"So, what's the word?" Aqualad asked, as Beast Boy replaced his communicator.
"Well, I got the message out," Beast Boy said, taking a seat down on the cold steel next to his teammates. "A lot of good it did. I got a message from Argent and Pantha, but they're in Africa right now. She said she'll try to get in touch with Wally, but nobody's heard from him since he went on vacation with Jinx. As for everybody else, most of them aren't even in the country, let alone the city." Despite calling out for help, the team seemed to have struck out.
"Well, what do we do now?" Lad asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
BB sighed. "We wait until an opportunity presents itself," he said, defeated. "Not much else we can do right now – unless we want to end up joining them down there."
The minutes ticked by slowly as the three sat in silence, trying everything in their power to tone out the hysterical laughter of their comrades-in-arms. Although they had not fallen into the same trap, the knowledge that they were helpless to stop their torture was torment enough.
As BB's watch watched homed in on the fifteen minute mark, the three were snapped to attention by a harsh whistling sound like that of an old train and an equally harsh voice shouting, "BREAK TIME!"
Realizing that an opportunity might just be around the corner, the three heroes nodded in agreement, and scooted back over to the ledge see what was going on.
"Okay, how much fun was that?" Control Freak beamed, clapping his hands festively. However, the Titans were far too out of breath to offer any sarcastic comments. The villain took the silence with a look of surprise. "What's this?" he laughed. "Not a single outburst? Don't tell you're all broken already! That would just about crush my little heart!"
As the fat man stood on stage feeling superior, Raven's tear-stained eyes flamed with fury. 'That fat son of a…I swear, when I get out of this contraption the first thing I'm going to do is force-feed that bloated freak through a tuba!' she thought, her blood boiling. It hadn't been enough that Control Freak had gotten the upper hand and tickle tortured her first time; no, he had to go and do it again. No man should have ever tried to tickle Raven into submission and get away with it, but he did. However, there was no way in hell he was going to get away with it twice. But what could she do about it? As long as she remained strapped in this chair, she was helpless to his every whim. Contemplating her situation, Raven let her eyes fall into the metallic shackles that led her ankles firmly in place. Looking at it, she could see the reflection of a small piece of mirrored glass on the floor, no doubt a leftover from one of the many evil schemes that had been hatched in this building. As she stared, she thought she could make out something in the double reflection, something sitting near her legs on the underside of the chair. What was that, some sort of power device? Or was it…
Her eyes widened in surprise. "No way…" she whispered.
Raven realized that she was looking at the fail-safe override for her chair! If she could reach it, it would be her ticket to sweet revenge against Control Freak. But how? Testing her restraints, the girl quickly realized that the chair was not going to move forward. Try as she might, the hinge refused to budge. Furiously, Raven threw herself back against the chair. It seemed that, like Tantalus, Raven's salvation existed just outside her reach…
Suddenly, the girl heard a small clicking sound, and felt her body straight out a little bit. Inspiration flashed in her mind as she realized a better method. 'The chair would ratchet forward,' she thought, 'but it will go back. Let's find out how far."
Drawing on all of her physical strength, Raven began bending her body backwards towards the override. However, this was not as simple as one might have assumed. The Titan was not quite as flexible as a circus performer, and it didn't take too long for her body to remind her of that. 'Uhhg…God, this hurts,' she thought to herself as she reached a nearly 90 degree angle. 'I don't even think Starfire's this limber.'
Pain lanced up the girl's spine as she continued to fold herself over, but she couldn't have cared less. That physical stimulus was one she could handle day in and day out, like she had be trained to do. Tickling, on the other hand, had not been on her list of stimuli worth defending against. Grunting, she made a mental note to add that one to the list.
As Control Freak polished off his sandwich, he was well unaware of Raven's intentions, but things were not going swimmingly for the Titan. The pain, coupled with the blood rush to the head, her making her feel light-headed as she inched closer to her goal. Her body was a mess, as her ankles threatened to separate from her body and her backbone seemed only moments away from snapping in half. With one final push, Raven felt as her middle finger brushed against the outside of the override control. 'Almost…here…' she thought…
"Hey!" a voice rung out from across the building, nearly scaring the priestess half to death. The next thing she knew, she was letting out a yelp as the chair flipped back to its' original position with so much force it nearly gave her whiplash.
'NO!' she thought, the voice in her head practically screaming. 'I was so close!'
Glaring back up at the stage, she clenched her teeth in rage as Control Freak and Mad Mod looked down at her, shaking their heads disapprovingly.
"Tsk-tsk-tsk," the rotund villain said, smirking. "Rae-Rae, you've been a very bad girl…although I've got to admit – seeing you bent over backwards like that sure did get the old juices flowing!"
"Go to Hell, you fat freak," the girl said, her eyes burning.
Freak grinned evilly, and raised the remote over his head again, signaling an end to this little break. "You first, sweetheart," he said, pressing the button.
As laughter once again filled the warehouse, Beast Boy reflected on what he had just seen. "Aqualad," he said, quietly, "I just got an idea."
"Well, as long as it doesn't require us to dress in drag and do the hula, I'll bite," the hero responded.
BB smirked at that remark, picturing how the pretty boy Titan would look in a strapless dress and heels. Quickly, he shook the image form his head. Now was the time to be serious. "I need you guys to help me create a diversion," he began, laying out his plan. "I'm gonna head down to the floor near Raven's position. Once there, I'm gonna give you a signal. When I do, you throw the main breaker in the circuit box – it's right over there, by the stairs. Once that's done, you and Tremm find a place to hide up here and wait for me to get back. Got it?"
"Sure, but how will I know when you're giving me a sign?" Aqualad asked, concerned.
BB smiled. "Trust me, you know it when you see it," he quipped.
With the plan set in place, the three heroes headed in separate directions.
As Control Freak and Mad Mod studied the levels of energy they were collected from each device for their little experiment, the Titans screamed as their already sensitized bodies were ravenged all over again by Freak's diabolical instruments. Cyborg, mean while, was preoccupied with finding a flaw in his chair that he could utilize to escape. Because of all of this, not one of them noticed the little green rat that crawled its' way down one of the aging support beams. Nor did they notice when it toddled over to Raven's chair and flopped itself down on the ground, rolling around on the dusty floor.
Aqualad, on the other hand, did. He smiled as he watched the rat roll on the ground at Raven's feet. "That's a sign if I saw one," he said, reaching for the main breaker.
Control Freak's moment in the spotlight was cut a little sooner than he expected when it went out – along with the rest of the power in the building.
"What the…?" he stammered, stumbling around in the darkness. "Man, nothing ever works in this place. Mad Mod, however, could feel fear nipping at his heels.
"Control Freak! Get the power back on!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "Do it quickly, before they escape!"
The British villain was surprised to hear his companion laugh. "No sweat, Mod," Freak said. "The control panel has a built-in power unit. I installed it just for situations like this. The mechanical arms might shut down, but the chairs remain in their upright and fully locked position. They ain't going anywhere."
Hearing this, Mod allowed himself a little smile. "I must admit, you're much craftier at being a villain than I originally thought," he said.
Mod's response, however, was answered by the sound of metal banging around and the "OOFF!" of a fat guy hitting the ground, hard. "Of course, if I was any craftier, I would have thought to bring night-vision goggles," Control Freak growled as he staggered back to his feet.
Mod chuckled. "Allow me to remedy the situation," he said as he clapped his hands twice. Within a moment, the piercing red eyes of a Royal Guard robot shone in the darkness. "Go check the circuit breaker," the old man commanded. "This place isn't designed to run this late into the night."
As the machine headed to do its' master's bidding, the Titans found themselves with another small reprieve from the torment, talking another moment to collect their sense and prepare for what was next. But as Raven sat in the darkness, she was glad that none of them could see the tears of frustration that were running down her face.
'I was so close!' she thought, mentally kicking herself. 'I could touch it, and that bloated freak jerked me back from it. Now the damn thing's in full lockdown, and I can't move my chair to reach it. It's only a matter of time before that robot restores power to the building, and everything will start up again…'
Raven's internal beatdown session was interrupted by a voice emerging from the darkness. "Hmm…and here I thought you said that you weren't ticklish," it said, a 'told-you-so' tone in its' voice.
Raven's eyes widened as she recognized the voice. "Beast Boy?" she asked in a hushed whisper. "Is that you?"
Although the girl couldn't see the Titan, she felt a hand being placed on her right shoulder. "Yeah, it's me," she heard BB said.
Raven's heart fluttered for a slight moment. She could not remember a time when she was actually happy to hear that annoying grass stain's voice. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Breaking you out," the green hero stated as he felt underneath her seat for the override control.
"Wait…" the girl said, conflicted. As much as she wanted to be free from the mind-numbing sensations, she had her doubts as to her physical prowess in a fight that was sure to come. "Maybe you try freeing Starfire or Cyborg. They'd…they'd be better in a fight right now than me." Raven's face burned with embarrassment, and she was glad the darkness prevented Beast Boy from seeing that.
"No way," came the boy's reply. "Starfire's probably too weak from fighting against her restraints, and if Cyborg can't break his, there's no way I'm going to. Besides, your chair is the only one I think I know how to unlock."
That final remark left the girl in a state of confusion. "H-how do you know ere the fail safe switch is?" she asked.
BB paused for a moment, and swallowed hard. He knew very well that providing an answer to that question would lead to bad things in the future. However, Raven deserved to know, and it would kill him if he kept that from her…even though she would probably kill him for what he was about to say. "I…uh…saw you when you were reaching for it," he finally said, wincing at the thought of what lied ahead.
Raven's confusion was quickly replaced by a sea of fury. Every muscle tightened up in her body, and her face twisted horribly in anger. If Beast Boy could have seen it, he most likely would have gone screaming into the night. "You WHAT?" she hissed, her voice sharp as a dagger. "Just exactly how long have you been here?"
"Uh, five…ten…maybe fifteen minutes?" the Titan said, sheepishly. "Quite possibly twenty?"
There was a moment of silence between the two, but BB could practically feel the rage flowing from Raven's body as she trembled beneath his fingers. He wasn't certain, but he surmised that the look she was giving him could have dropped him dead on the ground. Finally, a reply came from the darkness, the tone as deep as Trigon himself: "If I were you, Beast Boy…I would just leave me in this chair…because if you let me out of it, I swear I'll make your life a living hell."
Beast Boy nearly cried. So much for mending the rift between the two Titans. Now Raven was even angrier with him. Swallowing hard, he finally located the override control. "I guess Ill just have to take my chances," he said, flipping the switch.
Raven's body flowed with eternal relief as the shackles sprang loose. Sitting up, she located her boots and slid them back into her feet. Taking a deep breath, she could feel the ethereal energy surge within her being once again. 'Time for payback', she thought.
"So Rae, are you feeling back your old sel-AAACK!" BB's words were cut off as the Azorethian's right arm snaked out, her hand latching itself right around his throat. 'I'll take that as a 'yes'," he said, croaking like a bullfrog.
From the darkness of the room, two red eyes shone. But this was not one of Mod's toys. "You sat up there and just watched as Control Freak tormented us for twenty minutes?!" Raven growled, her rage boiling over.
"Ah, ah, I'm sensing…a little…hostility here," the hero managed to choke out from underneath the girl's fingers.
"Really?" she said, sarcastically, her red eyes narrowing. "How ever did you guess?"
Summoning all of his strength, Beast Boy managed to pry the priestess's fingers from off his throat. Free to breathe again, he quickly recomposed himself. "Look, we don't have time for this right now,' he said, a serious tone in his voice. "If you wanna hate me, hate me. The truth of the matter is that the other Titans are still in lockdown, and the power's gonna be up any moment now. So, unless you want to have another walk down Giggly Schoolgirl Lane, I suggest we get upstairs now."
As the Titan's words resonated in Raven's mind, her red eyes faded back into the darkness. "Fine", she said, coldly. "But don't think this is over. Now, give me your hand."
Offering it up, Beast Boy's eyes went wild with pain as the girl practically crushed it in her grip. The pain would continue as the Girl from Azareth levitated the two of them to the upper floor.