Gods' Playground
06 – Causality: Consequences
Perhaps it was a particularly loud crack that drew her out of her drug-induced haze, or that wet gurgle overlain with a sort of slurping... but really, it was the small splash of something warm, wet, and coppery smelling to her face that brought Kitten around. Her eyes opened to darkness and she tried in vain to turn her head to locate the source of the sounds and the splatter, but her head was held fast. In fact, now that she had regained feeling to most of her body, she could tell that she was bound from head to toe—mummified, almost. Most of the sounds continued, though the gurgle had stopped and somehow, some part of her knew that was a bad sign.
After an eternity, though in reality only a few minutes, Kitten's eyes began to adjust to the low lighting and she was able to take in her surroundings. In her peripheral vision, she could make out someone bound on either side of her, and they all seemed to be strung up fairly high from what she assumed to be ground level, as her feet weren't actually touching it. Off to one side, she heard something hit the ground with a sort of thunk/wet smack and the person strung up to her immediate left groaned, apparently coming around as well.
There was movement in the mostly-darkness as a dark, hulking shape loomed up in her peripheral vision. She felt a slight vibration travel through whatever covered her as whoever was bound next to her was pulled forcibly out of his or her bindings. More movement and that dark shape was now below her, almost directly in front of her. Another groan, this time from the ground where the other captive had been moved, preceded a sound Kitten couldn't identify, followed immediately by a sound she was shortly to become intimately familiar with: the sound of a man screaming out in pain in fear as whatever lurked in the darkness devoured him. Kitten screamed—her own lost in the echoes of the dying man's. A flash of bioluminescence from the ground abruptly cut off her wails as her eyes adjusted and focused... and she suddenly wished with all her being for the darkness to return. There, just a few yards away, a bundle of white and red that could only have been a person was held aloft by the looming form of Charaxes, his body awash in light reminiscent of a firefly or lightening bug. Blood spread further down the mass of white as Charaxes fed, his face pressed tight against the bundle and one pair of arms slowly working to crush the now silent man into freshly pulped humanly goodness. After a moment, Charaxes paused in his feeding and pulled his head away from his victim to regard Kitten. Kitten's eyes rolled into the back of her head as she fainted at the sight of gore on the creature's visage nearly the same moment that Charaxes' bioluminescence died off, returning her to welcome darkness.
Meanwhile, In the Past...
Right at this moment, a part of Robin's subconscious not devoted to battle, not worrying over just deep the crap they had found themselves in was, and not wondering where in the flying blue HELL all the bugs were coming from was desperately wishing for something along the lines of a giant can of RAID. Most of those thoughts were driven completely from his mind as the sky-obscuring swarm overhead made its descent. He knew he wasn't equipped to handle such foes at the moment, but that didn't stop him from drawing his bo up and taking a loose fighting stance. They were almost on top of him when his vision went black. Not the black of unconsciousness, but that of a familiar power surrounding his body in a protective bubble. "Oh thank you God," he breathed, knowing that if Raven was here then the rest of the Titans weren't far behind her.
The sound of Cyborg's Sonic Cannon firing into the swarm and ground shaking under his feet confirmed Robin's hopes as his bubble was lifted into the air and pulled swiftly to where the majority of the Titans had regrouped in a semi-circle around what remained of the civilians and police force. Gauntlet and Raven were holding the mass of insects at bay while anyone that could fired or flung things into their midst. Once past their barrier, Raven's power dissolved from around him and Robin accepted a bundle handed to him by Savior. "Thought you might need these," said the white-garbed teen.
Robin quickly re-supplied his utility belt and took stock of the situation. "Beast Boy and Medley?"
Raven answered. "Across town"
"We thought it would be wise not to involve the rookie yet," Cyborg called from where he stood firing into the mass.
"All right. Anyone got a plan for taking out a massive swarm of tiny bugs?" He asked, looking around the group. Getting a resounding negative, he nodded. "Rae and Gauntlet, stick close to the non-combatants but feel free to give support when it looks like it's needed. You know the drill by now people. And try not to get too separated; I don't want anyone getting stung to death or something."
With a little effort, Raven extended her powers in an outward push, driving the swarm away from the small crowd and giving her teammates the opening they needed to start tearing through their enemy. Ahead of Raven, the Titans rushed out and opened fire. Summoning her power, Terra ripped into the street and pulled out several large chunks of asphalt and began using them as improvised fly swatters. Robin dug into his re-equipped utility belt and hurled whatever he found there that could put a dent in the swarm's ranks while beside him, Starfire hurled small starbolts. Having her friends join them seemed to have given her a bit of a boost, but she was cut off from the sun at the moment and already starting to feel fatigue creeping up and she wasn't about to risk flying through the swarm's body for a quick recharge.
Savior and Scalpel were covering Cyborg who was still firing into the swarm. Savior was using the Shimmer to swat large sections of the bugs out of the air while simultaneously wrapping it around any that gathered closely enough and constricting it, leaving large balls of bug parts lying around. Scalpel was stuck swatting at anything that got close with the flat of his glaive, seeing as he and Robin were predominantly hand-to-hand fighters and weren't especially suited to this kind of combat. Seeing that their team mates had most of the swarm's attention now, Gauntlet used his namesake's power to form a giant flyswatter and brought it down repeatedly amidst the swarm, while Raven partially mimicked her boyfriend's attempts and used her powers to capture and crush, flatten, or grab things and smash anything that wasn't human... or Tamaranian, or Blacktrinian.
"Does anyone else think this just screams 'Killer Moth is responsible?'" Robin called a while later, once again running low on munitions.
Beside him, Starfire answered—she was probably the only person that could hear him over the droning hum of their foes anyway. "It does, but then why are there none of his engineered creatures here?"
That question would have to wait until later to be answered as Robin pulled out the last of his explosives and glanced around, looking for anything that could be of use. His eyes landed on the Fire Department's pump truck and an idea struck him. After telling Star, he dashed back to where Raven was still trying to flatten random clusters of insects. "Rae! Think you can rip the gas tank out from under that thing and spread its contents midair?" Robin asked quickly.
Shrugging, Raven directed her powers to pull the truck's gas tank out without igniting its contents accidentally. "You do realize that napalming our friends would be a bad thing, right?"
"I'm hoping it'll all burn before it reaches the ground," Robin agreed sheepishly. It was one of the dumbest plans he'd come up with to date, something that he would have expected to hear from Rob, but it was the only thing they had to go with. "Do it," he said, arming his last three explosive discs and timing his throw. "TITANS DOWN!" he yelled as soon as Raven's power released the tank and hurled his explosives.
The results were more than Tim had hoped for. Raven had released the gasoline high enough that it had spread to encompass a vast majority of the street. The moment his explosives detonated it created a small fuel-air bomb which, in addition to blowing out all the windows on the block, took out most of the swarm and disorganized the rest. The only downside was that now he, his team mates, and the crowd were being pelted with flaming debris. But they could handle flaming debris much more easily than they could handle a million hungry little mouths seeking warm flesh. Above and around them, the swarm suddenly thinned and eventually dissipated altogether.
"That was anticlimactic," Rob commented as the Titans regrouped and began assisting the police with finalizing the evacuation of the block. It was an effort too late, but in any case they doubted the buildings would be habitable for a while. At least until someone called the Orchin Man.
Looking up from his arm-display, Cy caught Robin's attention. "Hey Fearless, looks like BB and New Girl ran into trouble. He lest a message for us."
Robin nodded, pulling out his T-com and dialing the code to connect his with Beast Boy's. It picked up after a few rings and the green changeling spared the screen a glance to see who it was before turning back to look off-screen. "Beast Boy, we got your message. We would have responded sooner, but there was a problem downtown."
"That's what I thought," he acknowledged as the camera on his screen panned wildly about for a moment and resolved again. Apparently, he had knelt down to look at something. "Can you get the team down here?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"What happened?" Robin asked, willing Beast Boy to turn the camera so that he could observe the scene for himself but getting no such luck.
"It took Medley and Kitten."
"What did?" Robin asked. 'Kitten? Not her again,' he thought randomly, but then the connection was made. 'Countless bugs swarm downtown Jump City and Kitten just happens to run into Gar and Kate?'
"I'm not sure yet. I'll fill you in when you get here."
"And that's pretty much it," Victor concluded, having gotten to the end of the Titans' little round-robin (no pun intended) retelling of everything that had happened.
"So that's why everyone was covered in bug guts," Gar commented. A mass groan came from the speakers as the majority of the team voiced their opinions about the mess simultaneously. "How's the manhunt going?"
Off-screen, Savior answered. "We're closing in on the dock area. It is possible that it could have set up shop there. The area is secluded and besides dock workers, people tend to avoid it. It's cliché, but I don't think it will care about that."
"It's just a giant freaking bug; it can't be all that smart. This is probably the best it can come up with," Terra added.
Beast Boy frowned—something didn't feel right about that assessment, but he didn't want to cause undue worry. Beside him, Cy whooped in triumph as he finished decrypting and debugging Drury Walker's security logs and started scanning through them. "Let's see what Drury was up to."
Gar went back to looking through DNA models and species names the computer tagged them with. One name in particular drew his attention. Having spent time in various environments with his parents, he was brought up aware of what to look out for when trekking through unknown terrain. "This is a spider only native to South America... its venom causes moderately long-term paralysis, typically less than a day but sometimes up to three, depending on the amount of venom injected. Bad stuff," he muttered, going to the next model while mentally reviewing everything he'd seen of Charaxes. Many of the things here were present in that abomination. Perhaps the stinger-tail that it had tried to hit him with had contained this spider's venom...
The Titans made their way deeper into the dock area before finally stopping at what looked like an empty storage building, once used to house machinery. After getting into Ambush Position as it were, they charged in and confronted a room full of...nothing. The building was completely empty. Savior's quietly muttered "well shit," pretty much summed up how they all felt.
"Rae?" Robin asked, turning to the goth.
"Don't look at me. The trail stops here."
Acknowledging that it wasn't any fault on Raven's part, Robin nodded and led them from the building. "This was a bust. We're heading back to the tower. Got anything on your end guys?"
Cyborg's reply was quick in coming. "Yeah. I think you should see this."
Not very much later (they had actually been fairly close to Titan Tower, having come nearly full circle through the city) the group was seated in the Tower's main conference room. Victor was at the end of the table closest to a large protection screen and was waiting for things to settle down before showing them what he had found. It took a few minutes, but once everyone was settled, he cut out the lights and pressed a few buttons recessed into the table that controlled the projection system. "These are Drury Walker's security logs sixteen hours prior to Gar and Kate meeting up with Kitten. I'll let you watch the original version first," he said, pressing play.
On-screen, Drury Walker sat at one of his computer terminals, poring over several screens of data and muttering to himself. Occasionally, the camera's build in microphones would pick up snatches of what he said, a few of which stood out more than others. "Ungrateful child," "complete failure," and "wish I could do more..." were just a few of them. Suddenly, the footage blinked before resolving through snow back to its view of the lab. Drury was still alone and hunched over his terminal. The screen was covered in static again for a moment, and then Drury looked up towards the stairs. Nothing was there, but he addressed the empty air as though someone was.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked, panic starting to creep into his voice.
The footage was shot through with more static this time, heavier and louder before resolving. At the other end of the table, Raven's eyes narrowed in what looked to be working quickly towards fury.
"What kind of bargain?"
More static, though not as thick as before.
"Why would you?"
Still more static flashed across the screen before clearing.
"And what do you ask in return for this?"
The screen went blank before blinking back in.
"My what? That's ridiculous."
More static.
"Wait!" Drury paused, glancing up towards the ceiling. His lips moved slightly and he turned back towards that empty space. "I'll do it."
The screen went to static, then black, then back to normal. Drury turned away from the stairs and back to his terminal where he began typing furiously.
Victor stopped the playback. "I couldn't figure out what was going on with the video. It shouldn't have been cutting out as much as it did and there was something about the way it cut out in response to anything Walker said that made me think that I was missing something. So I ran it through a dozen and a half filters and came back with this. Enjoy," he said, loading another video file. It looked almost exactly the same as the first video, except the screen had an odd tint to it.
The footage blinked, resolving through snow to show...that Drury Walker was not alone in his basement laboratory. An ordinary looking man dressed in a business suit had materialized just shy of the basement stairs. He spoke and the screen flickered. "I know what you seek."
"Who are you? What do you want?"
"Neron," he answered, and it was though a hundred voiced had cried out his name at once—in pain, torment, agony, pleasure, fury... "I wish to make a bargain. A pact, if you will." His voice held a certain amount of irony and contempt, though no one seated at the table could guess at what.
"What kind of bargain?"
"You crave power, as do I. I can give you what you seek."
"Why would you?"
Neron grinned. "I have use for one such as you in my ranks."
"And what do you ask in return for this?"
Neron's answer was accompanied by those of countless more in undertone. "Your soul."
"What? That's ridiculous."
Neron frowned in disappointment and turned halfway towards the stairs. "You are disinterested? I will leave you to your humiliation then. Perhaps another would appreciate my gifts more."
"Wait! ...I'll do it."
"Then Drury Walker, I grant you the gift of knowledge and show you the path towards putting fear into the hearts of men. You will be Charaxes, devourer of humanity." The screen went to black and Neron was gone.
Victor shut down the security footage and turned to regard the group. "So... any idea as to who or what this guy is?"
"He's Neron, obviously," Rob answered.
"Anyone besides the smartass?" Noel asked, looking to Tim.
Tim shrugged. "I don't know. I could run the name through the system..."
"You don't have to," Raven interrupted. She looked grim. "If Neron is involved, Drury Walker is dead. Everything that made up the man Drury has been consumed by the monster Charaxes."
"You know this guy?" Tara piped up from down the table.
"No. I've heard things, read things... Neron is supposedly an elder demon and broker of souls. He is also known as 'Devourer of Souls.' It is said that he has been around since the dawn of humanity, which isn't really all that long to an immortal being."
Nigel was next to speak up. "What is he doing here then? What would a small-time crook like Walker have to offer?"
"I don't know. He craves souls—I think they fuel his power. But you're right, Drury Walker was just a small-timer. There must have been something else."
"There is," Gar answered, tapping at the keys imbedded in the table before him. The DNA models he had been studying earlier sprung up on screen. "Walker may have been an idiot criminally, but he was a genius in his field. Neron said he gave Drury a gift of knowledge, right? Maybe he was already on to something and all he needed was a push in the right direction. The stuff from his records, the stuff I got from the floor... he made some kind of serum or something that turned him into this thing, with Neron's help. I think these DNA models are snippets from individual insect species that he found useful enough to put into it. And this," here, he brought up a model of the stuff he had found on the floor, "was the delivery mechanism: a retrovirus, not unlike those used for curing freak genetic diseases."
"Wait," Rob interrupted, holding up his hand. "You're saying this Walker guy sold his soul for something he was already about to create anyway, something that would probably strip away all of his humanity thus removing his soul?"
"Pretty much," Tim nodded.
"And you said he was smart!" Rob accused, pointing at Gar.
"I said he was a genius in his field. I didn't say he had any common sense whatsoever."
"Anything else you can tell us Gar?" Noel cut in before the discussion could degenerate further.
Gar shrugged, but as he was about to say no, he remembered something from the lab. "Wait, there was something. Kate found a monitor with the initials for Charaxes divided into individual words. Chemical Hybrid something-or-other. It pretty much meant what I said: he found a way to combine DNA from different species of insect and applied their various traits towards making one very large bug-monster and used a retrovirus as the delivery system."
"I sent what we have to Star Labs, they should be getting back to us with more information soon," Victor said, glancing between the screen and Gar. "I'm hoping they can find a way to reverse it."
Starfire, who had been silent up until now, looked towards Victor as though he had the answers for her questions. "Why would someone do this to themselves? What could have possessed Drury Walker to turn himself into a monster at the cost of the things that made him human?"
Victor said nothing, but tapped a few keys and the screen resolved into more security footage, this time from the day before Neron appeared. Drury was sitting at the same terminal, alternating between typing and taking occasional bites from a sub-sandwich and a bag of chips. The camera's microphone picked up the sound of someone stomping down the stairs and Drury winced as the door to the lab was thrown open. Kitten stomped halfway into the lab and stopped.
"What are you doing down here again?" she asked, her voice pitched to project a snotty attitude of pseudo-superiority.
"Working on something, honey. How was your day?"
"Ugh. Why don't you get a real job? You're such a loser. I can't believe you're my father."
Drury turned to regard his daughter. "I am though. Is that what you really think of me?"
"I hate you. You're useless. You're a failure."
"I see."
Kitten made to say something else, but the video feed cut out. Victor shut off the projector. "The security footage was pretty trashed. That's all I managed to salvage, though from comparing the timestamps, I'd say there was more—a lot more."
"So what's the plan?" Nigel asked, looking to Tim's end of the table.
"Gar, the closest thing we've got to an expert on this subject. Any suggestions?"
Gar looked up from the table and shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me."
"Already did," Noel pointed out. "Likely to again, when we find it."
"Hey!"
Raven interrupted before Gar could say anything more. "There has to be something we're missing. It was smart enough to produce a false trail—or its instincts told it to, it doesn't matter either way. Why would it do so, though?"
"The docks were empty. Perhaps he simply ran out of victims?" Nigel suggested.
Tim frowned as the thought of exactly what it would be doing to those victims occurred. "What makes you think he would be attacking people?" he asked, playing devil's advocate for the moment.
"Oh come on!" Rob yelled, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a pamphlet of some kind. "Haven't you realized yet that it's following a pattern set by most non-humanoid man-made creatures in like every horror movie, ever? Not to mention some that have actually been seen and dealt with before. It's already past the 'lose your humanity and become a monster' stage. It should be on 'eat anything that moves' by now. And then, it'll go to 'reproduce/spawn like crazy to take over the city.'"
At this, something in Gar's mind clicked. "Of course! It's a predator looking for prey. It won't go to some deserted part of town where it will stand out. This thing is probably right in the middle of the city, but hidden in such a way that the only people to see it will be..." he trailed off before tapping at the table controls and bringing up a map of the city. Next, he highlighted all of the park areas. "This is where we need to be looking."
"The only problem is that there are over a dozen parks in the city, and they're all fairly large. People won't start filing missing-persons reports for a few days, and by then it will be too late," Tim pointed out, glancing around the table. "Assuming that Rob is right," he added. In front of him, the phone build into the table rang. After looking at the caller I.D. and verifying that it was Star Labs, he put them on speakerphone.
The next few minutes talking with and questioning the people at the labs was helpful, but worrying. They confirmed everything Rob had said, frustratingly enough for some. Charaxes would seek food because the transformation had drained him and his metabolism was something close to triple what it had been, and he would soon start reproducing. They could contain him, but only if the Titans first apprehended him. And they were still looking into reversing Drury Walker's condition. Ending the call, the Titans re-supplied what was needed and headed out, deciding it was best to stick together as they searched through the various parks of Jump City for any sign of what was once a man.
Someone stirred in the dark. Eyelids fluttered open slowly and a young girl looked around drunkenly, her brain trying to cope with too many things at once and failing to process everything. Things swam in and out of her vision, her head felt like someone had taken a hammer and bashed it repeatedly into her skull, and her body desperately attempted to vomit but couldn't quite work out the correct muscular control necessary for the task so she was left feeling sick with nothing to do about it. Other parts of her body slowly began sending damage reports up towards her brain, which told them in no uncertain terms to screw off until it had things straightened out upstairs. And above it all, a sickeningly sweet sensation pervaded her mind, throwing off the rest of her senses in its dominance.
Kate came to some semblance of consciousness what seemed like years after actually opening her eyes. A mixture of terror and revulsion came from someone nearby flooding through her system, and likely had been for some time. There was something else though, that sickly-sweet feeling that over-rode everything else. Though she couldn't see, the feeling was strong enough that she didn't need sight to know what was going on. Someone was in the final throes of death nearby. Light filled her vision suddenly and her eyes, apparently the only voluntary muscles she had control over at the moment, focused on the sight before her.
Charaxes, its body glowing in various places via bio-illumination, was feeding...on a person. After a moment, it tossed aside what was left and moved deeper into the room. Kate's eyes focused on the soon-to-be corpse and her body shuddered in response to feeling the last remaining life leave the monster's latest victim. Her body once again reminded her that it desperately wanted to be sick but couldn't quite figure out how at the moment. Whatever Charaxes had hit her with had caused most of her voluntary muscles to go slack, leaving her immobile. Her head swam and Charaxes came into focus, dragging yet another victim into her line of sight.
Had she the presence of mind, she may have questioned why it was feeding so near to her position, only just slightly to the left of her, as though it wanted someone hanging there to see what it was doing. She may have also questioned how exactly it was that she was even awake in the first place. Unfortunately, she was still doped to the gills and not quite up to forming a coherent train of thought beyond 'I want to puke' and 'I'm going to throw up.' As she watched Charaxes feed on more victims, more than her addled brain cared to count at the moment, another thought popped into her mind—something half-remembered and heavily fogged with whatever was coursing through her veins, but still coherent enough to be remembered later.
'I must not turn away. All these lives... my responsibility. I had the power to stop it and couldn't act. My fault.'
It was dark, coming up eleven pm when the Titans reached the first to the last park in their list to search. Physical exhaustion was catching up to them quickly, but they pushed themselves regardless. Beast Boy and Raven combed the ground level looking for any sign while those who could flew above and those who couldn't simply spread out in search of anything out of the ordinary. After combing the park twice, they were nearly ready to call this one clear when Beast Boy scented something. He reverted back to human form long enough to inform the others before following the scent trail towards a park exit as a blood hound.
"What is it?" Robin asked as BB paused to again return to human form. His answer was grim.
"Blood. Lots of it."
Not waiting for an invitation, Raven extended her senses in the general direction the trail seemed to be going. Following BB's lead again, they left the park and started up a parallel street a short distance before Raven stopped. Ahead, through steel and concrete, she could sense a mind in such turmoil that its thoughts were alien to her, like... like the chorus hum of countless insects. Slightly further than that, through feelings of death, despair, and disgust she found a familiar mind. As soon as her mind touched that other, it leapt at the chance for solace with—if not a friendly mind, then one familiar and less disturbing than the one nearest. Raven gasped as her eyes were suddenly not her own and she was trapped, bound to a pillar below ground, staring down on a man-turned-monster as it subdued and fed on its next victim. She quickly pulled away.
"We have to get in there now. It's already too late..."
Understanding, the Titans rushed towards the building—a parking garage scheduled for renovation and cleared of people. Just as they reached the entrances though, Raven felt Charaxes below turn its attention away from its victim and towards them. Somehow it knew they were there. She felt it suddenly rush towards them at what seemed like an impossible speed and opened her mouth to warn her teammates, but it was too late. With a roar, Charaxes burst through a large pile of construction materials—which they would later learn it had left there to disguise its entrance to the lower levels. The Titans scattered and readied themselves for combat.
Charaxes turned his head this way and that, taking in all those that had so eagerly walked into its nest. Two of those present smelled unfamiliar to it, not like anything it had fed on so far. Another held a familiar scent: that of the wild, countless other scents rolled into one. Recognition dawned in its mind: the changeling it had faced earlier was back. Its antennae flicked, apparently tracking the Titans as they slowly shifted into attack positions around it.
"Hey," Gauntlet called to Charaxes, drawing its/his attention. "You do realize you're only a botched Super Soldier Serum away from being The Tick's sidekick, right?" Charaxes responded with a stream of saliva which, assuming it was toxic or acidic otherwise the bug wouldn't be doing it, Gauntlet raised his shield against. The street around the shield immediately began to dissolve once the saliva touched it. "Now that was just plain rude."
The Titans attacked—Robin, Scalpel, and Savior coming in from three sides with weapons drawn (or in Savior's case, formed from Shimmer), while Starfire rose into the air and charged a starbolt in each hand and waited for her opening. The sound of Cyborg's sonic cannon charging was drowned out as Terra pulled up a small asphalt platform and started gathering projectiles. Robin, Savior, and Scalpel met Charaxes at the same time, swinging out and smashing him with whatever was in hand. Robin's bo-staff connected with its head and abdomen, glancing off without any apparent effect. Beside Robin, Scalpel brought his glaive in, but a slight shift from Charaxes caused it to simply glance off its angular exoskeleton instead of digging in. Likewise, Savior's Shimmer sword proved ineffective, simply smashing into Charaxes without doing much damage. With a thought, the Shimmer lost the sword form and burst into multiple lines that wrapped around the giant insect's body—lines which contracted sharply in an attempt to crack through Charaxes' exoskeleton, not unlike how one would eat a lobster.
Charaxes was having none of it though and retaliated, swinging two of its limbs about and nearly catching Robin and Scalpel while the other two grasped a claw-full of Shimmer and made to cut through it. Deciding having his power cut through wasn't a great way to start a fight, Savior divided it quickly along the claws, directing it to flow over and around them before calling it back to himself and pulling back a safe distance. At that moment, Starfire darted in and slammed two starbolts into its chest at point-blank range, detonating them instantly and sending Charaxes hurtling down the street. A charged shot from Cyborg's sonic cannon further propelled the man-turned-insect down the street, simultaneously throwing several of its senses out of whack. Gauntlet and Raven stood waiting at the expected landing zone, a car wrapped in their separate powers. Charaxes hit a minivan, denting its side and nearly throwing the vehicle over. Two more vehicles followed, one crushing Charaxes between it and the minivan, the other coming down on to of those two. Large chunks of rock, cement, and asphalt came together, further compacting the mass of automobile and abomination before finally, the whole mass exploded, raining chunks of metal debris across the street.
"Did we get it?" Beast Boy asked, not making the mistake of going closer to the flaming wreckage than he had to. Experience had taught them all better than that.
"CHAAARAXESSSS!" roared the man-creature of the same name as it smashed its way out of the minor crater recently created. It took to the air and came swooping in at the nearest Titan, Beast Boy coincidentally enough. Unfortunately for it, the Titans had all been expecting something along those lines. BB's form quickly shifted from teenage-boy to thirty-foot-green-brachiosaur and he whipped his tail around, slamming it into Charaxes with as much force as he dared to use—he didn't want to leave a large yellow-and-black splatter stain all over the side of one of the nearby buildings and then have to explain to what was left of Drury Walker's family that yes, that stain was indeed all that was left of the man. He needn't have worried about that though as Charaxes crashed through a wall of solid concrete and rebar (I think that's what the metal bars are called), shook it off, and flew back out.
A few well-aimed shots from Cyborg's machine gun punched through the underside of Charaxes' wings and sent him tumbling to the ground, effectively cutting off his flight ability. For the moment, Charaxes crouched where it had fallen, taking in its foes. Likewise, the Titans circled the monstrosity, preparing for another attack. "Bladed weapons seem ineffective," Scalpel pointed out offhand as he came near Robin.
Robin agreed, trying to find a weak point vulnerable to an edged weapon but was hard pressed. Only the joints of its exoskeleton and its eyes really looked like they would he worth going for, but he wasn't going to blind or permanently cripple the man that it once was if there was even a chance of bringing him back. "Pound the hell out of it. I don't think we have to worry about holding back any more. If he's as tough as he seems, it will take a lot more than that to put him down. Just don't tear anything off that looks vital."
Having apparently had enough of their standoff, Charaxes stepped forward, drawing its pincered arms inward and spreading its wing carapaces. From underneath the hard shells that had protected its wings until Cyborg had unloaded several rounds into them where they were most vulnerable, its tail extended and flicked back and forth behind it. It roared and charged headlong into the group of Titans.
Having already once faced Charaxes, Beast Boy had a fairly good idea of just what it could do, so met it in another dinosaur form, that of a triceratops. He swung his horns in, trying to smash or gore the oversized bug, but it ignored the changeling and jumped straight over, flicking its tail towards Beast Boy and scoring a hit, but not penetrating his skin. As the monster moved on, it spewed what looked like webbing or silk from spinnerets in its tail, catching BB's feet and lower body between some of the sticky substance and causing him to fall over as he turned to follow. When the Titan tried to break free or shift forms, it conformed to accommodate whatever shape he took, leaving him to figure out a way out of it on his own.
Ignoring the changeling for now, Charaxes rushed Scalpel, bringing its two vaguely human arms down in an attempt to slam the alien to the ground. They met with Scalpel's glaive and the doctor struggled for a moment to hold it off in a contest of wills. Proving the giant insect was more intelligent than they had first thought, or just able to see an opportunity when it presented itself, it rammed its two long pincer-claws into either side of Scalpel's abdomen before raising a foot and kicking him off, tearing out chunks of flesh on the serrated edges of those claws. His weapon forgotten, Scalpel clutched his wounds from his position on the street. They were deep—hell, they had gone all the way through, and were one looking from the proper angle, they might see straight out the other side—and nasty, but they has missed anything vital. He would live, but ye gods it HURT like a sonova-bitch.
The rest of the Titans, seeing one of their number injured already, redoubled their efforts. Starfire's booted foot collided with Charaxes' back, sending him flying over and away from Scalpel and into a street lamp. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Robin quickly pulled out an explosive disc and hurled it at Charaxes, igniting the napalm-like alien blood staining its claws. Charaxes was...completely unaffected by the flames. Picking himself up from the street, he swung out one of his claws/pincers and cut the light post cleanly in twain near the bottom and grabbed that end of it with his two humanoid hands. He swung at Robin as he was the nearest Titan, but the Teen Wonder neatly jumped over the swing and used a couple of flips backwards to put distance between himself and the light.
The ground shook and the rock golem Terra had been working on for the past few minutes pulled itself from underneath Charaxes. It was roughly the same height as the man-bug, but much denser than Terra would normally make something like this. With concentration, she lifted its arm and smashed its fist into Charaxes. Charaxes stumbled, off balance for a second, before rotating quickly and bringing the lamp post with it, smashing Terra's golem half. "Well that was a waste of time," the girl muttered, cursing under her breath as she abandoned the golem and used its various parts to pummel Charaxes.
Joining the hail of rock debris were newspaper boxes, mail boxes, a vending machine, and a Shimmer-wrapped manhole cover courtesy of Raven and Savior. Charaxes ignored the smaller debris, but the manhole cover slamming into the back of its head was pretty hard to ignore. When it turned, Gauntlet and Cyborg were there with an energy battering ram and a sonic cannon blast waiting for it. The combined attacks smashed into Charaxes, but it held its ground as its feet dug and it started to slide backwards—that is, until the ground shook and cracked before turning to rubble under its feet courtesy of Terra, which sent it sprawling back. "What does it take to squash this thing?" Gauntlet yelled, giant energy fly-swatter already forming above Charaxes as he brought it down several times. Charaxes managed to stand between blows and Rob redoubled his efforts as the energy became a boot and again slammed the bug into the ground.
Gauntlet let up on his onslaught, slightly winded. Charaxes AGAIN stood, bringing the street lamp with it and smashing it into a Gauntlet-shield, sending the boy flying in the other direction where he smashed into a truck. Several explosive discs, sonic cannon blasts, starbolts, telekinetic blasts, and large chunks of street slammed into Charaxes, disorienting it for only a moment before it shook them off and jumped into the air, bringing the lamp post up and then back down, intending to hit Robin. A pair of hands intercepted it midair as Starfire caught it. "You will NOT turn my boyfriend into paste!" she yelled, picking up the lamp, Charaxes with it, and slamming them both into the side of a building.
Charaxes returned the favor, using his better leverage to smash Starfire loose from his weapon. The girl flew up and apparently deciding she could HAVE the lamp post, Charaxes reared back and flung it at her. The lamp post never made it as it was melted in midair by a pair of starbeams fired from the alien girl's eyes. While it was occupied with Star, Beast Boy—who had gotten free from his cocoon-like bindings—rushed up from its back side in the form of a gorilla, smashing his fists into Charaxes and knocking the creature off-balance. Charaxes turned around to confront his latest assailant but was again smashed with Savior's manhole cover. It ignored the large piece of metal and wrapped its clawed hands around one of Beast Boy's arms before flinging him into Savior where the pair rolled across the ground before coming to a stop.
As it started towards the temporarily down pair, a volley of mini-missiles slammed into its back, courtesy of Cyborg, while Starfire flew in and gave it a swift kick between the legs, sending it spinning into the air. Halfway through its flip, Charaxes' tail fired off more of the cocoon material, binding Starfire's arms to her sides. That proved ineffective though as she simply ripped through them a moment later and flew in with a starbolt-powered punch to its midsection. The tail snaked around again, this time intending to embed itself into the alien nuisance when Robin, who had been hanging back and waiting for an opportunity to take that particular annoyance out, flung the birdarang he'd kept ready. The spinning projectile cut neatly through the tail, severing it from Charaxes.
With the tail gone, Robin ran in with his staff and began wailing on Charaxes, slamming the end of it into any area of its exoskeleton that looked weak. Blow after blow rained down on the beast as Starfire joined in, adding fists, feet, and the occasional starbolt or beam to the onslaught. Charaxes was forced back several paces before becoming further infuriated and launching its own counterattack. Its movements almost a blur, it smashed both Titans away with a roar to reveal Savior running in to take their place. A Shimmer bludgeon slammed into its midsection, quickly pulling back and hammering it several times before splitting off into smaller strands. Each of those strands grew sharp protrusions, which Savior tried to force beneath Charaxes' exoskeleton.
Charaxes loosed a roar of pain and fury as a few of the Shimmer strands worked their way beneath its armor, clearly intent on pulling it off, while Starfire and Robin recovered and resumed pounding the crap out of it from either side. His mandibles spread and Charaxes spat out more cocoon material, attempting to wrap the white-garbed Titan up. Several blade-shaped Shimmer strands cut through the material and slammed into its mouth, forcing the mandibles open and digging out Charaxes' spinnerets. The flow of cocoon material stopped as Charaxes pulled back, its maw dripping with its own blood. Several strands of Shimmer material still tried to pry off parts of its exoskeleton from the inside, but it wasn't budging. Opening its mouth again, Charaxes spewed its acidic saliva at Savior. A black shield snapped up in front of the boy as Raven joined him, slamming a force bolt into Charaxes' head, along with several large chunks of metal and street.
Giving up his frontal assault, Robin slapped a pair of explosive discs onto Charaxes' side, signaling Savior and Starfire to back away. The pair complied, after Star swung a leg around in a powerful roundhouse kick, which send Charaxes stumbling further away from the Titans. Once they were clear, Robin set off the explosive discs. The simultaneous explosions were enough to send the creature reeling, along with further cutting half of its senses off.
As the trio of Robin, Star, and Savior prepared to launch another assault, Scalpel's glaive—followed closely by a couple hundred pounds of said alien—slammed into Charaxes from the side. It appeared Nigel was back in the game. His wounds were closed—probably thanks to Raven—but still sore. Even so, he could fight again, and so there he was. He followed up the swing with another, catching Charaxes behind the head and sending it face-first into the asphalt. Again coming to his feet, Charaxes charged Scalpel in an attempt to rend the alien to shreds, only to have a large delivery truck surrounded by yellow energy come crashing down on his head. Several hundred newspapers spilled from the truck and onto the street. Gauntlet was back in the fight. "I couldn't find a giant rolled-up newspaper, so these will have to do."
"What does it take to keep this thing down?" Beast Boy asked, rejoining the group even as Charaxes burst free of the newspaper truck. Half a dozen energy types and projectiles met the creature, sending it back into the truck.
Charaxes launched itself from the truck and landed in their midst, scattering the gathered Titans. He managed to catch Savior with a wild swing, sending the teen flying through the air as several Shimmer strands shot out to grab anything nearby. Unfortunately, several of those strands tore into an electricity pole, bringing it down nearly on top of him as he landed.
Gauntlet formed a giant baseball bat with his energy and smashed it into Charaxes, sending him stumbling into Beast Boy in the form of an ankylosaurus. The armored ball on the tail of BB's current form swung around, catching Charaxes in the chest and actually cracking the exoskeleton. As the insect-man flew through the air, a super-charged starbolt slammed into him from above, detonating and sending him crashing to the street, further cracking the exoskeleton, followed closely by Starfire as she made a powered-dive and attempted to drive Charaxes through the street and into the sewers. After Starfire cleared the area, the street crater Charaxes found himself buried in suddenly trembled before contracting and smashing him from all sides in a giant fist which then threw the beast further down the street, where Cyborg and Robin waited with sonic cannon, missiles, and every disc Robin had left that would put a dent in it primed and ready to go. The pair fired and threw their weapons which collided with Charaxes in an improvised Sonic Boom attack, which was followed by a hail of starbolts and a yellow energy mallet. Charaxes again got to its feet, dazed and wounded. Its exoskeletal armor smoked in places and chunks had fallen off in others. The beating wasn't over. Scalpel came in again, putting all the force he could muster behind a grand-slam swing of his glaive, putting Charaxes in the air once more and further expanding the cracks in its armor. Midair, he was again met with a volley of telekinetic blasts and starbolts, again slamming him into the street near Savior's position. The fight hadn't gone out of Charaxes as he stood, mandibles spread and mouth open to roar his defiance when a voice from behind caught his attention. "Hey, bug."
Charaxes turned.
"Meet zapper," Savior tossed out, using the Shimmer to propel a pair of live power lines into the large gap in its armor. Charaxes went rigid as electricity coursed through its body, forcing all of its muscles to contract at once. Its bioluminescence kicked in at that moment, nearly blinding, but shut off as soon as Savior removed the lines and Charaxes fell, smoking, to the pavement. He didn't get up. Dropping the lines, Savior strode up to the downed man-turned-monster and found that he was alive, amazingly—unconscious, but alive. A raspy groan came from its mouth, but it remained still. Savior could have sworn he saw a puff of smoke in that exhalation. "It could have been worse," Savior told him standing and rejoining his teammates. "Could have been a windshield."
"Ok, so let me get this straight," Gauntlet addressed Beast Boy shortly thereafter. "The guy ALREADY looked like a freaky moth guy, then he chemically mutated himself to look like a FREAKIER moth guy?"
Gar nodded. "Yeah, what's your point?"
"Oh, nothing," Rob shrugged. "It's just like Bill Gates selling his soul for another billion dollars. And why a MOTH! Why not something cool like a falcon, or a wasp, or even a dingo would be cooler than a friggin MOTH! Killer Dingo: now THAT has a nice ring to it."
The Titans had called in Star Labs as soon as they were sure Charaxes was down. A team from Star Labs was sent with a containment van to collect Charaxes and take him back to their labs for further study. The police had been called shortly after Star Labs, mainly to alert them of the situation and have them send down a team to remove Charaxes' victims. The Titans had gone down to check the scene out for themselves and free any remaining prisoners... and what they had found was grim. Charaxes had been given too much time to wander free and hunt for prey. The Titans freed the other captives and led those who could walk—carrying those who couldn't—back to the surface. By the time they got there, the police had arrived, along with the team from Star Labs. Apparently, the lab had sent the team ahead and they had been on the outskirts of the city waiting for confirmation before moving in.
Beast Boy and Gauntlet joined Cyborg, who was conversing with the team leader from the lab. There, the two of them elaborated on what Charaxes had done, what traits he had shown, and the damage they had done to him to give them some idea of what an undamaged Charaxes should be like. Robin and Raven were talking to the chief of police about pretty much the same thing. Scalpel sat by one of the coroner's vans and waited—the coroner had been forced to call in more than one. His night wasn't over yet, as he would be joining Sophie at the morgue, as everyone on call had been asked to come in. Tara eventually pulled Gar and Rob away from Vic and convinced them to help her distribute coffee, cocoa, and tea someone from the police department had been thoughtful enough to bring. In all likelihood, the drinks contained a mild sedative, but the people there could probably use it. Charaxes' paralysis venom had worn off of most of the victims by now, though a few were still having difficulty moving, and all of them were feeling the aftereffects. That left Starfire and Savior. Kory took it upon herself to talk to Kitten about her father and Noel... Noel watched, listened, and brooded on what he had learned earlier in the evening and what needed to be done now. A scene from the security footage taken from Drury Walker's computer flashed through his mind repeatedly. Drury, Neron turned away as if he was about to leave if his offer was rejected, looking towards the ceiling and mouthing a word—one word: "Kitten." His mind made up, Savior strode up to where Kitten was seated on the back of an ambulance.
She looked up as he approached and Savior made sure he had her attention before he spoke. "Cyborg, you and Star Labs did some research. In your best estimate, can this condition be reversed?" he asked of the machine-man who stood nearby, still conferring with the head person from the labs.
Looking up, Cyborg regarded Kitten—huddled beneath a thick blanket and nursing a cup of coffee—before turning his attention to Savior. "I ran it by the guys at the lab to confirm what BB and I found. I'm sorry but no, it can't be treated. It's permanent. Even if they did eventually find a way to reverse it, his mind... going back and forth between forms like that... The strain was too much for a human mind to handle going through the first time."
Savior gave Kitten enough time to let that information sink in before asking his next question. "Well, are you happy?" he asked, voice low with barely contained fury. So many people were dead, and it all came down to how this one person had been a snotty little shit to a father that wanted nothing more than to please his daughter.
Kitten's lips trembled and she clenched her jaw, trying to control the feelings swirling inside of her, fighting for dominance—fear, sadness, anger, hate, resentment, loss... but most of all, a biting numbness, a void that threatened to consume her from within. "It.. it's not my fault! I couldn't do anything," she mumbled, losing the nerve to look him in the face. "Why would he...? He just... I'm sorry," her voice hitched and she choked back a sob. She was nearing her breaking point. "I did nothing to—"
Savior cut her off. "Nothing?" Savior cut in quietly, shutting her up and drawing her attention back to him, along with that of those around them. "Oh, you did NOTHING all right. All you did was have a father who was willing to give you the world. A father who could never please you. A father who willingly TURNED HIMSELF INTO A CANNIBALISTIC MONSTER IN AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! NOT YOUR FAULT? IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!"
Kitten opened her mouth to protest, but Savior stepped forward, his power lifting her from the back of the ambulance so her face was even with his, and grabbed her chin, fingers digging into her jaw slightly though not enough to do damage. "Twenty-seven are dead. They died in agony. ALL of them were more deserving to live than you, and yet here you are you stupid, stupid little girl." A pause, and then, "There are lessons you can learn here. Please," here, he leaned in more closely, his nose almost touching hers. "Learn the wrong ones. Blame us instead of yourself. Continue down the path of bratdom to self-righteous hypocritical lunatic. Give me an excuse to put you down hard one day—I can't do it now. Give me a chance one day to do it... Or never darken our door AGAIN!"
He let go and turned away. Kitten fell into the back of the ambulance but didn't get back up. She broke. Beside the ambulance, having stood there and watched the whole confrontation, Kory glanced down at the girl in pity before taking a steadying breath and floating after Savior. "Did you have to be so harsh?" she asked, cutting off his stalk towards his next target: a dark-haired girl sitting limply against the side of the parking complex out of everyone's way and looking completely lost.
Glancing back towards where Kitten had still not gotten up, Savior nodded. "People like that have skulls of stone, Star. The only way to get the message across is with a hammer. If it takes, she'll thank me some day. And if not... I'll be waiting for her."
"She is just a child! A child who has lost her father. She has not faced battle as we have. You can not expect her to just harden her heart to the world."
"No, I was hoping for the opposite. She'll feel terrible. So terrible, I hope, she gets the message that she can not treat people like objects."
Kory understood, though she did not wish that on anyone. "No one should have to learn that way," she said quietly before going to join Tim.
Savior turned his gaze back towards Kate and made his way over to her position, until he stood almost directly above her. "Medley."
Her name cut across the chill air, the force behind it commanding attention and demanding an immediate response. Medley—not Kate—stood up shakily from where she'd been watching the recovery teams bringing up bodies. Her sixth sense lit up as she regarded the older Titan, drawn in like.. a moth to a flame. She hesitated only a moment. "...Yes, Savior?"
"What have you learned today?"
The question was so simple, so out of the blue, that she blinked and it took a moment to realize that it wasn't rhetorical. The answers to that question were not as simple. Her eyes were drawn past Savior to where she knew Kitten lay still. After spending the past several hours feeling everything around her as though those feelings were her own, she thought she knew the answer. "That we shouldn't push others to further our own goals... treat them like soulless objects with no purpose than to serve our will."
"And what have you learned most of all?"
Her eyes followed his glance towards where the containment crew from Star Labs was loading the electrically-charred form of Charaxes into a secure tube. That moth circled closer... "...How terrible real evil can be."
"Did you think this was terrible, Medley?"
There was no hesitation this time when she answered. "Yes."
Savior gave her an eerie look, something she didn't quite have the experience to identify written in his expression. "Then hope that this is the worst. But expect that some day, this will be paradise compared to the things out there."
Recent experiences flashed before the girl's mind's-eye, nearly blindsiding her in their intensity. Something more terrible than the things she had witnessed today? "W-what?"
"This is our life Medley. Of gods..." Here, he regarded Charaxes, its containment tube being loaded into the Star Labs van. That flame suddenly grew cold, terribly cold. "And monsters. The latter grossly outweigh the former. And they have VERY sharp teeth." Finished, he walked away, leaving her to her thoughts.
Katie's moth fell, its wings frozen.
The Titans, minus Nigel, plus recruit reached Titan Tower early the next morning. Three a.m. found that the Titans—those that were in the Tower anyway—had retired to bed. Well, most of them anyway. Kate's door stood open and the girl in question sat on her bed with the lights on. Her legs were pulled up to her chest, with her arms wrapped around her knees to hold them in place. Something drew near from the other end of the hallway and her eyes, which had been half-closed in a losing battle against sleep, snapped open as she focused her attention on whatever was coming. She heard a switch at the end of the hall being flipped and the hall lights came on at half illumination. A girl she hadn't seen before trudged quietly down the hall past her door. The girl looked up, noticing the open door and someone she hadn't seen before. She was around Kate's height, though with a slightly more heavyset build—not fat, but not skinny like Tara either. The word 'normal' came to mind.
"'Morning," Kate greeted, the word muffled by her knees as she hadn't bothered to lift her head.
"'Morning," Sophie agreed tiredly, moving further down the hall and opening a nearby door before trudging in. She didn't have to ask what the rookie was doing sitting with her lights on at this time of night.
Nigel followed shortly thereafter, his clawed feet making soft thunks on the carpeted floor. The exhaustion Sophie felt was echoed in his face. He was tired, sore, drained, and all he really wanted at the moment was to crawl into bed next to Sophie and forget the world existed beyond their little square of reality for the next six-to-eight hours. That didn't stop him from pausing to regard the open door. "Want to talk about it?" he asked quietly so as not to disturb the others.
Kate shook her head, waving one hand in the general direction of Nigel's bedroom. "No, 's'all right. Go get some sleep." Nigel nodded, slipping into his room and closing the door softly, but not before flicking the hall lights back off. "Thanks for asking," she said, knowing he could hear her through the door.
As soon as she felt the unnamed girl and Nigel fall asleep, Kate let her eyes slip half-closed and turned her attention inward. The nightmare that had driven her to camp with the lights on played itself out in her head again. Charaxes stood there before them—she knew now that it was Kitten who had been bound next to her—and fed. One after another, after another it tore into human beings, devouring their life before their eyes. She could see his current victim's face, tear-and-sweat-streaked with pain. The head suddenly turned to look at her, its face accusing. Charaxes tossed it aside and pulled another person from nowhere. The same thing happened again, and again, and again. A girl floated off to Kate's right, just outside her field of vision—a figment remembered from another dream. What she could see of the girl though was a wavering dress over bare feet and long black hair that fluttered forward apparently of its own free will. The girl said nothing, just simply watched with Kate. Eventually though, she did speak.
"The lives of those lost to what you fled rest on your shoulders because you had the ability to stop it, yet did nothing."
Kate's head jerked up again as she realized she'd drifted off. A figure leaning against her door-frame caught her attention, letting her know that she was still dreaming. Medley spoke.
"Now do you see?" she asked quietly. Kate nodded slowly. "Good. Remember, those with the ability to act have the responsibility to do so." The pair was silent for a long time after that as Kate stared at the floor and tried to avoid thinking. Medley watched, her face showing deep empathy for her... what? None of the words in Kate's vocabulary seemed to fit any more. So, what had they become? Out of desperation and will to live, she had linked the two of them on nearly every level, leaving only their individual memories and thoughts un-mingled, and even those bled over on a subconscious level from time to time as their bond became stronger—as they were doing now. Eventually, inevitably, there would be no distinction between them any longer. Medley knew that was what had prompted Kate to take up her name as a mantle—not just the fact that she was coaching the girl in her sleep when she could, as she was now.
Kate looked up, her green eyes meeting the orange of her other self. Her mind was made up. "Never again... whatever it takes."
Medley smiled. Maybe there was hope for the two of them, yet.
That morning—or noon, rather—found most of the Titans and guests gathered round the kitchen table with a card game, and those not there in the adjacent living room, playing video games. Well, all of them save for Rob, who had elected to sleep in. They had been awakened some time earlier by a visitor at the Tower's front door. Looking up from their game, Kory glanced around what she could see as though just realizing something was amiss. "Where is..."
At that moment though, Rob walked on stage from his room, something bundled under his arm in what looked to be his bed sheets. He wore a 'Kiss the Cook' apron (which had a line through 'cook' and 'stud' written in black magic marker under it) and chef's hat, along with an oddly serious and calm look on his face.
Studio Audience: WHOOOooooo!
"Was that the fourth wall again?" Tim asked idly, putting down a card.
From the other side of the kitchen, mostly hidden from view, Rob looked up from where he had been digging through cabinets. "It's my turn to take care of dinner, guys. Where's the frying pan?"
"I believe the pan of frying is in the washer of dishes," Kory answered, having helped do that particular task the morning before.
"Thank you," Rob called, digging around through the dishwasher and locating the item in question.
A minute of odd sounds that sounded suspiciously like a struggle of some sort finally caused Victor to succumb to his curiosity and ask. "Hey Rob, what're we havin'?"
"Silk worm."
"Mm, sounds..." Vic paused. "Wait, what?"
Kory immediately leapt from the table. "MY SILKIE!"
"Release it Starfire!" Rob yelled as the pair tugged the giant silk worm between them in some cruel variant of tug-of-war. "It's a matter of honor!"
"But I'm his Knorfka... what has he done to inspire these feelings of homicide?" she asked, eyes growing large and shiny with unshed tears.
"He ate my copy of Amazing Spider-Man #1! Now, he must die."
"Someone help me!" Kory called, turning to her friends. "Gar! He was your pet first!"
Gar looked up from his cards long enough to regard the pair. "I dunno... what condition was the comic in?"
Throwing a glare at the worm, Rob replied. "Good to mint."
Gar jerked upright, knocking his chair over and slamming his fists onto the table. "BURN THE HEATHEN!"
Successfully pulling Silkie away from Kory, Rob turned back to the stove only to find his frying pan gone. "Huh?"
A resounding CLANG! and a thud signaled Rob's release of Silkie... and consciousness for the moment. Dropping the pan, Kory quickly picked up the worm and made her was back to the kitchen, clutching it protectively and cooing at it. "It is ok; I will not let mean Robert cook you."
"Gar," Noel said, grabbing the boy's attention. "Silkie WAS originally your pet."
"But a near-perfect copy of Amazing Spider-man #1... It deserves DEATH!" he whined/yelled, pointing at the silkworm. Kory hugged it closer to her.
By this time, Rob's short trip into la-la land had ended and he was back on his feet in time to watch as Noel rolled his eyes and pulled out his communicator. Switching it to phone mode, he dialed the eleven digits from memory. "Hello, Mrs. Candide? Could you tell Pangloss that they're going to cancel Friends or something if a mint copy of Amazing Spider Man #1 doesn't magically appear on the table in front of us?"
"He's too smart for that!" Rob protested. A BAMF! and a puff of smoke over the table revealed a comic laying before the group. "See? Fantastic Four #1, smartass!"
"And that isn't equally valuable?" Noel asked, putting away the T-com.
"Nnnnope. Besides, it's a forgery. Pangloss doesn't have the attention span to make it right."
"Explain," Noel said, frowning at the comic as it was picked up.
Leafing through it quickly, Rob stopped and set it back on the table, pointing at the page it was turned to. "See! Right here, it changes into an issue of Teen Titans Go #5."
Noel glanced at the page. "Let me see that," he said, picking it up and flipping through its pages.
The other Titans, having remained silent through this simply shook their heads, until Tara spoke up. "Is it just me, or is the fact that Pangloss can will something like that into existence half a world away and screw up halfway through just a little disturbing?"
Captain's Log, Starda... err.. Author's Notes: Originally, I had planned for this to be a three part arc, but you (read as "I") can only draw out a fight with a formless cloud of bugs for so long. I couldn't make it a three-parter and keep my self-imposed 8500+ minimum word limit per chapter. This way, you get two large chapters without all the messy interruptions. (Ok, so that's only half-true. There's a huge freaking time-gap between the two chapters, due to the vacation I said I'd be taking with my fiancée and my job.) Big, BIG, freaking hellaciously big thanks to LegendMaker for giving me ALL of Teh Funneh that appears in this chapter. If it made you laugh or even smile, it was hers and/or Bobcat's, as I think he gave it to her when she asked but I don't remember and can't find it in my logs. No idea when the next chapter will be out, but I think I'll wait until I'm one ahead before posting it.