Sorry about the delay, numerous factors, organisations and individuals will be facing my Wrath for this delay...
Chapter 3 New Friends
Robin charged at Cinderblock, his Bo-staff out in front of him. When he was within Cinderblock's reached he dug it into the ground and performed a pole-vault kick into the criminals face.
Cinderblock backed off and was hit by barrage of sonic cannon beams and star bolts.
Raven walked over to the car wreckage.
'Azarath, Metrion Zinthos.' She chanted, the twisted metal rose out of the ground.
Raven looked into the bottom of the hole, expecting to find the mangled remnants of a teenager.
She gasped, the hole did not contain a corpse.
Her violet eyes looked at the cars.
If he'd been in there, there would've been no chance.
Anger started to pour into Raven's mind. Her figure began to grow. The cloak grew as well. Her eyes closed, and when they reopened, there were four eyes and they were red…
'You shall pay for this.' She said, in a voice that didn't sound like it come from a girl in her teens.
Black tendrils extended from under the cloak and started taking the metal heap.
Starfire's eye-lasers left two parallel burn trails across Cinderblock's chest.
Cinderblock was lying on his back, Cyborg walked over to the super villain's head.
Holding his sonic cannon to Cinderblock's face he said 'You've crossed the line. Now there is no mercy…' Cyborg's tone of voice was cold and mechanical.
The were was a high pitched whine as the sonic cannon powered up to max, a clang as Cinderblock's hand back slapped Cyborg and a thud as Cyborg hit the ground several yards away.
In the darkness above Cinderblock, Robin saw a dark coloured figure appear and fall to earth.
The person landed on Cinderblock's head. He steadied himself and punched hard into the top of the criminal's head. Robin saw it was the boy again.
'Dude, how did he survive that?' said Beast boy, pulling himself out of pond that a rhinoceros had previously been hurled into.
The blow stunned the concrete giant and it stopped moving. Raising his right hand the boy's expression changed to pure rage.
White light started engulfing his upraised hand.
A ball of metal flew at Cinderblock's stomach, the impact pushed him back and broke the daze he'd been in. The titans turned to see Raven, in her angry form.
In each of the many tendrils was a ball of crushed metal, the size of basketball.
She was hurling them at the criminal.
'Raven! Stop! You'll hit him!' yelled Cyborg and Robin simultaneously.
But the ball of police cruiser parts was already flying at Cinderblock's head/ the boy.
Right before the ball hit the boy, just dissolved into some kind of cloud, Robin wasn't sure, but he understood how the boy had done the disappearing trick earlier.
'What the..?' said Beast Boy from behind Robin.
Raven in her daemonic form stopped suddenly in surprise, her sudden change to surprise rather than anger caused her to shrink back to her normal self. There were several thuds as the crushed balls of metal obeyed the laws of gravitational pull.
Eyclone reformed back in the same position, his hand still glowing white.
Why can't they let me finish powering up and finish the stupid thug?
Cinderblock's flailing arms managed to hit Eyclone and sent him tumbling to the ground.
Cinderblock raised his left foot for the finishing stomp, but Eyclone once again shifted to his cloud state and moved out of the way. Eyclone reformed behind Cinderblock and kicked the heel of the thug's right leg.
Eyclone dissolved again to dodge Cinderblock's attempt at a lower roundhouse kick.
The titans watched this seemingly one-sided fight. Cinderblock swinging as hard as he can at a boy who literally turned to smoke before his eyes, who happens to reform on Cinderblock's exposed side and delivers a blow.
'C'mon block-brains hit me you ponce!' yelled Eyclone.
'Grrrrrraaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!' Cinderblock roared.
An idea formed in Robin's head.
Robin charged the distracted Cinderblock, and leapt at his head, right when Cinderblock turned his head. With his big open mouth was facing him, Robin threw a fistful of his explosive discs into the cavernous mouth. The simultaneous explosions surprised the criminal, before knocking him out cold.
'You've got some smooth moves, I don't think I've ever seen someone turn themselves to mist,' Robin said.
The boy said nothing and avoided eye contact.
'Is this about before, I'm sorry. Look I was a little jumpy after that fight and you kinda looked suspicious, it doesn't matter now.' He continued.
'Whoa, you got some damn fine moves there kid. Wanna' join the Titans?' Cyborg said as the other titans crowded round the newcomer.
'Please forgive for what I am about to do. I mean you no harm, but I cannot be seen…' Eyclone said.
'Huh?' chorused the titans.
Eyclone became mist again and two objects dropped and hit the ground…
'My name is Eyclone, and I am so very sorry.' Said the cloud.
The two objects were cylinders, both had holes in them, one had a red stripe around the middle, the other had two blue stripes.
The blue cylinder started to glow, before it let out a deafening bang, and a blinding flash.
Shouts of surprise came form the police officers.
Starfire had tripped over, she was looking at Robin, his lips were moving but no sound was coming out.
Beast Boy had turned into a penguin from the sudden shock, albeit a rather deaf penguin.
'You guys alright!' shouted Cyborg, a thick red cloud had expanded out from where the other grenade had been, it enveloped the titans making it difficult to see.
In the distance a car could be heard, speeding away.
Damn he got away! Thought Robin. Why did he do it? Who is he? All I have is a name, Eyclone, but that's all I'll need.
'The data gathering is complete sir.' Said one of the bodyguards.
'Excellent.' Said Chang, the glow of the screens illuminating one side of his face red.
'Shall I have the men gather the sensors?' the bodyguard asked.
'Of course! Do you want the Police to find out we set this up?' Chang snapped back.
'No sir, I'll do it right away sir.' The bodyguard replied.
Chang leaned forward and watched the replay of the fight in the park. Well it appeared that the suit worked perfectly, he wouldn't know completely for sure though. It would've been dangerous to hide the sensors and a transmitter in the suit. Eyclone would have checked for that, and then the kid would've hunted down Chang and executed him, but why did he let the titans live? Could the former leader of the Slade 8 and Slade's first apprentice, be going soft? Those were questions Chang needed answers to if he was going to continue as a living, uncrippled human outside of prison.
Chang stood up and approached the doors to the truck.
'Leave here once the sensors are collected, I need to…contact someone privately.' He said to one of the several orderlies in the truck.
Chang then stepped out into the fresh evening air, and climbed into his black limousine.
'Back to the Lab.' He commanded the driver.
The titans were feeling down, they'd captured Cinderblock after he escaped from custody, but the appearance of that boy, Eyclone and his neutralization of the team in matter of seconds. That made them feel real down.
'Hey guys I heard there's a disco party on not far from here, the club gives us free entry, why don't we had over there and chill out?' Cyborg said has he navigated through the traffic in the T-car.
'No I need to, find something back at the tower…' Robin said.
'Ohh noo! You are not doing that "I must stop him before he attacks the city again" Robin.' Starfire said while doing a lame impersonation of her best friend.
'Although I hate those things, I'm inclined to agree, we don't need you to go paranoid and obsessed like you did with Slade.' Raven said in her levelheaded voice.
'Dude! Don't go all crazy, it's creepy and I always get my butt whipped when you do that.' BB added his voice to the pro-party side of the discussion.
'Ok' Robin ceded to the demands.
The club was filled with the dancing teenagers.
Starfire was on the dance floor surrounded by boys tying to keep up with her energetic moves.
BB was cruising, checking out the ladies, playing his moves slick and being turned down at every attempt.
Cyborg had been invited to guest DJ and was spinning out the beats.
Rae was hanging around in some dark corner somewhere, probably doing Goth things with other Goths, Robin didn't want to pry.
Robin strolled over to the bar and ordered a soda.
'That'll be $2.50.' said the bartender.
A long arm in coat sleeve reached over and dropped the coins on the bench.
'I'll pay for it.' came a gruff voice.
It belonged to man in a trench coat, he had a weathered face, with a long burn-like scar cutting diagonally from the left temple to the right side of the jaw.
'Who are you?' Robin asked.
'A person who wants the same thing as you do…' came the reply. 'We need to speak some where private, Mr. Grayson…' the stranger whispered Robin's real name.
'What do you want?' came Robin's reply, his tone was neutral, his expression would've won many poker games, but Robin kept his left hand close to the bird-a-rang on the left side of his belt…
'I've been ordered to pass on some information to you.' Came the mans reply, he was patting his pockets, looking for something…
'Ahh… here it is.' Said the man, he withdraw a wallet and flipped it open, inside was an identity card with the words FBI printed on it, it had a photo of the man, although missing the massive scar and a name; Jack O'Grady.
'Ok so now I understand who you are. Where do we go then?'
'Outside are two of my fellow agents. They have an incomplete dossier, the full one arrives tomorrow.'
'Ok' said Robin, the FBI agent walked over to one of the emergency exits, and stepped out into an alley behind the club.
'Robin, this is special agents John Denning,' O'Grady said waving his hand at greasy man in a similar trench coat, 'And Sean Mouggles.' He finished pointing at a very large man, wearing the same kind of trench coat, albeit much, much larger.
'Denning, the file.' Said O'Grady.
John nodded and held out a manila folder with "Confidential" stamped on it, the folder wasn't very full.
Robin opened it and looked at the five photographs and the sheet of paper inside.
'As you can see it's quite bare, but interesting. The full file will be in an office, Jump Towers suite 356 at 11:00am tomorrow.' O'Grady said.
'So far we are unaware of his real name. We have a long list of aliases and we know he as at least twice as many.' Denning said.
'Then there's the codenames, we list him under his first codename, its on the top of the sheet.' O'Grady added.
Robin moved a few of the photographs and looked at the sheet, it contained dates and names. And at the very top was 'Suspect File: 356F675J78K, Suspect Name: Eyclone."
'Why an office outside the bureau?' queried Robin
'Security. If our perps' got a whiff that we were tracing them… Bang, they'd be on the offensive. Our families would be targeted and anybody who entered that building would be threatened. Better to be restricted and unknown, than open and exposed.' O'Grady answered.
Robin flicked back to the photographs; one of them caught his eye…
It was very poor quality and was taken of two figures fleeing the aftermath of some kind of explosion…
One looked like the boy who'd them fight Cinderblock…
The other figure made Robin's blood run cold. The right side of the figures face was black; the left side was orange with a single eyehole…
'Where'd you get these photos?' Robin asked.
'We are part of a special taskforce set up to track down and punish the criminal known only as Slade. After Slade's death at the hands of your fallen comrade, our objectives changed to hunting down all of his lieutenants and those who had aided him in his crimes. This Eyclone was once a leader of a team called the Slade 8, from what we know, the Slade 8 was disbanded and all the other members were executed by Eyclone acting under Slade's orders. After that he continued to work for Slade, before an explosion ripped apart one of the lairs they were hiding in. After that we've never heard of them working together again.
'Hmm…' was all Robin said.
'We don't require any more of your time… Mr. Grayson' once again O'Grady whispered the real name of The Boy Wonder. With that the agents left, walking quietly further down the alley, until the shadows consumed their presence.
The FBI, that's the first I've heard of them actively pursuing Slade... They must be worried if they need my help with this criminal. Otherwise why else would the FBI pass on this kind of information..?
This question unsettles me...
Robin returned to the disco and joined Starfire on the dance floor.
They danced together, in unison, much the annoyance of several other boys who'd been watching Starfire all night with lusting eyes.
They were real close together, the lights changed to a darker hue and the DJ changed the music to a much slower rhythm. Robin became incredible self-conscious about his proximity to Star, about his arms around her waist and her arms around his neck.
Eyclone pulled his car into the parking lot of a Motel advertising self-contained units and cheapest rates for the first two hours. The women and some men in dark, seductive clothing were advertising another service which involved taking advantage of the establishments offer…
'I want a unit, bathroom, kitchen. All that crap.' Eyclone said to the fat bald guy manning the counter.
The warning sign claim that trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again didn't bother Eyclone, neither did the few used shotgun cartridges that lay on floor behind the desk.
'Lucky 13.' Said the man as he passed the key over, his right hand staying under the desk at all times. 'And pay if you use the mini bar. I check and if there ain't the cash then I'm gonna' get it one way or another… Heh heh he he!'
Eyclone nodded and left the man to watch a battered TV.
'Filthy pig.' He said under his breath.