Disclaimer:
Saffire: or fourthelement not'does own the Titans-Teen' s-character' even Ryand'r. Not'does she either claim it. not'does she want it. but is-that a lie. Fourthelement would enjoy ing-own the Titans-Teen.
Rory: Heh heh heh heh heh – okay, Saff, you're done.
Saffire: but I not-have I ed-explain the plot of Titans-Teen' if you did own. I wish to tell them of the death of the –
Rory: THAT'S QUITE ENOUGH SAFF!
Saffire: Oh. Right- -all. Enjoy.
NOTES
Rory: Grr. I'm writing this on a weekend off school. Dang, I'm tired. Lots of school…I'm seeing little pens and pencils dancing about before my eyes…Man, I need some good fics to read! Maybe Queenie or RR76 will update soon.
Anyways, this is the seventh chapter of Thicker Than Water. Just halfway done. (There'll be fourteen or fifteen chapters, depending.)
Raia: Yes, it's all well and good. In this chapter, more drama affects the Titans.
Rory: Uh, where'd you come from!
Raia: Your head.
Rory: Well, you aren't supposed to be here! Get lost!
Raia: Fine. : pwof :
Rory: sigh : Anyhow. Read on.
Reviews:
"It seems you have failed me," Slade told his kneeling servant.
The Informant trembled. "I – I'm sorry, sir, I-I-I know I made a mistake somewhere."
"Somewhere!" he said incredulously. "Because of your shortcomings, I lost my apprentice!"
"I'm sorry," the Informant said once more. The teen knelt before Slade, forehead pressed to the floor. Dirt was an uncomfortable thing to stare at. "I'll do better this time.
Slade snorted. "Good," he said. "I cannot afford to have errant servants."
"Yes, Slade."
He stood and pulled up a holographic image on the screen that sat by his chair. "This – new entity presents us quite a problem, Informant," he said, considering the semblance presented upon the screen. "If others think to use Kertho beams, your weakness could cost you the battle."
The Informant nodded. The Kertho was extremely…unpleasant.
"Your other weaknesses will be taken into consideration as well," Slade continued.
Heat started to rise in the teen's face. "O-other weaknesses?"
"Yes," he said smoothly. "The ones considering certain team members."
Again, a blush crept into the Informant's face. "I – I don't understand what you mean."
"Of course you do," Slade said. "If you didn't…your face wouldn't be that lovely color." He laughed. "Don't pretend. I know you have feelings for one of the Titans."
"I – I don't! I would never…" The teen trailed off, then sighed, looking up at Slade. "Just don't kill them in the battle," the Informant said sadly.
Behind the mask, Slade smiled ruthlessly. "I would never do that," he said in a comforting voice.
The Informant was not convinced.
"Where were you guys?" Robin asked as Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven entered the living room.
The three exchanged glances. "Out for dinner," Raven said. The boys nodded.
Robin looked at his friends' faces. Somehow that just didn't seem right…but when those three were together, nothing seemed quite right. He recalled that time that they disappeared into Raven's room and came out with those strange, secret looks on their faces. Another time, they all ended up in the basement of the Tower covered in "red paint" and they found that their latest enemy had vanished into thin air overnight. The teen shook his head and decided to ignore it.
"Where did you go?" asked Starfire.
Beast Boy spoke up before the other two could answer. "I made them go to Tofu World with me," he said. "That's why Cy looks kinda green."
Indeed, Cyborg had some sort of strange, dead-looking tinge around what was left of his skin.
Starfire nodded. Then, she looked sad. "Did you find the Darkfire and Saffire?" she asked quietly. "I believe I said some very unkind things to them, and to my brother particularly. I hope he will forgive me," she said worriedly.
Raven bit back a sigh of relief. This was the Starfire she knew. "Yeah," she said. "They were kinda wandering around downtown."
"We brought 'em back and put them in a couple'a rooms," Beast Boy told the worried Tamaranian. "Darkfire said he wanted to sleep. And I have no idea what Saffire said. Dude, she seriously can't talk English."
"Neither can you," Raven retorted.
Starfire smiled. "Thank you, friends. I think I will talk to my brother tomorrow."
For a while, the Titans just did their normal evening activities. Raven read an old book while curled up on the couch; Starfire wrote in a Tamaranian version of a diary; Cyborg read about the latest car jets; Robin played Teen Titans: The Video Game IV in a fervent attempt to master the use of himself; Beast Boy sat on the floor, playing with his current pets, a gray cat and a pair of golden retriever puppies.
This was Starfire's favorite part of living with her roommates, this quiet together time. And that's what she told her journal.
I am so glad we have this time together. No one speaks to each other. We hardly acknowledge each other. But it always feels so perfect.
She sighed. She truly loved this time. So nice and quiet, just writing in her lempharg, listening to the cat purr, hearing the faint sounds of video-Robin's dying cries in the background. Such peacefulness she could never have on her war-racked planet, serenity she could hardly ever find on the streets of Jump City while she did her job. Such calm.
They stayed that way until they heard a huge crash. Then, they all ran down the stairs and skidded into the main floor.
The door had been busted down, and the Slade robots had returned.
Cyborg moaned. "I just fixed that door last week!"
Robin hit a button on his communicator. "Titans," he said, "the main floor! Hurry!" He then snapped it shut, hoping he'd reached Titans East, and hit the nearest robot with a roundhouse kick.
"Titans – GO!"
Starfire flew towards a robot, arm cocked with a starbolt gathering in her palm. Robin destroyed it with a birdarang. "Starfire, no!" he yelled. "Remember the last time?"
She did, but she wouldn't let that stop her! The girl threw a huge blast at a robot about to hit Cyborg. "I can fight," she told Robin with a steely look.
"That's great," said Raven, "Now could you two, oh, I don't know, help me save Beast Boy!"
The teenage transformer had been gutting robots as a rhino when a majority of the computerized things had jumped on him, pinning him down with electrified bands. Every time he touched one, a zapping noise made the other Titans flinch. Finally, his violent struggles ceased.
Raven's eyes glowed, infuriated. Cyborg took a shot at them, but one threw a magnet on his back. He stopped in his tracks, covering his ears with his arms. "Auuuuuuugggghhhh!"
Robin cursed. "Where the hell is Titans East?" He whipped out his Bo staff, twirling it and whacking down the evil robots. They converged on him, breaking the staff. A horrified look came across his face. His trusty Bo staff had never been broken before! Slade upgraded his bots, he thought grimly, whipping out the birdarangs.
Starfire and Raven worked on the fifty or so remaining robots, exploding and imploding the stupid things. Four shot at Raven with some sort of large bullets, and she was caught in a huge wad of what seemed to be purple bubble gum. The empathic struggled for a few seconds before becoming engulfed.
"RAVEN!" Robin yelled. (Sound familiar?)
He and Starfire were the only able-bodied Titans left. Robin pulled out his communicator. "Hey, someone! Bumble Bee! Speedy! Aqualad! Someone help!"
"They can't hear you," came a voice from behind him. Before the boy could turn around, someone punched him in the back of the head, and everything faded to black.
Starfire heard her boyfriend's cry and whipped around. She saw him fall. "NO!" she screamed, flying to catch him. Robots closed in upon her, but she punched and exploded her way to reach Robin. After a few moments, she reached him, and picked him up. The other Titans were knocked out. Titans east wasn't there. Robin – strong Robin, who never allowed himself to fail – was gone. She yelled in fury, destroying a huge amount of robots. Once they were destroyed, she knelt with her friend in her lap and went back to her Tamaranian first aid on Robin.
"It's no use," said a disembodied voice.
The girl whipped around. The figure was standing in the shadow. It could have been a tall person slouching, or a short person on tiptoe. The person could be a well-built male or a nearly completely flat female. Even its voice was cleverly disguised with a scrambler. "You're alone, Star," it said quietly. "They abandoned you, didn't they? But if you come with me, I'll help you save your friends."
The figure tossed out a package. Starfire picked it up, holding Robin in one hand and the package in the other. It held a black and orange suit. On the very top was an orange and black "S" crest. Slade's crest. "Join Slade," the figure said, "And I'll tell you how to remove the magnet from Cyborg safely. And take the bonds off Beast Boy without frying his brain. And toss this chemical powder on Raven to get her out of the goop so she can breath." The figure chuckled. "I also could toss in the keys to Bumble Bee's smoky cage, and the device to puncture Speedy's inflated prison." It held up a box. "The way out of the Chinese torture device that holds Mas y Menos captive. A cure for Aqualad's Ever-sleep."
She narrowed her eyes. "Join Slade, you say," Starfire said quietly. The figure nodded – or at least seemed to. Starfire shook her head. "Never," she said simply, then shot at the figure with her eyes.
The person dodged it. "I'm sorry," it said. "Then, I'll just leave you to save your friends…" The figure began to walk away, then stopped and turned back around. It tossed something to Starfire, who flinched and shielded herself from it.
"That'll save Beast Boy," it said quietly. "You can use that to disable the current. Good luck, Starfire." Then the figure disappeared into the night.
The girl stared after it. "That was – unreal," she said softly. Then, she snapped back to attention and grabbed the device from the ground, then ran to her friend.
Carefully, she pressed the single button on the thing. A thin wire moved out, and a claw gripped the slightly sparking wire. It sizzled and snapped, unbinding the weakened morphic. He moaned and sat up, rubbing his head. "What – huh?" His emerald eyes met Starfire's neon ones. "Wh – what happened?" His gaze swept over the battlefield: Cyborg twitching on the ground, Raven being slowly consumed by a gigantic hunk of chewing gum, Robin knocked out on the floor. "Oh, God," he muttered.
Starfire nodded sadly. "I – I do not know how to save them," she said tearfully. She then began to cry.
Beast Boy looked mortified. He patted her awkwardly on the head. "Uh – don't worry, Star, we'll fix this."
He went to Cyborg and examined the magnet, rubbing his head. "Be careful," Starfire told him. "If you do not remove it correctly, friend Cyborg may not be right in the head."
The green teen shrugged, then snapped open Cy's arm compartment. Pulling out a pair of pliers and tweezers, he went to work. Slowly, he opened a hatch on the magnet. "Good thing this is an electromagnet," he told Starfire. "If it wasn't, we'd be screwed." He peered in and, finding what he wanted, yanked something out.
Cyborg's huge frame shuddered, gave one final twitch, and relaxed. Beast Boy straightened up, dusting off his hands. "That should do it."
Starfire gazed on in amazement. "How did you know what to do?"
"Eighth grade science fair project," he said simply. Then he looked up at Raven. "Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph!" he yelled. "She – she's suffocating!"
Indeed, Raven was using up the last room to breathe in. Her pale face was sticking out of the puffy stuff, and a slight gasping noise ensued. The two teens ran over.
"Uhhhhhh," Beast Boy said. He felt responsible at the moment. Their leader knocked out, their second-in-command nearly dead from a magnet, and the only other qualified leader suffocating in a gummy thing, the two remaining Titans were hardly the top choices of 'Titans You Can Trust To Save The Day.' With Starfire in her grieving state, Beast Boy was the only one left. "Star. Try zapping it."
She nodded and scrunched her face up, conjuring a faint green glow to her hand. Starfire slammed said hand into the goop. An arid smell rose into the air, but it just looked a bit melted.
Now Beast Boy started to panic. The stupid stuff puffed up, ever slowly, covering her forehead and the sides of her face. He suddenly figured out a way to help her breathe, but practically cowered in fear. "Uh, Star," he said nervously, "I think I know how I can help Rae."
"You do? Joyous!" she cried. "What is it? Go on, do it! Anything to save our friend!"
He swallowed. "Uh – okay. But never tell anyone about this!" Praying that he would live to hear her thanking him as opposed to killing him, he spread the stuff away from her face and placed his mouth over hers, gently breathing into her mouth to inflate her lungs. After two breaths, the girl started to shift under the gummy material, and, as though realizing what was saving her, she started to breathe in from his mouth very deeply.
Starfire watched this exchange with great interest. After a moment, she suddenly realized something, and licked the goop. "This substance is merely poorly-made shmorgel-koff from my home planet!" she squealed. "I know how to save friend Raven!" She ran off, returning with a bottle of ketchup from the kitchen. From his place, covered in the gum, Beast Boy raised his eyebrows.
The Tamaranian just squirted the stuff on the goop that held Raven captive. It bubbled and frothed with a nasty hissing noise, and Beast Boy caught the girl as her weight basically dropped on him. Carefully, he set her on the floor next to Cyborg. "Good job, Star," he said happily. "Now we'd better find the other Titans!"
She nodded resolutely then grabbed his hand, dragging him up the stairs to the hall of where the others had been sleeping.
They found a huge inflated thing first, like a giant cube with a balloon-ish quality to it. Beast Boy turned into a shark and ripped it to shreds. Speedy fell out, unconscious.
Next, they tried to open Bumble Bee's room, but it wouldn't open, even when Beast Boy slammed against it with the strength of an elephant, then a dinosaur. Starfire tried to yank it open, but even her inhuman strength couldn't tear it apart.
"What do we do?" she asked fearfully.
"Dunno," said Beast Boy, "But where's Darkfire and Saffire?"
Starfire's green eyes flew open when she realized that the mysterious figure had never mentioned her brother and cousin. "Where were they?" she cried desperately.
Beast Boy took her down to the rooms he and Raven had put them in. Saffire's was empty. Eyes fearfully, Starfire broke the door of her brother's room open.
He lay on the lower bunk of the bed, sleeping. Her younger cousin was curled up on top, holding a book. Starfire nearly collapsed in relief. She shook her brother by the shoulder. Darkfire sat up slowly, as though dizzy. "Huh – wh – Kori?" he said groggily, opening his eyes. "Starfire, what is wrong?"
She swallowed. Beast Boy noticed desperation in her face he'd never seen before. "There has been an attack," she said. "An attack – on the Tower."
The boy jumped. "What? Wh – Saff!" he yelled.
Korian jumped, falling off the bed into his outstretched arms. "Ry – Darkfire?" she stammered.
"Tell me what happened," Darkfire said. "Who was it, and why is Beast Boy the only one with you?"
The green teen spoke up. "It was Slade again," he said. "That guy that attacked us last time. He keeps sendin' those robots to squish us. And everyone else is – unconscious. They were winning, I think."
Starfire nodded. "They trapped friend Beast Boy in the electric chains, and put a magnet on friend Cyborg, and caught Raven in that of the yucky shmorgel-koff." A single, green-tinted tear dripped down her face. "They – they hit Robin. He is the unconscious as well."
A strange look crossed Darkfire's face. "Okay. I will help you help the others."
Saffire gazed up at Star. "is-where the East-Titans?" she asked.
"They – are caught as well," she replied hesitantly. Then, her face lit up with inspiration. "We must go! If we all try at once, perhaps we can tear open the door of friend Bumble Bee!"
Beast Boy followed silently as Starfire led her brother to the door they needed. He set Saffire down and stood next to his sister, examining the door with his hand covering his mouth, frowning in thought. Finally, he nodded, and the three took hold of the same edge: Darkfire on top, Starfire in the center, and Saffire on the bottom. In a moment, Beast Boy could hear a huge ripping noise, and then a hissing sound as a huge vent-like structure was made, letting out billows of thick gray smoke. They covered their faces as it stung at their lungs and noses.
After a minute or so, Starfire punched the remainder of the door up, denting it sufficiently so she could run into the room. Darkfire followed her, and Beast Boy grabbed Saffire's arm. She had a sad, strange look on her face as she stared into the smoke. Then, Starfire emerged, carrying an unconscious Bumble Bee, with her brother following, also carrying a boy in black and yellow stripes.
Starfire and Beast Boy exchanged looks as he helped her set Bumble Bee on the floor. She stirred, then opened her eyes blearily. "A-a-ah," she stammered, eyes flicking back and forth nervously. Then she snapped into a sitting position. "Quick! We've gotta tell Cyborg! Slade just attacked us!"
At the sad looks on her friends' faces, Bumble Bee took a deep breath. "He – got you guys, didn't he." It was more of a statement than a question. She sighed. "I can't believe I failed," she whispered.
"You didn't fail," Beast Boy told her. "Now – we'd better get everyone else into the Med Room."
Quietly, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Bumble Bee made their way to help the other Titans.
Okay, this next part is more of an extra thing. Just a little short that explains a bit of background for the next chapter, so it flows better.
Darkfire set the boy down on an Earth contraption called a 'sofa' so he could help him. The boy had a fierce, angry look on his face. Sighing, Darkfire found the oxygen and placed the mask over the teenager's face.
Large brown eyes flicked open, and the guy turned to stare at Darkfire. He smiled. "I need you to breathe in," he said. "And – out. Like that. In. Out. Good." He was suddenly incredibly appreciative of the Tamaranian war. At least he knew how to care for various injuries, including smoke inhalation. He continued to help the boy to breathe until the teen finally ripped the mask of and sat up.
Darkfire grinned at him. "Feel better?"
"Yeah." He rubbed his head. "Uh – where am I?"
He gave the teen an odd look. "Titans Tower." Then something occurred to him. "Oh, I am very sorry, I am so rude. I have not introduced myself. My name is Darkfire."
The teen nodded. "Alan – uh – I mean – call me Wasp," he said finally. "I'm Bumble Bee's brother."
"Oh," said Darkfire. "It makes much sense now. I am Starfire's brother."
Wasp gave him a funny look. "You kinda look like her," he informed the Tamaranian.
"I know," he said pleasantly.
It was quiet for a moment.
"Well," said Wasp, "I guess we'd better find the other Titans."
Darkfire nodded. "Yes. And, Wasp," he said as the other teen was walking from the room, "I think we will get along quite well."
A/n: Dang, that chapter was long…
So. How did you like it? Please send me a review and tell me!