Maternal Instinct

by Chaltab

A Teen Titan Legends story. It was just supposed to be a simple bank robbery, but when the HIVE Five accidentally unleashes an evil magic force in the building, the Titans and HIVE will have to team up to teach their 'Mother' a lesson.

10. Raven and the Queen

Maternal Instinct
Chapter Ten: Raven and the Queen

It had been the fiercest of duels between the two. Both champions of magic; different schools, but equal, it seemed, in discipline, in power. And then he'd spoken those accursed words and transformed himself into a demon.

The battle had raged on, demon versus witch in a magical battle that rivaled the final clash between Rorek and the dread dragon Malchior.

And in the end, it had fallen to a stalemate. Sorcerer and Queen, locked in a struggle from which neither of them would relent.

And then, the sorcerer had done something. Around his neck, there had rested a tiny gem, an amethyst stone that sparkled in the setting sun. And while the witch's arms were locked with the sorcerer's mind, his own hand pressed the gem to her forehead, and he spoke.

"It is clear that we rival each other in power," said the man. "Yea, though I be both man and demon, I feel that you possess far more power than even you are aware of thyself. For this reason, I must seal you with this Unshatterable Gem for all eternity."

And the man had gone on to cast a spell of sealing.

"Think wisely, vile witch, for you shall retain the form of the monstrous tales that you cherish most; far too long have you tormented the land with all these fictions that you bring to life. From now on, one and one alone you must abide by, live, and become."

As she thought of the tale of the wicked witch who had attempted to fatten and eat Hansel and Gretel, the Queen of Fables smiled. This would do, until she could escape. Henceforth, she would be called Mother Mae-Eye by all, and they would love her until the day she consumed them for their souls.

As much of her mind vanished, unconscious and dormant inside the Gem, she looked up and asked the man a simple question.

"Good wizard, tell me thy name," she said. "For when this curse is over I shall seek out your descendants with my wrath and torment them in vengeance."

The man gave her an arrogant smile, and instantly she hated him. He spoke: "Lady of darkness, I tell you my name because I may bear no descendants. I am Jason Blood, bound to the demon Etrigan by Merlin the Arch Wizard. I shall live as long as the world itself does. Should you ever escape, your vengeance will be directed at me and me alone. Now vanish, fiend. This day is the end of you."

---

Mother Mae-Eye—no, the Queen of Fables—snapped out of her reverie. The past was long behind her, and she truthfully no longer cared of the man Jason Blood or his progeny. She would get to him in time, surely. But for now, she had one goal and only one—to conquer Jump City.

And from there, the whole world would fall to her magic.

Reaching out into the ethereal plane that rested just below the surface of sight and sound, the Queen of Fables began to summon her tried and true minions from their resting places—the Pirates led by Captain Hook, and their arch foe Peter Pan and his Lost Boys. The Giant at the top of Jack's beanstalk. The wolf that had consumed the flesh of Red Riding Hood.

And of course, thousands and thousands of gingerbread soldiers.

And as she reached farther, it immediately became clear that the World of Fables had expanded greatly since her imprisonment. It would take some effort, but to bring in some invaluable new allies to her cause… it would be worth it to say the least.

And so she began, ogres and trolls and orcs. Dark Elves and zombies, vampires and werewolves all began to emerge from their places in folklore and spew into the world of reality.

And all were under her direct control. "They shall once again fear me and tremble at my name!" The Queen of Fables shouted, almost laughing in glee. "Burn! Pillage! Destroy!

---

For the uninitiated, the new players.

Superman – Clark Kent, the Man of Steel, the Last Son of Krypton. If I need to say anymore, then there's something wrong with you!

Power Girl – Karen Starr, Superman's cousin from a destroyed parallel universe.

Green Lantern – Guy Gardner, a back-up lantern for Hal Jordan as crude as he is talented.

Jessie Quick – Jessica Chambers, daughter of fallen hero Johnny Quick, and the only female Speed-Force user.

Grace – Grace Choi, former bouncer hired by Arsenal of The Outsiders. A seven foot tall Asian woman with super strength and an enhanced healing factor.

---

All around Jump City, the fiends began spreading out, finding places and people to attack and terrorize and doing so. And as they moved the spread something with them—not the chaos magic released by the Boogeymen, nor the pure reality distortion of Oblivion… something more purposeful, though no less sinister. It was a mystic force that reorganized the terrain, devolved the technology; the world was becoming a fairy tale right before the very eyes of its heroes.

Raven finally spoke above everyone else. "This is bad. I know I'm stating the obvious, but I can feel it. She's tapping into a well of mystic energy that I never knew existed until now."

"And knowing our luck," said Robin, "the proliferation of fiction over the past thousand years is only going to make her well deeper."

"I'm afraid so," Raven said.

"Curse you, Johannes Gutenberg!" Gauntlet blurted…

Robin glanced over to the natural leader, Superman, as if for guidance and direction. But Superman only smirked at him.

"I believe I said once before: your city, your command, Robin." Superman referred of course to their battle with Oblivion; nobody but those present at the fight even remembered it, but luckily Superman was one of those present.

Tim nodded, grateful once again that Superman trusted his judgment so well. "Alright," he said. "Power Girl, Starfire, fly up and scan the area. Report back. Superman, do whatever you can, but avoid the Queen of Fables herself. She's magic, and you're not good against that."

"You don't have to remind me," Superman said as he flew off.

Robin turned to Jessie Quick. "Chambers, scout the city, look for things that Karen and Kory might miss from the air."

Jessie glared at him, a glare that said 'Who hasn't Nightwing blurted my identity to yet?'

Robin understood, though her anger was misplaced; he'd deduced it on his own without any help from Dick. Nevertheless, he wasn't going to reprimand her about her poor choice of Superhero name at a time like this.

"What do you want me to do?" Guy Gardner, the Green Lantern asked.

"First, why are you here?" Robin said, obviously puzzled. The word you had come out with a bit more venom than he had intended. Like Batman, who had once KOed Guy with a single punch, Robin and Guy had never seen eye to eye. Still, Gardner was a hero, and he regretted the way he'd worded his question.

"Well," Guy said, "Stewart wanted to come to help out Cyborg, but he was busy training Supergirl, so he sent me. Simple as that."

Robin nodded. "Do whatever you can. I don't know how effective your ring will be against the witch, but you're more likely to survive a direct attack from her than Superman. But above all use that ring to help the people she's attacking."

"Will do, Kid Wonder," Guy said before flying off. "Time to smash some troll heads in!"

Meanwhile, Gauntlet watched as Savior and Jinx stood with the HIVE Five (Times Two) members, thwarted in their attempt to sneak away.

"You really need to learn to be more subtle," Savior said. "But besides that, we could use your help." The tone in his voice let them know that he didn't expect them to help, of course. Savior didn't expect anything from them but crime and ignorance.

"You think we're stickin' our necks out to help you heroes after all this bank business?" Mammoth barked. "No way!"

"Munch on snot, crud brain!" said Gizmo. His teeth were bared. "You do-gooders are on your own."

"Just what I thought," Jinx said. "Come on guys, this is our planet too. Your help could be invaluable and…"

"Forget it, Llarenes." Savior's voice dripped with acid. "Let the ants crawl back to their hiding places. Cowards never step up and fight for what is right. We can't expect your former friends to. Let's go. Some of us actually want our flash-in-a-pan lives to be worth something."

And with that, Noel threw up a shimmer strand and vanished.

As the criminals stood their flabbergasted, Jinx began to walk off. Selinda called back to her. "Are you sure you're staying with them, Jinx?"

"Shimmer, you know I can't abandon them now. I've made my choice. I'm sorry you can't follow me."

Shaking her head, Selinda turned and silently ran off with her nine companions.

And Jinx turned to go with hers

---

Even as a Big Bad Wolf sent Metatron careening over his headBeast Boy turned into a Tyrannosaurus and charged towards a line of attacking gingerbread soldiers, even as Jessie Quick blasted through a line of them in the distance, tearing them to shreds.

A couple of ogres, these not of the Oreo variety, leapt atop Beast Boy and he struggled for a minute before transforming into a pterodactyl and allowing them to drop to the ground, then swooped down in the form of a small velociraptor and bit at their heels…

Jessie Quick blasted by, slamming her elbow into one of the ogre's kidneys, causing the beast to stagger over. Beast Boy responded by becoming an ankylosaurus and whipping his tail around into one of the heads of the ogres.

Grace fell to the ground after a huge leap, landing next to Beast Boy, and slamming her fist into one of the ogres so hard, windows shattered across the whole block, and the creature staggered back before collapsing in a heap.

"So, your power is to turn into Dinosaurs?" Grace remarked, blocking a powerful blow from Ogre 10 and then hurling him into a manga store. Thankfully there were no people in it.

Beast Boy briefly resumed his human form. "Any animal," he growled, transforming into a large bear and tackling ogre seven, even as Jessie returned and pummeled number three via super speed and Grace finished off number four with a powerful body slam.

Beast Boy turned and made a high-five motion towards Grace, but rather than getting a response from her, Jessie Quick moved in at super speed to intercept it.

"So, what exactly are you guys doing here?" Beast Boy asked, transforming back into a human.

Jessie Quick shrugged, her long blond hair falling over her shoulders. She silently cursed the fact she'd forgotten to wear her speed-resistant hair bow. "When Flash heard that multiple Titans were trapped in a bank, and he couldn't get a hold of Kid Flash, he got worried. But he and Jay were busy in Central City, so he asked me to come."

"Grace, right?" Beast Boy asked, indicating he wanted a similar explanation. Grace just so happened to be a seven-foot tall Asian woman with red hair and tattoos on her arms and bare midriff—the overall fearsomeness of her appearance made Beast Boy hesitate questioning her.

"Nightwing heard about Robin, couldn't come, sent me." She clearly was not happy about being bossed around, but had seemed to enjoy the fight. Beast Boy decided not to pursue the matter further.

Besides, a rather nasty looking duo of wolves had just appeared, diverting the trio's attention.

"I'll take the ugly one," Beast Boy said, becoming an elephant.

Grace grimaced. "Which one's the ugly one?"

"Who cares!" Jessie shouted. "Titans go, right!

---

All across Jump City, the heroes fanned out and began doing what they do; Beast Boy, Jessie, and Grace snaked through the streets of the town, taking down the foot soldiers that patrolled the city, terrorizing the civilians, while elsewhere others got to work.

Robin found himself confronting a souped-up version of Robin Hood and the Merry Men, dodging away from their arrows and returning fire with his Smart Scythe. The blade lanced out, but, impossibly, Hood blocked it with nothing but his wooden bow and it almost clattered to the ground before the anti-grav units kicked in and sent it back to Robin.

Starfire joined her lover, blasting at Robin Hood and Friar Tuck with a flurry of Starbolts. Robin Hood was caught in the brunt of the blast and sent flying backwards into a billboard, which collapsed on him..

Unfortunately, he crawled out from underneath it, not unscathed but little the worse for wear.

Even while Star had blasted, Friar Tuck had managed to escape the brunt of the blast by rolling to the side. And then he did something completely unexpected—he physically hurled his chubby body across the gap between the roof he was on and the roof Robin was on, tackling the Boy Wonder to the ground and causing him to drop the Scythe.

Tim threw the monk off of him and rolled away, assuming a low defensive stance as he held up his hand and intercepted the returning Scythe.

"I really need to ask Bruce for one of this," he said to himself.

He glanced to the side when Starfire entered his peripheral vision. "Robin, I believe we have a problem. These… things… these manifestations seem to share attributes to…"

"The Boogeymen," Robin muttered, remembering his battle with Jason Voorhees. This wasn't the first time the Titans had faced fictional characters.

"Course of action?" Starfire inquired.

Robin's eyes narrowed as Friar Tuck charged at him. "Even for all their powers, we still beat the Boogeymen. This should be no different."

Robin lifted his Scythe and slashed at Friar Tuck's throat at just the right moment…

Contact. A strange purple energy spewed from the slit, and Friar Tuck collapsed to the ground, and vanished.

Starfire blasted forward, dodging an arrow and pummeling Robin Hood before he could react, finally sending him careening to the street below where he was promptly run-over by a speeding pickup.

"Oops…" Starfire said.

Suddenly, Robin and Starfire were surrounded by hundreds of Merry Men, all wielding knives or bows, arrows notched.

"Titans go?" Starfire asked.

Robin nodded. "Something like that.

---

The warehouse at Pier Forty-One was certainly an historic site for the Titans. Robin had once nearly beat the crap out of a man there after not finding Slade's decoy Chronoton Detonator, where Robin had first displayed his inexplicable talent to single-handedly destroy large groups of robots, and the place where he had almost altered history to prevent the conception of his child.

Now it was a place infested with goblins. Gauntlet and Scalpel were currently trying to fix that, tearing through the hordes of little buggers. Scalpel leaped atop one of the goblins and tore it to pieces, the viscera vanishing into a cloud of lavender energy.

Gauntlet, less fond of such feral pleasures, used a giant hammer made of his trademark yellow energy. Three goblins jumped at him, and three were sent sailing into the bay.

A rather large goblin leaped towards Scalpel, and Nigel rolled away bringing his Glaive up and slicing it in half.

"Nice one," Gauntlet said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Nigel grinned at him with his large razor-sharp teeth. "Many thanks, though I do believe my blade needs sharpening."

Suddenly, a loud explosion, like a gun going off, startled the bullet-vulnerable Blacktrinian. Gauntlet ran out onto the pier, and Scalpel followed him cautiously. There, they saw the source of the noise.

Out in the bay, three pirate ships surrounded a huge luxury ocean liner, blasting away at the larger vessel. Cannon shots echoed throughout Jump City's bay area, and Nigel became worried when several shots lanced by Titans Tower, far too close for comfort.

"Sophie!" he shouted. His girlfriend was still in the tower, and she was in danger. Should a stray cannonball burst through one of those windows…

"We have to get to Sophie!" Nigel shouted.

Gauntlet frowned. "You want us to go up against a bunch of actual pirates?"

Nigel nodded.

"Heck yes! Count me in!" Gauntlet said, forming a hook of yellow energy over his left hand and a cutlass in his right.

"By the by, why is there a luxury liner in the harbor? I was under the impression that your politicians had long made it illegal to harbor ships that large in this port."

Gauntlet formed a small telescope with Gauntlet energy, and scanned the ship.

"It says it is the RMS Titan—christened in 1898…"

"It's another manifestation itself," Nigel realized aloud. "In that case, we can use it as a platform to get to the tower."

Robert hesitated even as Nigel stepped forwards. The undercurrent in his voice had said everything. "Look Nigel, if you're being afrai…"

Nigel glared…

"I mean, cautiously prudent… about jumping over so much water given your species limitations… You don't have to go."

"Sophie could be in trouble," Nigel said. "I'm going."

Robert nodded, not wanting to argue with his team-mate. Maybe he didn't have a girlfriend, but he knew how protective those guys that did could be of theirs.

"Be careful, and if you miss, I'll do my best to catch you…"

"Huh?" Nigel said, turning to see Rob behind him… And failing, as Gauntlet had already darted past him on the other side and used the gauntlet energy to spring onto the distant RMS Titan.

Scalpel backed up to the door of the warehouse to get a running start, and then took off, running to the end of the pier before hurling himself over the bay…

The deadly water mocked him as he leapt

---

Cyborg rolled away from a vicious attack on the part of a very rare and dangerous white-were-orc, and blasted it away with his sonic cannon. The beast fell backward and rolled into the metal pole that held up a stoplight. But it recovered quickly, and flew at Cyborg again. Vic leapt over it, firing one of his shoulder-mounted missiles at it as it rolled away; the missile hit it and caused the creature to explode and vanish.

Unfortunately, he was quickly assaulted by a group of sun-resistant vampires that knocked him over and sent him to careening backwards into the column that held up Slice Pizza's balcony…

Vic pressed a button on his arm that gave his metallic body a charge, and all the vampires leapt off of him, screaming. He blasted two of them with his autocannon, which he had supplied a few garlic bullets for in the case of such an emergency—but the other seven got to him before he could gun them down… He fought against them, but began to lose the struggle…

When suddenly, a massive pink wave of energy slammed into the vampires, sending them careening into a storefront.

Jinx flipped in and kicked one of them in the face, then pulled out a small cross necklace and held it up to the vampire's forehead; it exploded into a cloud of smoke an energy.

"Whoa…" Cyborg said.

"There are some advantages to starting life in a Catholic orphanage," Jinx said, giving Victor a sideways smirk.

Unfortunately, that smirk was soon wiped off her face as all around them zombies and skeletons began to rise from the ground.

"Oh, no, not the undead again!" Cyborg complained. It was like a sea of them, animated corpses ebbing and flowing, threatening civilians (most of whom were already gone.)…

Cyborg greatly questioned the common sense of those who weren't, and began using selective bursts of normal bullets from his left arm and sonic blasts from his right, trying to take done the undead closest to the not-at-all-dead first, and then getting the ones that were just part of the corpse lagoon…

Unfortunately, Jinx alone was not able to hold them off with hex blasts, despite her valiant effort, and Cyborg found himself having to use his buzz-saw to hack them off of her…

"What now, Vic?" she asked as he helped her to her feet.

"Get on my shoulders," he said. "I'm gonna try and find some higher ground."

Jinx complied, climbing atop her boyfriend, using him to keep her head above the 'water' he sliced and hacked his way through the hordes of the undead. Jinx aided him, blasting zombies and skeletons with hex blasts, and enchanting anything in the area she thought would do a great service to them by becoming more unlucky.

Slow progress, but it was working… so far.

"I don't suppose it would do any real good to say it?" Jinx said, blasting a parked bus, causing it to shift into neutral and roll down the hill. Many zombies were crushed.

"Say what?" Cyborg asked.

"Titans, go!

---

A troupe of straggling gingerbread men charged at Terra, their candy-cane staves drawn and ready to draw blood. Terra sent a burst of rock flying at them, tearing through their cookie bodies and breaking their weapons.

She scanned the streets around her, saw the battle surrounding her, and saw the Queen of Fables battling Guy Gardner near the top of the mountain just to the city's north.

"Well, not much more I can do here," she thought aloud. Terra formed an earth platform and started to leap atop it, when suddenly a loud thundering noise echoed through the streets to her right, and Terra broke up her platform into a cluster of projectiles to stop the oncoming threat…

Which turned out to be… Mammoth. Baran was charging through the streets, being chased by his sister, Private Hive, Progeny, and Gizmo. And the brute was dragging a cart full of pastries…

"Hungry!" mammoth grunted. "Must eat!" He thundered on by Terra, not even acknowledging her.

Terra got on a platform and hovered by the others as they ran after the fleeing Mammoth. "Will someone please tell me what the heck is going on here!" Terra demanded next to Gizmo.

"It's Baran!" Selinda said. "We were down at the homeless shelter, and while no one was looking, Baran stole forty pies!"

"That's FOUR TENS!" Private Hive added.

"And that's terrible." Progeny chimed in.

Even as he finished speaking, a spark of an idea formed inside Terra's blonde head.

Gizmo fired off an energy blast that slammed into the back of Baran's head, and the brute collapsed, his pastry cart trailing to a stop next to him…

"Give it up, Baran." Shimmer ordered. "Hungry or not, we don't steal from homeless people!"

"How can you be hungry?" Terra demanded, hovering over the villains, ready to defend herself should they succumb to their natures and attack her. "You ate dozens of soldiers when we were fighting Mother Mae-Eye… when she was Mother Mae-Eye."

"I dunno!" Mammoth half wined, half barked. "It was like, when she became royalty everything in my stomach just vanished."

Terra nodded, thinking a minute. She had an idea, a way to flip the finger to that witch, but she'd need the Hive's help. Terra was only brought out of her train of thought when Gizmo glared at her and made a loud ahem. "What's with you crud-munching Titans having to butt into our business?"

"Sorry!" Terra shot back. "I was just thinking though, homeless people or not, I might have a use for those pies. The fact that you haven't left town yet implies that you're going to help us even if just to take vengeance on the Queen. So are you with me?"

Mammoth grabbed a pie and stuffed it into his mouth before anyone could react, and then gave her a thumbs up. "Sure, as long as I get something in my stomach."

Shimmer glanced at the ground. "Not to mention the fact that we can't leave the city thanks to the force field around it."

Tara frowned, but quickly shrugged it off. Villains would be villains, come hell or high water. "Okay, just listen up. We need to get up to the top of that mountain and then we need to find a good piece of flat ground…

---

"What's that ship?" Scalpel barked, pointing at the nearest ship to the increasingly defenseless RMS Titan.

"It's the Revenge," Gauntlet said. "I know this because the captain is the Dread Pirate Roberts, an ancestor of mine."

"Sure he is," Nigel said.

Gauntlet dodged under a cannonball, which flew out into the bay and slammed into the Black Pearl, which, oddly was being helmed by Long John Silvers rather than Barbossa.

A man who looked remarkably like Johnny Depp in a pirate outfit ran onto the deck next to Scalpel and Gauntlet, shouting 'That man stole my ship!'

"Dude…" Gauntlet said, his eyes growing enormous and filling up with shiny anime-tears. "You're Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"About bloody time someone recognized me for the wonderful guy I am," Sparrow said smugly, downing a swig from the bottle of rum he'd been carrying.

"Jack Sparrow—" Gauntlet began.

"Captain Jack Sparrow," Jack insisted.

"Right… Captain Jack Sparrow is way too awesome to be cannon fodder for the Teen Titans. Go back to your own world! We'll rescue your ship!"

"NO!" Nigel blurted, smashing out a fist knocking Jack overboard and into the drink. "We rescue Sophie!"

Rob sulked, but finally agreed. However, he still tried to help Jack out by throwing a life preserver and a shiny pistol he'd found lying around somewhere he didn't recall.

He followed Nigel to the edge of the ship, and both gazed out over Titans Tower. "I can't make the jump," Nigel said. "But if I hop onto that pirate ship, and then to the island, it should work."

"Those pirates have guns. With, you know… Bullets and stuff." Gauntlet's voice was unusually serious now, knowing that this could be a suicide mission for the alien.

"Deflect them for me," Nigel said, more ordering than asking. "Robert, I have to find her! Jump in front of me and make a shield."

"I… But…" Gauntlet frowned, but didn't dare protest to a lovesick Blacktrinian. "Fine." Using his Gauntlet spring again he leapt off the doomed luxury ship and towards the Jolly Rodger.

Gauntlet landed first, simultaneously causing an explosion of energy and keeping a fairly potent energy shield up, deflecting enough bullets that none of them hit the Blacktrinian.

Scalpel landed right behind Gauntlet… Or at least he would have, had Robert not grabbed the alien in a massive pair of yellow energy tongs and hurled him at a group of pirates that had traded their guns for cutlasses. Nigel immediately went to work with a feral growl, slicing the blades in half with his claws and knocking several pirates overboard. One particularly nasty-looking buccaneer with an eye patch charged at the alien with an oar, but Scalpel snapped it in half with his glaive and tore the eye patch off.

Then he inserted a claw into the empty socket, causing the pirate to collapse into a cloud of lavender energy. A volley of gunfire rang out, and Scalpel started to hit the deck before realizing that Gauntlet had stepped in, blocking all the bullets with a gauntlet energy shield.

"Why did you fling me?" Nigel demanded.

"Dude," Gauntlet shouted over the roar of gunfire, "You weigh four hundred pounds! You would have made a hole right through the deck."

Nigel responded by hurling his glaive straight up and through the throat of a fictional pirate in the crows nest; this pirate also vanished.

"You could have at least warned me."

Suddenly, Nigel's concern was moot, as Captain Hook himself emerged from the cabin, with a vicious-looking rapier at his side and a pistol in his hand…

Gauntlet rolled forward as soon as he saw the gun, leaving Nigel undefended for a split second. That was all the time it took for a bullet to explode from the barrel of Hook's gun. Nigel tried to move, but the projectile still grazed his shoulder, sending a burst of pain throughout his body.

Rob shouted his disapproval and used the gauntlet to knock Hook's gun from his hand, then uppercutted the pirate onto the upper deck. Still, he used a lot of power with that blow; it was clear that Hook was a lot more solid than anything else on the ship.

"Go! Jump to the tower! I'll hold off Hook!"

Not arguing with an opportunity to get to Sophie faster, Nigel darted across the deck and collected his glaive, using it to separate one last pirate from his lower spinal column before hurling himself across the remaining distance onto Titan Island.

Gauntlet, meanwhile, clashed battled with the captain of the Jolly Rodger, two Gauntlet blades meeting the rapier that Hook had unsheathed. Gauntlet tried to strike high, but amazingly the evil captain parried the blow and sent the magic-artifact wielding hero to his knees. Gauntlet rolled out of the way as Hook stabbed down with his sword, then lashed out at the pirate. But Hook was inhumanly fast, blocking the blow and continuing the fight, tying to strike at Gauntlet's throat.

Rob jumped back, turning his swords into a giant hammer that he tried to use to knock Hook into the bay. Swinging it like a baseball bat, the blow made contact… and was deflected by Captain Hook's blade. "What!" Gauntlet blurted. "No way! This is real life, not Soul Calibur! I demand a recount… or a redo… or a Remax agent. Or something."

Rob's complaint was cut off quite literally when the sword that deflected his hammer slammed hard into his Gauntlet, causing sparks to fly from the ancient device. Rob immediately got his head back in the game, standing up and grabbing a nearby cannon, which he tossed at Hook with his gauntlet energy..

The pirate that Disney had portrayed as such a wuss simply sliced the metal cannon in half and kept on coming. Gauntlet jumped over his next attack, but was stabbed in the back of the leg as he came down. He managed to prevent further damage, and the blade had only entered his leg about half a centimeter, but it still made his leg feel almost numb.

"Amateur," Captain Hook derided him. "You may wield a far fancier blade than I do, but your youth and inexperience will prove you undoing."

"Funny," Gauntlet said, "if I remember right, this picture ends with you getting your butt kicked by a little kid. Ever heard of a guy called Pan?"

"You insult me!" Captain Hook shouted, slashing at the Titan with his namesake hook-hand. The sharp point came inches from Rob's face when he reacted, pushing himself up onto the uninjured leg and simultaneously hooking Hook's hook in his own… hook.. and jerking the pirate man forward into a Gauntlet-encased fist.

Captain Hook spat some blood on the deck and attacked with his sword again, slamming into Rob's defense and knocking him backwards. Gauntlet had effectively taunted him before, so he continued.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," the Titan mimicked the sounds of a clock.

This angered the pirate further, sending him into a rage. Hook lunged at him with a slice of his accursed Uberrapier, but Gauntlet caught the attack in his right hand, the magic artifact protecting his palm from harm, and then smashed Hook over the head with a hammer formed from Gauntlet energy…

The pirate staggered back, but recovered fast enough to lash out his blade cutting across Rob's shirt—right through the weak energy shield his Gauntlet provided. The cut wasn't deep, but sweat ran into the wound, making it sting. "Ouch…"

"You deserve worse for mocking me, villain!" Hook said… "You may have gotten lucky twice, but you shan't a third time."
"Is that a crocodile?" Rob asked, pointing behind the pirate.

"What?" Captain Hook turned, nearly leaping into Robert's arms—where Gauntlet grabbed him by the shoulders with two giant robot arms made of Gauntlet energy.

Rob smirked at the pirate. "Made ya' look."

Then both Titan and pirate went airborne, Rob using a Gauntlet spring to fling them both overboard.

Tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik.

The pounding of the clock was suddenly so loud, Gauntlet smirked. "Well, maybe I was right after all, Hookey." Rob simply dropped the pirate into the waiting jaws of the crocodile, and then used a Gauntlet-energy hang glider to land safely on the Island.

By the time he got to the front door, Nigel had already almost clawed his way through it

---

The Space Needle. It was one of Jump City's defining features.

The mainland states ironically had space needle at both the northwestern and southeastern extremities—Washington and Florida. Noel also knew it had been the site of several important events for the Titans. It was the place where the Titans had first learned that Robin had become Slade's apprentice. It was the place where, in another universe, Slade had finished marking Raven with the runes that would bring Trigon to the mortal plane, and then dropped her like so much refuse.

Now it was the place… where Savior was confronting Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Pan swooped down towards Savior, and Noel swung out of the way, dodging a couple of jabs of the boy's dagger.

"You fiend!" Peter Pan cried. "Only a pirate would dress the way you dress, think the way you think!"

"You're delusional, kid," Savior spat, swinging below the flying boy and onto the rail of the Space Needle. "Pirates don't wear white." Noel barely registered the words had come from his own mouth, just by the tone of irony in his voice.

"Stop trying to confuse me with your adult logic!" Pan barked, swooping down and slamming into Savior's chest with his shoulder. Savior fell back and felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck with Tinkerbell kicked him. He grabbed the accursed fairy and flung her into the side of the building before smashing his fist into Pan's face, then shimmer lining up to the top of the building.

Pan flew up, drawing a rapier from apparently nowhere, and charging at Savior, his teeth bared in a gleeful grin. "You'll never escape me, white pirate!"

Savior just spat a curse and fell backwards off the tip of the building, turning over in mid air and firing a shimmer bludgeon up into the lost boy's stomach. Pan recoiled from the attack and flipped over in mid air, slicing at Noel's face. Savior blocked it with a Super Shimmer Strand Sword and landed on the railing of the Space Needle before stepping down onto the platform.

Pan lunged at the Titan stabbing at him with his blade. Savior deflected it way from its target—his throat—but it slammed into his shoulder, not piercing the armor of his coat and shirt, but still causing pain to shoot through his shoulder.

"What is this stuff?" Pan demanded, holding the dagger to Noel's jugular. "Your clothes stop blades like armor, but they're not!"

"You got a lot to learn about the twenty-first century kid!" Noel snapped. Pan tried to slit his throat, but found that during the brief conversation, Savior had wrapped his neck in a shimmer wrap dense enough to not be cut by the blade. Of course, that had made breathing rather difficult, and Savior quickly threw the lost boy off of him and got his sword ready again. The two combatants clashed, blade meeting blade as they began to duel on the outer platform of the tallest building in the city…

"Take this!" Pan barked, acting like he was about to punch Noel in the face. Which is why Noel didn't see Tinkerbell at all when the fairy popped out of nowhere and slammed into his head, knocking him into a wall.

She hovered up rubbing her head and trying to shake away the disorientation caused by the impact.

"Good job, Tink!" Peter Pan said, smiling at his companion. "Let's show this old man who is boss here in Neverland."

Peter Pan performed a flying kick (literally) that slammed Savior through the door of the space needle into the tech-lab within, where Savior crashed into a telescope and knocked it over.

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell entered and attacked him again, but Savior refused to lose to a kid and his stupid glowing flying thing.

He was just glad it wasn't making itself even more annoying with shouts of 'HEY!' and 'LISTEN!'

---

Superman and Power Girl were now taking turns at slamming into the giant at high speeds… until it swung at them with his massive arms and sent them careening into the ground… Both heroes in one blow..

Karen dug herself out of the pile of rubble that had been a duplex and thanked God there were no civilians inside it at the time. Kal-El had already recovered and was now blasting the giant with his heat vision, trying to pain him into submission. But unfortunately, the giant was only angered by the pain. Karen blasted forward, slamming into the Giant's face and delivering a series of powerful blows.

Not being terribly happy about this, the giant smacked at Power Girl, sending her careening back into the side of the Wayne building. Superman was flying circles around the monster, but still unable to do any real damage…. Frustrated, Karen blasted up to the roof of the building and ripped the massive W from the Wayne Enterprises sign, and then blasted forward, slamming it into the giant's head, brutally beating him with it until the sign was no more.

A small line of blood trickled from the giant's face—well, small proportionally speaking. He ignored this, but instead glared at the blood on Karen's hands—she'd been holding that W more tightly than she'd thought…

"I smell the blood of a Kryptonian woman," the giant announced.

Superman, enraged by the implication of the statement, slammed a powerful blow into the Giant's face that staggered him. "And how exactly do you know about Krypton?" Superman asked smugly.

"Wikipedia," the Giant answered.

Superman blinked, and the two just stared at each other for a minute as Kal-El contemplated the implications of that statement. "But… what kind of connection can you get in the clouds?"

"I have a broadband cable modem," the Giant said, as though it were the most obvious thing on the planet.

"BUT HOW THE HECK DO YOU GET A WIRE INTO THE CLOUDS?"

Power Girl muttered, "Um, Clark, I think we have bigger concerns."

"No, no, seriously, how many people died making this guy's connection possible? A wire into the clouds has to be an air traffic hazard."

"Kal, he didn't even exist in our world until a few minutes ago!"

"Well that raises MORE QUESTIONS!"

BOOM! Clark suddenly went flying backwards despite the fact that the Giant hadn't moved.

The giant had used Super Breath.

Now, before you think that this raises yet more questions, some explanation is in order. Superman has a power called Super Breath, which is essentially the ability to cause winds of tornado-esque power with nothing but his lungs. This comes from his Kryptonian physiological ability to store massive amounts of air in his lungs—air can be compressed tighter because his lungs aren't as fragile as human lungs, though they are indeed of the same proportions. This same ability is how Superman was able to survive in space for extended periods of time.

The Giant, on the other hand, simply had really frikkin' huge lungs, and so, a sharp breath for him was the equivalent of one of Kal-El's super breaths. Superman went sailing backwards, caught in the torrent of wind, and though Karen struggled against it, she too went sailing backwards.

In typical Superman-family fashion, they used the same tactic again, hoping it would work. This time, they both grabbed the A and the Y respectively from the building's roof and charged at the Giant, beating him, hopefully into submission with the giant light-up text.

It didn't really work all that well. They wounded him farther, but they were only flesh wounds. The giant just smashed them both away again, and they stopped to catch a breath and restrategize.

"So…" Karen said. "You have anything?"

Superman shrugged. "I really wish I'd listened to Bruce when he said I needed to learn martial arts too."

"I know how ya feel."

Then Power Girl watched as, down below a smaller giant was giving Raven and Starfire a fit. However, they did something interesting… Raven coated herself in black energy, and Starfire herself in Starbolt energy, as they joined hands and blurred at the giant in a spiral drill attack that knocked the giant on his back…

"You think maybe we could do something like that?" Karen asked.

"It's worth a shot," Superman said. "But for this guy we'll need to build up some speed."

"We could fly around the city in circles really, really fast and then both slam into him together."

"Works for me," Superman said. Suddenly, both heroes blasted off, circling Jump City at supersonic speeds, before breaking out of the loop together and blasting towards the giant, slamming into his solar plexus simultaneously with a powerful double-uppercut.

The giant went airborne, arcing out into the bay…

Directly towards Titans Tower…

"Aw crud," Power Girl muttered.

Superman blasted towards the tower, but was already exhausted from the blow he'd just delivered to the giant… He realized he'd never make it in time…

And then he saw Guy Gardner, using the Green Lantern ring to take out some monsters that had risen near the bay.

"Guy!" Superman shouted, projecting his voice with his super ventriloquism talent, "The giant!"

With his telescopic vision, Superman saw Guy glance up and see the enormous giant heading straight for the Tower, and despite his rough and tumble attitude, Guy knew what to do. Blasting towards the tower, guy hit the roof and raised his hands towards the giant, a stream of green energy coming out of his ring. "No way, big guy!" He barked. The energy surrounded the giant and Guy fell backwards, rocking all the way back and then using all his willpower to force the green energy upward…

The Giant went sailing off the roof of the tower and out over the Atlantic, riding the green beam of energy to his demise.

Superman and Power Girl breathed a sigh of relief and then turned to find more work.

---

Terra dodged away from a blast of magical power, even as the Queen of Fables began to wipe the dirt from her face and hair.

"Peasant!" She shouted, blasting another blue beam of evil energy at Terra. Terra escaped the attack and used her geokinesis to send another flurry of stones flying at the witch, pelting her, even as she retreated backwards…

"I may be a peasant," Terra said with a smirk, "but at least I'm not wearing a peacock!"

"Insolent child," Queen of Fables said with a wicked laugh. "You are wearing nothing, as far as I'm concerned. You are worthless and naked before me; you are a worm, in my eyes, Tara Markov."

Terra dumped another pile of dirt on her. "Funny, I've never known anybody who names their worms."

Queen of Fables lifted her hands and a swarm of flying monkeys, like those from the Wizard of Oz, exploded from a portal in reality. Terra had expected something like that, and deftly began blasting them through the heart with small rocks she'd prepared.

Nearby, INSTIGATOR blasted some flying monkeys, even as Cyborg and Jinx shot a few out of the air.

"Titans go!" Terra shouted with a smirk, blasting several more airborne simians with shards of rock and earth.

She continued then to flee, dumping the remainder of her dirt on Queen of Fables. This only instigated a further fit of annoyance from the dark queen. And all the while, Terra was retreating back to the mountain…

As the Queen and Terra approached, she lifted her hands, her rock platform lowering onto a flat part of the mountain even as chunks broke off and went flying at the Queen. Furious, the Queen summoned a huge well of dark magic and destroyed the chunks as the approached her, then summoning a duo of dastardly dragons to attack Terra.

"These will keep you busy…" Queen of Fables started..

It might of worked had not Mammoth and Private Hive suddenly jumped from the top of the mountain, both wielding blunt weapons against the dragons, beating them into submission before Queen of Fables could sic them on Terra.

Annoyed, but refusing to lose her cool, the Queen pursued Terra even more, even landing on top of the mountain and walking towards Terra. And despite all the rocks that Terra had thrown at her, the Queen remained unharmed. She raised her massive armored arm, her chalk-white skin briefly glowing as a massive metal sword appeared.

"Behold the Blade of True Lies, mortal. You shall be the first to die by its steel in over one thousand years."

"Um… How about not?" Tara said, a few drops of sweat falling from her brow. She jumped back, her eyes glowing yellow as she shouted. "NOW, GUYS!"

Suddenly the ground beneath her erupted upward, a perfect culvert in the ground, carved by Terra and lined with shrubbery for oxygen conversion—and inside…

Progeny, Shimmer, and Gizmo.

And the stolen cart of thirty-nine pies.

All the pies suddenly lanced out, Terra grabbing her own several and hurling them at the Queen of Fables, covering the witch in steaming hot pie goo. All thirty-nine pies soon adorned the dread witch, and she did not seem to mind the heat at all..

But staring into her eyes, Terra could see that something was different… something had changed… She stood there a moment longer, not flinching in the slightest that scalding hot-pie goo was running down her face and neck.

"Pies…" The Queen of Fables growled, in a voice closer to Mother Mae-Eye's than her own. "PIIIIIEEEEEES….."

She'd snapped, it seemed.

"I HATE PIES! I'm SICK of PIES! I was trapped in pies, baked pies, conjured up pies… FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS!"

Okay, correction. Now she'd snapped.

"I declare WAR on all pies!" The Queen of Fables shouted, taking off into the air again, a furious blue aura of magic exploding around her and causing all the pie goo on her to vanish. Into the air she flew, magic energy lancing out of the aura and striking buildings where pastries were sold or made.

She wasn't destroying them, though. Instead of exploding into balls of fire like one might expect, everywhere the beams hit something very different happened. The terrain all around them changed; enchanted forests sprang up where trees had once been sparse. Magic castles replaced homes and factories. Beautiful countrysides and medieval villages suddenly phased into existence where there had been none. Mermaids leapt from Jump City bay, even as the Wayne Enterprises building transformed into an enormous bean stalk, stretching up beyond the golden clouds overhead.

Terra watched as the streets ran gold with yellow bricks and magic carpets replaced helicopters in the sky…

"She's making the entire city like a story book," Terra muttered.

Progeny glared at her. "If it took you that long to figure it out, you must be a natural blonde," he said.

"Oh, right, that coming from the guy who had to point out that taking pies from homeless people was 'terrible'," Tara shot back.

Progeny only blushed, and said nothing else.

---

Using the 'override code' (which was actually just Gauntlet might combined with Blacktrinian brute strength), Robert and Nigel were able to break into the locked-down Titans Tower and open the elevator. "I hope Sophie is okay," Nigel muttered. "I swear I will destroy that witch for what she did to me."

Gauntlet nodded. "Can't say I blame you man."

The elevator doors opened and the two Titans rushed into the Ops room. Sophie was nowhere to be seen at first, and Nigel started to head to her room, when he suddenly caught a rotund female form sprawled out on the ground by an ops-room computer.

"Sophie!" he called, running towards her.

Gauntlet followed close behind, and got there just as Scalpel was able to revive the fallen civilian.

"Nigel?" she asked, somewhat dazed. "It was so horrible… it made no sense…"

"It still doesn't," Nigel said, clearly talking about something different than his girlfriend. "What happened, who did this to you? Who attacked you?"

"Attacked me?" Sophie said, starting to come to… "Nobody attacked me, I just passed out… From reading…"

"Reading!" Nigel blurted. "What could you have read that made you pass out?"

"I…" Sophie started to say, pointing towards her still-active computer. Gauntlet was already there, skimming the page that she had been viewing. "What's going on?" Sophie asked, suddenly looking around for the first time. "Is the tower on lock down?"

"You don't know?" Nigel said, wide-eyed. "About the bank or Mother Mae-Eye or the Queen of Fables."

Sophie gave him a confused look, but Gauntlet interrupted before they could go farther. "Guys! This is it!"

He indicated the computer screen.

"What is it?" Nigel asked.

"This is how we defeat the Queen of Fables!"

Sophie paled, but Nigel walked over to the computer anyway, and saw that it was opened to a Fan Fiction website. Gauntlet pointed to the title of the story in question, and Scalpel gasped… It couldn't be! That story… it was just a myth! It was like the Killjoy of fan fiction! No story could possibly be as bad as this one was rumored to be… It just defied logic…

But just as Killjoy had proven himself real, there it was, plain as day:

The Defeat of Teen Titans Trigon Ruler of the Universe!

---

On the outskirts of town, Metatron picked himself up off the ground and sat up. He ached in a hundred places and felt numb in another fifty. His head was pounding as though there was an army marching around inside it beating on their war drums, just to spite him. The pounding got harder and louder, and suddenly he realized that he wasn't just hearing it in his head—it was real. Jumping to his feet and looking around, Adam quickly found the source of the drumming through his enhanced senses, and burst through the brick wall between himself and the source of the commotion.

His face muscles were too tired to react to what he saw, and he wasn't sure how exactly to respond. It was an army. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers in black armor marched towards Jump City from the south, and they would be at Met's position within thirty minutes.

Focusing, Adam scanned the army with his heightened demon senses; he still couldn't quite make out the details, but they certainly didn't look human…

Suddenly, a massive blast of energy came from nearby and slammed into the front line of the approaching army. Met looked its direction and saw Viridian, still in her tank form, blasting away at the approaching army.

"Bliss!" he shouted, running over to her. "What the flying fork is going on over there?"

Suddenly, a loud gravely nearby intoned, "There are orcs, many of them."

Both Adam and Bliss turned to see Gizmo hovering near by holding a video iPod, currently tuned into Lord of the Rings.

Mikron sweatdropped, and chucked the iPod away, then gave a nervous chuckle before launching into his typical insults. "What are you pit-sniffers looking at?"

"Well…" Metatron thumbed toward the approaching army. "It would seem that there are… orcs…"

"Many of them," Bliss deadpanned. She shot a few more with her chain gun.

"Yeah, well I already pied the witch and took down some deranged pixies, so you snot-eaters can just forget getting any help from me."

Bliss just continued firing.

Adam shrugged and turned away.

"I mean it!" Mikron shouted. "Not one milligram! Not even a single quantum particle!"

Adam and Bliss continued to ignore him.

"Fine then, but only because you'll say I'm a coward otherwise!" Gizmo spat, dropping a couple of small egg-shaped metallic devices. Suddenly bright light transformed both of them into rather large laser turrets. "Feast your eyes on the power of technology, kludge-brains. Devil boy, get into that gun-turret and start shooting!"

Metatron glared at the diminutive evil genius, but complied, taking aim at the nearest of the oncoming orc army and opening fire.

---

Noel dodged away from Tinkerbell once again; somewhere in the laboratory she had acquired a safety pin, broken the safety part off, and was using the sharp end to poke Noel whenever she got the chance.

The Titans' resident jerk dived out of the way of a beaker thrown at him by Peter Pan and then made an S4 as wide as a tennis racket and used it to smash Tinkerbell away as she poked at him with her pin once more: he'd lost enough blood in this lifetime.

Angered, Pan charged at him, and Noel and the lost boy brought their blades together once again, fencing through the lab. Normally this fight would have been over in just a few minutes, even with Pan's ability to fly, but thanks to the Queen of Fables, this manifestation of Peter Pan had some sort of preternatural ability to sense danger, almost as though she'd borrowed some of Peter Parker in the summoning. He'd tried twice to use the 'shimmer-line through his feet, popping out of the ground' trick twice on Pan, once normally and once from behind him; both times Pan had reacted with inhuman speed and sliced the strand, causing Noel more than a little pain.

Noel lunged into what would have been a killing blow had Pan not hovered backwards at the right moment, sending Savior off balance. This was followed by a spin kick that sent Savior flying into a shelf full of beakers and jars.

Pan smirked, raising his dagger in a perverse victory pose. Tinkerbell had recovered by this point, and charged at the Titan, aiming her pin-point at his eye this time.

Savior moved his head to the side like Han Solo dodging Greedo's blaster shot, causing Tinkerbell to bounce off the wall behind him, disoriented and pin-less. Then he grabbed the fairy with a shimmer-enhanced grip and brought the fairy close to his face.

Pan charged at him, but he used shimmer lines through his feet one last time, this time successful because of the distraction of Tinkerbell's kidnapping.

"You are really starting to get on my nerves," he growled at the fairy.

Eyeing the distressed look on Pan's face, an awful idea occurred to Savior. "I DO NOT BELIEVE…" he started.

A look of horror twisted across the visage of Peter Pan. For you see, any time one uttered the words, 'I do not believe in fairies,' one of that species would breathe their last… (Assuming that fairies breathe… I'm not really sure. They'd die, regardless.)

"…That this is necessary," Savior finished, grabbing a nearby unbroken jar from the shelf he'd smashed and stuffing the fairy in it. He sealed it shut with a lid and poked a hole in the top.

Unfortunately, by this time, Peter Pan had realized the source of his restraint and was, at that very moment, stabbing into it with his dagger.

Noel cried out from the pain, the shimmer retreating into his body.

"You tried to kill her you fiend!" Peter Pan shrieked, lunging at Savior with his blade ready to kill. Mustering his strength through his pain, Savior dove forward and stopped Pan's attack from succeeding by throwing off his timing. Then he collapsed onto his stomach, the pain making him unable to stand. Earlier the shimmer had taken some minor cuts, but this was a full on stab, right through the sensitive energy. And the semi-sentient being that the shimmer existed as was furious at its owner for allowing that wound. It hadn't yet recovered from the violation.

Savior crawled forward and turned over in time to see Peter Pan lunging at him again, and kicked up into the boy's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"You could have killed Tinkerbell," Peter Pan hissed trying to regain his breath.

"But I didn't," Savior, said, standing on shaky legs and forcing the shimmer out into an S4. "Can you say the same, kid?"

Pan lunged at Savior, but Noel deflected the attack and the two began sword fighting again, though Savior was in no position to win in his weakened state. He had to stall the fight. "You never gave that same mercy to all the pirates you killed."

"They're just scum! Pirates! Who cares if they die! I was doing the world a favor!"

"And having fun." Savior spat. "To you, murdering them was just a game."

"And a fun one, too!" Peter Pan sliced for Savior's leg, but met only armor with his blade. "Blast you and your magic armor!"

"Don't change the subject, kid," Noel snapped smashing his fist into Peter Pan's face. "You're no better than the pirates you murder."

"I'm a hero!" Pan swung with his knife and Savior deflected it, parrying the blow into a disarm. Noel grabbed the sword and held it to the boy's throat.

"No 'creature' that will gut a man and then crow like a bird, utterly oblivious to the pain he's in, the mess, the smell, and all that of such an act—and act like it's just a game is a hero."

"You—you're wrong!" Pan said, though it was obvious he was not sure of his words.

"There is no advantage in never growing up, kid. I've been watching you from the start, learning your sword fighting style. It's sloppy, full of holes. You leave yourself wide open and go for the killing blow. You rely on your ability to fly, and can't cope when I turn off your happy thoughts. You can't grow, you can't learn from your mistakes. You remain a child forever."

Pan backed up, hoping to escape and hoping to fly away… but the sting of Savior's words made him literally unable to think of happy thoughts at the moment…

"Anyone who can't grow up is not blessed, but abnormal. Peter Pan, you are an aberration, trapped in a world where you do not belong. Neverland is a work of fantasy, just like you."

Peter Pan gasped, suddenly dealing with his status as a aberration, non existent being in a world where his kind had no place. "You.. could have killed Tinkerbell…"

Savior nodded. "But I…"

"But you didn't…"

Peter Pan leaned forward onto Savior's blade, before the weary Titan could react, and began to vanish. Savior gave him a polite nod, not knowing what else to do. "Return to your glory. It does not belong here. Because here we have to put childish things away."

And with that, Peter Pan was gone, and Savior sighed in relief. "Bangarang."

Noel ran back into the room full of jars to confirm that Tinkerbell had indeed vanished when Pan did, and then turned to leave the Space Needle and rejoin the battle. It occurred to him briefly that getting sidetracked with Pan might have cost the Titans and other heroes ground in the overall struggle, but he decided that hindsight was 20/20 and navel gazing wouldn't help any…

And all such thoughts vanished when he stepped out onto the balcony of the Space Needle to see a bunch of boys wearing shorts and nothing else, faces painted like tribal leaders and wielding sticks and rocks…

"Is that the beastie?" one of them asked in a British accent.

"It's awfully white for a beastie," another commented.

Another boy, one who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward. "Are you the beastie!" he demanded, his voice full of vitriol.

Savior crossed his armed and frowned. "Jack Merridew, I presume."

The boy seemed slightly unnerved at the fact Savior knew his name; even so, Noel was already beginning to prepare a long rant about why civilization was so important and why scum like Merridew who sought out nothing but fun and led others astray were possibly the worst of humanity…

Unto a claw of black energy promptly sliced two of the boys in half and crushed Jack Merridew's head, causing all the boys to vanish into clouds of lavender energy.

The black energy manifested as a dark bird, and Raven emerged from the shadow. "What are you doing discussing politics and philosophy with Order Magic manifestations?"

"I um…" Savior sweatdropped.

"You're wasting time, Savior, now come on and help out." A small platform of black energy appeared and Raven beckoned him on.

Savior complied with no argument, and soon the two were flying over what once was Jump City. It was now a mishmash of fairy tale concepts, thrown together in a giant jigsaw puzzle.

"Are you sure these are manifestations of Order Magic?" he asked. "You've always said the Boogeymen were made of Chaos Magic."

Raven frowned at his use of Beast Boy and Gauntlet's pet term for the stalkers that had tried to kill them, the HIVE Students, and the villains of Jump City on the past three hallows eves. "The Queen of Fables is using a very different method of bringing these manifestations to life, and it will all fall apart without her control. But her magic has become increasingly chaotic ever since Terra hit her with all those pies."

"Pies?" Savior asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Long story."

Savior shook his head and decided he'd have another long talk with Terra when this was over. Preferably this time not in a vault. "So basically we just have to shut Mae-Eye down and this all goes away?"

"Yes…" Raven said, though very cautiously and clearly with a condition. "IF, we shut her down before she goes totally insane. If she spectrum-shifts completely into Chaos Magic shutting her down alone won't be enough to make it all vanish."

"Then what do we do?"

"Raven lowered the platform and hovered down next to her boyfriend. "You need to help the civilians out. Robin is trying to get the counter attack organized. I'm going to try and stop her, but I'm afraid I can't fight her alone. To put things into perspective, I feel she's about half as powerful as the Sorceress. Which is bad."

Noel swore. "Fine, I'll look for Jinx and Gauntlet, and any homo magi I happen to find in the city."

Raven leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "Jinx is the most important to my current plan. Of course if Robert has a better idea you should listen to it."

"What?" Savior blurted. "What does Robert know about magic? He's not even sure if his Gauntlet is magic or super-tech."

"Nothing," Raven said. "But he knows everything about violating the fourth wall, and given the current circumstances, he mighthave something important to say."

---

It didn't take terribly long for Noel to find Robert; he was with Power Girl. Typical. Nigel was also there, and the three were using their respective abilities to tear through a throng of goblins and undead that had sprouted in the medieval village that used to be Jump City.

Savior landed, using a shimmer-strand combo to tear some of the undead legions apart, before joining Gauntlet and Nigel. Power Girl saw that the area was clear and flew off to help out elsewhere. Robert stared at her buttocks until she was too far away to make out the details.

"You're hopeless." Savior said with exaggerated disgust. "But Raven said your knowledge of breaking the fourth wall might be able to help us in this fight."

"She's delusional," Robert said. "The only thing that can help us.. is THIS!"

Gauntlet pulled out the story he'd printed out at Titans Tower from his shirt. It was just a few pages long, but he held it out towards Savior as though it were a radioactive decaying rat corpse with anthrax powder inside it.

"And what, pray tell, is 'this'?" Savior said, somewhat mockingly.

"A story," he said. "Or more accurately, an anti-story. It's been scientifically proven to be the worst Teen Titans fan fiction in the universe."

Savior arched an eyebrow. "How?"

"It made our resident mortician pass out from sheer outrage."

Savior blinked. "Good enough for me. Now how are we supposed to use a printed out bad fan fiction against a Queen of Fables who, Raven says, has almost half as much power as freaking Ithlian?"

"Remember that dragon-guy, Melchior?"

"Malchior," Savior corrected. "Of course I remember him. He was hitting on my girlfriend while I was away on a mission."

"Do you remember how Raven defeated, Malchior?"

Savior's eyes instantly lit up. "You're suggesting…"

"Whatever that curse Raven used on him was, she could use on Queen of Fables," confirmed Gauntlet.

"This thing is much more powerful than Malchior was, Robert."

"I think I have that part of the ordeal covered, and even if I'm totally off base, it is worth a shot. You can either do that, or try and herd the medieval peasants to safety while they poke you with pitch forks."

Savior grimaced. "Give me the story," he said. "I'll try and find Raven again in this…" Savior dodged a flying monkey and then spiked it through the head with a shimmer sword. "Mess."

Nigel glanced at Robert as Savior sprang away on a shimmer-coil, unable to swing due to the fact that most of the skyscrapers were now thatched-roof taverns. "Was there any reason that it had to be that story?" Nigel asked. "Sophie still seemed… off when I left her at the shelter."

Gauntlet shrugged. "Mostly just payback for all the crap Mae-Eye put us through. I know, I know, it's not that noble but…"

"On the contrary," Nigel said, his voice full of resentment for all the witch had done to him. "Nothing could be more noble."

"Thank you, my dear Blacktrinian," Rob said with a bow, before braining a nearby werewolf. "Now let's go get ready for my half of the plan."

Five minutes later, the duo was in the enchanted woods that had once been Chinatown, and Gauntlet was tapping on the side of a cliff with a gauntlet energy sword.

This perplexed Nigel, as he'd tap a place, listen to the sound, then move on a few feet and tap another place.

"What on this planet are you doing?" Nigel finally asked after fifteen taps.

"Listening for the hollow place."

"Hollow place?"

Rob gave the wall one last tap, this time the noise sounding distinctly different than the earlier hits. "Ah, here it is. Nigel, I want you to strike the wall here as hard as you can…"

"Okay…." Nigel said, not sure why, but complying anyway. His blow caused a portion of the cliff side to explode inward, revealing a hidden tunnel to the inside of the mountain…

And inside were thousands upon thousands of pennies.

Nigel walked over to them, and on closer inspection found that they weren't pennies, but penny blanks… "Huh?" was all he could say. Then he said, "What?"

"Penny blanks," Gauntlet said. "They're made of copper, which conducts electricity, and that's integral to my plan."

"Um… right…" Nigel said.

Robert ignored his skepticism and immediately got to work, using some sort of machine made of Gauntlet energy to manipulate the pennies and reshape them into his desired object…

"A LIGHTING ROD?" Nigel blurted upon the tool's completion.

"Don't ask questions just come on!

---

High above the city, the Queen of Fables continued to orchestrate her mad scheme of magical world domination. More and more characters from fiction were flooding the city, and soon, it would fall…

Somewhere, deep within her mind, she realized that she'd become unhinged, somehow. Maybe it was thousand years of imprisonment, or perhaps just the thought of being covered in the pastries she'd come to resent…

No matter. Soon all the peasants would bow down and worship her… or perish in the futility of resistance.

Suddenly, a massive of beam black energy slammed into the Queen, knocking her from her meditation and sending her careening into the giant bean stalk that had once been the Wayne building..

"'Mother'!" Raven's voice came, in a quiet, fierce tone.

"You may no longer call me that, detestable one. I am the Queen of Fables; I am the ruler of this and all realities!" The Queen stretched out her hand, and the Blade of True Lies formed in her hand once more.

The Queen flew towards Raven, striking with the sword in a graceful attack that belied the sword's heavy appearance. Raven dodged the attack, and fired again with a magic spell, blasting the Queen back. "You've been sealed before," she said. "I can do it again!"

"Foolish child," the Queen laughed. "The gem that sealed me has been destroyed. There is no spell that you can cast that I cannot undo!"

Lightning began to fill the air, as more and more energy poured out of the Queen's aura; the golden clouds above the sky darkened, the air growing cold.

"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!" Raven cried, even as a huge bolt of lightning arced from the Queen's sword directly towards her. A portion of her soul self exploded from Raven's hands, colliding with the lightning bolt and stopping it in its tracks…

But rather than just dispersing, the lighting bolt, only stalled a moment, and then continued, arcing across Raven's attack and hitting Raven herself. The resulting explosion sent Raven flying backwards, blue lightning jumping from fingertip to fingertip as her vision clouded…

"No!" Raven forced herself back to consciousness and flew back towards the tyrant, blasting her again with every spell she could think of that didn't involve dark magic…

The Queen deflected the attacks with the Blade of True Lies and fired back with a magic missile spell. Raven deflected the attack, but at the cost of some of her magic reserves. Worse still, the missile's explosion was large enough that it sent Raven careening through the air.

The Queen of Fables rushed at the half-demon, an evil glint in her eyes, betraying her increasing psychosis. "Off with her head!" the Queen cried, pulling her sword back and reading to slice Raven's head off…

"ZINTHOS!" Raven shouted---suddenly, she was gone from where she'd been falling and right beside the Queen of Fables… And another powerful blast of dark energy erupted from her hands, slamming into the side of the Blade of True Lies near the hilt, snapping the artifact in two…

"NO!" cried the Queen, dropping the handle and backhanding Raven across the sky. "For this insult I shall make your death slow and painful, child!"

The Queen of Fables raised her hands and the lightning all about her intensified, her aura growing in size and density, till the monarch of mendacity was barely visible through it…

"Burn!" she cried, and an enormous blast exploded from her hands and slammed into Raven, sending the Titan barreling through the sky, with no control at all…

And suddenly, she stopped, as though something… or someone.. had caught her..

Raven opened her eyes and nodded as her vision slowly faded back in, and she found her rescuer to be a White Knight come to challenge the Queen…

"Are you okay?" asked Savior? "Raven, answer me!"

"I'm… fine, Noel…" she muttered.

"We're still in the field," he said, trying to keep his tone harsh but not quite succeeding….

Savior landed atop the Space Needle, one of the few buildings still somewhat resembling its original form, and then sat Raven up. "Are you sure you're fine?"

"I'm disoriented," she said. "But I'm not hurting… Where's my cloak?"

Savior handed it to her. "The pendant that fastens it got blasted off during the fight."

Raven frowned, and tied the cloak around her neck with a simple knot. "I'm not strong enough," she said.

Savior frowned, and then pulled the story out of his coat. "Gauntlet… he said this would help you defeat her—if you use the curse that you used to seal Malchior…"

"Two problems," Raven said. "One, I can't get close enough to defeat her… she's burning herself up with magic energy, but I'm afraid by the time that happens it will be too late for the city... and two, most of her body is made of pure fictional energy, if that makes any sense. How do we trap her in a story if she's made of the essence of storytelling?"

"Hey," Noel said with a shrug. "We're seventy percent water, but we can still drown."

Raven blinked, not able to argue with the logic. "That still doesn't solve problem one.

---

The mood was somber on the highest buttress of the medieval castle that had once been Save A Lot Market. "Are you sure this will work?" Nigel asked…

The storm that the battle between Raven and the Queen of Fables was producing had begun to intensify; blue lighting arced all across the sky, preventing the heavy hitters from reaching Queen of Fables. Those that had projectile attacks were using them, though, and it was helping Raven out some…

Or so Rob hoped…

"Not really, but it's worth a shot. Oblivion was created partly by the fusion of extreme magic power and my gauntlet. I figure if I channel energy from the lightning directly into the jewel, I'll get a similar effect."

"You sure you want to unleash something like that?" Nigel asked.

"Don't worry. It won't be as powerful as Oblivion, and I'll still have control over the mind since it won't be me and Noel fused this time."

Firmly grabbing the huge copper rod that he'd made from the penny blanks with a huge pair of gauntlet energy tweezers, Rob lifted the rod into the air where the magic lightning was the fiercest, holding towards the eye of the storm…

KRAKKA-BOOM!

Lighting slammed into the pole and arced down into the Gauntlet…

KER-ZAP!

To put it bluntly, Gauntlet's idea didn't quite work.

To be even blunter, he got shocked.

Robert began twitching uncontrollably, smoke rising from his T-Shirt and jeans, his Gauntlet glowing with the lightning it was absorbing, but not growing to cover his body like Oblivion's armor had….

"ROBERT!" Nigel shouted, rushing over to grab the electrified Titan…. Of course, this was a fairly silly action given that the Blacktrinian was covered in metal and hence just as susceptible to electric shock as Robert..

Scalpel also began to twitch, though the lightning distributed between the two shocked them less than it would have otherwise…

But it still hurt. A lot.

However….

The effect was immediate. A huge portion of the lightning from the Queen of Fables' aura siphoned away from her body, straight down into Gauntlet and Scalpel…

And though they were feeling the burn, it made the Queen's defenses substantially weaker…

"Titans GO!" Robin shouted, ordering everyone who could to attack. And everyone complied; Cyborg and INSTIGATOR filled the sky with missiles, Jinx blasted Hex Blasts at them. Power Girl, Superman, and Starfire let loose a flurry of eyebeams even as Jessie and Grace began grabbing random things to throw at the witch…

The Green Lantern blasted her across the sky with his ring, sending the Queen careening into a building…

Where Raven was waiting. "Queen of Fables!" Raven shouted, using a soul-self claw to slam her into the building again. "This fight is over!"

"Nothing ends until I declare it!" the Queen ordered, hurling a flurry of fireballs at the Azarathian…

Her aura began to regenerate, but Raven attacked before it could do so fully, causing the aura to splinter into a thousand painful sparks filling the air around her…

But there was an opening, and it was Raven's only hope…

Raven lifted the horrible fan fiction in front of her and recited the curse: "Aldruon Enlenthra Nalthos Sola Narisnor!"

A blue-white beam lanced out from the glowing sheets of paper, crumpled in Raven's hands, blasting through the Queen of Fable's aura and striking the queen in the chest…"

"What? No! I cannot be defeated by such as simple curse!"

"Shut up and get in there!" Raven said, fully disgusted with the Queen's refusal to lose. She focused, sending more magical energy into the paper, and from there into the Queen, until the monarch could no longer resist; her body collapsed, shrinking into nothing, joining the energy as it flowed into the pages…

An so followed all the manifestations and creatures throughout the city; the buildings returned to normal even as the enchanted forest withered, as each of them seemed to be literally ripped from reality like a page torn from a book, and pulled towards the void where the Queen of Fables had been.

The huge army of orcs on the outskirts of town vanished into nothingness, even as Metatron and Viridian's reserves of ammunition ran dry..

And Gauntlet and Scalpel collapsed, relieved that their sudden shock therapy was over…

And when Raven was done, what had been just a few pages of bad fic was now a full volume of material, a leather-back book bound by vampire fangs… And on the cover, gold letters where emblazoned:

Raven and the Queen

"Talk about fact being stranger than fiction," Raven deadpanned.

---

Hours later, all the adult heroes having gone home, the Titans rested. Savior, Raven, and Gauntlet were on the roof watching the sunset, when Robert tossing something caught his eye. "What is that?" Noel asked.

"It's a PDEM. I finally tricked Pangloss into giving me another one."

"Give me that!" Noel snapped, grabbing the tiny device out of the air and pocketing it.

"Hey, what gives?" Rob asked.

"The last time you had one of these, you used it to make a giant colore-coded indicator appear over the heads of all the terrorists in the world."

"So, what?" Rob shrugged. "I was supporting the troops."

"You were tampering in forces we shouldn't be tampering in. Politics and Superheroes don't mix."

"Whatever," Robert shrugged. "Say, whatever happened to that 'book' you sealed Queen of Fables in?" He was speaking to Raven, Noel realized.

Raven leaned forward. "Superman took it. I think he said something about burying it on Argos."

"I think we traumatized the big blue guy, ya' know," Rob said. "Is it just our personalities?"

"I think things like this are best left un-talked about," Raven said. "Superman will recover from whatever freaked him out so bad."

The rest of the Titans reclined in the living room of their tower, resting off the immensely hard day with video games and junk food.

Well, everyone except Robin, of course.

"Please, Tim," Starfire said, finding her love in the darkened crime lab, hovering over a computer. "Will you not join us for the celebratory nuts of dough?" Her smile implored him to come…

"Sorry, Kory." Robin continued typing, entering the data he knew and searching for clues as to what he didn't. "The HIVE Five got away. We were too busy congratulating Raven to notice them escaping."

"But…"

"It's okay, Star. Go have some fun. I'm going to finish up here and join you in a minute…"

"Okay… Tim…" Starfire glanced back at him one last time as she flew off. "Just do not expect friend Robert to leave any of the Strawberry ice cream.."

Robin smirked, and looked up at Starfire. "Strawberry, huh?"

---

That evening, the Hive Five (times two) returned to their base… to find it utterly demolished.

Buzz Bomb greeted them, explaining that Brother Blood had gone to take care of some business, and that the ten that had gone, save for Billy Numerous, were all in big trouble.

"What the snot happened to the base, though?" Gizmo demanded. There was water filling the volcano precipice, so everyone had met on a hill overlooking the volcano layer..

"Crazzzzziest thing," Buzz Bomb said. "This huge GIANT came out of nowhere and fell into the ocean. The splash and resulting wave just washed over the base. We barely got evacuated in time!"

Gizmo and the others facevaulted.

"So…" Mammoth ventured. "Brother Blood is mad at us?"

"Oh, definitely," Buzz Bomb said. "Not just you though. While we were trying to assess the damage, Scorcher and the elementals showed up and re-kidnapped Wilby."

Shimmer smacked her face wither her palm. "Did ANYTHING go right?"

"Yeah," Billy Numerous said. "Didn't nary nothing happen that was worth a hill'a'beans? Like maybe Sabotage drowned in the wave?"

Suddenly Billy's arm became dislocated, and Sabotage stepped forward. "You think I'm that easy to kill, punk?"

"Aw nuts," Billy complained. "Well, so much for hopin'…"

"So…" Gizmo asked cautiously, "where IS Brother Blood?"

---

In Jump City there is an alley, and in this alley there is a door to a secret place. This door simply reads Moriarty's, and inside there seems to be nothing of interest at first glance.

But this is merely an illusion, for what truly exists within the building is something entirely unimaginable. For this building holds the infamous urban legend, the Villain's Café. A place owned by the Titans' arch foe the Lord of the Night, Moriarty's is a restaurant and bar in which the villains hang out during their down time…

And occasionally get stalked by slasher movie monsters, though that's a different story.

Here it was that Psimon had gone after his escape from the bank with all the HIVE's loot. Where he'd spent the last six hours…

Gloating.

"And that's how I stole the money from the HIVE Students, right out from under their noses!" Psimon crowed gleefully.

"Yeah," Adonis said. "We KNOW. You have told us this story thirty times in as many minutes!"

"And I shall tell it again!" Psimon cried, "Until EVERYONE knows of my glory."

"Funny you should mention that," a cold voice said as it stepped from the shadows and stuck the barrel of a high-powered energy weapon to the back of Psimon's head. You could almost see a smile on the other side of the orange-and-black mask. "Tell me, Mr. Jones," said Slade, "have you actually ordered anything here tonight?"

Psimon didn't answer, instead shivvering where he stood, his mind visibly craclking with energy as he began to process what was happening. "You.. you can't be here. You've been in a coma for three years!"

The masked assassin tilted his head slightly. "I woke up," was his only response.

Slade glanced over at the bartender, Atlas. "Does he owe the bar anything?"

Atlas shrugged."He just had one beer, the detestable human."

Slade responded by grabbing one of the money bags Psimon had stolen and tossing it to the metalic bartender. "This should cover anything he owes the bar."

BLAM!

Simon Jones' body collapsed to the floor, even as Slade had the strangest sense of déjà vu. Then he collected the rest of the money bags and took them outside to the alley, where Brother Blood stood waiting.

"Very good work, Mr. Deathstroke," Brother Blood said. Slade gave him the money bags, from which Brother Blood allotted Slade three. "For services rendered," he said.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," Slade replied, before vanishing into the shadows.

All the while, Brother Blood, satisfied with the outcome despite the setbacks, decided he'd go easy on his students when he got back.

Just this once.

---

And deep within the realm of fiction, the Queen of Fables ran… Ran, and ran, from the horrible world she'd been sealed in…

Her powers—her power over all fiction—seemed to be somehow negated in this place… as though she was trapped in not a story, but in an anti-story.

In which the newest demigoddess on the planet—Space Raven, the fusion of Raven and God, chased after her, blasting her with super demonic electric dark freezing burning energy blasts.

"Come back!" shouted Space Raven. "I despise evil and fight for justice. Too bad you are not an inanimate object."

"What did I do to deserve this?" the Queen of Fables cried, fleeing the wrath of Space Raven. And for the first time in her life, she began to weep.

And weep, and weep.

And so, the Teen Titans and people of earth lived happily ever after. Or so I've heard.

The End.

---

Maternal Instinct

Story by: Chaltab

Guest Writer: Ultra Sonic 007

'Defeat of Teen Titans Trigon Ruler of the Universe'

by ShadowSpyro
May God have mercy on your soul by never letting you read any of his work

Starring

Scott Menville as Robin

Tara Strong as Raven

Hynden Walch as Starfire/Shimmer

Khary Peyton as Cyborg

Greg Cipes as Beast Boy/Private HIVE

Kevin Kline as Savior

Billy West as Gauntlet

Paul Lukather as Scalpel

Alyson Court as Sophie Matthews

Ashley Johnson as Terra/Jessie Quick

Lauren Tom as Jinx/Gizmo

Milo Ventimiglia as Metatron

Susie Brann as Viridian

Kevin Michael Richardson as Mammoth

Jason Marsden as Billy Numerous

Armin Shimerman as Psimon

Grey DeLisle as Angel/Grace Choi

Tom Kenny as Progeny/Peter Pan/Rhinoceros Beetle

Billie Hayes as Mother Mae-Eye

Colleen O'Shaughnessy as Queen of Fables

John DiMaggio as Libre/Brother Blood/Guy Gardner

Daran Norris as INSTIGATOR/Captain Hook

George Newbern as Superman

Tawnya Manion as Power Girl

and

Ron Pearlman as Slade Wilson

No pastries were harmed during the construction of this fanfic.
Chaltab and his affiliates disclaim all ownership of the characters herein. Teen Titans and others owned by DC Comics. Legendsverse characters owned by the Team Legend. Space Raven owned by ShadowSpyro. I didn't make nary a dime off this fic, so please don't sue me.

Thanks for reading and have a great life. Unless you've murdered someone. Then I hope your life sucks!