Credit where credit is due: Legend Maker helped a lot with Noel's answers to Terra's questions.

Maternal Instinct
Chapter Five: View from the Vault

Tara and Noel had managed to make it back up to the vent, despite the fact that the table had collapsed, and Noel was pleased to find that all the fruit-people were still intact and all accounted for.

Tara, on the other hand, was a little bit creeped out. Some of the fruits were conscious, and occasionally moaned in frustration or screamed in shock and fright when they discovered their sordid state. On the plus side, their hearts had been replaced with seeds, which thankfully could not beat, and therefore posed no danger of stopping of fright.

"I'm surprised," said Noel staring at the ruined ballerina outfit that Tara had on, "that you're not complaining about the fact you clothes are half burnt off." The remark was a bit of an overstatement, considering that it was really only the tu-tu portion that was burnt all the way off. The rest of it was severely singed, but intact. Though, Noel knew, it couldn't be comfortable.

"You know," Tara said looking down, "I hadn't really noticed what my clothing looked like after being covered in fire extinguisher foam, but now that you mention it this is rather itchy."

"If you hadn't panicked then I wouldn't have had to spray you."

"Who set me on fire in the first place?" Tara snapped at him.

"Quiet; you're going to scare the fruit people. The last thing I want is them all waking up and panicking. Besides, you're not hurt are you?"

"Well, no…"

"Then shut up."

"But you were the one who brought up my outfit!" Tara blurted… Suddenly, a Shimmer gag came out and covered her mouth for a second. She finally resigned, and shook her head. "Mll Mee Miet." Tara said.

"Thank you." The Shimmer gag came off.

Tara gave him a depressed sigh and they went back to rolling the fruits through the ventilation shaft/hallway until they all emptied out into the big room with the meat hooks. It was now a lot brighter in the room than it had been, and Tar and Noel could see that all the meat hooks in the room were indeed totally bare.

"I thought you said this is the Atrium," Tara said. "It looks more like the freezer."

"The whole building changed," Noel said. "Somehow this place, I guess because of Raven's spell, got designated a safe area. Well, relatively safe anyway."

"But how do you know it's the Atrium. It could be any room in the bank."

"No," Noel said. He pointed up above him to a whole in a big box that seemed to jut from the wall. "That is the president's office that you crashed through after hitting Mammoth's sister too hard."

"She's a criminal!" Tara shot back. "How do you hit a criminal too hard?"

"By hitting the wrong one," Noel said. "Honor among thieves, especially when those thieves are your little sister." He turned around and pointed towards a broken counter. "Also, that is the teller stand we smashed up and the still-open vault over there…"

"Okay," Tara said, "You're right, you're right. It's the Atrium. Geez…" She looked around, observing how small the two Titans seemed in the big room. "So… where do we go from here?"

Jinx ran forward, then flipped towards the charging Libre, blasting at him with a hex blast as she passed over his head. Libre dived forward and rolled, and the blast missed. Then he collided with a wall of Billies, who started pummeling him with the fists, knees and elbows, though it slowed Libre down very little.

Jinx looked back and saw that Kid Wykkid was right behind her, and at the last second threw herself down to avoid getting sliced by one of his shadow-blades. Going from the ground into a leg sweep, Jinx knocked the silent teen down, and then used a hex blast to send him flying away…

Unfortunately, when he hit the ground he melted into it through shadows and appeared behind Jinx, like a negative image of Raiden from Mortal Kombat. Jinx jumped away as he tried to cut her again, but made the mistake of jumping right into Scalpel.

The Blacktrinian looked positively goofy in the massive Victorian get up he was wearing, but Jinx had to stifle her laughter, because even in stupid clothing, she had no doubt that Scalpel was deadly. A blaze of metal-encased claws and feet flashed by as she backflipped three times to get away…

And as she flipped up, Jinx bounded off the top of the rolling INSTIGATOR. He had assumed his 'wrecking ball' form again, and rolled forward. The big cyborg smashed the Blacktrinian into the bottom of the massive crib, then spun around and deployed, raised his hands, and brought them down to smash Scalpel.

But Nigel was too fast to be hit twice by a low-level like INSTIGATOR, and rolled backwards out of the impression he had made in the cushion as Ed's fists came down, then jumped on top of them and ran up Ed's big arms to the top of Ed's helmet. The Blacktrinian removed his glaive from his back and stabbed down towards the H symbol on INSTIGATOR's forehead, but Ed charged his outer chassis at the last minute, and all the metal that was grafted into Scalpel's skin immediately turned against him, giving him a massive shock—not through the glaive, which possessed a non-conducting blade, but through Scalpel's metal-encased feet.

The alien and the cyborg continued to trade blows. If there remained any trace of the wounds in his shoulders, from Angel's earlier stabbing, he didn't show it at all. Still, Scalpel's reflexes were a bit slowed somewhat by the jolt to his nervous system. Or he was just still shaking it off.

INSTIGATOR decided that if anyone was worth it, Scalpel was, and quickly deployed his two shoulder-mounted laser canons and began blasting at the Blacktrinian, who dodged away, bounding off the bars of the big crib, like pillars in the huge room.

Unfortunately, Jinx wasn't faring so well. After bounding off of INSTIGATOR she had landed in the powerful grip of Libre, who had traded fighting Billy with Kid Wykkid, and was now trying to crush the pink-haired sorceress in his grip.

Jinx struggled to get free, but couldn't squeeze herself out of his grasp, and found herself struggling to breathe. She'd pass out if she didn't think of something quick!

Then, something Cyborg had once said clicked in her mind: If you can't beat them… cheat.

He had been referring to his almost-unbelievable last-second victory against Brother Blood when he had been the leader of the Titans East, but Jinx figured if it ever was going to apply to her, this would be when…

Reaching out into the spectrum of magic that she knew how to manipulate, Jinx sent an invisible pulse of bad-luck energy down through Libre's feet and up one of the columns of the massive crib, her eyes glowing from the surge of power.

And the column promptly collapsed, landing on top of Libre's head, pinning the masked wrestler to the ground. Jinx broke free, and then assessed the situation, ready to fight Libre again if he managed to escape.

Billy and his duplicates had completely surrounded Kid Wykkid, but they were balled up on top of the shadow-manipulator, and he was slicing at them from inside, unable to miss because the Billies were everywhere.

But even he got weighed down. This didn't present much of a problem, though, because he phased under the pile of rednecks, coming out on the other side of them in a column of shadow and pouncing on top of them, stabbing one in the back and causing it to dissipate. The other Billies screamed, and rolled out of the dog pile. One shot forward and punched Kid Wykkid in the face, and the others started trying to gouge out his eyes…

"Tarnation!" Billy3 shouted. "You're worse of a turncoat than that their pink-headed nanny-goat!"

Billy21 agreed. "Ain't nobody in the whole Hive school who'd stab one'a me in the back. 'Cept maybe Sabotage, and nobody likes that sonofagun noways."

Billy21 then delivered a punch to Kid Wykkid's throat and Billy13 hit him in the gut. Several of the duplicates tossed the incapacitated Kid Wykkid across the room where Billy6 and Billy11 caught him and dropped him on top of Libre's head near where Jinx was standing.

"Respect my authoritai," Billy26 said with a smirk, placing his foot atop Kid Wykkid's head.

"Nice job," Jinx whispered to herself.

Suddenly, Libre threw Kid Wykkid off his head, and looked over at Scalpel, who was still dodging INSTIGATOR's lasers. It seemed Scalpel had managed to cut one of Ed's laser canons off, because only one was firing now, though it was firing in short busts instead of streams to make up for the output of the one Scalpel had cut off.

Libre wriggled forward and found he couldn't escape the weight of the column, and then started shouting, "Papa Sca'pa! Papa Sca'pa!"

"'Pada'?" Jinx parroted, looking down at the massive wrestler, and then over at the Blacktrinian. "What the hex is going on here?"

"DADA!" shouted Libre. Scalpel's head snapped in the direction of the Libre, and he immediately changed direction by pushing off one of the 'pillars' that made up the giant crib's cage. Scalpel blurred forward, his glaive cutting off the other laser on INSTIGATOR's shoulder before he turned and ran towards the shouting 'infants'…

"No you don't!" Jinx said, jumping in front of Scalpel and firing a series of hex blasts, hoping she'd be able to take him down before he could aid the fallen minions of Mother May-Eye…

But no such luck; Nigel just jumped over the attack and threw a small namesake scalpel that was attached to his belt at Jinx. Startled, she staggered back a bit while simultaneously causing it to explode with a reflexive bad luck spell. Nigel landed near Billy26 and punched him so hard he went airborne, then swung his glaive at a downward angle, cutting off Billy11's arm and driving Billy6 backwards away from Kid Wykkid and Libre.

"You will not harm the children!" Scalpel raged. Then he bent over and used his massive alien strength to pick up the toppled column and lift it off Libre. The masked wrestler got up, and waited till Scalpel threw the column off, then hugged him.

"Papa Sca'pa!"

"Libre," Scalpel said in a disturbingly paternal tone, "Your Mother has told you to be more careful."

"Si, papa."

Nigel sighed, then helped Kid Wykkid up. "Are you alright, dear son?"

Kid Wykkid nodded…

And everyone else facevaulted.

"SON?" Jinx blurted. "What the hex… How are… Oh… I think I might throw up…"

"WHOO-WHEE!" the Billies blurted.

"Them are some bad mental images there, alien. But if that's what tickles your fancy…" Billy4 started, "Can I really judge it?"

"But nothing! That is just GeeROSS," Billy17 interrupted. "Let's beat the tar out of him for bein' such a pervert."

"I agree," Billy9 said. "And then we need find some buckshot and a good shotgun and…"

"ENOUGH!" Jinx shouted. "No buckshot, no hillbilly stuff. Period!"

"This unit," Started INSTIGATOR, who had joined the scene, "Wishes to have an explication of the paternal proclivity displayed."

"Yeah, what he said!" Billy2 blurted. "You ain't Libre and Kid Wykkid's daddy last I checked. Unless you been travelin' through time in one of them DEE-Loreans or somethin'."

"Papa? Tu eres nuestro papa… Si?" Libre asked.

"Of course I am," Scalpel said. "And if anyone tells you otherwise, they defame your dear mother and must be severely punished."

"But how?" Jinx asked. "May-Eye's pies make everyone her children. Not her…" she almost gagged on the word… "husband…"

"LIES!" shouted Scalpel, then began spewing a stream of Blacktrinian curses as he rushed at Jinx. But INSTIGATOR charged forward and bashed him out of the way, and Billy Numerous charged at Kid Wykkid…

"Leaving me with the big oaf again, eh boys?" Jinx muttered. "Whatever." She tried to shut all the disturbing implications of this new development out of her mind as she went back to work trying to figure out a way to bring the Scalpel and the brainwashed Hive students back to the side of sanity. Dropping a column on his head hadn't worked, so she'd have to go about it another way…

But how?

"Well," Noel said at length after he and Tara had spent some time recovering from the fight earlier… "We need to get moving."

"Where? Back to the big kitchen with no exit?"

"I don't know," Noel said he thought a moment. "If that way is a dead end, we should try and catch up with Robin and Mammoth… or go look for Starfire…"

"Starfire?"

Noel looked away, his face twisting into a mask of frustration and barely-held back rage. "I lost her…"

"What?"

"Raven is controlled by that witch, and she distracted me… Then Gizmo opened up some sort of portal and pulled Kory in. That was just before you attacked me."

Noel's tone was only a bit less annoyed than his face. "I was under her control, you know."

Savior shrugged and turned towards the direction that Mammoth ran off to, then began to walk… Then he stopped dead, and looked in the direction of the vault… He stared at it for a minute, then shrugged again, and continued walking…

Suddenly, he stopped again, and turned to the vault… "Tara…" he started..

"What? What is wrong with you?"

"You don't hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tara asked, now stating to think the whole scenario of being locked in a bank controlled by Mother May-Eye was starting to get to him.

"That scream? It sounded like…." His eyes shot wide again, Savior ran forward, this time towards the vault, his mask a face of serious determination…

Tara followed after him, confused and hoping that Noel wasn't hallucinating. Those months he'd been in Edge City had been bad enough on Raven and the team. Now he was going nuts again. Just great.

Savior burst into the vault, a Shimmer blade drawn and ready to strike, with Terra right behind him, her eyes aglow and the spare rocks in her pockets hovering above her ready to strike…

There were no screaming victims in the bank, only Raven, still wearing the false smile and saccharine clothing that came with Mother May-Eye's control. Raven and Savior stared each other down for seconds before either of them spoke, and Terra could only stand and watch, unsure of what to say or do, or if she should or even could say or do anything useful in a situation such as this.

Finally, Raven spoke. "I'm glad you've come here, dear," Raven said with a sneer. "I was beginning to think you no longer cared."

"Dear?" He asked, probing for what Raven's motive really was. "You mean Dear Brother?"

"Isn't he funny, Mother?" Raven asked, apparently in telepathic communiqué with the green witch.

"……" said Noel…

"Surrender, and you will be terminated. You despise Mother and her delicious pies… You go berserk when under her control. Your rage is poison to her."

"Not fast-acting enough for my tastes," Savior spat. "Know anybody who'd react with her like cyanide. How about strychnine?" As he said this, another Shimmer blade formed in his other hand. He would hate it, but he would use them on Raven; she'd prefer that to being a puppet. She'd been a puppet for the first sixteen years of her life.

Raven shook her head. "He still doesn't understand, Mother. Shall I merely terminate his life?"

"What! No attempts to feed us those mind-melting pies or zap us into a state of brainwash?" Terra blurted. "I'm a bit disappointed." Finally taking action, she hurled her flying rocks at Raven with her geokinesis. But the rocks suddenly turned black, encased in Raven's dark energy, and crumbled. So much for her projectiles.

Then, a loud grunt behind them cause Noel and Raven to turn around, just in time to see the vault slam shut and lock. Tara rushed to the door and began banging on it, and Noel looked back to Raven only to see her vanish in a dark shadow.

Noel let out a stream of profanities and then slumped against the safe door. After a bit, he looked over at Tara, whose fists were almost bloody by this point.

"Tara. Stop pounding your frail bony hands against three feet of solid metal. You're going to hurt yourself. Besides. That grunt sounded like Starfire. So at least we know she isn't dead. That's something to be a bit less unhappy about."

"But we have to get out of here! Even if they don't send someone after us, we will run out of oxygen eventually!"

"We'll run out faster if you don't calm down," Savior pointed out. "If they are expecting us to pass out or die from lack of oxygen, why don't we surprise them?"

"What? How?"

"We fake it. We lie on the ground and pretend to have passed out, and then surprise whoever comes to get us."

"Um, Noel, problem," Tara said. "How will we 'pretend' to be passed out if we RUN OUT OF OXYGEN FIRST!"

"Calm down."

"QUIT TELLING ME TO CALM DOWN! THIS IS NO TIME TO BE CALM!" Tara started hyperventilating…

"That's not helping our O2 supply you know," Noel said.

"Shut up..." Tara paused. "Why don't you just rip off the door?"

Noel gave a disgusted sigh and then wrapped Terra's mouth in a Shimmer gag, pressed the Shimmer into several pressure points Robin had taught him, and forced her to sit down. "Listen to me. The door is three feet thick and made of solid steel. The hinges are on the other side, and they are strong enough to withstand a tank shell. I can't rip it off. But, I can use the Shimmer to bore a hole in the vault door. We'll have enough air. IF," he emphasized, "you don't use it all up panicking."

"Fine.. I'll get us out with rocks…"

"Tara. Metal. Thick. REALLY thick. You'll do nothing but rattle us around like a can of peas. Now will you please calm down before I have to stick my Shimmer in your ear again?"

Tara shut up quickly. "Right…" she said.

"Stay calm. I'll drill us that hole now…"

Tara nodded, and Noel began forming the drill, which was fairly crude. After all, the Shimmer wasn't a Green Lantern ring. Nevertheless, Noel began drilling at the metal vault door, and judging by his progress, he would be done long before their oxygen supply ran out. (It was not a small vault by any means.)

"So," Noel said after Tara had begun to relax. "We have nothing else to do for a while." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a mini chess set. "Want to play a game?"

"Um… sure…" Tara said after a while of staring at the proffered game board. "I call black."

"Crud!" Gizmo screamed, even as Starfire blasted away from the vault that Gizmo had just slammed her into… "I was hoping that would bash your brains out, dear rebellious crud-eating sister!"

"You will do no such thing!" Starfire shouted in retaliation, blasting a series of eyebeams that she hoped would take out the Gizmo's jetpack…

No dice. The beams arced wide and Gizmo fired several rounds from his new pop-gun, apparently a 'gift' from Mother May-Eye. The explosive magic-infused corks went flying wide, all except one which Star blasted with eyebeams long before it got near her.

"You think that's all Mother let's me play with?"

Gizmo's backpack, 'fixed' by May-Eye's magic, coughed up another weapon, this one an old school style paddle ball, except the ball was a glowing orb of plasma. "Play with this, snot-muncher!"

Mikron hurled the paddle ball up and then smashing it towards Starfire, who dodged away as it whizzed by her, and then flew to the left, firing at Gizmo. He used surprising accuracy and batted all the eyebeams away with the ball of plasma, then made like a tennis back-hand stroke and smashed the ball towards her again, and this time it somehow grew as it came.

Star flew straight up and the ball barely missed the tips of her toes; she could feel the heat through her boots. Gizmo thumbed a switch and then went into a flurry of strikes with the paddle ball weapon, too fast and numerous for Starfire to dodge them all, but too small to do any significant damage.

Nonetheless, they hurt like crazy, forcing Star to fly further away, dozens of tiny burns across her body. Ultimately, she looked and felt much worse than the damage really was, and Star was smart enough to know this. She fired at the approaching Gizmo again, using the same tactic of making too many strikes to dodge…

As the flurry of eyebeams rushed towards him, Gizmo used the paddle to shield his face… Which was just what Starfire was hoping he would do. She formed a heavy Starbolt in her right hand and hurled it at Gizmo. The attack arced through the atrium and struck the paddle, severing the cord and sending the plasma ball hurtling towards the ground where it burst open and exploded a few feet from that pile of oddly large fruit.

The paddle itself exploded, and the debris pelted Gizmo's face, angering him more than damaging him. One sliced his cheek open, however. None of them got into his eyes because goggles labeled 'safety' in big white letters were pulled over his face.

"Why you pit-sniffing…!" Gizmo shouted at Starfire. "You're a horrible sister!"

Gizmo pulled out a set of Frisbees and hurled each of them at the Tamaranian, one after the other. Starfire flew out of the way and fired back, then was suddenly struck in the back of the shoulder, and turned to see the blue Frisbee flying at her while the red one had dug several millimeters into her skin.

Starfire used a duo of eyebeams to blast the blue disk out of the air and then ripped the red one out with considerable pain. Blood rushed out, a reddish-purple streak lighter than human blood trickling down her back. Snarling in pain, Starfire turned and blasted at Gizmo with a Starbolt, then flew away, glancing over her shoulder just long enough to see that the green Frisbee was still chasing her, and that Gizmo had added a purple one to the fray after having dodged the Starbolt.

Starfire arced towards the ground, flying past the giant fruits, even as the two disks chased her through the air, weaving and matching her move for move. Then the purple one broke off and flew halfway across the room, and began hovering, even as the green one continued to follow her.

"You will stop this at once!" She shouted at Gizmo.

"Who's gonna make me?" Gizmo shot back, using his hands to direct the disks at his foe. Starfire tried blasting Gizmo, but found that he had erected some sort of energy shield, which made her job a lot more difficult. Suddenly, she realized that the green disk was coming at her from behind even as the purple one lanced toward her face…

Thinking quickly, Starfire flew up at the last minute before she hit the incoming purple Frisbee, causing them to collide at a right angle to each other, the green one slicing right through the purple one before Gizmo could change directions.

But it did change after the damage, and started pursuing Starfire all the faster.

Kory arced forward, twisting and looping in the air, but with his attention now focused on only one disk, Gizmo could follow her movements with ease. Starfire tried to fly at him to make him hit himself with the Frisbee, but it didn't work, and she really hadn't expected it to. Gizmo may have been an idiot, but he was still a genius.

Starfire winced when the cut in her back started to sting as she had to fly faster and faster to stay ahead of the Frisbee, but she had to take get the accursed thing off of her…

She turned and blasted a few times at Gizmo to throw him off, and then flew forward full throttle, blurring ahead of the disk. Then she rolled forward in the air, positioning herself upside down relative to the floor, and now facing the disk. Then she basted it with both eyebeams and it exploded several feet away from her, then immediately turned and let out a flurry of Starbolts and eyebeams on Gizmo's energy shield, which quickly fizzled out from the assault.

"You crud-muncher."

"Your insults are shallow, repetitive, and unoriginal, and you are testing my patience," Starfire said, now supremely enraged by the stalling. "Tell me the location of Savior this instant!"

"That," a new voice suddenly said, "is classified information, dear Sister…"

"RAVEN!" Starfire blurted.

"Sister," Raven repeated, her eyes glowing black.

"You are not my sister!" Starfire shouted, then after a beat added, "Though I'm sure you would make a far superior sibling to Blackfire. Were you not under May-Eye's control, of course."

"Enough of this," Raven said, growing annoyed with the Tamaranian's chit-chat, bad mouthing her dear mother like that! She raised her hands, and the meat hooks in the atrium ripped were suddenly torn from the ceiling by black energy, and flew down to Raven's level…

"AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!"

Getting out of the big bedroom had required the oddest leap of logic since 1996.

Mammoth, Robin and Cyborg had found American Gothic (that painting of the old couple with the pitchfork standing in front of the farm house) hanging on the wall of the big bedroom…

But the faces had been changed so that the woman looked like a skinnier version of May-Eye and the man looked like… Scalpel. And instead of holding a pitchfork, he was holding up his glaive…

All three found the image vaguely disgusting.

But when Cyborg had shot at it to try and erase the perversion, his beam had gone right through it, the surface of the painting rippling like liquid… A scene very reminiscent of a certain ten-year-old video game staring an Italian plumber.

"This is stupid," Mammoth said. "We jump into a painting, not knowing where it leads, and we're still lost and I'm still hungry AND still we have no idea where my sister is!"

"Would you calm down a minute?" Cyborg shot back at him. "My sonic analyzer is picking up something from up ahead."

"What does it sound like?"

"Well," Cyborg said, "It's not a heartbeat. It sounds like a furnace and a bunch of footsteps…"

"Footsteps means people!" Mammoth said, ignoring the rules of grammar.

"It could also mean a trap," Robin said. "We'd best not rush in headlong. May-Eye might already know we are coming."

Near the end of the corridor, it became clear there was no welcoming committee. The exit to the hall was an air-conditioning vent, and it was totally unguarded. Despite Mammoth's urge to punch it off, Robin and Cyborg judiciously unscrewed it from the outside with some tool Cyborg had prepared for 'just such an occasion'… And the fact that he had prepared for being trapped behind a giant AC vent meant that either Vic had been watching too much Toy Story 2, or that he had been reading too many of Gauntlet's pamphlets.

Still, it was helpful, so Robin didn't bother asking.

The three slowly stepped out into the room and found themselves on a very high-up shelf, overlooking a massive kitchen. But this one wasn't like the old-fashioned kitchen where Noel and Tara had fought. It was much larger, and closer to the kind of kitchen you would see in the 1950s than in the 1850s.

And the entire floor was covered with Gingerbread soldiers. "Oh man, not these guys again," Cyborg complained upon seeing the hoards. "How many of those cookie people do we have to break before she gets the hint?"

Robin looked at two odd red figures near the oven, and suddenly gasped when he realized what they were.

In the anime movie Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, there were massive creatures, humanoid in appearance, but with skin like a giant boiling soup. They were high-tech genetically engineered super beings used to fight in a war that nearly destroyed the earth hundreds of years in the past.

The Disney dub of the film called them giant warriors. The original Japanese version was more apt: God Warriors. The massive creatures had the ability to spit a particle energy stream from their mouths that could decimate an entire line of tanks or infantry, and they were nearly invulnerable to attack.

Robin didn't know if what he was seeing could spit lasers, but they certainly looked like the god warriors from Nausicaa. There were two of them, massive lanky beasts that appeared to be made entirely of red licorice, surveying everything like petty officers above a legion of grunts.

Then, a light came on atop the oven, and the Licorice Warriors reached out and opened the door, and pulled out a massive metal tray. And two dozen Gingerbread Soldiers stood up, walked off the tray, even as a second pair of Licorice Warriors carried over another tray and inserted it into the oven in its place, and returned to wherever they had been before; it was out of Robin's sight due to a partition wall that divided the kitchen in half

"Holy crap. It's like their preparing to conquer the planet," was all Mammoth said when he saw the spectacle.

Suddenly, Cyborg's proximity alarm blipped, and the Titans glanced to their right along the shelf to see a group of about twenty Gingerbread soldiers charging at them.

"We've been spotted," Robin said. "Titans, go!"

Mammoth grunted his disapproval of being called a Titan, but attacked anyway, smashing through the first three Gingerbread soldiers with ease. Robin and Cyborg jumped over his head and smashed several more to tiny crumbs with bo-staff and buzz saw respectively. Soon, in this manner, all of the soldiers were destroyed.

Robin grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked down to see that nothing had changed down in the kitchen floor area. "I think we took them out fast enough. They don't seem to be alerted to our presence…"

"Guess again, boys…" said a familiar voice.

Robin, Cyborg and Mammoth looked up to see two figures resting atop the partition wall—it didn't go all the way up to the ceiling as Robin had originally thought…

"It seems, dear sister, that Mother's little operation has been discovered."

"Indeed it has, Big Sis Angela," the smaller 'sibling said to Possessed Angel. "I suppose we may have to make sure brothers Timothy, Victor, and Baran keep quiet. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for the rest of the family…"

"No we wouldn't… Selinda…"

Mammoth, who had been staring in horror up until this point, snapped, his face turning into a mask of rage. "SELINDA! I swear I'm going to tear that witch apart!"

Get in line! The inner voices of both Savior and Scalpel screamed at him from across time and space…

Mammoth, in his rage, did not hear them at all…

Within the vault, unaware that it was closed purely by accident on Starfire's part, Noel and Tara continued to play chess. Gradually, something resembling a conversation developed between them.

"So…" Tara said leading in. "What's crawled up you butt and died today?"

Savior regarded her funny. "Nothing since Aberration tried. Uggyyuugghhhh, feel lucky you missed round three with that thing..."

"Feel lucky you didn't have to fight Ternion," Tara shot back. "You know what I mean. Even before I got Mother-i-fied, you've been acting like your desire to infuriate is on overdrive. And for you, that is saying a lot."

Savior sighed. "I thought I explained this during the Jackal thing."

"You told us a story. You didn't justify it in my mind."

Noel shook his head with a 'here we go again' look on his face. "Have you ever seen Songs of the South?"

"A movie? No."

"It's a Disney film. Released in the 40's. Pretty good quality. You'd think I'd be up for a DVD release sooner or later. Not only that, it's virtually disappeared. Know why?

Tara rolled her eyes. "I'm betting you're going to say because it's now politically incorrect."

"Bingo. It's considered racist." After moving a pawn, Noel continued. "And, hence Disney is trying to bury it. Seen any Speedy Gonzalez cartoons lately? How about some of Bugs Bunny's older work?"

"Points taken," said Terra, "But what does this have to do with you being such a prick?"

"I'm getting there. Tara, patience is a virtue."

"So is kindness to your fellow man."

Savior glared at her. "Some virtues come easier then others. Now. Ever studied language written five hundred years ago? Seen the fashion? The way the poor saps lived? It's all changed right?"

Terra nodded.

"Yet we don't try and deny how they lived just because it was cruder and simpler, do we?"

" Um... I guess not. I haven't put that much thought into that subject…"

Noel was finally to his point, Tara hoped. "So why are people going around and trying to censor and hide these older cartoons because they have attitudes that are no longer proper? Should we not see them, to learn where we came from, and how things have changed?"

"I guess…"

"But no. They're being banned. Because they're bad. Like Janet Jackson and her partially exposed for half a second breast. And Eminem, who isn't talented enough listened to by people old enough to understand it anyway. And Grand Theft Auto, the game that's corrupting kids, despite the fact IT'S MADE FOR ADULTS."

Tara arched an eyebrow… "I think I see where you're going with this…" Of course, she had been wrong about Noel's odd tangents before. "People are burying the truth too much?"

"Exactly—nobody is honest any more. Every day is filled with false friendliness, with blank smiles, with a slick gloss over everything so that everyone will be happy. Instead, they just settle for stabbing each other in the back. Or spreading their racism on the internet, or tormenting a co-worker. It's not RIGHT. It's UNNATURAL."

Tara shook her head. "People have stabbed each other in the back for thousands of years. Just look at Brutus… and Judas… and Benedict Arnold…"

"That doesn't make it healthy," Noel said. He watched as Tara moved a bishop and killed a straggling pawn.

"So Terra, I don't do that. This is me. All the good stuff, all the bad. You KNOW what you're getting with me. Terra, for all our disagreements and your dislikes, do you trust me to watch your back?"

"Of course. But there is a difference between concealing the truth and using truth as an excuse to take out your aggression. Remember Godsend?"

"Which part?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Savior."

"Terra, don't confuse the honesty of a zealot with the honesty of a cynic."

"I'm not confusing the two. I'm saying that even if you have good intentions for wearing your emotions on your sleeve... Well, you know what path good intentions pave."

"Nice try, but no. Your argument is flawed. I may wear a lot of what I feel on my sleeves, but I still possess more self control than most. Besides; the truth may hurt, but it doesn't kill."

Tara frowned. "Well, if I can't talk you into suppressing your urges to be 'honest', can I at least point out that if you refuse to mellow out, you're going to give yourself ulcers? And a heart attack. And hypertension."

Noel shook his head. "Good stock. Too young. Too in shape." The drill came out of the door, and Tara looked through to see that the hole was indeed all the way through it."

"Good job," she said.

"It's your move."

Tara looked back. "What?" Then she looked down at the chessboard and smirked. "Oh, right. Knight to E7."

Halfway through completing Terra's requested move, Noel's eyes widened slightly. "Argh! My queen!"

"You don't think I sit around and read Seventeen all day, do you?" Tara asked.

Noel glanced at her. "You want me to be honest or do you want me to be 'nice'?"

"Funny… So. Now what?"

"We finish the game…."

"Wait," Tara said. "I have something else to ask you… Why are you such a jerk to Gauntlet?"

Noel looked up oddly at Tara, and then realized she was serious. "Okay…" he said. "I'll explain it in full detail… Next chapter."