Generic Disclaimer:
No, I do not own the characters portrayed in
this story. No, I do not own the shows that they come from. No, I do
not have ownership of Warner Bros. I do have the artistic license to
let this story be shown, as it will always be non-profit and open to
the public. Any characters, places, or events that may resemble
actual people, living or dead, places or events is entirely
coincidental. I apologize in advance for anyone who may be insulted
by this work.
Hey. Yeah, it's me again. Noticed a whole lot of Titan-less fun in that last one? I noticed it too; technically, that was supposed to be part of Chapter 5, but I figured that this one was long enough. As you can see, the mystery is building. Why is she only two years old? Why can she generate her own power? All these questions are coming closer to a conclusion, but not yet. The storm is approaching, and you might as well want to grip something. After this chapter, it gets rough.
w00t! Numbah 5. Please don't yell.
-Hybrid
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The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song
- The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot
Chapter
5
Beast Boy looked up at the sky from inside the Tower and frowned. "Aww, man. It's too grey out there." He commented, looking up at the milky grey sky up there.
None of the other Titans took much notice. The sky wasn't that bad, and there was pretty much no chance of raining. Sun still shone through, but it only illuminated the milky greyness that hung up there. Beast Boy shrugged and flopped down on the couch in the living room. "Dude, can ya pass the nachos?"
Cyborg tossed over the bag of nachos over to BB and fell back on the couch with a dull thud and looked out the window. "Looks like it's gonna be cool today. Didn't even see a cloud in the sky yesterday, too." Cyborg said, staring out the window tiredly before just resting back against the couch.
BB ate some nachos, nodding his head. "I'm gonna haveta' change into something warm.." He glances at the food he was eating. "... Yet can eat nachos..." Pondering, he shrugs and turns into a giant green gorilla. Still holding the bag of nachos, BB continues to eat them. Only, this time, it was in a much larger amount and only slightly less noisier.
One of the more lonelier members, Starfire, was sitting near another window, just staring out at the city absently. She had her elbow rested against the window frame and her chin in her hand. "..."
Cyborg looked over around the room in boredom. Seeing Starfire sitting like that beside the window, there was a sudden feeling of deja vu that reminded him of an earlier event. "Aww, c'mon Star! You know the dude'll be back before ya know it." He says optimistically, flashing a confident grin in her direction.
The red-headed girl looked over at Cyborg, giving a small smile. "Unlike previously, our new friend is not the cause of my condition. Rather, it is the milky pallor of your evaporated water groupings which has dulled my convalescence." Her eyes lit up a bit more now, another thought coming to her. "Perhaps it may rain, allowing us to watch more earthly cinematics and consume carbonated and fat-saturated sustenance!" She was glowing now with cheeriness, a sheet of bright colours now acting as a backdrop with little bubbles full of what she was thinking. Sub-consciously, she was more happy and relieved to be back in the presence of all of her friends.
"They just came out with a new movie, too!"
Beast Gorilla exclaimed in a happy voice, before shifting into a
jokingly ominous one. "Gruesome Carnage!"
"Yea!
I remember that one! The only movie where it was a mechanical brotha
who did it." Cyborg says, grinning at his robot activism.
Bringing up a fist, he hits himself in the chest as a sign of respect
to his unseen comrades. " 'Bout time they make a psychotic
robot, jus' like the non-metal dudes." Getting up, he strode
towards the door. "Lemme pull the T-Car out for a spin." He
says over his shoulder to them.
Starfire smiled warmly. "The luminescent Car of T. It shall be a joyous occasion indeed.!" She exclaimed in her usual Starfire Cheeriness©.
"Hold that off for now."
At the door was Robin. Alexis wasn't with him, but she could be seen flying towards the city. "Titans, something's up."
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After sending out the call for Raven, the remaining four remained in the computer room, looking serious and ready for some kind of battle. Even Beast Boy, in his short greenness, looked ready as much as the other three within the room. On the screen in front of them was a recording from the First Jump City Bank, showing Jinx throwing a bolt at the screen and blinking it into nothingness, with Mammoth in the background tearing through a teller station.
"Alexis sensed this a few minutes ago. The video was sent to us at around the same time, so she should be there waiting for us in a minute." Robin stated.
"Titans, move out!" He exclaimed.
Just as they went to leave, Starfire spoke up. "What about Raven? Surely, we should not leave her so."
Robin looked a bit grim with thought. "She will catch up with us. This can't wait." He answered solidly, still on his way out of the room.
Reluctantly, the other Titans followed suit.
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"Want som'more?" Alexis cried out, sending another golden surge at the purple goth. Jinx simply flipped out of the way, lobbing back another purple hex to Alexis. The shot simply impacted against her cloak like a cloud would against a mountain."You've got some tough skin." Jinx commented with a smirk. "Too slow for me though." She added, throwing another two forms of energy at her before acrobatically flipping away from another golden burst. "Hehehe... Such clumsy beams. I'm surprised you're even a threat at all." She comments, still smirking.
Alexis straightened up, obviously flustered by Jinx's taunting but trying not to show it. "You will not get the best of me, wench!" Just as she goes to throw another bolt, a large mechanical arm smacks into her from the side, knocking her into a building. "Agh!"
The little boy,
now standing on what looked like mechanical stilts in a mechanical
suit, swung his arms back to proportion around him. "To think,
the human insect AND Megiddo couldn't take you down. You're too
fun!" He exclaims, a jet now protruding from his back that shot
him straight up into the air, the arms and legs turning quite clawed.
As the smoke continued to clear where Alexis landed, he shoots
himself straight down at her position, the claws poised to strike.
A
much smaller golden bolt shot out from the dust, hitting the side of
Gizmo's device. Although shaken, it still continued to descend. With
this, a larger one shot out, now forcing the mechanical kid away from
the dust and into the pavement beside her, the claws sticking into
the ground.
Gizmo tried to pull the claws out at first, but they appeared to be stuck. "Ugh! It's just pavement! Come out!" He yelled at his machinery.
The dust cleared instantly. Alexis was standing there, looking quite healthy with the exception of a bleeding arm. When she had hit the wall, she had landed on a sharp piece of metal where her arm was gashed. Seeming to ignore the gash, she pointed her hand at Gizmo. "Sorry, but you just got your ticket out of here."
"'Fraid not!"
A purple blast hit the ground in front of Alexis, causing cement to spray up at her face. She covered her head with her hands and stepped back a couple of steps before looking to see who did that.
Jinx had
seated herself on a lamppost while watching Alexis and Gizmo fight.
She giggled down at the golden woman. "Didn't forget about me,
did you?"
"Oh, we didn't!" Someone yelled. A large
blue beam shot out from behind, striking Jinx in the back and
knocking her clean through the air before she landed on the pavement
hard. She still rolled back up onto her feet again and turned to look
at the new arrivals.
The Titans, with the exception of Raven, were all in formation.
"Jinx, Gizmo, Mammoth: return to
Exodus." a voice on Gizmo's and Jinx's communicator, the
Brother Blood, had said.
Jinx wrinkled her nose, not wanting to
pass up a fight like this, but sighed unappreciatively. "Fine..."
Jinx disappeared in the alleyway next to her, as Gizmo pulled himself
from the ground and shot off into the sky.
Mammoth, having spent the entire time inside of the bank with the vault, let out an annoyed grunt and dashed out of there. "That thing was almost open, too." He complained under his breath. Everything seemed much quieter now.
The Titans went over to Alexis. "Are you ok? Looks like you took a beating." Robin asked, seeing her wound.
"It's nothing, really. I'll heal it over when we go
back..." Alexis looks in the direction of where the two villains
were. "Seems like they've retreated."
"Wouldn't
count on it." Cyborg comments. "'Dey don't usually leave
fo' long. Give 'em a few hours, and they'll be back."
"The best course of action would be to... 'Wait them out', is it not?" Starfire asks, still hovering in the air although now in a relaxed fashion as opposed to a defensive stance. The grey sky continued to work that dreary effect on her, despite the fore coming of the afternoon with friends. It also seemed to be getting darker, starting to turn into night.
"Yeah... We better get back to the Tower." Robin says, now walking in the direction of the Tower. Beast Boy flew on ahead while carrying Cyborg by his shoulders. Being able to transform into a large, flighted dinosaur helps in these matters. Starfire started to drift back as well, but she stopped and looked to Robin, who was still walking.
"Where is our
friend, Alexis?" She asked, seeing that Alexis has disappeared
somewhere while they were talking.
Robin looked around, also not
noticing her. "Go on ahead, Star. I'll look for her." He
said, smiling up to her. "It'll only be a minute."
Starfire
smiled in return, turned, and flew off with her other
friends.
Looking down at the ground, he saw small flecks of blood leading from where Alexis was standing to an alleyway. Looked as though Alexis were trying to follow Jinx to wherever she was going to go. Standing up straight, Robin started to walk at the alleyway.
For some reason, he found himself walking past the alleyway. Blinking, he stopped and turned to look back at the spot where he was supposed to go. "... What the..." He murmured under his breath. Taking a few more steps, he found himself walking past it again. Robin didn't know what happened. For a moment he thought that there was something wrong with him. That something might have snapped within him. Standing where he was, the alleyway was within reach of him. Before he took a step, he grabbed the corner tightly with a hand and took a step. Without his hand on the corner, his feet would have kept walking on. Really, it wasn't him; it was the alleyway itself. With his hand on the corner, he pulled out a bird-a-rang from his belt with a tether attached to it, and flung it at an emergency fire exit ladder that was in view. His hand shook from the need to turn away from the alley, but the device he threw had no such restrictions. It swung around the ladder and locked itself there.
Robin, now holding onto the tether with both of his hands, started to pull. As if he were walking up a mountainside, he pulled himself into the alleyway. His body kept trying to fall backwards, as if some gravity field were behind him, and it only got stronger as he went. After a few more metres of that intense pressure against his body, he finally broke through the gravity, stumbling forward against the air. Breathing heavily, he unravelled his bird-a-rang back and placed it back into his belt.
With a quick examination of the
alleyway, it seemed much more brighter than when he was in the
street. Out there, it looked pitch black. Now, he saw a large metal
doorway at the end of the alley, with a small trail of droplets of
blood leading up to it. It may have looked like a loading dock,
except that the doorway was far too high-tech and there was an
interface just beside it. Robin thought about getting the other
Titans back here, but he saw how hard it was just to enter the
alleyway. It would be better if he handled this himself. Moving over
to the interface, he saw a screen that read "ENTER PASSWORD
HERE". What was weird about it, was that there was no place to
enter a password, nor any room to place a password onto the screen.
Raising an eyebrow, Robin took a small electronic device from his
belt and placed it on the screen. The device lightly clamped onto the
screen and lightly flashed a couple of times.
The screen seemed
to flicker for a few moments as well, followed by data scrolling from
all sides, before it flashed green. Robin was eternally grateful that
Cyborg had taken the time to give him that external hacking device,
or he would have had to make his entrance known. The door opened
swiftly as opposed to the usual slowness. Cold air washed out of it
and lingered around him. Still, this did not stop Robin from walking
into the darkness without fear. Just as Robin entered, the door
closed behind him. Just as the door closed, it disappeared. There was
nothing but an alleyway there, as if the door were meant for only one
usage.
From the rooftop overlooking the door, Jinx raised an
eyebrow. "Did Boy Wonder just disappear into a wall?" She
shrugged, and continued back to Exodus
where they awaited her, while
under the cover of dusk.
----------
In the darkness, the drones had returned to Slade. Their task had been completed. Slade stood there silently for a long time, looking as though he were in thought. The first part of the task had been complete, and all that was left was so simple yet so difficult to assign. A hurdle that he thought he would never have to do again, nor to witness. However, in his mind, he must be done. That past was gone for him. He had evolved beyond it. What he will command would not affect him. Finally, he turned his eye up to the drones again. "Initiate Phase Two."
The drones bowed for a moment, then leaped back out of sight. Slade gripped his wrist just a bit harder and closed his eye.