Okay, now this chapter to the end of the episode was what I was talking about when I mentioned was not in original plan. This literally and figurativly came out of the blue.

jwill21- The gas will be explained later, but you're on course with it being a weakness.

Black Victor Cachat- Members of the teams can be shuffled around to help other groups, an earlier chapter alluded to that after the new Titans went public and an hour overdue check in would be the equivilant to 'there may be trouble' with increased times warrenting more concern.

Eric- Yep, Gar's permanently green tinted. If he goes out, he needs a charm from Zatanna to blend in. And yes, Star's still going over who to join and may make a decision here in a bit depending on how things go. And you'll find out who's babysitting this time around in this chap.

Paragon Eight- If BB should shift into a spider, he wil grow the extra limbs due to the arachnid's form, he just can't spring extra arms or the such unless the animal has them, and can't do that in human form. is abilities are restricted to the animal itself as to the form he takes. As for new Titan recruits, I'm playing that close to the vest.

2.

Titan Tower

August 27

15: 59 UTC

Recognized, T-6, Arrowette.

With the young heroine stepping out from the bright light of the Zeta Tube, Cissie let her backpack slip off her shoulder as she headed for the couch area the others were occupying.

"Hey, guys." Sitting next to Raven, Cissie was not in her usual cheery mood.

"Hey" Garfield and Terra said simultaneously while Raven gave a halfhearted wave.

"I saw M'gann left on a mission on my communicator, what was it? And why didn't we get the call?"

Recognized, T-5, Green Lantern.

"Hey," Kyle said, dropping his sachal on the floor and dragging it into the living area. "Why weren't we called for the mission?"

Looking at Garfield, Terra saw he was not bothering to give an answer and decided to answer for him. "She left with Starfire, Supergirl, and Wondergirl for a mission. She dropped Carter off with Artemis for the time being before leaving. Cassie even went so far as to ditch her last class for the day to get here once she learned her boyfriend was one of the captured-"

"Captured?!" Cissie and Kyle asked at the same time.

"What happened?" Cissie asked.

"Was he the only one?" Kyle added.

"No, Conner was captured to," Raven told them. "Cyborg's in charge for the duration of him and M'gann being gone. But he's not here yet to handle training or something."

"Then why didn't she tell us? Or wait for us to get here?" Cissie asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Terra said. "We showed them we aren't ready to be real heroes with that stupid dream thing. We still need someone holding our hand and they don't want or need to do that."

"That can't be true," Kyle told her. "We were caught off guard in a dream. It wasn't real. How were we supposed to have known Scarecrow could do that?"

"But you remember that failsafe thing they went through in their first year," Cissie reminded him. "They were in an exercise that wasn't real and they failed. Why not include us in the mission."

"There's always you being in school," Raven flatly said.

"But you three are home schooled."

"But Jaime's not."

"He had a free day," Kyle informed her.

"Look," Cissie said as she tossed her bag to the side, "the bottom line is, they should have called us. We're still part of a team. We're the Titans. We're trained by the original black ops team and League members, are we not?"

"With how that stupid dream went," Terra said as she slouched in her spot, "and not being taken on a mission, it doesn't seem like we are a team."

No one said a word, opting for silence to take over for a bit as they thought about why they were not included on the mission.

Breaking the silence, an alert flashed over the large flatscreen TV with a blinking yellow and red background. The word 'ALERT' switched from black to white with a pulsating buzzing accompanying it. Upon blacking out, green lettering appeared describing what was happening as news footage of a crime in progress being reported by the Jump City News.

"For the last several minutes," the female news caster said as she spoke off camera, "authorities have been tracking down the criminal known as Killer Croc who pulled off a brazen daytime robbery in the outskirts of the city. Reports of dozens of people being injured as well as thousands of dollars worth of damage are coming in. Police have called in the SWAT team as their firearms do not cause any damage whatsoever from the range they're at and are now being forced to keep back and make sure any and all civilians do not get injured."

"Killer Croc?" Cissie asked.

"I've heard of him," Terra mentioned.

"Think we should wait for Cyborg?" Kyle asked, rubbing his ring absentmindedly.

"Don't think we can," Raven commented.

Watching the screen and reading what it displayed in green lettering, Garfield went from doubting himself and the decisions he made, to extreme nervousness in what would happen should they go out there to face the reptilian villain. Rocking back and forth, he went into controlled breaths as a replay of what happened earlier went through his head.

"Well, what do we do then?" Kyle asked.

"We still don't even have a leader," Terra pointed out. "We're not a team if we don't have a chain of command."

"And he's one of Batman's rogues," Cissie reminded the rest. "His bio states Batman deals with him because he knows how."

"Yeah, but he's here," Raven told her. "Doesn't that make him our problem?"

"Well, I ask again, what do we do?" Waiting for an answer, Kyle and the others looked expectantly at each other as if the answer to the question would be presented to them out of the blue.

"We deal with him."

Looking over at Garfield, the other four Titans saw him stand and stare at them worriedly.

"We, we go down there and deal with him. This is our city and we can't depend on the League or other team to clean up trouble for us. We might have failed whatever that dream was Scarecrow put us through, but we now know what we're scared of. Maybe this was why sis left us here. To look over the city while she and the others are gone. To prove to ourselves we can make a comeback after a mission failure. Now I haven't gone against Killer Croc before, but he's not unstoppable if Batman can bring him down. We can't depend on anyone else to take care of our problems for us. We have to do this. We have to get back in the game."

The others looked from the green teen to each other as the TV behind them continued playing the broadcast of the destruction the crocodilian monster was causing.

Watchtower

August 27

16:00 UTC

Gathering everything he needed, Cyborg hastily walked toward the Zeta Tubes intending to arrive at Titan Tower. With a list of objectives for the Titan team downloaded into his electronic brain and an arm full of information on the Blood Cult to go over, he was ready to have the new team bounce back should they need incentive to get into the fight again, something Garfield did for him when he needed it after discovering he was over half machine.

Thinking back to what the little guy told him, the most he could figure was the team had lost their heart, like what he did upon being freed from Apocolyptic control. That is one of the easiest things to lose in his opinion and the hardest to get back. It was something the teenager helped him get back, and was determined to repay that with him and the rest of the team.

Almost reaching the teleportation platforms, the machine man began to receive a transmission from Jump City. Reports of a criminal known as Killer Croc causing havoc flooded his internal CPU as well as a Titan broadcast.

Jump City Docks

August 27

16:27 UTC

Hiding within a large metal building, a large group of dock workers took cover behind conveyer belts and other heavy equipment as the rampage outside went on. Women and men processing fish and oysters were trapped as the criminal outside had damaged the front doors and was now in the rear of the building with the police trying to corner him as best they could. The two story structure had no windows where the workers could climb out through unless they were around twelve feet tall. Taking precaution, several of the men lined the large doors with a couple of forklifts in hopes of keeping the criminal out.

Outside, bullets ricochet off the ground as clawed feet moved quickly to avoid them. Powerful legs helped push a damaged semi-trailer on its side to provide cover, not from how deadly the small arms fire was, but from how they annoyed the man they struck. Large clawed hands gripped a nearby Volkswagen with equally large arms flexing to fling it into the air. The flying cream colored car sailed toward a news helicopter, barely missing its skids as it moved out of the way just in time.

"This is insane!" the pilot of the aircraft shouted as he fought to regain control from the sudden sharp movement he performed.

"Just keep us at a good distance but out of harm's way," the young broadcast journalist said while hoping his seatbelt would hold out.

"Rrrrr, can't stand that channel." Killer Croc growled.

Looking for something else to throw, the large, reptilian skinned man heard the sound of a siren from the other side of the building he was near. Screeching to a stop behind him, another police unit arrived with two officers brandishing AR-15s. Both opened fire on the super powered criminal who held an arm in front of is face to block the shots aimed for his head. None penetrated his skin as he was covered in thick scales like that of the animal he was named after. His dark gray skin easily reflected the dozens of rounds striking him and with one swift move, he struck down the two officers with his mighty five foot long tail. Both went flying into the water with their weapons snapping in half like twigs.

"And I hate cops!" Grabbing the black and white vehicle, Killer Croc easily threw it into the building next to him. The resulting impact caused it to tear through the metal and explode inside the structure.

Inside the building, the trapped workers shouted in panic as the vehicle exploded, catching a few of them as it did so.

"Get the extinguishers!" one of the workers yelled as a fire erupted from the vehicle's gas spilling out and catching fire.

Hurrying about, several workers grabbed the red canisters from marked stations on the walls and put them to use. Others grabbed buckets of fish to throw on the remaining fires as there were not enough extinguishers to cover them all. Everyone worked together in order to save themselves and live to go back to their families, never noticing the majority of the damage was to the main support beam bearing the weight of the building.

Across the area Killer Croc was located, a line of police officers were set up on a bridge overlooking the dock area. Chaos did not come close to describe how it looked like as not only were the city's cops being held back by a supervillain, but no one could get to the injured.

"I need an emergency evac copter now!" the police chief shouted to his deputies. "Once SWAT gets here, I want a squad to go in and get the injured immediately."

"Sir," one of the deputies said while placing his hand over his phone, "SWAT is held up with another crisis across the city. Even if there wasn't, it would take them over twenty minutes to get here due to traffic."

"I've got men down here with injured civilians! Tell them I need heavy ordinance now!"

Grabbing his binoculars, the chief of police watched the chaos continue. "Oh, God. We need help."

Behind him, the sound of an engine revving roared across the sky. Turning, the chief and others on the bridge saw a large, silver three wheeled vehicle fly overhead at an incredible speed. Those wearing hats lost them as others wearing ties had them standing straight out from the massive gust of wind. Watching the strange vehicle fly off, the chief gawked in awe at it seemed someone answered his call of trouble.

Landing on top of a building overlooking the rampaging croc-man, the Supercycle formed Sphere beeped as she let her passengers off. Landing on the roof first, Arrowette drew her bow with an arrow at the ready. Next to her, Terra touched ground after leaping off the back of the sentient machine and made sure her gloves were on tight. Kyle, in his Green Lantern form, floated in the air with his power radiating brightly off him. Raven landed ahead of him with her cape billowing behind her in dramatic fashion with her hood casting a shadow over half of her face. Lastly, Beast Boy leapt off Sphere in the form of a panther and morphed back to his monkey/human hybrid self.