here we go!
Words in = actions
Words in ''= Thoughts
Words in ""= talking.
{ Titans Tower}
"Come on, Rob, you gotta do SOMETHING becides train."Cyborg was leaning against the wall, Speedy not too far behind him, both were watching Robin toss batarangs at targets he had placed around the gym.
Robin didn't respond, he kept thowing them, after he had missed Spider-Man with his stun pellets, he had thought he had better practice his aim. He couldn't belive he had missed the web-slinger at such a close range.
This time Speedy tried "Me, Cy and BB are going to go out and check out the new arcade that they got going near the West side 7-11..you SURE you don't want to come and just hang out?"
Still nothing from the boy wonder.Cyborg sighed and Speedy shook his head, they walked out of the room and down the hall.
"Somethings up with him".
" I don't know ,Cy, maybe he is just concentracting on being in prime forum for that party we are going to guard in a couple of days"
" I don't think so, I have seen him like this before, and the result of us just sitting around waiting for him to snap out of it wasn't good."
By now they had walked up the stairs, and were just going passed the closed door to Robin's room. Cyborg stopped.The machine man's eyes were drawn to the closed door at his side.
Speedy eyed him, "What is it?"
"ummm.....nothing, I forgot something in my room, you go on ahead and I'll meet you in the kitchen later"
Speedy didn't move, he crossed his arms "Your room is two floors up. You have to go up the next set of stairs anyway"
Cyborg sweetdropped." I umm....."
sigh "Look, if its really making you that nervous, I will let you in"
" I...thanks...waitaminute, how do you know the key code to his room?"
Speedy grinned. "That would be telling."
" ..........................Do I want to know?"
"No."
"alrighy then, punch it in and lets have a look, before Rob comes up here"
Speedy hit the buttons on the key pad next to Robin's door, and the door opened up into the nearly pitch black room.
The Titans peeked their heads in, they didn't dare enter the room.(For fear of traps left by the Titan's paranoid leader.) Looking around the room, they saw Robin's simple desk, lap, and bed. The walls, of course, were covered with newspapers about every villain a person could think of, but two characters had more newspapers up on the wall then any one else....
Cyborg blinked "
I knew he could be obsessive about Slade.. but this Spider-Man
guy..... not him too."
"Spider-Man strikes
again.."Speedy began reading the headlines aloud,"City
police unable to capture masked free-lance super crusader."
Cyborg's eye twitched. " I am having flash backs to the whole Red X deal, I say we tell the others"
" Was he
really that hung up about Slade?" asked Speedy as he and Cyborg
walked out of the room and down the hall.
"You have no
clue."
(upstairs)
Beast
Boy sat cross legged in front of the Titans massive TV, video game
controler in his hands, eyes glued to the screen. He has
reached.....nirvana. The green shape changer was now in what many
people refer to as a 'Video game trance.' completely unaware of
anything and everything other then the flashing screen before
him.
Including Speedy and Cyborg, who were both walking up the
stairs from the lower level training room.
"Yo, BB, can we talk to you for a second? Its about Robin and the way he has been acting the past few days"
............... The young green boy did not even twich.
Cyborg sighed. " This could take a while, once he is in this mood, he only gets out of it if he wants to or hunger starts to set in."
Speedy snorted. " Well, I dont have all day, and why does he have to play that thing down here, anyway? He's got like 8 game systems in his room." As he said this, his slipped his bow off his back and loaded an arrow onto the string.
Cyborg realized what Speedy was thinking almost instantly. "Whoa, wait!! You don't want to do that!! You will only make him....."
His words came
too late. Speedy had already let his arrow fly towards Beast Boy's
beloved game system. What happened next will go down as one of the
worst out brakes of violence in the tower for years to
come.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even
three floors up, deep with in the dark sanctuary of her book filled
room, a meditating Raven heard the rumble of the battle between a
extremly pissed off Beast Boy and a archer who was regretting ever
having seen a bow before, and a Cyborg who was just caught in the
middle.
A deep scowl formed on her face, her annoyance was so
deep you could feel the air thicken around her.
Rising up from
her postion on the floor, she drew her cloak around her, and exited
her room. She prepared herself to give who ever had disturbed her a
lession they would never
forget.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
StarFire
happy made her way up the path to the Titans Tower main door.
She
had just gotten back from picking up some food for her and her
friends, (including lots of mustard!) and couldn't wait to get back
so that she might help make some lunch for them.
While she was
at the food store, she remember that Robin liked a certain kind of
earhling treat know as 'Reeses pieces' so she had gotten him a bag in
hopes of bringing her companion out of his current state of what
appeared to be extreme frustration, although she herself could not
figure out what it was he was so troubled with.
Just thinking
about Robin's state made her frown. Becides Raven, who had opened up
to her a bit in the times past, Robin was the one who made her
confused the most.
She found herself worrying over his
condition constantly, and when he sometimes went out at night alone
to go on patrol, she found that a great pit of worry formed in her
heart. She knew it was not her place to worry so much about such
things, but she found she could not help it.
StarFire hated it
when the leader of the Titans was feeling frustration,angry,or sad.
Unfountionatly, those seemed to be the emotions he displayed
the most, if and when he did let some sort of emotion through his
mask.
Yes, he did smile from time to time, but StarFire and
the others knew it was forced.The thing that upset her the most,
however, was the fact that at times she seem completely powerless to
cheer him up.
Even after all her time away from her home, she
was not used to feeling weak or helpless, in any way,shape,or
form.
Lost deep in thought, StarFire had now reached the door,
and as it slid open, a loud bang came from within, startling her and
nearly causing her to drop the bags she carried.
Peering
though the open door way, she saw what was quite literally the clash
of the
Titans.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"YOU
BROKE MY GAME!"
Beast Boy and Speedy stood facing each
other in the middle of the room, a small smoking hole in the floor
was close to the TV. Beast Boy had managed to get out of Cyborg (who
had tried to hold Beast Boy down so that he wouldn't turn into a
Rhino and sit on Speedy) grasp by changing shape multiple times, and
so the battle began. Speedy stood frim, his bow was loaded and
ready.
" I SPENT ALL DAY GETTING THAT FAR!! AND NOW I
WON'T BE ABLE TO DO IT AGAIN!! EVER!!"
Speedy and Cyborg both took a involuntary step back. "I told you that wouldn't solve anything." Cyborg whispered.
Speedy nooded and sweat dropped at the now advancing Beast Boy. " I take it you are speaking from personal experience ."
"WHAT
THE HELL WAS SO IMPORTANT THAT IT COULDN'T WAIT 10 SECONDS FOR ME
TO...." Beast Boy's head seemed to grow three times its normal
size. " SAVE.....
MY......
GAME!!"
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Terra stopped a rock she was going to use to smash a target in mid flight, and raised one of her eyebrows. Impluse was less lucky, he had misjudged the stopping distance between him and a rather large cement block..Even outside at the Titan obstacle course, Terra and Impluse could hear the Beast Boy's yelling.
Terra looked over at a cursing Impluse and sighed. " Are you ok?"
" I... I'm... I'm fine. everythings fine like wine. Just ummm....slipped... yeah.....what do you think all the yelling is about up there?"
Terra turned her attention once again to the Tower. " Cyborg must of slipped some meat into some of Beast Boy's food or something." Turning back to Impluse, she pushed aside the small pile of rocks she was using to train her control over rock and earth, and then floated the huge rock she used to get around more of the time over to her and jumped on.
Impluse got up and smiled at her. " Race ya"
Terra simply
snorted and rising up on her rock, she rode it towards the tower.
Impulse of course, had already made it
there.
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Another
plate hit the wall just to the left of Speedy's head. "Can't we
talk about this WITHOUT, breaking anything?" Speedy whined.
Beast Boy's answer was fork aimed at Speedy's right leg. "guess not. Cyborg, a little help?"
Cyborg had decided simply not to get in between Beast Boy and his most hated enemy. He was busy cleaning up the pieces of plates, glasses, and even a few CD's.
"YOU brought the wraith of the green boy on you, YOU deal with it." he mumbled, as he picked a CD broken in half. " Hey, this was MINE! Beast Boy, enough is enough, you have broken half the plates and glasses in the tower, and I am sure you have made enough noise to get the attention of the whole city!"
" No..."
A new voice said from the top of the stairs,the three male Titans
turned to see Raven standing at the top.
Her eyes were ablaze,
and ready to raise hell. "I am sure that you only got the
attention of 'half' of the people in the city." She started her
decent to the bottom, and with each of her steps, a stuttering
Cyborg, a sweatdropping Speedy, and a wide eyed Beast Boy backed up
more and more.
" he..helloo.Raven." Beast Boy
stammered as Raven reached the bottom of the stairs. "Wh..Wha...What
seems to be the trouble?"
The fire in Raven's eye seem to
burn with even more intensity as she glanced at serval of the broken
plates on the floor. " I believe," she said between her
clenched teeth. " that those broken plates over there..."
she pointed towards serval smashed plates with flowers on them, but
at the same time not taking her eyes off her BeastBoy." are
MINE."
Cyborg and Speedy ran to the other side of the room with speed that would have impressed Impulse.
Beast Boy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. " Raven... I.... wait... since when do you have plates with flowers on them?"
Raven's face
flushed red, and but the penetrating look she was giving Beast Boy
only intensified. "STEP....AWAY...FROM...THEM."
"Friends!,
what is the matter, what is the cause for this yelling?"
Raven
and her three very frightened team mates turned their heads to see
StarFire walking into the room, placing the bags of food she carried
on the table.
"Thats what I would like to know,"
Raven turned her attention away from StarFire and back to her prey,
which was shaking in fear, his back to the wall.Her voice dropped to
a low growl. " Where in the seven gates of HELL do you two get
off making that much noise?!"
There was a slight gust of wind, and Impulse suddenly appeared next to StarFire. " Yeah, me and Terra could here it all the way out by the course."
StarFire, Impluse and Raven all waited for BeastBoy to speek up.
"umm... I... look.. HE started it!" BeastBoy jabed a finger at Speedy. " He put a ARROW through my game system!"
All eyes looked toward Speedy, who suddenly found himself the center of attention.
StarFire raised an eyebrow and eyed Speedy the way a parent looks at a child who has misbehaved." Friend Speedy, why did you put an arrow through BeastBoy's box of noise and lights?"
" Well...I......." Speedy struggled for the words to explain. " um.. look, we had to talk to BB about something and he was in his own little world. He turned back to BeastBoy, " look, I am sorry I put an arrow through the game box, ok? We had to talk to you about something important, and getting you out of you happy go lucky video game was taking too long."
" Yeah, when he gets like that, it can take a long time to get his attention." Terra said as she walked into the room.
" What was so important that you had to destroy my game?" BeastBoy mumbled.
" Well, me and Speedy were going to do it some place a little more out of the way.. but.. since everyone besides Robin is here.. we might as well tell you." Cyborg walked back into the center of the room where everyone was standing.
StarFire immediately perked up at the mention of Robin. " Why must we not include Robin in our discussion, what is wrong?"
"Look, you all know how Robin can obsess about his work, some of us here can remember how he used to act when we were dealing with Slade." Cyborg sat down on the couch, and the other joined him in sitting in various places in the room. "Me and Speedy think we have found just what has been bothering Robin lately. Seems the reason is that Robin has found another thing to get WAY too involed in, there is a new guy in town. Follow me and I will show ya."
Cyborg walked
towards a door that lead to a computer room, and motioned for the
others to follow.
"Me and Speedy we were..um."
"investigating"Speedy finshed for him
"Right,
'investigating'... we peaked into his room, and just like the thing
with Slade, pictures of THIS guy were all over the place."
Cyborg pressed a few buttons on the computer panel, and the front
page of a New York newspaper poped up on the display screen.
The
other Titans digested this info for a second, Beast Boy was the first
one to speak up.
"So who is this Spider-Man guy anyway?
From the looks of it, his man crashing grounds are in New York, not
here."
" Yeah, that was what I thought of first
too." Cyborg clicked a few more buttons. " I did a database
search on all recent sightings of this Spider guy, and the last week
or so he has been spotted around the south west side of
town."
StarFire walked up to another seperate computer
and did a quick search of her own. " But it says hear that
Spider-Man is not a confirmed criminal, he has never been caught in
the act of comitting a crime.Why would Robin choose to target someone
who is not breaking the law?"
"Don't know, maybe he
wants to prove that Spider-Mans a bad guy now that he is in our part
of the woods."
StarFire bent her head to the side."
But we don't live near any forests..."
Terra sighed and
Cyborg sweatdropped."Nevermind, the point is that we gotta do
something about this Spider-Man, we all know what happened last time
Robin got a bit too obsessed with his work like
this."
"SOOOOOooooooooooooo we find this guy FOR
Robin, before he gets too nuts with it." Beast Boy said. "AND
we can get some action, it has been way to quiet around here the past
few weeks."
" Yes, but perhaps we should not....how do you say it? 'Jump the gun'?" StarFire put in. " I have experianced what it feels like to looked on as a criminal. I do not wish to do the same to someone else with out proof."
"StarFire is right. We cannot simply assume that this man has broken the law." Raven added in her monotone voice.
"So, what do we do? Walk up to the guy and ask if we can talk to him about it?" Impulse was leaning on the door frame, tapping his foot.
Speedy scratched the top of his head. "Actually, that might not be a bad start. Even if he lies, we can at least get an idea of what type of person he is."
Terra leaned closer into the screen, getting a good look at the picture. "Maybe, but I don't think we can all go up to him at the same, could scare the guy seeing most of the Teen Titans coming at him."
" So we send one person to talk to him, and then report back later." Cyborg tapped his finger on the top on keyboard.
"I will do it"
Everyone looked behind them at the Tamaran princess.
"ummmmmmm Star, may I ask WHY you are so eager to do this job?" Beast Boy scratched behind his head.StarFire didn't answer right away. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Last time Robin let his obsession with crime fighting get in the way of his better judgment, I feel it was partly my fault."
Terra stared at her friend,for a second unable to come up with the things she wanted to say."StarFire, it was not your fault that..."
"No" StarFire interupted. "I know that it was not my fault that he felt that he had to become The Red X to get to Slade. However, one of the reasons he so forcefully went after his goal of capturing Slade was because of a mistake I made on the battlefield."
StarFire's eye went over each of her team mates, as if to renforce what she was about to say.
"I was hurt. Robin believed that if he didn't find Slade soon that I could be hurt worse,he believes I am weak."
A silent flare was in StarFire's eyes, as if the very idea of being thought of as weak was an insult to her.
"I will find this man, and, be it a peaceful meeting or lead to a fight, I will prove to Robin that I am fully capable of filling the duties of a Titan."
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Next Chapter coming soon, this time we meet the real bad guys, but I ain't telling anything yet. I hope those who once read the first version of this enjoy the rewrite!!
Next Time As StarFire begings her search for Spider-Man, the webslinger starts to realize that some one in the city is gunning for him. Slade is having meetings with a man who wants to help him capture Robin, for a price.....
Back at the Tower, all the other Titans (except Robin of course) wait from news from StarFire. Robin starts to gear up for the coming party which the Titans are going to act as both security and guests of honor.
