Chapter 1: Moment of Clarity
The Hierarchy of International Vengeance was at a low point. Several prominent villains were in custody. Although some new ones were in the pipeline, it would be at least a year before they were ready, and even then they lacked the experience of the captured villains.
Slade sat in a meeting room in his headquarters, pondering over his next move. He looked down the table at the few subordinates he still had. His mind drifted back to past battles with the Titans, almost all of them ending in defeat. Suddenly, he was struck by an inspiration. A lightbulb lit up over his head as he thought excitedly. Although no one could see his face behind the mask (and it was a robot anyway), the flash of his inspiration was evident to Slade's subordinates.
Slade was remembering the task he had given to Gizmo, Jinx, and Mammoth. They had succeeded, temporarily, in driving the Titans from their tower. The key was that they had not been sent as three individual villains...but rather as one team. They had been outnumbered, so they still failed in the end. But they had been closer to victory than the HIVE ever got since.
Slade had a plan to repeat the success. He needed more villains. That would mean waiting another year for the most recent recruits to finish training...no, that was too long. Slade was getting impatient for a victory, as it had been so long since his previous one. That left one option. He needed to rescue the HIVE members in custody. Then, he would lie low for a time, bringing the villains together as a team. When they could function as a cohesive unit they would be able to capture the city, and Slade would finally be rid of the Titans.
He thought of his remaining army...about 50 undamaged droids, three robots that looked like him and had his abilities, hundreds of non-functional damaged droids, and his apprentice Terra. These forces would have to be conserved, and expended only if absolutely necessary.
In addition to these fighting units, he had prepared a special robot that resembled Cinderblock in outside appearance. He planned to use this fake Cinderblock to create a distraction while he went to rescue one of his former subordinates. He was pondering over which villain to rescue, but suddenly—
An alarm went off, snapping Slade out of his deep thought. Slade's headquarters were equipped similarly to Robin's; the alarms gave notice of any trouble in the city. Slade glanced at the location highlighted on the map, and decided that it was worth pursuing.
"Cinderblock has escaped his prison," announced Slade, who was unnecessarily addressing the entire room. "We have to bring him to safety!" Slade was used to speaking to the whole chamber, although in this case there was only one live person in the audience.
Slade stood up and walked quickly out of the room. Terra followed. They couldn't run yet, despite the hurry they were in, because of the damaged robots strewn across the floor of the cavern which Slade hadn't bothered to remove. Once they cleared the entrance of the cavern, Terra silently called up a large, flat rock. Slade and Terra hopped onto the rock, which, surrounded by a yellow halo, took them to the desired location.
A large four-legged spider with a human face ran from a walled, fenced compound. A trail of wrecked police cars and mangled bodies followed it.
Gizmo looked down at the police forces blocking his path. He had destroyed the others with his missiles and machine cannon, but he found himself out of ammunition. A row of rifle barrels were pointed up at him. He smiled confidently and retracted his spider legs, instead sprouting grey wings from his backpack. Evading the rifle fire, he flew from the scene. He flew as fast as he could, desperate to obtain freedom, only to fly straight into a net. He fell down, his wings tangled in the netting, landing at the feet of a satisfied Robin.