Book I: Chapter III

"Welcome, Jinx. I have been expecting you."

"What do you want?" She spat, letting bitterness carry in her voice.

"I require your services."

"What do you want?" She repeated.

His lips curled into a smile. "Yes, you will do just fine. Listen carefully, and do exactly as I command."

Gizmo glared at the detailed trim of the West City Bank. The building was made up of various shades of stark white and crisp silver, featuring a collage of polished marble embedded in stone tiles. The sign was embroidered in crisp gold lettering, hanging above a large row of flashing lights tacked on the outside of the structure. It was at least five stories high, and it towered over the surrounding shopping center like a castle over a kingdom. The bank was the lovechild of the long-time mayor, Travis Hynes. The man had spent millions of taxpayer's money on the construction. It meant very little to Gizmo, but it slightly it bothered him to see such a waste of cash. That kind of money could have funded a whole army of killer robots, or an entire room full of video games. Instead, they squandered such wealth for bragging rights. Gizmo was a practical villian; he took value in the simple, yet effective, way of doing things. The idea of spending money on the outside of the bank seemed rather vain, perhaps ironic, to him. The point of a vault was security, not vanity. As long as it could secure cash, it did not need decoration. "Cruddy snots should have spent their money building a better security system. This one's cake," Gizmo muttered. The boy turned to Jinx and eyed her for a moment, before continuing. "Crud…Why are we here again?" He asked, a scowl growing on his face.

"Because," retorted Jinx, "Anonymous gave us this secret mission. Handpicked and specialized just for us. He said we were the only ones who could pull it off."

"What a load of crud. Who is this masked man? Why are we standing outside? We could have robbed the place by now!"

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Bank robberies? That's so…elementary. We'll never grow if we don't make a name for ourselves."

Gizmo turned his head away from her and let his eyes fall once more on the bank's obnoxiously large display. "Like that even matters! Jeez, I'm in it for the money, not the higher criminal charges."

"Then why are you here? Nobody asked you to come. Go run off—play cops and robbers while I make it big. It's not like we need you, right Mammoth?"

Mammoth stayed silent.

Gizmo looked solemnly toward the ground and nervously rubbed his left shoulder with his right hand. "And what, abandon you two...?" He sighed. "If you two want to stand here like morons, I can at least keep you company." He paused, inspecting the lines in the cement, before speaking again. "All I'm sayin' is we don't need to do some other cruddy villain's dirty work, you know? Every time we go off trying to please some super genius, we get busted! Then we have to break out of jail and deal with those crudsniffin' Titans. It's lose-lose of us, every time." The boy snorted, before carrying on. "Besides, what makes those super villain doofuses any better than we are? I'm tellin' ya, if we had the money, we could be just as good as them."

"But we don't have the money," interrupted Jinx. "We don't have the resources, and we don't have a brilliant plan!" She let out an aggravated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her pointer and thumb fingers. Her eyes closed firmly shut for a brief moment, before she opened them. "Although we're older now, the veterans still think we're newbies. They think we're HIVE students who don't know what we're doing. That's half the reason why we broke away from the HIVE FIVE anyhow! Those idiots were holding us back," She paused, before casually kicking a rock off the sidewalk and into the paved road. "Besides…Why should we start from scratch? Why make our own plan? If we can impress a veteran…we can start where they left off. Quicker, faster and way more convenient."

Gizmo shook his head in disapproval. He scratched his chin as he shrugged. "How many times do we have to fail before it isn't worth it? We've tried pretty damn hard sucking up to those eggheads, and we've got nothing to show for it. The Brotherhood used us. The Academy still uses us. Hell, even Slade—" Jinx cringed at the sound of his name "—used us. It won't work, trust me on this one. We'll just get sent to jail again, and piss off whoever's relying on us this time."

The mentioning of Slade caught her a bit off-guard. Their previous encounter with the man had left all three of them with scars—mostly metaphorical, but a couple physical ones as well. She quickly collected her thoughts. She didn't need another reminder of a bad choice she had made in the past. She glared at him. "Are you that afraid of failing? It's simple, Gizmo. If you don't want to fail…Then...DON'T MESS THIS UP!" She shouted. "If we actually pulled off our missions once in a while, we wouldn't have to steal for ends-meet." Jinx turned away from the boy and casually stared up at the sky above. The clouds seemed to drift from the right, to the left, twirling toward the horizon. "If you're seriously that addicted to petty crime...You're no better than the other HIVE FIVE losers. Pick pocketing and pranks. God, what rubbish!" The clouds looked so far away, she mused. Almost as far as her dreams of becoming a success. They seemed about as aimless as her comrades, too. "I deserve better than amateurs…" She muttered under her breath.

"Jeez! Okay, okay, relax. You know I'm with you on this one," Gizmo flashed her a boyish grin. "Crud, after all we've been through..." His voice trailed off, before he cleared his throat, "I'll help…even if I think it's a stupid idea. A really stupid idea, but we'll manage." He looked back at Jinx with a raised eyebrow, "So, you didn't even tell us. What's our job this time? What are we doing here, exactly?"

"I don't know," Jinx shrugged. "The letter told us to stand outside this bank."

For the first time, Mammoth's raspy voice broke the silence, "Standing here is boring, and I'm getting hungry…The letter hadta say more than that."

"It didn't say anything else. We were given strict orders to stand here. That is all," Jinx began to idly tweak the black bands holding up her hair.

Mammoth's brow lined with confusion, "Are we guarding something?"

"I…don't know…it didn't say," Jinx answered bitterly. She saw Gizmo and Mammoth exchange pained expressions with each other. "Guh! Just…Arg! It doesn't matter!" She cried out. "Just trust me; I know it'll all work out in the end. I'll treat you to pizza after we're paid."

Gizmo grunted. "You mean…you don't even know why we're here? Crud! Talk about a lame snotty mission. Stand here? There's no rationale behind this! You must have misread the task. The letter had to give more instructions."

"It didn't. It's a top secret mission, and we weren't trusted enough to know the full details. Who's fault do you think that is?" She spat at him.

Gizmo crossed his arms across his chest. "You're not joking, are you? That's really, seriously, our mission? To stand here…?"

"Well…it also mentioned something about the Titans showing up—But that's all. Our instructions were to stand still and wait."

"Great," muttered Gizmo, "those snotballs…wait. How are they supposed to know we're here?"

"Well…I'm not sure. The letter said they'll show up."

"But why? It's not illegal to stand outside of a bank. I mean, it's possibly loitering, but they don't call the Titans for that kind of junk." Gizmo began to pace back and forth. "How could you be so stupid, accepting a mission like this? We've been had! This is why I handle the big stuff. Next time, let me deal with 'Mr. Anonymous'. I'll get him to spill the details."

Jinx clenched her fists. "Every time I let you handle it, everything goes to hell!" She glared at her companion. With a flick of her wrist, a large blast of pink energy slammed into the store's windows. Pieces of shattered glass fell to the ground. "There, are you fucking satisfied now? They have a reason to come."

"Well…I guess that was illegal," the boy chuckled, "And I love your work. But, we're known for theft and we haven't stolen anything. Not only is this completely out of our training, but we're not even acting normal! Robin's no idiot. He'll think this is a trap…or a decoy," Gizmo sighed. "This is why you aren't the brains! Only pick missions that are inside our specialty…jobs that we know how to do. Jobs that don't make us look suspicious. Nobody takes us seriously because we don't know what we're doing! We're still amateurs, Jinx."

"Just shut it. Your missions are terrible. Besides, the mission asked for us specifically. According to the paper, nobody else had the qualifications of…"

Gizmo began to yell, interrupting the girl in mid sentence, "…Of standing outside in the fucking cold? Jinx, don't you see? We've been had! Nothing's going to happen! This is so fucking stupid! They will never show!"

In a quick burst of sound, a white and blue car screeched across the road and slid several meters away from the villains. The five Titans jumped out of the vehicle and landed gracefully into their respective combat positions. It was their sudden entrance, coupled with shock that the mission actually worked out as promised, that Jinx almost stumbled to the ground. However, the sight of her arch-enemies and their flashy entrance released adrenaline into her blood, and she caught her balance. She quickly bent her knees and curled her fingers into fists, ready for battle. Jinx casually turned her head, and stuck her tongue out at Gizmo, as if to say, 'Ha. I told you so!' Gizmo pretended to ignore her.

Robin's cautious eyes fell on his enemies, "Don't you ever learn? Crime doesn't pay."

Beast Boy nodded, "Yeah, what's with you guys? How many times do we have to beat your butts before you'll stop?"

Robin glanced at the pink girl's fists. She looked ready to pounce, and her companions would likely follow. There would most definitely be a battle, and he would need to prepare his own team for the fight. He nodded to himself, before releasing a loud, booming command into the heavy air. "Titan's G-…!"

"Uh…Robin?" Raven's icy voice stopped their leader in mid-phrase. "They're just standing there."

"What Raven speaks is true. Tell me, Robin, why are they not stealing the goods of the bank?" asked Starfire.

"I…don't know. This is pretty strange." Robin turned his head to Cyborg, "It might be a trap. Cyborg, where are the other three HIVE FIVE members? Is this a decoy to lure us out?"

"Ahem!" cleared Jinx's throat.

"I don't know man, this doesn't look like a set-up. Nobody's seen the other HIVE FIVE members anywhere. They should still be in hiding. In fact, they haven't been active in days."

Jinx looked furious. "This has absolutely noth…"

"That really is strange," Robin frowned. "Okay, team. Well, we might as well…"

A bright flash of purple light slammed into the ground, and a puff of white dust rose from the blast. "Stop ignoring us!" screamed Jinx, as loud as her voice could carry. "We're right here, and we're ready to fight."

Robin turned to Jinx. He raised his left eyebrow. "Well…that's great, but…Do we have a reason to fight you? I mean, you're not entirely breaking the law…"

"Yes we are! I broke the window to the bank," she whined.

"Well, yes, but…that's just a fine. We don't write fines. That's the city police's responsibility..." stated Robin.

Gizmo shouted, "I told you this was a stupid idea!"

"Shut up!" growled Jinx. "Look, skip the formalities. We're all here, let's get on with it. You're heroes; we're villains. We fight. Got it?" Jinx began to run toward the boy wonder, but just as Jinx set up her attack, Robin and Beast Boy's belt began to flash a bright red. Cyborg's built-in emergency alert system went off, while Starfire's amulet and the clasp on Raven's cloak lit up. All at once, the team's lights flashed, and Jinx came to a halt. The five Titans looked at one another in curiosity, before all eyes—including three pairs of HIVE eyes—fell on Cyborg. From his right arm, he unlatched a computer monitor and began to type in a few commands.

"Guys, you're not going to believe this. Three small-time crooks are currently active in the city. One's at a supermarket, another at a museum, and one's robbing an old lady," Cyborg frowned. "Woah, get this, two more criminals were spotted… Uh, an assault and someone's trying to break into the city's main power grid." Cyborg scratched his head. "Man, what the hell is going on? The report just jumped to fourteen cases of crime. No, sixteen. Twenty? Okay...Twenty-seven, for now. Thirty? Ah man, this ain't a glitch; I have live satellite footage and everything. It's the real deal...somethin' strange is goin' down across the city."

Robin curiously looked over at the three villains in front of him. "Cyborg, what are the HIVE FIVE registered as?"

"Well, the report says three members of the HIVE FIVE were spotted near a bank. They haven't done anything to cause alarm, though. It's just a warning. A broken window was reported, but there were no witnesses to assure the HIVE FIVE were responsible."

"Ahem! I broke the window! I am a witness!" whined Jinx.

"Okay…" muttered Robin, deep in thought, "We apparently have more pressing matters elsewhere. Cyborg, arrange the incidents based on priority: first for public safety, and second for most recent outbreak. We'll try to stop as many as possible. I don't know what's going on, but we have to act fast. Titan's…GO!" Almost as quickly as the five Titans appeared on the scene, they disappeared.

The three villains stood dumbfounded. Jinx clenched her fists tighter and stomped her feet on the ground. "You've got to be kidding me! They just…they just…No way! We're the real criminals here, not those petty small fries. How could they just ignore us, for …thugs?"

"I told you this was stupid! I told you. Don't accept cruddy missions from people you don't know. It will always fail," groaned Gizmo.

"God, you just had to open your mouth didn't you?" She argued back, "You practically blew our cover when you said this mission was stupid."

"But it is stupid! Those crudmunchers don't care about us. They care about stopping crime. Are we doing anything wrong? No! We're wasting our time standing here. We were obviously decoys to stall the Titans long enough for someone else to set up his stupid plan."

"What do you mean, 'plan?' You think someone's working with small-time thieves?"

"Obviously. You saw the look on Robin's face. Dozens of snots gathering to cause mass petty crime? That doesn't happen on a whim," He paused. "It was organized, and we were the bait to pull it off. Anyone. Absolutely any-fucking-one could have been us. We aren't special. Super villains want their name on solid work. If this was a prestigious job, don't you think the dude would have pasted his name everywhere? He'd want to take all the credit."

Jinx sighed. "So…this was a waste of time?"

"Yes," responded Gizmo in a curt manner. The HIVE graduates stood in silence for several minutes.

Mammoth scratched the back of his neck. "Uh…Guys? If the Titan's are gone and we completed our mission…why are we still standing here?"

Jinx and Gizmo awkwardly looked at one another. "I'm not sure," replied Jinx.

Mammoth grinned. "I'm starving. That pizza. Offer still up?"

Jinx shrugged. "I guess I could go for a few slices."

Gizmo nodded. "Sounds great to me."

"Sir, the reports say..."

"Yes, yes, I know. Ignore it. Wait until the Titans ask for police assistance."

"Yes, sir. And the prisoner? I didn't see any provisions for her to be fed..."

"Don't worry. She has enough water."

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