Cyborg swerved the car out of the way as a streetlamp fell in our path and nearly crushed the hood. I heard the crinkling of the glass light bulbs being crushed underneath the tires.
"Great, now I'm gonna have to check the tires when we get back." Cyborg mumbled, focusing past the rain-drenched windshield and the wipers frantically trying to dry them up.
"Right. Because a giant piece of rubber is the biggest issue at the moment." Raven said from the backseat. Cyborg glared at her through the rearview mirror.
"Speaking of rubber, Robin sure did leave us in the dust. I wonder if he's caught up with Johnny Rancid." I said.
"Whoa!" Cyborg swerved the car again as a black motorcycle with red circuitry zoomed past us, nearly grazing the side of the car. Johnny Rancid, a punk with hulking muscles, cackled. He had spiky black hair hidden underneath his black motorcycle helmet, black eyes, and he wore a black tank top to show off the black tattoos painted on his arms, black pants, black combat boots, and black fingerless biker gloves. I wondered if Raven admired his sense of fashion.
The car began to spiral as it slid across the slippery road. I gripped the side of the door as my vision spun with the car. It came to a stop, and I lurched from the lack of momentum.
"Ugh..." I groaned as I opened the car door and crawled out. The rain quickly soaked into my clothes and hair. Coincidentally, the car stopped in a perfect parallel parking situation. I had always seen those on TV, but the crazy circumstances usually leading up to them made me glad they didn't happen in real life.
Another motorcycle skidded to a stop next to the T-Car, this time it was Robin's.
"Come with me. I could use your help against Johnny." Robin said.
"I'm not exactly in the right mood to hop back onto a vehicle." I said.
"Come on!" Robin tossed another motorcycle helmet to me, and I flinched and fumbled with it. It was the same pattern as his, red with a yellow R in a black circle on top of the forehead. "He's getting away!"
I sighed in defeat and slipped the helmet on. I climbed onto the R-Cycle and gripped Robin's shoulders. He revved up and we sped down the street. I lurched backward and one of my hands released their grip. Frantically grabbing for something, I snagged Robin's cape and yanked it back.
"Hey, watch it!" Robin choked.
"Sorry." The rain splattered against the glass of the visor, blurring my vision. "I don't suppose these things come with wipers, do they?"
"No, because I never really find myself in these types of high-speed chases."
"Says the guy who uses the car of a young couple to ramp over a brick wall."
"How about we focus on what's going on now?"
Robin picked up speed. We saw Johnny Rancid's motorcycle coming into view. He glanced behind and noticed us getting closer. He extended his energy pistol, a small, silver energy pistol that heavily contrasted the rest of his appearance, and aimed for the wheels of the R-Cycle. Robin swerved the vehicle back and forth, dodging the lasers and inching closer. The two motorcycles cruised side-by-side. Johnny aimed his gun at Robin's head. I pulled out my own and fired back. The laser hit Johnny's hand, and he hissed and dropped his gun. Robin rammed the R-Cycle into Johnny's.
"Not bad, Bird Boy. Your girlfriend's got good aim!" Johnny called over the thundering rain.
"Girlfriend? Please. How can I be with a person when I don't even know what half of his face looks like?" I said.
"Seriously?! Right now?!" Robin said.
Johnny pulled away for a brief moment before ramming back into the R-Cycle. The steering wheel slipped from his hands. Robin tried to gain control, but it toppled over. I yelped as I flew through the air, registering what was happening a split-second before my body hit the ground for the first time. My left ankle made contact first, and a sickening crack filled my ears, followed by my skin scratching against the concrete. I tumbled three times before I finished on the sidewalk. Hot pain traveled from my ankle to the rest of my body, and I screamed. For a brief moment, I feared my tumble severed me, but glancing down my leg, I was still whole.
"Aw, did the little girl get a boo-boo?" Johnny cackled as he revved up his motorcycle and drove away.
I was in too much pain to respond with nothing but a sob. My ankle really hurt. My tears heated up the inside of my helmet, and I ripped it off to allow the rain to cool my face down. Robin laid near the R-Cycle with only a few scratches on his elbows. That is, for now he would only suffer from these minor injuries. He crawled to his feet and approached me.
"Are you all right?" Robin said, crouching at my side. "Where does it hurt?"
I pointed a shaking finger to my ankle. Robin tried to grip my ankle, but I was met with another blast of excruciating pain. I screamed, harshly straining vocal cords, and Robin backed away.
"Sorry."
"Go deal with Johnny." I said between deep breaths. "I'll call Cyborg and have him take me back to the Tower."
Robin hesitated, but seeing how I wouldn't accept any other option, he sighed and climbed back onto the R-Cycle. I winced from the relentless downpour. I tried to push myself up into an alleyway to shelter myself from the elements, but I was punished with more pain. I pulled out my communicator and dialed for the T-Car.
My tango against Johnny Rancid rewarded me with a thick, white cast that engulfed my foot, save my toes to allow them to breathe, and extended up to just below my knee. I slumped down on the couch and stared at my twitching toes. A large blue pillow propped my leg on the coffee table. Raven did her best with patching me up before moving on to Robin, who injured his right arm after plunging the R-Cycle into the bridge while pursuing Johnny.
"Both of your injuries have been reduced to fractures, but you're going to have to wear those casts for the next few weeks." Raven said, lifted her glowing hand from Robin's bounded arm. Robin grumbled underneath his breath, mostly blaming himself for his injury.
"Give it a rest, Robin." I said, folding my arms. "You don't gain anything good from wallowing around like this."
"Yeah, man. Stop kicking yourself." Cyborg said. I shot him a glare and he shrunk back. "Sorry. Bad choice of words."
Robin sighed and stood up. "Fine. You guys can go deal with Johnny Rancid. After all, I'd probably just mess everything up again." He walked over to the end of the coffee table and reached for the TV remote. He stopped mid-reach and uttered a painful cry. He grabbed the sides of his head as a large bump formed on his forehead, similar to Starfire when she underwent her Transformation. This one, however, flew off of Robin's forehead and hit the ground, forming into a different person.
"Hooray! I made it!" the high-pitched boy cried. Dressed exactly like Robin, save the R on his chest was lower-cased instead of capitalized, the two-foot-tall boy stood proud with his hands on his hips and his cape billowing in the nonexistent wind. He looked around the room at us and waved. "Hi, everybody!"
"What the...?" Cyborg said, his jaw dropped past his chin.
"Who are you?" Robin said.
"What do you mean, who am I? I'm you, silly!" the boy said.
"...What? You're not me. I'm me!"
Cyborg activated the scanners on his arms and analyzed Robin and the small boy. The window flashed "MATCH" in big, red words alongside with a twirling blue DNA helix.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
We watched the boy run around the room. His high-pitched giggled filled our ears wherever he went. First, he dug through the cupboards and tossed out all their contents onto the floor. After that, he watched the front door open and close in bubbly fascination. He scurried over to the couch.
"Whoa, there." I said, grabbing the boy before he could sink his buck teeth into the couch. I held him out as far from me as I could. "Care to tell my friends more about yourself?"
"Sure!" the boy wriggled out of my grasp and floated around Robin. "I'm Robin from another universe! I traveled here all the way from Dimension 49/8. My name is... Nosyarg Kcid!"
"Welcome to our universe, small, amusing doppelganger!" Starfire said, engulfing the tiny Robin in her arms.
"Uh... Maybe we'd all be better off calling you 'Larry'." Beast Boy said.
"Yay! My name is Larry!" Larry changed the letter on his chest to an L using his magic finger. He bounced around the room as he chanted his new name repeatedly.
"This is officially the weirdest thing I've ever seen." Raven said. "What was that thing you just did?"
"Oh, you mean this? It's my magic finger! It bends the rules of reality." Larry activated his magic finger again, and a big ball of light pulsed at the tip of his index finger. "I bend the rules so I can watch Robin fight baddies and crime from all the way in my universe. But when Robin got hurt, I thought, 'Now it's my turn to be the hero!' So I came all the way over here to help Robin! I goofed up on the way, and I ended up inside his noggin."
"All this talk of alternate dimensions is making my brain hurt." Beast Boy grumbled, rubbing his temples.
"At least he saved me the trouble of trying to explain all of this to you." I said.
"Now that Larry is here, let's fix up that arm of yours!" Larry flew over to Robin and pointed his magic finger at his arm. It turned into a hockey stick. "Oops..."
Before Robin could beat up Larry with his new arm, the sirens blared and the room filled with flashing red lights. Cyborg hurried over to the computer and checked the scanners.
"It's Johnny Rancid." he said.
Robin glanced at his hockey stick arm and sighed. "Just go."
The other four Titans nodded and left the room. Robin flopped down next to me with a grumpy expression and turned on the TV. While he flipped through channels, Larry used his magic finger to change his arm into other objects. After having it go through being a fish head, an accordion, and an elephant's trunk, Larry finally changed it back into the bundled-up, fractured arm.
"Okay, I think I got the hang of this!" Larry said. "This time I'll make it all better!"
"How about we just let it heal on its own?" Robin said, leaning away from Larry's glowing index finger.
"Okay..."
"Hey, Larry, do you think you can do anything about my leg?" I said, gesturing to my injury.
"Sure!" Larry cracked his knuckles and aimed his finger at my leg. The white plaster was replaced by a black boot cast. "Ta-daaa! Now you can walk around a little!"
"Thanks."
"Hey, Robin! Wanna check up on the Titans and see how they're doing?"
"No, thanks. I'm sure they're fine." Robin said, focusing on the scrolling channels.
"Wanna go for a run?"
"No."
"Don't you wanna alphabetize your crime files? Polish your birdarangs? Iron your cape?" As Larry spoke, the items piled on top of Robin. Robin stood up and kicked the pile off him, scattering folders and birdarangs across the couch and floor.
"No, no, and no!"
"Just let me fix your arm. Pleeeease?"
"No!"
"You'll feel a lot better!"
"Get away from me!"
"But I can help!"
The two wrestled with one another.
"Careful, Robin!" I called.
Too late to respond accordingly, Robin shoved his boot into Larry's face, hurling the small boy into the air. He landed face-first, and the ground around him cracked like ice. Larry sat up and examined his magic finger, which was bent and sputtered sparks.
"Larry, what did you do?!" Robin said warily. The cracks spread across the floor and up the walls.
A few flashes of light filled my vision and I felt weightless. However, the sky looked like a little kid colored it in. I looked underneath me and saw the ground... but it was several hundreds of feet below. Robin and Larry began their freefall a few seconds before me with a flurry of screams. As the ground approached us quickly, I saw the four Titans below. The entire city looked like a picture from a children's coloring book. Our screams reached their ears, but Robin and Larry crashed before they registered what was going on. Beast Boy broke their fall. Before I hit the ground, Starfire reached out her arms and caught me.
"We're still alive! Hooray!" Larry cried.
"Great..." Robin said, gesturing to the red and yellow, hand-drawn buildings around us. "Now you can explain what the heck is going on."
"You know how my magic finger can bend reality? Well, uh, you see... When you threw me, it sort of... broke."
"You broke reality?!"
"No, Robin, you did." I said. "You broke reality."
"Larry, fix this!"
"I can't. My magic finger is busted." Larry said, lifting up his sparking finger. "Now we're both broken!"
Robin growled and approached the rest of us. "Raven, fix this!" he said, shoving Larry into his face.
Raven, however, lacked a mouth when Beast Boy ripped hers off in order for him to speak. His mouth is who-knows-where. Raven reached up and ripped Cyborg's mouth off, slapping it onto her own face.
"Not a good idea. If I mixed my powers with his, it could destroy the dimension's boundaries and destroy all existence." Raven said with Cyborg's voice.
"Who cares about boundaries? How are we going to get my mouth back?!" Beast Boy said with Raven's voice.
"No need to panic! Robin will save the day!" Larry said, latching onto Robin's arm.
"What makes you think I can do all of this? I'm still trying to process all of this crazy mumbo-jumbo!" Robin said.
Cyborg ripped off Starfire's mouth. "Well, somebody better come up with a plan real soon as to how we're gonna deal with this mess!" The four Titans switched back to their own mouths, leaving Beast Boy literally speechless. "Let's get to Titans Tower."
Our exciting journey to Titans Tower was delayed in order to avoid a giant, fire-breathing dinosaur from crushing us. We ran frantically through the towns- well, everyone else ran frantically. Starfire carried me the entire time. We hopped onto a boat and set sail for the Tower, distancing ourselves from the dinosaur, but a few moments later, it sprung a hole and we sunk into the water. A giant whale engulfed us and spat us out at the shores leading up to the Tower. Black storm clouds churned above us, and a large beam of light, the source of all this mayhem, shot out into the clouds from the Tower.
"We're here! Now we can save the universe!" Larry clapped.
While Beast Boy beat the water out of his ears, he looked and saw his mouth on a nearby rock. He peeled it off and placed it back onto his face.
"Congratulations, Beast Boy! You have recaptured your mouth!" Starfire said.
"I think you put it on backwards." Raven said, her hair standing straight up. A fish wriggled in the middle.
Beast Boy tried to speak, but his words were backwards. We tried to enter through the front door, but it wouldn't let us in, so we flew up to the roof. The large beam of light pulsed.
"Anybody got any idea to how we close this thing?" Cyborg said.
"You don't!" We looked and saw Johnny Rancid standing on top of a large warehouse crate. "You've seen what this thing did to the entire town. Imagine what would happen if it belonged to a single person- me!"
"Don't do it, Johnny!" I said.
"And who are you to stop me?" Johnny took a running start, pushed himself off the crate, and dove into the beam of light. It changed from white to red, and the city's theme changed from a children's daydream to an adult's nightmare. The dark clouds surrounding only the Tower spread and engulfed the blue sky. The color scheme was only black, brown, and dark yellow. Johnny stepped out of the energy. His hair, eyes, and tattoos glowed red, and he wore only his jeans, combat boots, and biker gloves. "The city's mine, now!"
He pulled out two hook-shaped guns and shot lasers at Robin. Cyborg tackled him out of the way. Johnny lifted his hands up as red, electric energy formed his black and red motorcycle. He climbed onto it and drove off the roof and into the sky, leaving red, flame-shaped energy in his wake. Cyborg launched his hand into the air. It latched onto the back of the motorcycle. Johnny used his gun to cut the rope, and Cyborg plunged into the water. Starfire set me down onto the roof and she, Raven, and Beast Boy flew after Johnny. From the point, I saw a barrage of Starfire's starbolts rain down on Johnny, but none of them hit him. Beast Boy and Raven were knocked into the ocean, and Starfire was captured by red chains of energy and carried up past the clouds.
"All right! Now it's our turn!" Larry said. "Come on, Robin, let's go!"
Robin stared out into the gloomy city. A large explosion illuminated beyond the first layer of buildings and smoke rose up, matching the clouds in the sky. "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't? You're Robin! You can stop the bad guys!"
"Look at me!" Robin shoved his injured arm into Larry's face. "Does this look like I can do anything?! If I go out there, all I'll do is mess up again!"
"What good will it bring to anyone if you think like that? This isn't the Robin that I've grown up with my whole life. The real one would do whatever it takes to stop evil and make everything right. He wouldn't let something as stupid as an injured arm keep him from doing what he needs to do." I said. I smirked. "I guess we're reversing roles today."
"We all mess up. Heck, I mess up a lot, but I keep trying." Larry said. "That's why you're my hero, Robin. No matter what, you always try. Isn't that what's most important?"
Robin looked back out into the distance. More smokestacks rose up from the city. He looked back at Larry with a smile.
"All right. You're convinced me." Robin said. "The three of us will take down Johnny Rancid."
"Yaaay! Robin, Ciela, and Larry are here to save the day!" Larry cried, backflipping in the air. "What's the plan?"
Robin turned to me. "Do you think you can aim from this far away?"
I raised an eyebrow and pulled out my energy pistols. I brought them together and transformed them into my bazooka rifle. I looked through the eye scope. "It's a little blurry. Do you think you can bring me in a little closer?"
"All right. Larry, let's head inside. My R-Cycle needs some patching up."
"Hooray! We're gonna stop the bad guy!" Larry cheered.
"Are you ready, Ciela?" said Robin's voice from my communicator.
"Yup. Just say the word." I said, propping my rifle against the ledge while I laid on my stomach.
Robin and Larry rode out on the R-Cycle towards Johnny Rancid. After a few moments of them facing each other, probably to exchange banter, Johnny started to chase Robin and Larry around. I watched the pursuit through my eye scope. Johnny shot red energy lasers at the R-Cycle, but Robin managed to swerve out of the way despite steering with one hand. Robin threw a birdarang behind him, and it flew past Johnny. The birdarang circled back around and sliced through his hook-shaped gun, cutting it in half. Johnny drove up next to Robin and slammed his motorcycle into the R-Cycle. He shoved a handful of crackling red energy into Robin's face. Larry used his magic finger to cover Johnny's hair with daisies. While Johnny patted the flowers out, Robin shoved his foot into his face. Johnny's motorcycle swerved away, allowing Robin to drive a few feet ahead. He circled the R-Cycle back around and drove towards the building I stood on. Johnny snapped out of his daze and drove after Robin and Larry.
"You think I'm gonna let a stupid, little kid like you defeat me?!" I heard Johnny call.
"Now!" Robin cried. Through my eye scope, he was right in front of Johnny. Nevertheless, I pulled the trigger. A large laser burst from the muzzle, cut through the air, and zoomed towards Robin. At the last possible moment, Robin swerved out of the way. There was too little time for Johnny to react, and the laser hit his motorcycle and exploded.
Johnny landed on the ground, the force so great that it created a crater. He was back to his normal self.
"Nice job, Ciela." Robin said.
"Glad I could help." I said.
"Yaaaay! We saved the day! We're heroes!" Larry cried.
"Now, how about you work your magic and fix this place?"
"Okay!"
There was a flash of light that engulfed my vision. When it subsided, I looked up and saw the blue sky. Below me were man-made buildings and car horns rather than dinosaur roars. I sighed in relief.
When my alarm sounded, I sat up and threw off my bed covers. My left leg was no longer bundled up in a boot cast. I swung my legs over and onto the ground. Carefully, I pressed weight into my feet and stood up.
There was no more unbearable pain. My ankle was a little sore, but at least it functioned properly.
I guess injuries from the Teen Titans world don't carry over completely to my world. That'll come in handy... but hopefully nothing as bad as or worse than a broken ankle will happen to me while I'm in the show.
I glanced over at my laptop, and a shudder rushed down my spine.
Of course, I can't really keep that promise. Especially when the season finale begins tomorrow. Oh, boy... I can't wait to find out what happens...
