Chapter 5: Big Day
Slade was pleased with himself. Under his leadership, an organization that had once been reduced to two members had bounced back to victory for the first time in years. Slade now had at his disposal eight superheroes and over a thousand battle droids, hidden in a large cavern on the outskirts of the city. Soon, he would be rid of the Titans forever...
Slade again addressed all his troops in the cavern. "We have recovered our fallen; today we are whole again. Soon will be the time of our final victory.
"Before, we were nine villains, but today, we will be different: we will become a single team. That is the key to victory. Today, we will start training together, not as nine powerful individuals but as a team. Together, we are more than the sum of our parts. Only together will we be able to defeat the Teen Titans. Victory is closer than any of us can remember, but it will take all of us together to reach it.
"You may all start now."
All the HIVE spent the next six weeks training harder than any of them had ever before. There was, as a result, no time to pull any heists or other missions in the city. The eerie quietness resumed. Slade took a few days to rebuild and expand his obstacle course to allow multiple combatants at a time. His training equipment was much harder than that of the Teen Titans. The obstacle room at the Hive Academy was similarly rebuilt for the students.
At the Titans Tower, Robin addressed the Titans. "Once again we've had a week of peace. I think instead of being caught off guard in another few days, we can train harder and be prepared for it. This break that Slade's giving us is ample time to fortify the tower, and for training. I don't think we should be defeated again. Titans, go!"
At the end of six weeks, the tower was bristling with weapons (installed by Cyborg) and the newly upgraded obstacle course had found good use. When the next battle came, they would all be much faster and more accurate in shooting. Starfire's leg wound also healed during this time. Everyone had a clean bill of health by the time Slade was ready to attack.
Finally, Slade and his formerly-eight-recruits-but-now-one team of villains met again in the conference room.
"Tomorrow," announced Slade, "we will launch our attack. From then on, we will not rest." Whispers of "Finally!" spread across the room; all the villains had become quite impatient for some real action. Slade continued: "Right now we will go over the battle plan for tomorrow. We will split into two groups. The first group, which I will call the 'bait', will consist of Terra, Plasmus, Gizmo, Blackfire, and myself. The five of us will go out into the city and draw the Titans away from their tower. The second group will consist of Jinx, Mammoth, Overload, and Cinderblock. The four of you have the more important task, which is to take over the Titans Tower. When you have succeeded, contact me immediately.
"Our primary objective tomorrow is to capture the Titans Tower. However, if any of us get an opportunity to kill any of the Titans, do not hesitate. It is preferable to strike a Titan that is already down rather than come to the aid of a beleaguered teammate. The goal is not to knock out the Titans, but rather to kill them.
"Once the tower is under our control, those of us that were bait for the Titans will also go to the tower and rendezvous with the people already at the tower. There, we will fight the Titans, and we will kill all five of them. The city will be ours then.
"One more thing. For those of us that will be baiting out the Titans, we should all concentrate on Raven first. Some of you should have noticed that she has to say the three magic words 'Azarath metreon zinthos' at the beginning of every battle. If we can stop her from saying that, she won't be able to fight, and we will only have four Titans left to fight."
Everyone started to get up to leave the room. "Terra, wait," called Slade. "Take this." He tossed her a blue cloak identical to Raven's. "We will be the first on the scene tomorrow. I want you to wear this cloak so that the police think you are Raven. They will be confused whose side to take, and they'll stay out of our battle." Terra nodded and took the cloak.
It was not a normal day at the Titans Tower; they had not had a normal day for a long time now. Robin was up early on the obstacle course. The other Titans were still asleep.
The alarm shrieked, waking up the Titans that were still asleep. Robin rushed into the tower to check the location of the alarm. The Titans soon arrived at a bank in the downtown city. It was being attacked by a hooded figure in a blue cloak and another figure wearing a mask, green gloves and a red shirt with an "R" painted on the chest. He had his staff out and was beating up the bank guards. The blue-cloaked figure was telekinetically throwing large rocks at the bank. The Titans were stunned; the villains were impostors of Robin and Raven! Robin got their attention by throwing a batarang at the man that was impersonating him. He turned around, removing his mask and costume. The impostor Raven faced them and removed her blue cloak throwing it on the ground.
Now they were easily recognized as Slade and Terra. The manhole cover in the road popped out and Plasmus flowed up onto the street. Gizmo in spider form walked out of the bank's garage. From behind the bank, Blackfire hovered down to the street.
Robin pointed—and so did Slade—and Robin started to shout "Titans, go!" only to hear someone else saying it with him. He realized it was Slade and he was angry. Robin drew some explosive disks and so did Slade. Robin threw them, while Slade simultaneously threw his. The four disks came together and collided. Concealed in the smoke, Robin drew his staff and leapt forward—but his staff clanged against Slade's. Robin stepped right, and so did Slade. Robin brought his staff around to the left only to again have it clang off Slade's. They dueled with their retractable staffs for half an hour. No matter what Robin did, Slade mirrored.
The other villains all sprung into action. Raven started to chant "Azarath metreon zinthos" but before she could finish the word "Azarath" a glob of sludge was flying her way. She hurriedly finished the word and levitated up out of the way. Before she could say "Metreon" a spread of missiles was immediately aimed at her. She managed to fly to the right while pronouncing "Metreon" at the same time. The enemy team, except Slade (who was staff-dueling with Robin) all fired at Raven as fast as they could, trying their utmost to keep her from activating her powers. She dodged more attacks for about a minute all while struggling to finish saying the magic chant. Three Titans were still not in the battle, but watched, amused, for several seconds as Raven tried to say her magic words without being hit. Suddenly they realized that they were standing there doing nothing when they should be helping Raven.
"What are we waiting for? Attack!" called Cyborg. The villains were so amused watching Raven attempt to complete her chant that they were all caught off guard when a sonic cannon blast impacted Plasmus, blowing a hole through him as he was about to throw another glob of sludge. A green rhinoceros charged forward, throwing Terra across the street and causing the rocks she was controlling to fall to the ground. Gizmo was thrown the opposite direction by a series of starbolts. The confused villains stopped attacking as they tried to recover, and Raven managed to finish her chant with "zinthos!" A spherical black bubble formed around her. Plasmus recovered and tried a last sludge attack. The sludge splashed off Raven's shield. Plasmus slammed his "hand" on the ground in disappointment.
Slade's team had failed to silence Raven. All combatants found targets and the battle was on.
This battle was a historic milestone for the Teen Titans. Never since their inception had they fought a battle in which they did not outnumber the enemy. But in this battle, for the first time ever, they were fighting an even battle against an enemy team with equal firepower.