Chapter 1-A Very Bad First Impression
Jinx flinched as the alarms all went off at once. She whirled, facing her teammates. "Who's the dumbass?" She screamed.
"We didn't do nothing!" Gizmo protested.
"I think it came from that room," See-more added, gesturing nervously.
Billy Numerous piped up. "Hey, we better get outta here before them Titans show up."
"Good idea, Billy," said one of his duplicates.
"I wanna see what it was," Jinx said half to herself as she cautiously stepped toward the other room.
The rest of the HIVE members were beating a hasty retreat, but Mammoth hesitated for a moment. "Y'don't wanna get tossed in jail again, right?"
"I'll be fine," Jinx answered. "You guys can go if you want, but I'm gonna find out who wrecked our heist."
Mammoth shrugged and thundered after the rest of them. Jinx crept cautiously into the other room. She saw three normal looking teenagers apparently unconscious, and another extremely pale girl with blue hair and a red jumpsuit just getting up.
Jinx placed her hands on her hips. "You guys have no idea how to rob a museum, do you?"
The blue-haired girl stood up and faced her aggressively. "I was doing fine until that ghost kid followed me!"
"What?" Jinx blinked confusedly.
"You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
Oh. Shit. Jinx turned to face the owner of the authoritative voice behind her. "Before you go jumping to any conclusions, I haven't stolen anything yet!" Robin raised an eyebrow at her reply.
The Teen Titans stood arrayed across the room. "'Yet' implies the intent to," said Raven, studying her angrily.
"Well, the real thief's in there..." she said, pointing over her shoulder. "...and I'll see you guys later!" She sprinted down another hallway.
"I'll take care of her," Robin said, taking off after the pink-haired girl. Starfire lifted off the ground and flew after him. "You guys check that room," he shot over his shoulder.
---
Danny pulled himself to his knees, hearing the voices from the next room. Tucker and Sam were lying on the floor, but Antara seemed to have disappeared. The bundle of weapons was still in the room, however, lying right next to him.
"Hold it right there!" Several oddly dressed people rushed into the room. One of them, a large man made partly of metal, walked over to Tucker, checked his vital signs, then picked him up as he started coming around. He did the same with Sam, holding both of them still, one in each arm.
Bands of unfamiliar dark energy encircled Danny, hauling him off the ground and floating in midair. Black ecto-energy was something he'd never seen before, but it felt...different. Not at all like any ecto-energy he'd ever encountered before. What kind of ghost is thi--oh. His train of thought stopped abruptly as he recognized the individuals in the room from news broadcasts. Great, we're in a museum, the alarms are going off, and the superheroes probably think we're responsible. "Okay, I know what this looks like, but--"
He was cut off as more dark energy wrapped his mouth shut. Dark eyes regarded him impassively from underneath a hood. "I'm not listening to excuses."
Sam snapped to wakefulness. "Danny! Let us go!" She started struggling against her captor, but the metal man held her still almost effortlessly. Her thrashing did more damage to Tucker than the one called Cyborg.
"These guys don't really look like thieves to me," said the skinny green teen Danny recognized as Beast Boy.
The girl in the cloak--Raven, as far as he could remember--she did have a talent for staying off camera in those clips on the news--shook her head and turned away slightly. "This could be some sort of HIVE initiation. Ditch the new kids, see how they deal with us alone. I don't want to take any chances."
"Seriously, Raven..." Danny tuned them out as he quietly changed into Phantom and turned intangible. That itself seemed to have no effect on his imprisonment, so he tried a trick he'd developed first when battling Plasmius. Danny charged his body with ecto-energy. Normally, he could create a spherical barrier by doing that, but it worked equally well to push the black energy away from him. Raven whirled, only to watch as he disappeared.
"Whoa, where'd he go?" Beast Boy wondered.
Danny reappeared on the other side of the room, hands spread wide in a pleading gesture. "Look, we haven't done anything wrong. Just let us go, and--" He ducked as a bolt of darkness nearly took his head off.
Raven's eyes glowed dangerously. "The fact that you're trying to escape does little to help your case."
"I don't want to fight!" Danny cried, dodging thrown objects and energy attacks. A particularly strong blast flung him into a wall, and his eyes narrowed as he righted himself. "But if you're not gonna listen, I guess I have no choice."
---
Raven had been having a particularly bad morning. First, she'd woken up to the wondrous sound of a shouting match outside her door at four o'clock. Cyborg had filled Beast Boy's bed with ice, and they fought about it until Raven got sick of the noise and chucked them both into the harbor. Inauspicious, yes, but the worst part was yet to come. Beast Boy had decided to get back at his tormentor by filling a water balloon with some concoction that just happened to include all of Raven's teabags. She'd had to drink coffee that morning, and the caffiene had only sharpened her anger. Raven had been itching for something to do violent things to, and was not especially in the mood to deal with complicated situations like the one this annoying white haired kid was presenting her with. Add in the effects of a certain 'monthly visitor'...
No, it was not a good day for Raven.
"I really don't want to hurt you," The white haired kid in the black jumpsuit yelled as he barely missed her with one of his green lasers. The fact that he seemed to be pulling his punches only fueled Raven's considerable annoyance. Beast Boy was doing his level best to convince Raven to calm down, but she wasn't exactly in a 'listening' mood. At this point, Cyborg had let the other two go, and although he was keeping an eye on them just in case, he added his arguements in favor of listening to their story.
Robin jogged into the room and stopped short as he assessed the situation. "Raven, stand down!" He approached her carefully.
Raven whirled, eyes glowing a malevolent red. She roared wordlessly, unleashing a wave of raw energy that knocked everyone to the ground.
"I was hoping I woudn't have to do this, Raven." Robin drew a modified birdarang from his belt and threw it as Raven was turning her attention back towards the white haired teen. The device was one he'd come up with himself, designed to restrain. It expanded on impact, pinning Raven's arms to her sides. Part of it flipped up to cover her mouth as well. Raven fell to the floor, thrashing and growling what sounded like some very un-Ravenlike curses.
Robin knelt down by her. "Raven, calm down. I need you to take it easy, okay? We need to think clearly to get to the bottom of this." Slowly, the red glow faded from her eyes, and she stopped thrashing. Robin helped her stand up, addressing the ghost kid. "Sorry about the mix-up, but can you tell us what's going on here?"
"Eh, right." The ghost kid landed on the ground, walking a few steps toward Robin.
The head of a dark-haired girl popped up fom behind one of the few intact display cases in the now-trashed room. "Danny, are you alright?"
"Is it safe to come out now?" Another voice called.
Danny floated over to them. "I think we're okay now. And I'm fine, Sam," he added at the girl's concerned look. The two came out, still standing behind Danny carefully. "My name is Danny Phantom, and these are my friends, Tucker Foley and Sam Manson. I was trying to catch the ghost that stole these..." He picked up a bundle of three medieval weapons. "...but we got pulled into the Ghost Zone with her, and--"
"Whoa, slow down! Ghosts?" Beast Boy said incredulously.
"You have to admit, we've seen weirder things than ghosts before." Cyborg pointed out.
Something about the name 'Danny Phantom' had tickled at the back of Robin's mind when he first heard it, but he filed it away for later. "Okay, so you were trying to stop the HIVE from taking these--"
"HIVE? No, she said her name was Antara." Tucker interjected.
"Tucker, I don't think we're in Amity Park. We went through that door, remember?" Sam said.
Danny spoke up. "I think we're in Jump City. Don't you recognize them from the news? They're the Teen Titans." Their jaws both dropped slightly.
"That's right. But this sounds like it's going to be a long story," Robin said. "Star?" He spoke into his communicator.
"Yes, Robin?"
"Meet us back at the Tower." Phantom and Amity Park...why is that ringing bells?
---
"Titans Tower! Wow, this place is like every techno-geek's dream come true!" Tucker marveled as the group walked into the Tower.
"Don't mess with anything," Cyborg said. "I have enough to worry about with Beast Boy around."
Beast Boy's lack of a comeback was evident, as he was hovering near Raven in case of another fit of rage on her part. As they entered the living room, Raven muttered something about needing to meditate and stalked off, leaving Beast Boy standing there looking worried.
"Uh, is she usually like that?" Sam asked carefully. "I heard she was supposed to be the moody one, but..."
Beast Boy shook his head. "She doesn't usually get that mad unless..." He left the room after her. An akward silence followed in his wake.
Robin cleared his throat. "So, Danny. Why don't you fill us in. How did you get here from--Amity Park, you said?"
Danny turned to look at him. "Yeah. Antara--that's the ghost we were fighting--had a device that opened a portal into the Ghost Zone, and--"
"Ghosts I understand, but what's the Ghost Zone?" Cyborg interrupted.
"It's...kind of like another dimension inhabited by ghosts. There are doors floating in it that open into other places, not just in the Ghost Zone, but in the real world. We fell through one that led us here." Danny rubbed the back of his head. "All the way on the west coast." His head came up suddenly. "Oh man. My--I, I mean Tucker and Sam's parents are gonna freak. Not mine, I'm a ghost."
Robin raised an eyebrow at the stammering ghost. "Right, well the two of you could call your parents and let them know what happened."
Sam and Tucker exchanged glances. "Actually, my parents are out of town this week." Sam said. "And Tucker needs a place to talk privately, right, Tucker?" She elbowed him hard. "You need to call your AUNT and UNCLE Fenton, too, right?"
"Oww, wha--oh, right. Yeah, aunt and uncle."
"The...phone's over there," Robin pointed. "Go ahead and take it out in the hall." Something's up here. What are the three of them so nervous about? Robin wondered as Sam practically dragged Tucker into the hall.
---
The door sid shut behind Raven, and she took several minutes to just stand there, breathing deeply. Her emotions were going absolutely nuts. She was feeling a great deal more angry than she knew she had a right to, and that could only mean one thing--Anger was loose in her mind again. Gritting her teeth, she walked to her dresser and picked up the ornate hand mirror she used to enter the recesses of her mind.
Someone knocked on the door before she could look into the mirror. "Raven? Are you okay?"
She walked over to the door, choosing not to open it. "I'm fine, Beast Boy. I just...need to be alone for a while."
"It's Anger again, isn't it." Surprisingly perceptive, Raven thought. "I'm sorry about everything that happened this morning. I can help if you--"
Raven slid the door open a little, looking into the concerned face of her friend. "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I need to handle it myself this time. It's not the same problem, exactly."
"Are you sure? You know I'm up for kickin' butt any time," he joked, looking hopeful.
"Considering that it's my butt that needs kicking, I think it'd be better for me to do this alone."
He looked somewhat disappointed, but smiled anyway. "Okay. Good luck, Raven." She shut the door again as he left. Picking up the mirror again, Raven gazed into it, four red glowing eyes meeting her own...
---
The hooded figure watched the images in the pool intently. The half-demon was entering her meditative mirror, seeking the reason for her earlier rage. The half-ghost was dissembling, trying his best to hide his identity from one of the best young detectives in the world. True, his hireling had failed to retrieve the prize he sought, but it was a momentary setback. The best plans, he mused to himself, are changeable at a moment's notice. That is why he would succeed where so many others had failed.
"Reverend?" He straightened from his perusal of the mystical waters at the deferent voice addressing him. "Our guests have arrived. Shall I show them in?"
"A moment." He turned to the pool again, swirling its waters. The images within changed, showing the two he had asked here. One, a gray haired man in a stylish dark suit, paced anxiously. The other, a man in a two tone mask, stood patiently with his arms folded. The two were not in the same room, naturally, but he judged they had waited long enough. "Yes, my son. Bring our guests to me." He seated himself on a massive throne at the end of the long, cavernous room.
His guests entered from opposite sides, approaching the throne at the same time after studying each other for a few seconds. The light was too low for many details.
"Gentlemen. You are in the presence of Reverend Dominic Darrk."
---
A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update! I had to rewrite this chapter cuz I didn't like how it went the first time. No, you can't see it if you ask. To make up for my slowness, I'm going to see if I can get another chapter up tonight, or at least as fast as I can. Enjoy peeps.
