by The Diaries Guild with Original Concept by Shaun Garin and Co.
Teen Titans is owned by DC and the animated series by Kids WB.
Chapter 3 : Living Forever
"THERE'S FUNGUS ON MY PIZZA!" Cyborg howled. "SOMEBODY'S GONNA DIE!" His arm morphed into the sonic cannon and aimed it at Starfire but was halted from pulling the trigger as the phone rang.
Starfire giggled and flew off to get it.
"At least there's cheese pizza...," Raven trailed off.
"Where's the MEAT?" Beast Boy growled.
"Cool. Which one first, the pepperoni and mushroom or the mushroom and steak melt? Decisions, decisions. I'll have them BOTH!" Robin grabbed a few slices of each.
Beast Boy glared, transformed into a green shaggy dog and tried to bite Robin.
"Get lost, Muttly." The boy wonder kicked the furry puppy away.
"I don't think he's the one to worry about," Cyborg warned, his weapon ready to fire.
Robin shrugged. "Guess you don't want to know what's going on."
Raven stood up and Cyborg went flying across the room from an accidental black bolt. "You know how this happened!"
"Not everything." Robin inhaled a slice. "First off, we're not the only ones to be switched. The news is having a field day with power tripping super-heroes and secret identities are being blown left and right."
Beast Boy's eyes widened to inhuman proportions. "That is NOT good."
Robin smirked sadly. "Then you'll LOVE this..."
Starfire flew back into the room. "Ah, guys... we've got a call... from Slade."
"Oh, goody." Robin chirped as he followed Starfire to the message screen with the rest of the Teen Titans.
"Greetings, Titans," Slade greeted in a cold voice.
"Hello, Mr. Wilson!" Robin chirped. "Did you want to play today? Sorry, but Robin's not in at the moment."
Slade just stared at Robin in blank shock while Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire were rolling on the floor howling in laughter.
"How...?" Slade questioned in disbelief.
"I might tell you, because if we decide we want to change things back--"
Robin was interrupted with a demonized faced of Starfire. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'IF,' ARCHIVE NO BAKA?" The Boy Wonder suddenly found himself embedded into the far side of the wall via some seriously righteous wrath. "BY RA I WILL BE A GUY AGAIN!"
"This is all... very... interesting," Slade commented uncertainly.
"So we're in agreement. It would be overkill to send us up against any of your goons, Mr. Wilson. If you keep a low profile, we won't butt heads. Deal?" said Robin as he finished his pizza.
Slade Wilson, behind his mask wore an expression of reluctance. "Yes, we are in agreement. I would much rather prefer to destroy the Teen Titans when they are rightfully replaced."
"Believe us, it's not picnic for us as well. Well, except maybe Starfire." Starfire glared at Robin from halfway across the room where she had sat down to read a scientific journal. Robin then grinned at Slade. "Besides, you want the REAL Robin. Not a twenty something guy who can't even fight his way out of a paper bag."
Cyborg made a snorting sound as he had finished getting off the phone with Jump City Pizza and ordered a couple of meat laden pizzas for him and Beast Boy. Robin paused to glare at him as Slade nodded imperceptibly.
"As you wish," said Slade. "Although I cannot say the same thing for any other villains the former Titans have faced, I will adhere to my end of the bargain." With that said, the connection abruptly terminated.
"Way to go Archive," Beast Boy cheered as his face turned into a Owl face. "We don't have to deal with Slade!" He then proceeded to ooze more parts before returning to his normal form with some effort.
Robin let out a long held breath. "I thought I wouldn't be able to negotiate a truce." Flopping onto the couch, he snagged a piece of Beef and Mushroom pizza and munched on it. "Slade is one tricky customer. Dealing with him in real life can be a bit more harrowing than I thought."
Raven looked over the book she was reading and said, "Slade does have a point, Archive. We don't KNOW how to use our powers yet. Well, except for Shaun who's got two of them down pat. Lets face it. With Canis not being able to trigger his weaponry very well, Ryan oozing animal parts and myself melting things left and right, not to mention you having no martial arts experience, things will be tough if we run up against someone."
Robin slouched on the couch as he sighed. "I'm thinking we're going to have a LONG time ahead of us."
Starfire looked over her superhero journal and quirked an eyebrow. "You know..." she said slowly. "There's an obstacle course down on the island."
"What're you getting at Shaun?" asked Cyborg, still upset at not having enough meat on his pizza.
"I think what Shaun means is that we should try the obstacle course. Set at the lowest level of course." Raven shrugged and Beast Boy went careeming across the room in a bolt of black energy. "Sorry."
"Ow," grunted Beast Boy as he stumbled to his feet. "Kim, you've gotta stop doing that."
"Not her fault she can't control her powers," said Starfire glibly as she floated into the air and flew out the window.
"Why is it that the guy who would make the lousiest DiaRanger in the history of mankind has Starfire's powers down pat?" groused Cyborg as he tromped down towards the door in the back of the room.
"I think it's because his emotions aren't dangerous." said Raven dryly. To demonstrate the fact, Robin went flying into the nearby kitchen. Raven winced. "Whoops."
Weird dreams were nothing new to the young writer known as Akino Ame. She'd had her fair share of strange ones from animated to CGI to more realistic. Most came from the overactive imagination that had gotten her into writing in the first place. But this one really took the cake.
She stood in front of a mirror in a cheap motel room, staring at her reflection. Her brown hair and eyes had suddenly changed to a respective blond and blue in the night, and her body had more cleavage and less guttage. Gone was the need for glasses, and apparently allergy medication as well, judging at how she hadn't sneezed once despite all the rock dust she seemed to be covered in. But one question burned in her mind as she waited to wake up: Why the hell am I dreaming that I'm Terra?
In the strange little world of Akinoland, the moment the subject realized she was dreaming, she would immediately wake up. But either the rules of Akinoland had been tossed out, or this was no dream, as she stood in front of the mirror for several minutes upon coming to the conclusion that she was not waking up.
"Damn it, why this?" she muttered. "Why Terra? Even Supergirl would have been better!"
She sighed and sat down on the bed. "Well, I haven't gone through 'Aftershocks' yet, or else I'd be a nice pretty pile of concrete." Another thought popped in her mind as she got up and looked around. "No pro-Slade stuff here, I don't think, so I guess Terra's still a Titans ally. Good. Maybe they can help me get out of this."
She got dressed and grabbed Terra's goggles before heading out of the motel and finding the harbor. A large T-shaped tower stood in the distance. She stood on a large rock and pulled on the goggles.
"Now's as good a time as any to see if I can control her powers," she decided as she concentrated on pushing the stone all the way across the harbor. It lurched quite a bit as it lifted and glided over the water, but it worked.
"Yes!" she cried. "I'm doing it! I can do it! I-"
Fate hated her. Lady Luck didn't like her much either. The minute she got halfway to Titans Tower, the rock stopped in midair. She tried pulling forward and backward, and it didn't work. It didn't even fall from its position. She was left there fuming and screaming, "God, why this..."
"All right, I think I've gotten this thing figured out." Robin punched a button on the console that made several targets snap up to greet the assembled Titans. "Push the button."
"I wanna push the button," chimed Beast Boy who had turned into Plucky Duck and was reaching up for the button.
Starfire picked him up and set him aside. "No pushy," she remarked with a smirk. "Okay Archive, fire away."
"Right. Canis? You're up first."
"Oh joy," said Cyborg as his arm morphed into the Sonic Cannon. A fiendish grin appeared on his face as he cried, "Lets rock!"
Twenty seconds later, Cyborg limped off the obstacle course, badly beaten up by the robot dummies. "Archive man, I thought you said this was set on the easiest level!"
"Apparently it IS the easiest level," said Raven, shrugging. Beast Boy yelped and dodged away from a falling boulder.
"Kim!" shouted Beast Boy, "keep those falling things to yourself!"
"You're the comedic relief," replied Starfire, a wide grin on her face.
Beast Boy fought down a bout of immaturity and lost, sticking his tongue out at the guy turned girl.
"Just for that, you're up next," said Beast Boy, pushing the girl forwards.
"Yeesh." Starfire rose into the air and Robin pressed the activation button.
After a good minute and a half, Starfire wobbled into view unsteadily. "Wow, dizziness factor," she remarked, sitting down and holding her head. "Maybe doing all of those spins and loops wasn't such a good idea."
"I'll say," said Cyborg, still peeved at his twenty second loss. "At least you got through the course, right?"
"Shaun's standing at one minute, fifty five seconds mainly because he was able to fly at top speed and do hairpin turns," remarked Robin from behind the console. "All right, it's my turn. Someone push the button when I get into position."
"I wanna push da button," chirped Beast Boy who had assumed Baby Plucky's form once again and stabbed at the red button.
Robin rushed in and there was the sound of carnage and everyone winced. One minute later, Robin yelled, "Turn it off! Turn it off!" and Raven stabbed the off button.
Robin stumbled out of the carnage, holding a shoulder that looked dislocated, wearing bruises and sticky messes all over him. Stumbling over, he sat down and wrestled his mask off that was adhered to his face with a sticky bubblegum-like substance. "That, was brutal."
"One minute, ten seconds," read off Beast Boy as he stepped up to the plate. "Mission start!" he barked, changing into a jaguar.
A minute thirty later, a llama stumbled out of the end of the course, looking worse for the wear. Morphing back into Beast Boy, he stuck out his thumb in a classic "nice guy" pose before falling over onto his face. "Ow," said Beast Boy, and he passed out.
"My turn," said Raven. Her expression clearly marked that she was NOT looking forward to the whole encounter. There was a beeping sound, a stabbing of a button and she floated into the midst of the course.
"She's doing not half bad," remarked Cyborg as he nursed a wound.
"Yeah," replied Robin as he pulled the mess out of his hair, wincing as several strands went with it.
"I think she can actually get through it," replied Starfire.
"Gurgle," said the unconcious Beast Boy.
"AIYEEEEE!" proclaimed Raven as everyone sweatdropped.
Starfire politely averted her eyes as Cyborg and Robin drooled. "I didn't think that this was the proper setting you guys."
"I didn't know she could BEND like that," said Robin.
"Tell me again why we can't look away?" asked Cyborg.
"Because we're perverts?" replied Robin.
"SHUT THE DAMN THING OFF!" screamed Raven.
Starfire jabbed the off button and Raven unsteadily floated over. Her clothing was in tatters and she looked out of sorts. "Tell me someone didn't intentionally do that to the course."
Robin checked the panel. "Actually, it says here that it's set for Raven. Must be a bio-recognition system."
"That explains the tentacles," said Cyborg, his gigantic grin earning him a black bolt that tossed him and Robin into the ocean.
"Um, I'm going over here right now," said Starfire as she floated away back into the tower.
Ugh... I'm exhausted," remarked Terra as she slumped to the ground. Having made her way off the rock in the middle of the ocean, she settled for the next best thing; moving across land.
"I think I lost it," she remarked looking behind herself. There was no answering rumble of something moving on the ground with or without her powers kicking in accidentally so Terra sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"What the hell am I doing here?" she asked the sky but there was no answer. Shaking her head, she sighed. "Go to bed one night and then wake up in the body of Terra. This is so stupid. Can't be real. Just can't."
Picking up a rock from the ground, she tossed it up and down in her hand before chucking it across the canyon. It bounced twice before rolling to a stop. Terra sighed and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them. "What a bad dream. I'm sure a good sleep will help."
Thud.
Terra shot up in alarm as the familiar vibrations shook the ground. "No. Nonononono. No."
Thud. Thud, thud, thud.
"Aw CRAP!"
Terra jumped to her feet and ran for her life as the giant scorpion mecha stomped into view behind her. "Just keep running," she puffed as she ran.
Somewhere else in the same Canyon, someone was running and he was reveling in his power.
The white and dark crimson blur screeched to a halt as a young teenager stretched and laughed. "This is life," he said to the sun that beat down on the world beneath him. "Just me and the wind. Whoever stuck me into this body really knew my preferences."
Sitting down, Impulse scratched the back of his head and his stomach growled. "Though I wish I brought something to eat. Aw well. Maybe head over to the city and get something there."
He got up, shaking off the dust quickly and looking around. "Man, what to do. Ah, I know. Run!"
A scream split the sky and a huge explosion rocked the landscape a few miles away. Looking up, Impulse sighed. "Another day, another disaster. Aw well. It's something to do." With that, he sped off towards the settling dust.
"Where the hell are the Teen Titans when you need them?" Terra wondered to herself as she focused her mind and ripped another rock from the ground. "HA!"
The rock smashed into the scorpion's head and it reeled, allowing a chance for the girl to duck away from it and head off towards the tower that was in the distance. "Gotta get some distance from big and ugly before it squishes me!"
Dodging a swipe from it's claws, Terra bolted for the exit of the canyon, hurling rocks at the opponent as best she could. Each one was ripped from the ground but many of them were unsteady at best and fell short due to Terra's lack of aim and control. Dodging around a nearby rock formation, she yelped as the scorpion mecha cleaved the top of it right off. "Oh god, wake up, Brittany, wake up!"
The scorpion raised an arm to slam her into the ground when suddenly a blur shot past the scorpion. It beeped for a moment before the front leg exploded in a hail of shrapnel. The blur screeched to a halt revealing a red haired teenager dressed in a costume of white and dark crimson. "Hey," he greeted.
Terra gaped for a moment before she pointed and yelped, "Behind you!"
The boy easily moved out of the way as he blurred through a leg. The second leg exploded and the scorpion stumbled as its claw crashed down next to Terra.
Terra stood and clenched her fists as she yelled. Brilliant yellow light flared and without warning, a spear of rock shoved itself through the middle of the scorpion. The scorpion flailed and whined as fluid exploded from the internal mechanisms.
Two more legs exploded as the teen ran through the legs at super speeds. A claw was smashed to bits as two giant boulders dropped on it. With the combined skills of the pair, the scorpion's mechanisms finally gave out and it died with a chirp.
As the dust settled, the teen screeched to a halt as he grinned from behind his mask. "Did pretty well there," he remarked casually as if it was a daily event to attack giant mechanical scorpions. "What's your name?"
Terra stood and said, "Terra."
The boy walked around her slowly, looking at her. Finally, he said, "Name's Impulse."
"That your code name?" asked Terra.
"I doubt someone has a name like Terra just for show," replied Impulse. "So, where ya headed?"
"Down this canyon for starters," said Terra as she indicated Jump City in the distance. "I'm planning on hooking up with the Teen Titans." It was a half truth as Terra had no idea how she had gotten there, but since the Titans hadn't appeared yet, it was questionable where her loyalties lay at the moment.
"Titans..." Impulse smirked. "All right then. I'll help ya. Get on my back."
Terra blinked but did so. And in a shot, the pair zoomed off towards the tower shaped like a T.
"And I'm telling you we shoulda gone to that alert!" exclaimed Starfire hotly as she folded her arms.
"Look, we're not exactly ready to go out there and get our asses kicked," replied Robin. "We need to train."
"Yeah man, if you wanted to go out there and get whupped, that's fine with us," added Cyborg as he poked around BB's music collection for something decent.
Starfire threw her hands up in the air. "I just think we should try to help..."
"And then get killed," said Raven as she looked up from the magic book that she had found in her room entitled Magical Fundamentals. "You might be fighting material but we're out of control. It's time we learned some of it."
Robin nodded. "It's for our own good, Shaun. We're not ready to die if this isn't just some kinda whacked out dream. We need to be prepared."
Beastboy, who was monitoring the area around the tower called out. "Hey. There's something approaching the tower. High speeds. I think it's a runner."
"Another superhero power-tripping?" asked Cyborg as Starfire went up to check the readouts.
"Possibly," she replied. "Looks like it's running fast enough to go over water. It's headed towards us at quite a speed."
"Lets get out the welcome mat," said Robin as he picked up some Birdrangs and placed them into his belt. "If they prove to be hostile, this'll be our first real battle."
The other Titans nodded and soon were downstairs. Robin reached out and opened the door.
A wave of dust washed over the group in a choking cloud as the figure screeched to a halt. "There we are," said the person as he let down the passenger.
Beastboy identified the people immediately. "Terra and Impulse?"
"What brings you to Titan Tower?" asked Robin curiously, putting away a Rang.
Impulse folded his arms. "You tell us. She was wanting to get into town and hook up with you guys."
"That's weird," remarked Raven. "In the episode, she didn't know we were here... so how..."
"Episode? You mean you guys are having one of these out of body things too?" asked Terra, surprised.
"Just who are you? And what's your internet name?" asked Cyborg getting to the point.
"I'm Brittany. Brittany Chavez. Akino Ame is what I go by on the net," replied Terra.
Impulse gave her a look. "You're Akino?" At her nod, he smirked. "I'm Raikun Tabris on AIM."
"What is this? Some big freaking Guild meeting?" exclaimed Starfire. "I'm getting weirded out here."
"Lord Archive," said Robin, holding out his hand. "The other Titans are other guild members. Ryan, Canis, Iapetus..." Robin smirked, "and Shaun."
Impulse roared in laughter. "That's rich, the insane one in a girls body?"
"Shut up you zarnian blogwart!" exclaimed Starfire hotly. "I'll rip your spleen out!"
"Someone is touchy," remarked Terra as she dusted herself off as best she could.
"She's a bit unbalanced right now," said Raven. "To say the least."
Beastboy rolled his eyes as he gestured to the elevator. "C'mon, lets get you guys into rooms. And Terra into a shower." He then blinked and flinched. "Don'thurtmedon'thurtme," he chanted in order to spare himself from the imminent pain of being called a pervert by an earth mover with a definite lack of control.
Terra snickered as she dusted off more of her shirt. "I definitely need it. That's for sure." "That's the last time I do an all night anime marathon..." The figure shifted around under the blankets of his bed, giving a loud yawn. Spending a night bingeing on Evangelion was easily enough to make anything seemed possible, especially when mixed with dreams of ugly angels attacking all over the place.
Pulling the blanket over his body, even around, his head, the figure finally got out of bed, shambling absently around the small apartment, not seeming to notice anything out of the ordinary. Passing the television, he turned it on, just wanting some background noise, as he shuffled into the bathroom to try and wake himself.
"And as of recent, the world is still in a grip of confusion. With a large populace of the world's superheroes suddenly causing pandemonium, this reporter can only speculate as to the cause. For station twenty nine, this is..."
Mumbling to himself, the news report barely made a thought as the sound of teeth being brushed could be heard. 'Sounds like a weird Justice League episode, or something...' He thought, finishing up the brushing, and walking back out, still wrapping in the blanket from the cold.
Ignoring the reporter's voice as he started past the television again, he turned his head towards it, pausing to watch the action, as a pair of 'heroes' were taped having an argument over who was the strongest. "Wow, JLA got some nice CG, to look this realistic. But when did we get a wide screen?" He blinked, looking around the screen, noticing quite a bit of computer hardware set up, as if it were a very elaborate computer instead of a TV.
The apartment was very much not what he had thought it was either, a small twin bed sitting across from the electronics, and a small kitchenette set up near the front door. The door itself was fairly sturdy itself, various locks running down the doorframe, ensuring quite a bit of safety.
Turning back to the screen, he saw that someone who looked remarkably like Superman had joined the argument. Save that the argument was now the pair standing together against the probably man of steel, who has something in black written underneath his S. Before long, the pair tried jumping the man in blue, not taking long before they were both slammed and unconscious into the ground, with a grinning Superman standing over then for a moment, before flying off.
"Either Supes got a major attitude adjustment..." Looking away from the screen, the male turned his gaze to a long table at the foot of the bed, noticing for the first time, that something lain across it. Stepping up to the table, a black body suit, with gray gloves and boots, stretched over the wood surface. A skull like mask with a slanted, red X, lay in the middle, a thick gray belt folded underneath it. Picking the mask up, the blanket covered figure shook his head slightly. "Or my Eva induced dreams just took a backseat for weirdness..."