(Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, and Multiple Gary is just a bad ripoff of Multiple Santa from The Tick, except with a duplication gun instead of just electrocuting himself. You kind of have to see the episode for that to make sense.)
-CHAPTER TWO-
Everett Small, Manager of the Theoretical Gadgetry Division of Technotron Engineering, Incorporated, was hiding under his desk in the dark, shaking with fear. He gibbered a little, despite his conscious mind's continuing insistence that he had to remain absolutely silent if he wanted to survive this ordeal. The ordeal in question, or rather the cause of said ordeal, pushed open the door to Small's darkened office and stepped inside.
"Come on, now, Mr. Small," said the other man, still cloaked in shadows. "I know you're in here." The man's voice was outwardly calm, but, if someone were to listen closely, they might hear a slight edge to it. Small, deep in the grips of adrenaline, was currently listening closely to everything, and he certainly heard it.
The other man flipped the light switch, and the fluorescent ceiling lights in the office flickered into life. Now that the man was fully visible, it would have come as a surprise to a casual observer that he could be the source of Everett Small's terror. He was, in a word, average. Painfully so, in fact. He looked to be middle-aged, was of average height, with an average build, and had no particularly notable physical features. He had short, brown hair that was neither dark nor light, brown eyes, and thin wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like he could have been a librarian. His clothing, however, was quite strange; it looked like a feeble and misguided attempt at constructing an imposing supervillain costume using a rather ill-fitting jogging outfit as a starting point. It had a short, poorly made cape, and plastic "armour" plates which looked like they had been attached with a glue gun. They probably had.
"Really, Mr. Small, do you think I didn't see you run in here?" the man asked. "Why don't you make this easier for both of us and stop hiding? Under your desk is really the only possible hiding place in here, anyway."
Small whimpered. The man casually walked up and leaned nonchalantly on the desk.
"You know, I never was able to thank you properly for firing me, Small," he continued, in a conversational tone that nevertheless lost none of its edge. "Fifteen years I worked for this company; I gave the best years of my life to Technotron. I was one of the best engineers you had, too. But did any of that matter to a small-minded management fat-cat like you? No, of course not." The man moved around the desk and poked his head under to speak directly to Small. He smiled nastily.
"Well, then," he said, dropping all pretense of congeniality. "Let us consider this my thanks to you, shall we?" He straightened up.
"I will destroy you and this company with my newest invention, and you will wish that you had never fired such a talented engineer as me, Gary P. Tucker!" the man announced. Mr. Small screamed in fear.
Before the man called Gary Tucker could act, the door to Small's office was knocked off its hinges and flew across the room. Tucker turned to see a boy dressed in red and green, with a black and yellow cape, standing in the doorway.
"Maybe you should have just sent a card or something," said Robin. Tucker snarled with rage and hurled a chair at him, but Robin easily avoided it.
"Titans! GO!"
As one, the other Titans crashed through the thin interior walls of the office and arrayed themselves for battle.
"Give up," said Robin. "You don't stand a chance against us." Gary Tucker laughed, and jumped up on the desk.
"Oh, you are certainly right," he said. "You Teen Titans can easily beat just Gary. But you can't beat…Multiple Gary!"
As if on cue, dozens of other men suddenly appeared around the Titans, coming out of hiding amongst the cubicles that surrounded Mr. Small's corner office. And every single one of them looked exactly like Gary.
"Whoa," said Beast Boy. "That's some kind of fan club you've got there."
"Stupid boy!" said Multiple Gary, gloating. "They are not some bourgeois fan club! They are exact duplicates of me, made with this, the Tucker Duplomatic, patent pending!" He indicated a device holstered on his belt that looked suspiciously like a ray gun.
"What is it with supervillains and ray guns?" Cyborg wondered aloud.
"Bourgeois?" said Raven, a quizzical expression on her face. "Do people really still say use that word?"
"Now is not the time to discuss ray gun fetishes or applied linguistics, people!" yelled Robin. "We have to take this guy down, now!"
"Don't worry, guys, I've got this one," said Beast Boy. He strode confidently up to the crowd of Garys. "Okay, which of you guys is the best?" he said. They all looked at each other.
"Uhhh…who cares?" said one of the Garys.
"Yeah, why should that matter?" said one of the others. There was a general nodding and murmuring of assent amongst the other clones.
"Damn. It worked before," said Beast Boy.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. There's one thing to be said for Beast Boy's plans: even if they don't work, the resulting cognitive dissonance can usually buy a bit of time.
"Titans! GO!" shouted Robin, and dove headlong into a cluster of Garys. The other Titans quickly followed suit. Multiple Gary just laughed.
"You can't beat my army of duplicates, Titans!" he called. "For every one you defeat, ten more will rise in his place!" He demonstrated his point by firing the Duplomatic at one of the Garys. There was a brief flash of light, and then there were no less than ten Garys standing where only the one had been before. Multiple Gary laughed again.
The battle continued for several minutes, and the Titans were not doing very well. Garys were dropping like flies, but with Multiple Gary occasionally boosting their numbers with the Duplomatic it looked like the Titans would soon be overwhelmed. Robin realized this, and swore. He had to regain control of the situation, but how? Then realization dawned.
"Titans, change of plans!" he called, straining to make himself heard over the noise of the fighting. "I'm going after the original! Watch my back!"
"What?" said Multiple Gary. He shrieked as Robin cannoned into him, knocking him off his perch on the desk.
I have to get that Duplomatic thing away from him, thought Robin as he struggled with Multiple Gary. That way, he won't be able to reinforce his clones, and it's only a matter of time before we beat them.
Multiple Gary was fueled by desperation as he fought with Robin, but the Boy Wonder had years of martial arts training and quickly gained the advantage. Managing to get Multiple Gary into a sleeper hold, Robin risked a quick glance at the other Titans. They were tired, and were falling back before the horde of remaining Garys. He had to do something, and fast. He looked at the Duplomatic, still held by the struggling villain, and noticed a recessed button on the top of the gun labeled "Delete Duplicates".
I guess this is my lucky day, thought Robin, and he reached out and pressed the button.
All around him, the Garys paused, went cross-eyed, and disappeared unceremoniously. Now that their foes were gone, the other Titans picked their separate ways across the wreckage of cubicles and towards Robin. Robin sighed with relief, and relaxed a bit.
Realizing that his captor had lowered his guard, Multiple Gary kicked viciously at Robin's shins. Robin howled in pain and released the villain, who rolled away and stood up facing him from across the room.
"Ha! You may have defeated my duplicates this time, Titans, but I still have the Duplomatic!" he taunted, brandishing the gun. "I can make more duplicates, many more! Starting now!"
He aimed the Duplomatic at his chest and was about to pull the trigger when Robin once again cannoned into him. As the two of them struggled for control of the Duplomatic, Multiple Gary fired wildly. The other Titans dived for cover as shots from the duplication ray zipped past them. Multiple Gary was unable to hit himself even once, though, and he was soon overpowered. Robin stood over the defeated villain and, with a look of grim satisfaction on his face, snapped the Duplomatic in half over his knee.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked, still watching Multiple Gary closely. He didn't want him escaping again.
"I'm fine," said Beast Boy, picking himself up from behind the ruins of a cubicle.
"Me too," said Cyborg, putting down the section of cubicle wall that he had been using as a shield.
"I am also undamaged," piped up Starfire, as she floated down from her hideout above the ceiling tiles.
There was a pause.
"Raven, are you okay?" asked Robin.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Raven replied, in full stereo. The other Titans stopped dead, and slowly turned around.
Nearly a dozen Ravens were getting up from amongst the cubicle ruins, dusting themselves off and looking irritable.
"Oh, boy," said Cyborg. Robin and Starfire just gaped.
Beast Boy, on the other hand, fainted dead away.
-END CHAPTER TWO-
Author's Note: I think that Beast Boy's reaction is understandable, given the circumstances (remember that Raven was just about to exact her revenge upon him for his latest prank at the end of Chapter One). Ha ha! Spontaneous unconsciousness is hilarious. I really need to get out more, don't I?
Anyway, be patient. I swear this is all going somewhere. And no, Multiple Gary doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the story. I think I might actually be updating a hell of a lot more often than I originally thought, since I've already got a four chapter buffer in just a few days. If only I could focus this kind of energy on what I'm supposed to be doing.
Read and review, blah blah blah.
To My Reviewers:
CloudsHalo: Like I said, maybe updating a hell of a lot more often than I thought. Hope I don't disappoint!
dramaqueensandflannels: Same as above, same as above. Enjoy!
Regrem Erutaerc: Yup, it's an emotions story. You'll have to wait for Chapter Three to see what I'm talking about, though.
Lonelyfairy: Sorry, but I'm not going to say what it was that Beast Boy did. You'll have to use your imagination—that's the point. That, and I have the feeling that I could never come up with something sick and twisted enough to warrant Raven's reaction. Normally it's just a smack or something, but this time she actually researched her revenge. Anyway, enjoy Chapter Two.