Chapter 27
A Monster...
A teen laid on the ground and grudgingly opened his eyes. Looking up at the sky, he saw the unfamiliar pink rule over it all. He then remembered what happened. Some freak of a screaming monster attacked a space station, the Titans were sent to figure it out, mission failed, and they crashed on a potentially hostile alien world.
The mute Titan remembered being angry at Robin for taking that mission off the Justice League's hands. Polybius expressed to him that it made the Titans look like their puppet and not an independent organization like both he and Robin wanted to come off as. Yet Robin was insistent on doing this favor for Batman for whatever reason.
Sitting up, the mute Titan saw that he was alone and in a forest. Trees with no leaves surrounded him. And only bits and pieces of both the ship and some of his tools insight.
However, one tool he did have was his flare gun. And while it had been weaponized by the mute Titan, it was still a flare gun. And there were a handful of regular flares sticking out of a bush nearby.
Pointing the gun upwards, Polybius shot off a normal flare into the sky, hoping one of the Titans would see it. From there, he began a search of the area to see if he could find his tools. It didn't take him long to locate his backpack, which, fortunately, had stayed in one piece during the whole ordeal and contained almost all of the tools he had brought. Unfortunately, his communicator was destroyed, and his phone had no signal, giving him no means to contact the other Titans.
Now fully armed with a set of tools, the mute Titan quickly got to work setting up a temporary base.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Nathan sat down in his bathroom, shirt off, and knife in his hand.
"You don't have power over me!" He shouted, clearly in agony.
Taking the knife, he quickly made an extended cut down his wrist.
"You can't control me!" He shouted again.
"Wanna bet?" The voice asked.
Suddenly two things happened. The first is the extended cut in Nathan's arm vanished, and second, the stainless steel knife turned into a balloon.
"Leave me alone!" Nathan begged.
"Fine." The voice said, "Say bye, bye to Mommy then!"
Suddenly, Nathan heard her mother scream in terror and pain. He got up and ran out of the bathroom just in time to see her get attacked by a creature that resembled Polybius.
Nathan watched, in horror, as the DJ monster, with a new speaker on its head, started to blast his mother's ears with a remix of the same O'riley remix he watched Polybius and Starfire get blasted with.
"Stop!" Nathan shouted as he tried to rush forward, only to not even get two steps before he fell as he felt his heart stop beating.
Laying on the ground, helpless watching, he watched as his mother's ears started to bleed, and her eyes roll into the back of her head. The creature blasted her for a solid ten seconds before stopping and vanishing. And with the creature's disappearance, so too did Nathan's heart began to beat again.
"Mom!" Nathan shouted as he rushed to her side.
He held his dead mother in his arms as he began to sob.
"You monster!" Nathan shouted as he stood up and punched the air in anger.
"I'm not." The voice replied, "Because I can do this!"
Suddenly, Nathan's mother's eyes just opened up, and she looked up at him.
"Nathan?" His mother asked him, acting and looking as if nothing had just happened.
"Mom?" Nathan asked in disbelief.
Suddenly, it seemed everything paused for Nathan as his mother then froze.
"Now you listen here." The voice commanded, "You really never had a choice. You were gonna work for me whether you like it or not. Your real mistake was attacking Polybius and wanting him dead."
Nathan stared at his mother in disbelief as the voice paused to let their words sink in.
"So here is the deal." The voice went on "You can still win your build-a-babe, keep your mother alive, and live easy. I'll give you anything and everything you want. The world will be yours! All you have to do is what I say."
"Are you Trigon?" The teen asked.
"No." The voice said, "I make him look like Jesus compared to me!"
Meanwhile, way out on Paradise Island, Donna sat in her room alone. She was bored out of her mind. She stared at her wall and counted all of the cracks in it for the umpteenth time. Unfortunately, with the signing of the treaty of Constantinople a few months ago, Diana lost her excuse to secretly train Donna. Now she was off somewhere in DC doing good there. Doing what Donna wanted to do.
Looking over at her closet, she couldn't help but walk over and look at her uniform, and right behind it was the jacket Polybius had gifted her.
Grabbing hold of the latter, Donna took it out and looked at it. She reminisced about her time with Polybius and how she missed him. Despite not even being able to speak, he was the most inspiring person she had ever met. She wanted to be more like him. She wanted to be as selfless, as forgiving, as caring as he was. He was her hero, not just in the sense that he rescued her, but also in the sense that he was her idol.
"How much longer?" Donna questioned as she held his jacket.
No longer! Donna couldn't wait any more to become the hero she wanted to be. To follow her role model and become Wonder Girl!
Deciding that in a few weeks, during a religious ceremony, she would pretend to not be feeling well and go to bed early. With the service at night, she would easily be able to sneak off the island and finally start doing good!
"Genius!" Donna muttered to herself as she put Polybius's jacket back in her closet.
Back on the faraway planet, Polybius took a look at his excellent work. He had just finished building himself a sizable home to conduct his base of operations from. As of right now, with his communicator and phone busted, he had no means to contact the other Titans. And no reason to assume that they were alive.
And while he would have been upset as a result of their deaths, he also had no reason to believe they were dead either. Therefore, the best course of action in his mind was to set up a short term base, hold out there until dawn the next day, and then begin searching for his friends.
Making a small fire outside his sizable shack, the mute Titan couldn't help but think about Raven at that moment and what had happened with her last week. Talking about the end of the world and all that.
Polybius didn't really believe in all of that nonsense. Quite frankly, the way he saw it, there was no way the Titans were going to let this happen. No one was going to. And Polybius would be more than willing to fight until the bitter end for her, but not die. He didn't want to die because if he did, then he could do nothing to help.
Thinking a bit further back to about two months ago when Cyborg defeated Brother Blood, the mute Titan couldn't help but wonder if Brother Blood had thought his plan all the way through. Did he sincerely believe that if the Titans failed to stop him, the Justice League would have just sit by and let him do his thing? Not to mention his new schoolhouse was sitting out in the open where anybody who wasn't blind could see it. It would really have been too easy to just hit the building with a missile or something, and with that cliff cover, Steel City would have been spared a lot of damage.
Regardless, the mute Titan went even further back in time to the little party the Titans had for him. Mostly to kiss his butt in his mind. While he did have a good time, and things did seem to get better for a while, they seemed to be heading back downhill again. Recently, Beast Boy had lashed out at him for walking out early on his movie.
It wasn't that Polybius wanted to make him mad by walking out, but it was one of Beast Boy's all-time favorite movies. A movie that Polybius wasn't really enjoying. He also knew that Beast Boy was having a bad day that day, too, so he agreed to sit down and watch it with him to make him feel better. However, he had made plans for another round of UNO, which had quickly become his favorite game, with Marc and Rayanus, who had become good friends with the mute.
This signaled to Polybius that things were slowly headed back the way they were before the prank that nearly killed him. Of course, ever since then, the Titans had been adamant about making sure his garden was alright and even pitched in to help him take care of it. And while that did mean something to him, it couldn't rectify the wrongs that had been done to him. Even if it did keep him alive.
Regardless, the mute still saw this part of his life as the best part of it thus far. And with that being said, that didn't mean everything had to be great. He didn't have to be living pain-free. It didn't have to be perfect. I just had to be better than it was before he joined the Titans. Which it most certainly was.
The mute was brought out of his thoughts when he heard something moving in the bushes. He quickly stood up and picked up his modern ax. He then squared up with whatever it was that was moving towards him.
It was a whole army of little white aliens in orange robes. They approached the mute Titan and his camp and stopped about three meters away from them. They all then looked up at him, and the two had a stare-off.
The mute Titan then looked around to see that these little aliens were the only creatures around and none others. After confirming that neither other animals were around nor any Titans, the mute smiled.
Meanwhile, back on Paradise Island, Donna was gathered with several of her sisters in front of a well. Nobody was really sure what this well was for, but they all knew the queen had something important to say.
"After the attack on our home island, I spoke with the Gods about what had happened. They said they had no knowledge of this. However, to help better defend ourselves, they have bestowed upon us this." The queen said, pointing to the well.
The Amazons then looked into the well.
"And to prove this well can reveal to us the outside world, Donna, why don't we look at Polybius." The queen said as she stuck her hand in the water.
Swirling the water around, the blue soon gave way to a window, looking over the mute Titan.
"Is that not him?" Her mother asked.
"Yes." Donna replied, "What is he doing?"
The Amazons then watched as Polybius picked up one of the little white aliens. Their faces of confusion quickly turned to horror as they watched the mute bring up his stomach outside his body. The three-pronged organ with one talon then swiftly moved to the helplessly trapped alien in Polybius's grip.
Quickly clamping down on its small head, the talon was then quick to inject the small creature with the mixture of digestive enzymes and venom of Polybius. The mute Titan then sucked it dry rather quickly and dropped the dry, bloodless body, on the ground. The mutant Titan then moved on, picking up the next one and doing the same thing, each process taking less than five seconds per alien.
This went on for a solid ten minutes as Polybius massacred most of the white aliens, trying to flee for their lives. However, the mute's sheer size advantage over them, he was easily able to catch them. It also didn't help the aliens that Polybius was also using his tentacles to corral them into a close area where they couldn't escape.
Donna's jaw dropped as she watched Polybius continue to grab the white aliens, suck it dry in a matter of seconds, and move onto the next. She now understood why he never ate with anybody.
"You see, my child." Her mother started, "Isn't it as I have always said, men are monsters. No matter how nice they may seem, they want nothing more than to eat you up."
"No." Donna replied as Polybius finished up the last alien.
"No?" Her mother questioned, "How can you deny this evidence right in front of you!?"
"Because he's not a monster!" Donna defended.
"Then what kind of person would do that?" Her mother asked.
"I don't know!" Donna replied, "And while I can believe that is Polybius, I refuse to believe he is a monster! We don't know what kind of situation he's in! Or even if this is real! Why I bet, you made this and set this whole thing up to get me to hate him! Why!? Why do you want me to hate him!? Just because he looks like Montezuma!"
"I am trying to protect you!" Her mother countered.
"From what!?" Donna demanded.
"From the evil's of man's world!" Her mother replied, "After everything, Montezuma did to you, why do you want to go back!? What is it about him that makes him so much better than everything I have ever taught you?"
"Because he taught me more truth in the span of a week than you ever have!" Donna replied.
"How so?" Her mother demanded.
"Because you just put all men into one big group! Claiming they're all evil." Donna countered, "But Polybius said that it's not right to stereotype people! Why hate someone because of the way they were born? They can't control that! Instead, we should hate and love people based on the person they are!"
"As noble as that may sound, he is only trying to get you to let your guard down!" The queen said, "And when you do, he'll strike."
"Ugh!" Donna shouted, "This is so pointless! All because one man did one bad thing to you, you decide that everyone is bad! Because that makes sense!"
Donna then stormed off in anger as she left everyone in the dust to think about what she had just said.
"She does have a good point." One of the Amazons pointed out.
"No." The queen replied, "Everytime we have let our guard down, men have exploited us. I cannot and will not allow that to ever happen again. Not after what Montezuma did to our people."
Meanwhile, back on Polybius's end, the mute Titan sat down by his fire and relaxed. That wasn't the best meal he had had, but certainly, a better one than he had had in a long while. He was just glad nobody was around to see that as he really did look like a monster.
Then again, he was one. Polybius had long accepted this truth and lived with it. He no longer struggled with being shunned by the world for these mutations, but rather, only struggled with moving forward.
His mind began to wander back to the Titans as he began to think about his current standing and feelings about each one.
Starting with Robin, in the mute's mind, he felt rather neutral towards the leader. While Polybius was still upset about the rather light punishment for his near-death experience, he had moved past that. As of that moment in time, he now felt like Robin was just sort of there.
Moving on to Cyborg, Polybius considered his relationship with the big Titan strained. While Cyborg apologized for lashing out at him every time he did, Polybius lacked any belief in that. No matter how genuine it seemed, after this cycle of abuse, apology, makeup, worse abuse, Polybius couldn't fully believe him.
As for Starfire, Polybius had warmed up the alien girl. Possibly stemming from all the time he spent with Starfire when Donna was around, Polybius did feel close to the alien princess. He did see her in a more positive light compared to the boys.
Speaking of the boys, as for the green Titan, Polybius was still highly resentful of him. While Beast Boy had apologized numerous times, and Polybius kept lying to his face, telling him it was alright, it wasn't. And both of them knew it. Yet, due to Polybius's general untrusting nature, he was having a hard time bringing Beast Boy back into his life. At least in the way it had existed before the deadly prank.
As for Raven, Polybius felt a sense of duty towards her. Out of the other five, he felt closest to her. The reason being is she not only took up his case but was also there for him. From the forest to the medical bay, she was there. And Polybius was extremely grateful for that.
And now, with the end of the world on the horizon, Polybius felt that he needed to help her. Like he owed her for all of the times she had been there to help him. And that no matter what happened, he would fight for her.
The mute silently chuckled as he found it amusing that he felt closer to the females of his team rather than the males.
And lastly, Polybius's mind wandered over to Donna. Polybius was fully aware of what was going on with her thanks to Wonder Woman, who had been keeping in touch with him. How Donna aspired to be like him. How she wanted to fight for the same reasons as he did. How overall, she generally wanted to be more like him.
And while Polybius did think this was nice, he strongly wished she would reconsider.
Polybius wasn't sure what Donna saw in him. When Polybius looked at himself, he only saw weakness and disappointment. He didn't see anything good in himself. Just the stupid, scary, monster he was.
Despite this, Polybius knew Donna was doing far better than he ever had. His extensive efforts to make sure that she didn't feel alone after what Montezuma did to her clearly paid off. Donna said that her uneasy feelings were not as common as they were when she was with him. She stopped having random flashbacks a while ago. And overall, she seemed to be quite happy from his perspective.
Well, except for her mother, of course. The mute Titan had a hard time understanding what her mother's problem was. Yes, Montezuma did horrible things to their people, but Montezuma was dead. And it was clear to Polybius that Donna, who was now almost eighteen like he was soon to be, wanted nothing more than to go out and do good. Both like him and her older sister.
That being said, when Polybius started out being a hero, he remembered he had a lot going against him at the start. A lot of things that tried to hold him back. To keep him down. However, overcoming these challenges made him a better hero and person today than he would be if he hadn't had to overcome those challenges.
Therefore, Polybius saw this as a challenge to Donna's resolve. To see just how badly she wanted to go out of her way to help people for the same reason he did. So that what happened to her wouldn't happen to other people.
A new rustle in the bushes brought Polybius out of his thoughts yet again. Looking away from his fire, he saw Raven come floating out of the woods.
"Polybius!" Raven shouted upon seeing her friend.
The mute Titan smiled and waved.
"Are you the monsters the Shallas have been telling me about?" Raven asked.
The mute Titan silently chuckled and nodded. He knew that he was the scariest thing on the planet, and was proud of it too!
Later that day, while the Titans were on their return trip to Earth, Donna had finally had enough waiting. She was going to start being a hero today.
She was, in part, doing this in spite of her mother. She was so sick and tired of hearing the same lies over and over. Donna had also decided that the ceremony was too far away to wait, and she was done with waiting.
For the second time in her life, Donna stepped foot into man's world. The young Amazonian girl looked around at the city called Athens in her new uniform. She was finally doing it! She was finally putting herself to the test as a hero!
Donna could hardly contain her excitement. She was eager to put his skills and abilities to the test. All of her training with Diana was about to pay off, and she could finally start heading in the direction she wanted to go. At least in terms of becoming more like Polybius.
Looking around, Athens certainly wasn't as impressive as Jump City. At least in her mind. While far more abundant in history and importance, the city looked rather underwhelming compared to Jump City. She didn't see nearly as many tall towering buildings that touched the sky. There weren't as many people going around their day to day business. Everything about Athens seemed different than Jump City.
Donna then remembered that Polybius was on the other side of the world. If she remembered correctly in man's world, they had what were called 'time zones.' And apparently, they shifted up or down by an hour depending on if you went east or west. And Polybius was eight hours behind her if she remembered correctly.
In other words, as Cyborg had put it when their workday was staring, hers would be ending.
Pushing the time zones aside, Donna then remembered a long discussion about different cultures. While all of man's world had been summed up as the same according to her mother, the reality was, it was different.
Donna then recalled Robin talking about how different the culture was on the eastern coast of the United States versus the western coast of the same country. Donna then thought it was safe to assume that if culture was different on one coast of a country versus the other, then being in a different country had to have a radically different culture.
Pushing that aside, Donna was quick to enter the city and begin looking for criminals. She generally stayed out of sight of the general public as she didn't want to attract attention to herself. She was a little concerned about how her older sister might take it if she saw a video of Donna off the island.
However, much to the new heroine's disappointment, despite hours of thoroughly combing the city, she found nothing. Everything was quiet and calm.
Taking a seat on a park bench, Donna felt defeated. She was so eager and pumped to go out and test herself. She had been under the impression that there was trouble daily, and that a response was always needed. That there was always trouble.
At least it had seemed that way when she was with the Titans. Almost every day she was with them, they had at least one mission, if not two. She could only remember only one day that they didn't have one, and Starfire had expressed that those days were rare.
So Donna couldn't understand why she wasn't finding any crime.
Leaning back on the bench, Donna looked up at the sky and began to think about her options going forward. She couldn't stay out forever, but she did still have a large window of time. At least more than enough to sit and wait.
The sound of a massive blast and subsequent blast wave caught Donna entirely off guard. Donna found herself getting knocked off the bench as the sound of shattering glass filled her ears.
Quickly recovering, Donna stood up and saw a massive plume of smoke rising from the ground on the other side of the park.
"Finally!" Donna said with a smile on her face.
Wasting no time, Donna quickly sprung into action. Within a matter of seconds, she was on the other side of the park and took a look at the situation.
Donna saw three heavily armed and armored masked men standing with big guns. They were indiscriminately firing rounds every which way, not really aiming at anyone per se, but still causing mass panic and terror.
Seizing the opportunity, Donna quickly stepped in and flew right at one of the attackers. She punched him right across the face. This sent the man flying into one of his comrades and dropping a piece of paper.
The three men began speaking in a language Donna had never heard of. The one that was still standing quickly started firing rounds at Donna. However, they were all easily deflected by Donna utilizing her bracelets.
The two on the ground quickly got up. The one Donna assumed was their leader quickly ordered them to flee. However, before doing so, one of them tossed a small, skinny cylinder at her.
Donna didn't even have time to react as she was suddenly blasted with a bright white light that blinded her, and loud, deafening noise also filled her ears.
The suddenness of this took Donna off guard, and she stumbled backwards. She was utterly incompacticated for a few minutes before her senses returned to her, and she came back to the world.
"What was that?" Donna asked as the ringing in her ears finally stopped.
Looking around, the three attackers were long gone, and all that was left was a small piece of paper on the ground. She walked over and picked it up.
Taking a look at it, Donna's jaw dropped as she examined the paper.
It was a hit list with many names on it. While the new heroine had no idea who most of these people were, the one that jumped out at her was Polybius Prussia.
Knowing she had to warn her friend, Donna didn't even hesitate to begin to make the long trip to Jump City. She had to get to Polybius and warn him before they did.
And there you have it! Thank you for taking the time to read Chapter 27 and I hope you have a good rest of your day!