Chapter 30
Fearless...
Today was the day! The day the world was going to end. At least according to Raven. And Polybius was excited. Today was undoubtedly going to be a fun day.
Taking Raven back to the tower, the Titans put her in a room they had preemptively prepared for this.
Raven, clearly nervous, and sure that the Titans couldn't defeat Trigon, began to meditate.
Polybius was ordered to the front door of the tower to stand watch.
As he watched, he thought back to his childhood. A particular song came to his mind. He decided to text a modified version of it to Raven.
Once he sent it off, he saw Slade standing not too far from him and ready to engage.
"Hello, Polybius." Slade said, "Are you ready for the end of the world?"
Polybius gave a broad, uncharacteristically sadistic smile as he hit the alarm button on the side of the wall. This informed the others that it was showtime.
The smile clearly took Slade off guard as he could see a somewhat surprised look on his face. However, he quickly calmed and gave a small chuckle.
"You know, out of all of you Titans, you are the one I would assume would want to go down fighting. Spend the last miserable day of your life, fighting. That just seems so you." Slade told the Titan.
Quickly being joined by the others, Slade demanded Raven, or they would die. Naturally, they rejected the ultimatum, and they found themselves surrounded by an army of fire monsters.
"Attack!" Slade ordered.
Polybius quickly found himself in a fight with over a dozen monsters. They were quick to steal his backpack from him. This was a mistake, however, as Polybius, fully prepared, unleashed his back tentacles on them.
Being surrounded, Polybius drew out four tentacles from his back. Bending over, putting the opening in his back at the highest point, Polybius swung the four tentacles around in a helicopter motion, taking out every single monster that got caught inside the range of the attack.
"Since when could you do that!?" Cyborg asked Polybius as the mute stood up.
The Titan gave him a thumbs-up as he took a moment to catch his breath. After a few seconds passed, Polybius continued to engage.
Swinging his tentacles left and right, destroying every monster in his path.
Seeing Robin struggle with Slade, Polybius used one of his tentacles to reach over and take Slade by surprise. Hitting the man with the speed and force of a runaway crazy train, Polybius sent him flying across the island.
"Thanks." Robin said as Polybius confirmed to annihilate many more monsters.
As the fight raged on outside, Raven pulled herself to her feet. Looking at her phone for the time, she saw that it had one message. It was from Polybius. She opened it up and read it out loud.
'When I get to Hell!'
'Trigon's gonna say 'Hey!"
'How'd you earn your livin' boy?'
'How'd you earn your pay?'
'And I will reply with a whole lot of anger!'
'Earn my pay as a Teen Titan!'
'Driving on!'
'All day!'
'Through the night! Hey!'
Staring at the text, a wave of confusion washed over Raven. How could he be so confident? At least his text seemed to show that.
"Well, I hope you're ready to meet him." Raven quietly said to herself, "Because you're about to meet him."
After ten minutes of fighting, all of the Titans minus Polybius had been subdued. And Raven came out and broke up the fight. She then had a brief conversation with the Titans before putting them to sleep.
Naturally, when they woke up, they went after her. And were stopped just short of convincing her to not go through with it.
A blinding flash of light. A massive roar followed by something, and then BAM Polybius woke up in the park. Or rather, a hellish version of it.
That was what Polybius was able to recall as he woke up at the base of the water fountain. Or rather a lava fountain when he looked at it a second time.
Looking around, Polybius faced the reality that he had now become apart of. Raven fulfilled her destiny, and now he was living in all that was left.
Today was supposed to be a good day. Not the last. And so long as he was alive, he would keep fighting until it was for sure it was final. And if it was his final, it would be determined unitl he was dead.
However, looking around, things seemed hopeless. But that didn't bother Polybius. Nothing could now! Because he had nothing left to lose!
Quickly making his way through the park, he saw what had happened to the people. It looked like Medusa had shown her face and everybody saw it. And with the current state of the world, if Polybius hadn't known better, had a baby with Satan.
But this was Trigon. The guy that looked like a horrifically mutated Clifford the big red dog in Polybius's mind.
Exiting the park, Polybius saw the big demon sitting on his new throne. That throne made of what was left of Titans tower.
Polybius began to move towards the tower. However, a raven caught his attention. It seemed that it wanted him to follow it, and he did. This led him to a building where he found the other Titans, where they had a short discussion.
They all knew they had too, they came to the conclusion that somehow, Raven had protected them. And that she had hope that they could beat him. And so, the team decided to launch an all-out attack on the massive demon.
This didn't go well at all. Instead, the team got their butts handed to them and forced them to break contact.
Being sent into the basement of the museum. There, they met Slade and devised a plan to go get Raven back and defeat Trigon. All Polybius would have to do is be a distraction with Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy.
The team, despite their better judgment, decided to work with Slade. Seeing as how neither he nor they had anything left to lose, the four decided to make another all-out attack on Trigon again.
Attacking Trigon again proved to be indecisive. However, the demon had a plan to deal with the four of them.
Appearing in front of the mute stood an evil Polybius. This wasn't Darkbius or Hostbius. This was him with a skin pigmentation that matched Raven's and red eyes. He gave Polybius a sinister smile as the two engaged each other.
Taking Polybius by storm, the evil Polybius quickly took the Titan head-on in a tentacle wrestling contest.
This led to being an indecisive engagement, but Polybius would admit, he was on the losing end of it.
Opting to go close quarters, the evil Polybius decided to rush the good Polybius. He quickly attacked him, causing the good to give ground in a frenzy of punches and kicks. As Polybius gave ground, he was under too much pressure to even attempt to counter, and as a result, was driven back to the cliff's edge.
Once on the edge, the evil Polybius then delivered one swift kick and knocked Polybius back into the cavern. Looking down for a moment, the evil smiled as he turned his back and began to walk away.
However, only eight paces away, he felt a tentacle wrap around his ankle. He looked down and back to see that Polybius had grabbed onto him from the bottom of the cliff. The good was then quick to drag the evil into the cavern with him and submerge under the blanket of darkness that filled the cavern.
However, the evil used his back tentacles to untangle itself from Polybius's grip and stand upright. By this point, both combatants had swapped over to their night vision as well.
Good Polybius smiled as he backed off his evil counterpart. The two stared at each other down for a brief moment before charging each other. Once within arms reach of each other, they began to try and choke the other out. However, this devolved more into a wrestling match rather quickly as neither one could gain the upper hand.
Breaking off, the evil Polybius did manage to turn the tide of the fight in his favor by giving Polybius a hard upwards kick. This hit Polybius with so much power that it sent him flying away from the rest of his teammates.
Crashing inside the city, Polybius picked himself up and looked up just in time to see the evil Polybius bringing a tentacle down on him. Polybius narrowly dodged this attack but wasn't outside of the range of the shockwave it created. This caused Polybius to fly a few feet before he rolled down a hill.
Catching on a stone street light, Polybius quickly collected himself and stood up. The evil Polybius stood at the top of the hill, looking down on him with a wicked smile. This didn't phase Polybius as he moved to the middle of the street and took up a fighting stance.
Electing to keep things at more of a distance, Polybius used his back tentacles to pick up rocks and begin hurling them. The evil Polybius was quick to dodge these attacks and start countering by doing the same thing.
This forced Polybius to move for cover as rocks came flying at him. Now with both the good and evil behind cover, they continued to hurl stones at each other, neither one land a significant hit.
After a good half an hour of throwing rocks back and forth at each other, good Polybius found himself on the back foot again. Evil Polybius had just thrown a car-sized rock at him, which he narrowly escaped, but the cover he was behind was destroyed, leaving him completely exposed.
Quickly giving a lot of ground, Polybius tactically withdrew further down the street. The evil counterpart followed him and decided to launch himself at the good.
Polybius turned to face him and caught the evil mid-air. The good then slammed into him as hard as he could. However, as Polybius began to pull away, the evil one shot out his stomach at the good. Polybius narrowly dodged this attack, but did have to take a step back, and thus, was unable to exploit anything.
Stepping back, the evil quickly got up, drew his stomach back inside his body, and attacked Polybius with his tentacles, wrapping one around his feet and lifting him up. The good meanwhile warped his around the evil's neck and tried to control his movement.
Dragging the evil around, Polybius was able to pull his evil counterpart towards Cyborg and his evil counterpart. The two came between them as the evil slammed Polybius into the ground. This caused Polybius to lose grip on his opponent's neck.
"Polybius!" Cyborg shouted as he tried to rush over to him.
Cyborg would never reach Polybius as he was quickly stormed by his evil counterpart and sent flying more than half a mile away from the mute Titan.
Good Polybius got up on his knees quickly and looked his evil counterpart in the eye. They both looked at each other for a brief moment before something way unexpected happened.
Coming seemingly out of nowhere, Darkbius punched the evil Polybius across the face. This caused evil Polybius to go stumbling to the left with a surprised look on his face. It wasn't so much as a surprise from the attack, but it instead seemed to be the presence of Darkbius. And the good Polybsiu was sharing the same reaction as well.
"Don't act surprised." Darkbius told him "I'm sorry, but I can't let you kill Polybius. Isn't that right?"
"That's right." The voice of Hostbius said.
The evil Polybius looked at Darkbius and Hostbius with a mixed look of surprise and terror on his face.
"You done fucked up." Hostbius said.
Darkbius then charged the evil Polybius, who attempted to use his tentacles to attack them. However, Darkbius was easily able to dodge these attacks and punch him in the chest. While he wasn't a heavy hitter, this did cause the evil Polybius to stumble back.
As the evil Polybius gave ground to Darkbius, he was driven away from Polybius, who just looked at the situation with shock. Hostbius meanwhile, moved in front of him and looked down at him.
"Go help the others." He ordered, "We've got this, poser."
Polybius was grateful for the help, but he wanted to know why.
"And don't worry." Hostbius said as he turned away from the mute, "We will win."
Hostbius then rushed off to join Darkbius in fighting the evil Polybius, leaving Polybius in the dust.
Not wasting any time, Polybius picked himself up and rushed off to help Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy.
Seeing the three all on an island rock and surrounded by their counterparts, Polybius was quick to jump in and intervene.
"Polybius?" Cyborg asked, "Where's your evil counterpart?"
Polybius waved him off as he alone faced the evil counterparts of Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg.
"Well, this is unexpected." The evil Cyborg said, "But not unwelcome."
"It shall be most fun destroying you ourselves." The evil Starfire said.
The mute Titan then snapped his fingers and pointed to Trigon. He then did his best to order them to go.
"No way!" Beast Boy said, "Are you trying to die!?"
Polybius then turned back to them with a look of authority in his eyes. The Titans, who had never seen this before, backed off.
"He's giving us an opportunity to attack Trigon." Cyborg said, "Let's go."
They didn't say anything as they quickly scurried off to face the big monster. Polybius, meanwhile, turned back and faced the evil counterparts of his teammates.
"Bring it, pretty boy." The evil Cyborg taunted.
The evil Beast Boy transformed into a Spinosaraus, and the trio charged him. As they advanced, the evil Starfire and Cyborg shot starbolts and sonic cannon blasts at him. However, Polybius shrugged this off and kept his cool and used his back tentacles to attack them.
Quickly getting all three of the evil counterparts caught up, Polybius put the squeeze on them and was almost immediately able to subdue them.
"Remind me to never get in a fight with that guy." Beast Boy said as he, Cyborg, and Starfire watched what had just happened.
Upon defeating the three evil counterparts, they all turned into red orbs that flew into their respective hero. Everyone expect Polybius, who didn't have one fly into him. The mute assumed it was because either Darkbius and/or Hostbius had done something to him. Or they were still fighting him. Either way, it didn't bother Polybius as the two seemed to know what they were doing.
"Well alright, then." Cyborg said, "Star, you still got that ring?"
The alien shook her head as she revealed a shattered ring.
"Ah great." Cyborg said.
"Now what?" Beast Boy asked.
"We fight." The four suddenly heard the voice of Robin say.
Looking at their leader, they saw him standing with a small child dressed in white, sort of hiding behind him.
"Raven?" They questioned as they looked at her.
Robin then explained what had happened to him on his journey to find her. Polybius just shook his head as Robin finished his story.
"Well, so much for that." Beast Boy said.
"What do we do now?" Starfire asked.
"We fight." Robin said, "One last attack. All or nothing. Either we win, or we die."
Polybius nodded his head, knowing that was the only way. There were no other options at this point. And if he died today, then so be it. He was sure that if Darkbius and Hostbius were watching over, they would try and do something if it seemed like Polybius was about to die.
After having one last talk with Raven, the Titans were discovered by Trigon. And with the assist from Slade, they did manage to give the demon a good run for his money. Yet despite their best efforts, one powerful eye blast from the creature was enough to take everyone down, even Polybius.
And while it would seem that Polybius and the Titans had finally been brought to his knees and defeated, Raven then found her second wind.
Turning back into an adult, she then defeated her father in one powerful and epic show and display of force and power. And in one final attack, she reset the world back to normal.
Once the team returned to the tower, they all settled down and had a celebration to celebrate the victory over the demon. Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg were cracking jokes, Robin and Raven were at the window being happy. Polybius, meanwhile, was deep in thought.
The mute's thoughts laid with Darkbius and Hostbius. How despite everything they had shown him thus far, they stepped in and saved him today. He was trying to figure out why they had done that for him. It made him uncomfortable that they had done that. The mute Titan almost wished that hadn't happened.
"Right, Polybius!?" Cyborg shouted, quickly bringing Polybius out of his thoughts.
Polybius shot a confused look.
"You're the toughest guy on the team!" Cyborg clearfield.
The mute smiled and shook his head.
"Man! Robin and Rae, you shoulda seen him out there today." Cyborg said, "Not only did he defeat his own evil counterpart, but he then also took on all three of ours at once as well as soon as he was finished with his!"
"Yeah!" Beast Boy confirmed, "It was freaking awesome! He destroyed them in seconds!"
"That doesn't surprise me." Raven said, "Considering the last text I got from him, I think he knew all along we were gonna win."
"Text?" Robin asked.
"Look at this." Raven said, pulling out her phone for all to see.
Everybody except Polybius then read the text and laughed.
"Well dang!" Cyborg said, "Polybius ain't scared of nobody!"
"I thought we established that the night of the Wicked Scary monster attack." Beast Boy said.
"But this is different." Starfire said, "Polybius never showed fear, even in the face of an almost assured defeat."
"Polybius don't take no crap from nobody!" Beast Boy declared, "I'm so glad you're on our side, dude."
Polybius smiled as he turned his back to the Titans. He began to think about his current situation with the Titans and thought that while things weren't as good as they had been in the past, they were on good terms now. And he was happy to once again call them family for however long it lasted.
There you have it. Chapter 30! We're getting closer to the end now, but I still hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a wonderful rest of your day!