Chapter 8
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"So what you're saying is that you think that old guy was Slade, right?" Beast Boy asked the leader "And with the help of Thunder and Lighting, he summoned that big fire monster?"
"That's exactly what I am saying." Robin stated.
"And what about this Montezuma?" Starfire brought up.
Polybius shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
"Nothing?" Cyborg said, "How does a dude like that just fall off the face of the Earth?"
"Earth has a face?" Starfire asked.
"It's a figure of speech." Raven explained.
"Oh." Starfire said a little embarrassed.
"Well if that's the case, then I suppose we can call this meeting to a close." Robin said.
With that, the Titans disbanded from the main room and Polybius made his way to the rooftop.
Standing on the edge of the roof, the teen looked out at the city. The storm that had defeated the monster was nothing more than a minor sprinkle now.
However, the teen's mind was troubled. He began thinking about everything that had happened since he joined the Titans. Particularly that dark Polybius. But also his first encounter with the teen whose arm had been broken by Polybius twice, and his goal afterward. For the public to see him as his own person, and not just a less awesome Robin. He also thought about his lone experience of hearing the voice.
For the first time since his arrival in Jump City, Polybius was truly scared. Not of anyone else, but what was happening to him. He had no clue as to what was going on inside his head. Or outside?
The way Polybius saw it, he didn't know anymore.
What he did know is that he hadn't seen the dark version of himself since the day prior to Blackfire's arrival. And he hadn't heard the voice since that video game, which none of the others heard. Only he did.
It was terrifying that he was the only person who could see or hear these things. The idea of Robin standing on the other side of the door, unable to hear the darker version of himself talk to the mute Titan.
And he was certainly not one to get scared easily.
Taking a seat and letting his feet dangle over the edge, the teen tried to make sense of what was going on. Why was everything that was happening to him, happening?
"Polybius?" He heard Starfire call his name.
Polybius didn't move as the alien girl made her way up to the roof.
"There you are!" Starfire said, walking up next to him "How is it going, friend?"
Polybius didn't look at her as he gave her a thumbs up.
"That is good to hear!" Starfire said happily.
Polybius couldn't help but smile as the aura of positivity from the alien girl gave. It was so powerful that rubbed off on him, making himself feel better.
"Uh, about the other day with Blackfire." Starfire started, with a sense of nervousness in her voice.
Polybius cut her off by holding up his hand and shaking his head. As much as he hated it, he knew he was very good looking.
"Oh…" Starfire said as Polybius put his hand down "Well, I was wondering, would you like to hang out with me? I have assembled a box of arts and crafts that we could make the silly little things."
A smile appeared on Polybius's face and he let out a silent chuckle. There was no way he was going to turn this down.
The mute Titan nodded and Starfire's face lit up with joy.
"Oh, wonderful!" Starfire cheered "Come, friend! Let us not waste any time!"
As the two-headed back inside, far away from the tower on the outskirts of the city limit, inside a gross looking house was Montezuma. He was sitting on a disgusting looking couch and dressed to look like a normal person. He was watching TV, specifically the news.
"And once again, the Titans save the day from a fire monster that threatened to destroy the city. As always, the city owes yet another debt of gratitude to these young heroes." The news reporter said.
The small TV screen then showed a picture of the Titans standing triumphantly in the wake of the monster's path.
"Imperialist constructs." The man said as he picked up his remote and turned off his TV.
Montezuma had watched the whole thing from his living room window. He watched as the Titans bravely fought off the monster and how they let it very close to his house. Should the monster had come to his house, he would have been in a lot of trouble.
Standing up, the big man walked over to the kitchen and got out some Fruit Loops cereal. Once finished, he took a seat at his cheap kitchen table and began eating.
"Montezuma!" A mysterious voice suddenly called out his name.
"Who's there!?" The big man threatened.
"It's me, your Sun God." The voice bellowed.
The New Aztec was quick to show proper signs of respect for his holy figure, who could not be seen, but only heard.
"What do you desire from your humble servant?" The quickly humbled man asked.
"I have a few requests for you." The voice bellowed "Firstly, I need more sacrifices!"
"But sun god, I cannot, Huītzilōpōchtli. " Montezuma complained.
"Okay, firstly just call me Sun God, as that is a lot easier to say. And why not!?" The voice demanded "I cannot continue to rise and fall on sacrifices every other week! I don't care who you sacrifice, even if you have to steal them from the freaking orphanage down the street, I demand at least weekly tribute, or the sun will never rise again!"
"Of course." Montezuma quickly replied.
"Secondly, I want you to antagonize the Titans." The voice bellowed.
"All of them?" The man asked.
"Yes, all of them!" The voice said, "You must make an appearance again to renew the Titan's interest in you!"
"And where shall I strike?" The man asked.
"The museum!" The voice bellowed "In there, there is a sacrificial dagger that you shall begin using to sacrifice people to me rather than that dirty and pathetic kitchen knife you've been using."
"Of course." Montezuma said, "And when shall I strike?"
"In three sunsets from now." The voice bellowed "And by the rise of the next sun, you will have the dagger in your possession and will have sacrificed a soul to me. Also, don't let the dagger be the only thing you steal. It'll make the sacrifice connection far too obvious and put you at the top of their list. We don't want that yet and we still want their main focus to be Slade, for now."
"Understood." Montezuma replied.
"And my final request, for now, is that you clean this place up." The voice said, "I mean, gosh darn dude, this place is a pigsty and when you sacrifice people over that disgusting freaking pool table and their souls come to me, my gosh I don't want to touch them with a ten-foot pole."
"It will be done." The man grumbled.
"Good!" The voice bellowed "I shall speak with you again soon."
"I will wait for it." Montezuma said.
And with that, the voice vanished. Montezuma couldn't help but get excited by the visitation of the Sun God. This was the first time it had happened and he felt revitalized. It was time to carry out the wishes of the god.
Two days later, after Cyborg had a near-total robotization experience, and made a new ally, Fixit, the Titans headed back to the park to enjoy a little bit of downtime. Raven floated and meditated under a tree. Beast Boy, Robin, Polybius, and Cyborg were throwing around a football, and Starfire was amusing herself by watching some of the birds fly around.
And as the day winded down, the Titans headed home and Polybius laid on his bed looking up at his ceiling, thinking about how awesome that day had been, despite Cyborg's incident. He couldn't help but think about how lucky he was to have friends like the Titans.
And for a brief moment, he was able to forget about all of his troubles and just enjoy himself.
However, good things could not last as the following day, right at sunset, Polybius was making his way back home from a stroll around town. He was passing by the museum when his crime alert went off. This was accompanied by alarms in the museum as well.
Without even hesitating, Polybius quickly rushed inside the building, making his way through the crowd of fleeing civilians. Once inside, he quickly headed his way to the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca section of displays.
Once there, Polybius ran into the massive man who had tossed him like a ragdoll a while back. Montezuma.
The thing that Polybius found very troubling thought, is that he had the stolen items in his arms already. And it looked like he was just standing there, waiting for somebody to come and try and challenge him.
And he was going to get what he wanted.
"Ah, there you are!" Montezuma said, seeing the mute Titan enter the exhibit "Now I can finally put my macuahuitl to good use."
Stashing his stolen goods in his groinal cloth, he held his massive weapon with two hands and squared up with the Titan.
The mute couldn't help but smile as this time, he had his flare gun, set and ready to go with a bounce fire flare. Something that would hopefully catch the feathers of his helmet on fire.
Polybius fired off the flare, but the big man then used his macuahuitl like a baseball bat and knocked the flare away. However, this wasn't without causing the weapon he was using to catch on fire. The wood it was made out of quickly caught on fire, rendering the weapon useless.
"Gosh darn it!" The big man said as he threw his burning weapon on the ground "You want to play like that huh, fine."
Again digging into his groinal cloth, the big man drew out his stolen sacrificial dagger. He held it in his hand as Polybius took aim with a sticky fire flare.
Montezuma charged Polybius who fired at the big man, but the Aztec was able to doge the flare easily and slammed into Polybius, causing the mute Titan to be sent flying through a wall and out to the main lobby.
Polybius quickly picked himself up and faced Montezuma. The big man put the dagger away for some unknown reason and picked up large pieces of debris and chucked it at Polybius. This was easily dogged by the Titan, who then drew out his stone club and charged the large man.
"Come at me fool!" The Aztec shouted "Now you face me like a man! No, a warrior! Let's see how tough you really are."
Polybius swung low with the club, and the man took a step back to dodge the attack, but Polybius kept his forward momentum going and slammed into the big man.
"Oof!" The Aztec said as he stumbled back "Good one."
Polybius stood facing the big warrior with his club in hand.
"Sadly though, it is time for me to go." Montezuma said "I'll see you again Polybius. Hope to have a good fight with you next time!"
The big man then dashed out of Polybius's line of sight, back into the section he had just blasted Polybius through. Naturally, the teen followed him, but when he got there, the big man had vanished.
The teen looked around confused. The emergency exit door was closed and there were no major holes in the walls or ceiling except for the one that had been created by Montezuma's attack.
Polybius couldn't help but wonder where the hell the big man went.
"Polybius!" he heard Robin shout.
The mute Titan turned back to see his team just now arriving at the scene. They quickly rushed over to him and stood by his side.
"What happened?" Robin asked.
Polybius put away his club and took out his notebook. He wrote down a brief description of the events that had just happened with Montezuma.
"Montezuma." Robin said "Stealing Aztec artifacts. Predictable."
"But what I don't get is how he vanished." Cyborg said, "If what you two have been saying about this guy's size is true, and he's half a foot taller than me, how did he vanish like that?"
"Super speed?" Beast Boy proposed.
"Teleportation?" Raven offered.
"It doesn't matter." Robin said, "Spread out and search the city."
The Titans did this only to have nothing turn up. Just like before, there were no signs of the big Aztec anywhere. And when they reconvened at the tower, it did exactly what the Sun God wanted it to and gave a renewed interest in Montezuma, but left Slade the primary focus of the team.
But the god was not happy.
"What were you thinking!?" The voice bellowed at the servant named Montezuma.
"I don't understand." Montezuma said.
During the fight with Polybius, the Sun God intervened briefly to save Polybius's life. Montezuma had intended to use the dagger to kill the mute Titan. However, the god had other plans, and the death of Polybius would have thrown all of that out the window.
"Killing Polybius is going to get us nowhere!" The voice shouted with a rage-filled voice "Especially Polybius! The Titans get really defensive of him because he cannot speak! Therefore, by killing him, you will enrage the Titans where they will hunt you down!"
"Please forgive me." The man pleaded.
"No!" The voice bellowed "I gave you this! No, I gave you everything! And now you are going to witness me take it all back and then some!"
"Please…" Was the last thing Montezuma said before vanishing into thin air.
Seconds later, a person who was dressed exactly the same as Montezuma had just seconds prior appeared in the place of the old one. The only difference is that this one was the same height as Polybius. In fact, the man had a very uncanny resemblance to Polybius. If nobody knew any better, then they would have assumed it was Polybius. Except this person didn't have a massive hole in his back and didn't live in constant pain. Plus this person had all of their fingers.
"Now then." The god spoke, "You, Montezuma, shall carry on with the sacrifices and keep your head low."
"Of course." Montezuma stated, "Your wish is my command."
About a month after the fight with the Aztec wannabe, Polybius found himself yet again, sitting in his room with zero leads as to who or where this guy was. All he had were a list of the stolen artifacts, and they all seemed to have no connection to one another, aside from their origin.
As Polybius pondered, he reached over for his cup of water to find that he had already drunk all of its contents.
The mute Titan shook his head as he held the cup in his hand. Having spent so long in his room trying to figure out something about Montezuma had really left him too centered on the topic. And despite what Robin said a month and a half ago, Polybius admitted he needed a break.
However, as Polybius walked back, he had to pass by Raven's room. And as he came upon it, he heard a scream that sounded like it came from Cyborg, inside her room!
Quickly rushing into action, Polybius quickly rushed over to the door and tactfully poked his head around the corner.
All the teen saw was a knocked down door and a mirror laying on the floor as well as several miscellaneous objects in the dark.
Having no idea what happened, and thought that maybe he was hearing things, Polybius blinked a few times before walking off to find Raven. He still had to tell her that her door was knocked down.
Deciding to start his search in the main room, Polybius found only Robin and Starfire there.
"Hello, friend!" Starfire greeted warmly, as she always did.
Polybius waved as he approached the two, who were finishing up a meal. He then pulled out his notebook and explained that Raven's door had been knocked down.
"That's odd." Robin said, "Raven doesn't allow anybody in her room."
"We need to go find and tell her!" Starfire declared.
And with that, after Polybius filled up his cup with water, they set off to find the girl in question. After a fifteen-minute search of the tower, they found her up on the roof of the building.
"Hey, Raven." Robin said as the three approached her "Polybius says he passed by your room and the door has been knocked down."
It was then at this moment that one of the most terrifying things that had ever happened during his time with the Titans happened.
Raven laughed. Not a little giggle as she did from time to time, but full-on laugh.
Polybius, Starfire, and Robin quickly put a little distance between themselves and her. They also put their hands up in case they needed to react to anything. All three of them could feel their hearts going a million miles an hour in their chests.
Fortunately for the trio, Raven was quick to react and covered her mouth. She then put up the hood of her cloak and quickly stormed off.
"Many of your Earthly ways are strange." Starfire started "But that was just plain freaky, yes?"
The mute Titan could only nod as they let their hearts settle down.
For the rest of the day, Polybius isolated himself inside his room, always on edge as to what Raven may do next.
And there you have it. Something has happened to Montezuma and things are picking up. I hoped you enjoyed this chapter and have a good rest of your day.