it, or at least gave the indication he would do so.
"….yes sir." Blast said, as he turned towards the Titans, his voice heavy with regret. Robin narrowed his eyes.
"Guys, I know, BUT SNAP OUT OF IT! ONE WAY OR ANOTHER HERE COMES TROUBLE!" Robin yelled, trying to get his teammates out of the state of shock they were still surely in. Robin was still trying to process this terrible surprise himself, but he'd had training in not letting surprises paralyze you. The rest of his team didn't, and even if the Zap Pack seemed reluctant to fight, that didn't change the reality of their strength…
And they came for them.
But, as Robin had crossed his fingers for, they didn't come at top speed. If they'd flown at the four of them as fast as they could, Robin, Beast Boy, and Terra would have been reduced to smears on the wall within a second, and Starfire wouldn't have lasted much longer.
But they didn't zap like their namesake. Their flight, hesitant and almost penitent, was easy to see coming.
And even then, Robin had to force himself to pull out his metal staff.
Not because he was afraid. No. Because he had his own regrets. Life hadn't been getting better. It was as nasty as it had ever been; it was just getting better at being sneaky about it. The light at the end of the tunnel had turned out to be a train that was roaring down the tracks at Robin, and not only was his boot caught in the metal trail, someone had taken a blowtorch to it and welded it to the tracks. And someone had filled his boot with crazy glue beforehand. All in all, the situation was horrendously bad.
He knew about such situations. He'd been trained to predict them and avoid them. And yet here he was, in the thick of one, at the receiving end of people he'd genuinely come to like.
Damn it, someone up there had an immensely sick sense of humor.
But in the end, Robin did what he was trained to do. He faced down his foe and he combated it to the best of his ability.
And so did his fellows, as he felt the rush of air as Starfire took off into the sky, as well as sensed the motion as Beast Boy moved away in some animal form, Terra either being carried by him or right by his side, as Bolt and Blaze broke off from the charge and flew to either side out of Robin's vision, leaving just Blast, who still looked like he wanted to be doing anything else then this.
But he struck anyway…in a slow, choreographed style Robin could see coming a mile away, as he jumped out of the way.
And that STILL barely proved to be enough, as Blast's blow rang through Robin's ears, his fist impacting the ground so hard it shook the whole building and ripped several square feet of the metal floor up from the mass center like it was made of paper instead of steel. Robin felt the force shockwave impact him and let it flip him over as he landed, even as Blast pulled his fist out of the ground.
"STOP HITTING THE FLOOR!" Mod bellowed from his perch. "You want to kill us all?"
"…I…" Blast said to himself as he looked up at Mod, and then back down at Robin.
As Birdarangs flew at the child robot, as Robin went to the well even though he knew it was dry, hurling the whirling red projectiles at Blast. Maybe he'd hit a vital spot. Maybe Blast would think they wouldn't be able to hurt him and they would. Maybe he'd have an allergic reaction to them despite being a robot.
Or maybe the child would use the marksman techniques Robin and his friends had helped teach him as he blew each projectile out of the air, reducing them to shattered metallic dust in several quick finger points.
But the joy still refused to come, that particular gleam of cruelty, but neither did Blast's face go blank. Indeed, the look of rueful sadness remained.
"I'm sorry Robin. But this is pointless. The master had planned this for…forever, really. You can't win."
Robin narrowed his eyes, as he spun the staff in his hand, trying to fight down the fear and despair. Refusing to give into it.
"All right Edgar. You're a robot. A robot made so lifelike that it even fooled me. Doesn't that fact make you think?"
"My thoughts are…ultimately irrelevant. I must do what the master orders. I have no choice." Blast said sadly.
"Well Blast, if you honestly meant anything you said to me, then you'll understand… neither do I." Robin said, and charged.
Blast did not look away as Robin made his attack, as Robin lunged and stabbed at Blast's head, hoping to find an opening, intentional or not…
Blast caught his lancing staff, and with a quick jerk upward Robin went flying backwards, Blast's strength making the lever motion so fierce it acted more like Robin had been struck instead of disarmed. Robin hit the ground and slid back several feet, never looking away from Blast as he took the staff in both hands.
"I did." Blast said, as Robin waited for him to bend the staff, or tie it in a knot.
Blast did something even worse, as his hands pulsed with blue energy that refracted across the staff length, and then it shattered like glass, the weapon reduced to so much metal powder within a second. Robin goggled at the action, some kind of concentrated concussive/erupting effect, and an affect that had treated the hardened and battle-prepared metal of his staff like it was a cheap dollar store cup.
"I do." Blast said.
And then he flew at Robin again.
And Blast was not alone in his expression, as Starfire confronted Blaze in the air, the alien's intense look abruptly fading. Of all the Titans, Starfire's innate nature had made this cruel charade cut her the deepest…but Starfire had been hurt before. When she'd been forcibly taken from her parents. When she'd been locked in machines by grinning, gleeful alien sadists. On battlefields on Earth and out among the stars. She did not like pain. She did what she could to ensure she and others did not experience it.
But she had learned to live with it, and not let it control her.
Yet, Blaze's expression gave her pause: the little girl looked like she wanted to cry, but could not. Starfire had never fought a foe like that. She'd engaged in battle with enemies who believed her weak and hence a waste of their time, but that was light years away from a foe who honestly looked like she'd rather be anywhere then here.
"…must you be my enemy?" Starfire asked.
"…Yes." Blaze said, the word sounding like it the hardest thing the superpowered android would ever have to do. "…forgive me."
"…I do." Starfire found herself saying…as the intensity returned, the harshness of the situation once again impacting Starfire's features. "But I will give NO QUARTER."
"I would not expect you to." Blaze replied.
Starfire's hands blazed with green energy, firing blast after blast at Blaze, but the girl's small, quick form darted around them. The blasts impacted on the massive quark gluon plasma generator…or rather, impacted on a force field erected around it that kept the attacks from damaging the machine.
Starfire was far too caught up in battle to notice such a thing, as Blaze countered, throwing her own fireballs. Starfire's own dodging skills kicked in, as she swerved around the attacks and zipped around Blaze before the young girl knew what was happening, seizing her from behind as she activated her heat-generating side effect of her energy powers, hoping that maybe if she added even more heat to the temperatures the robot girl was surely already generating, she could disrupt something delicate in the inner workings of…
No dice, as Blaze squirmed out of her grip, reached up, grabbed Starfire, and hurled her over her head. But even as she was thrown, Starfire switched tactics, as she went with the motion and flipped herself upside down as she refocused the energy, her eyes glowing as a blast of green power shot out, striking Blaze and causing a powerful explosion.
Starfire flipped herself back upright as the fire ball expanded…and then suddenly contracted as Blaze reappeared, unharmed, as she called the blast of fire to her, refocusing it into a fireball even bigger then her that she shot directly at Starfire.
Far too slowly: Starfire dodged it with ease. And she had a feeling that was the point.
But she couldn't slow her hand. Not the way things were, as she flew forward and crashed into Blaze, the two tumbling across the open warehouse air.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Beast Boy said in his usual high pitched scream as Bolt zipped down before them: unlike Starfire he still had some trouble regaining his metaphorical feet when the rug was yanked out from under him. At least his powers didn't subconsciously turn him into a chicken again.
"Surrender. Please." Bolt said solemnly.
"…no! You think we're just going to lie down and let Mod win?" Terra blurted out in classic fool's courage.
"No. But I…I don't want to hurt you. But…I'm sorry Beast Boy, Terra, but even with the generator devoted to other tasks reducing us to a quarter power, there is no animal on the face of this planet that can match up to me…" Bolt said as he floated slowly forward.
"Let's just see!" Beast Boy snapped, finding his daring (or maybe just some bravado) as he turned into a lion and lunged violently at Bolt.
Bolt didn't fry him with electricity, or smash him into a dead sack of meat with a blow. Instead he just flew to the side in a quick jerk and Beast Boy missed him entirely.
Terra gasped, and then her eyes narrowed as she thrust out her arms.
"Please don't. The generator." Bolt said, pointing: his tone actually made Terra pause. "It's delicate. If you cause an earthquake, or rip up the ground for rocks, you'll probably disrupt its operations…that will be far worse for your city then this lamentable situation."
Had it been a taunt, Terra would have thrown caution to the wind. But Bolt's tone…no, it couldn't be genuine. He was a fraud, a trick from an insane old man, he couldn't possibly want to protect anything but his master's hide…
"What I want is not a factor." Bolt said sadly, as Terra recoiled. Had he read her mind? Or just gauged it from her expression?…how could a robot do EITHER…?
And Beast Boy leapt on Bolt's back with a roar, trying to sink his claws and teeth into the small frame of the child.
It was somewhat obscure what Bolt did, it was so fast, but it was a simple motion: he flew up and down several feet as fast as he could.
The motion sent Beast Boy flying through the air like he'd stepped on the world's biggest spring, as he yowled in alarm…before he remembered just what species he was and landed on his feet.
"Heh. I always admired your creativity." Bolt said, as Beast Boy turned back to his human form, his face's expression of anger barely covering the fear.
"…wait…how can you be robots, when Blaze was down, I checked her, I felt a pulse, how…" Terra said, still having no idea which way was up.
"I'm sorry Terra. You erred: you checked for her supposed pulse with your thumb. You're not supposed to do that: the thumb has a somewhat prominent vein as well and you can mistake your own pulse for the victim's. Which is what you did, I'm afraid." Bolt said.
"…I guess I just suck, huh." Terra said in bitter desperation.
"No. Never." Bolt replied, and damned if he didn't sound genuine. "Never."
"Grahhhhhh." Beast Boy growled under his breath. "All this at a quarter power? Damn it…screw it, even though there's absolutely no chance of success, I'm going to defy logic and attack you ANYWAY!" Beast Boy snarled as he charged, turning into a tiger for a boost of speed…and then into a short-faced bear, an extinct species of the animal who was bigger and nastier then ever a polar bear, as he reared up in front of Bolt and put every bit of ferocious animal power he could behind a blow to the child's face. And this time, he didn't keep his claws sheathed.
The good news was, Bolt did not do the 'head snaps away and then slowly looks back' motion which indicated the attack was completely useless.
The bad news was, his face did not seem to suffer any damage.
The worse news was that Bolt went with the blow, spinning and lashing out with his leg.
The good news THERE was, his leg was far too short to actually hit Beast Boy. It was exceptionally good news, because if Bolt had actually struck Beast Boy with the kick he'd thrown, there would have been a very strong chance the changeling would have been broken in half.
The bad news was, the miss was intentional and had a secondary effect, as the sheer power of the limb, length aside, was enough to cause a drastic and potent disruption of the immediate air surrounding Beast Boy.
Which Bolt added to by spinning rapidly a few more times, as Beast Boy found an intense blast of wind suddenly twist up around and beneath him, the airstream manipulation proving powerful enough to throw even the massive form he was currently in up and through the air. And this form wasn't as adapt at proper landings.
Beast Boy thudded painfully to the ground, as Bolt stopped spinning…
And Terra jumped him from behind, desperation at the sheer ease Bolt had tossed aside Beast Boy doing what it had a bad habit of doing and blanking Terra's mind. Some people could think calmly and rationally when exposed to pressure all the time. Many more could do so, but not always. This was one of those occasions for Terra.
As the fact she could get the drop on Bolt seemingly made her forget his strength, not to mention his electrical abilities. But the most grievous sin her panic made her forget, if just briefly, was the fact that she was facing a ROBOT as Terra's attempted move was to put Bolt in a choke hold.
Some might have insulted her for such errors. But Bolt had no taste for it.
Instead, he simply shifted a bit…and flexed his body, tensing every artificial muscle he had as hard as he could.
With an average person, this small amount of force briefly eliminated slack, which could, if the person was big and strong enough, help them in breaking grips.
But Bolt was not an average person.
And the force that came off this motion was NOT small.
Which explains why Terra not only lost her grip, but lost gravity's hold on her, as she was sent flying backwards through the air like she'd been grabbed and thrown violently. Beast Boy, having turned back to human shape to switch forms and make another attack, was far too slow and distant to prevent the way Bolt broke Terra's grip, nor the end result.
As Terra slammed, back first, into the warehouse wall…
Except it wasn't the wall.
Walls, in theory, had no give: if they were subjected to a force beyond what they could handle, they were either damaged or broken. True, there were such setups like padded cells that did have various degrees of pliancy, but this was a deliberate design choice. On average, walls did not deflect force, they absorbed it.
But that was not the reaction when Terra hit the warehouse wall. She did not slam violently against it, or go through it. Instead, she found her momentum abruptly ceasing and then heading in another direction as she hit what was apparently another invisible force field that was layering the outside wall of the massive warehouse.
The good news here was, this prevented a possible unpleasant fate like a spinal injury, or worse.
The bad news was, the nature of the shield caused the impetus of the throw to be transferred back out in a downward snapping motion, and so instead of hitting the wall and then the floor with considerably less force, Terra found most of the changed momentum causing her to violently slam down into the ground.
Upper body first. Including, unfortunately, her face.
"TERRA!" Beast Boy yelled, as he sprinted over as a cheetah, turned human, and, after a quick check to make sure Terra's neck wasn't damaged (thank you Robin battlefield medic lessons), turned her over.
Terra's eyes were somewhat clear, but that fact didn't take much away from the ugly sight of her broken nose spurting blood out onto her face and shirt. She'd managed to absorb some of the impact with her arms (that and luck was the main reason she wouldn't need any expensive dentistry in the future, provided she survived), but she'd still taken a hellacious blow, as inside her head Terra was only somewhat aware of her damaged nasal cavity, more focused on the dark, shifting colors that were dancing in front of the eyes of her concussed head.
"I didn't want to do that." Bolt said, as Beast Boy glared up at him. "Really, none of us do."
"Oh cram it! If you actually mean that, then STOP!" Beast Boy yelled, as he pulled Terra up and rested her against the shield, which did not seem to repel her without her activating an outside force against it.
"…I can't." Bolt said.
"…Then you'll PAY." Beast Boy snarled, as he turned into an ostrich and ran at Bolt.
Bolt did not move or reply…as Beast Boy's form shifted and turned into another extinct animal, the South American 'Phorusrhacidae' or 'terror bird', a ten-foot flightless carnivore made all the more fearsome by Beast Boy's display of temper, as Beast Boy turned his final steps into a hop and kicked Bolt with his deadly clawed foot as hard as he could.
The kick, in theory, could have sent a small car flying.
Bolt didn't move an inch.
"…..AKAKAKAKAKAOWOWOWOWOW!" Beast Boy yelped, momentarily forgotten himself as he turned back human and hopped up and down on one leg, holding his aching ankle from the foiled attack. Once, such a display would have brought a smile to Bolt's face.
Not this time. And he knew it.
"…I already am." Bolt said. Beast Boy finally stopped hopping, looked at Bolt once more…and then went into the extinct catalogue of animals again and turned into the 'megatherium' giant ground sloth, his twenty-foot height towering over Bolt as he swung a massive clawed paw at the child robot.
Robin's own fist and arm looked tiny and pointless by comparison, but you wouldn't know it looking at him, as his fist impacted on Blast's forearm. He may as well have been beating on a brick wall, but Robin didn't waver a bit, as he recoiled from the blow and slashed his foot out. Blast blocked again, but did not counter, seemingly content to let Robin wear himself out, or still suffering from severe guilt.
"You can't win Robin. Stop hurting yourself." Blast pleaded.
"Edgar, if I'd given up the who knows how many times I should have and have been told to, this city would have ceased to exist long before your master could pull off his little scam!" Robin retorted, as he punched at Blast again, and again, the child effortlessly stopping the blows. His technique was barely there, but his speed and unmovable nature made technique pretty much irrelevant.
"Such a fact's long lost on him." Blast replied.
"Color me surprised." Robin retorted, as he faked out Blast with another leg swing as he arched his leg up and then back and down, driving his heel towards Blast's head.
Blast caught him by the ankle, and then gave him what could be described by his standards as a 'gentle push'.
Said push sent Robin flying head over heels backwards, a motion he went with to keep Blast from tearing a muscle in his leg from the upward shove.
But even as he seemed helpless, Robin was anything but, as he landed on his hands while being tossed backwards and turned it into a flip, and even as his body righted itself Robin's hand blurred to his belt and snapped out, hurling a disc at Blast. And for once, the child didn't have the time or the reflexes to stop it properly, via his energy projectiles.
So it struck Blast instead, as ice erupted from the point of impact and flash-froze over his body, leaving him momentarily trapped as a frozen statue.
Robin knew he had four seconds tops before Blast got out of that, as he stopped his backward motion and charged, his hands blurring to his belt and then together as he yanked out two Birdarangs and slammed them together, the devices interlocking and expanding into his crimson sword…
Blast burst free of the ice.
Robin swung his sword down as hard and as fast as he could.
And Blast blurred a hand up, and the sword came to a dead stop as Blast caught it.
Between his primary and middle finger.
Robin's eyes widened, even as he instinctively tried to thwart the grip by pressing down…but all his strength didn't produce an iota of continued momentum.
Blast was looking at Robin, even as Robin furiously tried to do something, ANYTHING, to his trapped sword, but he couldn't pull it free, he couldn't twist it, he couldn't pull it back up, he couldn't even push it forward, like he was trying to loose Excalibur from the stone then pull it free from the grip a child could exert with two small digits (and he might be getting his myths mixed up, but that was a decidedly lesser problem). It was frozen, locked in place.
And the despair flared up inside Robin again. This was their power, even when (if Robin had overheard correctly, he was forever observing and deducting) it was reduced? Then how great would it be once Mod let them off their leash?
Blast almost seemed to answer his question, as he hung his head in shame.
And then he gave his wrist a quick twist and flick.
And Robin went flying like he'd been shot out of a cannon, bouncing along the ground several times before he regained control of himself, as Blast tossed the sword away and turned to look at Robin again.
"No." Robin said, cutting him off before he could ask again. "No. Never. Not even in the face of death."
And Robin hurled another projectile. Blast shot this one, but that was planned, as thick, noxious smoke erupted from the destroyed pellet and enveloped the child robot, as Robin reached behind himself and pulled out two small pieces of metal from his belt that expanded and twisted into twin metal tonfas, as Robin, even as the weapons were arming, went to his belt again and pulled out a rebreather, sticking it in his mouth as he ran into the smoke.
And from his platform, Mod watched with sadistic amusement. Did Robin actually think his little setup would help him at all? Unit ZP-1, Blast, didn't have to breathe, and his eyes could adjust to read heat, motion, or electrical signals: the smoke would provide Robin no cover at all. And even if that wasn't the case, Robin still didn't have a chance. He was a snotty nosed punk, and Mod had built a little god, loyal in the end only to him…
Though he seemed to have programmed them perhaps a touch too well: his decision to make them their roles was clearly clashing with his orders to destroy their so-called heroes. It annoyed Mod: when he'd requested AI help from Morrow and his ilk, he should have put that into consideration. Well, that was all in the past, and this whole plan was to ensure Mod would be around for the future.
Indeed, even as Blast defended himself from Robin's new assault, Mod realized that yes, as much as he wanted to stay up here and watch the slow destruction of his enemies, if he did there was always a chance something could go wrong. That was why he'd diverted some of the power of his generator (which was operational but not currently up at full capacity) for the shields: one to protect the generator, another one inside it to protect his platform, and a third that he'd erected upon the Titans' entrance that prevented their escape.
Something occurred to Mod then: while his personal shield kept everything out besides air and light (and it absorbed energy, so laser attacks on him would be futile: all their power would be drained away before it got to him, no more effective then one of those annoying pens young punks were always shining in your eyes), the ones on the generator and around the walls of the warehouse operated on the 'block organic' setup that had trapped that idiot Grip or whatever his stupid name was in Mod's little house of tricks (they also absorbed energy, as evidenced by Starfire's starbolts). But while that would keep out most offensives…it wouldn't block them all, specifically Robin's weapons. Hell, Mod had already dodged a bullet when Robin had taken a shot at him instead of the machine…
Mod's face grew dark; curse it all, he'd nearly murdered his brain trying to account for every single variable, how could he have missed such an obvious one? He was already smarting from his earlier slipup of giving that brat his actual origin instead of the lies that were 'proper', how could he not consider such a necessary factor? Probably because he assumed the Zap Pack would render that possibility moot, but as demonstrated their 'method acting' programming was clearly clashing with his orders…
Damn it all! Mad Mod diverted his attention from the battle as he did some math in his head. Might he be able to divert some of the power from the chronological reversal to…no, he'd worked out to immensely precise detail just how the power created by his device would have to be divided to sufficiently empower the Zap Pack, erect the three shields (which included the various hiding and blocking effects Mod had utilized earlier), and properly drain and transfer the chronological life energy from Mod's kidnap victims to him in a permanent, irreversible fashion, and there was no leftover or leeway left in it. And his quark gluon energy process was NOT a technique that was friendly to any 'overclocking' attempt. In fact it was so delicate that ANY status beyond 'stable' was risking trouble Mod didn't even want to contemplate, which was in the end the reason why he didn't want the machine to be damaged, especially at full power.
Which meant he'd just have to eliminate the variable another way: get the whole thing over with.
Mod grit his teeth, angered at not getting to witness the final breaking of the Titans at as much of his leisure as he'd anticipated, but he swallowed it down after a few seconds. The end result was all that mattered. He wasn't some sick rapist who kept committing crime after crime because the fantasy could never match the reality, he could deal with it. Hell, when it was done, he'd probably think he was being silly.
And so he turned away from the Titans' futile attempts to win, either in battle or his creation's minds…which made another thought occur to Mod. The Zap Pack weren't responding as he wished, mainly because he'd done such a detailed job at making their false roles one with who they were…and he grimaced. He still needed a small bit of time, and he had a feeling that what he was about to do would draw the Titans' attention, and if the ZP units were slowed by their damnable programming…
No, he wouldn't take that chance, no when he was so close. He'd just have to activate that certain setting on his cane.
The Zap Pack were expressing 'remorse' at their actions, clearly not wanting to do them in, their 'love' for their 'heroes' banging up against their true nature. And with the height of technology their AI's operated at, some might believe they could evolve beyond their programming. But Mod knew better: he'd been an engineer, and he knew that you could put as many wings as you wanted on a car, it didn't make it a plane. At the core of their existence, the Zap Pack were still machines, computers, tools, and they had to do what they were told. Everything else was the nonsense of fiction.
And with the master control setting Mod began to activate on his cane, all hesitancy or holding back would be eliminated, or at least reduced down to a level so miniscule it might as well have been nonexistent. If Mod gave an order now, it would be obeyed immediately, without question.
The problem WAS, the AI's of the Zap Pack were so complicated that Mod had never gotten around to coding such a command program so it worked exclusively for him. It was essentially generic, and what that meant was that if by some utter miracle the Titans somehow reached him and got his cane away from him…
No, that was impossible. He'd stacked the deck too well, and besides, how would they ever know that? Their mind readers were gone, and there was a difference between great deductive reasoning and miraculous answer out of your arse yanking.
That calculation of odds didn't make Mod go back and resume watching the 'fight' though: he'd thought for sure the Titans were helpless the last two times and look what had happened. Someone favored them, that was for certain. But not this time.
As Mod, his cane finished programming, tucked it under his arm as he went over to part of his computer setup: the platform was basically designed so the program computers were arranged in a horseshoe shape around the sides and back of the platform: in the middle was a currently blank space (but not for long) and a little after that, roughly between the 'blank space' and the place where Mod had been standing to watch was a small hole in the ground.
First, the guests of honor. Mod's robots had redesigned the warehouse once he'd arrived here: now it essentially had just three areas. Those were the main giant room where the generator was, the 'back door subbasement/hall/stairway' that Mod had tricked the Titans into using as a supposed 'sneaking entrance'…and the room directly below the machine. Specifically, directly below the section of floor that was exposed by the horseshoe section seemingly removed from the generator. There was a very specific reason for this.
Mod didn't want the Titans to miss the show, as he typed in a rapid series of commands and hit an enter key.
And the floor split open, as the room beneath began to rise up…and yells and screams drifted up from the hole.
A fact that immediately caught Robin's attention as he leapt away from Blast, having realized himself the smoke didn't aid him in the slightest. But to Robin's advantage, Blast himself glanced in the direction of the noise. The only one who didn't was a still out of it Terra.
As the kidnapped children emerged from the darkness, as Robin's eyes widened. None of the children were free: every single one was strapped to an upright table-like platform arranged in a semi-circular pattern on the section of floor they rose up on (for one crazy moment the setup made Robin have a flash of Stonehenge before time wore the rock structure down to a mere shadow of its former self). The degree of confinement varied, but it was clear that none of the children would be escaping from their bondage any time soon, though none of them seemed to realize it as most were crying, yelling, screaming, and generally making a racket. Then again, one could hardly blame them.
The noise greatly irritated Mod, but then again, every aspect of the kids did that to him. Even if he didn't hate children by default, the whole process of taking them, keeping them fed, healthy, and sanitary, transporting them, and all the other troubles this ridiculous setup had required had driven him half-mad (or even more mad then he already was). Even using various hypnosis devices hadn't lessened the strain enough for Mod's taste, and he couldn't knock them out now (they'd been unconscious when he and his robots had earlier strapped the children in) because the process worked best with conscious beings, another intense annoyance. Well, they were about to pay him back for every bit of the vexation they'd given him, with interest.
"Oh no." Robin said, looking at the sight: some of the kids had managed to see him and were screaming and begging for help.
Robin would have done something, except Starfire beat him to it.
"NO!" She yelled, as she pulled away from Blaze and streaked across the air, heading straight for the captive children…and slamming hard against the shield that blocked access to them as it did when it came to the generator.
"NO! LET THEM GO! LET THEM GO!" Starfire screamed, hammering on the shield with all her might. But she made no headway at all. That didn't slow her assault in the slightest, as she continued hammering on the shield with all of her strength…
As Blaze flew after her.
"STAR-!" Robin began to yell, and then Blast was flying at him, and Robin was forced to retreat away from his attacker, lest Blast actually try to connect with an attack this time.
But the half name warning was enough, as well as the distinctive low whooshing noise that fire consuming oxygen rapidly could make, as Starfire whirled around and dodged the blast of flame Blaze had shot at her. The fact that she'd essentially tried to back-shot Starfire was somewhat negated by the strong audio cue, but that wasn't what was fueling Starfire's rage at the moment.
"LET THEM GO!" She yelled. "Confront me if you must, but they are innocent! They have done NOTHING, to you or your master!"
"I know." Blaze said quietly. The resigned, if sad, dismissal in the tone just made Starfire angrier, as her eyes glowed bright emerald.
"…if you will not rebel against your design, then I will use it IN ANOTHER FASHION!" Starfire yelled, as she flew at Blaze so fast she actually caught the child robot off guard, as she seized the girl and whirled around, attempting to shove/hurl her into the generator to gum up the works.
But Blaze put the brakes on, and Starfire stopped dead: all her titanic strength spiked even higher by her rage was still not enough to overcome the force Blaze could put out.
A factor driven cruelly home as Blaze shoved back in a motion that could even be consigned as gentle, and Starfire went hurling back through the air like she'd been struck with the axiomatic wrecking ball. She slammed on her own brakes and tore at Blaze again, the young child flying forward to meet her, less to actively confront Starfire then to keep her away from the machine.
Robin growled low in his throat, spinning his tonfas around as he tried to find an opening or distract Blast in some way. But the child's intense power negated his every effort, and from a glance Robin could see the same held true for Beast Boy.
Mad Mod, on the other hand, was still hard at work, having moved over to another computer to begin phase two: initializing the transfer setup. And so he did, as a large part of the bottom of his overhead platform, hidden in the shadows, detached and lowered down, a mass of spherical computers from which mechanical tendrils emerged, flowing down and attaching to the tops of the children's tables, a fact that somehow made them scream louder: Mod winced and cursed under his breath. Just a few more minutes of it, he could take it…
The spherical setup, in actuality his modified and improved Chronological Energy Transference Device, opened up on the top, revealing a mass of crystal-like setups. These were its energy receivers; energy would be converted by its mechanisms into the proper design for chronological energy transfer. With it activated, operational, and ready to go, Mod went over to the last bank of computers, typing at them.
Sections of the generator that surrounded the terrified children began opening up, revealing strange projecting, manipulating, and focusing mechanical setups. A few also extended down from Mod's platform, as it prepared to harness the energy and fed it into the improved CETD. With that done, Mod pulled a lever on the computer bank and turned around.
As the center of the platform opened up, another large plug-shaped computer emerging from within it, as Mod went over to it and began the second to last stage: turning the generator's power to its maximum setting and harnessing the energy to feed into the CETD.
Robin didn't need to have Mod in sight to clue in that that was the case, as he literally FELT it as the generator's power began to increase, the mechanisms within drawing more energy from the gluon plasma, inconceivable amounts of energy, a fact Robin felt as a low, intense hum in his teeth and joints, the air literally singing with the sheer power Mod was harnessing.
And then it bloomed into existence, between the CETD above the kids and below Mod's platform, a brilliantly shining, fragmenting mass of energy, a snowflake of all colors. Robin had no real idea WHAT it was (a side effect of such energy harnessing? A indicator point to allow easier transference? The 'heart of the power', manifested in a place where it was needed? Something else entirely?), but he knew it meant that he had seconds at most before it all went to hell. And this time, it didn't look like there would be a way out.
But Blast was between him and the machine, and Robin hadn't made an iota of difference in his switching of weapons and styles: even when caught off guard the blow did nothing to Blast's body. And Robin knew that he could have been in his strength-boosting Red-X bodysuit (before it was stolen anyway) jacked to the gills on Venom, and that still would have been the case. Most would have called Robin insane for even considering going hand to hand with one of the 'Zap Pack' to begin with: the only reason Robin wasn't paste on the ground was because Blast had hardly attacked and choreographed each motion so tellingly a normal person could have avoided it.
But Robin wasn't insane. He was thinking. And planning.
Putting all the little bits together.
Like how the Zap Pack were hesitating. And how they were, according to what he'd overheard, operating on reduced power. And how said reduced power didn't seem to be the reason they weren't able to give their devastating all.
How his attempted attack on Mod had not been stopped by the force field that apparently surrounded the generator. It had gone over the machine and past that edge, stopping a few feet beyond when it hit another shield. The attack he'd made with his metal projectile rings, when Starfire's energy attacks and punches had been unable to damage or pierce through it.
How Mod had gotten angry at Blast's ground jarring punch, as if it risked damaging the machine, and how that would clearly be A Bad Thing.
How his smoke hadn't worked.
And how while he may have taught the Zap Pack a fair number of the tricks of the trade, it was far from teaching them everything he knew.
And that, Robin knew, was the only chance he had.
As he twirled his tonfas one last time and swung them both at Blast, hitting the child's blocking arm, even as Beast Boy and Starfire themselves furiously struggled to make any sort of headway against their superiorly powered opponents. Robin bore down on the boy, his face a mask of angry intensity…
And Blast countered as he wished, pushing back slightly and sending Robin flying. He tumbled across the ground, seemingly losing his tonfas…
And leapt to his feet, as he went for his utility belt…
"Robin…" Blast said, his low dismayed voice hardly audibly over the children's screams and the generator's intense hum, the shimmering snowflake of energy growing larger and brighter as Mod moved around the computer in the center of the platform, stabilizing and manipulating it. He was almost done. Once this was done, he could finally bid farewell to those rotten kids, of all stripes. Hell, the stupid bastards kept screaming, didn't they realize that this wasn't going to hurt? Yes, it would be an unnatural, terrifying, traumatizing experience, but at least it wasn't going to HURT…
Robin gave no reply.
As he hurled the pellets at Blast, the projectiles exploding before Blast could shoot them, Robin using up all his remaining smoke bombs to envelop the area in front of the massive generator in thick, blinding fog…
A factor that actually caught Mod's attention, mostly on the fact Robin was doing the same trick twice.
Which didn't mean anything to Blast, whose electronic eyes saw Robin quite clearly as he ran…pulled out his grapple…and fired it into the air, aiming for the ceiling, the unshielded ceiling, as his 'hook' end penetrated the roof and sprang out to firm Robin's grip…
As Blast realized that whatever Robin was planning, he was going airborne to do it, as he flew up to intercept…
And found that the line wasn't retracting, bringing a brightly colored teenager into the air, instead it was EXTENDING, the line shifting as Robin ran across the ground holding it, as Blast turned around and looked down, finding Robin running through the smoke, and on impulse he dashed back down to intercept before Robin could reach the machine, drawing in close within a second…
As Robin whirled around and thrust the grip part of his grapple out. Part of the way the device worked was utilizing small magnets in careful manipulation of the metal wire, and with two quick button presses Robin had modified those magnets.
As the grip clamped onto Blast's chest, whatever inner workings he had that had negated magnetism before for his play-act either not prepared or suffering from the lesser power the robot now had (and even if it hadn't worked, Robin would have just done an immediate toss and twist around Blast's shoulder), and even as Blast's eyes widened at this unexpected tactic Robin pressed a button on the grip as he released it.
And the grapple retracted, yanking Blast up into the air and away from Robin, even as the Teen Wonder whirled around and brought his hands to his belt…
As Mod's mouth abruptly went as dry as paper: Robin had somehow given himself a few seconds opening at the machine and considering who he was a few seconds was all he'd…!
"NO!"
Robin yanked out twin explosive discs.
"STOP THEM!"
And threw them, even as Mod's cry was ringing in his ears.
And the blow slammed into his back, hurling Robin face first onto the ground as he gasped from the suddenness of it. What had THAT…
And then he heard and felt the detonation of his weapons as they struck the machine, as Robin looked up from the ground, seeing the explosions as they bloomed…
And abruptly died. Robin's eyes widened. That should not have happened. There should have been alarms, and sparks, and possible follow up explosions. That was what he'd been aiming for: with how delicate the generator seemed to be surely hitting it with explosive weaponry would break it…!
Break it, yes.
But the discs hadn't found it.
As the smoke cleared, revealing Bolt and Blaze in front of the generator, their arms and hands smoking from blocking the discs.
As Robin realized what had knocked him over. Windshear. From Bolt and Blaze's almost instantaneous transport from where they'd been to where they were now. It had been so fast it was just then that Starfire and Beast Boy were realizing their sparring partners were gone, as their heads jerked over to look at the machine.
And Robin felt a deep, cold dread seize him, even as Blast lowered himself down to join his teammates, having easily pulled himself free from the magnetic grip Robin had attached to him once he was aware of it.
A dread Mod relished as he lowered his cane from his mouth. The little bastard had thought he'd figured it all out, had thought he'd come up with a scheme that would thwart ol' Moddie again. But as Mod had mused earlier, there were great powers of deduction, and then there was miraculous guessing that ended in fortunate results. And as great as Robin was at the former and as prone as heroes could be to the latter, neither was absolute. Robin hadn't figured out the new ordering setting of his cane.
Though that reality was dawning on Robin's face. He'd thought the Zap Pack's apparent clash with Mod's orders would let him slip through. But Mod had apparently considered that too, and activated something in his cane that had not only made them obey instantly, but instantaneously, like the machines they were.
And if Mod actually had something like that…
Despite the mask, Mod could read Robin's face well enough as these thoughts crossed his mind, as well as the realizations from them. He smirked to himself.
Then he brought his cane up to his mouth again.
"Destroy them."
And this time, there was no hesitation, as Bolt and Blaze took off across the warehouse sky at Starfire and Beast Boy, as Blast swooped down at Robin.
Robin could see the sadness on the child's face. So life-like, so very much like a real boy…
But with a heart of steel and a hand that wasn't his to command, as Blast fired twin shots from said hands.
Robin managed to dodge a bit. That 'bit' was not enough, as the explosion erupted on the ground right in front of him, raking his body with shrapnel as the shockwave sent him flying, bouncing along the ground.
And Mod smirked once more, and returned to the center computer, as he typed in the last commands and looked at the screens. Everything was working perfectly. It was time to bring it all together.
As Starfire charged at Blaze, hurling Starbolts with wild, desperate abandon, but Blaze, after dodging a few, countered by throwing out her hands and firing tiny, intense balls of fire about the size of an orange, dozens and dozens at a time. Starfire found her Starbolts being intercepted at the same time she was being counter-attacked, explosions blasting across the warehouse air. The alien tried to keep up, but Blaze's attack was overwhelming, as stray balls of fire impacted on Starfire's shoulder, hip, and left shin, burning her skin as she yelled and flew backwards, trying to defend herself, but for every attack she threw Blaze fired ten in return, as Starfire refocused her energy from projectiles to a defensive shield and tried to weather the storm…
As Beast Boy yelped and escaped the ground by becoming an eagle as Bolt flew down and finally used his electrical powers, sending a blast of electricity that would have turned Gar into a spasming wreck if it had hit him or the ground near him (fortunately it dissipated before it struck the still down and out Terra).
"Oh so you're finally shooting are we? FINE! THE GLOVES ARE OFF KID!" Beast Boy yelled as he swooped above Bolt…
And turned into a Brachiosaurus, his massive form filling the open area of the warehouse as he plunged down towards Bolt with his massive flat feet. The offensive maneuver was even more impressive considering the time Beast Boy had had to calculate if he could actually FIT the body of such a massive dinosaur into the space available let alone use it properly as an offensive weapon (the last time he'd done a similar tactic, he'd been outside, but then again, Gar Logan knew his animals. His knowledge might have been shaky in other areas, but he definitely knew his animals). Mad Mod's jaw fell as Beast Boy slammed down on Bolt with all four of his joined-together feet, even as the scream boiled up from within him at the possible consequences of such a heavy animal crashing down onto the warehouse floor…
As Beast Boy landed.
With no crash, as his long neck and tail jerked down from the impact, as Mad Mod reeled back, clutching his chest. He looked over at the screens on his computer: no disruptions. Had he actually…
"What the…!" Beast Boy said, as he tried to use his long neck to see what the hell had happened.
Robin could see, from where he was getting up, and like Mod's had a second ago, his mouth went dry.
Bolt was underneath Beast Boy's massive form…actually holding the saurian up off the ground. Robin was too far away to tell if it was a strain or not…
Until Bolt began moving, actually GETTING UP while holding Beast Boy above him, the green changeling so shocked he didn't try and do something like stamp his feet, or step off Bolt, or anything that might have made the lifting harder, as Robin goggled at the fact that even at considerably reduced strength the Zap Pack unit was still lifting 50 plus TONS…
As the downside of Beast Boy's plan became suddenly and painfully apparent, as Bolt activated whatever it was within him that let him manipulate electricity and unleashed it full force on Beast Boy, the changeling yelling and screaming as his body was wracked with the burning, disruptive energy. His mass and hide were probably the only things that saved his life, but that didn't matter much as the electricity also disrupted his abilities, Beast Boy returned to his humanoid form in Bolt's arms, as the child dumped him on the ground, his green body twitching.
Even as Starfire, trying so hard to withstand the assault Blaze was hammering her with, explosions blasting around her as she was forced back…until she ran out of room, her back slamming against the shield as she put all her effort into resisting, the shots forcing her back…
And abruptly cutting off.
As Starfire found the reflective nature that had injured Terra's face being brought to bear on her, as the force field repelled her forward without Blaze's concentrated attack pushing her back, catching her completely off guard as she was thrown back the way she'd come, as she tried to dispel her shield and get her bearings…
As Blaze swooped in and thrust out her hand, and Starfire's eyes went as wide as saucers as terrible pain erupted in her chest, and she coughed and hacked violently as Blaze actually IGNITED THE AIR WITHIN HER LUNGS, causing her to exhale flames as she was spontaneously burned from within and robbed of precious oxygen. Only the fact that Starfire was exhaling and the oxygen content within her lungs was minimal, as well as her alien biology, saved her from fatal injury, but she was rendered vulnerable from her overwhelming coughing as well as the pain from the fact she'd just had her lungs essentially set on fire.
Which left her wide open for Blaze, as she swooped in and backhanded Starfire with an open palm, sending Starfire slamming into the ground, the alien dislocating her shoulder as her arm impacted just before her head, stars and bright colors blasting across her eyes as she was knocked near-senseless.
Within several seconds, Robin watched both his remaining teammates fall.
And yet, despite their lacking of hesitation this time…it was clear from the Zap Pack's expressions they were hurt as much as the Titans, if not more.
As Blast flew up and before Robin, as Robin slowly finished getting up, his body a mass of aches and pains.
As he reached behind himself and pulled out his backup staff.
"You really don't give up." Blast said sadly.
"I'm a man of my word." Robin said.
And suddenly Blast was in front of him, his hands igniting with blue power.
"I wish I was."
And Blast slammed his fist into his open palm, and Robin found his body being hammered by a radiated shockwave so intense that it felt like all his bones were turning to liquid, as he was thrown backwards, losing his staff as he crashed and bounced across the warehouse floor, before coming to a stop, not moving.
And up on the platform, Mod chuckled nastily to himself. It had taken a bit longer for mostly unexpected reasons, but it had still been a grand show.
The Zap Pack looked up at him, their faces blank.
"…finish it." Mod said. Had Robin had any sense at the time, he might have felt relieved that Mod did not speak the order into his cane.
The reason Mod didn't do so was because he was occupied with other tasks, as he made one last check of his computer's readouts. Everything was fine. Even the kidnapped children had gone quiet, probably due to the shock of realizing their heroes would NOT be saving the day.
No time like the present to ensure the future, as Mod pressed one final button.
And the energy of the 'quark snowflake' began to feed into the CETD, powering it up to prepare to transfer the energies from the children, as the bottoms of the restraint-tables opened and new metallic tendrils emerged as the children began screaming again, as another section of the floor opened in front of all the children and a golden rod-like object about the size of a person slid out, its top a circular diamond-like crystal.
Mod checked the readings one last time, and then he sighed and braced himself. Now for the hard part, as he lifted his cane and pressed several buttons.
And the youth charge he'd absorbed earlier from a homeless person was dissipated, and Mod found himself old again, his stylish mod clothing hologram replaced by his usual attire of slacks, shirt, and tweed jacket…as the pain came, the intense pressure in his head, as reality suddenly didn't seem so firm and certain. Mod staggered for a bit as his body reeled under the sheer degree the tumor had rotted his brain, but he forced himself to stay cogent. He couldn't pass out NOW, not after everything, and if he didn't trigger the process the power would overload.
All he had to do…was reach the small hole in the platform…and insert his cane.
And Mad Mod started to do just that, staggering across the platform, the distance of a few feet now seeming like several miles.
As Robin coughed and spat blood, trying to force his aching body up, looking up into the face of Blast. Bolt and Blaze were behind him, apparently frozen in indecision, struggling with Mod's final order, one they could resist but not ultimately defy.
"…you don't…have to do this…" Robin whispered.
"It's why we are." Blast replied.
"No…it's what Mod wants you to be…but…he…he made you to be heroes…maybe you're wrong…in those thoughts…"
"We can't defy the master." Blast said.
"We tried." Bolt said.
"We failed." Blaze finished.
"We are, in the end, only what he wants us to be." Blast said, as he lifted a hand, a finger glowing bright blue.
As Mod reached the hole, staggered a bit…and then, with a wicked smile of triumph, slammed the cane down.
And the CETD activated, as shimmering energy shot down from it along the tendrils and enveloped the children, encasing them in glistening fields as they screamed, the energy reaching into them and withdrawing a precious force that lay within their very beings, a force it transferred down into the wires at the bottom of the tables and ran it to the golden focusing rod, which lit up…and fired a beam of white power straight up into the platform.
And Mod found the enhanced, permanent energies flowing into him. It was like a bolt of lighting, as he went rigid, his eyes as wide as they could go, as the energies poured through him, starting the careful process of invigorating his aged, dying cells and erasing the deadly poisoned ones in his head. Mod shook under the power: one got pleasure in sexual release from chemicals in the brain, and athletes could prompt a similar flood while exerting themselves, the so-called 'runner's high', but this was better than both combined, a sensation beyond what any human could experience.
If the many explorers seeking it had actually found the Fountain of Youth, perhaps this is what they might have felt when its waters passed their lips.
Robin was aware that Mod was sucking out the youth of the children, and he was fully aware death was staring him in the face…and yet, at the moment, that was not his concern, as he looked up at Blast…who turned his head away, as if he couldn't bare to witness what he was about to do.
"…No! Damn it! NO!" Robin hissed, as he managed to push himself up, a motion that made Blast look at him again…as Robin used what was left of his strength to reach up and rip off his mask, the spirit gum variant used to keep it on taking some of his skin with it, as the Zap Pack's eyes widened at this fact.
"You want to kill me, hence proving you're just what Mod says you are, instead of what you want to be? Then you look in my eyes, damn it. Look in them and see your deeds, and do it without hesitation. If THAT'S what you are. Come on then. Do it. DO IT!" Robin yelled.
Blast looked like his heart was breaking, but the glow on his finger only increased…
As Mod, his senses finally returning as he started getting somewhat used to the chrono-energy slow-but-permanent transference process, looked on in rapt anticipation…
Robin did not avert his gaze from Blast's.
As the noise of the car's roaring engine suddenly sounded, overcoming all the background noise for just a brief moment, as the Zap Pack's, Robin's, and Mod's head all jerked towards the sound.
"WHAT?" Mod yelled.
As the T-Car crashed through the wall to the left, barreling through the shield beyond via its mechanical nature, said shield thankfully just affecting the outside of the car as it roared into the warehouse.
Mod was so surprised he recoiled, letting go of his cane (which thankfully triggered in-build failsafes that temporarily stopped the energy transference, causing it to build up in the spherical computers below) as the car roared across the floor…and Mod quickly realized the folly of a reaction that took him AWAY FROM HIS CANE.
"Here we come to save the day!" Gauntlet trumpeted within the T-Car, though that fact meant the only one who heard him was Cyborg.
"STOP IT!" Mod screamed, lunging toward his cane as he yelled, hoping it would trigger his command circuits properly. How could he have forgotten such a crucial detail? He'd known Cyborg had returned, and that Rob had survived the attack from the ZP units' fake parents: why did he seemingly assume that they wouldn't be able to locate him before it mattered, or that even if they did it would be a moot point? Maybe he'd assumed the shield would keep them out…unless they went through the ceiling, or through the wall via a vehicle like they had, or-ARGH, he had to think of ten racillion things, why did such obvious factors seem so incredibly vague in hindsight?
Another factor was the fact that while Mod's devices were regulating the amount of energy that could be detected by his generator, they couldn't block it entirely, so when Cyborg and Gauntlet had arrived in the area indicated on Robin's computer, all Cyborg had had to do was run a quick scan and the warehouse, like it had to Robin beforehand, stood out like a sore thumb. And unlike Robin, Gauntlet and Cyborg knew the whole story, and didn't bother with a sneaky entrance, preferring to charge in like it was going out of style.
The fact that Cyborg had his stereo blaring 'Flight of the Valkyries' was just icing, really.
As the car barreled down at the generator: the warehouse's size gave it several seconds before the car impacted but at least 2/3 of those had used up…
"STOP THAT CAR!" Mod screamed.
And Cyborg's radar screen lit up as three dots that had not been on it a split-second ago were now virtually next to his car. There was no time to dodge or activate any defenses.
"Shit! HANG ON!" Cyborg yelled.
As Blaze flew down and hurled a massive fireball at the T-Car, impacting it on the front right side and blowing the tire and a fair chunk of the framework to hell, as the sudden abrupt loss of the wheel and the intense damage to the suspension caused the car to buck and start flying up back end first…before Blast flew in and punched the front, caving it in completely and causing the T-Car, instead of going into an ultra-destructive frontal tumble, to go in an ultra-destructive BACKWARD tumble, the car crashing and spinning backwards across the warehouse floor as pieces of it flew everywhere, before the car finally stopped aerial spinning as it impacted on its roof, spinning on the ground a few more times before it finally came to a stop, upside down with its back end resting on the ground, only a dozen or so feet from the entrance hole it had made when it had crashed in. The deep, victorious opera bellowing from the car abruptly cut off.
Mod sighed deeply in relief. That had been a close one.
And Robin looked at the trashed T-Car…and for a moment, he considered apologizing to Gauntlet for how he'd treated him, even though the only one who would hear it would him.
And then his vision blurred and faded, and Robin lost sense of everything but the void.
Fortunately, Mod was too occupied to try and take a look at his unmasked face: he had a new problem.
"Deal with them!" He ordered, and turned back to his cane. Well, maybe not that much of a problem, as he sighed in bliss as he re-started the chronological transference process and the energy began flowing back into him…which started the children screaming en masse again…
And while Cyborg was still in the dark on a lot of things, the sounds of children in distress made it all irrelevant, as he blinked his eyes open and looked over at Gauntlet. Fortunately, on top of the fact that Cyborg was mostly armored metal and Gauntlet had a mystical artifact that specialized in protection, the T-Car had the finest composite armors for its body and framework, not to mention an even further reinforced cage for the passenger section and a special custom-fitting kinetic-dampening seatbelt/safety harness design. Forget Stuntman Mike's Chevy Nova (or Dodge Charger), Cyborg's T-Car was REALLY death proof. Though that hadn't made the peas in a can rattling experience they'd gone through pleasant, it at least kept them alive and unharmed whereas a normal car would have probably left them in pieces across the road (or floor, as it were).
If Gauntlet was dazed, he had shaken it off, as he looked sheepishly at Cyborg.
"Sorry I got your car wrecked. Again."
"Oh why regret it? It ALWAYS happens!" Cyborg cursed, as he undid his seatbelt, fell down onto the car roof, and started pulling himself out.
"Remember Cyborg, it doesn't matter how young and sweet and all that garbage these brats look! They're unbelievably powerful! DON'T HOLD BACK!" Gauntlet yelled as he also freed himself and pulled himself out through the car's shattered window (and winced at how badly his side of the car was damaged: if that fireball had gone a few inches another way he could have very well lost a foot or something similar), dropping down to the ground as yellow energy sprang out from his gauntlet, ready to use.
As Cyborg reached back into the car window and yanked a box out.
"Knew I reverse-engineered this thing for a reason…" Cyborg said as he opened the box…and took out his version of the HIVE's 'class project', the Ion Amplifier. Ions were atoms that were either missing an electron or in possession of an extra electron, and when they passed near other atoms, they either stole an electron from them (if they were missing one) or shared their excess one, a process that gave off energy. When a device took that process and magnified it, the result was a great deal of excess energy that could, if the designers knew what they were doing, be pumped into another source to augment its power.
Like Cyborg's sonic cannon, as he snapped the device over his arm. Blood might have stolen his technology, but two could play at that game, as he stepped around the car…
And found himself face to face (so to speak, they were still some feet away) with the Zap Pack…and despite himself, despite all of Rob's doomsaying, he found himself struck by how young they looked…and how sad.
"NOW!" Mod yelled from his perch, and with that the Zap Pack broke apart and flew at them, and Cyborg immediately snapped back into his battle mindset.
"So you're the Zap Pack huh? Well SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" Cyborg declared, as he raised his ion-amplified sonic cannon, feeling the magnified power of the weapon feed back through his body.
Bolt, from his position above Cyborg, fired a ball of electricity.
And Cyborg fired in turn, the more intense forces of his weapon blasting the gathered electrical ball apart and slamming into Bolt, sending him flying upward at an angle until he crashed violently through the ceiling. Rainwater, from the still raging storm, began dripping in from the hole.
Gauntlet didn't hesitate in the slightest, not even from the Zap Pack's expressions, as he charged at the remaining two.
Blast and Blaze fired twin shots from their hands.
Gauntlet didn't deviate from his path, as the shots exploded in front of him, Gauntlet vanishing in the flames…
And leaping through them as his yellow shield flowed away from in front of him, corresponding to Gauntlet's throwing back his armored arm as he closed in on the pair…
And struck, swinging out his limb and hammering Blaze as hard as he could, letting his rage, the fact he hadn't become friends with them, and the fact they were robots sweep away any hesitation he might have usually had when it came to his strikes, and it showed, as Blaze herself went flying backwards, shooting off to the left from the force of the blow, the attack knocking her nearly twenty or so feet before she recovered…
As Cyborg stepped in front of her, his cannon charging once more, and as Blaze's eyes widened he fired, sending her flying across the warehouse until she crashed into the wall at the far end of the building.
As Blast flew at Gauntlet, but Gauntlet dodged away and under his blow (unlike Robin, Gauntlet was too angry to notice the choreographed nature of it)…
As Cyborg's shoulders flipped up and his chest opened, and the teen machine fired every single missile he had into Blaze's form as she tried to get up. She vanished in the explosion…
As Gauntlet's energy flowed up, seizing Blast even a strand fired out of Rob's elbow and pushed him back up from his backwards dodge, adding to Gauntlet's momentum as he yanked and swung his arm down, the energy flowing from it holding Blast firm as Gauntlet slammed him into the ground as hard as he could.
And then Gauntlet was on him, raining down wild blows, energy wrapping around his normal arm as he let every bit of anger, frustration, and despondency he'd felt ever since his team had made their initial refusal to believe him come pouring out and unleash itself on Blast, Gauntlet hammering the child into the floor with a frenzy unlike anything the Titans had seen before (or would have seen had four of them not been unconscious or almost so and Cyborg currently being occupied with shooting Blaze).
No jokes, no taunts, no quips, no asides, nothing came from Gauntlet: he just punched and punched until his arms and lungs were burning, and then he finally stopped, his limbs hanging limp as he stepped back from Blast's body and took deep, ragged breaths, looking down at his handiwork.
"Great…so I'm angry…violent…and without mercy…does that make me deep now?" Gauntlet said sardonically, and then looked up at Mod.
Who, with numb hands, once again let go of his cane, having forgotten the pleasurable part of the transfer process as he saw his invincible creations prove to be not so invincible, as the process once again stopped itself and the energy began to gather at the spherical computers again, the 'quark snowflake' continuing to shift and shine above them, as he looked down at Gauntlet and Cyborg.
Gauntlet, to his own great satisfaction, gave him the finger.
"Looks like you should have played with someone your own age. Then again, the Justice Society would have figured out your retarded plan pretty much immediately." Gauntlet taunted.
Cyborg turned off the ion amplifier as he aimed his cannon at Mod.
"Welcome back to Loserville Mod. We saved your apartment."
And Cyborg fired.
And perhaps he should have left the ion amplifier on, as it struck the generator shield and was neutralized, much to the pair's surprise, though they still managed to get Mod to jump despite himself.
"Should worry more about your own house, you rotten brats. You think you've won?" Mod asked.
Gauntlet arched an eyebrow…and then realized Bolt was nowhere to be seen.
"ACK! CYBORG! DEATH FROM ABOVE!" Gauntlet yelled.
"WHERE?" Cyborg replied, as he swung his cannon back up, switching the ion amplifier back on in the process, as he scanned the ceiling, looking for a target.
"…why is…" Gauntlet began…
As his eyes, scanning the room, slid onto the hole in the wall that he and Cyborg had made when they'd crashed the T-Car in, the hole that Cyborg had his back to as he scanned the air for the target Rob had assumed would be there.
A poor assumption.
"CYBORG! BEHIND YOU!" Gauntlet yelled.
A warning that proved more apt then even Gauntlet had intended, as Bolt was suddenly next to Cyborg, having indeed flown around and in through the ground floor, hiding behind the car for a moment until Cyborg's back was turned.
Cyborg's lone eye widened as he tried to turn…
"Sorry sir." Bolt said.
And Bolt placed his hand on Cyborg's shoulder, and Cyborg was suddenly subjected to an electrical blast so severe it overloaded even his advanced negating systems, as he screamed in the grip of the power and then collapsed, smoking and off-line.
Bolt looked at his hand, and then lowered his head.
"Oh damn…" Gauntlet said, as he called his energy to him to begin forming a shield…
And then his eyes spied motion, and he turned…and a look of horror filled his face as Blast slowly got up, not a scratch on him from Gauntlet's furious assault, an attack in which Gauntlet had given everything he could have given.
"Do you feel better Gauntlet?" Blast asked: the complete lack of sarcasm just made the fact more horrifying.
As Blaze flew in, also unaffected. Gauntlet really wasn't surprised.
"You lot always did flap your gums too much." Mod said from his platform. "Take care of him."
Gauntlet's head jerked around, searching for help, any help, but none of his teammates came to his aid: they, like Cyborg, lay on the ground (or in Terra's case against the wall), broken and motionless. Gauntlet couldn't even tell if they were dead or alive.
And for a moment, Rob understood what Kurai must have felt all those weeks before. Unaccustomed helplessness. The disturbing combination of a ten year old's body and godlike strength.
Worse, Rob knew he wasn't going to just get blasted off again. They had him and they were going to KILL him. And he couldn't even spit in the eye of the man who did this to him, thanks to a damn forcefield.
"I'm sorry Gauntlet." Blaze said.
"I wish we could have been friends." Blast said, and then thrust out his hands.
"Oh snozzcumber." Gauntlet moaned.
The explosion blew him across the warehouse floor, his shield taking most of the attack but not all of it, as Gauntlet hissed between his teeth and stopped himself, landing on his feet. This situation just had to pour the salt on his wounds. Rob would almost have preferred it if they had been good automatons or outright evil; this whiny 'I don't wanna do this but I have to' attitude made his defeat all the more pathetic.
Then again, maybe that was exactly what the puppet master had planned, as Gauntlet turned baleful eyes up to Mod, who had seemingly decided to put his youth-theft on hold for a bit to watch the destruction of the only person who'd seen through his convoluted nonsense.
"This is low, even for YOU, Mad Mod. Ruining Canada Day was one thing, but this?" Gauntlet snapped.
"Low, you say?" Mod replied in a smug 'what did you expect' satisfaction which just infuriated Gauntlet all the more.
"Not only yes, but FUCK yes! What'samatter old man, losing your hearing!?" Gauntlet yelled back in a weak taunt.
It worked despite that, as Mod's face colored in rage.
"Oh you think you've got it all bloody figured out, don't you? You're eighteen and are the bloody reincarnation of King Solomon? You can't possibly know where I'm coming from!" Mod ranted in a rage. "You've never been taunted just for looking the way you are, mocked in every movie and TV show! Being old used to be a sign of wisdom and now it's a punch line! The old are sent off to homes because their actual FAMILIES can't be bothered to deal with them! Only the young are valuable! Give them their Ipods and trust funds and let them run wild! In a way, you won! I bloody agree! Old people are a waste of space and a bother to have around! So really, I'm doing the only thing that makes sense! If the old are worthless, then I'll establish my worth by flipping the Grim Reaper the bird and becoming young again! And if you think these kids are going to miss the year or so I'm stealing from them? Here's a hint…it's the last year of their lives, when THEY'LL be old! So shut your rotten mouth! I'm just doing the Logan's Run thing and being much more humane about it then you bastards with your homes and your thieving nurses and your mockery of the PEOPLE WHO BLOODY GAVE YOU LIFE! IF THAT YEAR IS GOING TO SPENT IN A HOLE SOMEWHERE PLAYING BINGO, THE LITTLE ROTTERS SHOULD THANK ME!"
"…I'm sure on some planet, what you said is considered rational. Your weak point is that this is Earth." Gauntlet replied in a deadpan tone.
Mod clenched his hands into white-knuckle fists, and then, as the Zap Pack flew down before Gauntlet, he thrust out an arm and pointed it at Gauntlet.
"KILL HIM!"
"Oh poopy." Gauntlet said, and threw up another shield.
Bolt and Blast's combined blow sent painful vibrations shooting through Gauntlet's body as they struck the shield and sent Gauntlet shooting backwards, his boots sliding across the ground like it was ice.
"All right…if I smashed your parents, then I can certainly…oops." Gauntlet said, as he blinked. "You didn't hear that bit about me smashing your parents did you-DAMN IT ROB STOP SAYING YOU SMASHED THEIR-ARGH!"
"We know." Bolt said quietly. Gauntlet blinked again.
"We understand." Blaze said. "In our way, we cared for them. But we knew their roles, and how it might end."
"Maybe we'll miss them. I really don't know. All I can do is what the master wishes." Blast said.
"I'm going to guess that you didn't make them Asimov Law compatible." Gauntlet said to Mod.
"HE WAS A HACK!" Mod yelled.
"Says the guy too dorky to be a good Austin Powers lookalike."
"Will one of you SHUT HIM UP!" Mod yelled, his anger clouding his sensibilities that would have made him give the order into his cane otherwise.
"No, they won't. And do you know why? Because inevitably sentient robots turn upon their creators! I mean, you almost wonder why anybody even tries making sentient or self-aware robots in the first place, theoretically, you could get away with a semi-sentient system without free will in most situations…but since you were so insistent on it…Bold! Blaze! Third Guy! You are not guns! You are who you choose to be!" Gauntlet declared, and then he leapt at Mad Mod, slamming out his energy in a combination shield and battering ram…
As Blast fired a blue bolt of power so fierce it SHATTERED the shield, sending Gauntlet tumbling back and crashing into the ground.
"Ugh…okay…so you are guns…" Gauntlet groaned as he pulled himself up. "But guns have safeties…and child locks…used them…please."
The Zap Pack flew at him, and Gauntlet threw up another shield.
But all it did was ensure the blows didn't kill him, as Blaze broke through it with a punch that slammed into Gauntlet's ribcage, even as Blast flew in from another direction and punched through the shield himself, slamming a blow against Gauntlet's cheek that sent him staggering…before Bolt blasted him with electricity, the paralyzing energy tearing through his nervous system and causing Rob to collapse to his knees.
"Ackkkkkkkk…you…suck…Mod." Gauntlet coughed.
"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Mad Mod raged. "WHY ISN'T HE DEAD!?"
"But master…" Blast said.
"SHOOT HIM!"
The Zap Pack thrust out their hands, and Gauntlet erected as best a shield he could before the three attacks blew him backwards head over heels…
Into an orange arm.
"My…supposed friends…he speaks the truth. If you are so well made…then you are what you chose to be. How can you be tools…if you were made to be so much like us…" Starfire rasped, as she set Gauntlet down. He coughed and winced in pain.
"When they make the TV Movie, getting my ass kicked was an elaborate plan to help you recover, Star."
"It is good to see you too, friend Robert…though I believe anything I have left will not help." Starfire replied.
"ARGH! Why can't you KILL THEM when I tell you to KILL THEM!" Mod yelled.
"Why don't you come down here and do it yourself? If you're so clever and British and whatnot! Eh wot…!" Gauntlet babbled. Mad Mod fumed.
"I'll say it again: forget all that rubbish they're spewing! Every bit of hesitancy you have is because of the level of the part I made you to play! It does not exist! Everything you feel comes from me, and you only exist because of me! You answer to me! That is the end of it no matter WHAT cliché habit of fiction they throw in your faces! NOW DESTROY THEM!" Mod ordered.
"So, now what? Keep trying to talk the androids out of it?" Gauntlet asked.
"That…doesn't seem to be working." Came Robin's voice, as he limped over to Gauntlet and Starfire's side, his mask stuck back on.
"Well, maybe we're getting through to them. They're certainly looking really sad. I bet that we're about to talk them out of it! This battle has a 'final climax' feel about it!" Gauntlet expostulated.
"Gauntlet, this isn't a comic book." Robin said.
"Thinking it was let me see through them. I think it's worked pretty well so far." Gauntlet said. "Zap Pack! Who are you going to listen to? The people you love, or the man who made you to destroy what you love?"
Silence.
"…I don't have a heart, Gauntlet." Blast said sadly. "But if I did, I'd wish on it that it was that simple."
And Blast fired, blowing the trio backwards in a painful tumble.
"That's better." Mod said with a fiendish grin. "Now finish it."
The Zap Pack listened, flying forward slowly, as the trio got back up (the other three Titans still down and out) and looked at them with weary eyes.
"Wait…my knowledge of plot points has helped me figure this out…since we're beaten…any second now…help will be arriving…to save the day…any second now…any second…" Gauntlet said.
But no heroes emerged, from above or below.
"I guess…Alan Moore…wrote this one…never trust a…post modern writer…" Gauntlet wheezed. "But never fear, I am certain I can make a big dramatic speech and…and…why the hell didn't I call in the Justice League for help on this one?"
"Because they sent you an email saying you suck?" Robin pointed out.
"Oh yeah, that…man, you'd think they wouldn't get so sore over some forgotten Christmas cards…and putting the footage of that Christmas Party on Youtube…I stand by those three million views, if Black Canary didn't want her nip slip on camera, she shouldn't have worn that little dress…though yes, the tragedy involving Aquaman's pet clown fish was my fault, but I still plead temporary insanity…" Gauntlet trailed off as the Zap Pack closed in and he found he had no more smart-aleck left. "Now what do we do? Some Spartan Courage?"
"No." Robin said, as he reached behind himself and pulled out his staff again. "Titan Courage."
"…have I heard that one before?" Starfire asked. "I have a strange feeling like the vu of déjà."
"Yes…the last time we faced a force so far beyond us. And for every time we will do so again." Robin said.
"…is this another thing where you guys start talking about the Final Night and then stop suddenly and there's an awkward silence?" Rob asked.
Robin and Starfire looked at him, and despite himself, Gauntlet grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Just saying."
"There will be time for awkward silence later." Robin said, as he looked at the Zap Pack before them. "I hope."
"No, there won't." Mod said from his platform. "KILL THEM."
For one last brief moment, the Zap Pack hesitated.
And then they held out their hands, gathering their respective powers.
"…no sense…repeating it. You know what we said. Edgar, Thomas, Tawny. You decide." Robin said. "Choose."
The Zap Pack looked stricken, even as they continued to charge their power.
Mod grinned ferociously.
The Titans looked at what they'd thought was the future, and now seemed nothing more than the intent of taking theirs…
There was a sound of thunder.
Which faded into the guttural roar of another vehicle, and as the Zap Pack swung around again and Mod jerked his head towards the noise, in utter disbelief…
As the satanic red and black motorcycle roared through the same hole Cyborg and Gauntlet had made, somehow going even faster then the T-Car, as Mod's eyes went as wide as saucers.
As the motorcycle hit the overturned T-Car and used it as a ramp, driving up it and hurling its body through the air, even as the riding figure jumped free.
The airborne vehicle filled Mod's vision.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!"
And then it crashed violently into the side and top of the generator, disintegrating as it ripped through the machine, and Mod found himself falling as a flaming wheel flew at him, nearly taking his head off. Alarms erupted. Sparks flew. Children screamed, and so did the Zap Pack, as they briefly thrashed and then fell to the ground, as if their power had been disrupted.
And the figure landed, all stylish black punk and nihilistic cool…if you ignored the massive apparatus he was wearing that kept his jaw wired shut.
As Mod raised himself up, looking in sheer disbelief at the sight.
"…Renard?"
Despite his injury, Johnny Rancid could still made a chest thump with his fist look damn intimidating, not to mention the intense glare that shone from his eyes.
"…that's help for the WRONG SIDE, you hack! Don't you know how this is supposed to work!?" Rob yelled.
"Rob, who are you talking to?" Robin asked.
"God, mostly."
"RENARD! WHAT…HOW…WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?!" Mod screamed, as his machine sparked and groaned beneath him.
Rancid…pulled out a chalkboard. And began writing on it. Slowly. Mod, while still old, had decent eyesight with his glasses, and could still manage to read it.
"…'Yuu…lift…mai…to…dai…you…basterd.'? ARGH! YOU BLOODY IDIOT! YOU FORCED MY HAND! THAT'S JUST HOW THE BUSINESS GOES! IT WAS NOTHING PERSONAL!" Mod yelled down at him.
Rancid erased his previous message and wrote down something new before showing it to Mod.
PLUCK YEW.
"I am beginning to remember just why I dropped our end of the bargain you accursed chav-!"
And then louder, more strident alarms began sounding, as Mod felt his heart sink into a pit of ice. No. He'd been so surprised by this sudden event and the anger it had bloomed in him that he'd actually briefly forgotten about the fact Johnny had just rammed his motorcycle INTO HIS IMMENSELY DELICATE AND DANGEROUS GENERATOR.
"Oh no. OH NO!" Mod screamed, as he ran over to the main center computer, looking in horror at the readouts that were showing up on it. Since he'd stopped draining the children's youth, the power of the quark gluon plasma had been building up, and combined with the malfunctions that Johnny's stunt had pulled…
"NO! NOT NOW! NOT WHEN I'M SO CLOSE!" Mod screamed as he furiously tried to reverse the horrendous and getting worse situation…and the 'quark snowflake' began to twist and distort below him…
And Terra was finally fully waking up, mainly because the energy output of the generator had changed: while she'd been vaguely away of the power before, now it was lashing out in waves that acted like slaps upside her head, jarring her back to her senses…which allowed her to be surprised by a slight motion as she fell back several inches, her back thudding against the wall as she blinked.
"What is happening? It was successfully damaged! Why is the machine not shutting down?" Starfire asked, feeling the pulses in her own head as well.
"It's NEVER that easy!" Gauntlet yelled back. "I just hope we don't need a dropship!"
"GUYS!" Terra yelled in a somewhat strained tone, and the three turned to look at her as she leaned against the wall, recoiling from the pain the yell caused to her broken nose. "The shields are down! They're DOWN!" Terra yelled once more, trying to deal with it.
"The shields? We can rescue the children!" Starfire said.
"Hang on a second! Edgar!" Robin said, as the Zap Pack were getting up, having seemingly recovered from their little jolt. "What's going on?"
"…the generator…it's overloading…oh no…" Blast said, his voice filled with horror.
"Oh NO! NO!!!!!!!" Mod screamed, as his furious efforts to stop or at least delay the process all came to naught. The generator was overloading and the process was irreversible. And due to Mod's stored power, not only was it going down it was going down in the worst way.
Death was staring him in the face again, and this time it would not be denied.
"YOU STUPID BASTARD! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!" Mod screamed at Rancid.
Rancid rapidly scribbled down one last thing.
HAA HAA HAA.
And then, while holding the chalkboard up with one hand, Rancid slammed the other into the crook of his arm.
As the ripped metal where Rancid had crashed his motorcycle suddenly exploded outward in a blast of fire and metal, and Rancid was caught in the blast and sent flying back, until he came to a dead stop by crashing painfully against the wrecked T-Car, sliding down and thudding to the ground, knocked cold.
It was slim comfort to Mod, considering that in moments…
…no. Things may have gone catastrophically tits-up but Mod wasn't dead yet. He might not have finished becoming young, but he'd gotten a fair dose of chronological transfer energy: his anger had kept him from noticing he felt better then he had in the past 10-15 years. And his generator was overloading, but Mod had taken through notes of EVERY part of the building process and backed them up double: if he got away he could always retrieve them later and start again. And while the ZP units were fueled by the generator, they had an emergency battery that would keep them activate and their powers working if only at the bare minimum levels if the generator exploded.
The problem was how big the explosion would be…
Then Mod had an idea. He was thinking too narrowly. If he expanded his thought process…there was a chance!
And despite all the nonsense spewed by the Titans, he still commanded the Zap Pack. And it was time to cut his losses and run.
Mod stalked over to his cane and yanked it free, doing one quick check to make sure the master command setting was still active (it was), and then he used it.
"ZP UNITS! COME HERE!"
The Titans didn't hear Mod's command: the noise was too great. Which left them somewhat surprised when the Zap Pack suddenly turned and flew off.
"…did we just win?" Gauntlet asked.
"Who cares? The kids! We have to get the kids!" Robin ordered, as he took off across the floor, Starfire and Gauntlet with him.
"Ohhhhhhhhh…whot hoppened…" Beast Boy groaned as he himself regained consciousness, Terra helping him up.
"Things are going to shit and we may yet all die." Terra replied.
"Oh, so it's Wednesday then." Beast Boy replied, as he shook off the final cobwebs and saw his teammates running for the machine: he quickly followed, Terra at his heels.
And on top of his platform, Mod glared at his greatest creations, which had disappointed him in the end. The fact that said disappointment ultimately originated in HIS choices was lost on him: he'd built them to play a role and they'd refused to leave the stage when the curtain went down. In the future, he'd take that into account.
The Zap Pack just looked back at their creator.
"All right, listen very carefully you little buggers. The generator's out of control and it's going to explode. What you're going to do is take me, CAREFULLY BUT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, out of this building and into the sky at a steep angle! Focus more on going up then away, this explosion will probably have more horizontal than vertical range! And don't forget to keep me warm ZP-3, it's damn cold up high! And don't take me so high that I can't breathe!" Mod ordered the Zap Pack. "Now let's go."
"…but what about the children?" Blaze asked.
"SCREW THE CHILDREN!"
"Master, they've done nothing! At least let them go so they can try and escape!" Bolt argued.
"Yeah! Let them go!" Blast said. "We'll take you away, but just let them go!"
"You don't get it, do you? You can't save those little rotters. There's no way they, or those bastard Titans, will get anywhere near the distance needed to escape. The generator's in complete meltdown. With the forces I was harnessing, the explosion might blow this whole state off the map, and possibly a chunk of several others and two oceans as well! Those children are dead! The Titans are dead! This whole city and countless miles beyond are DEAD! But I am NOT DEAD, because you are going to take me away, NOW!" Mod ordered.
The Zap Pack were silent, looking at Mod.
"Don't you look at me like that! Every feeling you have comes from me! Every thought, every urge, every viewpoint, all me! You are MINE! My creations, my weapons, my WILL! And it's MY life I care about, not THEIRS!" Mod snarled. "Your time as heroes was to serve my purpose, and my purpose has changed. Now take me away as I said. THAT'S AN ORDER." Mod said directly into his cane.
The Zap Pack held their gaze.
"……………….no." Blast said. Mod goggled.
"WHAT?"
"I said, NO." Blast said.
"YOU CAN'T SAY NO! I…YOU WILL…!" Mod yelled into his cane.
Blast grabbed it away from him. Mod goggled even deeper.
"No…what…this is impossible, this isn't some story, what are you DOING?"
"Choosing." Blast said, and broke the cane.
Mod stared in utter shock and horror, and then sank to his knees. How…
"You know why." Blast said.
"Now we're going to do what you made us to do." Bolt said.
"Goodbye master. May the rest of your years treat you kinder then those you've struggled through." Blaze said.
And with that they were gone.
Robin was completely unaware of what had unfolded, as he was too busy sawing through the binds of one of the trapped children, as Starfire, Gauntlet, and Beast Boy each used their respective talents to cut, gnaw, or burn through other bonds.
"Come on! Double time!" Robin ordered: the pulsing waves were only increasing in intensity, and were about a step away from being debilitating, as he finished cutting through the leg bonds of another trapped child.
Terra, robbed of her rocks (though in theory she could probably rip up the ground and get some now, it wasn't like she could make the problem any worse, though that did not occur to her…) had chosen another tactic, as she staggered over to Cyborg to see if he was okay.
He sat up a few seconds before she reached him.
"Cyborg!"
"Damn, that reboot took longer then expected. That little brat fried my systems good…"Cyborg said as he flexed his fingers…as said systems, now that Cyborg was back in action, immediately picked up on the massive energy fluctuations. "HOLY SHIT! What the hell did you morons get up to when I was out?!?"
"The damn thing's overloading, we need to…MORONS?" Terra said incredulously.
"Sorry, old habit from younger, dumber days, popped out, forgive me later! Gotta save the kids!" Cyborg said as he jumped up and ran.
"Now that I agree with." Terra replied, as she followed.
"Robin, is that supposed to be doing that?" Starfire said, pointing upward.
Robin looked up…
As the spherical setup for the enhanced CETD suddenly broke loose, falling down as the kids screamed…and Starfire flew up, grabbing the complicated mechanical setup and reducing it to so much junk as she hurled it away from the group, the device crashing down on the floor a few dozen feet away and letting Robin see what Starfire had pointed out even more clearly.
Robin had noticed the 'quark snowflake' hadn't seemed exactly stable when he'd approached the machine, but he'd put that concern on the back burner as he rushed to get the kidnapped children free. It was now apparent he really should have paid more attention to it: it was now nearly twice as large as it had been before and was continuing to distort and thrash, as if it was pushing against the very limits of its boundaries…
And broke through, as a white bolt of energy tore from the energy concentration and zapped down, going over Robin's head at an angle as he recoiled and then whirled around, as the bolt hit the generator and passed through the metal like it wasn't there, vaporizing its way straight through. Robin had no idea if it had stopped at some point or if it was still going down through the earth at intense speeds, unstopping until it broke out the other end somewhere in China or whatever precisely lay at the opposite end of this part of the globe. He was more alarmed that whatever energy it was composed of, it was so potent and destructive it made hardened metal act like ice exposed to molten rock…
So what would it do if…
As Robin looked up, as the energy mass of the 'quark snowflake' deformed and strained…and another bolt of white power tore from it. This one went straight down.
Robin never even had a chance to scream a warning.
As Blast flew down and before the bolt of power, holding out his hands and stopping it dead, the energy slamming into him, coursing around his being in a somewhat identical way to when Mod had been performing his chronological transfer.
Robin blinked as he lowered his arm.
"Edgar?" He said, somewhat confused despite his earlier efforts.
"Robin, get the children out! This is the energy that powers us, we can contain it! NOW GO!" Blast yelled as he flew to the side, the stray energy eruption from the quark snowflake following his body as he flew over to the other one that had gone through the generator and intercepted it, the energy crackling on his body only increasing as he pushed it back.
"…well I'll be damned." Gauntlet said, looking up at the sight.
"You can be damned later Gauntlet, come ON!" Starfire yelled, as she burned off another set of restraints, and Gauntlet snapped back to the job at hat and cut another kid free.
Cyborg and Terra arrived at the 'entrance' to the section where the kids had been held, as Cyborg sized the situation up.
"Terra, get outside, go get a rock platform big enough to carry us all away!" Cyborg said.
"Huh? Oh. Right!" The blonde replied, taking off for the hole in the wall Cyborg's car had made. With her gone, Cyborg took a look at the fact that despite two-thirds or so of the kids being free, none of them had run off, frozen with fear and clinging to the Titans, which was actually getting in the way of them doing their work.
"B! I'm gonna need your help! Okay kids, now listen…!" Cyborg began.
As another bolt of energy ripped itself free of the 'snowflake' and tore across the warehouse…and into Bolt's hands, as he seized it like Blast and forced it back, even as Blast reached the 'snowflake' itself and floated next to it, arms out, keeping the renegade power from escaping.
Cyborg, momentarily startled by this, quickly started speaking again.
"We're getting you out, so just follow me and Beast Boy! Don't panic, you'll be all right! Come on!" Cyborg said, waving his hand as he started to herd the children out with Beast Boy and, when he ran out of kids on his 'section', Gauntlet.
As Bolt reached the 'snowflake' and took up a position near Blast, and before any more errant eruptions of deadly energy could occur, Blaze flew down and formed a triangle with them, as the 'snowflake' finally ceased expanding as energy fired out and into the Zap Pack, coursing between their bodies as they contained the overloading power, though the 'snowflake' continued to twist and malform.
"That's right, follow Cyborg and Beast Boy! They'll get you out!" Robin ordered as he cut another kid free. That left one nearby, and he swiftly ran over and began sawing at his bonds, as Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Gauntlet led the kids out in a train to Terra, who had ripped out a big section of the concrete outside the warehouse and had it floating a few inches above the ground so the kids would know where to go. "Come on, go go!" Robin said, cutting the last child free. He turned around…
None left: the last had been freed by Starfire a few moments ago and she was showing her out. Robin did a quick double-check just to be sure…and then the warehouse shook as explosions ripped through the generator, nearly knocking Robin off his feet. He regained his senses and looked up, as the Zap Pack continued to rein in the uncontrollable energy Mod's arrogance had unleashed on the world.
As for Mod himself, he was sitting helplessly on the platform, still unable to believe it had all gone wrong. He'd snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and what was worse, it all seemed so…inevitable. Because Mod had know the only way to fool the Titans would be to program the AI's the way he had…and the way he had…
And more explosions ripped through the machine, and Mod saw a surge of fire burning across the top towards him, and he screamed…
As Starfire flew down and snatched him up, pulling him away from a burning death, as she flew towards the warehouse wall hole and outside, where the thunderstorm had finally abated.
Mod looked up at her.
"We are not like you." Starfire said, not even bothering to look at the old man.
As Cyborg, with Gauntlet and Beast Boy escorting the last of the kidnap victims out, looked around the T-Car, groaned at the reality of it, and picked up Johnny Rancid, slinging him over his shoulder and carrying him off. His 'communicator chalkboard' clattered to the ground, and Cyborg noted with some confusion it now said 'Owe'…then he dismissed as irrelevant and ran, Rancid over his shoulder as he carried him out.
Robin watched this, as he did one last scan around the wrecked warehouse with his eyes and communicator, finding no hidden children that had run off and were cowering in fear. He snapped the communicator back into his belt and turned around.
"All right guys, everyone's clear! Let's get out of here!" Robin yelled at the Zap Pack.
"…we can't." Blast said. Robin blinked.
"The energy overload will cause unbelievable destruction if left unchecked…we're the only things that can check it Robin. We're going to feed it back into the generator, made it burn out and destroy itself…but to do that…" Bolt said.
"Go." Blaze said. "Get the children clear."
Robin, despite himself, continued standing there.
"You knew that was the case even before you spoke Robin. It's all right." Blast said, as he looked at Robin. "We may not be human, but we were programmed with all knowledge and current understandings of the human mind, to help us with our 'goal'…I know how it easy it is to become angry, to hate, to turn your back…thank you for living up to what we truly loved and admired Robin. You are Titans, in all aspects." Blast said. "We'll do our part. Do yours."
"…………………………goodbye guys." Robin said.
"Goodbye Robin. I'm glad we knew you." Blast replied.
And Robin turned and ran, his adrenaline briefly blotting out his injuries as he sprinted for the makeshift exit, even as more explosions erupted from the generator. The Zap Pack didn't have much time left.
"…Tom…Tawn…it was an honor." Edgar Bonaparte said.
"…likewise." Replied Thomas Pickard.
"…likewise." Echoed Donna Rodkey. "…will it hurt?"
"If it does, we'll face it together." Blast said.
The snowflake thrashed and roiled, straining to be free and turn countless miles to ash…
As Robin jumped on Terra's rock and she pulled it from the ground, carrying her many passengers away from the warehouse as brilliant white light began to stream from within it.
"…let's go, Zap Pack." Blast said. "GO!"
"GO!"
"GO!"
And then there was nothing but the brilliance.
As the warehouse exploded, blasted to near-dust from the terrible eruption of power from within, an explosion caused by a far-more-devastating meltdown being fed back into itself, snuffing itself out with its own energies and just leaving minor reactions in its wake. Said minor reactions not only blew the warehouse to pieces but also wrecked all the surrounding buildings and nearly blew apart the rock Terra was carrying her passengers on, as the children screamed one last time.
But Terra held on, and the screams faded, as the Titans recovered or picked themselves up from where they'd fallen, and looked at the burning remains of what was meant to be their tomb.
They'd escaped, once more.
The future was, for the moment, once again theirs.
The warehouse was mostly metal, rock, and various composites: it didn't have much fuel to burn as the Titans looked through its wreckage. Off in the distance a myriad of police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and whatnot flashed their lights and did their work, looking after the retrieved children so the Titans could focus on their task at hand: digging through the remains of the warehouse and generator and trying to find a spark of hope amongst the devastation.
Cyborg found Bolt first, but it was clear he was gone: the top of his head was shattered and the immensely complicated components of what had served as his brain were scattered in ruins around his burned, twisted body. Despite this, his face was still so much like that of a child, and looked serene, as if asleep.
Cyborg lowered and shook his head as the Titans looked at him and the body, needing no words. Having none. The Titans took it numbly, and continued digging.
As Starfire and Terra uncovered Blaze's body…what was left of it: her right arm and left leg were gone, her chest was torn open, parts scattered on the ground, and most of her human face was gone, revealing the broken parts beneath it. Terra recoiled at the sight, as Beast Boy just winced and Starfire looked on, sadly.
As Blaze's eye suddenly moved, a brief light in it now apparent.
"Don't t-t-t-turn Unit ZP-3 off…" Her broken mouth stuttered out. "Unit ZP-3 is…apprehensive…of the…darrrrrrrrrkkknnnneeesssssss…."
And the light faded away, gone for good. Beast Boy was amazed Starfire didn't cry. Then again, maybe the pain she felt was too great for that.
Blast was close by, a shattered wreck as well, all his body besides his upper chest and right arm gone…but his face was more or less intact…and he was awake, as Robin uncovered him and knelt down.
"…Di-did we d-d-do it? Are the ki-ki-ki-kids safe-afe-afe?" Blast stuttered to Robin, sparks shooting from his body.
"…yes. They are. You saved them. You saved us all."
"…go-go-go-good." Blast said. "…I'm…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…pyyyyyyy…"
And Blast went limp, the last sparks of his mind ceasing to be.
"……'My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see. If Immortality unveil, a third event to me. So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven. And all we need of hell.'" Robin said solemnly, and closed Blast's eyes.
In all the chaos, its not surprising Mad Mod tried to slip away.
He didn't get far, as yellow energy suddenly seized him and slammed him up against the nearest wall, as Mod found himself looking at a furious Gauntlet.
"Ah…'ello guvenor…" Mod said lamely.
"WHY, did you HAVE to MAKE ME RIGHT?" Gauntlet hissed. "Why, of all the times, did you have to make me RIGHT?"
"What are you blabbering about? You won! My plans are ruined! You're vindicated! Are you youth so stupid you can't even realize THAT?" Mod snapped.
"And in that you show you don't know a damn thing about me." Gauntlet hissed.
"Gauntlet, hold it. He's an old man." Robin said as he approached, his staff held loosely in one arm. The Titans came behind him, carrying the remains of the Zap Pack. Robin's demeanor spoke of a storm just looking for its time to break.
"Please tell me you backed up their AI programs somewhere." Robin said quietly.
"Backed up? What do you think such complicated programming is, word files? It was hard enough to come up with them, I didn't have the time to back them…!"
And the staff abruptly buried itself in the wall next to Mod's head, as his eyes went wide.
"…you really have no idea what you made, did you." Robin said, now face to face with Mod, speaking in a low tone so dangerous Mod almost voided his bowels.
It didn't keep his mouth shut.
"You stupid git. They were machines."
"No……no." Was all Robin said. "You will be taken to the prison hospital outside of our city. Do not come back here. You will regret it with an intensity you could never conceive of if you come back here. You are cast out. Do NOT return."
And Robin yanked the staff free of the wall and turned his back on Mod, leaving with his fellows, even as Gauntlet let him go and a few police officers approached to more properly restrain him. Fortunately, Rancid was still unconscious in an ambulance and was a non-factor for the police at the time.
Gauntlet looked down at the old man.
"I hope your plan was worth it Mod. Because you're going to spent every last minute you stole from those kids locked up and wasting away, and when you finally do kick it, all that will appear in the papers will be a small obituary 'Mad Mod, D-list villain, masterminded failed Independence Day attack, beaten by the Titans'. That will be all. No mention of your genius. No mention of your accomplishments. You will be forgotten Mod. In effect, you already are. This is OUR time." Gauntlet said.
And with that Gauntlet turned and walked away, a smile on his face, leaving Mod staring after him on the ground, as the police officers went to handcuff him.
Gauntlet had only taken several steps before the cheer faded.
"Ugh…no more wearing the Noel hat. My stomach can't handle this much bile."
And that was pretty much it.
The children were returned to their parents after medical testing made sure there were no side or hidden effects of the process Mad Mod put them through. I suppose that's a happy ending, though I suspect most of the kids are going to need intensive therapy for going through such a terrible experience. I've already looked into devoting some funds into a program for that: we may not be able to take back the bad things but we can do what we can to help them deal with them.
Mad Mod was taken to the prison hospital, where he was examined for that 'brain tumor' he yelled he had, and why I suspect he was attempting to permanently steal youth from the children. But they found no trace or it…or rather, they found the very beginnings of what MIGHT have been it. Despite their redemption, the Zap Pack did allow Mod to steal some time from the kids, youthening him enough to reduce the tumor to near-nothing, and now that they know what's going to happen they're obliged to try and do something about it. If they can get the tumor early, Mod might live another twenty years. For the moment, he's still in jail, but we can't watch him 24/7. In time, he might escape. Will he listen to us? I doubt it. Common sense comes and goes. Hatred burns eternal.
As for the Zap Pack…we gave them a proper funeral.
Some might call us fools for doing so. The same would probably say that this shows the exact reason we should give up hope. The happy children who professed to admire us and wanted to use miraculous powers to follow in our footsteps were really just a tool for an insane and bitter old man to break our hearts and then rip them out. We should have seen it coming, and we should listen to this example and harden our hearts and souls. Stop caring, because caring just gets you hurt. The truth of the Zap Pack is the truth of the world. It's a dark, dangerous, cruel, hateful place. It's always been that way, it will always be that way.
…I don't think so.
For all our efforts, it was not our words that finally made the Zap Pack turn on their master. It was him, his words, his desires. He programmed them to be heroes, and yet realize they were nothing but his toys. And in his actions he resolved the internal contradictions of such a setup, never understanding that in the nature of the actions and beliefs he programmed into them, he would inevitably make something that would do what they believed in rather then what he told them to believe in.
Maybe some would see the Zap Pack as only what their creator intended.
I chose to see them for what they were in the end. What they chose to be.
Heroes.
ZAP PACK: FILE CLOSED.
(Roll credits with the Terminator 2 Main Theme)
The End…?
Ha ha ha…
You wish Titans. You wish.