Blackmail
Chapter 1: Where is Everyone?
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It was a quiet evening. The Titans had just gotten back to their home and were just settling in for a night of relaxation. Or, so they hoped.
"Hey B!" A cybernetic voice called out. Cyborg walked into the Titans' main living room, a hand raised to his mouth as he called for the changeling. "Wanna play some video games?" The green-skinned boy looked up from his place in front of the stove, working on a new tofu concoction.
"What d'you have in mind?" he asked. Cyborg shrugged, hiding a triumphant smirk from his friend as he slowly pulled a game (still in its box) from behind his back.
"Oh, I dunno…maybe some "Attack of the Ape-Worms III"!" Cyborg cried out the game's title, waving the game wildly in front of Beast Boy. The changeling looked at the game, his face a mix of awe and disbelief. He jumped over the counter, forgetting the stove was still on, slowly burning away at the tofu…tofu…whatever it was supposed to be.
"Dude, no way! I thought that didn't come out 'til December!" He jumped up, his arms flailing, as he tried to grab the box out of Cyborg's hands. The cybernetic teen kept holding it just out of reach, smirking. Beast Boy gave up on trying to get it, and just looked up at Cyborg. "How'd you get it?"
Cyborg smiled mysteriously. "I have my sources…" Cyborg turned away from Beast Boy and began to walk back out of the room. The shape-shifter slumped and went slowly back to his tofu, which would be activating the smoke alarm soon enough if he didn't do something. Cyborg cracked another grin and spun around. "So you wanna play or what?" Beast Boy turned back, all thoughts of saving his tofu gone. He smiled a smile to rival Cyborg's own and jumped over the couch, landing hard. The springs of the couch echoed his landing, shaking the other person sitting at the far end. Raven stood up quickly, hoping to avoid losing her page.
"Oh yeah!" Beast Boy pumped a fist and caught the box as Cyborg threw it over his shoulder. "You Player One again?"
Cyborg thought about it. "Nah, I'll catch up in a minute. You play solo first game; I'll beat your butt anyway." Beast Boy scoffed.
"You wish, dude." Cyborg just laughed and waved as he strolled confidently over to the bedrooms. Raven rolled her eyes.
"Boys." She noticed all the things even barely in Beast Boy's path had been knocked to the ground in some way or another. Summoning a small bit of her power, she picked them up one by one and put each knickknack back where it belonged. Raven sniffed the air. Something was burning. Turning to the kitchen, she noticed a stream of smoke trickling skyward. "Beast Boy, were you burning that tofu for a reason?"
Beast Boy, too obsessed with getting the high score right away (even though, being the first to play, he already did have the high score), didn't pay attention to the question, instead saying, in a mutter of a sorts, "Yeah, sure, whatever, Raven…"
Starfire floated into the room, bursting with her usual joy and elation. She noticed Raven cleaning up and, seeing Beast Boy crouched over a video game she didn't recognize, put two and two together. She asked Raven cheerfully, "Friend, may I accompany you in cleaning up after Beast Boy?"
Raven shrugged, not really caring either way. "Whatever." Raven noticed the trash had been dumped over. She winced, disgusted, and lifted the trashcan up, then levitated a huge piece of tofu and threw it into the trashcan. "Have you seen Robin around lately?" asked Raven, attempting to start a conversation. "I don't think I've seen him since we battled Plasmus."
Starfire put a finger to her chin and looked upward, thinking. "No, actually, I have not seen friend Robin. I was actually going to ask you the same question!" Starfire held up a banana peel, holding her nose with her other hand. "…why is Beast Boy not joining you in the cleaning up of the mess he made?"
Raven sighed. "Because Beast Boy is Beast Boy, Starfire. I hope Robin actually comes to dinner tonight. He's been skipping too many meals lately."
"I agree. He must be getting hungry."
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Hours later, the above-mentioned meal had arrived, with Robin actually in sight (for once). "What's up, team?" Robin asked his teammates as he walked through the hydraulic doors. Everyone blinked long and slow at him. Everyone except Cyborg, that is. "What?"
Raven ended up being the one to confront him. "Where were you today after battling Plasmus? We couldn't find you anywhere." She took a long sip of tea, giving the Robin a moment to explain himself before the others had time to add in their two cents.
"Oh, uh, nowhere, um, just in my room." Robin mumbled through some BBQ sauce-encrusted ribs. As Beast Boy stuck a finger in his mouth, disgusted by Robin's eating habits, Raven and Starfire raised a suspicious eyebrow apiece.
"Ah-huh…" Starfire and Raven said simultaneously. Robin sweatdropped, realizing they didn't believe his excuse. He laughed nervously into his beans, hoping the night would slip by as fast as every other night.
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Time certainly seemed to pass in large dollops that day; just as the afternoon had slid by, before anyone knew it, dinner was over, and the Titans were edging towards their bedrooms to spend the rest of the night as they chose. Starfire had just opened her bedroom door when Cyborg slid out of nowhere to lean against the wall. Starfire jumped backwards a bit. "Hello friend Cyborg."
"Hey Starfire…can I talk to you, um, privately?" Cyborg asked, wearing a big smile. Starfire smiled back.
"Certainly, friend Cyborg!" answered Starfire. Cyborg smiled wider.
"Great! Come on—" With a short "eep" from Starfire, the two friends sped through the halls and ended up in Cyborg's room. He scrambled around the room, leaving Starfire gazing as he zoomed around.
"Aha!" He cried, holding up a folder. "Now, about that thing I wanted to tell you about…"
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The next day, Raven was sitting comfortably on the far end of the couch, enjoying the quiet. She turned a page in her newest Stephen King book, and found she couldn't concentrate; it was too quiet, somehow. The empath looked up. There was nobody around…then she noticed a pointed green ear peeking out from the kitchen. Sighing to herself, she called out to the changeling, knowing she was about as desperate as she could be.
Beast Boy peeked his head completely around the stove. "Yeah?" he asked, walking over to the couch and sitting down by Raven. "What'cha want?" Raven quickly searched around for something to say.
"Uh…have you seen Starfire lately?" asked Raven. "I haven't seen her around at all today." Beast Boy nodded.
"Dude, I know. Is she copying Robin, or what?" The changeling flipped on the TV, searching for a decent station as he added, "Haven't seen her, or Cyborg for that matter." Struck by an idea, Beast Boy turned his head slowly to face Raven's. "You don't think…?"
"Don't be stupid, Beast Boy. That would never happen." Raven answered, making Beast Boy feel like an idiot once again. His ears flopped to either side of his head, and he went back to looking for a good show. "Tell me if you see them, ok? I'm worried…everyone seems to be absent lately." Raven stood up and walked off into the hall, leaving her book behind. Beast Boy, noticing the object, turned around on the couch and held it up, but Raven was already gone. He sighed.
"Probably off to meditate…again." The green-skinned hero sighed as he flipped over the book to see what exactly was she reading that was so interesting. "Whoa!" BeastBoy let go of the book, like it was covered with some sort of infectious disease. "Raven read Stephen King? That guy is creepzilla!" The title of the book was 'Cujo,' and the picture on the cover was of a rabid dog growling, teeth as sharp as any dog could ever hope for.
Out in the hall, Raven had bumped into Robin. "…no sign of the two of them either?" Robin shook his head, and for some reason, now that he bumped into Raven, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. He was sweating a lot too.
"I was hoping you'd seen them." The two sighed, then walked to their respective rooms to do what they did best; think.
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Lunch rolled around, with Beast Boy making a tofu version of a BLT, having discovered the failure that awaited him in stovetop vegan the day before. Raven (having been a convincing force in the no-more-frying policy) was sitting at the kitchen table, bored, making sure Beast Boy didn't destroy the toaster somehow too. She was munching half-heartedly on a golden-yellow apple. Robin was munching on a true BLT, mildly amused by Beast Boy's attempts at toasting his bread. As for why it was so amusing…let's just say the trash can was open, and almost entirely filled with blackened pieces of what might have once been food. It was hard to tell.
The doors burst open, and three heads turned to the doors. "Friends!" Starfire cried out happily, spreading her arms wide apart. "I have longed to see you!" Immediately, Beast Boy was up in her face, spewing questions a mile a minute. Behind him, a fifteenth set of sandwich bread slices began to burn as he interrogated his Tameranean friend.
"Where were you all day? All of yesterday? Huh? Huh? And where were you Mister Cyborg?" He added swiftly, noticing the bionic teenager slipping into the room behind Starfire.
"Whoa, calm down Beast Boy. No need to grill Star for answers to unreasonable questions," Robin said. "Is something wrong?" Beast Boy turned on the Boy Wonder just as quickly as he had approached Starfire.
"What's wrong?" Beast Boy shouted, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "What's wrong is that it's a lot harder to beat Cyborg in video games when he's not here, and it's a lot harder to barf when Starfire's not cooki—"
"What Beast Boy is trying to say is that he was worried about you two." Raven interrupted her fellow Titan swiftly, not wanting him to say something he'd regret. Beast Boy sweatdropped, realizing what he had almost said. He silently thanked Raven, and slid away from Starfire to try and make more toast as she asked Robin why Beast Boy had been attempting to grill her?
Cyborg walked in large steps over to the concerned shape-shifter. "Don't worry B…we were just in—" Seeing Starfire's horrified face, he coughed loudly, though it sounded oddly like Robin's room. Starfire breathed a silent sigh of relief nobody else seemed to notice. Cyborg wrapped a metal arm around Beast Boy and pulled him close, muttering conspiratorially, "Oh, and BB, I need to talk to you privately after lunch. Meet me in my room, k?"
Beast Boy shrugged off Cyborg's arm. "Whatever dude," answered Beast Boy, pulling out the sixteenth failed toast. "I'll be there as soon as I manage to make a decent piece of—" Raven held out a sandwich plate, with Beast Boy's sandwich already prepared. While he had been preoccupied, she had fixed it for him, bored of his half-baked attempts.
"Uh…thanks, Raven." She stared at him unblinkingly.
"Whatever. Just eat; you're wasting all the bread." Not needing any more persuasion, Beast Boy wolfed down the sandwich in two bites. Raven sweatdropped as he licked crumbs off his fingers with loud, wet smacks of his lips.
Cyborg got up from the table. "I'm done too, B. Hey Raven, would you take care of the dishes?" Raven blinked at the metal man.
"Tonight's your night to do dishes," answered Raven bluntly. "Surely you're not going to be with Beast Boy all night, are you?" Cyborg sweatdropped.
"…yeah…and I'll pay you back, I promise!" Cyborg bent down on both knees. "BB and I are gonna have a night-long talk and I won't have time to do the dishes!" Raven frowned, looking down at her pleading friend.
"Well…alright." Cyborg cheered silently. "…but you do dishes in two days when it was supposed to be my turn." Cyborg stuck out a hand, and Raven shook it.
"Deal."
Cyborg glanced sneakily at his green-skinned friend, who was looking around at nothing, picking earwax out of his ear. "Now then…let's have that talk of ours, shall we?" With that, the two boys vanished from the room as quickly as if they had teleported their way out.
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What's Cyborg doing? Why can't he do the dishes? Why exactly are you asking them? They don't know the answers. Shut up. You don't know yet either.
--'…I dislike you.
Thank you.
Tune in next time, whenever we remember to continue—in other words, after we get at least five good reviews—to find out these answers and more, thanks to the writing styles of Neopuff &gladdecease
Sayonara! Ja ne!