Disclaimer: Last I checked, I still didn't own the Teen Titans. I'm working on it, though. It's the property of DC Comics and WB Studios… for now!
Author's Note: The official first big chapter of my second big story! As it stands, I don't know if it will be longer or shorter; I always make extensive changes. Personally, I hope it ends up longer.
I'd like to thank all of my reviewers; look at the end of the chapter for individual messages.
Ch. 1: Good Morning, TitansAs dawn crept upon the normally bustling city of Jump, it opted to roll over in its warm, secure bed, stretch its linen sheets over its head, and groggily drift back into its weary slumber as the sun continued to climb higher in its long trek across the gradually brightening sky. Such was characteristic of the city, exhausted by the chaos of rampaging monstrosities and maniacal madmen with automated armies. These early morning hours were the only time the citizens of the metropolis had to sleep in peace, confident that they were safe within their homes, protected by four sturdy walls, dozens of securely bolted locks, and state-of –the-art security systems (the latest on the market, of course).
Thus, the early morning hours of Jump City carried with them a temporary tranquility, free of the obnoxious purr of the countless gas-spewing engines, their blaring horns and cursing drivers only adding to the anarchy gripping the streets in its slender, steel fingers (and this was only the congested rush-hour traffic). A silence hung in the air like a decorative portrait, beautiful while it endured, but prepared to plummet at the slightest movement. Thus, the scant early birds had to fly on light feathers to catch their worm, lest it be trampled in the imminent stampede.
Most of the aforementioned early risers were "Romeos and Juliets", young lovers who woke early for the sake of spending every moment available with each other. Often, in these waking hours, they would rush to beat the sunrise, jogging toward the shore of Jump City Bay to glimpse the multitude of colors blanketing the sky, the swirling oranges, reds, the light pinks tickling the underbellies of the lazy clouds. As they watched in awe, the sun would break the horizon just above the massive, towering "T" that was erected on the island just offshore, causing it to cast a long shadow that stretched to tap the damp sands. The lovers felt secure that those who resided within the structure were diligently ensuring their safety.
They would have been disappointed if they had X-Ray Vision.
The experience of awakening in Titan's Tower often varied, influenced heavily by the events of the previous night, specifically what they had battled and how long it had lasted. The pivotal factor, however, was who woke up first. On an ideal day, Raven would be the first to rise, quietly hover through the twisting hallways to let her companions rest, and meditate in solitude on the roof, or perhaps bury her nose in a thick text and lose herself in it, forgetting the world around her, and within her, for a few hours at least. If all went perfectly, the remaining Titans would emerge from their quarters one by one, cautious not to disturb Raven, lest they inadvertently cross the border tenuous between her bad side and her worse side. In the wildest fantasies that every Titan sometimes imagined, Cyborg and Beast Boy would each prepare his own breakfast without a fuss, the former sighing at the alluring aroma of bacon and eggs as they sizzled in the pan, the latter shooting him a glare of mute disgust as he prepared dairy-free waffles.
Of course, few things on this planet can be truly perfect, and so, waking up often entailed pain for every tenant of Titans Tower. If Starfire awoke first, she would greet the morning exuberantly with a booming Tamaranian folksong, much to the dismay of her teammates. The team also dreaded Robin's early awakenings, as they usually brought with them grueling hours of "morning exercise" on the obstacle course. Once in a red moon, Beast Boy would beat his friends out of bed. Not missing an opportunity to make a bit of mischief, he would proceed to morph into a rooster and belt out with his loudest crow, giggling hysterically as his agitated teammates rushed out to berate him.
Mercifully, Raven's violet eyes were the first to flutter open on that morn.
They quickly squeezed shut, however, as beams of light stabbed through them and clawed at her mind, completely disorienting her. She tried to draw in oxygen, but was immediately frustrated; her blockaded nostrils refused to allow the air access, and she coughed a reaction to the violent collision that ensued. She began to take labored, rasping breaths through her mouth, groaning in discomfort as new layers of mucous coated her throat.
"Great," she grumbled aloud, her voice ragged, "I have a cold."
She scarcely considered the fact that something was amiss, even with the knowledge that she had not been infected with a single malady of any form in over ten years, excluding, of course, Slade's unnatural Nanoscopic Probes. Her constantly evolving supernatural powers had long ago taken charge of her immune system, aiding it in repelling the foreign invaders that inevitably penetrated her cold, distant exterior. She attributed her current condition to the stress caused by her recent injury at the hands of Professor Chang's robotic brutes; though she had brushed the pain away as she would a fly, attempting to comfort her overly concerned, often intrusive companions, she knew too well that had it not been for their expeditious action, she may well have died. The ordeal had unnerved her, though she expertly concealed it beneath her cloak.
Thusly ignorant of the gradually mounting dangers, Raven once more allowed herself to be dragged across the scalding gravel by flaming steeds into her apocalyptic dream world, knowing that it held only eternal suffering. She made no effort to struggle as her pale skin was seared by brimstone; she had grown accustomed to the lonely darkness, the frigid cell that sleep had become.
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Robin's green-gloved fingers blurred across the keyboard, gentle tics and tacs sounding with every pounding strike, seeming to echo through the darkened, barren, twisting halls of the tremendous "T". It would do little, the Boy Wonder reasoned, to wake the other borders; in their beds, they were nearly deaf, especially behind the impenetrable doors of inches thick iron and concrete. Unfortunately, Fortune did not cast her toothy, Cheshire Cat grin at Robin that day, instead gently nudging the shoulder of the unconscious form of Beast Boy. His thundering, guttural snoring immediately ceased, and he moaned incomprehensibly for several seconds to his imagined female worshippers as he kicked at his constricting, frayed green sheets. His sensitive elf ears perked, a catlike trait he had subconsciously inherited, as they detected the faint cries of the keys as they fell beneath his leader's infuriated, frenzied keystrokes.
"Dude," he griped hoarsely when he entered the poorly lit main room, which felt more like a claustrophobic tomb than a recreational area, "switch to decaf. I think they need some sleep in Metropolis."
If this was a tomb, then Robin was the decomposing corpse, and his expression and idiosyncrasy did not dispute the fact; he did not respond for several more uneasy seconds, giving the green changeling plenty of time to regret his unmannerly, rash, and, to be blunt, extremely stupid quip. "I'm filling out a damage report for the Kardiak battle," he finally replied, his agitated voice a soft monotone that would have turned Raven's chalk-white skin as green Beast Boy's with envy.
"But dude," the shape shifter half yelled, his mouth exaggeratedly agape, bearing his sharpened canines, "that was, like, yesterday!" To emphasize the already evident point, he held up a festively decorated piece of glittering cardboard, displaying a preschool rendition of the cycles of the sun throughout the day (from where he had procured it, not even the super-intelligent Boy Wonder knew).
"Yes, it was yesterday," Robin replied, massaging his nonexistent eyes to expel the pressure of the steadily brewing migraine; Beast Boy's antics, while performed in honorable will, could be quite vexing, and the Boy Wonder was not famous for his patience, much like his infamous mentor, "but who was it that wanted to go out for pizza right after we finished."
"Uh… me?" Beast Boy answered sheepishly, scratching the back of his head, rubbing the back of his twig-like calf with the toasty green fuzz of his bunny slippers (a gift given to him by Cyborg as a joke, one that all of the Titans, even B.B. himself, found humor in)..
"And who decided to have a video game tournament with Cyborg?"
"Me?" Beast Boy meekly echoed.
"And who had to have that 'Lizard King' movie marathon?" he persistently pressed.
"Gee, sorry Dad," the green elf quipped, rolling his bloodshot, half-closed eyes, his eyelids still burdened by the overwhelming fatigue caused by the activities his brave captain had rattled off precisely. Beast Boy, being quite unwise himself, never quite valued a certain proverb uttered centuries by a stout, balding, gray haired man over a steaming fresh cup of overtaxed tea.
"The point is, you didn't give me the opportunity last night," Robin said, his voice even, unwavering, steady and sure, each commanding word carefully chosen as it slipped out of his mouth. "I have to fill out these reports. If I don't, there won't be any compensation for the people who lost property. And if there isn't any compensation, we could face some serious charges in court."
"Okay!" Beast Boy exclaimed, rapidly waving a tiny white cloth to signal his surrender, wildly flailing his ropy arms. "I'm not complaining or anything, I just… well, yeah, I am complaining. Could you, like, try and hammer away at it a bit softer. I like to wake up at a reasonable hour."
"Like noon?" the Boy Wonder joked, allowing a thin, transparent half-smile to pass across his lips, which were usually chiseled into a menacing, no-nonsense scowl. It quickly dropped; apparently, somebody securely reattached the lead weights to the corners of his stone mouth.
"Exactly," the changeling replied in all seriousness, not detecting his comrade's sarcasm. Robin braced himself for what he anticipated to be either an impending high-pitched giggle or a confused protest as he came to the abrupt realization that he had been insulted. When neither occurred, the Boy Wonder simply shook his head, running a velvet hand through his heavily gelled jet black hair, and made an attempt to recall why he had recruited Beast Boy in the first place. If memory served, it was sympathy that drove him to stamp "ACCEPTED" on the wrinkled, smudged application form that the eager elf had handed to him personally, bearing a fangy, happy-go-lucky grin, one that was too obviously mocked; buried beneath its tightly packed surface were a host of agonizing truths that the changeling would reveal when he himself was able to completely accept them.
Robin prepared his response, even allowed a thin shadow of a breath to escape his larynx, but even as it heated the air of the massive main room, a quiet chirp called out to him, drawing his attention to the sprawling console, to a large red button that was presently blinking on and off, bathing the gradually brightening chamber with its intense red light. Somebody was contacting them, a seldom occurrence unless there was a menace to fell. Without hesitation, Robin slammed his fist into the button, an action that produced two reactions; first, Beast Boy's sensitive, acute ears twitched, and second, the awesome computer screen that dominated an entire window of the Titans' home, that blotted out the sun as it burst from the encompassing sea, flickered for a moment as it began to load the image of the person in peril.
Robin was forced to stifle a snicker as the familiar image appeared; the person was young, approximately the same age as the Boy Wonder, and sporting a similar thin mask that just barely covered his unseen eyes. However, instead of the red and green, he wore a solid crimson uniform, displaying the symbol "s" in place of an "R". The dynamic teen wore Robin's grim scowl upside down, forming a cocky smirk. Topping his fiery orange head was a whimsical yellow hat, coming to a narrow tip at the front and broadening in back so that it might hug one's skull; it was reminiscent of the generic Robin Hood hat, and appropriately so when one considered the quiver of arrows slung over his muscle-toned shoulders.
"Speedy," Robin greeted, desperately fighting to maintain his granite professional façade, and failing miserably as it slowly began to crumble, causing his lower lip to quiver as the lighthearted teen imprisoned behind it continued to furiously claw free.
"Dude," Beast Boy gasped between fits of hyperventilating laughter, "nice hat! Didn't know you were the prince of thieves!"
The archer's front teeth sank into his lower lip as his skin brightened to match his scarlet suit, and a throbbing vein bulged from his forehead. "Mas and Menos glued it on while I was asleep," he hissed, steam erupting from his ears accompanied by a piercing whistle, not unlike one you would hear at a train station. Rapid Hispanic chattering was audible from off screen, produced, no doubt, by the aforementioned twin speedsters reveling in their handiwork; frustrating their egocentric teammate was among their preferred past-times.
"I trust that isn't the emergency," Robin said, finally succumbing to the playful, wisecracking child he once was, long ago, before his heart was hardened into steel as unbreakable as Cyborg's prosthetic replacements; rattling his rival's cage had a way of melting the frost away and turning up his lips.
"Jail break," Speedy said, abandoning his usual persona, adopting Robin's grim frown in place of his own cheerful smirk. "We don't know how, but there was apparently a power failure."
"Overload… he went missing not long ago," Robin reasoned. It took little more than a fraction of his keen intellect to put the pieces together; they practically fell into place themselves. Yet the Boy Wonder still felt something wrong, something to convenient; some invisible force other than his own fingers were manipulating the pieces, assembling the puzzle for him as he observed without truly seeing. Rarely was a case this straightforward; only when more nefarious forces were operating from the shadows were matters this easy.
"Whatever it was, it blew every freakin' cell wide open, including Brother Blood's. He's brainwashed all the inmates, and they're creating chaos all over the place. I think we can handle it, but Minnie Mouse wants all the help we can get. So, will Titans West play cavalry?"
"You can count on us," Robin replied resolutely; flawed as he was, the Boy Wonder rarely betrayed his word.
"Great. Good thing Cyborg put those chips in our noggins to keep Blood from controlling us."
"Man, don't remind me," cried Beast Boy, shivering theatrically as if a solid block of ice had been dropped into his skintight leotard. "It still makes me feel like I've got an alien in my head or something."
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Darkness continued to permeate the Tower, even as the sun rushed in, flooding every nook and cranny, warming drooping faces, causing the eyes to tremor only momentarily as they tightened to defend against the sudden onslaught of brightness; mimicking the actions of the denizens of Jump, the Titans that had yet to rise simply buried their faces in their soft, caressing pillows, prepared to sleep until noon if permitted. Alas, permitted they were not; the gentle yellow glow of sunlight was quickly drowned by a rapidly flashing urgent red, and the relative silence (occasionally broken by a yawning hummingbird, or perhaps a chattering squirrel) was shoved aside by a blaring, deafening siren that invaded every sense; the Titans might attest that they could taste the horrid screech. Yet they could not disobey; within seconds of the alarm, the mechanical door labeled "STARFIRE" swooshed open, and her flaming form darted out, emerald eyes ablaze with the passion of a true warrior. Cyborg's door was the next to open; he was delayed only because he had to first unplug the bulging, heavy wire that recharged his vital power cell; though he loathed to admit it, the blasted thing kept his single, glazed, silver organic eye open and functioning just as well as the glass one beside it.
Within the dreary confines of Raven's forbidden chamber, the pace was far less urgent, the sorceress' aching, creaking joints unable to function in tune with her mind. With tremendous effort gained from years of training her ravaged will, she forced herself into a recumbent position upon her bed, filling her lungs with the unnaturally chilled air that spilled out from the ventilation system; she expelled it with a wheezing hack. Sniffling, she extended her long, elegant arm, spreading all five thin, slender digits, and forced her hazy, burdened mind to concentrate, pushing through the cobwebs that frustrated her attempts. On any other day, her flowing navy blue cloak would have drifted directly into her waiting hand, and she would have flung it on with a great flourish as it billowed in the biting air conditioning. She would have then proceeded to bypass the door, using her mysterious magical abilities to instead teleport straight through it, and quickly hover to the main room to meet with the others.
On this unusual day, however, the flowing robe refused to leap to her; it hugged the simple wire coat-hanger within her vast closet, and its siblings copied it, refusing to budge, to even ripple a bit. Her deep, violet eyes narrowed, and she studied her still outstretched hand, as though gazing upon it for the first time in her life. Desperately, she strained it farther out, extending every finger tip to the point that they threatened to snap in half and clatter to the dust-covered carpet. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," she chanted stoically; the incantation was hardly necessary, required only in the most complex of spells and rituals, but it seemed appropriate for this instance; they might be her solution. Still the tenacious robe clung lazily to the hanger, not even swaying as the A.C. hummed more noisily, spewing more cold wind into the forbidden chamber.
"This is bad…" she muttered as she shakily stumbled to the closet on the pale, silk smooth bare feet, dragging them one after the other through the rough yet cushioning carpet (as she discovered when she plummeted to her knees for the first time, clenching her teeth against a wave of crippling nausea). With a deep, painful sigh, she draped the blue cloth over herself, her ever at ease mind suddenly chaotic, overrun with speculation and the slightest sliver of fear, of soul rending concern. Mechanically, like the monotonously turning gears of a dust-coated grandfather clock, her arm reached out again, this time motioning toward the sliding stone door, one which she scarcely used herself. No ebon vortex melted into existence to permit her safe passage to the other side. Gravity snatched her hand and yanked it earthward, and it dangled limply at her side; she had not the physical strength to support it with her own muscles.
"At least we know why I'm sick…"
Minutes later, she had joined her friends in the main room.
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"Feh. Dolts. Like fish, they are. The bait dangles right before their eyes and they readily snatch it without hesitation. If they examined it more closely, they would see they are being deceived."
"Don't underestimate that Robin kid. He's smarter than he looks. He'll be suspicious."
"Yet his pitiful conscience will drive him to do what he feels is right, despite his reservations."
"Well, I guess. Still, he's bright, that one, nearly as brilliant as I!"
"Then I'll not concern myself, my friend."
"What?"
"Don't worry about it. You must focus on your team. Are they assembled?"
"All four, sir."
"Excellent. Then go meet with them. Await my signal, and act not a moment prior to it. Timing is instrumental in this plan."
"Sure thing. I still wish you'd let us fight all the Titans, though."
"Believe me, I would all too gladly give you the chance under more favorable circumstances."
The faint howl of wind rushing through the snaking tunnels was now the vile observer's only companion.
"I would let you fight them all with an entire army so that your own helplessness might be made clear to you. Even now, your sacrifice is necessary to my scheme, 'friend'. Such a pity."
His reptilian eyes glanced to an unseen recess of the cave, and he spread his nearly nonexistent lips, bearing the glistening daggers that were his scores of fangs.
"Like fish these humans are; so easy to deceive."
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Author's Note: Well, that's two chapters down. Sorry for the long wait; I've been very busy lately, and it won't get much better. I'll be leaving for New Jersey soon, so I wanted to post this before I leave all of you. I will have access to a computer, but it's a pretty bad one from what I recall, so I have no clue how long it will take to update. Nevertheless, I shall enjoy myself (and get my freakin' AP work done!).
A great big "thank you" to all three of my reviewers! Tyriel, it is always a pleasure. Sorry I made you wait so long. Luckily, I managed to avoid your two assassins by laying low in the Bahamas. As for your speculation… all shall be revealed soon. Redd, your reviews are always awesome, too. I try my best with the descriptions. TDG3RD, you have a pretty good eye. Just keep on reading.
Now for some explanations; Speedy's hat was inspired by his ridiculous costume from the sixties, which did feature a Robin Hood hat. "Minnie Mouse" refers to Bumble Bee's hair; I think Speedy should have pet names for all the T.E. members, so I threw it in (Minnie belongs to Disney). I spelled Raven's incantation the way I think it's spelled; there are so many variations, I don't think there is a right way. "Feh" is a Dragon Ball Z reference; in the Viz-translated manga, that is a common sound, often made by frustrated or disgusted villains, especially my favorite character, the mighty Piccolo! Hey, Piccolo's a demon… might I be dropping a subtle hint? Well, I kind of blew it now. It really doesn't matter; fans of the show probably won't be able to guess what I'm doing unless you've done some (very) light research.
Next Time: What will the Titans do about Raven's condition? What will they do to help the Titans East? Will Robin tread the path that the mysterious mastermind has predicted? Stay tuned!