Maternal
Instinct
Chapter Eight: Command and Conquer
Tara sighed. They had been in the vault for far too long. "You know, I don't like what you did earlier."
"And that is?" Savior asked absently.
"You pulling your mental tricks on me." Tara's accusation stung mildly.
Frowning, Savior shook his head ironically. "I assume you mean causing you to give me far more information than I needed about your sex life."
"Exactly! I don't appreciate it! You were trying to brainwash me, not cool!"
Noel gave Terra an unpleasant cynical smirk. "Who says I was actively TRYING to brainwash you?"
"You can't brainwash me by accident!" Terra blurted.
"Why can't I?"
" Because...I know you!"
"That may not matter Tara." Savior looked around. "The human mind is amazingly malleable...in good and bad ways."
"Brainwashing...doesn't take much." Motioning with his white-gloved hand, Noel indicated the vault they were locked in. "Isolation…Threats of death... perhaps interspersed with random acts of kindness. It's been recorded that within 72 hours brainwashing can set in. Or have you not heard of Stockholm syndrome?"
Tara eyed Savior warily. He was starting to creep her out. "You mean like when kidnapped people start to become fond of their captors? Like with that Smart girl in Washington?"
"Exactly." Savior quickly launched into an explanation. "Stockholm, Sweden, 1973. A botched bank robbery forces the robbers to take hostages. After only six days, when the SWAT team finally attacked, the captives actually fought with the team who was there to rescue them. They also refused to press charges and actively raised money for their captor's defense. And this was with robbers who meant them harm. Six days Terra. Six days."
Terra blinked. "I always heard it was five."
Savior ignored her. "Now...imagine what a friend who knows a lot more about the human mind could do in three hours? I'm not brainwashing you? But how can you know...if I didn't want you to think that?"
A deep frown stretched across Terra's face, and she began to feel sick at her stomach. "This is depressing," she said.
Savior's expression lightened. "Relax Terra. I'm not. And don't start on the 'But what if he just wants me to think that.' That's a direct path to madness. Navel gaze too long and you'll get lint on the brain. But also remember...perception is the most powerful force in the universe. The human mind…well… isn't."
After a minute of silence, Savior sighed. "Look, Terra, I didn't mean to creep you out. Want to play another game to take your mind off of this?"
"We've played chess five times already," Terra whined… "Let's play… something.. else…"
Light. Sound. Nothing…
Then light and sound again… Jinx, Billy, Ed, Donavon, and Carlos suddenly found themselves face first on the ground, a tingling sensation running throughout their bodies. But the feeling quickly faded as they all rose, and examined their surroundings…
Giant fruits lay strewn about, as did metal meat hooks that looked as though they had been ripped off their chains and thrown about. There was a general look of damage to the room… A look that caused Jinx's eyes to light up.
"Where are we?" asked Billy Numerous.
"No se," replied Libre.
"Guys, can it. I think we are back in the bank's atrium," Jinx said. "There's the teller counter that got smashed earlier, and the vault…"
"Someone ain't got a lick'a sense when it comes to redecoratin' the place," Billy said, observing that the formerly professional colors of the bank splotched with pinks and purples, with candy cane wall paper and busts of Gingerbread men instead of important patrons. "And I reckon that someone is Mother Mae-Eye."
"This unit believes your reckoning to be correct," said INSTIGATOR. "The desire to smash her face in has risen 300 in the last thirty seconds."
"We won't be smashing anybody's face in if we're trapped in here," Jinx said. "I'd say split up, but I don't trust any of you."
Kid Wykkid raised his hand.
"Yes?" Jinx asked.
The dark teen responded by motioning his hand towards the doors of the bank, shrouded by a strange veil of darkness, the glass turned opaque.
"You want us to go and smash that there door down?" Billy reasoned. "Might work…" Billy divided in two. "Mighten' it, Billy?"
The second Billy responded. "Just might do it, Billy."
"First, we need to find out what happened to the letter-blocks people we were rescuing," Jinx said. "
The original Billy shrugged, dividing into seven more copies, making a total of eight. "None a' us know a thing," seven of them said in unison.
The eight Billy, who was facing a different' direction than the other seven, grinned. "E'cept me, o'course. They're right over there next to them gigantic pears'n'plums."
He pointed to a pile of small blocks near the giant fruits, and everyone nodded when they saw that Billy was, once again, correct. Hell must have been getting pretty cold by this point, Jinx mused.
Then she sighed. "Fine, let's go smash the doors down then."
The vocal Hive members all gave cheers of assent as the strolled off to the sealed-off portals, and began an effort that gradually proved futile.
Perhaps it would have been prudent for them to read the message that had been arranged on the lettered and numbered blocks stacked by the fruits. For they spelled out a clear message, a threat from the one who had orchestrated the entire ordeal.
This message was simply: N0NE SHALL ESCAP3
Gizmo and Starfire flew straight up through the maze of Escher-like worlds and paradoxical rooms, blasting with everything they had at the pursuing licorice creature. Raven was behind it, blasting its mouth with her dark energy, but to no avail—the energy was worthless against the head/body of the organism…
Raven flew left as she sliced off an attacking tentacle with a wave of dark energy. But as it fell away, another popped up to replace it, and Raven reacted quickly, again cutting it away.
Three more lanced out and Raven used a single wave to slice them all off, but was hit in the temple by a forth one hard enough to daze her. The tendril that hit her then coiled around her leg and jerked her towards the gaping maw of the licorice monster.
"Raven!" shouted Starfire. The Tamaranian girl swooped down, blasting at the tentacles that got close. The shots did little damage, but Star was able to dodge the tendrils and grab a hold of Raven. "I have you, friend."
"Starfire, pull!" Raven shouted, and the princess complied, flying away from the creature…
Unfortunately, it seemed that Starfire just wasn't strong enough without leverage—the tentacle began coiling ever closer to the mouth, even as Raven struggled to regain her senses and control over her powers…
Suddenly, Gizmo, now wearing some sort of mechanically-enhanced suit, blasted forward and slammed into the side of the creature. The momentum knocked it sideways, dragging Raven and Starfire with it.
Raven yet out a yell and her powers exploded out from her, knocking Starfire away. "Cut it out!" Raven barked. "You're going to tear my arm off before you break the tentacle."
"Sorry," Starfire said. She flew down and wrapped her arms around Raven's waist, and then flew backwards as hard as she could… "Can you not cut yourself free?"
Raven attempted to do so, but the energy blade manifested itself as a tiny speck fifty meters from Raven's intended target. Raven sighed. "No, the tentacle is doing something to short out my powers."
Then, Gizmo blasted a missile at the base of the tentacle that had Raven, but it was swatted away. Gizmo, angered by this, charged forward.
"No!" Raven shouted. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
Gizmo didn't listen, his mech suit suddenly transforming so that it was covered in buzz saws and other sharp objects. Gizmo started trying to cut through the licorice tentacles, but they quickly over-powered him, and Gizmo became tangled in the mess of tendrils.
"Idiot," Raven hissed.
"His actions are truly those of a fool," Starfire agreed.
Gizmo rocketed up and away from the head, but the tentacles were more powerful than his thrusters, and eventually, Gizmo was pulled into the licorice monster's mouth.
Starfire gasped, and pulled as hard as she could, removing one hand from Raven's waist long enough to hurl a super Starbolt at the head of the creature—it slammed into it and a huge spray of candy goo exploded from the side of the monster's face.
"Alka seltzer!" Starfire cheered.
Raven stifled a laugh. "It's excelsior, Starfire." Unfortunately, Starfire 'whooshed' away loudly as Raven spoke, so the words weren't quite heard exactly right.
"Oh, yes!" Starfire called back. "Exlax-ior!"
Raven frowned. Why couldn't Starfire have kissed an eloquent novelist when she first landed on Earth?
Suddenly, Raven remembered that Gizmo was still being digested, and flew towards Starfire, who was throwing a flurry of Starbolts at the approaching licorice creature. Unfortunately, the tentacles were too numerous, and were deflecting the Starbolts before they could impact the monster's head.
"Starfire!" Raven shouted as she flew over.
"Yes?" Star asked, still hurling a flurry of blasts at the monster.
"Starfire, stop for a minute!"
"I cannot stop!" Starfire made another super Starbolt and tried to force it through the wall of tentacles, but to no avail. "At this rate Adversary Gizmo will be digested long before we can save him!"
"We need to make a new plan!" Raven said, finally using her powers to hold Starfire back. "This one isn't working."
"What do you suggest then?" Starfire demanded, perhaps more harshly than she had intended. She was clearly quite distraught with her inability to puncture the creature's defenses.
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Raven asked, also more harshly than she has intended. "My energies cut through the tentacles with no problems, but aren't effective against the head. You're Starbolts keep getting deflected by the tentacles but tore the head open earlier…"
"Of course," Starfire said. "We shall attack together."
"Yes, but wait…"
Starfire had started to do their mutual 'spinning death drill' attack—the one they had used to knock out XL Terrestrial in the battle with the Brotherhood of Evil, but Raven restrained her.
"What is it?"
"Starfire, that might not work. Remember what happened to Mikron."
"Then what do you suggest?"
Raven thought a minute. "Make a Starbolt. A big one."
Starfire quickly complied, forming a starbolt the size of a tractor tire, which hovered over her head until she brought it down…"Please hurry," she said. "Restraining this power is very difficult…"
Raven nodded. "Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"
A black sphere of energy immediately surrounded the Starbolt, then quickly flattened around it into a wedge shape, like the stabbing edge of a knife. Raven then hurled the combined energy blast towards the monster.
Tendrils of licorice lanced out, making a net that would catch the attack… Or so the monster had thought.
The dark energy sliced through the tentacles with ease, then arced towards the tentacle monster's maw…
Just then, Raven dissipated the energy, and the giant Starbolt sailed into the creature's mouth.
KRAKOOM!
The monster exploded into a stream of melted licorice and starbolt energy, the goo flying everywhere as the creature gave one last writhe, it's tentacles flailing wildly… And then it died.
Raven saw that Gizmo, scared out of his wits but alive, was still strapped inside the creature's innards as it began to fall away…
Suddenly, from somewhere within the creature, light began to pour out, filling the room… And then becoming a vacuum, pulling everything—even space itself—towards the creature's corpse…
"Raven, what is going on?"
Raven shook her head hopelessly… She had no idea, but she had a bad feeling about it..
Gizmo was the first to be pulled into the vortex, then Starfire, and finally Raven…
Light consumed them all.
"I spy," Savior said, then mumbled something that vaguely resembled 'with my little eye', finally finishing, "…something blue…"
Terra sighed. "My iris."
Noel swore. "How did you get that one so easily?"
"Because," Terra said, "you did that one ten minutes ago, and my eyes and yours are the only blue objects in this bloody vault!" Terra's small rant had amped up in volume and increased in pitch as she continued so that the word vault was almost a screech.
"Calm down," Savior said. "It's bad enough we've been reduced to playing a game for five year old girls. Don't make my headache worse by going harpy on me."
Savior leaned his head back against the wall of the vault and gradually became aware of a pounding sensation that gradually got louder. "Terra," he said, "stop that."
"Stop what?"
"That pounding?"
Savior didn't open his eyes, but he heard Terra lean forward. "Noel, that pounding isn't me… It's coming from outside the vault."
"That means someone's coming. So start using my code name or I'll delete my real name from your cerebral cortex."
"Geez," Tara sighed. "Are we going to go through with the ambush plan? Surely they think we've passed out by now."
"Best idea I've heard all day," Noel muttered. Both Titans lay themselves down on the floor of the safe, waiting as the pounding got louder… Their eyes were closed tightly (from fatigue more than from good pretending, Noel feared,) and they heard rather than saw the rending of metal from its former un-rent state.
A Shimmer strand slid from Noel's finger to Terra's ear with the simple message of 'get ready' just as the door came flying off the steel hinges with a loud tearing noise. The air distorted subtly as the attackers hovered closer towards the two 'victims'…
Savior sent one final message to Terra via the Shimmer strand… 'NOW!'
Terra and Savior came to life, immediately leaping into the air to attack their adversaries. Terra, lacking any ability to use her rock powers, began violently pounded the blue-shrouded beast that had attacked Noel and Savior swung a sharpened S4 blade at the orange red-haired monster that had gone after Terra…
Wait a friggin minute…
Savior's mind responded a split second before his body, as he was already swinging even as the signals stopped crossing and decided that yes, this thing he was about to eviscerate was indeed Starfire.
The whole thing took only a fraction of a second, but that was almost a fraction too long.
Savior stopped the blade after it had dug perhaps a molecule's width into Starfire's skin. Had he gone any farther, the pain would have begun.
The stunned alien girl only stared at him in total shock, managing a light, high pitched acknowledgment:
"Eep.."
"St… Starfire…?" Savior realized.
Raven, on the other hand, was not so lucky as the Tamaranian. Terra, in her merciless assault, had battered the Azarathian with more punches than Rocky Balboa had taken in the course of all five Rocky movies.
And she hadn't stopped by the time Raven used her dark energy to forcibly jerk the girl off her, trying to use her powers to placate the boredom-addled brain of the blond geokinetic.
"Terra!" shouted Savior.
"STOP IT!" demanded Raven simultaneously.
Tara gasped as Raven threw her backwards, and gasped again when Savior quickly wrapped her up in a Shimmer cocoon… Anyone observing Savior's face would have known that this was a VERY bad time to be on his bad side. And at the moment, Terra was. In a bad way. "STOP BEATING THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF MY GIRFLRIEND!" Noel demanded. "That's an order!"
"Please!" Starfire admonished, flying forward and grabbing Noel. "Friend Savior, do not engage in such violent demands against Friend Terra!"
Only for Koriand'r's sake did Savior force himself to calm down. "Sorry, Star," he said. "I got carried away."
Raven rubbed her temples and her bloody nose. "Who in all nine levels of hell had the bright idea to blindly ambush whoever opened the safe?"
Like a deer in the headlights, Savior just stared blankly at his girlfriend, fighting back the giant sweatdrop that he knew would soon manifest over his head. Terra's accusing glance didn't make it any easier.
"Would it help if I apologized?" Savior and Terra asked simultaneously, though it was obvious Tara was far more sincere about it than Noel. Still, the both glanced at each other after speaking in unison.
Raven frowned. No wonder those two were together in Timothy Trevor's world.
"So, if you crud-munchers were planning to ambush whoever came in there, how the snot were you able to breath?" The question came from a voice that Noel hadn't heard in a while. I'm sure you can guess who it is.
Savior turned to see Gizmo standing not twenty feet away. And he wasn't alone. Billy, Kid Wykkid, INSTIGATOR, Libre, and oddly Jinx, were all standing together near him. Jinx didn't seem to be doing anything villainous, and in fact her facial expression, Savior though, looked rather nervous at having her back to her former comrades.
"Am I missing something?" Savior tensed, preparing shimmer strands for combat, and extending several from his back just in case. "Aren't all these people under arrest?"
"Until we've stopped that witch and gotten ourselves out of this bank," Raven said, "it would be best to keep them on our good side. For now."
"I suppose," said Savior after a moment. "Where are the rest of the Titans?"
Jinx answered this question. "Gauntlet was with us at first, but we got separated in the library. And now we have no idea where that is, or if it even still exists."
Starfire picked up. "And has anyone seen Robin, Mammoth, Cyborg, Beast Boy, or any of the other missing Hive Members?"
"Nigel…" Jinx said sadly.. "I've seen Nigel, but…"
"He's a WORKIN' WITH MOTHER MAE-EYE NOW, though!" Billy Numerous blurted. "Dang witch went and made herself you're alien pal's little missy."
Starfire facevaulted. "I believe the proper expression for this instance is 'yikes'," she said.
"No," said Savior. "That's definitely more of a BLECHK! Why would the witch make everyone else her 'children' but Scalpel her… husband?"
"Does it matter?" Raven asked after a moment. "Scalpel would never willingly submit to such humiliation. He's under a spell, and I can dispel that magic just as easily as I can the rest of her powers."
"That spell came in handy a few times earlier," Jinx said, nodding a silent thanks to Raven, and Raven realized what she meant when Libre and Kid Wykkid both nodded too...
"So," Savior said at length. "Do we wait for the rest of the team to arrive, or go rescued them and risk getting lost again ourselves?"
"Mae-Eye is using her mystical powers to distort space-time," INSTIGATOR said. "It is unlikely that even this unit's sensors can navigate this establishment under such conditions. And all efforts to create an exit through technology and sheer force have proven ineffectual."
"In other words," said Savior, "we're gonna wait."
"No!" said Starfire. "We mustn't wait. If we wait, our friends could come to harm!"
"Well," said Gizmo, "you crud-eaters can be my guest. I ain't sticking my neck out for a stinking pit-sniffer like Robin or Gauntlet."
"But we must!" Starfire protested.
"Star, I think it is best if we wait… for now at least…" Savior started..
Suddenly, a huge group of gingerbread soldiers suddenly appeared around them, surrounding the Titans and Hive members…
"Oh crud," muttered Gizmo.
Libre slammed his palm into his masked face. "!Ay, el tormento¡Nunca termina!"
Using Robin's thermal-dampening cape to protect his face from the insides of the War Oven had been Cyborg's own idea. And Vic was definitely beginning to question his own sanity. Even wearing Boy Wonder's rag on his head, the oven was hot, and he was afraid the Molybdenum Steel his armor plating was made of would melt soon. The heat was so suffocating he could barely breath, but he had to do this—he was the only one who could survive the temperatures of the oven.
Smashing all the gas- tubes and conduits he could find, Cyborg was making absolutely certain that the oven was full of it before he came out of there.
Which he finally did, blasting a couple of gingerbread men even as he leapt out of the hole Mammoth had made in the tube, then broke into a dead sprint, tearing Robin's cape off his head as he ran. "DO IT NOW!"
Angel, holding a lump of dead gingerbread soldier, held out her hand as Shimmer transmuted the stuff into a highly volatile explosive…. "There. It won't last long, though!" Shimmer said.
Angel swooped down, closing her wings as Mammoth grabbed her by the legs and threw her as hard as he safely could towards the hole in the oven. The winged girl plowed through a group of Gingerbread Soldiers that tried to stop her and spread her razor-wings at the last moment, then hurled the incendiary device into the oven…
Two seconds ticked by where everyone held their breath… and then…
KRAKALOOOOOOM!
As Angel flew straight up and everyone else hit the ground and covered their heads, an enormous fireball erupted from the Mae-Eye War Oven, consuming dozens of already-baked gingerbread men and stopping production in its tracks.
Mammoth smiled broadly. "That was good."
Nodding in assent, Cyborg quietly spoke. "Boo-yah."
Suddenly, Robin noticed something troubling—where the oven had been destroyed, there now rested what could only be described as a white void of nothing… But it was acting like a black hole, sucking everything in, and growing as it consumed more and more of the loose objects in the room… including Mae-Eye's own gingerbread soldiers…
"Oh, man, just when this was getting good!" Cyborg blurted. "Now we have to deal with another spatial anomaly that seems to be destroying reality. Just great."
"Destroying reality?" Angel blurted. "Then DO something! Stop it!"
"You can't destroy reality!" Shimmer blurted. "Can you? Reality is an abstract concept! It's not like you can just take out your aggression on it by punching it into submission!"
"Of course not, sis," Mammoth said. "Totally ridiculous."
"You guys don't read very many comic books, do you?" asked Cyborg. "That said, I have no idea how to stop this. I think we're all pretty much screwed.."
Just as Cyborg said that, the table top from earlier was sucked into the void, making it double in size and suction power, and Cyborg was jerked forward into the white nothing. Despite their best efforts to escape or anchor themselves, Baran, Angela, Selinda, and Tim soon followed him.
The doors to the room where the Gem rested were guarded by seven Snickerdoodle Stormtroopers wielding candy-cane staves. These were the best of Mother Mae-Eye's best, the elitist of her soldiers. And who would dare challenge them except the stupidest of all the Titans.
Okay, so technically Gauntlet and Beast Boy aren't stupid. But they're the least likely to use their brains when choosing their battles—except for maybe Savior when he's in a really bad mood. Either way, the odds were against them.
Especially when their only back-up was the peculiarly-powered pretty-boy Progeny and the military-addled mind of Private Hive.
"There were way too many ps in that last sentence," Gauntlet commented as he formed a yellow energy mallet with his Gauntlet. "I shall take it out on those cookie-soldiers over there."
"Dude, I'm not sure that's the best idea," Beast Boy said. "They look kind of dangerous."
"But my shield is nearly indestructible," Gauntlet said. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"You know," Progeny commented stepping forward, "usually when someone says that, the organic waste hits the spinning blades that blow air. Thanks to you, we're going to get stomped."
"Yeah!" Beast Boy said. "Thanks for jinxing us, Rob. You should take your own pamphlets' advice for once."
"If I may, Sergeant," Hive said as he neared the rest of the group, "in an instance such as this, a little optimism is good for the morale of the troops."
Beast Boy glared at him.
"Shutting up, sir."
"Can we forget the jinxing and not jinxing," Progeny said, "I just want to destroy the Indestructible Gem so we can break the Unbreakable Seal and get out of this mad-house that used to be a bank!"
Gauntlet shrugged. "Fine, but I was just hoping to have a little fun first."
Suddenly, the energy field dimmed and the hammer Gauntlet had created transformed into a Thompson machine gun. With a single ratta-tat-tat, all seven Snickerdoodle Stormtroopers were laid waste before they could even draw their weapons.
"Let's go!" Rob shouted, as the four boys charged forward.
Beast Boy turned into a massive Triceratops and smashed through the door, and the other three entered behind him, Private Hive and Progeny on his flank and Gauntlet by leaping over him.
Inside the room, there were no guards, and no frills. It was a simple blue 'control-room' esque place, one that seemed more appropriate for an evil overlord than Mother Mae-Eye. The Gem itself was a massive yellow crystal that rested on a pedestal in the centre of the room, a single black spot in the middle giving it the appearance of Mae-Eye's third eye—the vertical one…
It wasn't apparent at first, but as the got near it, the Gauntlet realized the crystal was the size of a large dump truck, which surprised him. "Usually these magical Gem thingies are kind of small, ya know," he said. "It says so in one of my pamphlets that I don't feel like digging for at the moment."
"Sure," Progeny said.
"Let's just smash the thing and get it over with!" Beast Boy insisted, swiping at it with his tail—which was now much larger as he had turned into a Brachiosaurus…. But just before the tail made contact, a red tendril lashed out from the darkened ceiling and stopped the changeling's tail dead in its tracks.
Then it wrapped around the tail and suddenly jerked Beast Boy violently upward, his massive dinosaur wait no more than a simple rag-doll to the red tentacle.
"Well that's not good," said Progeny.
"It is an ambush!" cried Private Hive, as he dived for cover. Another tentacle lashed down and smashed into the floor where he had been standing, and Gauntlet briefly wondered if Hive had minor precognitive powers…
That didn't really matter, as he soon found himself the victim of a tentacle. Shielding himself as best he could, Rob was jerked up into the ceiling, into the darkness in which Beast Boy had vanished…
And found Gar alive up there, fighting off a huge mess of tentacles in his 'Inner Beast' form. Beast Boy leaped across the divide between him and Gauntlet and grabbed the newer Titan. The Beast roared something unintelligible and threw Gauntlet towards the centre of the room…
And as Robert approached, he found himself staring face to face with the ugliest creature he had ever seen… (except for Aberration..) It was a pulsing, monster of many colors, made entirely of various types of candies. Its face was a mess of melted taffy covered in gum-drop warts. Horns of candy corn jutted from its head and its mouth oozed chocolate syrup like fresh blood.
"Well," said Rob. "At least if I'm going to die, it's going to be the danged tastiest death anyone has ever had."
Beast Boy quickly transformed into a gorilla as he struggled against the tendrils. "Robert! Kill it!"
"Oh," Rob said. "Right!"
Thinking quickly—something that Rob found unpleasant when it didn't involve comedy—Gauntlet formed a drill out of his yellow energy that covered his whole body, and slammed into the creature, the energy spinning into him and sending the more fluid parts of it's constitution spraying in all directions.
Unfortunately, the drill wasn't powerful enough to go all the way in, and Gauntlet quickly found he needed a new plan. Making a harness, out of some of the Gauntlet energy, Rob made the rest into a sword and started climbing along the outside of the creature, slicing at anything that stuck out and stabbing anything that moved along its surface.
Angered, the creature started sending tendrils to impale and/or knock Gauntlet away. Rob cut those too. Then he had a case of bad luck, as one of the tendrils lanced at him, Rob sliced at it.
Unfortunately, he hit it dead center, and though it was deflected enough to avoid impaling his face, a portion of the licorice tendril stabbed into his shoulder through an empty place in the shield.
Gauntlet cried out in pain, and fought back, slicing the sharp end of the tentacle off and then jumping out onto it and riding/climbing it to the base of where it was connected to the rest of the beast…
Meanwhile, Beast Boy finally managed to free himself and fell down into the room again…
Which was now full to the brim with Gingerbread soldiers. Hive and Progeny were doing their best to fight them off, but the two were vastly outnumbered and couldn't keep fighting forever.
Beast Boy turned into a falcon and swooped down, tearing off a Gingerbread man's head, then transforming into a giant Tamaranian Scrien Worm, began lashing at the Gingerbread men, eating those that got to close to his fanged orifice—one could scarcely call it a mouth when it looked more like a Sarlaac Pit.
Progeny took a hard blow to the face from a candy cane and crashed next to Hive. Leonard rushed to his aid, throwing his shield into the attacking legions.
"Idiot. You should be throwing that thing at the crystal," Progeny barked at him.
"I never leave any man behind, soldier," Hive returned. His toned lightened. "Plus, I already tried that. Bounded right off without so much as a scratch."
"We are completely hosed, aren't we?" Progeny asked.
"If I must die, I will die fighting!" Hive said, catching his shield as it returned to him and then throwing his body at another wave of soldiers.
Progeny did the same, but with only parts of his body—his hands. The telekinetically controlled fists began tearing through the soldiers, though it wasn't exactly painless for the psychic surgeon….
Beast Boy nodded at the surprising bravery of the HAEYP academy members, then looked back to the darkened ceiling. Whatever Rob was doing had the tentacles mostly occupied. Gar just hoped Gauntlet didn't get himself killed…
Slashing and hacking his way through the maze the tentacles had become, Rob suddenly found that he had lost direction.. How could he beat this thing when it didn't seem to feel anything he had done to it…
Or maybe that's why it was trying to confuse him..
Rob sliced through some more licorice tendrils and made a rope from his Gauntlet energy harness, swinging down towards the head again… or where he thought it was. He was off by a few degrees, and would have had to start over except a tentacle swung down to stop him. He kicked off of that one and redirected himself towards the head of the beast…
The creature sprayed it's chocolate slime at Rob, which annoyed him and delighted him all at once. It also slowed him down. Robert formed a long spear and reached out to impale the monsters head, but his wrist was suddenly wrapped up in a tendril…
Just after thanking God it wasn't the arm that had had its shoulder impaled earlier, a tendril grabbed the free hand and twisted it into a shoulder lock, and then did the same with both Gauntlet's ankles…
Rob swore loudly, a rare occurrence for him.
Unfortunately, the more he struggled, the more tentacles came and wrapped him up, and he had some vague but temporary fears that he was about to have some Japanese adult videos reenacted on him…
No, Mae-Eye wasn't Japanese. That wouldn't happen… He would just be eaten and digested with painful slowness. Which might have actually been worse than what he was thinking of; however, as we have already established, perception is a powerful thing…
Just when Gauntlet thought it couldn't get any worse, the creature opened its mouth wide and he finally got an 'opportunity' to smell the monster's breath.
"AUGH!" he screamed, writhing more within the tentacle cocoon… "How can something made of so much sugary goodness have breath that smells like Doritos and sweaty feet?"
The jewel on the Gauntlet suddenly lit up and began flashing in a pattern that indicated death was imminent…
Or so it thought…
Even as Rob approached the creature's mouth, he used the Gauntlet to form a massive pendulum below him, and began swinging it back and forth. Normally, the Gauntlet constructs were mostly weightless, but he could lend them mass when he needed it. He needed it now.
Rob quickly began swinging the pendulum back and forth, forcing it to build up momentum as it swung. Back and forth… The pendulum got faster and started to pull the tentacles with it, causing the creature to roar at him in confusion and anger. Another spray of chocolate coated Gauntlet…
One more arc and the pendulum had built up more momentum than Gauntlet had expected, and using the pendulum motion, he swung himself so far in one direction, several of the tentacles holding him broke off and lost their grip. "Excellent…"
Gauntlet fell back down, the pendulum dragging the remaining tentacles back into range of the mouth…
"Hey, Kitty Pride!" Gauntlet shouted at the ugly candy beast… "One word for you… 'SHORYUUUUUKEN!"
As the pendulum vanished, a surge of Gauntlet energy surrounded the Titan as he blasted upward at the creature. He formed the energy into a fist and entered the monster's mouth, the rest of the tentacles either letting go from the pain or being melted by the unexpected heat surge…
Gauntlet went so far into the creature that his fist slammed into its brain—a giant Cadbury egg—crushing it… Energy pulsated from the monster, its tentacles flailing wildly… And then they all fell limp…
Down on the floor, Beast Boy and the Hive members smirked when all the now-gray tentacles of licorice fell limply into from the ceiling, dangling like the dead weight they were…
Unfortunately, one of them landed on Progeny's head, which had been separated from the rest of his body for protection. Irony bites.
Hive threw his shield across the room, and it cut through the tentacle that had buried Arturo's head… the thick forest-like maze of tentacles now made it impossible for the shield to return to him. Without it, Private Hive quickly became an easy target, and was tackled by a Gingerbread soldier… And even as he went down fighting, more soldiers than he could count piled atop the private…
Gauntlet, covered in chocolate and all kinds of other tooth-rotting substances, fell from the ceiling… Beast Boy rushed over and caught him in gorilla form, then turned into a ram and smashed a Gingerbread soldier away…
"Rob, you did it! You killed that thing up there."
"I'm aware of that," Rob said. "Now what?"
"We should break the unbreakable Gem," Beast Boy said. "How do we break something like that?"
"Beasts me." Gauntlet shrugged, then looked around. "We'll figure it out. We beat the Whim and Sorceress, didn't we?"
Gar frowned. Those two were the last people he needed to be reminded of right now.
"Just figure something out… I've already tried knocking it over, hitting it with blunt trauma. I also tried poison, which in retrospect makes me wonder what I was thinking."
"Hm…" Gauntlet said. "Why don't we try to—"
Before Rob could finish, Beast Boy was suddenly slammed into by a phalanx of Lemondrop Legionnaires and began fighting them off… Rob muttered some curses at them and took off towards the Gem, dodging gum drop grenades and other projectiles… Suddenly, a soldier jumped out from behind some of the hanging dead tentacles and slammed into Gauntlet, knocking him to the side, where he tripped over Progeny's rolling head and slammed face-first into the ground.
Rob rolled over, rubbing his chin, when something metallic caught his eye… The H-shield used by Private Hive…
It was stuck in a dense patch of dead tentacles… "Which means Leonard is defenseless…" Gauntlet mused. "Wait…"
Suddenly, a terrible, wonderful idea jumped into Gauntlet's head..
Quickly forming a massive Rube Goldberg device of Gauntlet energy, Rob began pressing, stretching, and rolling the shield, molding its metals into the proper shape—approximately the shape of a pencil—and then the Gauntlet formed a launching device. Rob stood up, and then darted towards the Indestructible Gem as fast as he could go… Monsters ran at him, trying to stop his diabolical plan… And just as he was about to run into a wall of Lemondrop Legionnaires, Gauntlet dived to the side, landing next to the stack of book-people they'd dragged from the library, and launched the re-worked shield-spear towards the Indestructible Gem. A single Gingerbread soldier leapt into its path, hoping to block it…
But it was no use—the spear went right through its chest, and slammed into the Indestructible Gem with an Unstoppable Force…
And a paradox was suddenly created at the point of impact, a tear in the fabric of reality that began to consume everything in the room. The chocolate syrup oozed from the mouth of the dead candy creature was first, and all those tentacles…
All of Mae-Eye's legions within the room crumbled to the floor, even as Beast Boy and Progeny (well, his head at least) were pulled into the white void… Followed by Private Hive…
Gauntlet, grabbing the books and hoping the paradox vortex would lead him to a pleasant universe where everyone was as much fun to annoy as Noel, let himself go…
Everything went white…
And somewhere, in the void… Gauntlet heard a disturbing sound: laughter.. The laughter of Mother Mae-Eye…
After nearly an hour of pounding the invisible barrier, Adam Matthews was ready to give up. His fists were hurting, his arms were aching, and his back hadn't appreciated the constant repetitive motion either. He was barely more than a kid and felt thirty five, and that was an unpleasant feeling, even for a half-demon.
Deciding he'd give it one last try, Adam pistoned his fist back and put 100 percent of his body strength into the blow and slammed his fists into the barrier…
And just as the hit connected…
FLASH!
The force field sizzled out in a flash, knocking Metatron backward onto his butt. "What?" He blurted. "I did it! I did it! Bliss! I did it!" Adam glanced at the still-sleeping android.
"Oh, right," he said. "Bliss, I just accomplished a very affirmative action there!"
At the sound of the code-word, Viridian came to life, blinking a few times to clear her optical receptors of dust. "Excuse me?" she asked.
"I broke the barrier! I pounded it into non-existence with my bare fists! Worship me, Bliss. WORSHIP ME!"
"For what?"
"Are you deaf, woman? I broke the barrier!"
"Doubtful," Bliss said bluntly. "You likely merely timed your blow to the split second a fluctuation occurred in the field-matrix that generates the shield and temporarily overloaded it. Let us enter before the error is corrected."
Adam frowned, but quickly complied, and Viridian followed. Adam couldn't help but curse the fact that even when she was proven wrong, the android wouldn't admit it. Still, they were in, and they had Titans to save…
Two great flashes of light dumped two heaps of reinforcements to the battle in the Atrium. Unfortunately, some of them landed right on top of those already fighting. This, while an effective way to announce one's arrival, is a dreadful tactic in the course of an ongoing conflict.
Raven glanced back to see Robin on top of Starfire and Cyborg sitting on Savior. Gizmo was now buried by Progeny and Private Hive, and Cyborg, Gauntlet, Beast Boy, Mammoth, Angel, and Shimmer had randomly manifested themselves in the atrium as well.
"ROBIN!" Starfire shouted, hugging her easily-crushable boyfriend as gently as she could under the circumstances.
"How'd we get here?" Gauntlet asked. "Last thing I remember was creating a paradox that I thought would destroy the universe…" Rob glanced to his side where Cyborg and Savior were. "Oh, hey Save. What's up?
"Cyborg, get off me!" Savior blurted, doing a shimmer-enhanced push-up to make Vic fall off of him.
"Dude, it wasn't my idea to land on you. How'd we get here?" Cyborg gasped when a gum drop grenade nearly slammed into his face. He rolled over and popped back up, his arm transforming into his sonic cannon and blasting the soldier that had thrown the projectile.
Raven hovered high enough to see the battle field, and saw Rob's net full of books. The net vanished when Rob started smashing things with Gauntlet energy, so Raven moved the books to the pile of everything else that the bank patrons had been turned into… And then she noticed something…
Guys! Raven yelled at everyone (telepathically as to make sure they heard it over all the noise of the battle)… Everyone is here—everyone except for Scalpel!
Savior, who had formed two more S4s and began hacking things near Raven, answered her. "That's a bad sign. I have a feeling Mae-Eye is about to try something big…"
"Please be wrong," Raven replied, smashing a phalanx of Limedrop Legionnaires with one of the giant meat-hooks her possessed self had ripped off the ceiling earlier…
Then everything changed… The Atrium grew—or perhaps the Titans and Hive members all shrunk—so that the proportions were now closer to a massive football stadium than a bank atrium.
"Not good," Beast Boy observed.
"Ya think?" Gizmo replied.
All of the soldiers the Titans and Hive were fighting began to run towards the far end—towards the door of the bank… where they were joined by more soldiers—thousands of them. And not just the soldiers.
Four massive Licorice Warriors appeared, towering over the battlefield. Three massive AT-AT-esque Mechanical Walker's with huge hot fudge cannons formed, towering hundreds of meters high….
Savior blinked. "Ok, I admit it: that's clever on some level…"
"Quit complementing the bad guys and get ready to break things!" Robin retorted.
In the middle AT-AT, the biggest one, at the top of the open-cockpit head… Stood Scalpel… Nigicalnack Hastionfarlock, impeccably dressed in Victorian military garb. And next to him, the repulsive green face of Mother Mae-Eye… looking strangely pleased with herself.
Noel glanced at Robin. "When we start breaking things, I call her face."
"OH HOLY F—!" a new voice came. Before it could finish the curse, a viridian elbow slammed into its stomach. All the Titans craned their necks back to see Metatron and Viridian standing near a ventilation shaft, which was hanging open.
"You alerted them to our presence," Viridian said. "This was an unwise course of action, Adam Matthews."
"Met!" Beast Boy blurted. "What are you doing here?"
"Viridian?" Robin said curiously. "How did you get in?"
"I knew it!" Gauntlet said. "The paradox I created must have destroyed the Unbreakable Gem." This drew several odd glances.
"PEONS!" shouted a voice… The Titans and Hive turned to see that it was Nigel. "You have defied the will of my dear wife, your loving Mother Mae-Eye. Mother loves you, yet you have spat in her face and shunned her love!"
A tingling chill ran down Robin's spine as Mae-Eye twirled her finger mesmerizing around Nigel's head…
"Mother declares that you will all be punished… with DEATH!"
Suddenly, the perfect formations of Gingerbread solders began marching forward, the giant Licorice Warriors walking solemnly ahead… And the AT-ATs too, Nigel and Mae-Eye in the centre one…
It was nothing sort of an all out war now.
Metatron's stepped forward and observed the massive force coming towards them. It was without a doubt an army baked for one purpose--destruction.
"So she wants to play Command and Conquer," said Metatron.
Terra cracked her knuckles. "I'm game."
"But," Raven frowned, "does anybody actually have a plan?"
Starfire chimed in. "Yes! We kick the butt!"
"And inscribe nomenclature," Viridian added.
"And take names!" Gauntlet said, not noticing the redundancy.
"Just like old times," Cyborg said with a smirk.
"Except better," added Beast Boy.
"'War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things'," said Savior, smirking. "'There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.' But not many." With that, he formed a pair of S4 blades in his hands.
Robin's eyes narrowed behind his mask until only thin white slits were visible. "Let's finish this."
Robin pointed forward. "TITANS, GO!"
Jinx smiled, and, in front of her old teammates, did the same. Funny, the last time she had given this battle cry was during the Titans first encounter with Mae-Eye. "Hive Five—EAT 'EM ALIVE!"
And forward they charged.