Disclaimer: I don't own the Titans, and I'm not making money for forcing them to dance around for my enjoyment... and hopefully yours.
CHAPTER 2
Atop the hotel roof, the Titans crouched and surveyed the burning plaza. Raven worked to reinforce her empathic shields against the pounding terror of the civilians below, sparing some of her attention to listen to Robin's plan.
"Priority is to protect civilians with minimal property damage. We're not officially allowed to do what we're about to do, so we need to be sure it doesn't backfire and get us thrown in jail. Starfire will fly me down to the top of the tower, and Beast Boy will take Cyborg. Raven, you'll be in charge of extinguishing the fire while the rest of us take down the bad guys. Questions?"
Beast Boy raised a tentative hand.
"What, Beast Boy?" Robin snapped.
"Uh, what if we switched? Cy's really big and heavy, so—"
"This is not the time to indulge your laziness, Beast Boy." Readying a handful of birdarangs, the Boy Wonder stood. "We stick to the plan. Titans, GO!" With that, he launched himself from the roof, trusting Starfire to catch him on the way down.
As the Tamaranean shot off to intercept their leader, Beast Boy's mumbling fell on only two sets of ears other than his own. "Oh well. Hope they don't have guns." Morphing into a gigantic pterosaur, he grabbed Cyborg's shoulders and lifted off.
Raven floated towards the clock tower on a disc of black energy, hands already extended to begin smothering the flames with her telekinesis. Just as she began, though, the sizzle of superheated air reached her ears. The trio atop the tower had begun firing some sort of energy weapons at the Titans. Erecting a shield to protect herself, she glanced at her teammates.
Robin and Starfire were dodging the beams with ease, the acrobat flattened against the warrior princess to present as small a profile as possible even as he returned fire with weaponry from his utility belt.
Beast Boy and Cyborg, on the other hand, were easy targets. The pterodactyloid's ungainly flapping was doing almost nothing to draw him or his teammate out of the line of fire, but it was more than enough to foul Cyborg's aim with his sonic cannon.
A burst of three beams seared holes through the flying dinosaur's left wing, and squawking in pain, he began to plummet with his cargo. Quetzalcoatlus northropi was built for cruising, not for maneuverability, and with one wing damaged, it was all but useless. Beast Boy morphed into a giant kangaroo and kicked Cyborg on a trajectory that would carry him onto the top of the clock tower, then shifted to a peregrine falcon and dive-bombed their enemies.
Cursing under her breath, Raven conjured a net to catch her half-robot teammate before he left a crater. Four hundred pounds of superhero crashed into the black webbing, rolling to take up firing position directly behind the trio of villains. With Robin and Starfire engaging one of the criminals and Beast Boy about to make impact with another as a mountain goat, only one was free to turn and attack Victor.
Satisfied that the situation was mostly in hand, Raven began concentrating once more on extinguishing the fires. It was simple work, for the most part, but it took her attention away from the battle.
It was just as the last flame died out that she saw a massive plume of black smoke rising from where the fight had been taking place. As coughing wracked her teammates, Raven saw the three villains gliding down separate sides of the building, rappelling at breakneck speeds. She reached out to each, hoping to glean some mental signature that would aid in tracking the fugitives, but where there should have been at least some slight trace of emotion, there was nothing.
These things had unheard-of psychic shielding... if they were even living at all.
Pushing aside her shock to summon up her powers once more, Raven dispelled the smoke, blowing it away from the Titans. She floated down to them, ready to begin healing any injuries they had sustained, when Robin grabbed hold of her forearm.
"Which way did they go, Raven?" he demanded. "You were in the air, so you must have seen."
Black energy covered his fingers, forcibly uncurling them from around her arm. She bent them backwards just enough for discomfort, then released him. "Calm down, Robin. They split up. We won't find them, and even if we do, we won't be in any shape to fight them if we don't stop and regroup."
The Boy Wonder seethed, but Raven stared him down long enough for Starfire to place a hand on his shoulder and calm him.
"I don't like it," he muttered as the empath set about healing the handful of bruises and scrapes he and Starfire had sustained.
"Know what I don't like?" an icy voice said from behind Raven. "I don't like being called lazy when I'm trying to suggest a strategy." Beast Boy's eyes were blazing with fury as he stalked toward their leader, clutching his left arm. "I know you think I'm just the annoying kid who turns into random critters, but I have to pick from the entire animal kingdom, and whatever plan you force me to follow drastically limits my options. In your mind I turn into a pterodactyl and that's it, but there are over a hundred species of pterosaur, and I have to choose the one that's going to do the best job." He gingerly released his arm and winced as air hit the horrendous burns. "Cyborg is at least 200 pounds heavier than you," he continued, gritting his teeth against the pain and shrugging off Raven's hand as she tried to help him. "For Starfire, that's no problem. She can lift Cy with one hand and fly circles around me in just about anything I can shift into. But if I have to carry him, I need one of the biggest flyers that's ever lived, and it's kind of hard to dodge gunfire when you're the dinosaur equivalent of a jumbo jet!"
Robin bristled. "Given your track record, Beast Boy, it was a reasonable assumption that you were trying to avoid working harder than absolutely necessary."
"Hold up," Cyborg said, ignoring the sparks that flew from his damaged chest plate. "Speaking of track records, who was it that saved the Titans from the Brotherhood while your butt was on ice?"
A snort of derision escaped from beneath Robin's mask. "A drop of fresh water in the ocean."
Beast Boy's skin rippled and he let out an impossibly deep growl, and Cyborg's face contorted in fury. Robin's hand rested on his utility belt as Starfire looked on, paralyzed by conflicting loyalties. Just as both sides seemed ready to come to blows, Raven stepped between them. "I really hate to interfere in watching my family tear itself apart," she drawled, "But in case you three forgot, there are criminals on the loose, and I have no way to track them."
Beast Boy cocked his head in confusion. "Your empathy thingie isn't working?"
She shook her head. "I scanned them, but it's like they're completely invisible to me." The sorceress rested a hand on his injured arm and enveloped it with a blue glow. The searing pain flowing into her hands was significantly abated by the chanting of her mantra, but it was still enough to make her voice waver.
The shuddering sigh of relief from her green teammate, though, was a worthwhile reward. He looked at her with gratitude shining in his eyes and a genuine smile. "Thanks, Rae."
She was about to give her customary reply, until she noticed something about his statement. "Ven. Ra-ven. Two syllables."
"Oh, yeah. Oops," he said, those sparkling green eyes making no secret of his lack of regret.
Turning to Cyborg, she assessed his condition and found only mechanical components damaged. "Any injuries I can help with, Cyborg?" she asked, not wanting to miss a hidden danger.
"Nah," he said, shrugging as his chest sparked once again. "It's all robot parts. Thanks for the offer, though, little lady."
Robin's voice cut through, shattering the calm. "Good. Then we're ready to start searching for the criminals. We'll split up and radio back if we find any—"
"Wait, wait, wait," Beast Boy said, waving his hands. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, Robin, but there are a few problems. One, we're in Spain. I'm sure you and Star speak Spanish, but the rest of us can't even ask for directions to the nearest pizza place. Plus, like you said before, we're not supposed to be doing the crime fighting thing here, and we could just as easily get arrested for trying." As the sound of sirens drew closer, he held a hand to his ear to illustrate his point. "Two, we don't have any way to track these guys. They don't smell like anything, Raven can't sense anything off of them, and unless you, Cy, or Star have some trick up your sleeve I don't know about, you guys can't find them either."
"That, Beast Boy, is why we split up. We cover more ground—"
"So we can all get lost in the second largest city in Spain? These guys have a five-minute head start on us, and home field advantage. Face it, Robin: it's time to go back to the hotel and find out what we can about these guys that way."
"Are you deliberately trying to undermine my authority every chance you get, or is it something that just comes naturally?" Robin's eye twitched, making his mask ripple.
Beast Boy tilted his head and frowned. "What's got you so rattled, Robin? This isn't like you. You're usually a solid leader, but you're not thinking things through."
"I would be just fine if you would quit the insubordination act—"
"No, you wouldn't," Raven said, her arms crossed. "Since before we even left Jump, you've been on edge. You didn't think about sleeping arrangements, you botched the plan for a quick takedown, and now you almost sent us on a wild goose chase through an unfamiliar city. None of that is like you."
A sneer twisted Robin's lips, and he opened his mouth to reply, but an orange hand on his shoulder stopped him cold. "Friend Raven is correct, Robin. You have not been yourself recently. I have not wished to speak of this, but... I have been worried for you."
The Boy Wonder's mouth pressed into a thin line, and his fists clenched and unclenched several times before some of the tension in his posture disappeared. "All right. Let's get back to the hotel room, and I'll brief you all."
—
AN: This is my first attempt at a story with much of an ongoing plot, so to speak; I generally favor taking little snapshots of moments, so I have very little practice with keeping continuity along a piece this big. It's currently standing at a bit over 15,000 words on my hard drive, with at least one more chapter left to be written. Please let me know how I'm doing, and what I can improve.
