A/N: Oh! You guys are going to love my sequel for this fic! It's funny how I get so excited about these things. But thanks for those few who reviewed! Enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: Anything that is or looks like it is from Teen Titans is not mine. I barely even own Gene, Rose, and Zach because their powers are from the show.

Chapter 18

"What are you doing now?" Slade asked Gene in deep exasperation. He watched as Gene stood up in his seat and wiggled his arms around. They had been stuck in traffic for a half an hour now. Slade didn't know he could be so annoyed with someone.

"My arms are falling asleep, thanks to a certain someone," Gene muttered back. He sighed while collapsing back into his squeaky seat. He kept a perfectly straight face as he rocked the seat back and forth by pushing his feet against the dashboard.

Slade gripped his hands on the steering wheel. He suppressed a sigh of irritation. He glanced over to Gene with his eye narrowed. The boy simply smiled back at him and kept making his seat squeak loudly.

"You're acting very childish right now," Slade told Gene calmly.

"All you gotta do is ask me politely to stop," Gene said. "Oh, but you can't because of your pride issues. If you give in, that means it will only satisfy me. So you're guessing I'll have to stop sometime, and then it will mean I didn't win anything…But I'm not going to stop." He smiled wickedly and made the squeaking louder.

They stopped at a red light. Slade leaned over and grabbed one of Gene's ankles. He squeezed the kid's ankle while saying darkly, "You are not in charge. When I tell you to jump, you say…"

"…You first," Gene growled back. (a/n: got that one from Lost. Ha, ha.)

Slade tightened his grip on the ankle till he got the teen to wince. Gene's eyes suddenly widened in fear as he spotted something behind Slade. The man whirled around in his seat. He swore into his mask when seeing a large, white van going at around 80 mph coming straight toward them. They barely had two seconds to react, which was too short.

The van collided violently into the stationary car. Gene screamed as he squeezed his eyes shut and created a force field around his body to protect himself. Their car flipped down the street. Sparks flew as metal screeched across the pavement. Razor sharp broken pieces of glass were flung from every window. It seemed like forever till the car finally came to a stop upside down in the middle of a deserted street.

Gene chocked on smoke. He dared to open his eyes. His quick force field had worked perfectly. If he hadn't reacted so swiftly he would most likely be dead. Slowly, Gene got to his feet on the hood of the car which was now upside down. Slade was passed out beside him. The teen bit his lower lip. He couldn't panic.

Thinking quickly, Gene levitated Slade's communicator over to him and somehow managed to call up the Titans. "Please pick up," Gene hoped out loud. At that moment he didn't care that the Titans had sold him out. He desperately needed help. Slade was down, as impossible as it seemed, and he was close to powerless. The only ones he knew to call were the Titans.

-Titans-

With a deep sigh, Raven put down Gene's last journal onto the coffee table before her. The rest of the Titans besides Robin were reading the rest of them on their own. The leader was pacing behind the couch in deep thought. Raven could feel his restlessness. She tried to calm him down by sending him a calm vibe. Apparently, it wasn't working.

"Gene doesn't want to be with Slade," Zach said to all of the Titans. He was lying on his back on the carpeted floor in the middle of the living room, staring up at the tall ceiling. "So why did you guys let Slade go get him?"

"I know where Gene is coming from," Robin said as he stopped his pacing for a second. "If I was in his shoes I would be on the run too. But Gene has a power that without some training could really get out of hand and could be dangerous."

"Yeah, we got that much when he got too angry in his last journal," Zach said. "But why can't you guys train him? He could be a nice new member of your team."

"That is why we want Slade to bring him back here," Robin explained. "We made a deal with him. Slade is someone who always sticks to his word. Right now we just wait for him. I assure you he will be back with Gene."

"But he's late," Cyborg muttered from where he was reading off to the side.

"Figures," Zach grumbled under his breath.

"Its rush hour, dudes," Beast Boy said. He was reading the first journal on the couch next to Starfire, Rose, and Raven. "They could be stuck in it. Slade did rent a car or something to bring Gene back. But this is some good reading. He could be a thriller writer when he gets older or something."

Suddenly the alarm went off to indicate a distress call was being sent to them. Robin raced to the computer and typed in a few keys. After some static, the face of Gene came on the screen. The whole room seemed to be taken aback.

Gene coughed on some smoke before saying, "We need help! Some crazy person rammed their van into the car. Slade's out for a sec. I'm handcuffed and can't get out." He growled in frustration. "How do I get out of these things without a freaking key?"

"Hang on, Gene," Robin told him. "We're all on our way."

"Um…hurry," Gene said, "Because that van slammed into us going 80 for a reason, I'm sure."

Robin frowned up at Gene. Who else would be after the kid? "You okay for now?" Robin asked. The others were getting up and were either running to get a ride in the T-car or going outside to just fly there. Before Robin could say otherwise, Zach and Rose tagged along with Cyborg on his way downstairs.

"Define 'okay'," Gene muttered.

"We'll be there in less than five minutes," Robin said before hanging up.

-Gene-

He could just feel the seconds tick away. Smoke and rain mist washed over his sweaty face as he raced to get himself loose. Despair was starting to pick away at the back of his mind. At the moment, he was ramming a medium sized rock from outside the car at the handle his handcuffs were looped around. From the blood lose from the wound and his extensive power use, the kid was worn down to the end of his rope. Nothing but pure adrenaline was keeping the boy from collapsing to the glass littered floor.

Gene gave a sharp gasp for breath as he heaved the rock over his head. His damp hair clung to his perspired and dirty face. His arms were shaking from exhaustion as he brought the rock down on the handle. He paused and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths to steady himself.

A hand came out of nowhere and latched onto Gene's arm suddenly. The boy's eyes flew open in surprise and fright of the sudden touch. He screamed when looking up. Daphne Hawthorne's blood freezing eyes bore down into the boy as her wet face contorted into a glower.

"You are coming with me," she said crisply. Her fingers dug into Gene's arm as she said this. She pulled him sharply toward her then finally realized he was handcuffed to the car.

"No way in freaking hell!" Gene yelled at her. He brought his leg up sharply and plowed it right into one of her shoulders as she was glancing down to his bound hands. She staggered backwards with a quiet grunt of unhappiness of herself not anticipating his simple move.

"Stay here," Slade said suddenly from Gene's side. The teen gave a small start at the sound of his voice.

"Like I'm going anywhere," Gene said. He stepped out of Slade's way as the man crouched down to step outside the upside down car. Gene leaned down and stared in wonder as the two adults stood there in the rain. The only communication going on between them was their hard stares. The boy was taken aback somewhat. Slade was protecting him from this woman. If he ever had to cheer for one or the other, Gene decided it would have to Slade. At least the guy wanted him alive.

Suddenly the two went at it. Gene bit his lip when he saw how fast the two had come at each other. Daphne whipped out her pistol just as Slade ran for her. As the exploding sound of gunfire hit the air, Gene watched with his heart pounding as Slade flipped right over the lady's head. Daphne spun around and ducked at the same time. Less than an inch away from her head was Slade's leg as he swung it at her in a neatly executed roundhouse kick.

Gene snapped back to his own situation after a second of watching them go at each other like kung fu masters or something along those lines. He looked down to his handcuffs and gave a long, frustrated yell. If he wasn't strapped to the car he knew he could have gotten away from there instantly. He was just lucky that the car wasn't ready to explode at any time.

"Jeez! How many people have to fight because of me anyways? When the Titans arrive I should stop counting," he muttered to himself. He grabbed his rock again and started to pound it against the handle. The plastic finally cracked. "I love progress!" Gene said with a wide grin. He knelt down and began twisting the thing to free himself.

He was seconds away from liberty when he unexpectedly heard hard footfalls outside the car coming toward him. He glanced up and swore. Daphne's firing squad had caught up with her. They were ignoring her fight with Slade and were running straight for the kid in the smashed up car.

"Swell." Sarcasm was the only thing Gene could function with at this moment. Black combo boots stopped with a large splash of water next to the totaled vehicle. The muzzle of a rifle was shoved into Gene's face as a man leaned down to claim his prize.

It took Gene a total of five minutes to break the plastic of the handle. It took one shot from another man's rifle to break the chain of the handcuffs. Gene was grabbed by what seemed like a thousand hands and pulled roughly outside the car and into the driving rain.

"Do not move!" the squad of men shouted harshly into Gene's face. The boy let the men ram him against the side of the car with his hands behind his back. The muzzle of the rifle was still jammed into the side of his head as a reminder of their words not to resist.

The cold metal of the car chilled Gene to the bone. Water perpetually hit him from the sky, making his hair fall into his eyes. He did nothing to protest against the men now surrounding him. "Come on, come on!" he whispered to himself. He knew it had to have been five minutes past his call to the Titans. They would be there any second now.

"What did you say?" the man holding his rifle to the boy's head shouted at him. Gene's only response was a death glare. The man raised a fist to pummel the kid that had caused the squad so much crap. Gene flinched, preparing himself for a beating.

A red flash cut through the air and lodged itself into the man's shoulder. The man gave a short cry of pain as he looked to the bird-a-rang protruding from his body. The rest of the squad looked up to see who had attacked their leader of the group.

Chaos then erupted from the squad. A sonic cannon blasted at least two of the men off their feet. A black floating trashcan smashed into three of the men and forced them into a nearby parked car. Starbolts rained down on three others, compelling them to run for cover from the beholder's fury. An ice disk finished off the squad leader. The man was soon one block of ice.

"Sorry if we're late," Robin said to Gene as he landed on top of the car. Raven and Starfire hovered in the air on his two sides. Beast Boy flew as an eagle up to Gene's side and switched to his humanoid self in mid air. He landed in a crouch next to Cyborg who had run up to the group.

"No," Gene said quietly. He was still getting his mind around the fact that he had been rescued. "You came just in time."

"Dude, you okay?" Beast Boy asked him. "You were just held at gunpoint by some drill sergeant after a pretty gruesome crash!"

Gene looked over to the changeling and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm a little shaken up, I guess," he said with a small nod.

"Gene!" two familiar voices shouted in joy. Gene turned around with eyes wide in bafflement. He was stunned into silence when he was suddenly embraced by Rose and Zach. The two friends almost knocked the kid off his feet. He was still too shocked to speak when they let him go.

"Talk, silly," Rose said with a giggle. Zach just laughed at Gene's bewildered face.

"How…how did you guys get here?" Gene asked, a smile slowly coming to his features.

"Long story," Zach said with a roll of his cat-like eyes. He hadn't seen Gene so happy in his life. The boy was smiling from ear to ear, barely able to keep his joy inside him. "You didn't think after giving us your journals that we wouldn't go after you, did you?" Gene gave a laugh. The thought of both his friends just showing up again was blowing him away.

"I thought we told you to stay in the car," Cyborg said sternly to the two. He and the Titans were touched at the reunion of the friends, but he knew safety had to be more important than them seeing each other. The whole group wasn't in the most secure location.

"We had to see him," Zach said with a shrug. "It took forever to get Rose to come with me." He glanced over to her slyly and said, "You're such a worrywart."

Robin crouched down to Gene's eye level and said firmly, "Go back to the T-car with your friends. Wait there. Do not go anywhere else, got that?"

"Yeah," Gene said with a nod. He wasn't stupid. He knew Rose and Zach could be in danger if someone attacked at the moment. "What about you guys?"

"Well, it looks like our part time friend is having some girl troubles," Beast Boy said as he watched Slade and Daphne fight. It was clear to the Titans, though, that Daphne was loosing badly. She just didn't have enough skill.

"She has something in her hand!" Raven suddenly spoke up loudly. All eyes looked up toward Daphne. Sure enough, the lady had a small device with a button on it. Before anyone could do something against it, the woman pressed it and sprinted away from Slade as if the devil himself was after her. Slade watched her go with his eye narrowed. She had sent something big after them. He knew he wasn't going to like it.

"I am confused, friends," Starfire admitted. "Was she defeated? Are we victorious?"

"Don't think so, Star," Cyborg said. "She's leaving because something else is coming in her place."

The team watched as the rest of the squad of men, who weren't knocked out cold, got up and ran after Daphne. Robin jumped off the car as the rain faded away. The rest of the Titans looked around the street with apprehension resting upon their minds.

In a whirl of harsh wind, a figure shot out of the colossal of dark clouds above them. They all watched it as it fell from the sky. Seconds away from it colliding severely against the pavement, the figure stopped it's decent as if it sat on a bed of air being blow the opposite way. The figure lightly landed in the middle of the street facing the Titans, Slade, Gene, and his friends.

The person who had fallen from the sky was around 15 or 16 years of age. His short brown hair was wind blown and spiky. He wore a white jump suit with a green stripe going down both the sleeves and pants. Small green running shoes adorned his feet. He was lithe but very sturdy looking. His lush green eyes looked at the group with evilness flashing through them. A laughing smile crept across his small lips as he stared at them, as if he was thoroughly pleased to be fighting them.

Gene fought the urge to look entirely disgusted and repulsed by the teen. The vibe coming from him just made his blood boil. He glanced over to Raven and saw that she was frowning deeply, almost angrily. She felt it too. Something was wrong with this kid now standing before them.

"No fatal force, guys," Robin whispered to his team. "We don't want to hurt him."

"What makes you so confident you'll even be able to touch him?" Slade asked. "He has the power to control the air flow around him. From what you just saw, I'd say he has complete power over his abilities. In this case, he would be like Terra, just more stable and with the desire to badly hurt all of us."

"He could still be under influence, like what Terra was at one point," Robin said.

"With that smile, I believe he's just about to have the time of his life," Slade said. "This kid is dangerous."

"We took down Terra before," Cyborg said over confidently as he saw his friends' grim expressions. Sometimes some assurance could bring up the team. "We can take this guy down, guys!"

"Okay, but Gene and his friends will stay here with Raven," Robin said. He whipped out his Bo-Staff while looking up to the waiting teen. "Titans! Go!" At those words, the rest of the team sprung into action. Slade paused before running after them. Before going, he gave Gene a short glance. Gene caught it but pretended he hadn't.

"I don't like this," Gene said quietly. Raven and his friends looked over to him in question. "I'm getting the feeling something terrible is going to happen."

A/N: Finale next chapter! I'm not sure if I should be cheering or crying. The sequel will be added on to this fic. And just to warn some of you readers, my endings are not always cheery ones. I hope that doesn't give too much away. Anywho, my next update will be sooner than you think because of Thanksgiving. Please give a review! Thanks!