Innocence Lost by CidGregor

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.


Chapter 7

"HELP! HELP US!"

The terrified screams of the citizens washed over Cyborg as he arrived on the scene, Beast Boy and Speedy following close behind. Plasmus was rampaging down the street, spitting purple goo and green acid at everything and everyone in his path. Somehow the villain seemed to get uglier every time he popped up.

"Ugh…" Speedy muttered. "What IS that thing?"

"Plasmus," Cyborg said quickly, realizing that Speedy had never fought the villain before. "Not much more than a big walking hunk of snot, but he's strong."

"Great. Just what I needed today: to fight a giant hunk of snot."

"Dude, how do you think we feel?" Beast Boy retorted. "He breaks out of jail every other week and we're always stuck cleaning up his mess. I still can't get his stink out of some of my clothes."

"You sure that's his stink and not yours?" Speedy muttered.

"Put a lid on it, you two," Cyborg said, taking control. "Titans, GO!"

The three Titans charged forward. Cyborg started things off with a blast from his sonic cannon, drawing Plasmus' attention away from the innocent bystanders. He turned to face the approaching Titans, and spat a giant blob of purple slime their way. The three Titans scattered, surrounding Plasmus as they did so. Speedy cocked an arrow into his bow and let it fly; it stuck deep into Plasmus' gooey body and promptly exploded, splattering everything around with bits of purple slime, but the villain quickly reformed himself and spat a stream of acid at Speedy. The bowman leapt sideways, and the acid melted through a parked car behind him instead.

"Great…snot and acid. This gets better and better," Speedy said. He primed another arrow, a freezing one this time, and fired. A blast of icy wind and a thick, freezing mist washed over the streets as the arrow struck, and when the mist cleared, Plasmus stood motionless, frozen inside a block of ice.

"Well that wasn't so bad," Beast Boy commented. "Nice shot, Speedy!"

"Thanks, I…"

"Don't celebrate…look!" Cyborg interrupted him, pointing back at Plasmus.

The ice was melting rapidly, and a second later Speedy realized why: the acid inside his body was eating at it, dissolving it from the inside.

"I got this!" Beast Boy exclaimed. In an instant the changeling had transformed into a T-Rex; with a swing of his massive tail the remaining ice shattered, again covering the surrounding area with bits of goo. This time however, it took Plasmus a lot longer to reform himself, and when he did, he was breathing hard, already exhausted.

"Looks like he's had about all he can take. Finish it off, Cy!" Speedy called.

"Done and done!" Cyborg said, firing his cannon. It struck Plasmus square in the face, sending him toppling over backwards and to the ground, knocked out.

"All right. I'll call in the police, they can take it from here," Cyborg said. "Let's hope things are going as well for Rae and Aqualad…"


"So who are we going after again?"

Raven glared at Aqualad as the two ran. "I told you, his name is Overload."

Aqualad sighed. "No, I mean, who is he?"

"He's a super-advanced computer chip capable of controlling anything electronic and creating bodies for himself made of pure electric energy."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. So what does this guy look like?"

"Something like…that."

Raven and Aqualad arrived on the scene to find Overload in his energy-body form, sucking up the electrical energy from a power transformer and scaring away nearby workers with the blasts of lightning shooting out from all sides of his body.

"Okay…so how are we supposed to get close enough to hit him?"

"We don't," Raven said shortly. She gave Aqualad a small smile. "He's weak against water."

A grin broke out on Aqualad's face. "Weak against water, eh? This should be fun…"

Raven stretched out her senses, wrapped her power around a nearby fire hydrant, and ripped it out of the ground. The high-pressure water began to erupt from the ground like a geyser, drawing Overload's attention. Raven would have bet anything that if the villain had a face, it would have been contorted with fear right then.

"He's all yours," Raven said, gesturing dramatically between Aqualad and Overload.

Aqualad pointed one open palm at the fountain of water issuing from the broken hydrant, and then pointed at Overload. At his beckon call, the water seemed to come to life, and spiraled at lightning speed toward Overload. The villain leapt through the air and the water jet sailed under him. Aqualad arced the water jet around and shot it at Overload again, but he dodged again. Overload laughed, mocking the aquatic Titan.

"Think you're funny, huh?" he muttered. "Try and dodge this!"

Aqualad raised his other hand in one sharp movement, and the water jet split in two. The second jet now arced around behind Overload, meaning to sandwich the villain. But Overload simply leapt sideways this time and dodged them just as easily.

"You're better than I thought…okay, time for drastic action!"

Aqualad guided the two jets with his hands again, both clenched tightly into fists. The jets moved to either side of Overload again, but this time, as the jets neared their target, Aqualad flung his fists open, and the two jets split into ten, arcing all around Overload. The villain barely had time to utter a grunt of surprise before the jets doused him, short-circuiting him until he was nothing but a motionless hunk of metal.

"All right! Knew that'd get him!" Aqualad said triumphantly.

"And you didn't do that in the first place because…?" Raven muttered, shutting him up.

"Right, well…ahem…how are the others doing?"

Right on cue Raven's communicator beeped. She flipped it open and was met with Cyborg's smiling face. "Everything's cool here," he said. "You guys deal with Overload okay?"

"Yeah, but…" Raven trailed off.

"But what?"

"What were they doing here, Cyborg?" Raven asked rhetorically. "All they were doing was smashing things to bits. Something doesn't add up."

"Now that you mention it, it does sound a little weird. I was just thinking…these are the outskirts of the city…why'd they attack about as far away from downtown as possible?"

"It almost seemed like they were just luring us away…so someone could strike at a bigger target…"

Again, almost as though on cue, the communicator beeped, and Cyborg's face was replaced by that of a panicked Robin.

"Titans, get back to the hospital as fast as you can, Cinderblock's attacking!"

"Should've known…" Raven muttered. "We're on our way."


"RRAAAAWWRRRRR!"

Cinderblock pounded a massive fist straight through the nearest wall, just missing the fleeting form of Bumblebee as she flitted around the concrete monster in tiny mode. She was dodging Cinderblock's blows easily, but as long as she was tiny her stingers couldn't do a thing to her opponent's thick, rocky body; on top of that, Más y Menos were too busy helping the doctors and patients and nurses escape to safety to be able to help her, and Robin flat-out refused to leave Starfire and Rosefire alone. So Bee was forced to deal with Cinderblock by herself. And that wasn't going very well.

She returned to normal size and blasted Cinderblock with her stingers again, which seemed to actually give him pause now that they were full size; but the rock monster recovered quickly and swung another massive fist at his now-much-larger target, and this time connected. Bee was sent flying backward, bouncing off a nearby wall and around a corner, out of Cinderblock's sight.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered to herself as she flipped open her communicator. "Robin, you gotta get down here and help me, I can't stop this guy alone!"

"It's too risky! I can't leave Star and Rosefire unprotected!" came his immediate reply. "You'll just have to wait until the others can get back…"

"They're on the other side of the city!" Bee cut him off. "They can't get here in time, Robin, and the twins are too busy helping the innocents escape! You're the only one left, Robin! Get your ass over here, now!"


Robin snapped his communicator shut, glaring furiously at it. He felt lousy, refusing to help his teammate…but Bee, at least, was capable of defending herself, he reasoned. Rosefire on the other hand was barely two hours old, and Starfire was exhausted. They were both defenseless. He couldn't just leave them…

"Robin, you should go and assist Bumblebee in stopping Cinderblock."

Robin spun around to face Starfire, a terrified expression on his face. He dropped to one knee so that he was at eye-level with Starfire and grabbed her hand. "Star, I made a promise to myself…after what happened the last time I wasn't there to protect you, I vowed never to let something like that happen again. And now that Rosefire is here, that promise goes double. I am not leaving you!"

"But Robin, Bumblebee will be in grave danger if you do not go!" Starfire pleaded. "I could not bear the guilt if she were to be hurt because of me! Please, Robin, go and help our friend!"

Robin grimaced. "Star…I don't want you to get hurt…"

"We will be all right, Robin," Starfire insisted. "But Bumblebee will not unless you go, immediately!"

Robin slowly stood, as though it were costing him every bit of his resolve, and for a long moment he simply stood there silently. But when he spoke again, in was with hard determination.

"I will come back for you, Star. I promise."

And with that he spun around and dashed off. Starfire leaned back on her bed, breathing a sigh of relief. She hoped Robin and Bumblebee would be all right fighting Cinderblock alone, but did not worry immensely over it. She knew Robin was capable of handling the villain. She shifted Rosefire in her arms and tried to get more comfortable, but froze as an unfamiliar shadow suddenly loomed over her. She glanced up, and saw a horribly familiar face.

She let out a scream, but it was quickly silenced as a sharp pain struck the back of her head, and everything went black.


"Bee! You all right?" Robin shouted as he rounded the corner and she and Cinderblock came into sight.

"It's about time!" she shouted back. "Do what you need to do, I'll keep him busy!"

Bumblebee shrunk to the size of her namesake and began flitting around Cinderblock, zapping him with her stingers but not doing much more than annoying him. Robin charged forward, reaching into his utility belt as he did so and pulling out a flash bomb.

"Bee, cover your eyes!" he shouted as he threw it right in Cinderblock's face. The concrete monster flailed about blindly, his massive fists crashing through the few bits of wall that were left standing. Robin leapt through the air and delivered a flying kick straight into Cinderblock's face. Bee returned to normal size and added her stinger blasts to the assault, forcing the villain back under the hailstorm of her stingers.

"This ends now!" Robin shouted. He brought out his staff and swung it as hard as he could manage, directly into Cinderblock's head. The concrete monster toppled over sideways and crashed to the ground, out cold. Robin approached Cinderblock warily, ready to continue, but the villain didn't move again.

"Whew…thanks a lot, Rob," Bumblebee said, landing next to him.

"Sorry I didn't come earlier, I…"

"I know, you were worried about Star," Bee said. "But I'm sure she's…"

An earsplitting scream sounded from around the corner and down the hall, a scream that was abruptly cut off, and Robin was seized with terror; that was Starfire's voice.

"STARFIRE!" he screamed, and bolted down the hall as fast as he could go, Bumblebee speeding along right behind him.

Let her be okay…please let her be okay… the Boy Wonder begged. He rounded the corner and sprinted down the hall, screeching to a halt in front of the door to Starfire's hospital room, which was ajar. Another jolt of fear ran through him as he realized that he'd shut the door as he'd left. He kicked it open, panic in his eyes, and gazed into the room.

Starfire's bed was empty.


Starfire woke, feeling groggy and weak and not at all sure what was going on. She opened her eyes, but the darkness remained, and Star was forcibly reminded of the night those horrible men had cornered her in the alley; it had been dark that night, too. Where was she? What was going on? Where was…

Starfire let out a terrified gasp. "Rosefire!" she called out. "Where are you? Rosefire!"

"Why, she's right here, Starfire," a cold, familiar voice rang out.

A blinding light snapped on maybe twenty feet away from Starfire, and she saw that she was inside a prison cell of sorts. She tugged at the bars, but her muscles felt weak and small; even more so than after giving birth. She tried to blast the bars with star-bolts, but she couldn't summon them, either. But all of that was thrown from her thoughts when she looked up and saw, directly beneath the bright light, her daughter, sleeping inside a small clear case; whether it was made of glass or plastic, Starfire couldn't tell, but the mere sight of her daughter imprisoned like that made her blood boil.

"Glad to see you're finally awake…mother dearest," that voice spoke again. Starfire's head spun sideways, following the sound, and her eye fell upon a figure in black, orange, and silver armor…and a one-eyed mask. It was a face that she had seen all too often, papered all over Robin's room as well as deep in the heat of battle; a face that had tried to turn Robin, Terra, and even Raven to his terrible will.

It was the face of Slade.