Chapter 3: Trial by Fire

"You know, considering who trained you, we really should look into getting a Titanmobile or a Titanplane or a Titancopter or SOMETHING! We can't always do this!" Savior said as he ran beside Robin.

"And praytell, do you have your driving permit? Pilot's license?" Robin teased as he held out his grappling hook and fired it, catching it on a nearby roof.

"Well, uh, no, but there MUST be an easier way then this!"

"We have a submarine."

"Oh that helps!"

"Maybe next time you'll win the draw and get to have Star carry you." Robin said.

It turns out the creature (Savior had heard Robin ask someone on the radio if it was "Plasma" or something and had received a negative) was close by, and hence the Titans had gone there on foot: Starfire flying with Victor, Beast Boy as a bird, Raven via teleportation, and he and Robin via their respective grappling hooks across roofs.

Savior landed on the next roof, tossed out the Shimmer to hook onto a metal structure above him, and sprang himself into the air, flying up next to Beast Boy.

"See anything yet?" Savior asked.

"Not yet!" Beast Boy replied. He was going to say more except Savior fell down again. Beast Boy flew on, confident that he hadn't just seen his teammate for ten minutes fall to his doom.

About a minute later, some smoke coming from a street caught the Titans' attention, and they headed towards it.

"Ho boy." Savior said as he saw the wreckage. Cars were smashed and squashed, building fronts were ruined and some looked like they had had large chunks torn out of them.

"If there was a party here I think we missed it." Cyborg said as Starfire let him down and landed herself.

"I don't sense any life forms nearby." Raven said as her soul self appeared out of the concrete and dissipated to reveal Raven's cloaked forms. "If innocents were here they are now beyond our help."

"What DID this?" Beast Boy said. He landed and changed into a wolf, sniffing the air. "Ugh, there's some weird scents here guys…and what's this?" Beast Boy said, sniffing at a black powder that was on some parts of the ground.

"Looks like it was big…but if it was so big, why didn't we see it?" Robin asked.

CRASH! A gigantic hunk of what may have once been an apartment complex suddenly flew over the roofs, smashing off the edge of one of the buildings and plummeting towards the Titans.

"HOLY…!"

"STAR!" Robin yelled.

"HAH!" Starfire yelled as her eyes and hands glowed bright green, and then a powerful energy bolt blasted from her hands and struck the hunk of rubble, blowing it into much smaller chunks that rained down around the Titans.

"AH! Mother…lover!" Cyborg said. He tried not to swear around Starfire, after a particularly bad incident where Starfire had picked up a sexual slang term and gone around using it in her casual conversations for four days. She had even used it when Superman, flying past, had dropped in for a quick hello. Cyborg wasn't sure who was more embarrassed, Robin or Superman.

"Guess we know where it came from now…" Savior said, as he shot out the Shimmer and pulled himself up onto the roof of the building where the rubble had bounced off. Starfire quickly carried Robin and Cyborg up with her as Beast Boy flew and Raven teleported up to Savior's side.

"…………Shpedoinkle." Savior said incredulously. (Writer's Note: A million points to you if you get that reference!)

A more experienced superhero might not have been as impressed, but Savior was still quite green at the job, and as a result this was his first time seeing a 107 (give or take a few) foot monster that appeared to be made entirely out of some kind of black sludge.

"Ah man, don't those scientists EVER change their designs?" Robin complained, looking at the creature, which looked pretty much like any large creature composed of liquid did: a flowing ridged body that constantly dropped and a long flat head with eyes that had no pupils. "Let's go Titans!"

The Titans hurried over to the monster via their various means, even as the monster picked up a car and threw it. Screaming inside suggested the car was occupied.

Savior landed and shot Shimmer bands out of both his hands, catching the car. He quickly placed it down on the ground.

"I'm gonna grab all the people in the area and get them to safety! You guys take care of that thing!" Savior said, and leapt off the roof. The Shimmer shot down, striking the ground and lowering Savior down to it. He launched out the ropes and they broke into several dozen strands that grabbed any people they could find before drawing them away from the monster's destructive rampage.

"Ah man, he sees the monster and automatically runs away!" Cyborg said as he watched Savior bound away with the people in tow.

"Or he knows he's new and he doesn't want to get in our way. I saw him in Gotham Vic, he's green but he's not a coward." Robin said as he pulled out his staff and extended it.

Creatures like the sludge monster the Titans were fighting usually followed a pattern. Their first move was to try and smash their opponents with their giant limbs. And the sludge monster did just that as it swiped at Starfire. She barely dodged aside as the thing's semi-fist smashed into the side of a building, caving it in. Robin hoped the people had gotten out already.

"Whoa! Yikes!" Beast Boy yelled as he swooped down to the ground, barely avoiding the creature's swiping arms. He landed as he changed back, took a deep breath, and then transformed into a triceratops.

"Wait Beast Boy! Things like that…!" Robin yelled.

Too late, as Beast Boy charged into the thing's leg…and right through its thick liquidy body. Fortunately he had enough momentum to go right through the limb, as he exploded out the other end, gagging and spitting. The thing tried to stomp on him, but he quickly turned into a cheetah and ran away.

Starfire swooped in, letting the monster have it with a few Star Bolts. They exploded on the creature's chest, blowing large holes in it.

"Ten bucks say the holes close up." Robin said.

"No thanks." Victor said as he primed his sonic cannon. Indeed, the holes were closing up, even as the creature swung at Starfire. She flew upward and to the right to avoid the blows. In the corner of his eye, Robin saw Savior running away carrying another group of people.

"HEY YOU, LISTEN TO THIS!" Cyborg yelled, firing his sonic cannon at the creature's head. But the heavy sonic waves didn't seem to bother the creature much, as it thrust up it's hands.

"Pattern number 2: It will throw parts of it's own body at us." Robin said, and indeed it did just that as the monster fired twin balls of black guck at Cyborg and Robin. They scattered and the balls hit the concrete, shattering it.

Raven materialized out of the shadows need Robin.

"It doesn't have a mind I can attack: too primative. And I can't lift it, it's too heavy. Any ideas?" Raven inquired.

"Ummmmmm…" Robin said, as Starfire swooped back it and blasted the sludge creature with more Starbolts. "Liquid things like this sometimes don't react well to other liquids. Let's water it!"

That was all the cyborg and sorceress needed to hear, as Cyborg leapt over to a nearby fire hydrant and ripped it out of the ground. The water sprayed up into the heavens, until Raven telekinetically ripped some pipes out from beneath the ground, snapped them together, and placed them on the water-spurting hole so the water was redirected at the monster. It roared as it was sprayed, and then it took a swipe at the two.

"NO GO ON THAT!" Cyborg yelled, and then he was flying through the air as the creature hit him. He stopped short of the wall, encased in black energy, and as Raven lowered him down Beast Boy finally reappeared near Robin.

"My animal forms can't hurt it! The damage I do just disappears!"

"Hmmmmm, spraying it with water didn't work…maybe it's flammable!" Robin said as he retrieved some explosive discs from his utility belt. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

The Titans scattered as Robin hurled the explosives, and his actions bore fruit as the discs exploded on impact and the creature's chest immediately caught on fire.

"Nice work Fearless." Cyborg said as the thing roared in pain, the fire spreading down its arms. "I guess…"

The sludge creature roared again and thrust up its arms, and suddenly the flaming parts of the creature flew off at high speed. Robin and Beast Boy barely avoided being ignited by the flaming debris as the Titans scattered.

"Blast. I didn't think it could do that." Robin said, as he tried to come up with a new plan. It appeared whatever composed the creature's body (it did kind of resemble oil, maybe that was part of it?) was flammable, but any attempt to light it on fire again would probably result in what had just happened.

The creature slammed its arms into the ground, causing the grounded Titans to lose their footing as the shockwave washed over them. Rubble came raining down near Cyborg as a previously damaged building collapsed, and as he dodged aside the creature brought it's left limb smack down on him with a resounding crash.

"CYBORG!" Robin said in horror. The impact had been incredible, and even from the distance Robin had been he had felt it.

The creature raised its' arm, and Robin was about to run over and see if Cyborg was hurt when he saw him.

Cyborg was in the thing's arm, barely visible (if his metal hadn't been so bright Robin probably wouldn't have seen him), totally incased in the sludge. He was clearly fighting like mad to get out, but the creature wouldn't let him get a proper momentum as it shifted it's body around so that Cyborg couldn't find a surface to get out of.

Robin realized he couldn't breath.

"Bloody hell! We have to get him out of there or he'll suffocate!" Robin said, pulling out another explosive disc.

"Don't! You might cook Victor instead!" Raven said, as she tried to get ahold of Victor with her telekinesis and pull him out. But the creature's body was causing some kind of interference, and she didn't want to pull until she was sure she had Victor. If she half-assed it, she could very well end up pulling off Victor's head or something similarly unpleasant.

Starfire blasted the area around Victor, but the creature's wounds healed up almost immediately.

"We have to get him out!" Robin said. He wondered if he should take the chance and jump into the creature's body himself. Maybe Raven could grab him with her powers and throw him through the body and he could…

"HEY!"

And then the Shimmer snapped down from a nearby roof, fifteen feet of it coverted into a blade-like shape. It struck at the creature's "elbow" and severed the arm off in one quick slice. The creature roared as it's limb was cut off.

The Shimmer twisted and Savior swung down as the pile of glop holding Victor hit the ground, shooting the energy into the mess and pulling Victor out. Savior then bounded over to the other Titans, putting Victor down as he coughed and sucked in air.

"Thanks man…" he managed to gasp.

"Not a problem. What do we do?" Savior asked Robin.

"It's flammable, but it seems to be able to get rid of any part of it's body it doesn't want." Robin replied.

"And take back the parts it does want." Beast Boy said, pointing. The creature had taken a step forward and the part Savior had hacked off was flowing back into the leg. The creature was growing a new arm at the same time. In a second it was as good as new.

"You know just once I'd like to see some originality from whoever makes these things." Robin muttered.

The sludge monster threw another blob of muck at the group, but Savior's Shimmer snapped out and whacked it aside. As it splattered on the side of a building, Savior grabbed a nearby car and threw it at the monster. It bounced off, but the creature apparently didn't like it very much as it roared in displeasure. That was all the cue Savior needed, as he began grabbing every single car he could find and threw it at the monster. When he ran out of cars he began throwing newspaper boxes, street signs, mailboxes, and anything else he could get his metaphorical hands on. The creature staggered under the onslaught of thrown objects.

"You must admit he's persistent, if a bit one note." Raven said, and then picked up a hunk of rubble and threw it herself. Starfire fired off more Starbolts and Robin again tried to set the creature on fire, igniting it's right arm with more explosive discs before the creature sloughed off it's burning "tissue" by whipping it's arm out, splattering the nearby buildings with flaming sludge.

Spying a nearby lamppost, Savior grabbed it with the Shimmer and ripped it out of the ground. He wrapped the Shimmer around the end and snapped it out, using it as a club as he beat on the creature's head with it.

"How far can you extend that thing? Robin asked.

"About 100 meters if I only use one hand! Ah crap!" Savior yelled as the creature swatted his club away. Savior withdrew the Shimmer, still holding the lamppost, and then got a spark of inspiration. A blade-strand of Shimmer peeled off and sliced off one of the ends of the lamppost, leaving a crude knife-point, even as Savior twisted it around and snapped out another line that ran itself across the other end of the lamppost. Having formed a crude Shimmer bow, Savior drew back the lamppost/arrow using one strand against the other strand and let it fly, impaling the sludge creature through the head.

"Owtch." Beast Boy said, as the creature roared and thrashed about. It grabbed the lamppost, yanked it out, and hurled it at Savior and Robin. The two leapt out of the way…and Robin leapt right into one of the creature's arms, the gunk of the creature immediately closing around Robin as he began to squeeze. Robin yelled in pain.

"ROBIN!!!!!!!!!!!" Starfire screamed, as her eyes glowed bright green. She threw up her hands.

"The Starbolts don't do anything!" Beast Boy said as he flew past Starfire as a hawk.

"Then maybe I HAVEN'T BEEN MAKING THEM BIG ENOUGH!" Starfire roared in a very un-Starfire like voice as a ball of energy the size of a mini-van appeared over her head before she hurled it at the monster.

It never hit, as a hole suddenly appeared in the creature's body and the blast flew through it, detonating behind the creature as it closed the hole. It made a sound that sounded faintly like laughter, if something was laughing under quicksand with a mouth full of seaweed.

"Pattern…number…three…" Robin gasped as the creature continued to squeeze.

A Shimmer blade saved the day again as Savior once again sliced the creature's arm off at the forearm. The creature roared and prepared to smash Savior with its other arm.

Then the street, weakened by Starfire's massive blast, suddenly collapsed behind the monster, and the creature fell backwards into the hole as dust and smoke flew everywhere.

"Karma. Gotta love it." Robin said as he struggled out of the sloppy gunk. " But I doubt that's it. We better…" Robin trailed off as he looked at his gunked-up arms.

The disgusting liquid the creature was composed off was dissolving…turning into the black sand like substance Beast Boy had sniffed early. Robin looked back at the pile of goo that had been the creature's hand before Savior had sliced it off. It was disintegrating too.

"Ah ha! The substance it's body is made up off needs to stay in contact with it, or else it breaks down!" Robin deducted.

"Ideas?" Savior asked.

"If we could blow it's body apart, maybe all the pieces would die on their own…"

Roaring, the creature came back out of the hole, pulling itself up.

Raven floated in and emptied a garbage dumpster on it's head, and it roared as the garbage obscured it's gunk-formed eyes. Savior threw out two strands of the Shimmer from each hand, snatched up two nearby cars, and smashed them together on the thing's head, squashing it and sending gunk flying everywhere.

"We can't just keep knocking it off piece by piece! It'll take forever! God knows how much damage it could do before we finish it!" Robin said, wondering if he should try the fire treatment again.

"I have an idea. Stall it! Beast Boy, I need your help!" Savior yelled to the hawk flying overhead him, and then he turned and took off down the street.

"Stall it…easy for you to say!" Robin said, and threw some smoke bombs in the thing's face. It roared and swung wildly, smashing more holes in the nearby buildings.

"Getting tired Robin…" Starfire said as she flew down to Robin's side. "I'm running out of solar energy…"

"Not to worry Star, I've got firepower to spare!" Cyborg said, as his arm reformed into a gatling gun.

"What good will THAT do?" Raven asked.

"Probably nothing but gotta love the classics!" Cyborg said as he opened fire on the creature. As expected it only bothered the creature…until Victor shot it in the eyes. It again, as usual, roared when that happened and the Titan cleared away from its crazy swings.

"Where the hell did Savior go?" Raven asked.

"He said he had an idea…though he neglected to tell me what it was…I hate it when they do that…" Robin said. In the background he heard a weird crashing noise: what was that? Amazing he could notice that over the racket the creature was making…

"Robin!!!!!!!!" Savior yelled, as he reappeared from around the corner. He appeared to be dragging something with the Shimmer.

"Savior! WHOA!" Robin yelled as a glob of sludge splattered on a building next to him. "Star, distract it!"

"OK!" Starfire said, taking off and flying at the creature. She flew in circles around it's head while peppering it with any Starbolts she could muster out of her depleted energy stocks.

The rest of the Titans ran over to where Savior was, as what he was dragging was finally revealed: a giant fuel truck. Beast Boy, in the form of a T-Rex, was pushing it on the other hand. The crashing noise had been Savior's lifting the truck up for a few seconds and then dropping it because it was too heavy.

"Ok Robin, here's what we do. We throw this into the creature, and then Cyborg blows it up, and the creature gets blown everywhere and all the parts hopefully die. Sound good?" Savior said.

"Can you throw it?"

"No it's too heavy! I was hoping Raven could! Raven, can you pick this up you're your telekinesis?"

"I don't know… Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven chanted as she held her arms out. The truck became encased in black energy and floated up a few feet before it came crashing back down.

"I can't! It's too heavy!"

"Ok then, we'll BOTH pick it up. Ok?" Savior said, as he snapped out the Shimmer and wrapped it around the truck.

"Alright." Raven replied as the truck became encased in black energy.

"Robin, when the truck gets thrown tell Starfire to get clear! You ready Raven?" Savior asked.

"Quit talking and throw it!" Raven snapped.

"You got it! Get ready Victor!"

"Locked and loaded!" Victor said as a missile extended from the end of his arm.

"Starfire get clear!" Robin yelled.

"What?" Starfire said, stopping dead. "You made me to turn invisible?"

"No no get away…!"

"Robin-AHHHHHHHH!" Starfire screamed as the creature slammed its arm across her, sending her flying forward.

Robin vaulted on his pole and leapt up, grabbing Starfire in mid-air.

"THROW IT!"

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven yelled as she and Savior lifted up the truck. "VOLAC BARBARDOS!"

And the two threw the truck, which lanced through the air and hit the creature dead in the chest, sinking in almost all the way through. The creature bellowed it's rage and pain.

"Oh put a sock in it!" Victor yelled, and fired the missile.

The creature's eyes went wide.

BA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM! The missile struck the truck and the explosion rocked the street, the shockwave nearly knocking all the Titans down. Smoke washed over the group and then blew away.

"Whoo hoo! Goodnight!" Cyborg whooped as the smoke cleared to reveal twin pools of guck that had once been the creature's feet and nothing else. The creature had been blown to bits.

"Owned!" Beast Boy said as he turned back into human form.

"Nice work guys…wait a minute." Robin said as he looked around the area where the creature had been blown to bits. There was a lot less sludge on the road and walls then there should have been. Where had it…?

Then Robin looked up.

"OH NO! INCOMING!" Robin yelled as he saw the sludge begin to rain down on them. Then the Titans were deluged as the creature's body poured down on them in a thick gucky shower of waste and ash.

It stopped falling after eight seconds, and Robin lowered his now sludge-covered arms.

"UGH. The price of being a hero…" Robin said, shaking his arms to try and get the guck off.

"PLUGH! This stuff tastes worse then Starfire's cooking!" Beast Boy said, spitting out some sludge.

"I am in need of that water-spraying station you earthlings have, what did you call it?" Starfire said as she wiped gunk from her eyes.

"A shower?" Cyborg asked.

"Yes that's it…"

"How are you Sa…what?" Robin said.

Savior lowered the Shimmer. Somehow before the sludge had rained on them Savior had gotten the Shimmer out and above him, managing to weave the strands into a pattern that formed a crude umbrella. The umbrella had protected him from the sludge.

The thing was, Raven was standing right next to him. She had been protected from the sludge too.

"Hey, what's the big idea protecting Raven and not us!" Beast Boy yelled.

"I didn't ASK for this! He grabbed me and pulled me under it! I didn't need your help!" Raven scowled at Savior.

"Sorry guys…Raven was the closest, you other guys were just too far away…!"

"Oh sure! Right!" Cyborg yelled. He grabbed up a handful of sludge to throw at Savior, only to have it dissolve to dust in his hands. "AH CRAP!"

"We better look around, make sure the creature's dead, no little puddles sliding off to regenerate later…and then we go home and shower. Ugh." Robin said, wiping guck from his hair.

"You ok Raven? I did yank you rather…" Savior tried to ask.

"I didn't need you! I am no some helpless female, so get it out of your head, or I will forcibly remove the thought!" Raven snapped.

"Ok ok…sorry…just wanted to help…"

"Next time, forget it!" Raven said, as she turned and stalked off.

"Sorry…" Savior said again.

"Oh don't let it get to you. She probably appreciates not getting dirty…she just can't express it. Nice work Noel. You did pretty well in the field for a rookie. That arrow trick was nice." Robin said.

"Thanks. Sorry I couldn't grab you too Robin, but you were…"

"Too far away. Right, got it. Not the first time I've gotten dirty."

"Party tonight. We deserve it." Beast Boy said as he walked past. He stopped suddenly and tensed. Robin's eyes widened.

"NO, WAIT!"

And then Beast Boy shook himself like a dog, spraying Robin and Savior with sludge. They yelled and began chasing after him.

"The oil-based monster you unleashed was destroyed by the Titans." Wintergreen told the man in the shadows.

"Just a failed experiment. I didn't expect it to win." Slade replied.

"Then why sir…"

"Even failures can have some use."

"Understood sir. There is one thing though…"

"Yes?"

"The Titans appear to have a new member."

"Who?"

"Our cameras didn't catch his name…" Wintergreen said as he brought the best picture of Savior the hidden cameras had gotten up on the screen.

Slade cocked his head.

"Pity. He had signed his own death warrant. How tragic…for him…" Slade said. A communicator beeped and Slade answered it.

"Slade." He said, as the headmistress of the H.I.V.E academy appeared.

"Hello sir. I am calling to tell you the Troika…sorry, Gizmo, Jinx and Mammoth…"

"I want nothing to do with them. They failed."

"Yes sir, but they claim they have a new plan which will defeat the Titans this time."

"I'm sure. What is it, their childish new name?"

"They are certain they will succeed this time sir."

"Then tell them to act instead of talking." Slade said, and terminated the conversation.

Slade took a few steps and looked at Savior again.

"And then there were six. This could be a problem. I may have to start taking these children seriously soon…Wintergreen."

"Yes sir?"

"Contact Killjoy."

Even in the darkness, Slade could see Wintergreen pale slightly.

"Sir, are you sure you want to…"

"Yes. Call him."

"Yes sir…" Wintergreen said hesitantly, walking off.

Slade stood in his darkness, lost in his thoughts.

Well, the new Titans survived their first fight! But trouble is coming, as the newly named Troika claim they have a plan! And even if they fail, who is this one called Killjoy who scares Wintergreen so? Well, you won't find out next chapter, as it will be pure comedy! So tune in next Titan…

Savior: AHEM.

Right, in the next chapter for "A Day In The Life". Now, the theme song!

Raven: NO!

Ok, fine!

Raven: Smart man.

We'll just open the next chapter with the opening theme!

Raven: RAGE.

So that's it for now! Review please!