A/N: I want to apologize for the massive wait, but I have a very good reason: I was in Florida for the past 6 months and had not brought my computer with me. Not only that, but my time down there was almost completely occupied by other things. Anyway, I'm back and eager to deliver this next chapter to you, my readers. Those that have stuck with me, this is a reward for your patience; If you're new to this, then please start at chapter one to get the full story; all of you, please enjoy.

Mind and Body Chapter 16: A Slight Shadow

Cael landed with a quiet crackle next to an ordinary, 6-step staircase of stone that led to the brick edifice of an apartment building. Starfire and Raven landed behind him and Beast Boy changed into a green raven in order to land on Raven's shoulder. Cael glanced at him and said, "I'm afraid they don't allow animals."

He squawked irritably and changed into a ferret to hide in Raven's hood. Cael chuckled and opened the door on a narrow hallway. Inside, he led them to the 4th door on the right and said, "Will you walk into my parlour?" with a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

As expected, there wasn't much there. One couch sat on the far wall, which was probably a futon, and a small bathroom was in the left corner. Surprisingly, however, there was a small bookcase by the couch filled with books. Raven had already read most of them, of course, since they had traveled together, but she hadn't realized just how many of them there were.

"Those pockets of yours must be a gateway to a 'pocket' dimension," Beast Boy muttered.

"See, now that one was funny," Cael said with a grin, "stop trying so hard and you're really good at it."

A slight figure with pink horns, sharply violet eyes and pale skin was standing in an abandoned lot, wondering wryly how the hell she had actually been recruited. The buildings to either side were massive, shapeless bulks that seemed to disappear into the sky…even though they weren't more than four floors. The sky itself was much the same as the buildings—a thick, black nothingness, covered so thoroughly by clouds that not even a single star made it through the cover. Perfect for the night's mission.

A shift in the darkness behind her made the girl whip around, her pink horns whooshing through the air only to reveal a tiny, green-clothed boy staring at her, then groaning and smacking his face. "You're the extra partner, Jynx?" the kid asked incredulously, "how did the old man rope you into this?"

"He made an offer I couldn't refuse, Gizmo," Jynx said, "Though I didn't plan on you and your pet monster being a part of it."

A huge, humanoid figure grumbled as it appeared behind them, fully eight feet tall and with thick, red fur spreading on its' shoulders, head and back. It was dressed in a form-fitting black shirt with yellow shoulders, and black pants that barely spanned its' massive legs. The black gloves on its' hands missed the gigantic fingers entirely, and the nails they revealed were large, jagged points.

The slight opening of its' mouth revealed large fangs beneath pupil-less, blue eyes. "Did Pink Lady say mean things to Mammoth?" he asked.

Gizmo started sweating and immediately patted Mammoth's knee, the highest thing he could reach, "No way, big guy," he said, "she would never use words simple enough for you to understand."

Thinking over the odd statement, Mammoth shrugged his massive shoulders and sat down with a thump that shook both buildings. "Well, whatever," he said, "so what's the plan?" he looked at Jynx.

"Hey," Gizmo said petulantly, "I'm the brains here,"

"But I'm the leader here," Jynx said with a smile, "as the client specified. At least Mammoth knows to respect authority, Gizzy."

Gizmo rolled his eyes and activated the jet-pack, letting the two streams of blue fire carry him towards Jynx's face. "It's the damn pack mentality, but in that case," he said with overly false obeisance, "what's the plan 'oh great sludgebag'?" A bolt of pink flew from Jynx's fingers and slammed into the jet-pack.

The fire started spluttering as Gizmo went white, and suddenly went out, dropping him on his rear. But it wasn't over: the engine suddenly turned back on at full throttle, dragging him backwards in the soil and leaving a nice, Gizmo-sized furrow. Then the engine pointed straight down and started to drag him into the sky.

Gizmo managed to un-strap the jetpack from his back, and activated another machine hiding beneath it. This one extended four massive legs of metal before he landed and caught him with the second floor balcony before climbing back down to ground level. Now, he was hovering even above Mammoth's head. "Let me try that again," he said with a shaking voice, "What are we gonna do, Leader?"

"Much better," Jynx said with a cruel smile, "That old man wanted us to be the test of that new team that passed us up." Gizmo grinned wickedly at that, and Jynx continued, "but I think you'll agree we're too strong to make a good initial test, so I think we should make our own challenge for these guys."

"And that would be?" Gizmo asked curiously.

"Each of us will choose a local villain—or make one—and we'll set those on them first."

"Automatons?" Gizmo asked, a gleam of excitement in his eyes, "perfect!"

"It shouldn't be an ordinary one," Jynx said, "if you do an automaton, since they practically have one of their own."

"Oh yeah, the sound creep," Gizmo answered with a slight frown, then he smiled again "I think I know just the thing."

"What about me?" Mammoth whined, "me no good at making things: only breaking things."

"Then break what you need to in order to get what you want," Gizmo said, "I'll access the Police Database to find you your best 'candidate'."

Jynx nodded in approval as her two teammates got down to business. They weren't such a headache after all—no wonder they were one of the most hopeful pairs. "I'll just use my chaos magic now and put whatever results to use," she said casually before raising her hands above her head and letting pink energy play about her body before it blasted out and touched ten different points around the lot.

Pink swirled under their feet and converged in front of Jynx, where the earth buckled and rose before swelling. It swelled until it looked like a bubble ready to pop, and then it did. Inside the earth shell was what looked like a concrete ball—obviously formed of the baseline rock that lined the basin Jump City was nestled in.

The giant rock suddenly uncurled itself and stood on two, massive legs. It looked almost human, until you realized even Mammoth only reached its' waist and it had cinderblocks for fingers.

"So, strength this time, huh?" Jinx said quietly as Gizmo and Mammoth stared. She turned to them. "Well, find yourself some other lackeys so we can start the party."

Gizmo nodded and then exclaimed in satisfaction, "Here's something," he said, "apparently there's a high-level prisoner that warrants Beta-Class containment in the secret vaults of the prison." He glanced at the others and said, "That's the fourth-highest level of containment tech, after Alpha, Omega and X classes. Even Mammoth might have a little trouble smashing through what he'll find there so maybe…." He looked again at the rock beast that was standing patiently behind Jinx.

"All right," Jinx said as she stroked the fingers of her creation, "my friend can help get through the containment…hmm, I'll think I'll call him Cinderblock."

The mute beast kneeled in front of her at that and she smiled. "You like that, huh? In that case, Cinderblock, your first mission is to assist Mammoth," she pointed at him, "you are to assist him in the jailbreak of a Beta-Class criminal and bring both said criminal and Mammoth back to this place in one piece for us to further debrief."

It stood up again, slammed its' concrete fists together—the wind pressure from the fists colliding set the surrounding windows rattling—and trudged off down the alley. Mammoth had to run after it and turn it to the right before they were headed towards the prison.

Jynx looked at Gizmo, who looked back at her. "Aren't you going to do something?" Jinx asked heavily.

"Of course," Gizmo said, "but even I will need to take some time in order to put my idea into effect."

Jynx smiled, "I'm looking forward to it." But then she yawned, "In the meantime, I'm going to get some rest."

Gizmo shrugged at that, started to set up his personal lab in the lot, and didn't flinch in the slightest as Jinx used chaos magic to break down the wall outside an empty apartment. He was installing Solid Hologram projectors at each corner of the lot as Jynx settled down into an unused bed and tried to close her ears to the sound of blowtorches, metal shards clattering on the floor, and soldering irons.

Oracle was humming as she descended the ramp in the front room. A little bit of production and she could forget Robin's moments of shallowness. A smile spread across her face when Raven, with Beast Boy in her hood and Starfire at her shoulder, glided through the doorway. She waved at them as they landed and approached her.

They had spent the night over at Cael's new place, and the change of pace seemed to do them good. Oracle knew for a fact that Cael's house was tiny, which would just make it seem cozy after the massive coldness of this house. Even though they should have moved on, there was no lair set up for the team.

Oracle had tried to find a good temporary place, but Jump City was prosperous enough, rooted far enough into the annoying black-and-white mentality, that places were either too dilapidated to be helpful or already snapped up. Luckily, though, it was relatively peaceful these days. They could take care of many minor slip-ups and still spend a lot of time searching.

But for some reason, Cyborg never took part. He was spending most of his days on the little island with the projector left over from the Tunite invasion. Lately, he had even taken to concealing it completely in tarps in order to keep it a surprise from the others and extracted a promise from Raven not to use her formidable powers to divine the answer. All he would say was that he was taking his own path.

She shook her head. And what about that miasma of suspense that Raven had reported hanging over the city? The one that seemed almost skittish, like a wild addnimal sensing a coming storm? Surely there was something she could do to prepare for it.

Unfortunately, the feeling was just too vague for her to know what measures would be effective. Oracle sighed again and decided to practice her upper-body exercises. It was getting a little too comfortable to be with this group, and they had the requisite numbers now….

Really the only thing keeping her here, she thought as she balanced with one hand on the floor, was the fact that no bonds with Robin were appearing.

Cyborg had easily formed a big-brother bond with both of her main concerns, and Starfire had proven quite human when she had decided to be Raven's sister. Those four were well on the way to being a family, but Robin still stubbornly refused to admit that pure leadership wasn't acceptable in this situation.

She switched to the other hand.

It had to be handled fast, and she still had no idea how to make it happen.

Beast Boy was flying in the form of a Dragonfly towards the little island. No questions would work, so he settled for a little spying. Buzzing through the hot evening, with the sun beating down, was a lot more comfortable then being wrapped in feathers. He landed on a rock and trained the high-powered eyes on the shapeless tower in the center. So what do you have cooking, cyborg? He asked himself. At a closer glance, the projector was taller then when it had landed, and also wider. It also seemed to have more angles than the cylinder it already had been.

He's definitely changing it, Beast Boy thought, But into what? Then he shrugged, and flew off. He had gotten enough to satisfy his curiosity, so he could give Cyborg the rest of his surprise. But at this point he was only wandering around the city. They had never stayed in one place so long before, and it was starting to make him feel antsy.

Suddenly he was in the form of an ant, plummeting downwards until he realized what happened and took the form of a seagull. He flew the rest of the way into the city. He didn't often take an involuntary form, and it usually meant something big was going to happen soon. Even he didn't entirely understand his instincts at times.

Raven was in the one place she thought she'd never go…so many people with so many different thoughts…and she was here with the worst chatterbox of all…what had possessed her to take up Starfire's offer to go to the mall? She couldn't even wear her cloak here—she had to rely on her sweatshirt's hood entirely. But…the ice cream that Starfire had bought her was quite good…she hadn't thought of food as something beyond a support for the body before. And some of those clothes were quite attractive….

She felt the mental and voluble murmurs around her fade as she contemplated such thoughts. No…it was something else, like a hush had cloaked all activity around her even without interrupting it. There was definitely something wrong, she decided, and it would probably be best if we went back to the house before it happened.

Beast Boy, can you hear me? She thought, hoping his theory about the power was right.

Yeah, he said in surprise, loud and clear. I guess I was right, huh?

Raven nodded. Even though she was prepared for it, it was still a bit surprising that she could both send and hear thoughts from so far away. It probably had something to do with the length of their relationship.

So what's up? He asked.

I just think we should go back to the house and stay there a while. I keep getting these weird sensations.

Like last night? You got another one?

Yes.

Then I'll be there right after I tell Cyborg.

Good, I'll tell Starfire.

0

Mammoth grinned at the massive hole in the wall, watching Cinderblock stroll through ranks of guards as if it was a walk in the park. He was careful to keep close behind the behemoth in order to let the bullets bounce off of it instead of him. Uniformed grunts scattered before the two of them as the alarms blared.

Cinderblock paused at the elevator, then gripped either side of the door. With a grunt, he pulled out the entire contraption, leaving only the centre cables as evidence of its' existence. It leaped down, and Mammoth followed.

Stale air whistled past them until Cinderblock landed, generating a crater deep enough to make 3 feet of sand, which cushioned Mammoth's own fall. A simple fist through the wall and they were into the lowest floor.

A faint, blue B9 could be seen immediately outside the elevator door, and the floor was lined in lights of the same color, but it was otherwise hidden in shadow. At the other end of the room stood a large liquid-filled cylinder with metal ends. Mammoth quickly strode towards it in order to prevent Cinderblock from trying. For once, he was the one better suited to not breaking something.

Inside the cylinder was a slender, sleeping figure. Trying not to wake the tenant, Mammoth put his arms around the center of the cylinder and pulled. With a groan it lifted from its' foundation, and the connecting cables snapped. Slowly he shifted the cylinder into a comfortable grip, and the two of them made a quick about face before leaving the way they came.

Back in the abandoned lot, it was a full 24 hours later when they managed to return. Gizmo was surrounded by metal shards, but he didn't seem to have very many pieces together yet. Instead, he was applying delicate circuitry to a small square silicon chip.

"No Robot?" Mammoth asked in disappointment.

"Oh, it's you Mammoth," Gizmo said, "Back already? Whatever. No it isn't a robot—that's the enemy's MO. I wouldn't be stupid enough to mimic them. This will be an AI."

Mammoth stared blankly.

Gizmo sighed, "I mean an artificial intelligence. I'm making a computer for my contribution."

"Uh."

Gizmo snorted in disgust and turned back to his work as Jynx floated down from her room. "So what can this guy do?" she asked in boredom.

"Don't know," Mammoth said as he shrugged.

"Lovely," she replied, "let's set my creation on them first—we need to know this guy before we do anything with him."

"What about my baby?" Gizmo complained.

"Is it done yet?"

"…I get your drift."

"So get back to work and maybe I'll let you go next."

"…I understand."

"Umm…," Mammoth said, "since they stopped those aliens, why are we going after them?"

"That's what we were hired for," Gizmo said flatly.

"They're goody-two-shoes," Jynx said, "and with their level of power, they should be taken out early to prevent later frustration."

The group was gathered around the table, with Robin on Oracle's right and Raven on her left, talking quietly about the occasional bouts of nervousness.

"I just don't see how suspicions can be solid reasoning," Robin complained, " just saying 'it doesn't feel right' doesn't seem to be enough to stop any plans."

"Except that those suspicions come from an Omega-Class telepath," Oracle said dryly.

"Omega-class?" Beast Boy asked curiously.

"Basically," Oracle explained, "the people with the highest ranking powers—either in versatility or sensitivity—are called Omega. For a telepath it can even stretch into the realm of precognition if they are in tune with the environment. They'll know things sometimes well before the source of that thought does."

"True, true," Beast Boy said as he grinned at the scowling Robin, "so what about me?"

She smiled, "you're also an Omega."

"Sweeeeeeeet."

"I don't want to just sit in this house," Robin reiterated, "I'd prefer to keep looking for a new one: you didn't need to pull me off of that, did you?"

"I think it was a good thing even if this turns out to be a false alarm," Cyborg said casually, "all work and no play, as it were."

The next morning, sunlight poked out between moderate cloud cover as Gizmo stretched. His green jump suit was speckled with fragments of molten metal, and one hand grasped his completed computer drive triumphantly.

"So where's the rest of your computer?" Jynx murmured from the shade of a first floor room.

"There's nothing else," Gizmo said with a wicked grin, "I'm a genius."

"Since when?"

"Since I created this, of course," he replied, "it gathers all the surrounding electricity—from power lines, the atmosphere, and even other electronic devices—and protects itself with the voltage. Not only that, but the more electricity it's holding, the smarter the AI gets. Like I said, I'm a genius."

"Just getting smarter won't be enough to give them a test, Gizmo," she said dryly, "what can it do?"

Gizmo's response was more Saharan than hers, "that's up to it, but the electricity is its' tool."

"Oh," she said, grudgingly impressed, "so how much can it hold?"

"I don't know—it held up fine to 100,000 volts, but I didn't want to push it any further. Oh, and by the way, 100,000 volts equals an IQ of 200."

"Unfortunately," Jynx said with a false calm, "it seems you'll be going last."

"I'm just worth it," Gizmo said with a grin.

Robin fidgeted as he sat in the leather chair, staring out of his window. He needed to do something: he couldn't just sit here, waiting for something that might not happen, but he needed a good excuse for getting out. He could certainly use Cyborg's humorous suggestion, but that didn't feel quite right. It could be something engaging, but it had to have a vaguely mission-oriented facet to convince Oracle.

The door opened, and Raven stepped into the room with Beast Boy in her one hood. "You're trying to think of an excuse to get out of the house." She said quietly.

"I thought you promised not to do that," he said in irritation.

She leaned against the doorframe, and sighed, "When someone truly desires something, with no reservations and with a certain…desperation, if you will, then I can't do anything to not sense it. It is quite literally written on your face to my mind's eye."

"And what does my face say?" He asked in a bored tone of voice.

"It says 'I want to get out of here, but I'm not allowed to work so it needs to be somewhere fun, and I don't do fun so it has to be educational, and I never do something just for the sake of doing something so I need it to handle one of Oracle's concerns for her to believe me'."

"Wow, all that?" For once, he couldn't disguise how impressed he was.

"Actually," he said after a moment of silence, "the museum would cover most of those criteria…," he thought for a moment, and I know that Oracle has been trying to get me to interact more with Raven, "Would you like to go there with me?"

Raven looked at him for a long moment then said,

"All right…I guess it can't be too dangerous."

Next on Mind and Body: a simple excursion and falsified bonding time becomes a terrifying ambush in Chapter 17: Night at the Museum