The Trouble with Villains and Heroes
 Written by Her Royal Highness Princess Kiela S., and the infamous Pirate Crisis Haylo.

Note from Kiela: If you're looking for a disclaimer, go to the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner, then select the option "Prologue: The Trouble Begins" You should find it there, as well as a little note saying that I'm only writing it once.

Note from Crisis: Not applicable, because Crisis is sleeping off the after affects of the all-nighter she pulled playing SO3- I meant, sorting the haul from the looting.

The Trouble with Villains and Heroes:
Chapter 1, "The Mission"

It was a typical day for the Titans, although there had been no fighting in a long while– several months, in fact. All five of the superheroes were taking advantage of the lull: Cyborg and Beast Boy were sitting on the crescent shaped sofa, playing some sort of cheap, generic fighting game, and Robin was sitting between them, watching them play– something that was undoubtedly dangerous, though that didn't seem to be an issue, for the moment. Raven was sitting on a separate couch, behind and slightly off to the side of the main seating area, reading a thick book. Starfire was practicing a traditional Tamaranian festival dance. Or, at least, she was trying to; she couldn't remember some of the more complex moves, and was trying to remember them by talking out loud to herself.

Suddenly, there was series of dark, deep notes played at what seemed to be sonic volume, because of the mostly quiet goings ons, and both Beast Boy and Cyborg pressed the wrong buttons their Gamestation 2 controllers– from surprise, no doubt– just as their game characters reached each other for the finishing move. Both fighters' blows hit at the same time, and both brightly colored bodies slumped to the floor, knocked out. At the same moment, the drink sitting next to Raven was enveloped in a bubble of dark energy, and it exploded, spraying herbal tea all over the carpet.

"I need to take this call," Robin announced nervously, to break the awkward silence that had fallen once the others realized where the music had come from. He stood, practically jumping from the sofa, and dashed for the safety of the hallways.

The fighting game made a 'bwu bwu bwum' noise, and both Cyborg and Beast Boy turned to look at the screen. They realized, at the same time, that they had lost to each other. The two of them screamed, "Nooooo!" while tossing their controllers into the air. Cyborg gripped at the sides of his head, starting in horror at the 'Loser' label that adorned both sides of the screen, while Beast Boy ran in small, panicked circles, waving his arms frantically. Several sentence fragments, blurted by both devastated gamers, followed Robin through the open door:

". . . . High score! . . . ."

". . . . Ultra Omega Deluxe–!"

"-Super Bonus Points–!"

And the final, tortured scream of, "Gone! Forever!" made the caped boy, whose private computer cell phone fusion had caused this, pause in his conversation, and send a guilty look over his shoulder. The machine in his had squawked at him worriedly, and Robin was quick to assure the person on the other end that everything was as normal as it could be, considering where he lived, and whom he lived with. After a few seconds of listening, he interjected a word of confirmation, and the cycle repeated. If anyone had been listening, they would have heard the following dialogue:

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah, I know where it is."

"Any contacts?"

"Uh-huh."

"Got it. I'm on my way."

And then, with a flare of the cape that Blackfire had so admired, Robin swept back into the Tower's main room to announce his immediate departure with, "I'm going out on an important solo mission, and I might be gone for a while." The other four Titans stared at him blankly for a moment, and then reacted to the news in their own ways.

"Whaaat!" shouted Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire, in unison, while Raven simply pinned Robin with a demanding glare. Starfire floated over him, her hands folded in front of her in the gesture that meant she was worried.

"Is there not any way we could assist you?" she asked, looking down at him pleadingly. Robin frowned, not wanting to upset her, but knowing it was necessary.

"I'm sorry, Starfire. I have to go by myself," he said, reaching up to place his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. "But I want you to take care of things here, while I'm away." Starfire landed on the floor slowly, looking down at her feet.

"I understand, Robin, but please be careful." Robin nodded, and then turned to Cyborg and said, "You're in charge while I'm gone." Then, looking at Raven, "Try to keep everyone in one piece for me." Finally, pointing at Beast Boy, Robin stood for a moment, thinking. After a few seconds, he turned away.

". . . . I have to get going. I'll have my communicator on in case of an emergency, but I think you should have everything covered. I'll check in every two or three days to keep you updated on when I'll be back, and to get the news of what's happening here." He raised his left hand in a lazy wave as he moved towards the front door of the Tower. "Later," he called over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

"Dude, guys. . . ." Beast Boy said, looking at the others. "I think Robin might need some back up."

"BB's right. We should go after him," Cyborg spoke up, his voice sounding a lot more authoritative than it usually did.

"Yes, I agree. We must follow Robin. I fear that something horrible might happen if we are not there for our friend," Starfire announced. Raven rose from her seat.

"What about taking care of things here?" she asked calmly.

"Oh, come on, Rae! Nothing's happened to this place in months! It wouldn't hurt for us to be away for a little while. Right?" Beast Boy said, as he glanced around to look at the other's expressions. Raven seemed to be considering it, and, while her face was its usual careful blank, you could tell her mind was racing.

"Hmmm. . . . From what Robin described, it sounds like it could be dangerous. He might be put into situations that he might not be able to get out of alone. It could be wise to go after him," she said, finally, and Beast boy jumped happily, starting to ramble on about how surprised Robin would be to see them, and Raven's eyebrow twitched a bit from annoyance as she ground out, "We'll follow. . . . at a distance. If it looks like he can handle whatever his mission is on his own, we're going to come back here, and pretend we never left. Agreed?"

"Yes, that sounds wonderful!" Starfire exclaimed, smiling.

"Alright! Let's go!" Beast Boy cheered. Cyborg scratched at the back of his head, sweat dropping.

"Uh. . . . Yeah. Let's go, then!" the cybernetic teen said, thinking to himself, I thought I was the one who was in charge of things around here!

Robin was speeding along on the R-Cycle, and was almost to Dakota city, when the police radio wave scanner picked up an emergency call to all available units within the city limits. The message was distorted slightly by the distance, but the Boy Wonder was able to make out the words 'Bang Baby' and 'heist in progress.' Turning the R-Cycle sharply to the left, Robin sped down a side road, taking a short cut to the location that the map on the motorcycle's video screen was displaying. As he turned out of the alley, he had to maneuver out of the path of a flaming car that was flipping and rolling its way down the street.

A young man who looked to be about seventeen years old stood in the middle of the intersection, laughing darkly, and, as Robin brought the R-Cycle to a stop, the older teen raised his arms to point his open hands at the approaching wave of police cruisers. He was dressed in a skin-tight, dark red short-sleeved shirt, with beige cargo pants that hung low enough on his hips that the top few inches of his boxers were showing. His red hair was spiked up and streaked with several thick lines of blond; his eyes were a dark angry green. These eyes began to smoke as the squad cars drew closer, and, once they were in range, the boy's hands ignited. With a yell, he launched several flaming orbs at the rapidly approaching vehicles.

All of the cruisers were suddenly enveloped by a white-purple light, and they jumped from the ground to hover a good distance above the street, which was understandably deserted. Robin traced the jagged line of crackling energy to its end, and found a sixteen-year-old boy, who was hovering above the ground by standing on top of a flat metal disk, which was charged with the same power that was holding up the cars. A white mask that went from mid-forehead to his cheekbones, and which had triangular eyeholes, covered his face; oval yellow goggles were placed above that, reaching up to his hairline. He wore his black hair, which was getting on the long side, in dreadlocks, and the style somehow seemed to fit him perfectly.

He was wearing a hooded, dark blue trenchcoat with black sleeves, the inside of which was a golden yellow. Underneath the African American teen was wearing a black muscle shirt that was emblazoned with a gold ring crossed by a lightning bolt of the same color. The boy's pants– black with dark blue stripes along the sides, and twin gold segmented patches on the outside calf area– were fastened with a gold belt. Finally, the outfit was finished off with a pair of dark blue boots, both of which also sported golden stripes, and a pair of gloves that were the same color of blue as the rest of his outfit; there was a triangular shaped gold edge at the wrist area of these hand coverings, in the center of which there was a small circle.

The electric powered teen had one gloved hand on his hip, while the other hand held the rope of energy that was connected to the police cruisers. "Yo, Hotstreak!" he shouted, with a smirk, as he swooped in closer to the red haired teen. "I think it's about time you cooled down!" Hotstreak glared at the superhero.

"You again! Stay out of this, Static!" With that having been said, the flame powered Bang Baby ignited a ball of fire in his palm, and prepared to throw it. Before he had the chance a metal object that was slightly reminiscent of a grenade flew out from the opposite direction, and struck him in the center of his back. When it hit, several thick, segmented metal chords shot out and wrapped around Hotstreak's body from ankles to shoulders, causing him to loose his balance and fall forward.

"You just robbed a bank. Logically, it would be impossible for us good guys to stay out of it," said a newcomer to the scene, and Robin, from his spot crouched next to his motorcycle, behind one of the damaged squad cars, blinked in surprise. The boy, whose ability of flight was attributed to rockets, looked about the same age as his crime-fighting partner, and was wearing an outfit that basically consisted of green and white. The white helmet had two black lines running along the topside edges of the topmost piece, and two black circles on the second portion, which were both placed in the center of the areas directly above his ears. The helmet itself covered the top half of the teen's blond head, but the second white segment of the helmet tapered down to his chin, framing the green visor that covered his face.

This visor was made up of two parts: the light green piece that covered the lower half of his face, and which– presumably– was simply plastic, and the darker green portion that covered the top half, curving around the end of his nose in a way that suggested the boy needed to be able to see through it at all times. His main outfit was, in fact, two separate articles of clothing, but the way that the white stripes along his sides matched up gave it the appearance of being a single unit. The collar of the top piece was made up of a thick white ring, one that fit snugly around the teen's neck, and puffed out slightly, the same way the green ring just below it did. The shirt was sleeveless, and there were twin white rings on the edge of the outfit, where his arms met his upper torso.

Except for the collar, the two 'sleeves,' and the segmented white stripes, which started just under them, along the sides, the rest of the top was green, save for the silver zipper that went right up the middle of the front. As for the bottom half of the outfit, most of it was white; the stripes continued down from the top, and then slanted in at the boy's knees, becoming solid white from then on, all the way to his ankles. The two pieces were secured– or divided, depending on how you looked at it– by a segmented metal belt, which sported a large square in the front, and a mounted circle just to the square's left. Both shapes appeared to be buttons of some sort.

The teen's outfit also included a pair of green ankle high skates that had black toes and matching black half circles on both sides. There were metallic looking, segmented stripes that started under the bottom buckles and went up to the black toe area, which had silver rectangles in their center bottom edge. The twin black half circles on the sides of the skates was where the rockets he used to fly were mounted, and, judging from the way he was moving to keep his altitude, these rockets were able to rotate in any direction needed. The last few accessories were a pair of simple black gloves, a set of elbow and knee pads of the same color, and a strange looking machine that was mounted on the boy's back the way that one would wear a backpack if they were trying to avoid having back problems later in life.

A hateful growl came from the fallen criminal, drawing Robin's attention back to him, and all three of the superheroes had to duck as his entire body was enveloped in flames hot enough to melt the street in the area surrounding him, and spray molten metal up to ten feet from where he was laying. When the fire shrank back to a less dangerous level, and the smoke cleared up enough, it was apparent that the blond tech user's capturing devices wouldn't work on Hotstreak.

"Aw, man. Now I'm going to have to make a new one of those."

"Next time, bro, make it fireproof."

Robin's hand went to his utility belt, as he launched himself out from behind his flimsy cover, and, as he rolled to a stop in a half crouch, a small red ball bounced to a spot between Hotstreak's feet– the older teen had stood back up, oozing liquid metal, to toss another barrage of fire balls at his two visible opponents– where it exploded, covering the easily angered boy with a thick white foam. The metahuman thief collapsed to his knees, groaning weakly, as the coolant took effect, neutralizing his powers with a triumphant hiss and billows of steam.

"Dude, Robin!" exclaimed Static, as he floated closer to the ground, and the other crime fighter. "Not that I'm not stoked to see you, but. . . . What're you doing here?" The helmeted boy drifted down too, the rockets on his skates set to low, looking at Robin in open curiosity.

"You're a long way from your crib, and the bad guys you get there are more frequent than ours. Bigger and badder, too, now that most of the Bang Babies have been administered and antidote," the blond said thoughtfully, and Robin's lips quirked into a small smile, which he directed at the two other superheroes so that it would serve as a wordless greeting.

"I'm sure things back at the Titan's Tower can be taken care of by the other Titans. Anyway, I'm here because I'm on an urgent mission for Batman. . . ." Pausing, Robin took a good look at the teen that had spoken to him last. "You're Gear, aren't you? Static's sidekick?" Hearing this, Static winced slightly, and Gear crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at the caped boy.

"Partner. I'm his partner," the genius said firmly, his tone more than a little angry.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that," Robin responded quickly, obviously surprised at the way he'd been corrected. Gear muttered something, under his breath, about 'that stupid TV show,' and Static wisely chose that moment to change the subject.

"So. . . . What's this urgent mission about, Robin?" he asked, hoping to take Gear's mind off of the 'sidekick' comment.

"I'll tell you guys someplace a little less public. There's no telling when some civilians might show up to look at the aftermath of a battle." Dakota's own heroes nodded, and went about the business of restraining Hotstreak until, a few minutes after Gear had used Backpack to send out the necessary call, the Metahuman Containment Squad showed up to take him away. Again.

When the MCS had left with the fire powered Bang Baby safely stowed in the back of their transportation truck, Gear and Static glanced at each other and grinned. "So, shall we take him to our–?" Static started, and Gear cut in, finishing his sentence.

"– one and only, super secret headquarters?" The duo was still grinning at each other, and Robin looked back and forth between them, eyebrows twisting in confusion.

Robin, the Boy Wonder, was dumbfounded. He stared at the broken down building in front of him, shocked; from the way that Static and Gear had called it their 'super secret headquarters' he had assumed it was going to be some sort of high tech looking place, stuffed full of cool gismos and do-dahs. Instead he was standing outside of a gasoline refueling station. An old abandoned one, at that.

"Welcome, to the Abandoned Gas Station ooof Solitude!" Gear announced, in his best talk show host voice.

"Uh. . . ." said Robin, "It's kinda nice. I guess."

"'Kinda nice?' Well, just wait until you have one of our burritos. . . ."

"That's great and all, Gear, but I still need to talk to you two about the mission."

"After you, good sir," said Static, in a surprisingly authentic sounding English accent, as he zapped open the door with a small burst of electricity, and gave an overly dramatic bow. Gear skated forward, pushing Robin through the door, which swung shut behind Static as he came in after them.

"Want me to take this for you?" Gear asked Robin, as he tugged gently on the edge of the other crime fighter's cape. As he was doing this, Backpack's legs snapped out of their locked position around his shoulders and sides, and it jumped from the blond's back to a nearby table, where it promptly went into 'standby' mode.

"Uh. . . . No thanks," replied Robin, looking impatient. "Now, about the mission–"

"Hey, Robin! You want a soda?" Static asked, from across the room, where he was standing next to what appeared to be a metal box, though there was a brand name or logo of some kind printed across the front.

". . . . Sure. Anyway, the mission is–" started Robin, for the second time, but Static was already turning back to the machine and commanding the dispenser to produce three drinks. The caped teen's right eye twitched, and he clenched his fists tight enough that you could hear the material of his gloves creak. Unfortunately for Gear, he chose this moment to offer the other boy some food.

"How 'bout a burrito? It's a house special. Everybody who's eaten one said that it was the best that they've–"

"No!"

Silence. Silence is awkward. Silence is especially awkward after an outburst of such volume. Silence is, actually, awkward any time people stare at each other without saying anything. Silence is–

"So. . . . What were you saying about a mission?" asked Static, as he brought the three sodas over to the table in the middle of the room. Robin took a deep breath, and let it out slowly; Gear cautiously finished removing his helmet, which he had started to pull off as he offered the 'house special' to the other boy.

"Well, the mission is for me to– . . . ." Robin paused in his explanation, looking suspiciously between Gear and Static, half expecting them to interrupt him again. The two Bang Babies just stared back at him innocently.

"Come on, Robin. Just tell us already," Static urged him, as he pulled up a seat next to Gear, and slid his mask upward, taking it off. Robin looked around once more, at the surprisingly organized and technological room, before sitting as well.

"The mission. . . . is complicated. . . ." he said finally, with a sigh.

"How 'complicated' are we talking here? If this is going to take a long time, I'd like the short version first. I have to finish my latest experiment; it's a little unstable," said Gear, and the other two turned to look at the thing he had indicated with a half-wave and a casual flick of his fingers. A puff of steam rose out of the top of one of the vials secured in the middle of the machine, and it was accompanied by a strange series of noises that sounded suspiciously like music from a horror film. It took the blond a second or two to realize that the sounds were actually coming from Backpack, but when he stood up and went over to investigate, the 'music' mysteriously shut off.

"What was that, bro?" Static asked, and Gear, frowning, mentally directed Backpack to open the hatch in its back and put up its sensor logs on its display screen.

"I don't know. He's never done this before." Robin quirked an eyebrow, causing his mask to stretch comically, as, after a few seconds of reading the data, Gear literally pulled the top off of the half-oval shaped robot, and ran a scanner– which had suddenly appeared in the teen's hand– across the circuits inside it, muttering something that sounded like 'He might have caught a virus again.' After another several moments, Gear adjusted his glasses, which had replaced his helmet, and put the top back on the machine.

"Curiouser and curiouser," he said finally, as he returned to the table. "Backpack picked up two separate bursts of high level energy, out of the ranges that metahumans give off. But with the current amount of information, I won't be able to figure out what they were or where they came from."

"Think we should check it out?" asked Static, and Gear had only just opened his mouth to reply when Backpack gave off another unusual alarm, though this one sounded more like generic game music. The three crime fighters looked at each other with confused expressions adorning their faces, and Gear once again checked his robot's sensor logs.

"This time Backpack's scanners picked up an unidentifiable animal." After a moment, he added, "Its also registering a protein instability on a genetic level, but it doesn't look like anything a Bang Baby would give off." Robin's eye twitched angrily as those bits of information connected in his mind to form the full picture.

"They followed me!" he exclaimed, and Static and Gear glanced at him in surprise.

"Huh?" they chorused, but Robin was too busy yanking on his short, spiky black hair, in order to alleviate his anger and frustration, to answer their question. Sharing a concerned look, the two superheroes of Dakota wondered just what the younger teen had realized, to make him act so strangely. Two thick metal stalks suddenly extended from the open hatch in Backpack's curved side, and the red bulbs on their ends flashed frantically as the machine sounded an alarm.

Both of the metahumans dove for their respective face coverings; that had been the proximity alarm, which Gear explained to a now rather perplexed looking Robin, once his helmet was safely back in place. The Boy Wonder went to the window, and peered discreetly out into the street through the layer of dust that was coating it. A fuzzy green blur went past, and he nodded sharply to himself in irate confirmation.

Turning suddenly, the caped boy dashed over to, and then kicked open the front door of the building, startling the four other teens outside. Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire all gasped in surprise, looked at each other guiltily, and then turned their eyes on the ground so that they didn't have to see their leader's expression. Robin regarded them calmly as he said, "I have just one question for you." No one asked what it was, but then, they didn't really need to because almost immediately afterwards the Boy Wonder yelled, "Why are you here?" directly into their faces.

Nearly blown over by the force behind the shout, all four of the 'guilty' Titans were leaned back at a frightening angle by the time Static and Gear had come outside to see what all the noise was about; Robin was scolding each of his teammates for different things, making them tilt even farther towards the ground with each word. Both bang Babies watched the goings ons with surprised interest:

"I specifically told you to look after things in Jump City while I was gone! Now who's going to keep the citizens safe if Cinderblock escapes again? And Raven! I expected you to put a stop to anything like this!" Robin lectured his fellow Titans. At this point, Beast Boy couldn't lean any farther, and so he fell, arms windmilling frantically in a futile attempt to keep his balance.

"Dude! It's not her fault!" he told Robin, as he sat up, nursing the bump on the back of his head, where his skull had made contact with the ground.

"Yeah, man. It was a three to one vote!" Cyborg cut in. "She just came along to keep BB out of trouble."

"Hey!" Everyone ignored this protest, which made Beast Boy sulk even more. His frowning pout was complimented by imaginary black steam lines, which the two amused spectators could picture coming out of the top of his head. Meanwhile, Starfire had shaken off her apprehension, and floated over to Robin, her hands clasped together in front of her, and a pleading expression fixed firmly in place.

"Please, Robin," she said. "Do not be angered with us. We were simply worried for your wellbeing. You cannot blame us for this, can you?" Seeing the pleading look on Starfire's face, Robin's anger slowly started to fade. Frowning, he let out a defeated sigh.

"You're right, Starfire. I can't stay mad at you guys." Seeing this change, Gear glanced toward Static, who met his eyes, snickering.

"Is it just me, or does a certain someone like a certain someone else?" Gear whispered, leaning in a little closer to Static to keep anyone from overhearing. Both of them snickered rather immaturely, taking in Robin and Starfire, who were off in their own little world. It looked like it belonged in a shoujo manga somewhere, because one could practically see the bubbles and flowers surrounding them. The remaining Titans looked on, simply relieved that their alien friend had managed to clam their leader down.

Ending Note from Kiela: Well. That took a while. A lot longer than I had planned, actually, because my perfectionist side kept forcing me to go back and reword things. Ah, well. That's life. In any case, expect a surprise for the next Chapter.

Ending Note from Crisis: Not applicable, because Crisis is off somewhere, probably playing a videogame- . . . . Um, planning another looting?