Teen Titans: Half-Life

Chapter 8: H.I.V.E. of the Mind and Darkness of the Soul. (Part 2)

It was a small celebration. Indeed, they were delighted for Beast Boy having made a full recovery free of complications. But recent events still hung heavily on their minds. Beast Boy implored a couple times to be informed on undisclosed events. Yet every time he would ask, they would give the same reply, 'Wait until Robin gets back.' They felt it would be best for their leader to be present to add in his account of events passed, but the truth was they were stalling for time.

Cyborg cooked, he cooked tofu dogs, tofu burgers for BB and regular hot dogs and burgers for everyone else and topped it up with macaroni and cheese, juice, and cola on the side; of which every teen enjoyed.

BB took it upon himself to lighten up the atmosphere.

"Guys," He called for their attention, "Lets see who can make the tallest tower of macaroni." This was just what the others needed.

"Betcha can't make it passed 10." Cyborg challenged while pouring a generous portion of mac & cheese into 4 bowls, which he then placed before the attendees. Starfire clapped her hands as she let out a laugh of much relieved joy.

"Your on dude!" BB returned the challenged.

It took them no time to get themselves lost in the 'game.' Picking, gently, the individual elbows of cheesy macaroni goodness, the 3 players stacked them, one atop another, into towers of artificial cheese coated, tube shaped, pieces of pasta. The world outside the dinner table seemed to halt in place as the 3 gave all their concentration over to the task at hand. Cyborg performed the most poorly, his tower collapsing after barly surpassing 12 pieces. His failing was the size of his hands and his slightly clumsy nature when it came to delicate tasks. True his arms were all mechanical and computer powered, true he could construct a first-rate, technologically superior car, true he could lift more weight than an entire gym of muscle heads, but he was all about power and elegant subtlety was not his forte.

Starfire took second place, her tower more than double what Cyborgs had been. She found this 'game' so fascinating that she started a second tower amongst Cyborgs moans of defeat.

"That's not fair, man." He sighed at BB's already impressive, and still growing, construction. 40 pieces, all perfectly aligned, overshadowed the small cheese lake that grew with each addition. The thing about Beast Boy was that he adored time-wasting games. 'Armpit: Name that Tune, Unicycle Polo on floor 13, Soap-sud slalom down the cargo ram, and tiddlywinks show jumping,' these were some of the more 'harmless' games he had invented. The 'harmful' ones were only so if you were a Raven or Starfire and didn't lock up your undergarments drawer. Yet despite his childish demenor and sometimes-clumsy mannerisms, there was no one better with hand coordination than Beast Boy. Probably due to the insane number of hours spent playing one video game after another.

Knives on the other hand, just sat and watched the trio, engaged in their childish game as they were. Unlike the others he ate his food; not for engaging in ridiculous games. In a strange twist, coincidently, just as he took his last mouthful of mac and cheese, BB's tower collapsed.

"40 pieces!" BB jumped with arms in the air. To look at him you'd think he'd just won the lottery or something.

"Who's the man! Go Beast Boy, go Beast Boy with the mad skillz!" he danced on the tabletop, his feet nearly stepping in people's food several times.

This only served to infuriated Cyborg all the more, as he brought the palm of his hand down upon the table, sharply. The remainder of the food seemed to levitate a couple inches above the table as the shockwave caught BB off-guard. Furthermore it forced his center off balance and he collapsed off the side of his dance floor. Luckily for BB, Knives broke his fall.

"%#!" Grumbled the surprised and agitated Knives from beneath the oppressive weight. BB just groaned as stars played around his head.

"Alright, Jolly Green, this isn't over." Cyborg barked, "I can still beat your butt on Metal Arms! Booya!" Cyborg made an offensive gesture.

BB hadn't seen Cyborg make the gesture, but he heard it and experience filled in the rest. He was about to accept the challenge when he suddenly launched into the air, courteous of the now ticked Knives. Knives exploded from below the table, both hands up, lifting BB from off of him and unceremoniously dropped him onto the table. Knives' fury quickly dissolved now that he was free from restraint.

"You never learn, Cyborg." BB said, completely ignoring his uplifting experience, "I'm the master of 'Metal Arms'. You can play those controls all night and I'll tell you what, dude; you'll never beat my high score."

"I can still beat you down in deathmatch!"

"Then let's get at it, dude, and I'll show you how the pros do it."

With that final administration of challenge the pair ran off, out of the dinning room and headed for the main room in a near blinding speed that would make Flash proud, while Knives brushed himself off.

"I wish to check up on Robin." Starfire's smile was still full of cheer as she placed her dirty dishes into the nearly full sink and quietly walked out of the room, heading for the elevator, leaving Knives by himself.

Not wanting to be a poor guest Knives cleared the table, placed the leftovers in the fridge for a later meal, and cleaned the dirty dishes; placing them aside to air dry, all the while sounds of heavy gunfire and multiple explosions spilled over from the Main room. The task couldn't have taken more than half and hour. But while he cleaned, his thoughts went to Starfire, Cybrog and Beast Boy. They didn't trust him very much; he could tell just from the way they looked at him. Starfire he wasn't so sure of. She seemed cheerful enough and treated him well. But something in his mind said not to underestimate her, cause it just didn't seem possible that she trusted him as much as she looked to be.

Why then did they just run off by themselves and give him free roaming rights of the interior. Knives' eyes traveled across the ceiling and walls. There didn't seem to be any security cameras and the doors didn't seem to have any locks; other than the standard lightweight, built in variant that all electronic doors came with.

"What a loose operation they run." Knives commented to him self with a hint of uneasiness. Maybe he just couldn't see the security system, but he doubted it. He had lived in a high security environment long enough to know how extensive a security system was by sight, sound, and instinct and right now all his senses said that defenses were minimal. But this was just the living level; he'd had to check out the rest of floor first.

A yawn interrupted his thoughts, he was getting tired and it was late. Thankfully he had already been assigned a room, and had even been told where it was. He turned to the door he had seen Starfire walk through. It opened up into a wide corridor that lead both to the bedrooms and to the elevator. Knives turned away from the bedrooms and instead stepped into the elevator. The doors opened to admit him inside and immediately closed after he was contained. Pressing the button for the roof the elevator came to life and headed upwards. A squeal of metal seemed to go off every few seconds from somewhere above his head. Time to oil the gears he thought, loosing interest.

A cold wind pierced the metal walls of the elevator even before the doors had opened. It was night out, the sun having long since hidden beyond the horizon. It was colder tonight; winter was coming on pretty quick this year. Pretty soon it would be cold enough to start snowing. Thanking his luck that he had found residence, if even temporary, he didn't feel like camping outside in single digit temperatures.

He walked close to the edge of the roof facing the city. Tracing the edge of the city, where it meets the coast of the ocean, he looked for a break in the flow of buildings. Even without the sun, the city itself was illuminated brightly with all manner of streetlights, advertisements, cars, and houselights. It was not difficult at all to spot the interrupt that he was searching for. From here it was probably a good 3 miles away; he knew what it was it was even though he couldn't see it. It was a small public park and playground. What had it been now? 6 maybe 7 days since he had awoken on a swing in that park.

He had awakened on that swing in the middle of the afternoon; hungry, thirsty, and lost. He didn't know where he was, why he was there, how he got there and if that wasn't bad enough he could not recall anything of a past life, family, friends, almost everything. Except for Raven, he knew her from a previous point in his life; she was special in some way and important. He felt the need to safeguard her life, which is why he had convinced the others to have her locked up in the prison level and to cut her off from her powers, lest they run rampant again, like they did against Money. Even here he could see the pillars of smoke.

Yet, he knew who he was, what he was capable of and still retained a basic high school student's knowledge of the math and sciences, in addition to his medical knowledge. It became clear to him that his amnesia was not natural, if you could even call it that. Someone must've intentionally targeted those portions of his memory and wiped them clean. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced this was the case. What he could and couldn't remember was too clear-cut to have been simply caused by a sharp blow to the head.

A pretty intimidating situation all-round, but still it got worse. Knives had given up the ghost and yet managed to preserve his breathing privileges. Or to be clearer, HE was dead, but he was still here. He KNEW he had died but again, like so many other things, he was not sure HOW he had died. Whenever he concentrated deeply on it, he got a massively sharp pain in his spine, located around in the small of his back, and his legs went slightly numb. He was certain of it; he could feel the pain and despair that only people, who know that they will die, feel.

Shimmering frost was already taking over the roof of the Tower while the waves beat ever more violently upon the shore, and the wind continued to chill him and cover him in a second skin of goose bumps. He wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed for heat. It wasn't much good, as his quivering jaw demonstrated through the sound of his chattering teeth. Not ready to go back inside yet, cause he knew that in the morning he would have to answer many questions.

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"That's impossible!" Shouted Knives, not in disbelief, in anger, "they're all dead! They died a long time ago!" his features twisting into a scowl.

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Knives heard the imminent arrival of the elevator even before the doors rattled open. He didn't turn to face the newcomer, he already knew who it was just from the sound of the footsteps. Light, confident, deadly and graceful; the footsteps came closer. Knives' heart picked up a beat the feeling of imminent danger filled his veins, but he managed to remain calm despite the rising adrenaline.

"I'm surprised you managed to get out so soon." Knives' eyes never left the cityscape, but he instinctively reached for a kitchen knife he had concealed over his heart.

"I've lived here long enough to learn a trick or two," said Raven

"Indeed" replied Knives