Hey again guys! Thanks to those of you who read and reviewed my first chapter, your feedback means a lot :) I'll try to keep updating as much as I can, but with the whole coronavirus pandemic, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to. Ok, without further ado, here's the second chapter :D
After having gone to bed around 3-3:30 in the morning last night, Raven's exhaustion was warranted. Had she not had to wake up a mere 2 hours after finally falling asleep, perhaps she would have been in a better mood, but no, the crime alarm sounded much earlier than usual, signaling that an enemy was on a rampage throughout Jump City. Groaning, she slipped out of bed and quickly changed into her cloak, flying out of the door.
"Trouble." Robin said. The rest of the Titans were already gathered by the time Raven walked into the common room. Beastboy turned, hearing the door open behind him. Him and Raven locked eyes, both blushing at the remembrance of their late night together. Cyborg gave them a side glance and raised an eyebrow. Blushing? He thought, noticing the heat on both of their faces. The half-robot cleared his throat and Beastboy whipped his head back around, grinning sheepishly.
"Who is it?" Raven asked, now standing behind the green changeling. He turned again, surprised at how close she was to him all of a sudden. As he turned, the space between their faces closed, causing them to only be a few inches apart. They felt the color rise back into their faces, and Beastboy quickly turned. Robin clicked a few keys on the Titan's main computer; as he did so, an image of Control Freak came up on the screen. The remaining 4 Titans shared a collective groan.
"Him again?" Beastboy whined, rolling his eyes. "Dude! How many times do we have to put this guy in jail for him to finally get the memo?"
"Not sure," Robin replied, turning off the computer. "But hopefully one more time does the trick. Let's go!"
The five superheroes quickly left their tower: each one of them was airborne, with Cyborg holding onto the leg of Beastboy's pterodactyl and Robin and Starfire's arms intertwined. Raven obviously flew solo, her hood up and cloak billowing behind her. Beneath her, the streets were chaos: people were screaming and running, windows to buildings were broken, and the source of all of the commotion was none other than the remote-wielding couch potato known as Control Freak. The Titans landed on the ground, readying themselves into their battle positions. Upon seeing them, the mediocre villain laughed.
"Look who decided to show up! Why, it's none other than my favorite crime-fighting team. Long time no see, right Titans?" He said, beaming. Robin narrowed his eyes.
"We hate to interrupt your fun, Control Freak, but the show's over (get it, because he uses a remote control to manipulate TVs). It's time for you to go back to where you came from: jail."
"Hate to break it to you, Boy Wonder, but I'm not the one who's going anywhere!" Control Freak retorted, aiming the remote at them. Letting out a sinister laugh, he clicked a button, and the five teens immediately disappeared.
When they next looked, they found themselves free-falling into a sea of endless white, their screams filling the silence. Cyborg was the first to land, his robotic parts squeaking against the floor. Each Titan landed in their own respective places, and each of them hit the ground just as hard. Groaning, Beastboy cradled his head in his hands.
"Where are we?" He asked, standing up and observing his surroundings. Starfire was next to him, following suit.
"It appears we have landed in the room of white, did we not?" She asked innocently, looking at her friends. The remaining three got to their feet, each equally as confused.
"The last thing I remembered, he pointed that stupid remote at us and then we were falling." Cyborg remarked, scratching his head in confusion.
"Usually, when he does that with the remote, we get transported into some television program." Raven said, looking around. "I'm assuming this is the same situation."
"If that's the case, then where's the TV villains and the TV characters he typically has us fight? Something about this doesn't seem entirely right." Robin replied, his hand stroking his chin in thought. As soon as it left his mouth, the teens were met with the nasally voice of Control Freak.
"Hello, Titans. How's the weather down there?" He smirked, appearing as an image on one of the white walls. Robin frowned at him.
"Where did you take us to, Control Freak?" He demanded, approaching the screen.
"Ah, ah, ah, Titans. You're not getting answers that easily." He laughed, satisfied that he had the upper hand. "If you ever want to get out, you're going to have to complete a journey, a quest, if you will!" Raven raised an eyebrow.
"What kind of quest?" She asked, pursing her lips. She was much too tired and much too irritable to be putting up with any of his antics.
"Oh, just the kind where you're met with your untimely death!" Control Freak retorted, giddily shaking his hands on the screen. "I've already told you enough. You'll just have to wait and see what happens next. Ta ta for now, Titans!"
The teenagers frowned, each wondering exactly what he meant. Before she even had time to turn, Raven was met with a shot from a blaster. She was thrown backwards into the wall, denting it and exposing its metal infrastructure. Beastboy's head snapped to the sorceress, immediately wanting to go check if she was ok. Before he could, though, he heard Robin's command of "Titans, go!" Deciding to destroy the enemy before checking up on Raven, Beastboy quickly transformed into a T-Rex, roaring at the small army of robotic soldiers. He took off as quickly as possible, stepping on the soldiers in his wake. Changing back into his normal form, he surveyed the situation.
Robin was circled by about 7 or 8 of the robots, performing acrobatic moves to dodge their blasters. Finally, he went off at the group with his staff, decapitating 3 of them and firing birdarangs at those remaining. After they had exploded, the Boy Wonder ran over to where Starfire was fighting, hoping to be of assistance to her.
The Tameranean hardly needed any help, though, as she had already destroyed a great number of the soldiers surrounding her. Flashes of green lit up the white room, and the sound of her starbolts as well as her battle cries rang out. From below her, on the floor, Robin was attempting to take some of them out with hand-to-hand combat. Working perfectly together, the two destroyed all of the soldiers that had been cornering them.
Cyborg's sonic cannon was quickly tearing through the robots, leaving holes in their torsos. He seemed to be doing fine, but there was a soldier right behind him, ready to shoot him when he turned. His animal senses kicking in, Beastboy quickly turned into a hawk and flew at the robot, transforming into an elephant on contact. Cyborg turned and was met with the sight of the crushed robot underneath Beastboy's elephant exterior.
"Thanks, man." He grinned. The changeling transformed back into his normal form, high-fiving the cyborg. Turning around, Beastboy saw one of the robotic soldiers towering over him, blaster aimed at his head. He barely had time to think before the enemy was encased in black energy and crushed into a ball, thrown across the room. Looking up, he saw Raven, hood up, with her hands surrounded in black energy from destroying the robot. Beastboy's face went red and he shyly grinned at her, showing he appreciated it. He swore he could have seen the faintest of smiles on Raven's face, but he hardly got a good look at her before she flew to go to combat with some of the robot-soldiers herself.
Beastboy loved watching Raven in combat. Somehow, even swarmed with chaos and enemies, she still managed to look incredible. Chanting her mantra, she obliterated multiple soldiers at a time, demonstrating only a fraction of her power. When she was hit, she got up as fast as possible, but that was nothing compared to how quickly she moved when one of her teammates was in danger. Even during the most difficult battles, her loyalty and selflessness rang true. Lost in thought, Beastboy hardly noticed the swarm of soldiers come from the ground behind him. Yelping, he turned into a lion, ready to defend himself, but it wasn't necessary. The rest of his team was one step ahead of him, crashing onto the group of robots. Raven was in the front, having picked up on the soldier's presence first. Firing a shot of black at one of them, it promptly became airborne and was thrown across the room.
After a tiring few minutes of fighting, the Titans had finally defeated all of the soldiers that had been deployed. Breathing heavily, the teens approached the spot Raven had dented and exposed the inter-workings of the room. Cyborg crouched in front of it, examining it.
"What is it, Cyborg?" Robin asked from behind him, peering at the metallic area. The half-robot sighed, his eyes never wavering from the spot.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think we were actually taken into a television broadcast or anything this time. From the look of it, Control Freak just put us in a room somewhere and wants us to keep battling his minions. But how do we get out?" Cyborg inquired, thinking hard. Having an idea, Raven flew into the center of the room and encased the entirety of it in black energy. The 4 other teenagers looked at her, confused, but realized what she was doing when she pulled off the white wallpaper.
"Clearly," the sorceress remarked, "Control Freak put us here assuming we wouldn't find out where we are. But if the entire room is technological, then he must be controlling it with his remote, right Cyborg?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right." He replied, exhaling.
"Which means that if we find out where the remote is…" Robin began.
"Then we can get out of the room!" Starfire replied happily. Raven wasn't so optimistic.
"How are we supposed to find the remote if we can't even get out of here?" She asked, pointing out the obvious flaw to their plan.
"Well, let's see. If Control Freak is using a remote to control what's happening in here, it must be connected to a router of some sort, right?" Robin thought aloud, pacing around the now-completely metal room. "So if we find the router, he can't manipulate the room anymore."
"So all we have to do is find out where he's controlling the soldiers from and then we get out, yeah?" Beastboy beamed, happy he was finally follow along with one of their plans. Raven glanced over at him, smirking ever so slightly.
"But how will destroying the router help us get out of this room?" Starfire asked.
"Judging by what we've seen him do in other missions, without the remote to connect him to anything, he has no power over any of his targets." Robin replied.
"And since a lot of the situations he puts us into wouldn't happen in the real world, without being connected to the room, everything will just go back to the way it would be in reality." Raven continued.
"Meaning his powers would have no effect on anything." Cyborg finished. "So the room wouldn't even exist anymore." Starfire and Beastboy grinned, filled with motivation to find the connection to Control Freak's remote.
"How do we go about finding this router, Robin?" The Tameranean asked, flying over to him. Robin turned to Cyborg.
"Any idea what we're looking for here?" He asked him. Cyborg frowned.
"I've never seen technology like this, so I don't know exactly what it would look like. But it would have to be big enough that Control Freak can hit it from far outside of the room, if that helps at all." He shrugged. Satisfied with that answer, the Titans started searching the room.
"Wait," Beastboy said. They all turned to him. "Why hasn't Control Freak sent more soldiers after us, especially after we figured out to get out of here?" As if it was the cue they had been waiting for, a massive swarm of soldiers came, surrounding the teenagers from both sides.
"You just had to say it." Raven glared at Beastboy. The latter's jaw dropped upon seeing the horde of robots, and it took him a few seconds to grasp what they were dealing with. Robin turned to them.
"Starfire, Raven, Beastboy: you guys are going to hold off the soldiers while me and Cyborg try to find the router. Go!" He commanded. The female Titans flew into the air, readying their powers. Beastboy transformed into a T-Rex, prepared for the onslaught of blasts coming their way. The three charged into battle, each one taking a section of soldiers.
Behind them, Robin was scanning the room for anything that looked large and conspicuous. Finding nothing, he ran all around, examining everything much closer. Cyborg followed his lead, thoroughly inspecting everything.
While the Titans set out to complete their various jobs, from up above, Control Freak was readying his escape. Unsurprisingly, the Titans had figured out the way out, and he was taking advantage of the commotion to get out of the building. Packing his technology into a bag and taking everything valuable from the room, he hadn't even bothered to check the screen. Turning to open the door, he was shocked with what he saw.
The five Titans stood in front of him, clearly having found the router and escaped from the room. Robin stepped towards Control Freak and took him by the collar.
"Where you're going, Control Freak, you won't need any of your toys." He said, narrowing his eyes and taking the bag from the villain's hand. The remaining 4 Titans watched the scene unfold, arms crossed and waiting for the authorities to arrive.
It hardly took any time at all for the police to show up and, before they knew it, the superheroes were back at the Tower. All of them were exhausted and sat down on the couch, Beastboy and Cyborg immediately reclining while Starfire and Raven slouched in an upright position. Robin, having had to explain the events to the police, walked in a few moments later, saying something about combat practice being cancelled before ordering the team to take showers. Raven rolled her eyes at how Robin exercised his leadership so domestically, but obeyed regardless.
After the team had cleaned off and gone to their respective rooms, probably to catch up on the much-needed sleep, Raven found herself back in the common room with Beastboy. She felt a blush rise into her face, but continued walking anyway. The changeling, unsurprisingly, was seated on the couch, exclaiming curses and all sorts of dialogue at the TV. The sorceress put a tea kettle on the stove and found herself standing next to the couch, watching the green boy play his video games. He glanced over at her and felt his ears heat up, but continued playing anyways. Even though Beastboy knew that video games were not the way to impress her, he couldn't help but feel a certain pressure to win in front of her. After losing another game to the computer-generated enemies, he groaned and put down the controller.
Raven walked back over to the counter, followed by Beastboy, and poured herself tea. The changeling watched her as she went about her routine, grinning toothily. She turned to him and cocked a brow.
"What?" She asked, her placid demeanor never changing. He just smiled bigger and shook his head a little bit, laughing softly.
"This is familiar, isn't it?" He joked, nodding to their arrangement. Only a few hours ago, the two were in the same position, sharing information with each other that they wouldn't have uttered to anyone else on the team. Raven gave him a small smile, remembering exactly what he was talking about. She couldn't help the content feeling that flood over her when she was with Beastboy; a feeling so different than one she was used to feeling. The green boy only saw the smile as encouragement, though, and tried to continue the conversation.
After listening to a barrage of jokes, Raven had finally had enough, and slid off of the counter back onto her feet. Seeing she was about to leave, Beastboy quickly blurted a 'thank you.'
"Thank you?" The sorceress asked, cocking her head to the side. "For what?"
"Oh no, I just meant, like, during the battle and stuff." He recovered, a little embarrassed. "You saved my butt so many times I can't even count." Raven pursed her lips.
"Don't worry about it." She dismissed his gratitude, and began walking out of the common room. Beastboy was right behind her.
"No, seriously." He said, walking in front of her so she had to face him. "I don't know what I would do without you."
Raven felt a familiar blush creeping onto her face, and went to put on her hood, only to be stopped by Beastboy's hand resting gently on her wrist. He gave her a crooked smile, his bottom fang pointing out, and then left the room, leaving Raven a flustered mess. Damn him she thought, recovering from her previous embarrassment. From inside his a room, a certain Cyborg had his ear pressed up to the door, wondering what exactly just happened between his friends.