The Titans looked on in horror, from the other side of the bay that separated Titans Tower from the rest of the city, as Strength methodically and brutally took apart Slade's army, they watched as she ripped a robotic commando in half and then used it to shatter two more before crushing another just with her fist.
"I'm glad she's on our side." Beast Boy exclaimed.
"I've got a bad feeling she won't be if we don't rescue Mato." Robin replied. "Come on." He gestured with his thumb.
Strength was working out Yuu's anger and frustration on the robots when she felt a slight weight land on her back. A childish giggle came from behind her.
"Let's see what snot hardware you're packing!" It said.
"Who the hell?" Strength muttered.
"That's Gizmo." Said a large hulking brute nearly three times Strength's height. "And I'm Mammoth."
"Hey wait, what's this? It's just solid metal?" Gizmo said.
Strength looked at the back of her hand and saw a small, bald, child trying to insert some sort of device into it.
"Who the hell are you?" Strength bellowed, shaking her hand violently to get rid of him.
The child blasted into the air with some sort of rocket pack, the momentary distraction allowed Mammoth to charge and he swung his fist into her face. She bowled over a dozen commandos and ploughed into the ground, leaving a deep furrow.
She pulled herself out of the ground and spat out black and white blood. The pair charged at each other, with Strength catching Mammoth's fists with her own. They grappled for a brief moment before Gizmo intervened, firing missiles at Strength, causing her to push Mammoth away and threw herself to the side.
Mammoth took advantage leaping onto her back, grabbing her giant hands and pulled them backwards.
AAAHHHHHHHHH! Yuu screamed.
Strength unfurled her secondary arms, grabbing Mammoth in his confusion and swung him over her head. With a mere twist of her hands she snapped the bones in his legs and chucked him aside like trash.
"Where do these assholes get armies from?" Strength grumbled.
A slight tremor in the ground caused her to look behind her, she saw Cinderblock and Plasmus approaching.
The Titans cautiously entered Slade's lair, still mostly in ruins after Terra stopped the deadly mercenary, debris littered the tunnels and no lights were working.
"Man, this place gives me the creeps." Beast Boy shivered.
"I know how you feel buddy" Cyborg answered. "Bad history."
"Shhhh." Robin whispered, facing them. "We've got company."
"Well done Robin, your instincts are as sharp as ever." Slade said, his voice seemingly coming from everywhere at once.
"Where's Rock? What have you done with her?" Robin shouted at the darkness.
A bright floodlight turned on, blinding the Titans momentarily as a thin silhouette stepped forwards.
"She's right here." Slade's voice said. "We've had an interesting discussion and she's decided to help me."
"No." Raven muttered.
"What?" Robin asked as the figure came into focus.
Rock stood before them, burns covering large portions of her body, her right arm mangled and broken in several places and her left eye had been removed. A thick metal collar with a pulsing red light had been locked around her neck.
"Rock." Robin said sadly.
"Save your sympathy Titans." Slade snarled over the hidden speakers. "My dear, dispose of the Titans but leave Robin for me." A burst of static signalled that the microphone had been turned off.
"What did he do to you?" Cyborg asked.
"Somebody should call Strength…" Robin started to say, he was cut off when Rock lunged forwards, blade in hand, towards him.
He narrowly dodged the attack, the razor edge slicing through the flesh of his shoulder instead.
"Rock stop, we're your friends." Beast Boy cried before transforming into a gorilla.
The Otherself paused a brief moment before attacking again.
THIS IS WRONG! STOP IT! Mato screamed.
This is the only way of protecting you. Rock answered.
THESE ARE OUR FRIENDS!
I will not allow any more harm to come to you. She twisted away from a punch aimed at her from Beast Boy, several of her wounds tore open.
Mato hissed.
I am sorry my love, I can only hope one of them can stop me and remove this collar.
And how likely's that? Mato asked, her voice shaking.
Zero.
Strength's Titan communicator beeped loudly at her, she looked down at it clipped onto her collar in annoyance.
"I'm busy here!" She screamed at it.
She was trying to fight off both Plasmus and Cinderblock, they were working quite effectively together, Plasmus would use his toxic muck to slow down and trap her while Cinderblock would come in for an assault. She had already lost count of the times she had been thrown through the tower.
She was surprised it still stood.
The small round device beeped at her again.
"Answer!" Strength growled at it.
A fuzzy image of Robin appeared.
"Strength, we've found Rock." He said.
"What! Where?" Strength asked as she got tangled up by Plasmus again.
"Slade's hideout, she's attacking us, she's joined Slade!" Robin said, briefly disappearing from the screen. Loud grunts and explosions came from the communicator. "We need you here."
"I'm a bit stuck." Strength said, trying to rip her arms free of the gunk pinning her to the ground.
"I'm turning on the beacon, get here as fast as you can!" Robin shouted as the high pitched scream of twisting metal drowned out his next words.
"Robin!" Strength shouted back as the communicator went dead.
"Shit."
Cinderblock pounded towards her arms raised.
Yuu? I need you to look away. Strength said.
Why?
Because I'm about to do something bad and I want you to have a clear conscience.
Okaaaay, kinda worried now but I've closed them. Yuu replied.
Good, I'll tell you when you can open them again.
With a thought, the guns at her fingertips opened fire, the concussive force blasting away the slime encasing her hands. She quickly got up and launched herself into the air over Cinderblock, she twisted in mid-air and grabbed the concrete monster's head, wrenching it backwards with enough force to slam him into the ground. She then transformed her hands into vulcan cannons and tore through the base of the tower. Within seconds the already heavily damaged tower creaked menacingly, she rolled forwards avoiding more of Plasmus's toxic ooze and charged as fast as possible through the structure of the slowly collapsing building.
On the other side, all four arms grappled the thick concrete and with all the strength she could muster and a bellow of pure effort she began to force Titans Tower over. Within seconds thousands of tonnes of concrete, steel and armoured glass crashed onto the ground and slowly began to slide into the bay, crushing everyone and everything in its path.
Strength looked over the devastation and hesitated.
"Well, shit."
Then she bounded off, following the signal on her communicator.
Raven and Starfire were managing to hold off Rock's advance, while Robin had reluctantly headed off to confront Slade and Cyborg was attempting to deal with Beast Boy's wounds. His efforts were hampered by the fact he only had five working fingers shared between both hands.
"Who knew she could be so much trouble?" Beast Boy chuckled before wincing in pain.
"Easy Beastie, or you'll tear the staples." Cyborg said.
A black dome appeared over the pair as the slim, pale Otherself lurched erratically towards them. Her sword rebounding off the dome. A green bolt of energy hit her in the side, staggering her and igniting her tattered jacket.
Rock threw the jacket aside and flexed her right hand.
AAAHHHHHHHH! Mato screamed inside her as razors tore through her nerves.
I am sorry, I need to see how fast I am healing. Rock explained.
How about not hurting our friends! Mato screamed again.
You know why, the collar will explode, we will both die.
Raven used her magic to tear a panel off the ceiling and threw it at Rock, the slim teen jumped towards it as it span towards her and leapt off, throwing herself at Raven. The Titan tried to dodge out of the way but Rock's sword snagged her cape, they fell together with Rock taking advantage of Raven's shock, savagely slamming her fist into Raven's face.
STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!
Starfire swooped down and tackled Rock, releasing Raven who immediately checked the gem in her forehead. She collapsed to the floor screaming in pain as she tried to stand, looking down she saw through teary eyes that her leg was pointing the wrong way. She had landed on it at the wrong angle and her and Rock's weight and snapped it cleanly.
She looked over at Starfire who was flying into walls at breakneck speeds holding Rock out in front of her.
Raven crawled over to Cyborg and Beast Boy.
"Hey Rae-Rae, how's it goin'?" Beast Boy grinned.
"What's wrong with him?" Raven asked.
"Anaesthetic, he has hurting pretty badly." Cyborg replied.
Raven nodded.
"We need to get out of here, she'll kill us if we stay." She stated.
"Nah, man she wouldn't do that. We're her friends." Beast Boy said slowly.
"She stabbed you in the chest." Cyborg pointed out.
"Yeah, but that was her collar. She wouldn't do that." The geen-skinned teen said.
"What collar?" Cyborg asked.
"Her new collar with the blinking light." Beast Boy said dreamily. "It's not really my thing but it works for her."
"We're so stupid." Cyborg muttered.
"We need to get it off her." Raven agreed.
"Yo, Star!" Cyborg shouted, looking at Starfire just in time to see Rock flip her legs above her head, hook them around Starfire's head and pull down.
The pair crashed into the wall, leaving a sizeable impact crater. Rock rolled away, getting to her feet and staggering forwards towards Starfire who was stuck, dazed, upside down in the centre of the crater.
Raven and Cyborg watched as Rock tried to summon her Rock Cannon with her ruined arm, she sank to her knees several times before she succeeded. Raven attempted to stop her with her own magic but being in too much pain to concentrate properly Rock just shrugged it off.
Rock raised her cannon as Starfire was just coming to and fired it point-blank at her face, the Otherself stumbled backwards after three shots and gripped her head. With a silent roar the broken remains of her left eye exploded in blue fire, she spared Raven, Cyborg and Beast Boy a glance then ran off on broken legs following Robin.
"What the hell just happened?" Cyborg cried.
"We lost, what about Starfire?" Raven asked.
"Right, this is where the signal leads." Strength said to herself, staring at a large blast door.
The others must be inside. Yuu said.
"Right." Strength nodded. She reached down and forced her fingertips beneath the door, with a squeal of protesting motors she raised the door, burning out the mechanism and causing a small fire.
She looked around the large room she entered, it was a ruin, the walls had caved in exposing the bedrock behind them. The ground was pitted with craters and huddled in a corner was Beast Boy, Raven and Cyborg.
Strength ran over.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Do we look okay?" Raven snapped.
"Not really, but you're alive at least." Strength said, relieved. "Where are the others?"
"Robin took off to find Slade." Cyborg muttered. "And Starfire is over there." He pointed with his sole index finger.
Strength followed his gaze and walked over to a large hole in the wall, a burnt and battered Starfire was what she found. With a gentleness at odds with her giant metal hands she eased the alien teen out of the wall and carried her over to the others.
"She's breathing." Strength reasurred them.
Raven leant over and felt her neck.
"Strong pulse, she's going to be fine." The half-demon confirmed.
"What happened here?" Strength asked.
"Rock happened." Cyborg said, checking Beast Boy's bandages.
"Robin told me that she has joined Slade, I couldn't believe it." Strength replied.
"Well she has some sort of collar around her neck, it's controlling her somehow." Cyborg said.
"We couldn't stop her." Raven muttered. "I was inside her head, I saw what she can do, but this?" She looked at Beast Boy sadly. "Nothing like this."
"Take it easy, as soon as you're able you should all head up to the surface. I took care of Slade's troops, nobody will bother you." Strength said. She turned and started to follow Rock, as the door closed behind her she heard Cyborg say.
"C'mon, lets get back to the Tower."
"Crap." Strength muttered.
When Rock caught up with Robin he was standing in front of Slade glaring at him. The room was larger than any she had been in so far, machinery littered the space and multiple catwalks criss-crossed above them. Robin and Slade were facing each other on a raised pillar in the centre of the large room.
"What do you want from me?" He shouted at the tall masked man.
"Only your absolute loyalty and the destruction of the Titans." Slade said, he cocked his head slightly and looked behind Robin at Rock.
"One of which I seemed to have achieved."
Robin looked round and saw Rock, her body was trembling as Mato's screams ripped through her. Her eye blazed brightly as she leant against the door.
"Is it done my dear?" Slade asked.
Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded.
"Well done, you have served me well." Slade said.
Rock shakily pointed at her collar.
"No, I don't think so. Your job isn't done yet is it?." Slade said brightly.
Rock looked up in confusion.
"Now now, don't tell me you've forgotten about your friend?" The tall man asked.
Rock winced as Mato's screamed increased, bringing her to her knees.
"No!" Robin shouted, whirling around. "You can't make her fight, she can barely stand!"
Slade held up his hand and showed off a small cylindrical object with a red button.
"She will if she values her life."
Robin suddenly realised, Rock wasn't fighting them because she had switched sides, she was doing it because it was the only way to protect Mato.
"If her collar is tampered with in any way it will detonate." Slade stated, he touched the side of his helmet. "My dear your friend is on her way, would you be so kind as to ensure our privacy?"
Rock sat down and straightened her legs in front of her, then with two sickening snaps, she reset the bones and stood up. She nodded and left the room.
"Good, now we can begin." Slade said menacingly.
"Black Rock Shooter." Strength said at the mangled Otherself blocking her way. "I know you're not doing because you want to."
Rock nodded, then very quickly explained.
"Explosive? What about Mato?" Strength asked.
Rock looked away, almost shamed.
"You're putting her through great pain, you know that." Strength growled.
Rock's eye flared.
"We need to get it off you." Strength said firmly.
Rock shook her head and summoned her cannon, shaking violently as she did so.
"You can't keep doing this, you'll drive her insane with what you're putting her through." Strength told her.
Rock shook her head again, struggling to raise the cannon.
"This is what we're going to do, and I need you to move faster than you ever have before. Understand?" Strength demanded, without waiting for a reply Strength explained her plan.
"Got it?" She asked.
Do it. Mato said tearfully
No.
Just fucking do it! Mato wept. I can't handle this, I need to get out.
You could die.
I'd rather that!
Rock dropped the cannon and looked down at her hands.
"Stop it!" Strength snapped, Rock looked up at her. "I would've done exactly the same, it's who we are."
Rock frowned.
"And it's time we remembered that, first we get that collar off you then Slade dies." Strength said.
Rock nodded, then pointed at Strength, followed by her own arm.
"You want me to reset it?" Strength asked.
Rock nodded again.
"Alright." Strength shrugged, she took Rock's arm then spoke directly to Mato.
"I'm going to make this as quick as possible, okay? You've been so brave already, just one more time."
Get it over with.
Rock nodded once.
With no warning, Strength re-broke Rock's arm with one squeeze of her giant fist. Then quickly set the fractures back in their correct position.
"You okay Mato?" Strength asked.
Y-yeah.
Rock nodded again.
"Right, let's get this collar off you. Just like I explained." Strength said.
Rock stepped closer, allowing Strength to get a firm grip on the thick metal with her fingertips. As Strength held the metal tightly, Rock lifted herself up and pressed her boots on Strength's chest.
"Ready?" Strength asked.
Rock nodded.
"Remember, fast as you can." Strength said. "One."
"Two."
"Three!"
Strength ripped the collar in two at the same time Rock pushed off Strength's chest as hard and fast as she could.
The resultant explosion threw both of them in opposite directions, Rock slammed hard into the wall, breaking her opposite arm. Strength landed on the ground, rolled to her feet and dashed over to Rock, who was already sitting up. With a grimace she smoothly set her arm and felt around her neck. Deep burns, exposing tendons, were evident. Rapidly coagulating blue blood seeped from the wounds but she was otherwise unharmed.
Strength laughed loudly, brushing a hand over her burnt hair.
"I think you're due for some payback." Strength grinned, holding a hand out.
Rock looked up at her as her lips curled up in a small snarl.
Slade and Robin looked around at the door upon hearing an explosion as they fought.
"Well I guess my little pet failed." Slade shrugged. "With any luck she took out the other one first."
Robin back-flipped away and growled.
"How dare you!"
"Yeah! How dare you!" Shouted a voice in reply.
Both men looked at the door again, seeing two figures.
"Well, well, well. It seems my time is up." Slade muttered, reaching behind him.
"Nope." Strength said, pointing a finger at him and firing a single shot. "Not this time."
The bullet struck the catwalk beneath Slade's feet causing him to fall onto the raised pillar in the middle of the room. Robin leapt down behind him and readied his Bo staff.
A giant metal hand lightly rested on his shoulder and moved him to the side. He looked at the owner who shook her white, burnt, hair.
"This is between them, we just need to make sure he doesn't escape." Strength said.
"You can't be…" Robin started.
Strength sighed. "Robin, you can't imagine the pain he's caused. Just from today he's forced Black Rock Shooter to fight for Mato's survival. Who knows what else he's done in the past."
Rock leapt up and circled Slade with the Black Blade drawn as he was getting up.
"You're going to kill him." Robin stated in disgust.
Strength nodded.
"That goes against everything the Titans stand for!" Robin yelled.
"I guess we're not Titan material then, probably never were. You're not stopping it this time though." Strength said. "You humans are so squeamish about this stuff."
Rock and Slade faced off with each other.
"I can't allow this." Robin stated.
"Don't be stupid, you can't stop this. Not when I'm here." Strength said, looking up at him.
Rock and Slade attacked each other, sparks erupted every time their blades met. Rock attempted to sweep Slade's legs out from under him, Slade countered by stepping backwards and following with a low kick, Rock rolled out of the way and catapulted herself towards Slade who sidestepped and grabbed her arm. Rock swung around and hooked her leg over Slade's head.
Sinuous movement followed sinuous movement, blades clashed, sparks flew. Back and forth, back and forth, a deadly ballet.
Ultimately, Rock was faster, she had manoeuvred herself around Slade's back and impaled him through the back, straight through the spine. She stepped over his fallen body and grabbed his head.
"No!" Robin shouted as Rock snapped Slade's neck cleanly.
She looked up at Strength and Robin and let out a silent sigh.
Strength smiled sadly.
"Let's get out of here." She said.
As the three of them emerged into the light they were met by Starfire and Cyborg. The pair eyed Rock warily, but a brief explanation from Strength confirmed what Beast Boy had suspected.
"That's not all." Robin frowned. "But we should discuss the rest back at the Tower."
"Yeah, about that." Strength said sheepishly.
"There is no Tower." Starfire stated.
"What?" Robin cried in disbelief.
"Well, the Tower is there…" Cyborg started.
"But?" Robin asked.
"It's in the bay." Cyborg finished.
Robin's eye twitched.
""It's in the bay"?" He repeated.
Strength coughed quietly.
Robin stalked off.
Strength leaned over to Rock.
"I think we broke him." She whispered.
Rock nodded.
"How's Mato?" Strength asked.
Rock shook her head.
"It'll take time, remember? Just like last time." Strength reassured her.
Rock nodded, hoping she was right.
"You did that?" Cyborg asked.
"Yeah, sorry." Strength replied.
"You sent the entire Tower into the water?" Cyborg asked again, thinking maybe he had misheard.
"It was the quickest way to get rid of all of Slade's goons." Strength said defending herself. "After I heard Black Rock Shooter had turned, I needed to find you all as quickly as possible." She looked down at the fish in the water.
"And it still wasn't quick enough." She muttered.
Rock gently patted Strength on the back.
"So what happens now?" Starfire asked.
"I guess we rebuild, I'll get the Titans East to cover us until Raven and Beast Boy are better." Robin said.
"Meanwhile, we're homeless." Cyborg grumbled.
"Great, wrong universe and no home." Strength whispered.