Garfield: *Pacing*

Kimberly: You've been pacing for sometime…Still worried about the Titans?

Garfield: About everything really. Ron is still unconscious. The Titans are in Japan. My group and I are being attacked by the Mandarin's robots. Just a lot of things going on.

Kimberly: Hellfire Naruto is going through a lot too but it'll be ok. It all work out.

Garfield: I hope so…

Kimberly: Now let's begin the story!

A Symbiotic Bond: A Venomous Titan
Chapter Fifteen

Champion City – Underground Base
Team Rocket

"You sure this place is safe Rocket?" Garfield asked as Rocket helped him onto a dust covered chair, where he lurched forward in pain, his mask melting off of his face as he gasped for air.

After their battle in Rocket's building, Rocket led the group to the underground base that her former leader, Icon, used to hide from the world.

It was outlined with lead so that no hero or villain could find the place with super vision or traces which worked perfectly for the foursome. "Alright Spider, do you work," Rocket said to him. Garfield nodded and motioned for Black Cat and Red X to come closer and once they did, he placed a hand on their collars.

'Alright Sym, do your thing,' Garfield told the symbiote.

Garfield watched as the black ooze from his suit slipped into their collars and after a few moments, the collars separated and fell to the ground in halves. "Holy shit, you actually did it," Black Cat said to him happily.

"Yeah, I'm pretty good at what I do," Garfield said with a chuckle while inwardly thinking 'It's a pain having to use your achievements as my own.'

"We are partners. They are OUR achievements," The symbiote replied, which made Garfield chuckle faintly.

Red X knelt down and grabbed the broken collars and said "We can do something with these. Hey Rocket, is there a building table nearby?"

"Yeah, it's on the left of you," Rocket replied as she motioned to the dust covered table.

Red X grabbed the halves and walked to the table as he said "So seeing the Mandarin in action, we both know that he has to have the rings on him. If I can configure this to take the rings from him, it'll make things so much easier."

"Do you know what the rings do?" Garfield asked.

Red X frowned beneath his helmet and said "Yeah…We both have experienced all but one of them…The first ring is the "Zero" Ring. The ring emits waves of cold which can be used to stun an opponent or use the moisture in the air in the path of its blast to turn to ice, and can lower an object's temperature to nearly absolute zero. We saw him use this ring on some guy named "Multiple Man"."

"The second ring is "The Liar"," Black Cat said. "The ring puts people under his mental control and to transmit orders to them mentally as well as create illusions. Before he created the collars, he had this done on us…The third one is called "Lightning". The ring emits electricity in amounts and intensities mentally determined by the wearer."

"So Sith Lightning," Garfield summed up.

"Basically. He killed several people with this ring," Red X said as he continued to work.

'Hey Sym…Can you read minds by any chance?' Garfield asked the symbiote.

"I know what you're thinking but no, they aren't under control. I've seen that ring in action and I can tell you that they are themselves," the Symbiote responded.

'How can you tell?' Garfield asked.

"Their eyes. This entire time, they have been clear and open. When controlled by the Mandarin, their eyes are duller…more empty. It's very hard to not notice the difference," The Symbiote replied.

"The fourth ring is "Incandescence"," Red X continued. "The ring emits infrared radiation or heat at intensities mentally determined by the wearer. Usually the heat produces flame through incandescing the molecules in the air in the path of the blast. The heat beam can be used to trigger chemical explosions."

"The fourth ring is "Daimonic". This one essentially controls gravity," Black Cat summed up with a frown. "It's how he captured us. The fifth ring is "Nightbringer". It can create an area of absolute blackness that seems to absorb all light used within it."

"We saw him make someone insane by using that one," Red X said as he lifted up the collars and said "The next ring is "Spin". It causes the air to move about at high speed in a vortex. The vortex can be used as an offensive weapon, as a means of levitating objects, or as a means of propelling the ring's wearer through the air. Also used against us."

"So essentially, he's used them all on you except like two of them?" Rocket asked.

"Well, four of them," Red X said. "The next one is "Influence" that stupid ring can project various forms of energy, most frequently that of fast neutrons with great concussive force. The ring has also been used to project intense sonic vibrations and to create magnetic waves to attract or repel objects. The ring may be capable of emitting other forms of energy. It kind of reminds me of your abilities, Rocket."

"That's not good at all," Garfield said.

"And the last one is "Remaker" and I can sum it like this. Think Full Metal Alchemist," Black Cat said.

"Awww fuck man," Garfield groaned out. "So he's seen the Truth?"

"Pretty much," Black Cat replied. "And transmute anything and unlike Edward Elric, he's a total asshole about it."

"So in short, that is nine super overpowered rings and there is one more that you don't know about?" Garfield asked.

"Yeah…I'm a little terrified at the power of the last ring," Red X said softly as he sat down his tool and said "However, with this, we'll hopefully never find out." Red X then turned to look to the group and held out the collars, which was now made as handcuffs.

"So first thing first, I got rid of the tracking devices in the collars as well as any listening devices, luckily there were none, and configured it to explode when completely cuffed. If we can get these around his wrists, It's game over for him," Red X said.

"And if that fails?" Rocket asked him.

Garfield stayed silent for a moment before he said "Then he dies. There is no way around it."

"Kill him?" Black Cat asked. "Don't you think that's a little extreme?"

"Is it?" Garfield asked. "I fought a guy a while back that was seemingly invincible. He nearly killed Rocket and I. The Mandarin holds ten rings that can kill us. He is still powerful to be left alive…"

"But to kill him…" Black Cat murmured. "It just seems cruel…"

"Sometimes you have to sit aside your morals to save lives," Garfield said. "Because he will stop at nothing to get what he wants and if we don't handle him now, then there would be no stopping him."

"He's right Felicia," Red X said. "It's the only way if this fails. Hell, even if this succeeds, there is no chance he'll survive anyways. Either way, this will be his final fight."

Black Cat nodded but Garfield noticed her fear, which he said "I know you don't want that on your conscious. If it comes down to it, I will spare you from that."

He then looked to Red X and Rocket and said "I'll spare you all from that…" Garfield noted the frown on Rocket's face and knew she was going to say something about it so with a sneaky glint in his eye, he asked her "Do we have a way to get to the Mandarin?"

Rocket narrowed her eyes at him before she replied "Back when this was my command base with Icon, we had a ship that can take us. It's still here through that door." Rocket then pointed to the door to her right, which was shut.

"Alright. Cat and I will check it out and make sure it still works," Red X said.

"You think you can pilot it?" Rocket questioned.

"Don't doubt my tech skills," Red X replied with a grin before he and Black Cat nodded and quickly left the room, leaving Rocket and Garfield stayed behind.

"Gar…I know you just put down the gauntlet but are you really able to do it?" Rocket asked him. "You heard the power of his rings. I doubt he'd let us get close enough to put the cuffs on, let alone kill him."

"I know but I have a plan. While we fight to get the cuffs on him, I will be trying to kill him. So either way, we'll be each other's distraction. I hate that I have to resort to this but we can't fully relay on the cuffs and I'm willing to put more blood on my hands to make sure no one else dies by his own hands…" Garfield replied before softly adding "Even if that means being unable to look at myself again…"

"I won't let you shoulder that burden alone Gar," Rocket told him as she walked to him. "If it comes to that, then we'll share that blood."

"Raquel…" Garfield said as he looked to her, a conflicted expression on his face but that melted away as her hand touched his face.

"We'll do it together Gar…" Rocket murmured softly. "I won't let you carry another death on your shoulders alone."

"But why? Why subject yourself to that type of guilt?" Garfield asked her.

"I have a really soft spot for green eyed boys," she said with a small grin, which made Garfield chuckle a bit, his eyes locking onto her chocolate ones.

"One of my weaknesses I'm afraid. Makes me do anything for them…" Rocket drifted off as the two stared into each other's eyes before their heads began to draw closer, their eyelids lowering until their lips met in a gentle kiss.

And right at that moment, Red X and Black cat peeked their head in and asked "Are you guys coming or what?"

The two broke their apart, their faces heating up briefly before they looked to the pair, who suddenly felt extremely embarrassed for interrupting. "Sorry about that," Red X said before the two left the room.

The two stared at the entrance for a few moments before Red X peeked back in and said "Wait, we need to go!"

"We're coming," Garfield said as his mask reappeared around his head but not before he shared a smile with Rocket, who blushed lightly but smiled in return. Once Rocket and Garfield joined the thieves in front of Icon's ship.

"The Iconic Star," Rocket said with a grin on her face as she opened her arms wide to the ship. The ship was Platinum colored with a gold trim and was one-hundred and thirty-five feet with four large cylinder engines at the end of it where as it led to the front of the ship, it became narrow with a large black window the covered the cockpit seats.

"This long beast has the state-of-the-art propulsion system with four Unsen engines powered by four independent Newton fusion reactors. It also sports five guns. Two on its dorsal surface and one underneath its ventral body. With two more located on the forward port and starboard side," Rocket explained with a grin.

"This bad boy has a spacious interior, with a galley, hold, berthing, several passageways and a bridge. Its primary area of operations is the bridge/cockpit. A spacious area that houses a mobile captain and crew seat that rises and lowers from the ground during specific situations in combat. All and all, a badass ship," Rocket finished with a grin.

Red X whistled and said "It's beautiful…I'm so freaking glad we're on your side with this beast."

"Ditto," Black Cat said. "I never knew you had this in your arsenal."

"It's pretty badass, I know," Rocket boasted. "Well, let's get in there. We have a villain to stop."

Rocket then pressed a button on her belt, which caused pale gold lights to activate on the surface of the large ship. Seconds later a large door opened and a smooth escalator appeared in a flash of that pale gold light before the four.

With a grin, Rocket led the group into the ship and quickly made their way to the cockpit where Rocket leapt to the captain's chair, with Black Cat sitting on the chair to the left, Red X on the chair to the right and Garfield nn the chair in front and below Rocket's.

"What are the coordinates to the Mandarin?" Rocket asked Red X.

"He is in Mazong Mountain in China. That's his actually home where he should be now meditating. If we hit him there, then it's finished," Red X said. "The coordinates are 41.5323 degrees north, 97.0950 degrees east," Red X replied.

Rocket smirked and said "Well then…Let's go to China!" She then began to press several buttons on the console before her before wrapping her hands around the trigger sticks in front of her. The ship began to rise on the platform it was on, slowly pointing upwards to the ceiling, which started to part to reveal the night sky above.

With a sharp push of the triggers, the ship's engines exploded with pale gold flames before the ship flew into the air and towards its destination at high speeds.

China - Mazong Mountain
Team Rocket

Thanks to the powerful engines on the Iconic Star, the team were now at the mountain and they noticed a large mansion on top of the mountain, with a large plain of grass around it.

"We made it…It looks strangely unguarded," Rocket said with a frown.

"Is this where you guys were held?" Garfield asked them.

"When he captured us, he used a double that he had taken control of with one of his rings. We were then transported here where the true Mandarin lies," Black Cat replied

"We got incoming," Red X said as he looked to Rocket.

Rocket pressed a button on her console, which caused small pods to fly from the ship and around the area and seconds later, several screens appeared in front of them before the cockpit window. "Missiles…" Rocket muttered in annoyance as she got a good look at the oncoming targets.

"Pretty big ones too…" Black Cat said.

"We're close though, I can see his mansion from here," Red X said.

"Well, let's engage!" Rocket said as she sped tilted her triggers up, which caused the ship to fly faster. "I want those guns activated and firing three seconds ago!" Rocket shouted. Both Red X and Black Cat nodded and quickly activated the weapons system.

During the flight, Rocket had briefly gone over the controls to the ship to the trio and while they were not skilled with it, they were sufficient enough to get through this onslaught.

The ship began to weave from left to right to avoid the dozens of missiles that came its way, barely managing to avoid them before darting straight down above a large river, causing waves of water to fly beside it before the ship rose up and began to fire missiles at the oncoming projectiles, causing them to explode upon impact.

The ship flew through the smoke of the missiles only for the team to see several hundred robots soaring towards them. The ship began to fire the machine gun beneath the body of the ship, managing to destroy quite a few of the oncoming machines but some robots till managed to land on the ship.

The group could hear the robots on the ship beginning to attack the surface of the ship which prompted Garfield to look up at the ceiling and said "Keep driving, I'll hold them off!"

"Be careful!" Rocket replied, trying to keep the worry out of her voice as she watched Garfield run to out of his chair and down the walkway behind her.

Garfield paused and let the mask rise to show his lips where he smirked. "Trust me," he said before the mask fell back down and he ran off.

Garfield ran down to the end of the building as fast as his feet could carry him before he saw the cargo door and pressed the button to open before he crouched down. The door opened and Garfield quickly crawled out of it, his grip nearly slipping due to the harsh wind around him.

"This is highly dangerous," The Symbiote told him. "But highly fun!"

'I'm glad you like me risking our lives,' Garfield thought as he crawled on the side on the large ship where he saw a fairly large robot punching into its side.

"Time to take more risks…." Garfield said to himself before he stood on his two feet and began to run forward and clocked the machine in the head with so much power behind him, it knocked off its head.

Garfield skidded to a stop and began to crawl up the ship until he was on the very top where he noticed several machines firing a thick beam of lasers from their chests against the ship.

Garfield began to run forward and shot a web at the first robot's head, which made its head snap up and its laser beam slide against the top of the ship towards Garfield, who leapt to the side and shot a web towards the machine's feet and yanked it hard, which made it fall onto its back and whipping past him at top speed.

The other machines looked up at the commotion and saw Garfield and leaned up, which caused their beams of lasers to come towards him. Garfield growled and crouched down on the ship and avoided the beams of lasers before he rolled to the side and leapt to his feet and shot a web towards the second machine.

Garfield then ran forward and leapt off the ship, swinging against the powerful wind before his feet slammed into the third robot, which went flying into the third and fourth robot, sending them both skidding across the top of the ship.

Garfield landed behind the machine he had used to swing him over and with all of his strength, he pulled the machine off the ship with his web and swung two full rotations before releasing the web, which caused the machine to collide against several of its brethren.

Suddenly, Garfield's spider-sense began ringing out and he ducked a fist from behind him but the arm then split apart into another arm and nailed him in the face, which sent him flying off the ship but Garfield slung two webs towards the ship and pulled himself back sharply and landed a hard kick to the machine's chest, sending it flying backwards where it collided against the remains of another robot.

Garfield landed on the ship and crouched down on it to hold onto it and said "That was easier than I thought," before he noticed something strange.

The remains of the machines were floating in the air as he sat there. The ship was moving but all of the machines were just floating. Without warning, all of the machine remains began to fly around the ship and began to combine until it was a large metallic boulder.

"What the hell is that?" Garfield asked himself.

The boulder then broke apart into several hundred large metal spikes which headed straight towards the ship. "Oh that's bullshit!" Garfield yelled as the ship rose into the air sharply while he used his superhuman agility to duck, dodge and maneuver around the flying spikes.

When the final spike went past him, he then turned his head to see that the spikes were now forming into a large fist, which slammed into the side of the ship, which caused the ship to lurch to the left hard. "Holy shit!" Garfield screamed out as he began to skid against the ship.

"This is so much fun!" The Symbiote exclaimed as Garfield held on for dear life.

"You call this fun?!" Garfield exclaimed as the fist reared back for another strike. "That's not good," Garfield noted before the fist slammed against the ship again, sending it down to the ground sharply, which made Garfield lose his grip on the ship and go flying into the air.

"I take it back. This is not good!" The Symbiote shouted while Garfield began to plummet to the ground.

But then his an idea appeared in his head. "Sym! Parachute!" Garfield shouted.

Garfield began to shoot his webbing, which instantly began to form as a parachute, which slowed down his fall dramatically but he watched as she ship crashed down and skidded to the ground with the metal fist still embedded within it before it rose out of the ship and with a flash, changed into smoke.

Garfield landed on the ground with a roll and immediately rose to his feet and quickly ran what felt like a lifetime to the ship, his fear of watching his friends die in front of him growing with each frantic step.

Garfield ran to the cockpit window and saw that it was cracked but he could see Rocket moving within it before he jumped up, barely avoiding the window of the cockpit flying out at him.

Rocket unbuckled her seatbelt and helped Red X out of his seat then floated outside while Black Cat crawled out of her seat and rolled onto the ground. "Holy shit was that bad. I thought we weren't going to make it," Black Cat panted out.

Red X fell to one knee and held his side in pain and said "We got really lucky."

"We did," Rocket said, a purple outline around her body glowing faintly. "Are you two able to continue on?"

"Yeah, no injury is going to keep us away from this," Red X said as he pushed himself to his feet before he helped Black Cat to her feet.

The four then looked at the mansion.

"Well…Let's go end this then…" Rocket told them with a grin.

Garfield: That bad feeling is coming back again…

Kimberly: It'll be alright. How bad can the last chapter of the arc be?

Garfield: I don't know but I have a really bad feeling about it all…

Kimberly: Don't worry about it for now. We'll see what happens soon.