AN: References used: Teen Titans, Marvel/X-Men, Bleach, Final Fantasy (I: Dawn of Souls, VII, X, XII, and XIII), Call of Duty, Naruto, Pokémon, Nintendo, and 300 (imitation). In this chapter: Dragonball Z, Johnny Test (quote) and Kingdom Hearts (which will be our main focus reference).

I should have put this in Chapter 1 but... I do not own any of the countless entities from any of the ideas listed above and those to be listed in the future. I only (distantly) own the Beanie Babies used in this grand production, here at home.

Chapter 3 — Deciding Destiny

The next morning, at 9:00 AM...

*knock, knock* "Hey Christi? Rise and shine..." called Slowpoke from her closed door.

Sly was awakened by the sounds of the knocks. "Huh...?" he uttered quietly, noticing that he had slept in his sister's room on her resting chair. Christina was in her bed, so he assumed that he dozed off while they were in their reunion-like moment last night, and she put him down on the chair.

He stood up to exit her room, and then saw Slowpoke as he opened the door.

"Sly? What were you doing in your sister's room?" the sloth asked.

"We had a little talk." he answered.

Slowpoke crossed his arms. "About what?"

"About the reason why I've been such an asshole."

Slowpoke raised one of his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Well that... and a little bit of sibling bonding."

"Bonding. That's it?"

"Why are you asking so many questions? Come on man... it's not like I flirted with my own sister."

"I know... but it's just weird to find you sleeping in her room."

Sly sighed. "Okay. I did admit to her that I've been a jerk to her for a long time. I apologized and said that I would look after her more and be more of a brother to her like everyone's been telling me for so long. I'm serious this time." Sly explained. "And if you don't believe me, you and everyone else can ask her yourselves."

The fox walked off after saying that. To Slowpoke, it seemed too good to believe, but Sly is known for meaning what he says. He moved to the bedside.

"Christi... wake up." Slowpoke called, nudging her gently.

The purple-haired skunk slowly opened her eyes and saw the image of her boyfriend. "Where were you last night?" she asked, still trying to wake up.

"My dad needed to talk with my trio basically about teamwork, even though we knew about what it meant already."

"Oh."

Slowpoke sat on the edge of the bed as Christina leaned on her back after sitting up. "Sly was in here... and he said that you two were bonding. What's that about?" he asked.

Christina gave a light smile. "It means I finally have my brother, and he cares."

Slowpoke shrugged. "Well, that's good. What do you expect now?"

"Nothing really. All I want is to hear him say that he loves me as his sister. He hasn't said it yet, but I want to hear it with my own ears one day."

"So the New 12 is back." said Megan, who was leaning against Christina's doorway with one of her feet on it, while crossing her arms with her eyes closed.

"Megan... how long were you there?" Slowpoke questioned, a bit startled at hearing her voice.

"Long enough. It sounds to me like Sly was the only thing keeping the New 12 from growing because his old attitude affected every one of us. Christina, even though this may sound a bit off, your incident with the three Acolytes yesterday actually opened Sly's eyes. Your near-death experience made Sly see that he needed you alive and well not just for the sake of the team, but for the sake of his family as well. Sly has this "circle of light" as his spirit, and in that circle is all the people that have meaning to him. The people who are near the core of that circle are the people that give him the most light and love in his spirit. That's Mooch, Hippie, me, his parents... and now you, Christina."

Christina was awestruck. "How do you know all of this?"

"I'm his wife; I'm supposed to know." answered Megan. "Sly has had this missing light at the very center of his being for a long time—at the center of his circle. He might not fully realize it yet, but you are that missing light. Sly found your light, and he won't let it go. I promise you that. And that proves what I said before: the New 12 is back."

Slowpoke lowered his eyebrows and gave Megan a dull look. "Megan... did you just have tea again?"

She sighed. "Yes... my morning green tea always soothes me, and sometimes makes me speak in a proper way. Relax—it wears off in thirty minutes."

"To no offense, I think Ewey could use some of that sometimes." Christina joked, implying that Ewey can be a bit brash sometimes with a couple of Bean Titans.

"I suppose so. Anyways, the two of you might wanna get ready for today. Mooch said that our Trio Training starts at ten."

"Ah crap..." Slowpoke uttered.

"What? You're not ready?" Megan inquired.

"No. Banana-for-brains needs to wake up; he sleeps more than Mooch and I."

"Well, go flip his bed over and get him in gear." Megan told him, as he ran out of Christina's room. "You ready, Christina?"

"Yeah, let's go."

10:00 AM...

"All right, guys. We'll have to get started with our training now. We missed out on a lot yesterday." Mooch said to the New 12.

"Yeah. Let's get going before somethin' else happens." Bongo stated.

The Tower's alarm system went off.

Felix face-palmed. "Are you serious?" he uttered.

"Thanks again, universe—for jinxing me again!" Bongo complained.

Sweet soon was on the PA System. "Attention all Bean Titans: meet in the Theatre downstairs for the briefing, ASAP."

At that order, every Bean Titan assembled in the Theatre down on the first floor of the Home Base. The Legendary 12 took their positions on the dais.

"Titans, as you should know from the alarm, trouble is afoot." Sweet stated. "Go ahead and give them the details, Dotty."

"Wrinkle has been detected inside of Galveston, causing havoc and terrorizing innocent people as usual. But oddly, he's headed for the bridge that was partially fractured yesterday." she explained.

"Well, this oughta be no problem. All we have to do trample on him before he gets away." Hippie openly suggested.

"Unfortunately, we can't take that risk, son." Hippity replied.

"Right. The way he's attacking the city near us, and going in the opposite direction of this Tower—it's just begging to provoke us into another trap." Sweet presumed, thinking critically. "If all of us go in full force, he may have the rest of his Syndicate or most of the Acolytes at his call, just to ambush our whole team. As another negative, if we all leave this station, the Home Base might be destroyed without us ever expecting it, which would throw our system out of balance. We can't have either one of those things happen."

"So what do we do?" asked Felix, knowing that a plan was about to be set.

Sweet paused for a second. "New 12, confront Wrinkle yourselves. If he has something terrible up his sleeves and you can't resolve it, get out of there. Myself and the rest of the Legendary 12 will be on standby here at the Home Base. The rest of you will have to divide into 12 squads and protect one of our bases around Earth. These attacks on every Titans Tower have been getting quite repetitive. Make sure you have at least one person that's able with the light element in your squads... I have a feeling darkness is going to spread again. When you're ready, you may take action."

Soon enough, every other Bean Titan except for the Legendary 12 exited the Home Base.

"What's wrong, Sweet?" Mac asked, seeing him look off to the side.

"I need to see the current videos of Sly in the Memory Room." Sweet requested.

"How current?" Fancy asked.

"As of yesterday, to right now. If something hasn't changed, the New 12 are doomed."

At the bridge...

"Yes... yes... the stage is set." Wrinkle murmured, looking at the broken portion of the bridge. He dropped a black vase—decorated with purple jewels—into the water beneath the broken bridge space that Bowser created yesterday.

Right after he did that, the New 12 showed up.

"Wrinkle." Mooch muttered.

"Titans. Of course... you've come to ruin my plans, have you?"

"Should you even have to guess?" Hoppity questioned.

"In this case, yes."

"What do you mean?" Sly interrogated.

"I really don't have anything planned to destroy the Bean Titans, at the moment. Right now, I'm just following orders." Wrinkle told them.

"From the Acolytes again?" Ears presumed.

"You could say that."

"What is it, you dipwad?" Ewey raised her voice, trying to know exactly what he was planning.

"Sorry to tell you, but this plan is supposed to be anonymous. And it starts... now. Prepare yourselves... to be quizzed!"

The New 12 were confused, expecting only conflict with Wrinkle.

"Say... WHAT?" Christina sneered.

"You heard me. You don't have to respond immediately; take your time with these questions. They will decide your journey ahead... trust me, it's damn accurate."

"This is weird." Bongo uttered.

"With power, comes strength. That strength can be your light. And if that light is strong enough, nothing will be impossible for you. What is most important to you: being the best, friendship or your precious possessions?"

"Are you giving us a lesson, or trying to make us bored?" Felix inquired.

"Friendship." Hoppity answered for the team.

"Your friends are a part of your light, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Hops, what're you doing?" Slowpoke exclaimed.

"Keep it quiet..." she advised the team telepathically. "Most of us are thinking of the best answers, so we'll be in good shape if no one else changes their mind. I think this test really is a big deal, so keep your minds focused and let me answer."

"All right." Mooch responded quietly. "What's next, Wrinkle?"

"Very well. What do you want out of life: to see the rarest sights, to broaden your horizons, or to be strong?" he asked.

Hoppity shifted her eyes to read the minds of her allies and come up with the best overall decision. "To broaden our horizons." she replied.

"Ah, I see." Wrinkle murmured.

"This is ridiculous..." Bongo muttered.

"Focus!" Hoppity urged the monkey.

"Now the last question. What are you afraid of: growing old, being different, or indecisiveness?" Wrinkle concluded.

"Indecisiveness." Hoppity answered immediately.

"So... the twelve of you strive to value friendship, seek to broaden your horizons, and don't desire to be indecisive. Your journey begins at noon. Keep your values, your minds, and most of all, your light precious to you... so you can survive. Your destiny has only begun." Wrinkle said, before he jumped back to fall into the space where he dropped the black vase.

"What...? I didn't expect that." Hoppity spoke, startled by what Wrinkle just did.

"What the hell is going on?" Megan questioned, looking at her watch... and it was noon.

Suddenly, the skies let out a massive flash of light, and when it vanished, the entire atmosphere turned purple. Along with the flash, the waters below them burst upward and then reformed as a wall of twisters that was really a thirty-mile radius of twisters, surrounding all of Galveston and Titans Tower, which was only a few miles from the Gulf Coast. In midair, there was an ominous dark ball hovering over Galveston, releasing five small humanoid shadows on the southern side of the bridge.

Lucy took a closer look with her Byakugan. "Guys, we have trouble." she told them.

"Well, let's do something about it. Titans, go!" Mooch commanded, as they twelve of them quickly moved to where the five shadows were dropped.

When they got to the end of the bridge, the dark figures revealed themselves. They were short, with glowing yellow eyes and ant-like antennae.

"What in the world are they?" Bonnie asked.

"Whatever they are, they look weak to me." Bongo assumed.

"Too weak..." Mooch said, unsheathing Zen no Kyoudoutai and whipping a Sword Slash Wave to kill all five of them on the spot. "As I thought."

Just as Mooch started to turn away from his fallen foes, ten moving two-dimensional figures moved on the ground and then resurfaced as the same fiends that he defeated. (Music begins: "Attack on the Beat"— Bleach.)

"They revived... and duplicated?" Bonnie analyzed, shuddering between her words.

"This ain't good. We gotta figure out how to prevent them from doing that." Sly said.

"Right. New 12, let's go!" Mooch announced, holding his zanpakutō to the sky. For reasons unknown, the blade exited the gibbon's hand and zoomed into the ball of darkness above.

"Ahh! There it goes again, with a mind of its own." Bongo said, watching its path.

"Bongo, help me out. Let's see if these things can handle the heat." Megan said, preparing her Phoenix Flower Jutsu.

"Gotcha covered! Flame Whip!" he shouted just as Megan announced her Jutsu.

The ten fiends were not in sight after the fires blazed. That was, until they decided to resurface and double their numbers yet again.

"Damn... fire's not gonna work." Megan analyzed.

One of the Shadows creeped up behind the squirrel to ambush her.

"Oh no you don't... Tornami Twister!" Ears yelled, using the power of the Orb of Tornami with his Tsunami Strike to terminate the Shadow inside his aquatic pod.

The result was the same.

"Water doesn't work either... what's with these guys?" Ears wanted to know.

"Aerospark!" Bonnie cried, throwing a swift disc of electricity at one of them. "Try freezing them, Ears... lightning isn't doing much anything to these guys."

"All right. Orb of Tornami, ICE!" he yelled, releasing a stream of ice from the orb and freezing four Shadows. They did not move, and in a few seconds, the ice broke them. "Ha! They aren't coming back from that!"

To his dismay, that is exactly what they did.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" he blurted aloud.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

It seemed that there was no end to these Shadows. After three minutes, there were now 700 of them. It did not seem to matter what the New 12 threw at them, they could not stop their revivals and multiplications.

"Why don't they just die already?" Felix whined.

"These little dark midgets are getting on my nerves!" Lucy exclaimed.

Ewey's mind sparked. "Dark midgets... wait a second, guys! We've been going at this all wrong!"

"How can you say that?" Slowpoke asked.

"Watch." Ewey summoned her Heavenbow and fired two of her blue Scattershot light arrows. After firing them, the arrows split into ten equally powerful arrows and killed ten of the Shadows. This time, the ten that she got rid of did not come back to life.

"Oh wow." Ears muttered, face-palming himself. "We're sitting here going bat-shit crazy, and we forgot that light and darkness were opposed to each other."

"I didn't forget. This would've been over if my sword didn't fly away from me." Mooch said.

Realizing their weakness, the Shadows suddenly tripled their numbers—2,070 to be exact. This shocked the New 12.

"Whoa... didn't see that coming." Bonnie thought, dropping her jaw and widening her eyes.

The Shadows then surrounded the New 12, in an effort to close in and take them down.

"We're boned." uttered Christina, assuming the worst.

"What...? This isn't right." Hoppity murmured, sensing a familiar power.

"What isn't?" Sly asked.

(Music change: "Run!"— Final Fantasy X.)

In an instant, Sweet came to the aid of the New 12 via Flash Step. "This isn't. Web Fortress!" he yelled, pounding the ground to cause a dome of webs to rise and enclose himself and the New 12 as a shield from the Shadows.

"What?" Sly whispered, overwhelmed to see Sweet coming to save the New 12 from near doom.

"Dad? What are you doing here?" Mooch asked.

"Telling you what to do. I know, I shouldn't be including myself in any way with your courses of action, but this will have to be an exception. Wrinkle is inside that dark mass above us; Dotty "decoded" it and found that it was another dark realm. It's not the same as Subspace, but these shadows hail from it, and they are more vicious there than here. They're called Heartless—rampant entities living with no hearts, therefore, no light within themselves. Take caution with them, but at all costs, find and stop Wrinkle."

"What's gonna happen here?" Slowpoke asked.

"Leave this to the Legendary 12. The rest of the Titans were evacuated to the Moon Base because these Heartless are growing by the second, and gathering closer and closer to the Home Base. They seem to be drawn to those with the strongest hearts, and that would be us heroes. Do what you need to do to stop Wrinkle; we'll handle things here."

The New 12 understood.

"Wait!" Bonnie called. "Their weakness... it's—"

She was interrupted when the Web Fortress began to break.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie. There's no time now. We'll figure it out. Go!" Sweet said, assuming his Legendary power and bursting with heavy resistance into the army of Shadows.

"All right, New 12. Now's a good time to use that shinigami jump I taught you guys to get inside the realm. Let's go!" stated Mooch.

Using their spirits instead of energy, the twelve of them super-jumped into the realm that Wrinkle escaped into. Soon, the New 12 will find out if that quiz really was that accurate.

/-/

What will this new threat bring upon our heroes?

Find out soon.

Just so you know, Bonnie said the Johnny Test quote: "Didn't see that coming."