Titans: Elemental

Chapter 28: Mad Mod, Part 2

A hall lined with various pictures of Mad Mod; the real McCoy, wearing goggles and with a sheepskin coat and helmet over his suit, zooms along on a motor scooter. The Titans go after him, passing a picture of him in his main outfit. A bunch of bananas hides the face, but the painting pulls them away and glares after the team; he has pulled a quick change and given them the slip.

The bananas are thrown after the Titans, who are at the far end, and the lunatic jumps out of the frame and runs off; they charge after him. Now back in his suit and reclining on his scooter's seat, he motors down the hall. The eight heroes do likewise, but a mighty flash from that direction sends them back the way they came. Mad Mod is after them, having ditched the coat in favor of an enormous bazooka which he fires time after time.

….

We see a long, wide room whose white floor and ceiling are marked with a lattice of large holes. Mad Mod rolls in and drops out of sight; the Titans try to follow, but the hole has solidified to block them. As Dick drums his fingers on the floor, the nutcase pops back up two spots over, without his scooter. The team leader runs to grab him, but suddenly drops through the hole between him and Mad Mod, who rises through the ceiling. BB briefly becomes a tiger and jumps after the villain, with Blackfire dashing along with them; the other six start poking their heads in everywhere, and out in all sorts of impossible places. Vic even picks up one hole, holds it sideways, and steps through; it falls flat like a manhole cover, and Starfire jumps on it for a moment and shrugs before plummeting out of sight. Rose jumps in after her. Raven is left floating by herself in the middle of the place, with Jack standing beside her as the other six heads start popping up all around them like a Whack-a-Mole game gone haywire. They are both scared into a hole when Vic peeks up with his head much larger than normal. A moment later, all eight reappear, with musical instruments and dressed in the sort of garish clothes often used by British bands of the 1960s. Mad Mod drives past, once again leaning back on the seat, and the Titans zip out of their new threads to give chase.

….

A long, winding staircase is where Mad Mod is powering his scooter up the incline, the team race along for all they are worth, and he reaches a door at the top and stops. A press of the cane's ruby turns the stairs into a slide, sending Rose and the boys down; Raven, Blackfire and Starfire, floating above the surface, watch them go. At the bottom, a hatch opens and a short stretch of stairs emerges, turning itself into a set of snapping jaws. Beast Boy screams and becomes an octopus. As he nears the floor, Starfire, Raven and Blackfire make it down; he stops his slide by wrapping two tentacles around the former while the latter grabs the two others. Raven grabs Jack by his arms. Dick thumps into BB, then starts to panic just in time to get four hundred pounds of bionic Titan plowed into his face, but the makeshift safety net holds. Rose plops on top of Vic. Dick sits up, dazed, and the girls haul them and Beast Boy up. Vic gives Dick a shrug and a sheepish grin.

They are carried up.

….

The view changes to show a hall with many doors on either side, seen from one end. A Mad Mod bust stands at the other. He rides in and, as the Titans slide through in a heap, exits through a far door. Beast Boy reverts to human form and stands there, slightly dazed, while the other four bolt to the other end. He runs across the hall and soon has a green dog nipping at his heels. Now Dick peeks out, catches sight of him, and runs that way while Vic crosses the hall.

Rose dashed out one door, brandishing her staff, looked around, and dashed into another.

Jack ran out one door with Raven, and they both dashed into another.

BB, as a gorilla, shambles through and just misses Mad Mod riding a "penny-farthing" bicycle; Starfire chases him as Raven goes the other way. One door flips up to the ceiling, the opposite one down onto the floor, and Mad Mod drives across in an old-style roadster. Here comes Vic from a nearby door; he heads back and through a farther one, but his image does not shrink as one might expect due to perspective, and he has to crawl out. Now Dick dashes out close to the back wall and toward a nearby door; the perspective trick is reversed, and he comes up very small and has to jump to it. However, he gets the hinges instead of the knob and the door swings open the wrong way. Out he goes.

Blackfire finds herself on a pogo stick, going through one door, but tripping and getting flung into another.

Starfire charges across, riding Beast Boy as an ostrich, and Mad Mod, now wearing a racoon skin cap atop his suit, paddles a canoe across the floor. Raven flies out and hangs for just a moment before BB, as a gargantuan gerbil, runs across; her eyes pop in surprise and she follows him out.

Jack and Rose cartwheel through one door together. Now Dick runs into the hall and watches as the other Titans go everywhere; Beast Boy now seems to be switching forms almost at random- a whale, a pygmy elephant, a penguin, a monkey. Doors open and close just as randomly; against their hinges, from lower panels. the Titans dashing through as perspective-tricked miniatures, by swinging towards the ceiling and floors. Finally, all the Titans gather in one place, and Dick points furiously in several directions. They fan out to five different doors, and at a signal from Dick, pull them open all at once. Nothing behind any of them, they tiptoe to the door at the far end, which no one tried. Dick smirks at his comrades and yanks the knob, and all scream as the head of a colossal reptilian creature pokes through and roars at them.

Mad Mod, meanwhile, steps leisurely from a far door and waves to them before walking back out. The bust moves slightly. The Titans run up, and Dick flips the head back to expose a knob. A quick twist, and the music stops all around them.

Jack, "weird."

They go through the door that has just opened. Their faces go slack with surprise, they see that the entire end wall has opened up to expose a peaceful meadow beyond it.

Raven, "no way!"

Jack, "I don't believe it."

BB, "is that what I think it is?

Dick, "one way to find out."

They start walking towards the meadow and pass into it.

Vic, "looks like the real deal."

Rose, "if you're wrong, you owe me twenty bucks."

Vic, "deal."

Dick holds up one hand and waves it around. They push through, but find themselves tearing through a huge sheet of paper, and see that they are back in the atrium where it all began!

Vic, "no!"

Blackfire, "well, now you owe Rose twenty bucks."

Vic, "aw man."

Dick grunts in disgust.

Dick, "right back where we started!"

A section of the floor flips over, bringing Mad Mod into the room.

Mad Mod, "of course you are, my duckies."

He taps the tiles with his cane and is promptly carried high into the air.

Mad Mod, "class is over, and you lot haven't learned a thing. That's a failing grade for each blooming one of you."

A big, red F appears on the underside of the platform.

Mad Mod, "there's only one thing for it", the doors swing shut in front of the torn fabric, "you'll have to repeat the entire lesson!"

The stairs retract up to the first balcony as he says this, after which all the walls fall outward to expose a curving black-and-white sunburst pattern all around. It is broken only by the doors and paintings, which remain exactly where they were. Many more busts move in, sporting a nasty variety of weapons. Mad Mod laughs maniacally as BB gets hypnotized again. Standing in the middle of the others, the newly re-hypnotized Titan starts to babble and drivel as he crumples slowly toward the ground. Raven and Rose catch him. Here come the statues.

Mad Mod, "time for class, my duckies. Everyone back to your seats!"

Dick, "Titans! Get that cane!"

Jack, "you got it!"

Vic, Blackfire, Jack, Starfire, and Dick in turn give a hearty yell and charge. Meanwhile, a visibly disgusted Raven and Rose are still trying to figure out what to do with Beast Boy.

Raven, "um…."

Rose, "hello?"

The fronts of several busts open up to reveal small missile launchers that fire off a heavy salvo. Raven creates a shield to protect herself, Rose and their charge. They are lost beneath the glare of the explosions, but Vic runs through them, catches up to Dick, and links his hands. Dick jumps up onto the palms and gets a hefty upward boost; now a bust flies in and Vic wheels to face it. A single punch crushes it to gravel.

Jack starts making fire swirl around him as he shoots shards of ice at the busts, cracking them up.

Dick has begun hopping from one airborne stone head to another, dodging the occasional laser blast along the way, and finally hurls himself through space. A bust flies in and starts to fire, but is blown apart by two starbolts. The shooters fly past the cloud of dust they have just created.

Mad Mod, "oy, no roughhousing! Do I have to separate you lot?"

He presses the ruby on his cane and causes the floor tiles to rise up as square columns. Starfire is on a collision course with Mad Mod and ready to shoot him full of holes, but a column rises in front of him without warning.

Starfire, "eek!"

She stops just barely short of the obstacle and tries to swerve around it, only to have that path cut off as well. Now the tile that was under her feet has reached her level and begun to carry her up; she gasps in shock as she rises against her will. Higher and higher she goes, with a forest of columns forming around her.

Blackfire tries to do the same, but is met with several columns that circle her.

Dick has resumed his game of leapfrog on the busts' heads, and they in turn have gone back to using him for target practice. He goes for one huge leap and gets clear of them, but his face soon registers surprise.

Dick, "huh?

He collides head-on with a column. Vic is quickly hemmed in and carried toward the ceiling.

Vic, "yo!"

When the motion stops, we see that a staggered pyramid of steps has formed. Vic and Dick are on different levels of the structure, but Dick has no time to ponder the geometry; laser shots from above force him to start jumping from one level to the next. He works his way up and seizes a passing bust, which carries him yelling toward a floating door. Working up a little momentum, he flips clear just before the sculpture crashes into it and explodes. He throws a wingding at Mad Mod, who leaps straight up to avoid it and passes him in midair.

A bust flies by and strafes, just missing Raven, Rose and BB, then doubles back for another pass as two others join it.

Raven, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

Three floor tiles, standing vertical, hurtle through the air and hit the attacking stoneworks edge on to slice them in half. The pieces tumble down around Raven, followed by a yelling Vic, who has been blown off his high perch.

Another bust flies close, but is smashed in midair by Rose.

Raven, "little help here? I don't do funny."

Rose, "clearly not."

Vic stands up.

Vic, "you asked for it."

Her hood is up at this point, but Vic pulls it back before she knows what is going on. Next, he licks his finger, depositing plenty of saliva on the tip, and shoves it into her ear. Her whole face looks as if it will split in half as her hair flies everywhere, but Beast Boy snaps out of his trance and laughs.

BB, "awesome", he realizes Mad Mod got him once more, "aw, not again!"

Rose is holding in her laughter.

With an angry spark flaring on her temple, Raven puts her hood back up. A loud thump is heard from nearby, the four turn toward it; busts with metal spider legs, jumping down from their high levels. Beast Boy turns into a rhinoceros and charges, smashing a couple to bits, while Blackfire and Starfire shoot down a few flying ones.

Jack leaps into view, shooting flames that burned the busts into ash.

Starfire flies onto her back to pull this off, she does not see one moving in with two thin metal arms extended from its shoulders. These grab her wrists.

Starfire, "huh?"

Starfire is hauled up with a scream and put into a half-spreadeagle; now a bust approaches and extends a laser chainsaw from its base. A swing of her legs knocks it away to slice a long gash through the cloth of the giant hypno screen that forms the wall.

Vic watches this one explode as it falls behind the columns he is standing on, but the moment is short-lived. More busts, these on tall pedestals and tank treads, are coming down the vertical surfaces and up from a trapdoor to form an advancing line. He leaps down, incapacitates one with a kick, and seizes it. With a heave, he sends it flying straight at the oncoming busts and destroys every one of them. Behind him, one more pops out, a stun gun extended from the mouth, and rolls toward his back. He turns around just in time to get a hair-raising jolt, or it would be, if he had any hair, that drops him in his tracks.

Jack is about to shoot more flames at the busts, but one manages to fly in and grab his staff!

Jack, "after this, I'm putting a strap on that thing, so people can't grab it so easily!"

Jack is helpless to stop two busts from grabbing him with mechanical arms.

The place begins to rearrange itself; doors and paintings change locations, and the row of tiles he is lying on moves like a conveyor belt to carry Vic and Jack away. Raven, who has been seized by a chair, is being dragged in.

Raven, "no!"

Her arms and legs are clamped down, and the white energy band fastens itself around her midsection.

Rose is overwhelmed by several arms that force her into a chair.

We see Vic being hauled in by his own chair and put BB in view, still a rhino. A hypno screen pops up right in front of him; reverting to human form, he turns his head and squeezes his eyes shut as a long metal arm reaches up.

BB, "don't look at the screen, don't look at the screen, don't look at the screen, don't look at the screen-"

For the fourth time, he surrenders to the mind-numbing effects and starts burbling and drooling.

Back with Dick, making his way quickly up toward Mad Mod's platform. Once he reaches it, he throws a kick that hits a big bunch of nothing as the villain easily sidesteps. Mad Mod plants his cane upright and balances on its end.

Mad Mod, "oh, give it a rest, snotty. You've already lost!"

Dick looks down, sees BB sitting before his screen and the other Titans secured in chairs, then rushes at Mad Mod and leaps. He reaches out toward the cane, but when the fingers reach the wooden shaft and close, they simply go right through it.

Dick, "huh?"

He passes through the cane and tumbles to the edge of the platform to look at his hand and figure out what has just happened. Mad Mod hops to his feet and does a little brandishing and twirling; close-up of the stick.

Dick, "the cane isn't real! Which means Mad Mod is just as fake as everything else in here!"

He leaps straight at the Brit's image and runs right through it.

Dick, "time for a reality check!"

He flings himself off the edge with a yell; the holographic Mad Mod swings the cane and sends two busts out after him. One base opens to expose missiles locked on target, then pull back to frame both missiles and ear lasers ready to go. Dick sails toward the rip made by the laser chainsaw, as the busts fire their salvos.

….

Now we see the room from just inside a small service duct; he tumbles in through the opening, with the ordnance exploding all around him. One mighty blast wipes out the entire area.

….

We see a figure sitting among some machinery. The gray-haired figure that comes into view is very different from the dapper redheaded fellow who has been terrorizing the Titans all the way through. Seen from the back, he appears to be at least twenty years older and has lost all the hair on top. He is sitting in front of a bank of monitors, which show the team from many different angles, and working a complex array of controls. This is the actual Mad Mod, the flesh-and-blood wacko in his real-life command center. One screen, however, displays only static.

Mad Mod, "yeah, this should teach those saucy little ankle-biters some respect."

He wears the same rectangular sunglasses, but his clothing is the sort you might expect on an old man of retirement age-plain, nondescript shirt and suit.

Mad Mod, "just a tick. I've lost Nightwing."

He is referring to the static-filled monitor. One by one, the other side screens wink out to leave only the large central one still working. He gasps.

The reason?

Dick crawls around in the duct and rips out every handful of wiring he can find. In the crazed room, the other Titans in chairs struggle against their bonds as BB keeps slobbering all over the floor. The hypnotic pattern starts to waver, and the Mad Mod image steps into view.

Hologram Mad Mod, "uh…. Minor technical hitch, my duckies. Pay no mind, I'll have it fixed in a-"

Before he can finish the sentence, he de-resolves and disappears. As the pattern shuts itself off, Vic, Jack, Rose, Blackfire, Raven, and Starfire break out of their chairs; the first with a loud, "boo-yah", but BB just stays on the floor, still mesmerized and salivating to beat the band. One after another, the pictures of Mad Mod fade away in their frames and crash to the floor; the surviving busts are knocked down as well. Now the fabric walls reel up like window shades, exposing the machinery that made all this insanity possible, and a forgotten door swings across on its support rope.

….

Mad Mod yells and stumbles backward as his systems short out in a plume of smoke; pan to follow him.

Mad Mod, "my machines! That meddling little snot will pay for-"

A small cry of fear escapes him as he discovers Dick waiting at the back of the room. He is promptly dragged forward by his lapels and cannot find his tongue for a second.

Mad Mod, "ahem, hello, guv'nor."

Dick, "school's out, Mod. And you're looking at about twenty years of detention."

The elderly Englishman recoils a bit at the prospect.

….

A shaft of light falls across the area and illuminates Vic, who is opening an overhead hatch to see the sky above. He puts his head up above a steel platform.

Vic, "ha!"

He climbs out, then Raven, Jack, and a properly trussed-up Mad Mod is thrown out after them.

Dick then climbs out with Blackfire and Rose.

Vic, "oh, yeah, this is definitely the real deal."

Dick, "school always seems smaller after you graduate, doesn't it?"

Raven, "just don't expect me to go to any reunions."

Jack, "Lord knows I didn't when I graduated."

Starfire struggles up, carrying the last member of the team, and sets him down.

Starfire, "I cannot awaken Beast Boy. I have tried the tickling, all manner of bodily noises, and the word, "underpants." I fear that this time his brain is gone forever."

Raven, "Beast Boy had a brain?"

Jack snickers as his girlfriend's words.

After a long moment, BB sits up laughing; her sardonic remark has broken the trance.

BB, "good one!"

Her meaning sinks in, wiping the smile off his face in a hurry. Everyone else heads away, Vic carries Mad Mod.

BB, "dude! That's not funny! I totally have a brain! I just don't use it much."

Rose, "sure."

Jack, "what say we get something to eat after we get Mad Mod in jail?"

Vic, "sounds like a plan."

And with that, The Titans headed off to get Mad Mod to prison….

….

Reviews:

raven 2012: glad you enjoyed it.

Bailey Radcliff: so happy you're enjoying the story thus far.

Canadude2029: glad you liked the chapter and caught the reference.

Sethelephant: after. Key word being after season 5 and Trouble in Tokyo is when I wanna introduce stuff from Young Justice. Garth will become Tempest before Kaldur shows up.

….

The next episode is Car Trouble, so since Vic is the focus, we'll get Sarah to show up.

Yay!