Teen Titans: The Infinite Caves Multiverse Mystery
Chapter 1: VICtim
Jericho had been watching Nightwing secretly for weeks. He stuck to the shadows while the ex-boy wonder spent many a sweaty hour in the training room and even spied on him when Grayson was on monitor duty, peering from around the corner, as silent as his voice-box.
"What the fuck?" Nightwing would say as he spun around in his swivel chair, but Jericho had slipped from view at the last second. With his back pressed against the wall in the hallway, the blonde mute would hold his hands over his chest and smile. Nightwing had noticed him.
It was one afternoon when Jericho surreptitiously followed Nightwing to the training room again, peering unseen from behind the wall of the doorway. As Batman's former partner, Nightwing possessed one of the most startling physiques Jericho had ever seen on a man and, coupled with that razor sharp detective mind, it was no wonder he was leader of the Teen Titans. Jericho admired this; Nightwing was slim yet strong, soft yet hard, dedicate yet playful, a contradiction of contradictions, a bubbling dose of effervescence, with flawless features and a sensuous gaze.
Though Jericho longed to communicate with playboy Grayson, it wasn't simply the fact that he couldn't speak that prevented this act -it was that he knew the man had his dazzling eyes set on somebody else.
As if on cue with his thoughts, a figure came down the hallway. He slunk back into the shadows seamlessly as she entered the training room. Jericho snarled ineffectually, his pale features brimming red with jealousy. It was that damn Wonder Girl again.
- - - - -
Dick Grayson wiped his face with a towel when Donna entered. The Amazon stopped by a mirror and propped her hair before setting her smouldering gaze upon him. Even though Dick was with Starfire, Dick couldn't help itself whenever Wonder Girl was in the room.
"Hey Donna"
"Hello. What's up?"
"Not much."
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a figure peering from around the doorway. It was that fucking Jericho again. The mute slid out of view very slowly when he was spotted. A moment later, the face slid out again, before ducking back behind the wall. Nightwing turned to the window and saw the other half of Jericho's face slide out from the corner there. The mute was one creepy motherfucker, not unlike Calender Man or Film Freak in their prime, and it gave him the willies.
"What's wrong?" Wonder Girl asked.
Nightwing leaned in for a discrete word. "Uh, Jerry is over there." Both of them looked to the other door by the drinks machine where half of Jericho's face was now peeking from. "Can you go see what he wants? I would but I'm all sweaty and worked up."
"Yeah, I can see that."
They both stood there facing each other. A sudden creak of leather made them both look down to Dick's leather crotch.
"I will go now," Donna said.
"Yes."
- - - - -
Wonder Girl moved out into the hallway. Jericho had since moved further down the corridor and as he planned, she walked after him, only to stop at the mirror he had conveniently set upon the wall. As she looked herself over and freshened up her lipstick, he slid into the reflection behind her. She turned around and looked into his eyes; his fingers pawed at her, claw-like, locking her into his gaze.
- - - - -
Cyborg was on the industrial side of town, disguised in a trench coat and baseball cap. He had received an anonymous tip that there was trouble brewing down by an old factory. As he wandered around outside, he pulled up data on his HUD that had recorded the odd message. "Come to Factory 13: I can be made by one yet destroy everyone. What am I?"
He stood under the shadow of the huge industrial plants, brewing over the strange clue when there was a crunch of gravel behind him. Cyborg turned around and his jaw dropped in shock. Standing there in a green trench coat, with matching bowler hat and leaning on a question mark cane was the Riddler, a gleeful grin across his face. He fixed the shocked Cyborg with a troubling stare and the metallic hero hesitated, face-to-face with one of the deadliest criminal masterminds of Gotham City.
"Have you figured it out yet?" the green larrikin said with a grin.
Cyborg fumbled with his hand, trying to click one of his cyber-guns into action. The Riddler simply held up a small device ominously and turned the dial. An explosion erupted underneath Cyborg's feet, sending him crashing through a series of metal pipes behind.
"I am t3h bomb," Riddler grinned.
- - - - -
Inside his private room at Titan's headquarters, Superboy's heightened hearing heard an explosion in the distance. He shoved some popcorn into his mouth and leaned back in his chair, undoing the top button of his pants.
"They'll handle it," he muttered, drinking from his slurppee and changing the channel to a lesbian porn movie.
"What?" said Kid Flash, waking up with a patch of drool on the sofa where his face had been pressed.
"Nothing," Superboy said, eating more popcorn.
- - - - -
Goddamn I'm horny, thought kid flash, looking at the porn movie. It didn't help that he had a constitution that was twenty times faster than the normal human. No matter how many times he gave himself release, three seconds later his balls were full again and aching.
"I'm going to…get a drink," he said, moving over to the mini-bar where he'd get the three seconds of coverage he needed.
"Whatever," said Superboy.
- - - - -
Nightwing got changed back into his costume and left the training room, heading back to his room. Starfire would be back in an hour and so he had to dumb his brain down with a few hours of TV. He was going through episodes of American Idol when a knock came at the door. Opening it, he was surprised to see Wonder Girl standing there, her arm resting against the door frame and a come hither look on her face.
"Donna? Is everything okay?"
Wonder Girl, with a strange pale pair of eyes, grabbed him between the legs, making him squeal. "I don't know. You tell me, big boy."
"Holy mackerel, I don't think we should do this."
"Why not? I've seen the way you look at me and how I look at you, and how we look at each other. You're not worried about Starfire are you?"
"No, I mean your super-strength. I'm only a normal human being after all."
"I'll be gentle."
"Thank God. I…ahh!" Wonder Girl pushed Nightwing from his feet, and he flew across the room before bouncing off the wall with a thump and landing in the bed. She ran her tongue along her teeth then ripped off her breast plate and gave a freaky Amazonian war chant A-LALALALALA as she leapt through the air ontop of him.
"Jeeping jilliping, mother of…holy fuck!" The bed crashed to the floor, clothes were thrown everywhere and the helpless body of Dick Grayson bounced off the walls amid wild, unrelenting passions.
- - - - -
"You hear something?" said kid flash, lifting his head from the couch. Superboy sucked on a large cone and passed it over.
"Chill," Superboy said, a smile creeping to his features, smoke filling the air of the Teen Tower basement.
Kid Flash took a drag and held his breath with a grin. "Shiiiiiit," he said, slowly exhaling.
"Let's get Nachos."
"Where?" Superboy said, taking the cone back.
"That little stand in Mexico…you know the one."
The two sped off from the tower.
- - - - -
Another explosion rocked the abandoned warehouse district and the battered body of Cyborg crashed through another support structure. The debris from the shattered building poured down on top of him and his systems were going haywire at the massive amount of damage he was taking. Plumes of smoke drifted through the holes in the walls and the nightmarish figure of the Riddler waltzed in, like a green-clad demon of poetry ascending from the pits of hell.
"What is black when it's born, red when it's alive, and gray when it dies?"
Cyborg tried to shrug off the rubble but Riddler turned the dial again, and a bright orange fireball flooded the mechanical man's sensors, propelling him off his feet once again. Cyborg hurtled through the air and clanged against a gas tank, then fell crumpled to the floor, writing in agony.
The Riddler wandered over to his downed foe casually, and revealed an empty sack. He fluffed the neck open and began to fill it with doorknobs. It loaded up nicely until the metal doorknobs gave it an obvious, menacing bulge.
"Tell me, Cyborg; what weighs three hundred pounds, is partly metal, is bloated and can strike you down in an instant?"
"Wha…?"
"Yo MOMMA."
Riddler swung the sack full of doorknobs and put the smack down on Cyborg. It was a furious assault that left him bludgeoned by the unrelenting brutality; blow after blow came and Cyborg's parts began to break, bend and disconnect. Wires and coolant began to spill from his cracked joints as he tried to block and red warning lights filled his right eye. This was indeed the criminal mastermind who was a foe of the Batman himself - Cyborg knew he didn't stand a chance.
"Got to…contact the Titans…" Blood, spit and oil dripped from his mouth but he managed to get a signal away.
Riddler beat him down with one last pimpin hit, then threw away the heavy sack and put a foot on the limp Cyborg's chest.
"What is lighter then air, can be seen with the naked eye and if you put it in a barrel it will make the barrel lighter?"
Cyborg coughed meekly.
"A hole."
Riddler pulled out a gun and shot Cyborg in the fleshy part of his chest.
- - - - -
A beeping sound from the bedside table came as a blessed relief to Nightwing, and he immediately dived for it, bruised, panting and in need of potassium.
"It's the emergency signal. Somebody needs our-"
Hands grabbed him by the ankles and dragged his naked body back across the floor. Nightwing, crying and pleading for mercy, held his arms across his face. "Holy violations Wonder Girl, no more, please."
"Hush," she murmured.
"But we shou-"
She grabbed his chest and yanked him up by his nipples. "What's my name, bitch?"
Nightwing shrieked. "Donna! You're Donna!"
Wonder Girl seemed to pause then, as if in some manner of confusion. She looked around the room, for a moment loosing that violent look in her eye. "Er, yeah, that's right, I am."
"What?"
"BITCH!"
With a snarl, she pushed him upwards until his head slammed up into the ceiling and gave lil' Dick Grayson a lasso of truth.
"Holy mother of fuck…" Nightwing moaned before passing out.
- - - - -
Starfire re-posed for her fashion shoot.
"Isn't that the emergency call?" asked Jimmy Olsen.
"Tee hee, yes," Starfire giggled. "Now fuck up and take the shots," she said, her face suddenly becoming hard.
"Er, yes ma'am," he said with a gulp.
"Tee hee, you're cute when you're afraid." …but gay all the way, Starfire mentally added, noticing his lack of a hard-on.
"Why don't you turn your head this way a little more," Jimmy said, all business once again.
"Tee hee, okay, honey. Let's play a game."
"Sure," he said, taking snaps.
"Let's play a game, where if I don't think you've done a good job with the photos, I crush your head like a grape and dump your body where no one will ever find it."
Jimmy dropped the camera, his mouth agape, and the camera lens cracking on the hardwood floor of the studio.
"Oh fuck…" he said, looking down. He dropped to all fours, scampering to pick up the camera pieces. "Please don't kill me…I…uh…please…I…"
Starfire clenched a fist, energy glowing between her fingers, and with a smirk she watched the urine stain spreading on Jimmy's trousers. He quivered under her gaze, tears running down his face.
"I'll do anything you want."
She rolled her eyes.
"Damn. You're no fun at all."
With a sigh, Starfire walked out, picking up her shopping bags at the door and flicking open her phone. She pressed the auto dial for home base. Three rings later it went onto the answering machine.
"This is Cyborg. We at Teen Titan Tower value your call. Please leave all appropriate details and we'll get back to you. If this is the Joker again, we don't think your calls are funny and you may as well stop, because the joke's over. BEEP."
"Cyborg…where is your crank metal arse? If you're crying about some broken toaster I'm gonna bitch slap you back to Kansas." Stomping a foot, she ended the call.
- - - - -
In a quiet field in the countryside not far from Titan Tower, the animals that grazed in the dark paddock were disturbed by peculiar noises from two sheep. The shadows of the two animals mingled under the moonlight, one an unusual emerald color, the green ram mounting the submissive ewe from behind.
"Baah"
"Baaaa"
"Baaa-ah"
"Baaa"
A communicator left on the fence suddenly buzzed as an emergency signal came through, disturbing the animals. The green ram pulled out of his ewe bitch and started to change; hoofs turned into hands, wool pulled back into his skin and soon the form of Beast Boy stood in its place. Beast Boy strolled over to the fence, picked up his communicator, then turned back to the female sheep.
"Sorry baby. I've got to go"
"Baaa"
- - - - -
Superboy walked down the street munching on chips. Beside him, a blurry shape darted back and forth as Kid flash tried to run off his randiness. The communicator in Superboy's pocket went off and he checked it.
"Dude, something's happening. We've got to – dude, what the fuck are you doing?"
He turned, seeing Kid Flash rapidly humping a lamppost, a focused and determined look on his face until he was found out. He stopped with an embarrassed expression.
"Man, I…I don't know. I'm so horny and I don't know why."
"You still dreaming about chicks? Man, it's normal, we're guys. At least we're not fags like Jericho."
"Yeah, you're right."
"We'd better go. Just let me finish my – dude, what the fuck?"
Superboy shook off Kid Flash as the young speedster began to hump his leg, pumping away like an energizer bunny. Kid Flash fell to the ground and looked up in shock.
"Oh man…"
"Yeah," Superboy gazed down at his young team-mate. There was something really peculiar happening these days, something bad that he couldn't put his finger on. What could possibly go undetected to Superboy? Something was wrong…very wrong indeed…
- - - - -
Through the cracked lens of his electronic eye, images of consciousness slowly returned to Cyborg. The screen flickered and crackled with fuzz until at last it cleared –the first thing he saw however was the despicable quintessence of evil: Riddler.
The green clad villain smirked. They were in an old abandoned factory and Cyborg was strapped to a table. "What is it we all have that hurts us, we own that betrays us, but if we lose it then everything it ever does has been erased?"
Cyborg looked at him languidly.
"Life, Cyborg. Life." Riddler held up an angle grinder and started it up. The circular saw whirled and its miniature engine shrieked out terribly.
"N-no…"
The vicious Riddler was without mercy. He took the saw to Cyborg's legs and began to cut through the organic steel. Cyborg screamed as sparks showered outward, the saw trembling in Riddler's hands as he pressed it down into the thigh until finally, the metal appendage fell to the floor with a sickening clunk. Cyborg cried and begged Riddler to stop, but as one of Batman's most dangerous foes, he lived up to his sadistic reputation.
It was a prolonged agony, a scene of grotesque torture so macabre and violent that even the Joker would be given pause. Industrial madness ensued as the Riddler sawed through Cyborg's other leg at the kneecap, his right arm, his leg again while it was on the ground, his crotch, paused for a coffee, then sawed off his arms to leave him more quadriplegic than the special Olympics.
Cyborg was a mess at the end; a ruined, disfigured, limbless mockery of a man struggling to stay balanced on the table. As just a torso with a head, he was emasculated beyond any imagined horror. Riddler hoisted him up by some chains and left him hanging from the ceiling on a mass of wires. Cyborg's head twitched a few times as he struggled to come to grips with being disabled.
Smoke curled from Riddler's lips as he exhaled a clove, the rings framing his face like a question mark.
"Riddle me this: I was dragged in chains across the sea by boat, and paid nothing while made slave to work on a coat. I picked cotton in fields at night, and they couldn't see me unless they turned on the light. What am I?"
"I…don't know…"
"Your daddy, Cyborg" Riddler exhaled another cloud of smoke as darkness set into the factory.
- - - - -
Wonder girl woke up in the gym room, the slight taste of genitals on her tongue. Picking up a rope, her knuckles whitened as her gripped tensed. Only one young man was fast enough to fuck her mouth and horny enough to think he'd get away with it.
"Kid Flash, I'm going to rip your balls off."
She snapped the rope.
- - - - -
Meanwhile, Beast Boy, in the form of a blood hound, sniffed an oil patch. His nose led him along a trail, coming to some blood. Further along, a bit of flesh was attached to a small metal coil.
He shape shifted back to human form.
"My beast senses tell me something's wrong. Something…but what?"
His gaze wandered to the large crater in the ground and a detonator resting against a box labelled 'Explosives!'
"Something happened here. Perhaps hawk eyes will reveal all."
Shape shifting, he turned his hawk vision around the area. Smeared in faeces, blood, and spray paint, giant letters along the wall beside him spelt the phrase 'riddle me this.'
Beast Boy shifted back to human form. "A clue! But what does it mean?"
He banged a palm to his forehead.
"Damnit. If Cyborg was here, he'd know what to do."
Beast Boy paused for a moment, memories of his mentor springing to mind. The past few years Cyborg had been more than a friend and colleague - he'd been like a father, always knowing the right things to say. The way he would explain a complicated task as if there was an audience, had always been for Beast Boy, the slow one of the group. The others had thought it one of Cyborg's quirks, but it was his way of keeping Beast Boy up to speed. 'Now I'll just rephrase the frequency of my harmonics disrupter to counter the field,' Cyborg would explain and look for Beast Boy to give a brief nod. Whenever someone told a joke, it was Cyborg who would chuckle and give a little gesture for Beast Boy to do the same. Without Cyborg around Beast Boy would only start laughing once everyone else had just finished, making him look like an idiot.
"I need your help again, Cyborg. I can't do this without you."
Beast Boy strode towards the nearby warehouse, slipping slightly on a wet patch on the tiles and banging his head on the floor.
- - - - -
Beast Boy looked around at the strange landscape. A small gremlin man held an old ornate green torch.
"Beast Boy, I am one of the Guardians of the Universe. I've come to you in this dream to…"
"Hahaha, you're a funny gremlin man."
The dwarf-troll thing rolled his eyes. "Try to focus your small mind on this most important task. You are facing a secret enemy that threatens the cosmos. I will tell you the way to…are you even listening?"
Beast Boy snapped his gaze back to the grumpy gremlin, having been distracted by the antelope grazing in a field that had suddenly appeared.
"Sorry. I'm just thinking about my girlfriend."
"Do you want to learn the secret plot to overthrow your world or not?" The gremlin man tapped a foot.
"Sure dwarfy man. I know your angry about being short and all that, but don't take it out on me."
"Fine! Forget I said anything."
Beast Boy's gaze wandered back to the antelope. "Sure. Okay."
- - - - -
Beast Boy regained consciousness. He sat up and looked around the abandoned warehouse. The building was scattered with slick oil stains, broken parts and a dead chauffer stuffed into the corner. Beast Boy stood and followed the trail of damage, weaving around the rusted form of machinery, chains and greasy mosspits until he found himself in a refrigerator room.
"Oh no…"
From the ceiling, the quadriplegic form of Cyborg dangled from an abundance of wires, sparks flying from his absent limbs and exposed circuits.
"Victor! Victor!"
Armless and legless, Cyborg was just a shadow of his former self. Beast Boy shifted into a zebra and trotted over. He pranced around in an animalistic dance of sorrow before nibbling through the wires. The cybernetic black torso fell to the floor with a clunk.
"Victor – sob! – Victor!" Beast Boy shifted into a primate form to better cradle the fading Cyborg.
The red eye gleamed softly at that moment, as the mutilated machine-man stared up. "Gar…you got to…got to tell the other…Titans…"
"Who did this to you?"
"R…R…"
"Ravager?"
"R…R…"
"Ra's Al Ghul? The Ray? Rainbow Raider?"
It was at that point Cyborg tried to sit up, but without his arms he couldn't pound Beast Boy into submission. Instead he gestured with his head wildly to the walls.
Beast Boy looked around. RIDDLE ME THIS was scrawled on the bricks.
He searched the rafters where a giant question mark hung from a warehouse support beam. Turning to a corner, there was a can flipped over and had a Hallmark Card with the words "I am not the Fiddler but I rhyme with Fiddler. You might say I'm a Diddler, but others would say I am Widdler. Who am I?" Outside through the window, a giant neon arrow was cast out over the pier, pointing to the Riddle factory. Beast Boy turned back to the fading Cyborg.
"…Superman?"
"Mother…fucker…" Cyborg moaned.
Superboy and Kid Flash eventually arrived, the two speedsters bursting into the abandoned warehouse with a blast of superspeed, but their fashionably late entry was all to no avail. Only the solemn figure of Beast Boy was there, hunched over the non-functioning corpse of his mentor, crying uncontrollably.
"I don't know who did this," he cried, "but I swear I'll make them pay!"