Teen Titans is copyrighted Cartoon Network.
Important Note: In the Teen Titan's timeline, as laid down by Cartoon Network, this story takes place in the 2nd season after episode 7, "Transformation."
Teen Titans Chapter 2: Knives
The green-eyed newcomer lowered the comatose Raven to the street pavement while Cyborg's sonic cannon traced his movement. StarFire landed on the pavement opposite Cyborg. She flanked the suspicious young man. The sword snuggled between the boy's left arm fell as he raised his hands defensively in the air at Cyborg's advance, but he backed up as fast as Cyborg marched forward, keeping a steady distance between the two of them.
"Nice trick tough guy," venom on Cyborg's words, "but my scanners said your 'bombs' were only disguised smoke and concussive charges, then I knew you'd try to make off with Raven while we were preoccupied." Cyborg was right, apart from a few minor wounds on the civilians who had stood closest to the bombs, no one had been killed. True, everyone would suffer from a serious migraine and bruises the next day, but the worst had passed.
"I'm not responsible for all this trouble." The boy said in his defense with an American accent laced with a slight Irish twang buried slightly below the surface. His eyes darting nervously between the two Teen Titans as he continued his reversed advance.
"But why do you try and kidnap our friend?" StarFire pleaded for an answer, her hands clasped in front of her as if praying. "Please tell us your reasons for doing this."
"I don't even know who you people are." He said raising his voice rose a few decibels in mounting aggravation.
"Yo! You expect us to believe that? That you don't know us." Cyborg said in a pained sounding disbelief. It was as if the boy's ignorance watered down the pride of the Teen Titans. "We're the Teen Titans!" He announced proudly, trying to maintain control of the situation.
"That's impossible!" Shouted the boy, not in disbelief, in anger, "they're all dead! They died a long time ago!" his features twisting into a scowl. Cyborg and StarFire stopped their confident advance. Surely the boy must be trying to toy with them to catch them off guard. But he sound convince of his account that he was right.
"That's ridiculous. We are very much alive." Emerged Robin, his proclamation repairing Cyborg's demeanor as to who was in control. Robin knelt next to Raven, pulling her cape hood back, and pressing his middle and index fingers on her neck. The boy unexpectedly growled out a colored 4-letter word that aggravated the ears of all within ear-shot. His eyes widened, in a similar method, as if one experiences a life-changing revelation. With almost desperate speed his right hand jolted down as a 7- inch combat knife shot from it's hidden holster up his sleeve. Throwing the knife in an underhanded fashion, the blade whizzed through the air with blinding speed, piercing the lens on the end of Cyborg's arm cannon. Crackles of ultra blue electricity sparkled up Cyborgs arm in violent arches. He let out a cry of surprise and pain as he grabbed the hilt of the knife and withdrew it hastily.
StarFire witnessed the attack and wasted no time in charging her fists with green energy. She shot a sphere of power at the boy. However, the defender had anticipated the attack and even after lauching the knife, spun around and grasped his two hands together. He smacked the power bolt and reflected it back at its source. StarFire's eyes erupted forth a twin beam of similar colored energy lances. The two powers colliding and discharged, with a slight pop of air, harmlessly.
Robin concurrently was also on the move, he grabbed an item from his belt and tossed it at the offending knife thrower. The disk shaped projectile soared through the Ever turning the boy pulled a second knife, hidden somewhere in his overalls, and jabbed it forward. The throwing discus was impaled to the knife's hilt. He tossed them to the ground before the disk exploded. The explosion caused him to stagger backwards a few steps. Robin, fast as lighting, ran forward intent on delivering a jumping kick to the boy's chest. But he ultimately missed as the boy vertically descended, as if he had passed through the pavement. He had, in fact, fallen down the open manhole in the street. Raven had removed the circular metal covering previously.
There was a splash of water as the 3 Teen Titans ran towards the hole. They were promptly joined by Beast Boy who had know just found his way out of the smoke.
"Who was that?" he asked of the others.
"We've got to follow him." Robin motioned to the inky blackness down the manhole. "Beast Boy take Raven back to Titans Tower, we'll can handle this."
"Why don't I take her out on a date to the movies and for tofu pizza while I'm at it." Beast boy grudgingly acknowledged, unable to tell which was worse, missing the action or being stuck alone with Raven.
"Teen Titans go!" Robin motioned forward, but as he took the first step down the service ladder to enter the underground tunnel a rumble was felt coming from underneath. The roar of water, and an awful lot of it as well, came from the manhole and Robin was catapulted 10 feet into the air as a shaft of green polluted and foul smelling sewage water burst forth. It only lasted for a few brief seconds, leaving all 5 of the Teen Titans soaked to the bone and reeking of bacterial fermentation.
Two hours later the 5 Teen Titans arrived back at Titans Tower. They spoke not a word to each other, but went straight to their respective rooms and all took long lasting and desperately needed showers. Changing their clothes, they all, interestingly enough, arrived at the main room at about the same time. The wall sized tv flickered to life and a man's face took up the screen as he read the midday news. The 5 friends prepared and ate lunch in relative silence; even Beast Boy was not in much of a mood to crack his usual arrangement of jokes and gags. After the eruption of water, they spend the last 2 hours searching through the sewers for any sign of the escaped delinquent. The search was in vain. They even couldn't get any clues off of the blades the offender had used. Not only did the sewer water washed off any fingerprints, but also all 3 blades still had little price tags on them. Apparently he had stolen the weapons from a nearby shop and the owner was ecstatic to have his merchandise returned.
They questioned the storeowner about the boy who had stolen them. He said the boy had identified himself as 'Knives' and that he was new in town and wanted to purchase the 3 weapons for protection. The owner also vouched for Knives by revealing the fact that he had spent the better part of an hour browsing the various goods at the store, looking for the best set his money could buy, and had intended on purchasing the 3 weapons in question. He had even pulled out the necessary money to do so. But at that moment there was a shout and a series of explosions, it was then that Knives had grabbed the weapons and rushed out the door, saying he would be right back, while the owner had dropped down behind his sales counter for protection.
All of their findings, along with Raven's account of what had transpired before she blanked out, pointed to the possible conclusion that Knives had only been in the wrong place, at the right time and had indeed rescued Raven from an unknown fate. Robin, Cyborg, and StarFire felt slightly ashamed at how they had treated her rescuer, but they didn't dwell on it too long, cause logically speaking, they had know way to knowing that beforehand. They did have every intention of apologizing if they met him again.
What really worried them was that the criminal who had been struck down by Knives' sword had disappeared sometime before the smoke had fully cleared. Nowhere to be found, he was, along with any evidence of who had shot Raven with a tranquilizer. Robin was convinced that Slade, his arch nemesis, was behind it. It was just his style. The lack of evidence, the cryptic clues, and the final disappearing act, all of it had Slade's name on it. But what was the motivation, Robin continued to muse over it.
He suddenly felt a chill crawl down his spine. He knew why this day was special. Why he had had trouble sleeping last night and why he dreaded facing the day. The crowd of protestors had been chosen, as the bait, for a reason. Why had he not seen it before? The protests had been concerning the Blasted Land and today, this very day, was the 2nd anniversary of its founding.
"StarFire," Robin broke the silence, "you wanted to know about the Blasted Land?" StarFire turned to meet Robin's eyes.
"Yes I do Robin, even more now." She replied.
"Yeah, tell us about it." Beast Boy stepped in. Robin opened his mouth to answer their curiosity, but Raven beat him.
"Two years ago," she began, her eyes looking down at the table, "some misguided people used a low yield nuclear warhead, detonating it far outside the city. Creating a circle of wasteland 30 miles in diameter. Remember where we first met Terra? That's where it is." Realization dawned on StarFire and Beast Boy.
Several weeks earlier they had encountered a young girl named Terra. She had been running from an 8 foot tall Scorpion, but had easily dispatched the creature by rising up a large shaft of rock and slammed it down on top of the creature.
"So that's where that oversized insect came from." Beast Boy, who's eyes suddenly formed little heart shapes as he remembered Terra. Beast Boy wouldn't admit it, but then it was pretty obvious anyway, he had a crush on the blond haired elemental girl. He sighed with longing and melted to the ground his thoughts secured in his own reality, oblivious to the stares he was getting from the rest of the group.
Without another word Raven rose from the table and retreated from the room. The others watched her go, silently.
"Man, I've never seen Raven look so depressed. You'd think someone had just died." Cyborg injected.
"We should return happiness and cheer to her heart by the giving of unhealthy junkfoods." StarFire suggested, her mood becoming increasingly bright under her own suggestion.
"Forget it StarFire," Countered Robin, "We should just leave her alone."
"We should all get together and do something that she would like to do." suggested Cyborg.
"Like what?" a now recovered Beast Boy asked.
"I don't know, something to lighten up, to chill, have a little fun."
"Dude, she doesn't like to do anything," Beast Boy shook his head, "her idea of fun is for us all to sit on the roof and meditate." He punctuated his point by slipping into his best impersonation of Raven, "Fun? Ah yes the employment of time in a profitless and non-practical way." He shook his hands in a futile gesture.
"BB," Cyborg said jumping to his feet, a large grin playing on his face, "If there is one thing the Cy-man knows; is how to throw a good time." Wheeling about he charged through the exit, chuckling to himself as he went.
"Wait up Cy!" Beast Boy called as he quickly followed in step. Leaving Robin and StarFire by themselves. StarFire turned to Robin as she slid out of her seat, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. "It is good to see our friends full of happiness and joy again. I will help them prepare for the celebration." Then there was one left at the table. Robin slipped into a quite revere, his thoughts trying to make sense of today's events.
It wasn't long before Robin had cleaned up the mess table. Pacing in random directions down the corridors of Titans Tower, his feet subconsciously led him to his 'thinking' room. Inside this spherical room, a single low wooden table sat in the center while a single light, provided by an overhead lamp, illuminated the surface of the table. Covering the wall was a montage of newspaper clippings and pictures. All of the clippings bore headlines and stories that were crime related. While the pictures bore the faces of all the villains that the Teen Titans had tracked down and brought to justice since their founding.
It was here that Robin did his best thinking, provided that he remains uninterrupted. But someone walked through the door into the poorly lit darkness. Robin looked up to find Raven slowly approaching him clutching a piece of paper in her hand. Saying nothing she held the paper up, it was in fact an old clipping from a newspaper that had long since went out of business. The date in the top placed the article 2 years, minus 1 day, old. Robin grazed the headline, "Terrorists Detonate Nuclear Bomb In Warehouse." The article blamed the forming of the blasted land on a group of disgruntled scientists attempting to sell a nuclear device to a terrorist cell and the device was set off, during an army raid of the complex, by one of the scientists.
Robin looked at Raven after he had finished the article. He knew about the incident, it had made newspapers all over the world. The nickname 'Blasted Land' was first quoted by the, at the time, Mayor who pleged to clean up the mess caused by the blast, radiation and fallout. To date, only the fallout and radiation had been cleaned while the blast site remained a barren sandy wasteland to this day.
"This," Raven indicated the article in her hands, "is not how it really happened."
"I know." He replied looking Raven in the eyes. An arduous silence filled them for an unknown amount of time.
"We can't tell the others." He found himself saying finally.
Important Note: In the Teen Titan's timeline, as laid down by Cartoon Network, this story takes place in the 2nd season after episode 7, "Transformation."
Teen Titans Chapter 2: Knives
The green-eyed newcomer lowered the comatose Raven to the street pavement while Cyborg's sonic cannon traced his movement. StarFire landed on the pavement opposite Cyborg. She flanked the suspicious young man. The sword snuggled between the boy's left arm fell as he raised his hands defensively in the air at Cyborg's advance, but he backed up as fast as Cyborg marched forward, keeping a steady distance between the two of them.
"Nice trick tough guy," venom on Cyborg's words, "but my scanners said your 'bombs' were only disguised smoke and concussive charges, then I knew you'd try to make off with Raven while we were preoccupied." Cyborg was right, apart from a few minor wounds on the civilians who had stood closest to the bombs, no one had been killed. True, everyone would suffer from a serious migraine and bruises the next day, but the worst had passed.
"I'm not responsible for all this trouble." The boy said in his defense with an American accent laced with a slight Irish twang buried slightly below the surface. His eyes darting nervously between the two Teen Titans as he continued his reversed advance.
"But why do you try and kidnap our friend?" StarFire pleaded for an answer, her hands clasped in front of her as if praying. "Please tell us your reasons for doing this."
"I don't even know who you people are." He said raising his voice rose a few decibels in mounting aggravation.
"Yo! You expect us to believe that? That you don't know us." Cyborg said in a pained sounding disbelief. It was as if the boy's ignorance watered down the pride of the Teen Titans. "We're the Teen Titans!" He announced proudly, trying to maintain control of the situation.
"That's impossible!" Shouted the boy, not in disbelief, in anger, "they're all dead! They died a long time ago!" his features twisting into a scowl. Cyborg and StarFire stopped their confident advance. Surely the boy must be trying to toy with them to catch them off guard. But he sound convince of his account that he was right.
"That's ridiculous. We are very much alive." Emerged Robin, his proclamation repairing Cyborg's demeanor as to who was in control. Robin knelt next to Raven, pulling her cape hood back, and pressing his middle and index fingers on her neck. The boy unexpectedly growled out a colored 4-letter word that aggravated the ears of all within ear-shot. His eyes widened, in a similar method, as if one experiences a life-changing revelation. With almost desperate speed his right hand jolted down as a 7- inch combat knife shot from it's hidden holster up his sleeve. Throwing the knife in an underhanded fashion, the blade whizzed through the air with blinding speed, piercing the lens on the end of Cyborg's arm cannon. Crackles of ultra blue electricity sparkled up Cyborgs arm in violent arches. He let out a cry of surprise and pain as he grabbed the hilt of the knife and withdrew it hastily.
StarFire witnessed the attack and wasted no time in charging her fists with green energy. She shot a sphere of power at the boy. However, the defender had anticipated the attack and even after lauching the knife, spun around and grasped his two hands together. He smacked the power bolt and reflected it back at its source. StarFire's eyes erupted forth a twin beam of similar colored energy lances. The two powers colliding and discharged, with a slight pop of air, harmlessly.
Robin concurrently was also on the move, he grabbed an item from his belt and tossed it at the offending knife thrower. The disk shaped projectile soared through the Ever turning the boy pulled a second knife, hidden somewhere in his overalls, and jabbed it forward. The throwing discus was impaled to the knife's hilt. He tossed them to the ground before the disk exploded. The explosion caused him to stagger backwards a few steps. Robin, fast as lighting, ran forward intent on delivering a jumping kick to the boy's chest. But he ultimately missed as the boy vertically descended, as if he had passed through the pavement. He had, in fact, fallen down the open manhole in the street. Raven had removed the circular metal covering previously.
There was a splash of water as the 3 Teen Titans ran towards the hole. They were promptly joined by Beast Boy who had know just found his way out of the smoke.
"Who was that?" he asked of the others.
"We've got to follow him." Robin motioned to the inky blackness down the manhole. "Beast Boy take Raven back to Titans Tower, we'll can handle this."
"Why don't I take her out on a date to the movies and for tofu pizza while I'm at it." Beast boy grudgingly acknowledged, unable to tell which was worse, missing the action or being stuck alone with Raven.
"Teen Titans go!" Robin motioned forward, but as he took the first step down the service ladder to enter the underground tunnel a rumble was felt coming from underneath. The roar of water, and an awful lot of it as well, came from the manhole and Robin was catapulted 10 feet into the air as a shaft of green polluted and foul smelling sewage water burst forth. It only lasted for a few brief seconds, leaving all 5 of the Teen Titans soaked to the bone and reeking of bacterial fermentation.
Two hours later the 5 Teen Titans arrived back at Titans Tower. They spoke not a word to each other, but went straight to their respective rooms and all took long lasting and desperately needed showers. Changing their clothes, they all, interestingly enough, arrived at the main room at about the same time. The wall sized tv flickered to life and a man's face took up the screen as he read the midday news. The 5 friends prepared and ate lunch in relative silence; even Beast Boy was not in much of a mood to crack his usual arrangement of jokes and gags. After the eruption of water, they spend the last 2 hours searching through the sewers for any sign of the escaped delinquent. The search was in vain. They even couldn't get any clues off of the blades the offender had used. Not only did the sewer water washed off any fingerprints, but also all 3 blades still had little price tags on them. Apparently he had stolen the weapons from a nearby shop and the owner was ecstatic to have his merchandise returned.
They questioned the storeowner about the boy who had stolen them. He said the boy had identified himself as 'Knives' and that he was new in town and wanted to purchase the 3 weapons for protection. The owner also vouched for Knives by revealing the fact that he had spent the better part of an hour browsing the various goods at the store, looking for the best set his money could buy, and had intended on purchasing the 3 weapons in question. He had even pulled out the necessary money to do so. But at that moment there was a shout and a series of explosions, it was then that Knives had grabbed the weapons and rushed out the door, saying he would be right back, while the owner had dropped down behind his sales counter for protection.
All of their findings, along with Raven's account of what had transpired before she blanked out, pointed to the possible conclusion that Knives had only been in the wrong place, at the right time and had indeed rescued Raven from an unknown fate. Robin, Cyborg, and StarFire felt slightly ashamed at how they had treated her rescuer, but they didn't dwell on it too long, cause logically speaking, they had know way to knowing that beforehand. They did have every intention of apologizing if they met him again.
What really worried them was that the criminal who had been struck down by Knives' sword had disappeared sometime before the smoke had fully cleared. Nowhere to be found, he was, along with any evidence of who had shot Raven with a tranquilizer. Robin was convinced that Slade, his arch nemesis, was behind it. It was just his style. The lack of evidence, the cryptic clues, and the final disappearing act, all of it had Slade's name on it. But what was the motivation, Robin continued to muse over it.
He suddenly felt a chill crawl down his spine. He knew why this day was special. Why he had had trouble sleeping last night and why he dreaded facing the day. The crowd of protestors had been chosen, as the bait, for a reason. Why had he not seen it before? The protests had been concerning the Blasted Land and today, this very day, was the 2nd anniversary of its founding.
"StarFire," Robin broke the silence, "you wanted to know about the Blasted Land?" StarFire turned to meet Robin's eyes.
"Yes I do Robin, even more now." She replied.
"Yeah, tell us about it." Beast Boy stepped in. Robin opened his mouth to answer their curiosity, but Raven beat him.
"Two years ago," she began, her eyes looking down at the table, "some misguided people used a low yield nuclear warhead, detonating it far outside the city. Creating a circle of wasteland 30 miles in diameter. Remember where we first met Terra? That's where it is." Realization dawned on StarFire and Beast Boy.
Several weeks earlier they had encountered a young girl named Terra. She had been running from an 8 foot tall Scorpion, but had easily dispatched the creature by rising up a large shaft of rock and slammed it down on top of the creature.
"So that's where that oversized insect came from." Beast Boy, who's eyes suddenly formed little heart shapes as he remembered Terra. Beast Boy wouldn't admit it, but then it was pretty obvious anyway, he had a crush on the blond haired elemental girl. He sighed with longing and melted to the ground his thoughts secured in his own reality, oblivious to the stares he was getting from the rest of the group.
Without another word Raven rose from the table and retreated from the room. The others watched her go, silently.
"Man, I've never seen Raven look so depressed. You'd think someone had just died." Cyborg injected.
"We should return happiness and cheer to her heart by the giving of unhealthy junkfoods." StarFire suggested, her mood becoming increasingly bright under her own suggestion.
"Forget it StarFire," Countered Robin, "We should just leave her alone."
"We should all get together and do something that she would like to do." suggested Cyborg.
"Like what?" a now recovered Beast Boy asked.
"I don't know, something to lighten up, to chill, have a little fun."
"Dude, she doesn't like to do anything," Beast Boy shook his head, "her idea of fun is for us all to sit on the roof and meditate." He punctuated his point by slipping into his best impersonation of Raven, "Fun? Ah yes the employment of time in a profitless and non-practical way." He shook his hands in a futile gesture.
"BB," Cyborg said jumping to his feet, a large grin playing on his face, "If there is one thing the Cy-man knows; is how to throw a good time." Wheeling about he charged through the exit, chuckling to himself as he went.
"Wait up Cy!" Beast Boy called as he quickly followed in step. Leaving Robin and StarFire by themselves. StarFire turned to Robin as she slid out of her seat, her eyes sparkling with anticipation. "It is good to see our friends full of happiness and joy again. I will help them prepare for the celebration." Then there was one left at the table. Robin slipped into a quite revere, his thoughts trying to make sense of today's events.
It wasn't long before Robin had cleaned up the mess table. Pacing in random directions down the corridors of Titans Tower, his feet subconsciously led him to his 'thinking' room. Inside this spherical room, a single low wooden table sat in the center while a single light, provided by an overhead lamp, illuminated the surface of the table. Covering the wall was a montage of newspaper clippings and pictures. All of the clippings bore headlines and stories that were crime related. While the pictures bore the faces of all the villains that the Teen Titans had tracked down and brought to justice since their founding.
It was here that Robin did his best thinking, provided that he remains uninterrupted. But someone walked through the door into the poorly lit darkness. Robin looked up to find Raven slowly approaching him clutching a piece of paper in her hand. Saying nothing she held the paper up, it was in fact an old clipping from a newspaper that had long since went out of business. The date in the top placed the article 2 years, minus 1 day, old. Robin grazed the headline, "Terrorists Detonate Nuclear Bomb In Warehouse." The article blamed the forming of the blasted land on a group of disgruntled scientists attempting to sell a nuclear device to a terrorist cell and the device was set off, during an army raid of the complex, by one of the scientists.
Robin looked at Raven after he had finished the article. He knew about the incident, it had made newspapers all over the world. The nickname 'Blasted Land' was first quoted by the, at the time, Mayor who pleged to clean up the mess caused by the blast, radiation and fallout. To date, only the fallout and radiation had been cleaned while the blast site remained a barren sandy wasteland to this day.
"This," Raven indicated the article in her hands, "is not how it really happened."
"I know." He replied looking Raven in the eyes. An arduous silence filled them for an unknown amount of time.
"We can't tell the others." He found himself saying finally.