Chapter 3

Pain in the Field...

Dragging himself out of his bed, the fear-stricken teen hauled himself towards the outdoor training field. There he met up with all of his fellow Titans and they kicked off their first official training session.

"You sure you're up for this Polybius?" Robin asked.

The mute teen nodded as he was feeling much better than he was a few hours ago. His headache had subsided and he had calmed his nerves.

"Good." Robin said before turning and facing the group "Alright Titans. Today, I want to get a feel for what you are capable of. I want to know what your skills and abilities are. Your strengths and weaknesses. So I have designed a course for each of you that should put you to the test. And it is okay to fail here."

"So what is this, like a pre-test?" Beast Boy asked.

"Sort of." Robin said, "The order is me, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, Polybius and Beast Boy. Now let's get this started!"

And with that, the crew took up positions behind the control panel. Currently, only Cyborg and Robin knew how to work it, so they were the two that were leading the test.

Watching Robin step up to the start, Polybius locked his eyes on him. Robin had proven himself an admirable fighter, and a tough opponent leaving the mute teen quite eager to not only see the leader's stronger set of skills but also see the weaker ones as well.

"Alright, Robin!" Cyborg shouted from the control panel where the others were "Startin in 3, 2, 1, GO!"

With the sound of the buzzer, Robin took off. Polybius quickly noted how agile he was, easily jumping over barriers and dogging laser fire from the drones flying around him. And while they did little to slow his progress, he was able to easily dispatch them with something called a "bird-a-rang." Polybius wasn't sure exactly what it was called, but he remembered Robin told him about them once. Even going as far as to compare them to his flare gun.

One major thing Polybius did note is that as Robin moved through the course is that when he got hit, even if it was a more light tap, it was enough to stop him for a brief second. To the teen, this said to him that Robin wasn't the most malleable of fighters. Every hit he took slowed him down just a little bit, barely noticeable, but just enough to be noticed.

Despite this, however, Robin crossed the finish line with a very good time.

"New course record." Some automated female voice stated.

"That's because he's the only one to take the course." Cyborg muttered as Robin approached the group.

Next up was Starfire. Polybius already had a good idea about how she fought after fighting her when they first met. While her star bolts did a lot of damage, Polybius noted she wasn't very accurate with them. She tended to act more like a machine gun, laying down a broad hail of bolts in a general area. The small explosions and the smoke that arose from them would be more than enough to throw off an opponent, or at the very least hinder most opponent's visibility.

It wasn't long after she started, that the alien crossed the finish line. She was only a few seconds short of Robin.

"That was rather fun." Starfire stated as she traded places with Raven.

Watching Raven move through the course, it was evident that she was a serious powerhouse. Her magic was an exceptionally powerful tool at her disposal. She was able to create impassable black walls, move objects, and even destroy objects. However, before she did anything, she had to say a little chant, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The whole thing took her at least a second to say. A very precious second.

But regardless, she blew through the course and topped Robin's score by a staggering twenty seconds.

She came back and Cyborg stepped up. He was clearly confident in his ability to beat Raven's score. Or so he thought.

One thing that Polybius did note about Cyborg is while he too was a powerhouse, his house wasn't as nearly as big as Raven's was, but still not one to be trifled with. His sonic cannon was powerful, but he certainly was also a heavy hitter. Rather than jumping over barricades like Robin, Cyborg opted just to go straight through them. Punching holes left and right, Cyborg just obliterated anything in his path. The lasers that also gave Robin trouble when he got hit with them, Cyborg was able to shrug them off. However, repeated blasts seemed to drag him down.

Regardless, Cyborg crossed the finish line only three seconds behind Raven.

"Aw, come on!" Cyborg shouted when he saw his time "Three seconds!"

Now it was Polybius's turn to run the course. As he walked over to the start he checked his backpack and looked to see what he had packed. He had his trusty flare gun as well as a dozen flares, a modern ax that was actually sharp, a climbing ax, a few health mixes, and a handful of molotovs, three makeshift explosives, a can of hairspray and his lighter.

Putting his backpack back on his back, Polybius took up his position behind the starting line. He could see the finish line only a hundred meters away. Yet between him and that finish line laid a series of obstacles that were hellbent on not letting him get there.

"You ready Polybius?" Robin asked over the microphone.

Polybius gave a thumbs up and waited for the buzzer.

BUZZ!

And with the sound, Polybius took off running. Coming up on the first obstacle, it was a low wall that was waist-high. Rather than just jumping over it as everybody else had for the sake of time, Polybius didn't. Instead, he crouched behind the wall and peeked over the top. The teen quickly began scanning the path ahead of him, trying to see what laid in his path.

What Polybius saw were the drones flying at him. Quickly reaching into his bag, Polybius drew out one of his makeshift explosives and primed it.

The explosive in question was a rather odd-looking thing. It was made up of a motherboard that once belonged in a laptop, gorilla glue, a full bottle of beer with a bunch of coins inside the bottle as well as the booze, a wristwatch, and a small amount of gunpowder.

Quickly priming the bomb, Polybius then tossed it and waited for the four-second delay before the inevitable boom.

Peeking out from behind his cover, Polybius saw that his bomb had taken out all of the drones in one fell swoop, coins sticking out from all of them.

With the main threat taken care of, Polybius got up and quickly rushed to the next covered position and played a sort of leapfrog game from covered spot to covered spot just to make sure nothing took him by surprise.

It was clear that when the drones went down, somebody at the control tower decided to turn it up a notch for the mute as Polybius got caught moving between two places of cover when two large laser towers rose up from the ground and began firing at him.

With the towers being only less than twenty meters away, Polybius found himself too hard-pressed to make it to his next position, and instead found himself being driven back to his previous position, lasers just barely missing him every step of the way.

Once Polybius got to his covered position, he found himself lying on the ground behind a two-foot-high barrier. He quickly dived into his backpack to see if he had anything that was capable of fending or fighting off this.

Polybius looked at his flare gun and decided to use it. Loading in a sticky explosive flare, Polybius peek out from cover just enough to aim his gun and…

"Come on Polybius! Use your powers!" He heard Robin call.

"Yes! Use the tentacles of your back!" Starfire cheered with glee.

"Yeah, man! Show us what they can do!" Cyborg was also heard shouting.

Polybius ignored them and fired his flare at one of the towers. The stationary tower got hit with the flare that stuck to the tower. It then blew up and destroyed the tower.

With one tower down, Polybius found himself being able to make advances again and ran right up to the base of the second tower with relative ease. Once there, Polybius found that the tower was not able to shoot directly under itself. This allowed Polybius to whip out his climbing ax and climb the tower. Once at the top, Polybius was easily able to disable it by ripping out a few critic boards and flipping a few breakers. Tucking the critic boards away in his backpack, Polybius began to slide down the tower when another wave of drones began laying down a hail of laser fire on him.

Polybius was quick to fling his climbing ax at the closest one as he quickly slid down the tower. The ax went flying through the air and buried itself in the drone, which was unable to move out of the way in time. However, two more drones quickly took its place and Polybius was now trying to make himself as skinny as possible behind the tower.

"Come on Polybius! Use your powers!" Robin shouted.

Polybius continued to ignore the leader as he pulled out the lighter and hairspray. Using the set combo as a makeshift flamethrower, the Titan spun around the corner and sprayed the two incoming drones with a fast traveling beam of fire.

"Cool!" Polybius heard Beast Boy say as the two drones became engulfed in flame and went down.

With that taken care of, Polybius once again turned and ran towards the finish line, but just as he got within twenty meters of it, a hole opened up from the ground revealing what looked like some sort of mechanical dog being raised up on a platform.

Not wasting any time, Polybius quickly took his bag off his shoulders and drew out his modern ax. Unlike the stone ax, this one was razor sharp and made of carbon steel. And the mute Titan had spent a lot of time taking care of the weapon too.

The machine began making a run towards the teen and said teen back-peddled while facing the machine, dropping his backpack on the ground. Once within jumping distance, the robot lunged itself at Polybius only to be taken by a hard strike by the sharp part of the ax. Once the blade was inside the head of the robot, the mute Titan then slammed into the ground.

With the ax so deep inside its head, Polybius had a little trouble pulling it out of the creature. This would cost him dearly as suddenly, another one of those same machines charged at Polybius.

Too late form him to move out of the way, Polybius was only able to start putting his arm up when the creature slammed into him hard.

This sent the teen flying back several feet before the creature pounced on him like a lion. It tried to bite down on Polybius with its set of blunt but electrified teeth that would have surely given anybody a good shock. But Polybius was ready.

Putting his right arm up and using all of his strength, Polybius was able to block the creature from attacking him. The neck of the robot slammed down into his arm, trapping the teen's left arm under his body.

As the machine applied more force to try and land a critical blow on the trapped mute, he was trying to wiggle his other arm free, but to no avail. It also didn't help him that his backpack too was far out of reach.

"Come on, use your powers, Polybius!" He heard somebody shout.

Alas, seeing no other options, the teen, whose face was clearly visible to the other Titans, winched in pain as one of his black tentacles shot out of his back and began to attack the creature.

Polybius wrapped the tentacle around the creature and began crushing as if there was nothing there.

With a lot of loud crunches, sparks, pops, and bangs, within a single second the machine was reduced to nothing more than a pile of scrap metal far beyond repair.

Throwing the robot off of himself, Polybius then brought his black tentacles back inside his body.

Laying on the ground for a moment, the teen took a moment to catch his breath and let the excruciating pain in his back subside. After that moment, he picked himself up, collected his items and walked across the finish line.

Polybius's time was rather abysmal compared to the others. But when he had a few extra curve balls thrown his way. Those mechanical tiger, dog things soaked up a lot of time.

Putting a hand on his back, Polybius walked over to the stand, pain clearly evident on his face.

"Polybius are you undamaged?" Starfire asked, to which Polybius shook his head.

"What happened out there?" Robin asked.

Polybius took a seat and rested his back, ignoring the leader's question.

"Come on Polybius, what happened?" Cyborg pressed.

Polybius then pulled out his notebook and wrote down in all capital letters: IT PHYSICALLY HURTS TO USE MY BACK TENTACLES!

Polybius handed the note off to Robin and he read it to the team.

"I'm sorry Polybius." Robin said, "I didn't know you had to endure pain when you used your power."

Polybius waved it off before writing down some important information down for the Titans.

"So your back tentacles are a last resort." Cyborg said, to which Polybius nodded.

"Why?" Beast Boy asked.

Polybius then used another piece of paper to then show them a visual representation of what his back, specifically his spine did when he used his powers.

Cutting a line down the middle of the paper while making sure the paper stayed connected at the top and bottom with about an inch distance from the start of the cut to the edge, Polybius then wrote 'spine' and an arrow pointing to the cut line. Holding it up for everybody to see, Polybius then pulled the paper apart so that he could see through the hole while making sure he didn't rip it apart.

"So what you're saying is that your spine splits itself open so that way the tentacles in your back can come out?" Cyborg said "Right?"

Polybius then put the paper down and then wrote 'Almost.'

The teen then went on to explain how his spine split very close to the top and then reconnected at the bottom. Its natural position was the closed position, but in order to use his back tentacles, he had to force his spine to split like, as the teen put it, Moses splitting the Red Sea. This movement caused immense pain to the teenage hero. So much so that while his back tentacles were very powerful, he used them as a last resort because of how much it hurt not only using them but the pain he felt afterwards that would keep him down for a few hours.

"Geez, I'm so sorry Polybius." Robin said, "I'll make sure to note that for later on."

Polybius game a small smile.

"Well, that sucks." Cyborg said, looking out at the pile of scrap metal that had once been a major threat to Polybius "It's a real shame you can't use them because you turned that mechanical tiger into scrap in less than a second after you wrapped it up in your tentacle. Lookin at it you'd think it got teleported to the bottom of the ocean and got crushed by the pressure down there."

Polybius smiled at that comment. The teen knew how much power he could throw down when he utilized his powers. If he wasn't dragged down by the unbearable pain of having his spine split open, his tentacles would make quick work of any opponent.

"Please, Polybius, is there anything I can do to help relieve your pain?" Starfire asked.

Polybius shook his head. He knew it would be a few hours before the pain in his back receded to the normal amount he was used to.

Not long after that, Beast Boy went through the course, but Polybius was in too much pain to pay serious attention to the green animal shifter. He blew through the course and soon Robin gave his little end of training briefing.

"Great work Titans." He started "Today you showed us your weaknesses and your strengths. And how you operate in a hostile environment. From here we are going to work on our strengths and weaknesses. So expect something more challenging tomorrow.

And with that, everybody was dismissed. Starfire, being the kind and caring soul she is, went straight to Polybius after the training was over.

"Are you certain you can carry on by yourself?" She asked the pain engulfed teen.

Polybius nodded and Starfire left him alone. And as Polybius took a moment to prepare himself for the journey back up to his room, Raven visited him.

"This might help." She said as she approached him.

Walking up behind him, she used her powers to ease his pain.

The effect was immediate and extremely good. Reducing his pain almost immediately, Polybius felt a wave of relief wash over him. The euphoria in his head was a terrific feeling for the mute.

After a minute of the pain relief magic, Raven stopped and the pain, while it did come back, it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been just moments prior.

"Better?" Raven asked.

Polybius nodded happily.

"If you ever need it again, just ask." Raven assured him before walking off.

With that, the teen then made the long hike up to his room and sat down in his bed. However, once his eyes set on his laptop, he decided to hop on that.

One thing that had long intrigued the teen was the internet. His experiences with it had been rather lackluster thus far. He often found himself only being able to access a few websites for whatever reason. However, those restrictions were gone. He could finally check out this "YouTube," "Google" and "Reddit" he remembered hearing about at some point in his life.

Starting with the first, Polybius plugged in the website address of Youtube and began browsing what was in front of him.

Polybius was unimpressed. Most of what he saw was rather unappealing to him. Mostly music videos or just weird looking people doing even weirder things. There were also a few animations on there as well, but they didn't look all that interesting to Polybius.

Moving on to Google, the teen was far more impressed with what he saw. Having almost the entire world at his fingertips was truly amazing, to say the least.

Then came Reddit.

Upon first inspection of the site, it didn't seem all that bad. Mostly news and large open forums where people were free to discuss anything. And it was literally anything.

Needless to say the deeper Polybius dug into Reddit, the more interesting it became. He discovered that there were entire communities dedicated to something. Like a game or content creator. There was even one for the Titans with over ten thousand members.

But one thing that did disturb Polybius upon his search for the Titan's Reddit page was that there was also a page dedicated to nothing more than porn of them. Not only that, but that community was nearly six times as large as the one not dedicated to porn.

Polybius stared at this for a good long moment, internally debating whether or not to explore the one about porn and the horrors that laid just a click away.

Ultimately, Polybius decided against it. He was exceptionally scared of what he may find there and he was already disturbed enough by its existence.

After seeing that, Polybius exited out of the internet and slowly closed his laptop. He made his way over to his window in a slow fashion. He looked out to see the sun was just about to set below the horizon.

As the teen watched the sun set he began shaking his head. Never again was he going to go to Reddit if that was the state of the website. Just the thought of people cosplaying or doing very detailed art of his friends, or worse, him, and then doing porn was not a good sitting thought. All the horrors that laid in that subreddit were things Polybius was not going to explore ever.

What made things so much worse is that both him and his friends were all underage. Polybius and Cyborg were sixteen, Polybius older by a few months. Robin was fifteen, soon to be sixteen. Starfire was also fifteen while Raven and Beast Boy were both fourteen, the green Titan being the one further away from his birthday.

Fortunately for the teen, he would be brought out of his disturbing thoughts by the crime alert. Their first true mission!

The team formed up in the main room and quickly got the details of their first mission. It was a bank robbery that seemed pretty standard from the look of the quick report. Polybius assumed it was probably some guys who hadn't quite gotten the message that there was a new superhero team in town.

And when the team got there, it was exactly that. And when the six heroes showed up, the three robbers crapped their pants and rolled over for the team. It was kinda sad in the mute teen's mind. Everybody was looking for some serious action now that they were out in full force. Something to put them to the test. Not lowlifes who surrender as soon as the heroes showed up.

"Aw man!" Cyborg said as the team exited the bank "I was hoping for some serious butt-whooping! Noth that!"

"Fear not friends." Starfire said "Our time to shine will come soon!"

"It better." Cyborg grumbled as the team formed up.

"Hey! At least we won our first mission!" Beast Boy said, "And to celebrate, I say we go get pizza!"

"Oh yes!" Starfire agreed "The pizza of victory sounds absolutely wonderful!"

"Pizza does sound like a good idea." Cyborg agreed.

"Why not!" Robin agreed "Come on Titans, let's go get some pizza."

As the group took off, Polybius held back. He hadn't told them about his stomach, or how he digested food externally yet. He was afraid that they would be too disgusted or scared to accept him. That they would shun him for it.

Watching the Titans walk away, the teen turned away and began his hike back towards the tower. They didn't need to know about that yet, and if it were up to him, they wouldn't learn about that. Polybius was quite thankful that none of them noticed that he didn't follow them.

As Polybius walked back towards the tower, he took a shortcut through the small park in the city. It was getting late so all of the children were off the playgrounds and now it was mostly teenagers around his age screwing around.

Some were just groups of friends goofing around on the children's playground equipment. Others were just standing around talking. And of course, there were a few that were being all romantic and lovey dubby. Kissing each other passionately and getting all romantic. Quite frankly, those teens made Polybius feel a little sick just by looking at them. Or in the case of the louder ones, hearing them.

However, just as Polybius was coming up on his exit of the park, a group of rather rough-looking teens walked in the exit he was about to take.

At first, the group didn't notice Polybius, as the mute teen tried to make himself look smaller than he actually was. But as they got closer to each other, the group began snickering.

"Oh look, it's one of dem Titans." One of the teens said.

"Polybius, right?" Another one asked.

"More like Whoosie-bus." One said, causing the others to laugh.

Polybius could hear all of this and kept his head low. Trying to get past them, but he was stopped when two of them cut him off.

"Look at this loser." One of the males said "Ladies say you're quite handsome and attractive. I disagree. You look and smell like a rottin deer."

"I think you're wrong, my dude." Another one in the group said "No homo, but dang, this dude is freakin hot! And he don't smell all dat bad. Fact he smells pretty good. Although he looks a lot taller on TV."

"Maybe that's why all the girls at school drool over him." The third one said, "Well expect Kittin and her crew."

"Bah! Whatever man! Point is, I'm so tired of my girl sayin that she'd leave me if you came by and asked her out!"

Polybius looked up at the teen with a confused look on his face.

"So I'm gonna beat you up to prove I'm the better man!" The teen declared.

Polybius's mind began scouring his knowledge for an answer as to the teen's logic. The confusion on his face grew as the teen took off his coat.

"Fight me!" The teen demanded.

The confusion vanished from Polybius's face and he went to a blank look. A few seconds later, Polybius let a large, rather devilish looking smile come across his face before nodding his head.

Standing upright, Polybius suddenly went from what looked like a weak little dude, to the massive teen he really was.

Standing up at six feet tall, Polybius looked down on the Robin height teen, who had a look of terror come across his face.

"Uh…" The teen said as he soaked in Polybius's intimidating size difference.

"Dude! Get out of there!" One of his friends said, "He's gonna beat you!"

"N- No!" The teen stuttered in response "H-He's just a bigger Robin! Yeah! And I could totally kick Robin's butt! And he's not even as good a fighter as Robin!"

That statement stopped Polybius. Did people really look at him like nothing more than a bigger, scarier, but not as good Robin?

"No way dude!" The other teen replied "You're on your own for dis one! Ight, imma head out!"

The teen who was squaring up with Polybius suddenly found himself alone and outmatched. He was clearly having second thoughts about fighting Polybius.

Polybius meanwhile was existing in two trains of thought at once. Part of his mind was focused on the opponent in front of him while the other train was thinking about how people saw him as a lame Robin.

"Man, screw this!" The teen said he began to approach Polybius.

This was a mistake as the train of thought about his image left his mind and Polybius's whole mind focused on fighting this teen.

The teen let out a rather pathetic roar as he tried to swing a right hook at Polybius. This was a mistake as Polybius caught the punch mid-air and stopped it dead in its path.

"Let me go you freak!" The teen shouted, but to no avail.

Polybius then did a quick sweep under the teen's feet, knocking him to the ground, while never letting go of the fist.

"Agh!" The teen shouted as he hit the ground.

Polybius was then quick to take a hard stomp into the teen's chest. Planting his foot in the center of the teen's chest, Polybius then took a knee and braced the right arm of the teen on his leg.

Using minimal pressure and force, Polybius then broke the teen's arm in a clean break, causing the joint at the elbow to completely dislocate.

"Ah- aaahh!" The teen cried out in pain as a loud snap of bone was heard.

Polybius then let the teen go as he laid on the ground in pain. He was not getting up from this and the fight was over.

After the fight, Polybius waved down a passing cop car and got the teen the medical attention he needed. When asked if he wanted to press charges against the teen, Polybius said no. He quite frankly didn't care about the teen and while jail would be a good place for him, there was no need for that. Polybius had taught him a good enough lesson.

However, as the ambulance left, Polybius's mind drifted back to what the teen had said.

"He's just a bigger Robin! Yeah! And I could totally kick Robin's butt! And he's not even as good a fighter as Robin!" Rang through the mute teen's mind.

This thought lingered in his mind as he began to make his way home. He couldn't help but compare himself to Robin as he walked. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized he was a lot like Robin in many ways.

This was strange for Polybius as he was not sure what he was feeling. But he didn't want to be seen as just a 'bigger, but not as awesome' Robin. He wanted to be seen as Polybius! As the individual he was. And currently, the only thing Polybius had going for him is that he had Robin didn't look all that much alike, but that clearly wasn't enough. He needed to find a way for people to see him as his own person! As Polybius!

Once he decided to set on this personal mission of his, he had only one question in his mind. How as he going to achieve this goal?

And that is it for Chapter 3!

I hope you enjoyed it and have a good rest of your day!