The humming sound was still there.
Victor rolled over and got up from his bed. The room was small and had no windows, which wasn't surprising as it was a prison cell. The humming sound came from the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling, which illuminated his cell with their unnatural light. The room was Spartan and only contained the bed, a toilet, a small sink that had a drinking fountain built in and a retractable power cable that was compatible with the charging port that was hidden under his left armpit.
Victor only knew that he had held been in captivity for 23 days because of the real time clock that was built into the cybernetic half his brain. It had a precision of 1/10 of second per year, so he knew that he really had already been locked up for that amount of time: 23 days, 14 hours, 23 minutes, 12 seconds and 76 milliseconds.
He walked over to the small sink that was built into one of the cell's titanium alloy walls and opened the faucet, splashing the lukewarm water on his face. The walls, along with the reinforced door, were strong enough to contain even Starfire. He knew she was nearby, as he heard her periodically try to break out of her own cell, which he judged to be not far away.
He looked in the small mirror above the sink, and saw his face staring back at him. 6 years had passed since he replaced his blue tech implants with new ones that not only gave him a natural look, but also a natural feel. There was still a titanium skeleton under his artificial flesh and he was still stronger than a normal human being, but the truth was he sacrificed a great deal to adopt his new persona.
He ran his fingers through the dreadlocks that grew out of his scalp and blinked his now two brown eyes.
The transformation had not been an easy or trivial one. Virtually every subsystem in Victor's artificial body had to be re-engineered, and the tradeoffs were many. First of all he had to give up all of his weapon systems: both sonic cannons, the missiles and the rockets built into his limbs, it all had to go if he was to feel as if he was really made out of flesh and blood.
The super strength also had to go as the hydraulic systems, servos and gears went away and were replaced by artificial muscles that while stronger than real human muscle tissue couldn't hold a candle to his old mechanical body.
Of course he knew why he did it. He didn't want to be Cyborg anymore; he wanted to be Victor Stone.
And it worked wonderfully. Like his former teammates, Raven and Garfield, he went to college; where he triple majored in Computer, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and graduated with honors. He was immediately hired by STAR Labs and was getting close to his fourth anniversary with the august institution.
There was a fly in the ointment however: He struck out with the ladies.
It wasn't that he couldn't get dates, in fact much like Garfield he was constantly being asked out by the ladies. And just as with his green buddy, once they got know him better and found out he wasn't really normal they dropped him like a hot potato. It didn't matter how natural he looked and felt, once they learned that most of his body was artificial … it was over.
Even the women at STAR Labs, many of whom helped him create his new look kept a respectful distance from him. That was a low blow for him, as most of the eligible bachelorettes at the research lab were hardly what one would have considered to be "hotties" and would be better described as mousy nerds.
Victor was beginning to debate over whether or not he should go back to his old look and tech when he met her.
Her name was Miranda and she was a barista at the onsite coffee shop at STAR Labs. He remembered well the day he first met her. One of the long time baristas had vanished overnight and was never heard from again. She was hired to replace him the following week and she hit the ground running, quickly becoming a favorite with the clientele, thanks in large part to her good looks and bubbly personality. When he walked up to the counter and saw her for the first time he stared at her, almost unable to contain his amazement.
"What can I get you?" She asked cheerfully, seemingly unaware that he was slack jawed.
"Uh ... a large latte ... please." He gurgled in reply.
The perky young girl was Sarasim's splitting image. They could have been sisters, if not outright twins.
She quickly prepared the caffeinated drink.
"Here you go … say … are you OK? You look kinda spaced out."
Victor quickly regained his composure.
"Sorry, you just look a lot like someone I used to know."
"Really? I hope she was nice."
A faint smile appeared on Victor's face.
"Yeah, she was."
"You remind me of someone too." She replied.
Victor sighed. This one was going to be a record for him: From interested to scared away in just a few minutes.
"I used to be Cyborg, one of the Teen Titans. Actually, I still am a cyborg, I only changed my look.
A huge smile appeared on the girl's face.
"Wow! You look so handsome; you must have to beat the girls off with a baseball bat! You're a superhero and … well … what can I say … you're hot!"
He was unable to conceal his surprise.
"You do? Even though I'm mostly artificial? And I'm not a superhero anymore."
"You aren't? Why?"
"I replaced most of my tech so I could look and feel like a real person."
"But you are a real person."
She extended her diminutive hand to him.
"I'm Miranda DaSilva."
He extended his large beefy hand to her and they shook.
"I'm Victor Stone. Nice to meet you Miranda."
A few days later Miranda asked Victor out on a date. Many more dates followed. After several weeks he introduced Miranda to his father, who joined them for some coffee. Victor could tell immediately that his father didn't like her, he never asked why, but he presumed that it was because she was "beneath him", a mere barista. It wasn't hard to figure out, as his father kept introducing him to other STAR Labs engineers and scientists, but as always those women were not interested in him. They might write a tech journal article about their contribution to his new tech, but that was as far as their interest in him would go. To them he was nothing more than a lab specimen. Then again, he wasn't all that interested in them either as most were geeks who were so socially awkward that by comparison Raven was the life of the party.
Their relationship continued to grow, until one day she showed him some pamphlets for a vacation resort in the Caribbean. She not so subtly hinted to him that she was ready to take their relationship to the next level at the tropical destination.
There was one very important part of Victor's body that was not artificial and her invitation garnered his undivided attention as he was still a virgin. He quickly agreed and she surprised him when she purchased the vacation package herself. He protested, saying that he should pay as he made a lot more money than she did and that it was the gentlemanly thing to do anyway.
She insisted on paying, saying that she had come across a windfall, an inheritance, so it wasn't a hardship for her. She also told him not to tell his father. He agreed, knowing that his old man would try to talk him out of it while setting him up on a date with yet another mousy, dorky girl from the office who in the end wouldn't like him anyway.
Finally, the day arrived and they boarded the jet for San Benito, where the all inclusive resort was located. The flight was uneventful and by that afternoon they were in their tropical paradise. They spent the rest of the day at the beach, and after that they went out for dinner and dancing.
They returned to their room late that night and true to her promise, she made a man out of him. He recalled how happy and peaceful he was when they fell asleep in each other's arms that night.
He woke up the next morning in the prison cell, after a long drug induced sleep. During the past 23 days he had seen no one. His meals appeared through a slot on the bottom of the door. During his imprisonment he meticulously examined the cell, searching for a flaw that he could use to escape but found none.
Other than Starfire, who cursed in Tamaranian on a regular basis when she pounded on her cell door, he didn't know if the others were there as well. He called out to her but she never replied, at least not in English. He searched for clues in his cell that might give away the identity of his captors, but found none. After the three weeks he began to worry that he might lose his mind in his boring prison, as there was nothing to do.
That was when the cell door opened for the first time. It slowly creaked open and he saw that the titanium alloy door was 3 inches thick, overkill for him even in his old Titans tech. As the door swung open it revealed a platoon of robots with laser rifles aimed at him. Two robots entered his cell and shackled his hands and feet. Once he was secure the platoon parted and he saw him.
"General Immortus. I should have known."
"Welcome Cyborg, it is gratifying to have you as our honored guest."
"Yeah right. So tell me, who was Miranda?"
The general chuckled.
"No one special. Just a mercenary we hired to capture you. We actually had plastic surgery done to make her look like your cavewoman crush."
Victor looked astonished.
"How did you know?"
Immortus smiled.
"I was there Cyborg. I was a teenager in the village. You wouldn't have noticed me; after all you couldn't take your eyes off of our fearless leader."
Cyborg clenched his teeth, snarling at the general as he lunged at him. The robots grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Don't be upset Cyborg. By the way, Miranda said you were actually quite satisfying in bed, well … at least for a first timer."
Victor calmed himself and regained his composure.
"What do you want from me?"
"Patience Cyborg, you will soon find out."
The robots dragged Victor out of his cell into the hallway. He could see that the cell block was large, as he saw at least 30 doors identical to the one on his cell. When he turned to look down the other way he gasped at what he saw.
Two robots were dragging an also shackled Dick Grayson down the hallway. His head hung limply and the robots appeared to be unconcerned.
"Nightwing!"
The former Boy Wonder did not respond, but Starfire's alien voice echoed from the end of the hallway, cursing in Tamaranian. She pounded her door with such vigor that the hallway vibrated, but her cell door held firm, containing her. The robots opened another cell door and after unshackling him Nightwing was tossed into his cell as if he was a bag of refuse, and the door was slammed shut behind him.
"A pity. He refused to talk. The Brain tried to probe his mind, but his mental blocks were very strong. Of course there were consequences. Perhaps you will be more cooperative, right Mr. Stone? Or should we invite your father to our party?"
-( scene break )-
Nightwing slowly woke up. Every muscle in his body felt as if it was on fire but he ignored the searing pain and lifted himself from the floor, grunting as he reached an upright position. He staggered over to the sink and took a drink from the fountain, and spat out blood. He repeated the process until his spittle was clear.
As he turned towards his bunk he heard her scream in Tamaranian, and she resumed pounding her cell door. He sat down on his bunk and recalled the series of events that led to their imprisonment.
Unbeknown to the others Starfire had resisted moving to Bludhaven and only agreed to the relocation after her husband promised her that the Titans would be eventually be reformed.
As Garfield figured out after a year the Princess also came to realize that the Titans were no more and that the gloomy "penthouse" in the Mecca of Crime was her new home. After Nightstar's birth she took several leaves of absence. She visited Raven, Victor and Garfield on more than one occasion. They were all happy to see her of course, but she was able to read between the lines. They had each gone their separate ways and the signs were there that the rekmas was happening. It wasn't that they didn't care about each other; they would always be friends, with a lower case 'f'. But she could tell that the special bond they shared was either gone or was at least very weak. This discouraged her to the point where she decided that there was no longer any reason to visit her friends anymore. Cyborg was too busy working at STAR Labs, Garfield was buried in his graduate work, and when she visited all he did was talk about Raven and how much he missed her.
Raven was the most inscrutable nut to crack of all. She remained her usual emotionless self, but Starfire could see that her friend wasn't well. She of course still remembered the future she visited when she pursued the time travelling villain Warp.
The memory of a demented and delusional Raven haunted her and she feared that she was witnessing the sorceress's slow but steady descent into madness. She did everything she could to draw Raven out of her shell, but nothing seemed to work. Raven would always agree to go out with her to the mall, the park or the beach, anywhere the Tamaranian requested. She would bring Nightstar along but even that failed to draw Raven out of her self-destructive death spiral.
Starfire eventually gave up as she could not longer bear to watch what she knew would eventually happen. She even warned Raven, but the sorceress merely shrugged it off and reassured Starfire that she was fine, all evidence to the contrary.
So Starfire stopped visiting her friends. At that point the Tamaranian decided to join her husband in fighting crime in Bludhaven. Unlike during her days in Jump City she regressed to her fierce Tamaranian ways and became the scourge of Bludhaven, and was even more feared than her own husband. She adopted a dark costume that matched his, which made her nearly invisible in the night time sky and adopted the hero name of Nightfire.
The years passed and even though the Graysons were able to curb the tide of lawlessness in their adoptive home time they were never able to eliminate it, just as Batman couldn't do so in nearby Gotham. They cooperated with Bruce on occasion and she soon found that she no longer thought of herself as a Titan but rather as a member of the Batclan.
Still, some things didn't seem to change. One of them was Nightwing's infatuation with Slade, who was rumored to have set up shop in Bludhaven after recently escaping from prison.
Nightwing of course went mental. He virtually turned the town inside out searching for his one eyed nemesis. He used every contact he had, hitting up every pimp, bookie and two bit thug. They all said the same thing. The word on the street was that Slade was in town, but no one had actually seen him.
This went on for weeks and Nightwing became increasingly frustrated and agitated with his lack of success. Batman suggested that he drop it for now as his own contacts said the same thing: No one had actually seen Slade, but the rumors of his presence in Gotham and Bludhaven were as abundant as were the failed attempts to track down the notorious Deathstroke.
One day there was a breakthrough and Nightwing was actually able get a glimpse of his nemesis, who boarded a private yacht that set sail later that day. Nightwing was able to place a tracking device on the large boat and after a few days it arrived in the tropical island of San Benito. They dropped Nightstar off with Alfred and headed off to the island without telling Bruce.
Nightwing was still kicking himself for falling into the trap. Once they arrived in San Benito they began to ask the locals if there was anything unusual going on in the island, to which most merely shrugged their shoulders in response. The local chief of police visited them, reassuring them that there was no supervillain lair on his island and reminded them that he would not tolerate vigilantism and would have them arrested if they were to engage in it.
That night, while resting in their hotel room, just before they got ready to call it a night there was a faint knock on their door. Nightwing opened it and found it was hotel night shift manager. The young man informed him that his cousin had heard some strange sounds on the island's north side, sounds like those of a jet or a rocket.
They thanked the young man and after changing into their dark costumes they stole out into the night. Starfire carried him under his arms and they flew off into the dark moonless night.
The ambush was perfect; they were hopelessly outnumbered and were quickly captured. Starfire was knocked out and tossed into her cell. The Brain later tried to enter her mind and she resisted. After an hour the Brain relented but left her his calling card. Once the vilain had retreated from her mind she found that she could not any longer speak nor understand English. Nightwing had been forced to watch her being mentally tortured and understood what the Brain had done. Starfire called out to her beloved in Tamaranian and he responded in English while the Brain laughed his pleasure.
-( scene break )-
Victor grumbled as the robotic platoon prodded him with the barrels of their laser rifles, trying to get him to walk faster. They had blindfolded him, but the cybernetic half of his brain recorded in absolute detail every single step he took. After what felt like an eternity he heard a pair of doors slide open. They led him through the doors and after they closed the robots removed his blind fold.
The room was brightly lit and a powerful light was shining directly into his eyes. He blinked several times and shielded his eyes with his still shackled hands. His eyes soon adjusted and he saw them: The Brain, Mallah, Rouge and Immortus.
"What do you want?" He barked at them.
"These. Is. No. Need. To. Be. Belligerent." The Brain replied in his halting synthetic voice. "All. We. Want. Is. Information."
"What kind of information?"
"We want to know where the Titans secret bunker is located." Mallah chuckled.
"And why would I tell you that?"
"We can be very persuasive Cyborg. We can extract this information by force if necessary."
The former Titan grinned before gesturing with his head, giving it a quick shake.
"Sorry guys, I kept that information in the cybernetic half of my brain, and I just deleted it, it's gone."
"You will be punished for that." Rouge seethed.
"Yes. He. Will. Be. Punished. But. That. Will. Have. To. Wait." The Brain announced before pausing. "Bring. In. The. Next. One."
The sliding doors opened and two more robots dragged in a young Hispanic male who appeared to be in his early 20's.
"Dejenme! Sueltenme! No voy a cooperar."
Victor stared at the young man and finally recognized him.
"Mas?"
"No, soy Menos! Ayudame Cyborg, ayudame por favor!"
"No one can help you my young Guatemalan. And you will tell us where the secret base is. Do it, or we will destroy your mind!" Madam Rouge hissed.
-( scene break )-
I decided to give BB and Raven a little break today. This chapter was very heavy with the narrative. More dialog next time.
Guest - "the story is very interesting. why delete carved into stone. anyway both very good stories can't wait for next chapter"
Actually, Carved in Stone sucked. I've been thinking about killing it for over a month.
JOHNXgambit - "I remembered that scene I pictured him falling flat on his face and that had me laughing for 2 minutes"
Glad you liked it.
bluedog197 -"I can't think strait too much fluff aww how sweet and awesome part with the beast and ravens demon side great work"
This is definitely a fluffy story.
Shadico - "HAPPINESS OVERLOAD. CANNOT COMPUTE. ALLLLL THE FEELS. What a chapter. Looooove love love it. Oh man. This story needs to never end if it's getting off to this fantastic of a start, holy crap. Great stuff Force!"
Thanks, like I said before, this story started off great until I ruined it after chapter 20. Hopefully it will be better this time around.
krostovikraven1 - "I liked her confession but her timing was terrible. Poor Gar was beaten up mercilessly but the Beast showed up,yay!"
Raven is known for her emotional constipation. She figured it was now or never.
Hairul The Nightrage Beast - "Lucky thing Mallah and Rouge didn't got Devoured By Darkness or a Black Onslaught by Raven"
They did run for their lives
TheThoughtsofKarasu - "Funny, just before Raven turned into her demonic form I was thinking to myself that she would be able to take down Mallah and Madame Rouge easily if she was angered like that."
Great minds think alike!
DeeThom - "Finally some BBRae fluff earlier on in a story. But I'm excited! This remake is GREAT so far! Good job!"
Thanks, I will be more careful this time around.
titanfan45 - "Your timing couldn't be better. Great chapter as always, it was the perfect read before calling it a day."
I aim to please.