The T-Car had barely made it back to Jump City – driving at a more legal speed now – when the alarms went off again, filling the vehicle with red light. Beast Boy groaned loudly, head lolling onto Raven's shoulder. "We don't even get Christmas Eve off," he grumbled, pouting when Raven shoved him away from her. "At least I didn't put my gingerbread in the oven..."

"It belongs in a bin if you ask me," Cyborg replied, jabbing something on the dashboard. He sighed. "Fashion museum."

"Who?" Robin asked.

"Mad Mod."

"Why am I not surprised..." droned Raven as Cyborg swerved sharply to the right.

Beast Boy was thrown onto Raven's lap by the force, but quickly scrambled off as her eyes flared with black energy. "Maybe he's gone to steal a sense of style?"

"Maybe you should try stealing a sense of humour," Raven replied.

Cyborg guffawed into the steering wheel, and only laughed harder when he caught Beast Boy's look of betrayal in the rear view mirror.

The museum came up on their right. Slamming his foot on the breaks, Cyborg brought the car to a sudden stop on the curb. Robin immediately leapt out and ran into the building with a cry of "Titans, go!"

The first few exhibits were quiet and dark, untouched. They surged past Roman togas and Aztec dresses, through corridors lined with English corsets and Japanese kimonos. Hurtled between mannequins draped with Victorian gowns and Georgian wigs.

Finally, in the Roaring '20s exhibit, they found Mod. He was standing in the centre of the room, dressed in his usual Union Jack apparel, hair a vibrant shade of red. A large grin was stretched across his face revealing slightly crooked, yellow teeth.

"Ah!" he crooned, leaning on his cane, "Titans, my duckies! I was beginning to wonder if your crime alert was broken. I wouldn't be surprised with these shoddy American electronics." The British fiend sashayed to the left, stopping before a wooden dummy displaying a flapper dress with black fringing.

The Titans hovered in the doorway, waiting for Mod to do something. However, he seemed only interested in looking at the clothes on display. "What are you doing, Mod?" Robin demanded, fists clenching.

"I was just doing a spot of late night Christmas shopping," Mad Mod replied, slowly making his way around the exhibit, shoes clicking on the white laminate floor. He stopped suddenly by a glass display case which held a pair of red suede gloves, lined with fur and tiny silver jewels. "My dear mumsie is very difficult to shop for, but I know she'd love these gloves!"

"Only if her fashion taste is as bad as yours," Robin growled before taking a running leap to sock him in the face. However, just before he reached him, Mod side stepped and held up his cane.

"Not so fast, Robin," said Mod, waggling a finger as if admonishing a naughty schoolboy. "It looks like you don't understand the true meaning of Christmas. Let me enlighten you." He sighed dramatically and clasped his hands by his cheek, then continued in a high, dreamy voice, "It's about giving to the poor and needy. Like my poor mum, who's in desperate need of a new pair of gloves."

Robin scowled. "The only thing your mother's in need of is a better son."

A wicked smirk spread across Mod's mouth as he twirled his cane then clipped it against the floor. "Ooh, very rude. Not to worry: I'll fix you up with a bit of help from my old friend Charlie."

He slammed his thumb down on red jewel topping the cane. Suddenly, all the doors were wrenched off of their hinges and three bizarre robots thudded in.

The first was small – barely up to Beast Boy's shoulders – and bright white. A huge bulb glowed gently on top of its head like a sputtering candle flame. The body looked almost transparent, like cloudy ice encasing tiny wires and circuit boards. The light bulb burned brighter and brighter, humming with energy, then shot a blazing laser at Starfire who had to perform an awkward back flip to avoid it.

The second robot was huge, easily twice Cyborg's size. It resembled a well-fed man wearing a sweeping green cloak and carrying a magnificent cornucopia of glittering fruits. The robot reached into the horn, plucking out a red plum, and threw it at Raven's feet. It exploded on impact, throwing the Titan into a wall.

The third robot was the creepiest. It was tall, the same height as the second, but very thin and was swathed in a billowing black cloak. This one didn't shoot lasers or throw bombs, but wielded a large scythe which glinted in the light.

"What the dickens?" Cyborg cried out, gazing at the three mismatched figures.

"Precisely!" Mad Mod replied. "Now, my Christmas ghosts! Teach them the true meaning of Christmas!"

The robots launched into action. Soon, the air was thick with lasers, exploding fruits, and the haunting swish of sharp blades. Raven and Starfire darted around the ceiling, black scorch marks in their wake were they narrowly avoided the white robot's lasers. Beast Boy morphed into an armadillo when the scythe robot nearly took his head off, and was now curled in a ball and rolling across the floor.

"Get the cane," Robin yelled, dodging a bombardment of exploding apples. "We need to stop these robots!"

Raven and Starfire nodded and swooped down, flying full speed towards Mod. However, he casually held out his arm. Chains shot out from under his sleeve and wrapped around them.

Robin grabbed a bird-a-rang from his belt and threw it into the green robot's cornucopia, which promptly exploded, blowing the robot to bits. He then charged towards Mod, avoiding another lot of glinting silver chains, and swung his foot out to knock the cane from his hand, only for his shoe to go straight through him.

Seeing the look of surprise on Robin's face, Mod grinned and said, "What? Maybe I'm an undigested bit of beef? Or a fragment of underdone potato?"

"My potatoes are never underdone!" Cyborg yelled in anger, aiming his sonic cannon at Mod, only for the blast to pass through as well.

"Wait, if he's a hologram..." Something clicked in Robin's head. He turned around sharply to see that the gloves were no longer in the glass case and something small was sneaking out the other door. "Stop that robot!" he yelled, pointing at the exit.

Beast Boy was closest. He morphed into a leopard, dodging another swing of the cloaked droid's scythe, and pounced onto the small figure. There was a metallic clang as its head dashed against the ground, denting the metal skull. Upon this closer inspection, Beast Boy saw that the robot was in the shape of a small boy with a crippled leg and a crutch. In its free hand were the gloves.

The robot lifted its crutch and aimed it at Beast Boy's face, the tip beginning to glow orange. Beast Boy turned into a gorilla, grabbed the crutch and twisted it around just before a deadly laser was fired. The amber beam blasted the robot, melting its torso.

"God bless us, everyone..." the robot croaked weakly before going still. The gloves from from its limp hand.

"You killed Tiny Tim!" Mad Mod's hologram cried in horror. "Christmas Future, off with his head!"

Beast Boy turned and watched in frozen terror as the third robot, which had sneaked up on him, raised the scythe above his head and brought it swiftly down. Just as the blade was about to slice through his neck, it was encased in dark energy and wrenched from the robot's grip. Then, as if held by an invisible hand, the scythe turned about in mid air and cleaved the robot in two.

"Thanks, Raven," breathed Beast Boy, transforming back into a human and getting up off the floor, clutching the gloves.

Meanwhile, Starfire had also broken free of the chains and joined Cyborg in shooting at the small, white robot. However, this proved rather difficult as the droid was fast and agile, weaving through the exhibit and dodging their attacks with ease.

Cyborg growled as yet another sonic blast missed. "This isn't working!" he called. "It's too fast!"

"If we only knew where the real Mad Mod is hiding," said Starfire, "We could use his controlling cane to terminate the robot."

Robin frowned, face steeled with determination. "Cyborg, can you use the other robots to track down Mod's signal?"

Cyborg glanced at the broken forms of the other three robots and grinned. "I'll see what I can do."

'What's wrong, my duckies?" asked Mad Mod, cackling as he waved his cane around dramatically. "Run out of Christmas spirit?"

Cyborg ducked to avoid a laser and skidded across the floor to hunch over the remains of the scythe-robot. After fiddling with the exposed wires and tapping the screen on his arm, he smirked. "He's directly beneath us," he told Robin.

Robin nodded. Glancing around to assure himself his team could handle without him – judging by the way Starfire was furiously unleashing green energy on the remaining robot, they would be fine - he rushed out of the room and thundered down the nearest stairwell. Robin burst through a heavy metal door and found Mad Mod, grey-haired and wrinkly, plugged into a large machine, laughing evilly.

"This carol's over, Scrooge," Robin said, bo-staff held firmly in front of him. Mod abruptly stopped laughing turned in his chair, grabbing his cane as he did so.

"Come in and know me better, man!" he croaked with a smirk, standing up and brandishing his cane. The tip opened up and a thin blade to slide out, like a bayonet.

However, despite the old man's best efforts, Robin disarmed him easily, knocking the cane out of his hand and sending it flying across the room where it snapped against a wall.

"Bah," said Mod, "humbug."

After replacing the gloves in their case, the Titans dragged Mod, along with his destroyed robots, out of the museum and onto the street outside. It didn't take long for the police to arrive again. Sgt. Miller was there again, shaking his head as his team handcuffed Mod and forced him into the back of a car.

"Not another. I was just about to sign off for the evening," said Miller with a heavy sigh.

"So were we," Beast Boy grumbled.

There was commotion as Mod tried to climb out through the window, shaking his fist at the police officers. "You won't be so lucky next time," he cried. "I'll have you boiled with your own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through your heart!"

"Eurgh, nasty," Cyborg commented as the team walked back to the T-Car.

"This has been a most strange night," remarked Starfire.

"Why do I get the feeling," Raven said drily as a few, wayward flakes of snow drifted through the sky, "it's going to get a lot stranger?"

This chapter's title is from 'A Christmas Carol' (1843) by Charles Dickens. The actual quote is: "You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"