There's Air All Over the Place
in which the obvious solution is never the best idea in the world
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Back in the Couch Potato Lair again, Control Freak sat at the Cuisinically Gifted Couch Potato Kitchen Table while Pinky was played with the Couch Potato Vending Machines of Terror off next to the All-Containing Couch Potato Refrigerator. (...It was a long story as to why he had vending machines in his secret lair, but suffice it to say that the Coven was making a nice side profit by him.) Brain, his gigantic head bandaged messily, was sitting on the table itself and scribbling a few plans in a notebook at least twice as big as he was.
"Perhaps the last scheme was slightly flawed," Brain conceded, working out a tough-looking equation. "However, this time I believe I have come up with a better plan."
"Oooh!" Pinky piped up from on top of the soda vending machine. He was having fun trying to push the buttons with his tail. "Do we get to have a plan where we tap dance to the tune of 'The Flight of the Bumblebee'? Troz!"
There was a short silence as Control Freak turned around in total incomprehension. Then he turned back to the Brain. "What is his problem?!?" he demanded in a hiss.
"I find that I'm better off not knowing," the Brain replied, then returned his attention to his equations. He pondered over them for a moment more, then he snapped his fingers. "I HAVE IT!"
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Once more, the three were stationed outside Titans Tower. This time, however, they were not hovering in the air above it, but right near the ground by the foundations of the building. In front of them was a medium-sized square grate firmly attached to the tower. Control Freak looked first at the grate, then at the Brain, then exploded.
"SNEAKING IN THROUGH THE AIR VENTS IS THE STUPIDEST THING I EVER HEARD OF!"
"Shhhhh!!" Brain hissed, conking Control Freak on the foot. It was actually rather painful, surprisingly, and the supervillain began to hop up and down on his good foot to try and even out the pain. "Do you wish to alert the entire span of existence to our plan?"
"But it's a moronic plan!" the supervillain protested as Pinky unscrewed the grate. "It's the most obvious thing for them to booby-trap! This is POINTLESS!!!"
"You mean poitless," Pinky corrected him brightly, then to drive the matter home the small mouse ejaculated a "Poit!"
Brain ignored his companion and instead scoffed at Control Freak, his jagged tail whipping irritably from side to side. "It's because it's the most obvious entrance!" he snapped, sweeping a pink hand towards the grate. "They won't have trapped it because they won't think that anyone's idiotic enough to use it!"
To complete the insinuation, Brain shoved Control Freak headfirst into the shaft.
"OOF!" he exhaled as his lungs crumpled painfully. Gasping in huge breaths, Control Freak attempted to restimulate his internal organs, then tried to back out through the grate. This proved impossible due to several highly improbably contortions his torso had made during his unceremonious entrance, and instead he was forced to wriggle forwards, his immense bulk scraping painfully against the sides of the shaft. In a massive effort, he managed to force his stubby arms up above his head and claw his way pitifully forwards until he came to a shaft adjoining vertically with the one he'd just crawled through. Sending his entire spine through a grotesquely difficult range of motion, Control Freak squirmed himself headfirst into the adjoining passage, scrabbling until he was standing upright.
As he looked down, Control Freak couldn't be sure whether it was the dim light or his huge midriff that made it impossible to see. Glancing back up to the dizzying heights above, Control Freak pretended that it was the darkness, although there was ghostly but adequate illumination from light strips on the wall. He was tempted to yell something back at the mice behind him, but there was the possibility of one of those stinking Titans hearing him. So, settling for a mental Vulcan profanity—quite tricky, since none of them are supposed to exist—Control Freak gritted his teeth and steadied each of his legs against one side of the shaft before proceeding to crawl slowly upwards.
After what felt like an hour, Control Freak spotted what seemed like a dark square on the side of the tunnel. As he drew closer, he saw that it was a shaft branching off into another part of the Tower—possibly the control room! Heart pounding, Control Freak frantically groped his way up to the passage, and when he finally grasped the floor of the adjoining shaft with a gloved hand it was with giddy anticipation. At least, that was what it was until he saw what looked like a small pink tail swishing back and forth next to his hand. And until he horror-strickenly pulled himself up far enough to see inside the shaft.
"HAHA! NARF!"
There were those two infuriating mice, sitting quite calmly in the adjoining horizontal passage and watching him struggle. Pinky had his hands clamped over his mouth and was giggling so hard that he looked like he was having a seizure. Brain, while his reaction wasn't quite as extreme, was smiling so exasperatingly that Control Freak would have throttled him if he didn't have to keep a firm grip on the sides of the tunnel.
"Having fun?" Brain inquired sarcastically, his eyes lighting up diabolically at the suffering he was giving the supervillain. The remark, though uttered fairly quietly, rebounded off the sides of the passageway and echoed back at them as something that sounded vaguely rude. Control Freak chose not to answer. "We entered through another grate on the other side of the Tower."
"You could've just climbed up here yourselves, WITHOUT ME!" the supervillain hissed, scrabbling further up the tunnel until he towered over them. "Thanks to you, I'm stuck!!"
Pinky let out a disgustingly nasal snort and collapsed even further into laughter. Even without any coherent words slipping between the mouse's guffaws, Control Freak knew Pinky was referring to his overly-pronounced gut. He blazed with anger again, causing Brain to wave the idea carelessly away with an ever-widening smirk.
"But you can't trust us, can you?" he asked, trying desperately to contain spiteful laughter. "If we were to go up alone, we could take over this Tower ourselves and leave you OUT." The mouse accidentally let slip a congested, mirthful chuckle. "It's what you would've wanted, no?"
Yes, it's what I would've wanted, NO! Control Freak screamed internally, but he had to count on the Brain's help too much to repeat it out loud. He didn't need to count on it enough, however, to stop him from glaring reproachfully at the rodents as they scurried out of the adjoining passageway and into Control Freak's shaft, clawing their way along the metallic sides of the tunnel just ahead of the struggling supervillain.
"Where're we trying to go?" Control Freak couldn't help asking in a slightly hushed voice. The sound of the echoes heading up the passage worried him, as they might be heard, but even years of religiously watching science fiction movies hadn't quite taught him the secrets of telepathy. As well, those characters with that power that he had encountered during his jaunts into television hadn't quite appreciated his interrupting their meditations.
"OOH!! OOH OOH!!!!" Pinky shouted, waving a small, pink hand about fanatically. "I WANNA GO TO THE KITCHEN AND SEE IF THEY HAVE ANYMMMMMPH!!!!!"
Before he could finish, Brain clamped a hand over his companion's mouth. "Pinky, be quiet!" he admonished, his bloodshot eyes looking nervously up the shaft. Pinky squirmed as an unearthly silence descended. Control Freak held his breath, but after several minutes it didn't sound like the Titans had heard anything from wherever they were. He let out a gargantuan sigh and completely forgot his question.
"Good thing we weren't discovered," he remarked for no apparent reason, inching his way up the shaft again. Slightly more relaxed, Pinky and Brain had already scrambled further up. "If they couldn't hear that, absolutely NOTHING can go wrong this time! WAHAHAHAHA!!"
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In a room much higher up in the Tower were two teenaged girls, one orange-skinned with long russet hair who was wearing a purple miniskirt and top, the other with an ashen complexion, a black leotard and a massive blue cloak with the hood pulled over her face. Both were reading, Raven—you should know which one she is for the same reason you should have recognized Beast Boy before—deeply engrossed in a manual of advanced spells and Starfire flipping through what seemed to be a Tamaranean fashion magazine. Both were levitating somewhere around three inches above Raven's bed, cross-legged and almost totally oblivious to anything else. That is, until Starfire looked up and commented, "It has become somewhat...stuffed in here, Raven."
Raven didn't even bother looking up. "It's not 'stuffy', Starfire," she replied, her emotionless voice rasping a little. "It's closed and secure. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere else."
Starfire brightened. "There shall be no need!" she proclaimed happily, setting her feet back down on the floor and striding over to the wall. "I shall—"
She was cut off by Raven, who still hadn't looked up. "Don't even think about it, Starfire," she warned.
"It is simply an adjustment to the conditioning of air," Starfire insisted, and clicked a button on the wall.
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In the middle of the shaft, Control Freak suddenly heard a rumble. He looked up at Brain worriedly.
"What's that?" he asked, dreading the answer. Pinky squealed with delight.
"It sounds like an elephant!" he cried ecstatically, peering down into the darkness. Then he straightened and scratched his head. "But what would an elephant be doing in—"
He didn't get a chance to finish his thought, as a massive gust of wind suddenly whooshed up from beneath and sent both mice flying rapidly up the passage. As their screams and shouts echoed off the walls, Control Freak chuckled darkly to himself and rubbed his paunch.
"What's the weather like up there?" he called mockingly, not caring if the Titans heard him. He grinned triumphantly. "I've got you there, rodent! You don't see ME flying away in a littleWAAAAAAAAAAAUGGGHHH!!!!!"
With a gigantic, gratuitous effort, the wind loosened the supervillain's grip and sent him shooting up the shaft as well.
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Far above (but quickly getting nearer), a trickle of cool air seeped into Raven's room. Starfire let out a sigh of pleasure, but Raven immediately dropped her book and glared accusatorily at the Tamaranean.
"WHAT," she asked through gritted teeth, "DID I JUST SAY?"
Starfire was a little concerned. "But...the room was becoming like the inside of a Space Vork's glooshflik!" she protested. "It is moderately pleasant now!"
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Screaming all the way up, Control Freak was soon whisked all the way up through the Tower's ventilation system until he was surging directly behind Pinky and Brain again. Brain glared down at him past the ripples the G-Force was creating in his face.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!" he shouted, his voice at a much higher pitch from the pressure and his emotion. "WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT NOTHING GOING WRONG?!?!?"
"I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT NOTHING GOING WRONG, BRAIN!!!" Pinky yelped in reply, but he was ignored.
"BY MY CALCULATIONS," Brain resumed, the echoes of his previous shout still bouncing around the tunnel, "IN ABOUT TEN SECONDS WE'RE GOING TO POP OUT OF THE TOP OF THE TOWER!!!!! WHERE WE COME FROM, THAT IS CALLED SOMETHING GOING VERY WRONG!!!!!!!"
"SO I LIED!!!!!!" Control Freak screamed. The howling of the wind was almost too much for him. "AT LEAST THINGS CAN'T GET ANY WORSE!!!!!!"
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At that exact moment, Raven used an energy bolt to click the air conditioner back off.
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With a whirrr, the wind died abruptly in the shaft. All was quiet. Pinky, Control Freak and Brain, defying all the laws of physics, remained hanging in midair for about one more second. In that one second, Brain favored Control Freak with a look that simultaneously conveyed disgust, annoyance and wholehearted loathing.
"I find you utterly repugnant," he remarked, and suddenly the three dropped like a stone back down the shaft.
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A few seconds later, a large clang reverberated throughout the entire Tower, making Cyborg look up from his repair job. Scooting himself out from under the T-Sub, Cyborg walked over to the ventilation ducts and, with an inhuman effort, ripped the grate off. When he did, he let loose the echo of a very rude-sounding remark. He winced, rubbed his one remaining human ear and muttered something about talking to Beast Boy later.
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A few tourists looking at the Tower from their cars noticed an odd-shaped bulge protruding from somewhere near the base of the building, but it was not commented upon.