Chapter 3: Mirror Five

Back at the Titans Tower, the Teen Titans were becoming impatient. There had been no trouble for nearly six weeks. Everything was eerily under control. Even Robin began to become complacent, having reached the peak of his jitteriness during the fourth week of Slade's absence.

Slade's trip to Tamaran had been a success. He had gained another villain to command, and had also been gone long enough to lull the Titans into complacency. They most likely had not trained hard during this time, and would be unprepared for his next move.

Three nights after returning to Earth, Slade led the four villains at his disposal to the prison compound that confined Overload and Plasmus. The tower which had contained Cinderblock's cell had still not been repaired, due to the lack of government funds for a repair project. They split up, Gizmo sniping the guards in one tower while Terra threw massive amounts of dirt into another tower. Cinderblock advanced through the distraction, preparing to punch out the walls of the prison and free its prisoners.

Suddenly, everyone's attention was drawn to flashes of colored light just behind Cinderblock. Purple energy bolts flew into the darkness and exploded, none hitting their mark. Despite the noise, a shout of "Titans, go!" was heard.

Cinderblock, the least intelligent of the combatants, started to head for the Titans, so Slade immediately shouted "Get the prisoners first!" to get Cinderblock back on task. Cinderblock simply walked up to each tower and pounded down the walls. Plasmus and Overload were thus freed and started for the battle.

Slade, still not in the battle, opened his communicator and shouted in, "Retreat! Retreat!" All the villains except Slade duly disappeared into the forest. The Titans, losing track of the other villains, all set upon Slade, capturing him at once and again revealing him to be a robot.

Cinderblock, Gizmo, Plasmus, Overload, Terra, and Blackfire had returned to Slade's cavern and waited patiently for him. The wait wasn't long; soon, Slade entered the room, despite already having been captured twice and dissected once (by Cyborg). Everyone knew it was a robot, but all the robots were realistic in every respect and might as well have been the real Slade. He led them again to the conference room.

"We have succeeded on our first mission together. In another hour we will be setting out for another, this very night. You should all take advantage of this time to get just a little rest. We will rescue those among us who are still imprisoned, and then our final conquest will begin." Since there was only one hour, everyone simply napped on the table.

After the hour was up, Slade walked around the table, tapping each of his soldiers once on the shoulder. Cinderblock required multiple hard taps and a flying kick to wake up. All of them were now off towards the final prison compound.

At the Titans Tower, the alarm sounded for nearly two minutes straight before waking up the exhausted, deep-asleep Titans. As a result, their normal coordination was not with them that night. Robin was the first to arrive on the scene, but immediately on the defensive against seven opponents. Cyborg was the next to arrive, but they were still heavily outnumbered. Then, inexplicably, the villains who had the advantage in numbers fled. When Raven hovered in, the threat was already gone, the alarm over. The prisoners, Jinx and Mammoth, had been taken from the prison.

A week went by again with no trouble from Slade. This time, Robin was far more worried than the last time there had been a week of peace. It was not too hard to notice.

On the morning of the eighth day of peace for the Titans, it was again Robin who was the first up. A while later, Cyborg walked in and saw Robin on the couch. "Robin, what's wrong?" he asked. Robin, as usual, responded "Nothing." Cyborg knew there was something and persisted. "I know there's something wrong, I can see it on your face. Please tell me?"

At this moment Beast Boy and Starfire walked in, both overhearing the last part of what Cyborg said. "Robin, what is it?" both asked simultaneously, Beast Boy out of suspicion and Starfire out of curiosity.

"Isn't it a little too peaceful? We haven't had any trouble for a week. I get the feeling that something is very wrong!" complained Robin. "We had six weeks of this kind of peace most recently before we lost two battles! Slade has something really big planned, I know it!"

This was true. The Titans looked at one another and nodded.

And the alarm suddenly went off...