Chapter 25
Kick Yourself...
"And there is once again, no sign of Red X." Beast Boy called to Robin over the communicator, annoyed that he had looked over the mountain three times.
Red X, now back as his high school persona, as Nathan sat in his room and looked at the suit he had been gifted.
"It was only a partial failure." The teen told himself.
"If you consider a partial failure being losing your belt that controlled most of the gadgets at your disposal." The voice suddenly called out to him.
"So, what now?" Nathan asked.
"Well you certainly aren't getting this build-a-babe yet!" The voice said, "But here you go."
Suddenly, the belt reappeared on the uniform.
"Go figure." Nathan commented.
"But, you did achieve what I wanted you to do." The voice said.
"I did?" Nathan questioned.
"Yes." The voice said, "You got the attention of the Titans. And quite frankly, that's all I really wanted you to do."
"Man, I thought I was going to be killing the Titans." Nathan replied, "I mean, trashing Polybius was fun and all, but what was the point of making take on that persona of a petty thief?"
"You mean is." The voice corrected, "If you bluntly said that you want to kill Polybius, then you will suddenly find yourself on the top of the Titan's priority list."
"So?" The teen asked, "This suit has the power to kill him."
"Which is something you will not do." The voice commanded, "You will not kill. You will do as I say when I say, or you are going to have far worse consequences in store for you then what I'm about to do to you."
Suddenly the teen felt his stomach enter one of the worst aches he had ever felt. He grasped onto his stomach and let out a cry of pain as he dropped to the floor.
"You see, Nathan, I am more powerful than you could possibly comprehend. And one thing you're gonna learn real quick is that I don't tolerate failure." The voice stated.
Suddenly the teen felt his stomach settle as he recovered.
"The thing is, I don't really like to do that kind of stuff to my pawns." The voice went on "In fact, I'd much rather do things to people they care about. So unless you want your mommy's kidneys to fail, you had better live up to the power I have bestowed upon you!" The voice commanded.
"I- I will!" Nathan assured, "Please don't hurt my mom!"
"Then just do what I need you to do then." The voice told him.
Meanwhile, back at Titans tower, Polybius was sitting in his room looking up more about Mount Jackson. However, when a knock on the door pulled his attention, he was caught off guard when he saw nobody there. Instead, he saw arrows on the ground, pointing him in the direction of the main room.
The mute was apprehensive about following this. This had bad news written all over it, and he hated it. He had a high feeling that some bad guy was waiting to jump out at him. So as an extra precaution, he carried his stone club with him.
Slowly making his way down the hall, Polybius was on high alert. Everything about this was telling him that something wasn't right.
As predicted, the trail ended in the main room. Standing at the door to the main room, the mute Titan prepared himself for whatever criminal he was about to face. And with a deep breath, he walked in calmly.
And was completely taken off guard by what he saw.
Rather than finding some demented criminal holding the Titan hostage or an empty room, he found all of the Titans standing there.
"Finally!" Cyborg shouted, "The party is here!"
The mute Titan shot him a confused look as he looked around the room. In the kitchen, he saw Cyborg's famous eight-layer cake. Up at the couch, he saw video games set up and ready to go. And over at the dining table, he saw Starfire's arts and crafts box. And standing in the middle of the room looking at him were all five Titans.
"It is time for the fun to begin!" Starfire declared happily.
"Yeah!" Beast Boy said.
The mute Titan blinked a few times as his mind tried to come up with a solution for this.
"He's confused." Raven stated.
The mute nodded.
"Alright, I guess we should explain ourselves." Robin said, "Go ahead and take a seat, Polybius!"
The mute Titan then did as he was told and sat on the couch and looked at his five teammates.
"So you remember a few months ago where I almost accidentally killed you?" Beast Boy asked.
Just to mess with him, Polybius shook his head no.
"No?" Beast Boy questioned.
Polybius then did a facepalm before shaking his fist at the green Titan.
"He's telling you, of course, he remembers it." Raven translated, "And is calling you an idiot for believing he didn't."
"Well, we all talked about it and…" Beast Boy started before getting cut off by Robin.
"And we have decided that we all owe you an apology." Robin finished.
The mute Titan raised an eyebrow.
"Well, we've all been looking at how we've been treatin you." Cyborg said.
"And we have been terrible friends!" Starfire proclaimed.
"And the fact that you're still with us says a lot." Raven added.
"So we decided to show you how much we appreciate you!" Beast Boy said, "With a Polybius appreciation day!"
The Titans then all gave Polybius a big smile as he just stared at them. He could feel his blood pressure rising as his anger swelled. An appreciation day, to him, sounded like a slap in the face. Proving Darkbius and Hostbius, right!
The mute Titan must have had a blank look on his face as the Titans had no clue how angry he was.
"Well?" Beast Boy asked.
The mute Titan threw his hands up in rage and stormed out of the room.
"Polybius! Wait!" Robin called out, catching up to Polybius.
Just as the mute exited the room, he felt Robin's hand land on his shoulder. This prompted the mute to stop and look back to see all five Titan standing there.
"Come on, at least text us why you're mad." Robin asked.
The mute Titan nodded and whipped out his phone and communicator. He then looked at the masked leader and tossed them at him. The leader caught it as Polybius turned his back on his team and left the tower, leaving the team guessing where it all went wrong.
The mute Titan left the tower and headed for Jump City. From there, he headed out towards the forest for comfort. He needed to calm his nerves before he went back.
He took a leaned up against a random tree and sunk to the ground. He didn't have his backpack with him, so it made sliding down the tree much more comfortable. And for a long time, just sat in total silence save for the wind blowing through the leaves.
This lasted for a long while as his nerves settled down. However, he would be brought out of this by a series of footsteps. He assumed it was his team coming and looking for him, so just sat there and waited for them to pass.
However, he was surprised to see that it wasn't his team, but rather a group of teens, all around his age, walking through.
"Hey Marc! Check it out!" One of them shouted, "It's Polybius!"
The mute Titan saw the group moving over to him. Two males. He didn't get a bad vibe just by looking at them and didn't suspect any trouble.
"Aw yeah!" The other one said.
The group then walked up to him, and he stood up to greet them. The mute Titan shook their hands as they introduced themselves.
"My name's Marc." The first one greeted.
"Rayanus." The second greeted.
The mute Titan then noticed that they, just like him, were all wearing black jackets.
"Say, are you in the middle of a mission right now?" Marc asked, "Cause if you are, then we don't want to get in the way of that."
The mute shook his head.
"Awesome!" Rayanus said, "Well first off, I've gotta say, it's a true honor and pleasure to meet you, Polybius."
"Yeah." Marc added.
The mute Titan smiled as the teens continued to talk.
"Man, you are our hero!" Rayanus declared, causing a mute to raise an eyebrow.
"Dude, how you make the scariest monsters run from you is freaking awesome!" Marc added, "Man, we wish we could be you!"
The mute let out a silent chuckle as the two had no clue. Absolutely zero about the pure hell his life was and had been.
"Say, if you aren't busy, Rayanus has got this new Super Uno game. And would you like to sit down and join us for a game?" Marc offered.
The mute Titan had to think about Super Uno for a moment. He then remembered it was this how now portable and foldable computer system that essentially gave you four Uno players wherever you went. It was programmed with bots and different modes.
The mute nodded.
"Sweet!" Marc said, "This is gonna be the best Uno game we ever played."
"Hell yeah!" Rayanus agreed.
Setting it up, the trio played with a bot named 'Classy.' Polybius quickly learned to hate that bot. It seemed that every chance 'she' would get, she would screw him over. The other two found his rage towards the bot quite amusing.
"Come on, man." Marc said between laughs, "Can't you do one nice thing for Classy?"
The mute Titan, who was also silently laughing, shook his head as he hit her with a no choice plus four.
The mute Titan then thought he heard something coming up behind them. He looked back to see that there was no one there. He then looked back to see he had gone from three cards to fifteen.
Polybius went wide-eyed as the other two began to laugh. He looked away for two seconds, and now he has fifteen cards.
"You okay there, buddy?" Rayanus asked.
The mute shot up a playful middle finger, causing them all to laugh.
Polybius then hit them all with a red zero, causing Marc's four-card hand to come to him.
"Woah now Polybius!" Marc said, "You've got some real power going over there."
The hand had two wild draw fours.
"Here, let me give you some time to think about that." Marc said as he hit him with a skip.
The mute gave him a thumbs-up as he looked at all of the power he had to unleash on Classy.
Sadly, this wouldn't come to pass as a loud explosion coming from the city grabbed the trio's attention.
"Ah, man!" Marc said, "And to think of all that power we just gave you."
The mute Titan then took out his notebook. He wrote down his cellphone number and handed it off to them. He also told them that he wanted to hang out again sometime, and they quickly agreed to hang out again.
And with that, Polybius took off.
The call turned out to be just Dr. Bright doing another bank robbery. And with Polybius being the first one there, he was able to quickly take down the criminal using his powers. And just as he handed the man over to the authorities, he was visited by the Titans.
"Polybius?" Starfire questioned.
The mute Titan looked back to see his colleagues standing, looking nervous. He shrugged his shoulders as he waited for them to say something.
"Look, we know we haven't been good friends." Cyborg stated.
"And that we mistreat you a lot." Raven added.
"But please." Beast Boy added.
"Don't walk out on us." Robin went on.
"You're our friend!" Starfire said, "And friends stick together no matter what."
The mute shrugged his shoulders again. He had heard all of these things before from them. Yet he found himself not believing them.
"Please don't leave." Starfire begged.
The mute wasn't going to do that. He didn't have anywhere to go after all.
There was a long moment of silence as the Titans waited to see what Polybius would do. When he didn't do anything, this prompted Robin to do something. He offered his hand to the mute.
"Please, Polybius." Robin added, "You are a valued member of this team. Not only that, but you're our friend. And we'd all be devastated if we lost you."
Suddenly, Raven's words surfaced in his mind.
"People come, people go. It's pointless to be upset."
However, then the words of Darkbius rose up.
"They don't care about you." The voice of Darkbius said, "You are their plaything. They are going to build you up to tear you down again!"
As much as the mute hated Darkbius. He couldn't help but think he was right.
"Come on, man!" Cyborg suddenly spoke up, "At least give us a chance to make it up to you!"
"Yeah!" Beast Boy added.
The mute Titan looked at his team and then down at Robin's hand. He pondered whether or not he really wanted to give them another chance.
After spending another long moment in silence and arguing inside his head, the mute Titan decided to take Robin's hand.
"Alright!" Cyborg said, "Come on y'all let's get home and celebrate!"
With that, the Titans headed back to the tower, and they did anything and everything to make it up to Polybius. And while Polybius certainly did feel better by the end, it all. He couldn't deny that the rift that had formed between him and them still existed.
And this remained prevalent over the next several months. And while it did become smaller and smaller after each and every event, it never went away. Nor did Polybius ever think it would go away. He knew his faith and confidence in his team was forever severely diminished.
However, when Cyborg left to help establish the Titans East out in Steel City, Robin began discussing turning the Titans into a global organization like the Justice League. He expressed his wishes to fight evil on a more global scale than just Jump City. And he wanted Polybius's opinion on this idea.
The mute Titan supported going global. He liked the concept of having allies all over the place rather than all in one place.
As for Marc and Rayanus, Polybius ended up growing a solid friendship with the two teens. Whenever he got mad at his team, he would go and hang out with them. This gave him a better escape than being left alone with his thoughts in the woods. Although, when the two weren't available, Polybius would always settle for the forest.
Then again, he had learned he was never alone.
As for Darkbius and Hostbius, Polybius had learned that they were always there. They were always with him, influencing him. Guiding him. And telling him things. But mostly, telling him to go back.
As for Donna, she had been tirelessly training for months on end with Diana. Polybius's excuse of the Third Balkan War was one exploited by Diana. However, now it was looking like the war may start winding down. And with that, Diana would lose her excuse to train Donna.
"But I'm ready!" Donna said.
"Almost." Diana told her sister after another training session.
"You said that last month." Donna complained.
"Don't worry, little sister." Diana assured her, "You will get your chance in the field soon enough."
"But when?" Donna asked.
"The time will come." Diana assured her.
Donna sighed as she didn't believe her older sister.
"So, how are things going with the League?" Donna asked, changing the topic.
"Well crime globally has been kinda low recently." Diana replied, "Of course, with the Titans starting to move in the direction of going Global, it has helped us significantly."
"The Titans are going global?" Donna asked.
"That seems to be the direction Robin is taking them." Diana explained, "In my last conversation with Polybius, he expressed to me that Robin was moving that direction. And with the establishment of the Titans East, it really seems to be heading that way."
"Then maybe I should become a Titan." Donna said out loud.
"What!?" Diana said a little surprised, "Why not join the League!?"
"Because I was thinking about it the other night, that if I go with the League, then I will always be in your shadow." Donna explained, "Just Wonder Woman's little sister. Kinda like how Supergirl is seen compared to Superman."
Diana knew her younger sister wasn't wrong. Supergirl had a hard time living in her older, more famous cousin's shadow.
"So you want to join the Titans?" Diana asked.
"If they really are headed in the global direction, then I could sneak out and go do things in nearby Greece and Turkey!" Donna proposed.
"You are quite optimistic." Diana commented, "But that is a good idea. You can cover this area for the Titans."
"Sweet!" Donna said, "I just wish I could see them again."
"You will." Diana said.
"How?" Donna questioned, "Polybius pointed out all of the problems with me going all the way over to Jump City. And then all of the problems them coming over here. I just don't see how it could work out."
"I'm confident you'll see them again." Diana replied, "Almost every time I think I've seen someone for the last time, they pop up again."
"I hope you're right." Donna said.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a wonderful rest of your day!