Ah, the joy of updating—it has been too long, dear readers. Shortly after updating you of Strata's latest encounter with the HIVE 5, my laptop decided to take an unauthorized extended vacation that was only ended with an extensive modification of the registry, a complete OS re-install, and careful editing of its system file involving a missing letter "l." That, my graduate coursework, and the family responsibilities of the Thanksgiving season, is why Chapter 10 has not debuted until now. As always, I thank you for your patience and assure all that this story will not end until I can write "THE END" in large capital letters across the bottom—so stick with me. But, enough about the plebian exploits of this poor author; let us return to our story, which thankfully has considerable more explosions this chapter. When we last left our plot, the mysterious stranger, the Severing Strata, who claims to be connected to the powerful Raging Ragnarok, is in a dire predicament as the HIVE 5 have him surrounded after he left the Titans. Raven and Cyborg are still on the Tower roof, and Strata believes that the second coming of the Raging Ragnarok is at hand. Now might be a good time to review Chapter 1 for background. Now let us rejoin our story…

"The Bird, The Boy, and The Mighty Beast"

Chapter 10: Ragnarok Redux (Part I)

"Anybody interested in a joke?" asked Strata as he felt his minutes were numbered—and the number was not in double digits, "I know a great one about a rhinoceros and an elephant with a stuttering problem."

"I have a joke for you," said Jinx, "here's the punch line!" She slammed her glowing fist into Strata sending him flying into his backpack just behind him.

"Hey, I thought the hat said you were the 'HIVE 5 Party Gurl,'" murmured Strata, "can't you lighten up some?"

"Still trying to be the funny dead-man?" sneered Jinx at the mention of her cosmetically-necessary headware. "Don't worry about me being happy; I think you're about to discover that we take a lot of pleasure in our work!"

Private HIVE laughed deep. "Yeah, loser, we're feeling great about our work, and you're about to be worked on!"

Gizmo raised himself onto his spider leg frame and lowered a large laser pointed at Strata. "Hey, Booger-brain, it's time for you to learn while we're the real funny men!"

"Funny people! It's funny people!" yelled Jinx. "Must you idiots always ignore the fact that I'm here? And must you always follow-up my jokes with your corny lines? And Gizmo, can't you even come up with a better insult that 'Booger-brain'; it's really sad how much I have to be the brains of this outfit, you so-called boy genius!"

"Hey, if you're so smart how come you're the one in the goofy hat?" asked Gizmo.

Mammoth laughed, "That hat really is perfect for you Jinx; it's as yellow as the paint that guy we're beating up dumped on you."

Jinx glared at all of her teammates, "Mammoth, I am so personally going to wrap you in those chains when we get back the hideout. And quit it about my hat! It's not my fault that that guy ruined my mane—my beautiful masterpiece. You look like a shaggy dog!"

Seemore walked back up, having replaced the X-ray lens that Strata broke. "Speaking of that guy, he's getting away!"

Strata, while rarely one to leave a good argument, had taken this opportunity of the HIVE 5 warring with themselves to start running with his backpack towards one of the dark alleys. Unfortunately, due to his injuries, he had not gotten very far when Seemore spotted him, and it is doubtful that he could have gotten far anyway as Gizmo sent him sprawling with a laser shot on his calf.

"You're not going anywhere, Booge….err…YOU!" yelled Gizmo.

Strata forced himself to his feet. He was not in good shape and was at this moment trying to come up with some really catchy last words to say before he died. He felt a pain lurch through him and felt as if his entire psyche was beginning to melt away. "Ragnarok is very close," thought Strata, "He's so close I can feel his rage upon us. He's coming here—any second now."

Strata faced his attackers, "Listen guys, you gotta let me go. Something's coming that will destroy us all. It'll start with me, but this whole city won't be far behind. I have to get far away for all our sakes."

Private HIVE laughed, "You're some piece of work, ya know? That has to be the lamest plea for mercy I've heard yet. Can't you just beg like a normal coward?"

Strata remembered something. He reached for his left hand around his backpack to a small pocket on its lower side. "Do you guys know I was a soldier back home? Well, I was. This backpack along with my photo of my sister is almost all I have left of home. Well, almost everything… So are you gonna let me go?"

Seemore laughed this time. "No way! We of the HIVE 5 are all about quality time with our subjects."

Jinx cackled, "I'm just wondering which of your bones to break first."

Strata smiled, "And I'm just wondering why you let me get to my backpack. A good soldier always has one of these around—my last memento from an ill-gone war." Strata pulled his hand around, yanked a pin out of a metal object, and threw a metal sphere above the HIVE 5. He turned and dove for the dark alley as he felt an incredible tremor of foreboding come over him. His entire body rolled into a dark corner, and he felt himself faint with terror.

"Time's up," said Strata.

The HIVE 5 felt no internal tremors and heard none of Strata's gloomy words as their quarry collapsed in the darkness. They were all fixated on the object Strata had released above them. The metal sphere landed on the ground among them and erupted in an array of blinding light and furious noise that stunned and disoriented all of them and sent them reeling backwards blinded and disoriented.

"A flash-bang grenade!" yelled Gizmo, still covering his overstimulated eyes, "The little toe-jammer had a trick up his sleeve!"

"Aargh! All my eyes!" yelled Seemore, who was literally blinded in all directions.

It was at that moment that the entire ground under the HIVE exploded and a huge beam of light covered the block they were on. The earth below the city shook and flames danced around where the HIVE 5 had just been as embers of flame appeared on nearby trees, and lights came on in houses around the city as it awoke to a very bad night. The ground where the earth had exploded, from where the HIVE 5 had been launched backwards, from where Strata had collapsed had become a giant crater, yet nothing had seemed to impacted it. From seemingly out of nowhere, a pillar of smoke rose from that crater and fumes poured out in every direction covering the sky around the street and blanketing the area with a thick, pervasive fog. What happened in those moments no one is quite sure only that satellite photos could not pierce the haze; the cameras could only capture the spreading smoke and the fire that ringed around it like dancers at a festival.

The smoke billowed around the battleground where Strata and the HIVE 5 had engaged in their midnight melee. The few people who were nearby fled in great panic, fleeing from an unknown darkness, an unknown yet all-too-well felt menace that had come upon the city. The pavement of the street creaked as if the very earth of Jump City was weakened by the arrival of a great plague, a scourge that the municipality could not, despite all its desire to, reject back into the unknown void from whence it had came.

And so, it was at that moment, the moment when the HIVE 5 were at first blinded and disoriented by Strata's grendade, the moment when that same person fled under that grenade's cover but collapsed in the darkness—the only person in that instant able to perceive that the madness from the chaos was coming—, the moment when Raven and Cyborg stood gazing out upon the city from the top of the tower just before the explosion and the quaking, it was at that moment that destiny kept its schedule and rage revisited Jump City with no warning but an enigmatic boy who talked in riddles.

Seemore struggled to his feet, blown back by the earthquake and shock wave. Gazing about he saw his HIVE 5 comrades sprawled across the pavement. Looking about his gaze was severely hindered by the fog of smoke that almost blocked out the pale light from the full moon above. He saw small fires all around the street. Then, he looked forward toward the crater.

To Seemore's shock stood a hulking giant, about 6.5 meters tall clad in armor of the darkest purple trimmed with red bands at the armbands, the belt, the knees and boots, and around a high metal collar. There was no gap in the armor, only a small slit in a spherical head of armor that featured to eye-like dots of flame against an unforgiving black void. The giant was hunched over gazing downward and unmoving, looking at nothing in particular in the crater and was as still as a statue in the Jump City Park.

"What is this?" said Seemore, wondering if the grenade Strata had tossed before that little coward had bolted was making him hallucinate. Seemore perceived the towering figure before him. "He's even bigger than Mammoth…no…three Mammoths." Seeking more data, the HIVE 5 member switched his vision over to X-ray mode and glared into the interior of the mighty beast. He was taken aback by what he found, "I can see nothing but fire in there; there's just fire—not even in any shape, not even in the shape of the figure but just lots of fires inside. What trick is this?"

Slowly the other HIVE 5 members were getting to their feet. "Look at that thing," said Private HIVE, "What is it Gizmo?"

"How should I know? Looks like whatever it was knocked us backwards; there's no way that snot-faced buddy of the Titans who through that little pop-grenade could do that."

"So that thing hit us?" said Mammoth, "Uh, do we hit it back?"

Seemore held up his hand, "Let's not do that. There's something really funny about that guy…thing whatever. I haven't even seen it move."

Mammoth snorted, displeased that someone was trying to stop him from finishing his pounding, "We'd better hit it while it's down then. I've already lost two completing good poundings to that punk Strata, and I don't plan on leaving tonight without a good pounding."

Gizmo spoke next, "Will you not use your head furball? Whatever that is, it's at least three-times your size!"

Mammoth chortled, "Ha! You mean it's at least ten times your size, small-fry!" Gizmo seethed. Mammoth continued, "Actually, if you look at it with your head sideways, it's all purple and its eyes are like fire…"

"It looks like that when your head is straight!" corrected Seemore.

"Yeah, well, what I'm saying is that when you look at it all purple and its eyes like fire it reminds me a lot of Jinx when she gets really mad."

"I HEARD THAT!" roared a voice from behind them all. Jinx was as livid as a squirrel that was missing a nut. She had lost out on her revenge while enduring countless insults from Strata, been knocked backwards more times than she had brain cells to remember, and had only just now re-found the very ugly hat that was only thing making her ponytail look straight. So, Mammoth, who had now kept her without much sleep for two consecutive nights, was treading on a suspension bridge without handrails that likes to watch people fall. "You boundlessly blundering blobs of boys! I would seriously reconsider ticking me off tonight! Ooo, you guys are so frustrating—I could practically pull my hair out!"

"At this point, that would be practically making yourself bald," retorted Mammoth. He paid for that comment by being slammed backwards by a particularly nasty set of hexing waves that would leave his back aching for the next two days.

Jinx marched up in front of them and yelled at mighty beast, "So, you're the ignoramus who interrupted the fun of the HIVE 5? Buddy, I don't know who you think you are, but you're luck has just run out!"

Seemore gasped sensing what was coming, "Jinxy, darling, I don't think you should…"

Jinx waved her hand and Seemore joined Mammoth on the pavement, "I'm nobody's darling, Seemore—especially not yours!" She refocused her rage on the one target that needed no more rage, the massively towering monstrosity. "Take this!" She launched a set of hexing waves directly at the beast's head. The monster's head turned slightly in the direction that the waves hit his spherical helmet but made no reaction. Jinx's second wave turned it in the other direction, but again no reaction from the hulking beast.

"What not caring to reply? That's fine; I can appreciate a silent guy tonight!" cackled Jinx, not sensing that she was stunning nothing, only receiving a treatment of indifference from her poorly chosen foe. She powered up an incredibly powerful wave, her eyes glowed with pink fury, she summoned up all her anger and rage and angst that a wronged evil female can offer and launched it in hexing fury at her opponent.

When the waves hit the monster, it shook him slightly. It made its first movement, a step backward as it absorbed the impact of Jinx's assault. Jinx's attack was powerful enough it actually moved a forearm to its chest to take some force. It then shifted its leg back to its original position and stood up to its full height. Its fiery gaze perceived Jinx then looked up at the moon through the smoky haze, its focus pierced the heavens and it roared, "WHERE IS MY ENEMY?"

This clearly strange reaction puzzled Jinx not at all, not even that it had bared the brunt of her best stuff with only a step backward, "If you want your enemy look down here!" She shook her fist at the enemy. "What are you?"

This caught the monster's attention. It looked at Jinx with a sudden downward turn of its massive head—the quickest move it had made yet—and glared at her with its burnt embers. Apparently finding nothing that suited it, it roared above them, "WHERE IS MY ENEMY?"

"Not here! Not here!" yelled Gizmo, who was beginning to understand exactly what kind of power was in front of them, "Jinx, don't make it mad!"

Jinx's head had cleared after releasing all her vengeful force at the monster and took a few steps backward and re-joined her comrades, "What am I doing?"

"Good question," said the other four in unison.

"Where's that punk, Strata?" said Private Hive.

"No clue," said Seemore, rubbing his aching back, "He was gone when I came to. Last thing I remember was that grenade going off, falling over, and then feeling like I was at the center of an earthquake."

The monster, meanwhile, caring nothing for the tribulations of the HIVE 5 slammed a fist downward into the ground and the earth shook in recoil as the mighty beast yelled into the night sky, "WHERE IS MY ENEMY?"

"Again with the questions?" said Gizmo, "Funny, we seem to want the same thing…our enemy…Hey! You think that giant jelly-blob could be looking for Strata?"

"That annoyance was babbling about something coming and having to leave," said Jinx. "That might be the first plea for life I've heard that was actually true."

"What should we do about that?" said Seemore.

"Nothing," said Jinx, "With any luck, that bothersome pest is at the bottom of that hole under that monster's shoe."

"Sounds like it's time to go," said Private Hive. "That thing is getting uppity, and I don't like the size of that fist."

"Let's scram," said Gizmo.

The HIVE 5 turned to leave, but they did not get far. In an instant they heard a loud whoosh and the road they were walking on was leveled by the leaping giant who had jumped into the air above them and landed in the street in front of them blocking their way. The giant leered downwards at him, his flame eyes flickering rapidly.

"Listen," said Mammoth, "Whatever you want, we don't have it."

"RAGE!" screamed the beast, and he raised both arms above his head and brought them down in mighty fashion. The HIVE 5 leaped sideways but were still blown backwards by the force of the monster's strength. "RAGE! RAGE! RAGE!" roared the menacing villain. "I…RAGE!" It turned its head towards an empty office complex, and its eyes flickered. With no warning, two massive beams were emitted from its visage and smote the complex in the roof. The buildings were instantly lit ablaze and the night sky flickered against the mighty torch. "RAGE…RAGE!" roared the beast. It turned and fired a fist at Mammoth. The behemoth was launched backwards over the first crater and onto the fractured street behind it. "WHERE IS MY ENEMY?"

"Look out!" yelled Seemore. "It's beserk!" He fired energy beams from his eyes at the monster, but they exploded harmlessly on his foe's armor-clad right arm. The beast launched a chop at Seemore but the quicker HIVE 5 member dodged it and fired an eye-prison at the monster's arm.

The beast stopped and held up its right fist, which fit neatly into the eye-prison's maximum size. "RAGE!" yelled the furious titan, and he launched a second downward punch at Seemore with the fist still in the prison. Seemore dodged again as the prison-led fist smote the ground leaving a deep hole. The monstrosity raised its right arm again and extended its index finger against the bubble. The eye-prison burst with slightest touch. The monster turned upwards toward the moon, "WHERE IS MY ENEMY?" yelled the armored nightmare. "I…RAGE!"

"What are you?" yelled Jinx as their foe turned and punched an old gas station. There was a huge flame as a nearby gas storage tank exploded.

The beast looked at the scene that it had created. Fires were burning everwhere in only the short time since it realized they were there. The street was unrecognizable, a maze of broken asphalt. Slowly, the mighty beast levitated off his feet and into the air. It gazed upon its handiwork. "I…RAGE. I…RAGE…RAGE! I…RAGING RAGNAROK. I…RAGING RAGNAROK!" It turned its upwards again and roared to the stars, "I…RAGING RAGNAROK! WHERE IS MY ENEMY?"

"Raging Ragnarok?" said Private Hive, "What is all of this going on? It attacks without purpose…without any apparent reason…"

Private HIVE's musings interested Ragnarok little, if he did at all hear them. The beast, now at a low hover over his battle zone launched a second wave of eyebeams at Private Hive, who dodged by throwing his shield into the oncoming death beams. It exploded in mid-air and the HIVE 5 member ran away. Ragnarok turned and launched a new set of beams into the first crater, and the ground within it exploded again and steaming water gushed from where the beast hit a water main. It then descended rapidly onto a nearby building, crushing it in its wake. "RAGE! RAGE! RAGE!" Ragnarok drove his fists into the ground in rapid succession as if wanting to crush every ant that could possibly be living under the sidewalk.

"Run!" yelled Gizmo.

To Be Continued…

This ends Part I of a 2-chapter update. The next part, Chapter 11, was originally meant to be part of Chapter 10, but I decided to cut it in two of readability's sake and to avoid one extremely long chapter that takes forever to get down the page, similar to what I did with the Starfire/Strata/Punk Rocket chapters (7&8). However, unlike those chapters, Chapter 10 did not provide a good place to separate the story until it was three-fourths complete—anywhere else made the break too choppy. So, Chapter 11 is smaller than Chapter 10, about 1,200 words compared to ten's 3,300 words. So, go ahead and read Chapter 11 as you've come this far. It briefly rejoins the Titans before uniting the two scenes. (You were wondering if I was ever going to finish with the HIVE 5?)

Also: I'm not a Jinx or a female character hater, which no one has accused me of, but I want to address out front after Part I. Starfire and particularly Raven have very positive portrayals in this story and aside perhaps from Strata, are probably the deepest characters I've portrayed. I find Jinx a very fun villain to work with. Every villain has their overplayed faults, and I see Jinx's as vanity and (similar to Ragnarok, but in a much different way) anger. Her being the only girl allows for gender-tension ways to exploit both. In many ways, I think Jinx's villain points are brought out by the male HIVE 5 members—which is why they are such a dysfunctional team and so well juxtaposed against the Titans in that way. But enough on that, Chapter 11 (with some nice Raven dialogue) is next. Please Read & Review!