10

Chapter 3

"Huh… why?" I ask extremely puzzled.

"Cuz you look like what we'd get if we crossed BB, Star, and Raven's looks together!" Cyborg quips, about to bust a gut.

"WHAT!" I yell.

My hand immediately goes to the back of my head. My hair used to be just to my shoulders, now it's to the middle of my back. How did I miss something like that? I put my hands to my ears; they're pointed now like Beast Boy's.

"Lemme guess, my skin is all green. Right?" I say.

"Actually, it's more like green and light orange in an animal type print!" Cyborg says. If he starts laughing I swear I gonna smack 'im.

"Kinda like a tiger." Robin says.

"Great! So I look like a fat long haired elf with printed multi-colored skin!" I say, feeling not so pleased.

"Don't forget that your hair is four colors!" Cyborg says and begins laughing.

"Ha, ha, ha. Laugh it up cue ball, why don't cha. Ya know we still ha-" I start.

"All right! Now dude was that so hard?" Beast boy yells.

"Hurray! We are released! Ah, he, he." Starfire squeals while jumping up and down.

"Oh crap!" I mutter.

"Let's see how you like it." Raven snaps coldly. Well, colder then she usually is.

Raven's eyes and hands glow black as she raises them towards me.

"Azerath, Metrion-" she starts.

No Raven! He didn't mean any harm, to you or any of us." Robin says. "He's a copycat."

The rest of the Titans look as puzzled as monkey doin a math quiz.

"Say what?" Cyborg asks.

"I thought that Beast Boy was the only one copying the cat." Starfire asks, looking adorably puzzled.

"Yeah dude, if he's a copycat that kinda ruins my monopoly on the franchise!" Beast Boy says.

"Uh, you wanna get this, you probably know what's going on more then I do" Robin asks me.

"Since it's happening to me, yeah I probably do. But not by much." I mutter.

"Robin's right, Beast Boy's isn't so much. I am a copycat, but not the kind of copycat Beast Boy is. Instead of copying an animal and its abilities, I copy a super person's power." I explain.

"Sooooo, why didn't you get mine?" Cyborg asks.

"You know as much fun as I'm having here, Slade's still out there. We'll finish this talking about this later" I say.

"Where is he?" Robin asks his focus restored.

"He's over the-… ah; it'd be easier to just show you all. That cool?" I ask.

"Just do it!" Robin says.

Those who can fly grab a body that can't. Starfire grabs Robin, BB grabs Cyborg, Raven and me fly solo.

"It's that old beat up warehouse over there." I point to a warehouse about a hundred feet away and to my left. "Hey, wait a sec! I think I can see the H.I.V.E. out there!" I say squinting at the warehouse.

"What're those losers doing here?" Beast Boy asks.

"I don't know, but we've taken them down before and we can do it again." Robin says. "But we need a plan now more then before."

We land and Robin begins to lay his plan on us. He has us slit into teams and take on different tasks, increasing our chances. The first two teams into the building take care of Slade and whatever else may be waiting for us. Team one is Beast Boy and Cyborg. Team two is Robin and Starfire. Team three: Raven and me. Super! Quite possibly the only person that can be more emotionless and boring then me. Particularly after what I pulled. Team one take the H.I.V.E. head on with team two trying to get in the warehouse and team three providing cover fire for team one. Team three circles around the warehouse and goes to the roof tying to get in that way.

"If you could copy the H.I.V.E.'s powers I think that'd help out a lot, maybe trade places on one of the teams." Robin says.

As soon as he says something my stomach does not just a summersault but a whole gymnastics routine.

"UUNNNNNGHH! Whoa, that was not expected!" That did NOT tickle… again!

"You ok?" Robin asks.

"Um, maybe." I say.

"Eeep! You look like someone who was hit by a Kormainian moon shower." Starfire squeals.

"Wow!" Raven says.

"K, what's goin on?" I ask.

"Uh, I think you just did what I asked." Robin says.

"Great! Ah, ah, ah, ah, I don't even WANNA know what I look like." They all got their jaws on the ground; Cyborg and BB look like they wanna start laughing.

"Change of plan. Half of us take care of the H.I.V.E, the other half get to the roof, get in, work some recon and wait for the rest of you. Raven, Beast Boy and Andrew will take the H.I.V.E; me, Cyborg, and Starfire will take the roof. Let's go!" Robin says.

We all break up and start to go off to do our little part for the cause. As all of the others are off, Robin holds me back for a sec.

"I'm still not sure you should be joining us. You know you can still back out if you want, we can handle this on our own." Robin says.

"I know you won't be able to understand this, but I've always wanted this, ALWAYS. I'll help you guys do this, I'll help you guys get home." I reply. "We should get to it, they'll be missing us."

We both quickly rejoin the others and split up for the plan. We get to the warehouse in no time. The warehouse in question is one of those old, rusty, more then spooky jobs. The perimeter is surrounded by an eight foot fence; first half of the fence is brick, the other half is chain link. In most of the area between the fence and building are shipping containers in varying sized stacks. Looks like the kinda place eighteen wheelers would come and unload stuff gotten from barges on the coast. I didn't know these places existed in Idaho! Who'da thunk it?

We enter the outer perimeter as quietly as possible and hide behind some large packing crates. Gizmo, Mammoth, and Jinx seam to be in a search pattern. Looks like the only H.I.V.E. students here. They look bored, must be on orders to keep moving.

"K, so who's in charge?" Beast Boy asks.

"Raven." I say quickly.

"Raven? Why her?" Beast Boy asks. "I don't mean anything against you Raven! But why isn't it ever me?"

"Experience. She's got it, I don't, and the only team you could handle would be trained gophers." I say.

"Duuude!" Beast Boy says. "Ya, you're right."

"Thanks." Raven says.

"No prob. So what's the plan?" I ask.

"You take Mammoth, Beast Boy you take Gizmo, and I'll take Jinx." Raven says.

"Sounds good." I say.

"Wait, I get the gadget dork?" Beast Boy says.

"Why, you want mine?" I ask. We need to get going the longer they stay here the longer Slade can screw over their getting home, or worse.

"No! I'm good!" BB grins and waves us off. He jumps up and goes after his mark.

"Ok, I guess we're off." Raven says.

The both of us follow suit and leap over the packing crates we're crouching behind. Beast Boy's all ready fighting with Mammoth. Great, plan's all ready goin down the tubes. I instantly find 'the gadget dork'. He's using his wings and hovering above and behind BB's fight laughing his butt off. I zoom up to him as quickly as possible and deck 'im hard, he goes flying even further behind BB's fight into a ton of shipping containers. I fly to follow Gizmo to where he lands.

"What the crud! Who the snot was THAT!" Gizmo yells to himself as he gets up.

"You're about ta find out little boy!" I yell back as dive bomb towards him.

"Uh, oh the loser brigades got a new creampuff!" Gizmo ditches his broken wings and switches to his 4 huge metal spider legs. He also activates the blasters on his shoulders and starts firing away wildly.

"Awe crap!" I mumble.

"AHH, HA, HA, HA, HAAAA!" Gizmo cackles.

Whoa, this is not good! I didn't know this guy was such a good shot, he didn't look like it on the cartoon. I'm really having out pull out some quick moves here. Gotta get to that backpack of his, but how to get to 'im in the first place?

AHH, HA, HA, HA, HAAAAA! What's the matter barf breath afraid of a little boy? A LITTLE BOY WHOS GOT YOU RUNNIN LIKE YOUR WORTHLESS LIFE DEPENDED ON IT! HA, HA, HAAAA!" Gizmo yells.

"SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE PIP SQUEAK! I yell.

I've been flying around this punk for a bit. Basing my info on a cartoon is good to a point. Time to try something and learn for myself firsthand. I fly as fast as I can directly at Gizmo and cover my front half with two dome force fields of Raven's power.

"Looks like the fart sniffer's doesn't like waiting and wants to get offed quick." Gizmo quips.

"Looks aren't everything pint size!" I yell back.

The Raven power shields hold off Gizmo's blaster. A split second before I ram into him I drop the shields draw back and haul off and punch 'im smack in the face. Gizmo sails back and slams into a packing container. He doesn't get up. I glide on over to where Gizmo landed. I use Raven's power to rip off a container door and shred it. I use the door shreds to wrap around Gizmo. Just as I begin to make another metal harness for a bad guy Gizmo wakes up.

"Surprise loser!" Gizmo grins slyly.

Gizmo's backpack opens up and his mini-missile system pops out and fires off a salvo. I dodge as quickly as possible but I still have to put up what I can of another force field.

"UHNNNNN!" Two impact my shield, four get away. They're drunken missiles, great! The two impacts knock me back and daze me for a sec but I was still able to keep the door shreds where they were.

"K, little man time to shut you up." I say. I make the same harness for Gizmo as I did for Cinderblock Muzzle and all.

"Catch ya later spitball." I zoom away from Gizmo and turn around. I can instantly take out two of the missiles by using Starfire's power. One has all ready exploded against the edge of the warehouse roof.

"Crap, where'd the other one go?" I ask no one.

I fly off to see how Raven and BB are handling their guys. Crap, I found the other missile; it's headed right for Raven's back. She doesn't see it; she probably can't even hear it. (Is it just me or do these drunken missiles move kinda slow?)

"Awe maaaan! Guess it's time to see what it feels like to be Superman!" I mutter to myself.

I push, and I mean push how fast I can fly. I get there just in time. I shove Raven out of the way, the missile hits.

BOOOOM

I'm thrown sideways into one of the warehouse walls. The wall crumples like rice paper, so do the crates I smash into.

"OWE. NOW THAT REEEEALY DIDN'T TICKLE!" I yell. Awe man, my ribs feel like they've been shattered. Great, first broken bone and it's just as I get super powers.

"Hey. You ok?" I shake the cobwebs outa my head and look up. It's Robin.

"Uhnnn! No! How would you be if you'd just had a missile explode on your back and get thrown through a solid brick wall?" I ask sarcastically. I grab his hand and let him help me up.

"Point taken. Good work." Robin says.

"Heckava way to find out you're tougher then missiles and a brick wall, huh?" I ask with a sly grin on my face.

"Yeah. Looked like fun!" Robin replies with an equally sly grin.

He turns to walk out the hole I created on impact, I follow. I hear the others outside talking casually. Guess they took care of Mammoth and Jinx all right. That took less time then I thought.

"- and the way I hit gigantor here as a Stego. Awe man, it was primo! Hey Andrew, you all right?" Beast Boy asks. Everyone turns and looks at me.

"I'm… ah… ok, I guess so." Man I feel so outclassed.

"Hey, anyone know where Gizmo is?" I hear someone ask, but I'm a bit preoccupied.

"What'd you guys find?" I ask Robin.

"Nothing, just a loading dock with more packing crates in it. You sure you saw Slade come in here?" Robin replies.

"One hundred percent. You didn't find anything?" I ask. "I think we should recheck it, all of us."

"You're looking for something specific, aren't you?" Robin asks. He wants to know what I'm thinking so bad I can practically see it coming off him.

"I don't know specifically, but if I'm right it should be in there." I jab my thumb towards the warehouse.

"Ok guys Andrew thinks we should check the warehouse for anything suspicious." Robin says.

"But we have all ready looked in the house of boxes and wares and found nothing." Starfire says.

"Yeah man, we didn't find anything but rats, roaches and a bunch of boxes." Cyborg says.

"I'm telling you guys we gotta go back in there! Cyborg did you use all your sensors in there? Did you check for temporal… ah…'thingies' or anything weird like that"? I ask.

"Ah… no and no. Why?" Cyborg says.

"This time in could you check, please?" I ask. He nods.

"Titans lets go!" Robin yells.

We all ran (and flew, those that could) back into the warehouse. There are catwalks all around the ceiling connecting twenty four skylights, four rows of six. Some of the catwalks just connect to the other catwalks, for ease of movement I guess. The warehouse is filled almost to the top with those huge packing containers and some normal boxes to. All varied in size. On the opposite side of the warehouse to where we are, is the loading dock, looks like two semis are parked there. The spacing between the containers looks large enough for two of those semis. There's a dim light coming from the center of the building.

"Umm… I'm kinda gettin the idea we oughta go that way." I point to where the light is coming from.