Things heat up. A longer chapter than expected, but don't let that hold you back, Constant Reader. Enjoy.
I leave Bruce to his work—he certainly has a lot of it—and head upstairs to the Manor. The Kitchen sits off of the dining room. I slide my hands into my pockets and head for it. I push my way through the doors, and see Tim sitting at a table over what looks like tea. Alfred stands in front of the stove across the room.
"Wow," I say. "I would've never thought you were a tea-drinker, Tim."
"Well," he says, eyeballing the china suspiciously, "it must be Alfred's silver tongue."
Alfred turns from the stove, holding a small cup and saucer in his hand, and sits at the table. "One of the more endearing traits I picked up on Her Majesty's Secret Service."
Tim cracks a smile. "Sometimes, you know, that British accent still gets me."
I pick a seat across from Tim and clasp my hands together. "It's an acquired taste," I say.
"So what are you doin' here anyway? I mean...what about B-town?" Tim pries. He's too modest for his own good. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be down in B-town bustin' heads?"
"Would if I could," I say swiftly. "I needed some time away, y'know?"
"Yeah."
"So how's he doing?" Tim asks.
"Bruce? Fine. Still pouring himself into his work," I say with a hint of disappointment. "Won't even come up for dinner."
"Master Bruce is doing what he believes he must," Alfred interjects. He stirs sugar into his tea, takes a sip and looks at Tim and I. "It is…admirable, if misguided."
"What?" I say slowly, incredulously. "Come on, Alfred, don't you think he's acting a little…strange lately?"
"No," he replies sternly. "I have known him for many years. I have disagreed with him, counseled him in times of need, and offered my assistance when I could. But I understand why he has done this. What he is working for. And even if you do not agree with it, you must recognize what he is trying to do."
"It's not disrespect, Alfred, it's…"
"What?" Tim asks.
"I'm worried about retaliation. How long before that satellite goes unnoticed? And once someone finds out it's up there staring at us, what then?"
"You're worrying too much," Tim says calmly, polishing off the tea.
"You're generalizing," Tim says. "You're not really worried about what happens to Bruce or how he's gonna get out of this one. Your concern is Bruce's welfare—'is this Brother Mark in his best interest'—when it probably shouldn't be."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you need to stop worrying about Bruce. He's a grown man, right Alfred?"
Alfred nods curtly, in the middle of finishing his tea.
"He can take care of himself, Dick."
"Yes," Alfred chimes in. "And he would expect the rest of us to be able to reflect that quality."
Cass holds her promise. Yay for me.
Lunch starts out well enough, with Cass's apparently untested chef skills put to a successful test. Yeah, its macaroni and cheese, but it's…enjoyable just the same. The smell of American cheese and carbolicious noodles—and Cass's fingers kneading baby oil into my shoulders.
It's bliss, in its way.
"You know," I say in a whisper. "We should really do this more often."
"What about too much of a good thing," she says, smirking.
"Maybe..." I turn my head to the side so she can see a playful grin. "I can find ways to not enjoy this."
And she presses a knuckle into my lumbar. I think i may have pressed one of her buttons. I tighten up instinctively as she presses a nerve. Cass leans in to my ear and whispers.
"Control yourself, killer."
Hotshot…that's a new one. Cass removes herself from straddling my back and helps me to my feet.
"How's your knee?" she asks.
"Better," I say. I do a quick jump from foot to foot for her to prove the point. "Getting there anyway."
I turn back to my bed, grab a white tee and pull it on…and I see a white flash at the horizon—far out in the ocean.
"What is that?" Cass sees it too.
"I dunno," I say. "We better tell the others."
Cass taps into her communicator a second later, paging Raven in the Monitor Womb.
"Raven, are you picking up anything?"
Silence. I can't make out whatever it is Raven's saying. Cass gives a short sigh and taps her ear again, disconnecting the line.
"Raven says it's probably nothing," Cass says, trying to reassure me—and herself. "Flock of birds."
I turn back to the window, and the white flash has become a black streak…tooling under the bridge, making a straight line for the Tower.
"It's moving too fast to be a flock of seagulls," I say shakily. "Come on."
The black streak Kid Flash speaks of is Superboy. Under the mysterious sway of Lex Luthor.
In the matter of an eye-blink, Superboy makes a high angle, accelerating into the sky and then diving steeply toward the base of Titans Tower. The Teen of Steel slams into the base of the Tower at full force.
Superboy goes straight for the power core—the reactor beneath the surface that powers the tower. Propane tanks meant as reserves explode on impact from Superboy's heat vision and send a fireball billowing out of the far side of the building. Superboy lifts off the ground. His eyes burn excesses of eat vision and he accelerates to a sub-light spin, vaporizing the walls and structural support in the subbasement around him.
With weakened support and no electricity running through Titans Tower, the building shudders and the power blacks out. Structural integrity is compromised. Steel and iron girders anchored in the bedrock below the Tower bend and weaken from Superboy's forced inferno. The tower groans as if in inanimate pain and the metal supports warp and curve inward.
In the Monitor Womb, Raven is effectively blind. Without power, she cannot see what is going on outside. She tries pointlessly to bring the systems back online. And a pounding noise makes itself known. It's coming from the door behind her. With less than three hits, Cyborg and Beast Boy have broken through the blast door.
"Come on," Beast Boy says urgently to Raven. "There's nothing more we can do here."
Raven gives a disappointed look at the computer console and turns to follow Cyborg and Beast Boy. Together, the triad pushes their way outside of the Tower and sees the full extent of the damage.
A plume of smoke climbs into the sky from the eastern side of the tower base. Raven lifts into the air and sees the flames on the eastern façade are climbing—fast. She turns back to Cyborg and Beast Boy on the ground.
"This was no accident," she says. "The exit here is too precise—too clean to have been caused by a reactor leak."
"So what do we do?" Beast Boy asks.
"We split up. Cyborg, you stay here. Gar and I will look for Bart and Ca—"
Raven falls to the ground, landing in a lazy sprawl, unconscious--courtesy of Superboy's right hook to her occipital. Before Beast Boy can react, Superboy fires a beam of heat vision into his chest. Beast Boy stumbles backwards, and Superboy hits him again in the forehead, this time rendering him unconscious.
Superboy lowers himself to the ground slowly and stares coldly into Cyborg's eyes.
"Conner!" Cyborg yells. "You're not yourself."
In an instant, Superboy launches himself at Cyborg—but Stone doesn't go down easy. Superboy holds the high ground. With every hit, the Teen of Steel forces Cyborg back. Because it doesn't matter how many hits Cyborg lands or even how hard he hits—Superboy is, for the moment, unstoppable. Controlled by a force greater than singular willpower.
Behind the fight, smoke rises higher into the sky, and the tower's innards are consumed by inexorable fire.
Up in the medical bay, Wonder Girl and the Kid Flash scramble to get out before it's too late. The duo turns into a main hallway.
"What now?" Kid Flash asks.
"We go up," Wonder Girl says. She lifts into the air and punches a hole in the roof with a grunt. Smoke fills the hallway momentarily, but Bart quickly disperses it with hyper-revolution of his arms. Kid Flash slings an arm around Wonder Girl's shoulder, and together they fly through their hasty exit.
Outside, Cyborg's resistance is wearing down. The fight has degenerated into an outright fist-fight, with Superboy winning—landing hit after hit on Cyborg. With a swift movement, Superboy lands a solid punch in Cyborg's chest. He pushes him arm through the protective shielding, into Cyborg's chest armor and rips off the outer protective shell, exposing Cyborg's sensitive circuitry.
Behind the fight, Titans Tower lists sideways a few degrees and collapses in on itself. The force of impact sends smoke into the air and blankets the island in a gray haze. Above Superboy, the horizontal T-section—the upper levels of the tower, rush to meet the ground. Before Superboy can land another hit on Cyborg, the upper levels come crashing down on the two of them. Smoke and dust linger around the island. Fires grow and sustain themselves in the collapsed remains of the Tower.
Superboy is trapped under a mangled girder, but throws it off with minimal effort. He lifts into the air and with his x-ray vision locates Cyborg and starts frantically clearing away damage above Victor Stone. When the wreckage is cleared, Cyborg's body—badly beaten and bloody, his robotic components sparking and crackling from the force of the collapse—defeated, useless.
"Suh….Superboy," Cyborg manages with a weak cough. "Help…me…"
Superboy stares coldly down at Cyborg. Slowly, he lifts a leg and lets gravity provide some resistance. And then…he slams his boot heel into the robotic half of Cyborg's face. The robotic components buckle and spark under the pressure and Cyborg's already weak movement ceases.
Wonder Girl and Kid Flash work their way through the wreckage of the Tower, finally seeing Superboy standing before the body of Cyborg.
"Conner?" Wonder Girl shouts at Superboy. The Teen of Steel looks up from Cyborg and his eyes ignite a burning red again.
The Kid Flash still has an arm slung around Cassie's shoulder still, and Superboy picks him off with a short, powerful blast of heat vision to the chest. Bart falls to the ground beside Cassie. She looks down at him, horrified, and looks back at Superboy just in time to raise her gauntlets and deflect another blast of heat vision. Amid the intense heat and pressure exerted on her, Wonder Girl holds her ground—if briefly.
"You can't win, Conner," she asserts. "My powers are magic. I can beat you."
Superboy relents. He lowers to the ground and the heat vision kicks off. For the moment it seems he's calmed himself though his eyes still flame red.
"Conner," Wonder Girl asks slowly, not wishing to excite him. "What's gotten into you?"
Superboy doesn't answer. He launches towards Wonder Girl and starts landing hit after hit. She deflects some, and gets hit—badly—by others. Superboy launches a roundhouse kick at Wonder Girl…and connects. The force of his boot slamming into her mandible sends blood spewing from her mouth. She stumbles back, but Superboy grabs her forearm and pulls her close. He grabs her arm at the elbow and the wrist and breaks her arm in two places. Superboy throws her to the ground carelessly and taps his earpiece communicator. Lex Luthor's mechanized voice comes over the line.
"Excellent work," he says. "Now that the Titans are incapacitated, head for the Brother Mark One in space. You'll receive further instruction there."
Deep within the darkness of the cave, Batman sits reclined in his chair, looking over files on the Batcomputer—Victor Fries, in particular. He hasn't been seen in a month. Completely dropped off the radar. Last known reports point him toward the Bowery--though it's unlikely he'd stay static for a full month. Staying hidden isn't easy--or cheap.
The screen changes from the profile of Fries to a red mono-color. It's a coded transmission from the Watchtower. Batman presses a button on the keyboard in front of him. Chances being what they are, it's the Martian Manhunter. As usual.
"What is it, J'onn?"
"Is Robin with you?" There's a tinge of…suspicion in the Martian's voice. Fear, almost.
"He teleported in a few hours ago, yes," Batman replies. After a pause, he follows up. "Why do you ask?"
"There's been an incident in San Francisco," J'onn says with a heavy voice. "The Tower is destroyed. None of the Titans are answering calls."
"None of them?"
"All but Speedy. She was—and remains—in Star City."
"Put out a priority alert. Call Wally and Diana. Where is Superboy?"
"We don't know. Last known location was in the air over Brazil…talking to Superman."
"And Clark? Does he know about this yet?"
"He will."
Batman reclines in his chair and his mind begins to process the information. All the Titans incapacitated but Speedy and Superboy. The Tower destroyed. But who could have done it, and why? Harder questions to answer. Dearden and Superboy are the only ones unaffected, and she was in Star City.
The clone.
"Batman?"
"Standby," Batman says shortly, and switches lines. He reaches to the console to his left and presses a red call button. "Alfred?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Is Tim still here?"
"Playing his video games with Master Richard, sir; shall I fetch him for you?"
"Yes. Tell him its important."
Continued...