Rocket Trouble

in which getting into the Tower may be more than our "heroes"

bargained for

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In no time at all, Control Freak was crouched in the bushes outside Titans Tower. He stared up at the reflective windows of the building, licking his lips in the anticipation that it would soon be his. Then he turned around, glancing back at his two cohorts, and spoke in a low but somewhat impatient voice. "Are you ready yet?!?"

"Perhaps you would enjoy making the necessary alterations!" Brain retorted, grunting as he adjusted some knobs and wires on a giant contraption lying on the ground. It looked like a gray, horizontal refrigerator with a small satellite dish attached to it and what looked like PVC tubing connected to a hose nozzle extending from the back. The Brain stood up, then fiddled around with them a bit more, then straightened again and wiped annoyed sweat off of his forehead. "There's no way of telling if the heat-based lasers I've installed will function correctly, what with the...inferior materials I was forced to work with." He glared significantly at Control Freak as if to say that although they were on the same side, the Brain would do his best to insult him at every turn. This was a common element of villain-to-villain teamups (as Control Freak had seen so many times on TV and in comic books), so he allowed it to pass. "Without the equipment I would've had back at the lab, it's impossible to tell whether the beams will melt through the steel reinforcers or if we'll end up on an entrée list."

Pinky, who had been fiddling with a screw in the frame, inhaled in a single massive gasp. "Oh, I wanted to eat out tonight, Brain!" he squealed joyfully. "I love those fancy restaurants with those silly-willy waiters who all think they're in France! They're so stupid they don't even know what country they're in!" He chuckled nasally. "I'in't that funny?"

Looking to the Brain, Control Freak pointed at Pinky. "Does he have to be here?!" the supervillain demanded. It had not taken long for him to realize that while the Brain's mind was a force to be reckoned with, Pinky's IQ was approximately the equal of most American Idol contestants.

Brain glanced at Pinky, who was now inspecting quite thoroughly the contents of his earwax, and sighed. "Unfortunately, yes," he muttered, continuing to adjust the knobs. "If Pinky were unleashed on the rest of society, he would inevitably cause the downfall of life as we know it. It's far easier to simply contain him within my line of sight."

There was a slight pause, and Control Freak couldn't tell whether the mouse had actually answered his question or not. He was about to request elaboration on this point when Brain looked up sharply. "Are the rear thrusters in position, Pinky?" he shot off. The taller mouse leapt to attention and scurried to the back of the contraption, pulling out from inside the casing what looked like two long exhaust pipes. He then saluted.

"Right-o, Brain!" he called, waving a paw exuberantly. "Poit!"

Brain rubbed his paws together. "Excellent," he grinned. Then he took on a slightly more serious countenance as he turned to Control Freak. "I believe that all is in order."

"Good," Control Freak replied with forced composure (he didn't want to add to Brain's possible insult material by jumping up and down and yelling "Squeee!!!"), then took a moment to utter a ritualistic blessing over the contraption in Klingon before reaching down and picking it up. Surprisingly it was lighter than he'd expected, but he still had to stagger to avoid losing his balance before he slipped his arms into the straps. Shrugging the thing over his plump shoulders and making sure that the thrusters were pointed downwards, Control Freak decided to make sure that he hadn't forgotten anything.

"So. This invention of yours," Control Freak reaffirmed slowly. "It'll FLY us up along the sides of the Tower, where we can melt that STEEL stuff between the windowpanes so YOU TWO can crawl in and dismantle the security system?"

"Is your attention span as pitiful as Pinky's?" Brain demanded, scrambling up Control Freak's leg and on further until he'd settled on the supervillain's left shoulder. "Of course that's what it will do! After all, I am a superintelligent lab mouse, and you are NOT."

"I dunno, Brain," Pinky countered, appearing suddenly on Control Freak's other shoulder holding the spray nozzle. "That wasn't a very stupid thing for 'im to do. After all, we needed the plot exposition."

Both Control Freak and Brain favored the lanky mouse with an expression that exhibited confusion, annoyance and disdain all at once.

"Take us up!" the Brain ordered, and Control Freak reached around the back of the refrigerator-shaped contraption. Fumbling a little, he located the correct switch and flicked it upwards, which caused a small thumb-accessible control panel to slide out near his right hand. Gripping the strap firmly with his left hand, Control Freak grabbed the control panel and pressed the appropriate button.

With a gigantic whoosh, the overweight supervillain was rocketed straight up into the air at such a force that even his idol Darth Vader might not have survived. With screams of pure terror, Control Freak pressed random buttons in an attempt to stop before the pressure of his mass against the atmosphere caused him to burst into flames. What this accomplished, however, was to change his direction so rapidly that it felt like there were five of him rocketing in ten different directions at once. First he barreled straight upwards for fifteen stories or so, then he was upended and shot straight back towards the ground, then he went diagonally, then horizontally, and spun so much it felt as if his entire body was going to just rip apart.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" he shrieked around five octaves higher than most people his age.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Brain screamed, and gripped the hem of Control Freak's cloak as tightly as was physically possible.

"YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Pinky shouted, like he was on a roller coaster and not a highly volatile rocket engine.

After much more gratuitous careening of the rockets, Control Freak's shaking hands managed to grasp the panel and frantically smash some more buttons. There was a pause, and the rocket lingered in midair right next to the Tower, keeping the supervillain and his two minuscule companions floating and, thankfully, right-side-up. Control Freak heaved a massive sigh.

"That was cloAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" he screamed again, breaking off his sentence as the thrusters suddenly sent out a final burst of energy and shot him straight into one of the Tower's huge, reflective windows.

Splat.

Like a massive bug, with two smaller bugs on each of its shoulders, Control Freak and both mice smushed against the indestructible glasslike material and slid slooooooooooowly downwards three floors before landing with an ungraceful wham on the lawn. The pile twitched, but otherwise didn't move.

One of the windows slithered open at the sound and a teenaged boy with pointed ears, green skin and a greener crew cut poked his head out. Looking from side to side in the empty air, Beast Boy—if you couldn't recognize him by the previous description you probably wouldn't have read this far—scratched his head, shrugged and shut the window again.

From somewhere near the bottom of the crumpled heap of supervillain, gigantic rocket booster and mice, Brain's voice croaked, "Perhaps the forward thrust was a tad too brisk."

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After an hour and more than a few bottles of rubbing alcohol, the necessary repairs to the rocket thrusters were complete. Rubbing a sore spot on his shoulder, Control Freak stationed himself outside Titans Tower again with the huge contraption on his back. He glanced nervously down at the Brain, who was once more perched on his left shoulder. "Are you sure that it's going to work this time?"

Brain scoffed. "Of course it will work," he insisted, much as he had the first time Control Freak had attempted to use the invention. "I repaired it."

You also built it wrong the FIRST time, Control Freak thought privately, but didn't dare say as much aloud. He needed Brain's help to complete his evil deeds quota, and there was no question that the mouse was intellectually comparable to Einstein. Each supergenius was entitled to a few mistakes from time to time.

Pinky was practically vibrating in his spot, jumping up and down in excitement. "Oh, I hope this ride's as fun as the last time! Fjord!"

Control Freak groaned, not only at the memory but at Pinky's utter lack of concern in their mission. The imbecilic little mouse probably wasn't even concerned with taking over the world at all, no matter what Brain said. He briefly considered going up on the rockets, then accidentally dropping the taller mouse into the flares of the boosters—

"What are you waiting for, you simpleton?" Brain interrupted testily, thumping his crooked tail against Control Freak's shoulder in irritation. Control Freak gritted his teeth, fed up with having to take verbal abuse from a cartoon character.

"I was just about to go up, ya little runt!" he snapped back. Brain was momentarily silenced, but Pinky seemed confused.

"Where's Runt?" he asked, looking around frantically from side to side. "Are he and Rita here too? They're lots of fun...well, except when Rita thinks that I'm her lunch. I remember one time when—"

He didn't get to remember that one time, as Control Freak activated the rockets again. He might have been worried about imminent death, but listening to Pinky prattle on about trivialities somehow seemed worse.

Thankfully, the thrusters were working properly this time and Control Freak plus his passengers zoomed upwards at a comfortable speed, stopping at the fifth floor of the Tower. Control Freak paused for a gratuitous evil cackle, which Pinky tried copying without much success. "YESSSSSSSSSS!!!" the supervillain shouted triumphantly, but Brain cut him off.

"Be quiet!" he hissed, pointing to the window. "One of those 'Titans' could hear you! I doubt that glass is soundproofed! ...And besides, 'Yessssssssss' is MY word!"

"But the Titans could see me anyways," Control Freak retorted, then stiffened with a jolt. "Wait, wait...that's not a good thing."

"Then we must hurry!" Looking around Control Freak's nearly nonexistent neck, Brain spoke to Pinky. "Are you ready, Pinky?"

"Aye-aye, Cap'n Brain! Zort!" Pinky replied with a giggle, hoisting the nozzle of the hose connected to the heat laser generator.

Control Freak reached around behind him to the body of the rocket thruster, flicking another switch to turn on the laser power. It was perfectly safe; the laser wouldn't go on until Pinky activated the switch on the nozzle.

"REMEMBER, PINKY," Brain yelled over the roar of the laser generator warming up, "SHOOT IT AT THE STEEL, BUT NOT AT THE WINDOW!"

Pinky's ears perked up. "HUH, BRAIN?" he replied just as loudly, pressing the switch as the hose vibrated up and down in his tiny arms. "WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT SHOOTING AT THE WINDOW BUT NOT THE STEEL?"

"NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Brain and Control Freak shouted in unison, waving their arms around frantically, but the laser beam had already been discharged. In a flash it streaked towards the window, and in another flash it deflected off the superpowered glass and shot straight back at the hovering supervillain and the two mice. With the sound of a curtain spontaneously igniting, the laser fried all three of them to a crisp and proceeded to melt the rocket thrusters into a twisted, unrecognizable lump of congealed metal. There was a sputtering cough, and the clot of singed equipment and flesh dropped like a stone straight down to the ground.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHTHUNK.

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Inside the Tower, Robin sniffed the air confusedly and turned around. "Hey Cyborg, are you making dinner early?" he called.

A shaved, half-mechanical brown head poked out of an adjoining doorway. "Nope," Cyborg replied, holding a wrench and wiping oil off his hands with a cloth. "I'm just repairing the T-Sub. Why d'ya ask?"

Robin scratched his head, carefully avoiding flattening down his spiky black hair. "Hmmm. Thought I smelled chicken."

Cyborg shrugged. "Don't look at me, man."

So concluding the conversation, both superheroes returned to their respective tasks.

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There was a small moment of inactivity outside the Tower, then, sore in every possible region of his body as well as in some muscles he hadn't previously known existed, Control Freak staggered to his feet and hauled up the two mice by the napes of their necks. "You are SO gonna pay," he muttered threateningly, then collapsed backwards in a recuperative faint. Pinky looked at Brain, Brain looked at Pinky, Brain cracked Pinky over the head with the metal nozzle of the hose and they, too, passed out with a gurbled sigh.

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At long last, when all three of them had reawakened, Brain reconstructed the machine and Control Freak successfully buzzed them up to a high enough floor. This time Brain had the laser-spewing hose, and with a dogged, triumphant "YESSSSS!" shot a steady beam at the steel reinforcers. Control Freak's eyes lit up with glee.

"After all this time, I'm going to get rid of the Titans!" he squealed, rubbing his hands together. "This is so exciting!!!!!!"

The exhilarating suspense endured for around two minutes of steady discharge before it started getting old fast. "WHAT'S THE MATTER?" Control Freak snapped impatiently at Brain. "CAN'T THIS GO ANY FASTER?!?"

Brain stared fixedly at the nozzle of the hose, then at the steel reinforcers of the Tower, then wearily back at Control Freak. "It's laser-resistant," he stated simply, shutting off the lasers, and a small hush descended on the tiny, floating group. Pinky chuckled nervously.

"Didn't see that one coming," he remarked weakly.

Shortly afterwards, the rear thrusters spontaneously decided that they'd taken enough abuse already and just shut down, sending Control Freak, Pinky and Brain plummeting once more straight to the ground with a thud and a slight groan.

"Didn't see that comin' either! Narf!"