Chapter Four
"Okay, Cyborg… I can work on you now, if you like. Go to your lab, and lie down. I'll be in in a moment. I need to prepare. Clean myself up, and get dressed properly for an operation." Robin said. Cyborg nodded, and hurried to the other room, lying down on his gurney, waiting patiently for Robin. About five minutes later, Robin came in, and put a hand on Cyborg's head, shutting him down temporarily. He would reboot him, or rather… Wake him up when he was finished.
A moment later, just before Robin started, Raven came in.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" She asked seriously. Robin shook his head, delving deep into his memories of the information on Biological Manipulation, and streamlining the mechanical half of Cyborg, making it so that he could easily hide the machines underneath the new flesh, turning his exoskeleton into an endoskeleton, making it so that his cybernetic enhancements would still exist, but that he would be completely human on the outside.
As soon as he finished that, he began pouring biomass over Cyborg's new endoskeleton, reactivating his biological systems, including his reproductive system, and worked on fusing it with his mechanics underneath, enhancing his biological muscles, making him approximately twenty times stronger than he already was, enhancing his intelligence, and other abilities to impossible levels.
Robin also delved into Cyborg's attacks, enhancing his energy attacks, and enhancing his battery, making it about five hundred times more powerful, and able to last a thousand times as long. This would allow Cyborg to battle for days, potentially weeks before needing to recharge. He also added a backup to the battery that would allow Cyborg to recharge his battery via solar power. Thus, the battery had a backup battery connected to it, holding solar power that would activate in the event that Cyborg was running low.
However, Cyborg also had biological energy, basically meaning that the battery power only kicked in when his physical strength began to wane. This was a triple backup plan so that Cyborg had almost no chance of shutting down. His senses, Robin also enhanced extensively.
After five hours of work, Robin woke Cyborg up, helping him stand up, and sending him over to the mirror so he could see his "enhancements". Cyborg gasped as he looked in the mirror. He was completely human on the outside. He could even feel himself down there. He looked down and smirked. He was even a man where it really counted. He turned to Robin, who smiled at him, and handed him a pair of boxers.
"Put these on before you go out of this room. There are ladies out there." Robin said with a laugh. Cyborg nodded, taking the boxers, and grabbing some pants and a shirt from the closet. He didn't have a lot of clothes that still fit him. He had bulked up so much that his clothes were mostly there from when he was pretending to be human. And that shirt would approximately fit him, though a bit tight.
"You look good, Cy… Maybe we should call you Victor, now?" Robin asked, walking out with Cyborg to find the other Titans sitting out there, seeming breathless waiting to see how it all turned out. As he walked out in normal clothes, looking for all the world like a real human, they gasped. Starfire flew over, hugging Cyborg tightly. Even as strong as Cyborg was, he was still surprised at how strong Starfire was.
"Oh, Cyborg! You look amazing! Robin, you did the operation perfectly!" Starfire shouted, seeming not to have any control over the volume of her voice at the moment. Then, she looked sobered for a moment.
"Oh, but do you still…"
"Well, see for yourself. Robin! Do you have a target?"
"Yeah, this target would have been able to absorb the original Cyborg's attacks. I don't think it stands a chance against the enhanced Cyborg." He said, putting up five targets in the middle of the room. Cyborg's fist began to glow, and a jet black halo surrounded it, accompanied by a warping sound before a tiny ball appeared in front of his fist, turning into an explosion, spreading debris all over the room, sending an energy blast at the target, vaporizing it.
However, it managed to absorb enough of the energy that the rest of the attack dissipated without doing undue damage to the room itself. Cyborg then seemed to appear right in front of the next target, punching it with all his strength, turning it to dust as well, kicking the third target and destroying it as well, and grabbing the fourth and fifth ones with his right and left hand, melting them by channeling the energy into his hands but not firing the energy.
"Well? Whaddaya think?" Cyborg asked excitedly. Even Raven seemed impressed by his display of power. Robin smirked.
"I even covered up most of Cyborg's most vulnerable areas. When Cyborg was fighting his doppelganger that Trigon created, the Demonic Doppelganger used his weak points against him.
"The weak points aren't gone, but they'll be harder to damage now, especially with skin covering them. I made the skin defending his weak points especially dense, and the skin is made particularly so that it disperses impact of any sort and releases it in a commensurate area so that it will effectively nullify damage before it injured him. It's weak against piercing damage to a degree, though the thickness of the skin protects you to a degree." Robin said. Cyborg grinned wildly.
"Booyah!" Cyborg shouted, punching the air, accidentally creating a shock wave from the force, blasting a hole in the ceiling.
"Oh, yeah… I guess I should've warned you. I perfected the synchronization between your mechanical half and your human half, and further strengthened both. Your punches are likely to create sonic booms. Working out will enhance your strength further.
"There may be some level of psychic powers induced in your body due to the enhanced synchronization in addition to enhanced brain capacity. I suspect about 95% of your brain usage. Telepathy, telekinesis, etcetera. Those, I can't tell you about, since they're side effects not direct results.
"You'll have to discover and learn the limits of them yourself. In addition, your mechanical half has become biomechanical. That means that your machines can heal themselves, and you have a certain level of regeneration.
"I'll… Write up a manual detailing your new abilities. You should read it and memorize it. But you should also start learning the new limits of your strength. There are very few, but the ones that you do have are important to know." Robin said, sitting down, sighing. He was a little bit tired.
"Yeah! Brother Blood's got nothing on me, now!" Cyborg exclaimed.
"Do not forget the Slade…" Starfire said. Robin nodded.
"I didn't. I still think about him at least a few minutes out of every day."
"Mm-mm-mm… Well that's just not living a full life, Robin…" Cyborg said, tutting quietly. Raven scowled, nodding.
While it was true that Slade was a major threat to the Titans, and to the world at large, it wasn't right to be so obsessed over him as Robin was.
"We need to get you a girlfriend, Robin…" Cyborg said, slapping Robin on the back much harder than he meant to. "If you had a girlfriend, you wouldn't need to be so obsessed over Slade!"
Robin gulped, and Terra noticed that Raven seemed a little nervous as well. It was only momentary, but her aura became stronger, and Terra, who had been closest to Raven physically, felt cold. Terra was sure that she knew what was going on, but if Raven and Robin didn't want to say anything, then it wasn't her business to mention it either. She wasn't going to piss off the one person she was sure would have no qualms about killing her.
"Hey, Raven… How long have you and Robin been dating?" Terra asked. Raven scowled. She hadn't thought that Terra would be so observant.
"Why does it matter? That's my business and none of yours." Raven said in her usual, gravelly voice.
"Come on, I'm just curious. Can't you lower your defenses once in a while?"
"I still don't fully trust you. I know you're not working for Slade anymore, but I don't have to like you.
"You did betray us in the past. The rest of the team may be ready to forgive you. But I'm not."
"Well… I'll just have to work on winning you over, then, Raven… And don't worry. If you dating Robin is a secret, I won't tell anyone."
"Even Beast Boy?" Raven asked, narrowing her eyes. Terra laughed.
"You and I both know Garfield can't keep a secret! I wouldn't even tell him my secrets, much less yours!" Terra said between her laughter. Raven seemed to lighten up as well.
"Yes… That's true. But at some point, if you keep dating him, you'll have to tell him your secrets."
"Raven… He couldn't keep the secret that I couldn't control my powers! He told all of you!"
"No… He didn't… We just sort of figured it out. It wasn't hard to realize. You were clumsy with your powers. If you had control, you wouldn't have caused so much collateral damage. It wasn't a problem for us. We would have gladly helped you learn to control them. I had to learn to control my powers. There was no reason that you couldn't learn."
"I appreciate that. So, it was pretty cool of Robin to upgrade all of us, wasn't it?" Terra asked, seeming excited. Raven nodded.
"Yes… Cool." Raven said flatly. Terra seemed slightly surprised by her bland reaction.
"Did you not want to be more powerful, Raven?"
"It was nice of Robin to think of us. But I could have gotten more powerful on my own… Without his help. However, given the circumstances that may soon befall us, it may be helpful to become more powerful more quickly. Robin's powers… I don't doubt have magnified by levels that even I couldn't comprehend. He's seen so many powers in action simply because he's with the Teen Titans. He's seen all of our powers, and is intimately familiar with them.
"He's also familiar with the powers of the members of the Brotherhood of Evil, with the members of the Honorary Titans, the members of Titans East, and the other Titans teams, the former members of HIVE Academy, with Slade's powers, the Doom Patrol's powers. He could essentially become unstoppable simply by virtue of the powers he could or already does possess. He's practically a one man team, now." Raven said. Terra whistled, impressed, nodding.
"Mm… Yeah… That would be a lot of powers. I'm not sure who the Brotherhood of Evil is, or who their members are, but they sound very powerful." Terra said, heading back out to the main room with everyone else. Raven followed, and they were surrounded by their friends again.
"They are. Even the Doom Patrol had no way of beating them on their own." Robin said fiercely.
"Robin… Did you really give yourself all of our powers?" Starfire asked. Robin shook his head.
"No. I made myself stronger, faster, more durable, etcetera, mostly physical abilities. I enhanced my senses and gave myself aura detection and enhanced synesthesia… I can detect my opponents long before they can attack me… Oh, and, tactile telekinesis. I wanted to have at least one psychic ability." Robin said with a sheepish grin. "But I don't need to have a lot of superpowers to play my part on the team." Robin said with a laugh. Raven, of all people could appreciate that.
Robin's part was as the leader, and the physical combatant. Everyone on the team had a part to play, and Robin worked best in melee combat, though he was a skilled ranged combatant as well. If he had enhanced himself as much as Raven had a feeling he had, he would be a monster on the battlefield. He would have to go through serious training to fully control his powers. It was one thing to have, and to know about his powers. It was another thing to be able to fully control them.
She had trained and meditated for years to be able to control her powers. For Robin to gain such powers practically overnight, even with intuitive control over them, meant that he might have difficulty controlling his powers, and could cause unnecessary damage as a result.
"Robin… I need to talk to you… Alone…" Raven said, looking around at the other Titans, then at Robin. "Now…" She said, pulling Robin into the other room, where she shoved Robin down onto the couch. Robin blushed slightly, seeming to think that she wanted to have sex with him again.
"Get over yourself, Robin. I need to talk to you about your new powers. You're immensely powerful, now, and you haven't had sufficient time to test and learn your powers.
"You need to get them under as much control as possible very quickly. Otherwise, you pose a significant danger to everyone around you, including your friends. What would happen if you accidentally use too much power, and level an entire building?"
"I know… Maybe you could teach me to meditate?" Robin asked, being surprisingly receptive to Raven's admonitions. Raven nodded, blushing slightly.
"I can. But you need to train with your powers… In as rigorous an environment as possible to test the true limits of your powers. I sense in you a nearly unlimited potential… You could make yourself stronger than Superman, faster than the Flash, and more powerful than Doctor Manhattan. Do you understand? Your power has practically no limits, and while that can be useful, it's also incredibly dangerous. Did you know that you'll regenerate almost any wounds now?"
"As a matter of fact? Yes. I did know about my regeneration. Watch." Robin said, taking one of his throwing knives, and making a deep, jagged wound on his arm. Robin gasped, but Robin seemed unconcerned. The two watched as his wound began to stitch itself back together, and eventually disappeared, save for the blood on his arm, which disappeared shortly after, reabsorbed into his body via his Absorption ability.
"Yeah… Even blood won't mar me. I can just absorb any biological waste on me. Pretty useful. Anyway, I know. I'm gonna work with Cyborg on creating some battle bots that take into account my new abilities. You, however, also need to work on controlling your newly advanced powers. I've enhanced your powers drastically.
If you compare powers to a pool of liquid, you were an in-ground pool before… A large one, but a pool, nonetheless. You're a lake, now, and you could become an ocean if you train your powers properly. I left excess biomass and bioenergy that will multiply spontaneously in you… In all of you, and develop your respective powers further as you continue to train them. The harder you train, the more you practice with your powers, the faster they'll increase."
"I see… So, does that mean that our power is also limitless?" Raven asked, seeming surprised, but also slightly excited about that idea. Robin nodded tentatively.
"To a degree. Your powers are limited, but only by any limits you place on them. Let's say that all of our bodies, bones included, have become superhumanly dense, and will become denser to support our growing physical strength.
"After all, if I had punched a concrete wall before this, I may have broken the wall. But I also would have broken my hand. My bones simply wouldn't have been strong enough to facilitate such a feat of strength. Cyborg's bones are reinforced by metal. Starfire has dense bones to begin with to facilitate her superhuman strength. But the rest of us need to make do with what we have. Me, I was at peak-human ability before, but now with Biological Manipulation, I need to prepare to be superhuman."
"I see. Thank you for not saying anything about our relationship… Especially to Beast Boy. He would never have let me live it down."
"I'm not ready to have them know, either. I do love you, and I'm not ashamed of our relationship… But Slade takes precedence right now."
"Cy… Victor is right… You really aren't living a full life, Robin…" Raven said, smiling again and kissing Robin. Robin blushed slightly.
"No… Well, I mean…"
"Relax, Robin… I know Slade is a threat… But he's not a direct threat right now." Raven said gently. Robin growled, though, his shoulders stiffening.
"We don't know that! He's already gathering followers! Mod isn't just a coincidence! What if he's…?"
"Robin… I know. We'll be on the lookout for any strange situations. But we've become monumentally more powerful. We'll take on Slade when and if it becomes necessary."
"Hey, Raven! Robin! We're goin' out for pizza to celebrate Terra coming back! Hurry up!" Beast Boy shouted. Robin laughed, hurrying out, with Raven coming quickly as well.
