A/N: Chiro is my favorite character, has been ever since the series premiere. And even after six years, this hasn't changed. The boy is one of the sweetest, kindest, most loving characters I have ever known in any fandom, and I love him for being the way he is. Just a little Chiro lovin' I felt needed to be professed. XD

Five: Chiro's afraid of being powerless.

Chiro wakes from his nightmare.

It's been one week since Mandarin used Valina's powers to turn him into a powerless little boy.

As a child, he'd always wondered what having superpowers was like.

And now that he knew he never wanted to go back to being normal.

But as Antauri says, nothing lasts forever.

For with one blast of magical energy, everything he'd ever feared was upon him.

A young boy of five or six without any powers whatsoever... Dear Shuggazoom, this brought back memories...

Before Chiro had met the Monkey Team, he'd lived at the city orphanage.

He'd kept to himself for the larger part of those miserable years—one of the things he remembered most was the emotional and physical pain he'd endured at the hands of the other kids, the ones who thought he was weird—and he'd hated every moment.

He'd wished for someone, anyone, to take him away from the taunts, from the beatings, from the stifling loneliness, from the utter abyss in which he lived.

And finally, thirteen years later there came a day he will remember and cherish with all that is in him:

Everything he had ever prayed for and more he found in an abandoned Super Robot and in five cybernetic monkeys.

How close they had become since then—best friends, the closest family this side of the Centauri Moons—all Chiro had ever wanted.

But therein laid the darker side of this transformation.

Powers or no powers, he knew he'd forever have his friends' loyalty and love.

Powers or no powers, he knew they would protect and care for him all through.

Powers or no powers, they would readily put their lives at risk for his.

But that was just what he didn't want.

He wanted them to live, to love and thrive and win this war, whether they did it with or without him.

He didn't want to be the reason they died, Chosen One or not.

And then to add blood-curdling insult to open-injury, Antauri had been taken.

The tears that swam in his eyes were in no way, shape, or form a product of his new form.

The silver monkey had just time enough to warn Chiro before he had been sucked in by Valina's power, and even then the boy had almost been decapitated.

At that moment Chiro had fled, Otto and Gibson fending off their bewitched eldest brother to keep him from destroying his precious child.

It had been hideous, trying to stay one step ahead of the sole person in Chiro's life who he hadn't been afraid to call Father, who had ever cared as much as Antauri did.

And Mandarin knew both he and the silver monkey would rather be destroyed permanently than die by each other's hand. The orange monkey, black-hearted as he had become, was deliberately using their utmost weakness against them.

The three had lost him in the ventilation system after a while, but as expected things had gotten worse before they'd gotten better.

To end a night so fearful, Mandarin had used Chiro as leverage against the Super Robot, had nearly succeeded in killing him.

But as he senses the Power Primate within and throws back the covers to reveal his fourteen-year-old form, turns on his bedside light, and looks at the group picture of the Team on his nightstand, he smiles.

As long as he can use his powers for the betterment of his family, as long as he is able to help them defeat Valina and Mandarin and win this fight once and for all, he knows he'll be all right.

A/N: As promised, and as if you would expect any less, Antauri-Chiro father-son relationship, ho!

Also, the fill-ins in Chiro's past, up until he finds the Super Robot, are aspects of my theory about him, which will be expounded upon in my upcoming fic, 'Reasons Why,' which also delves into the theory of Skeleton King being Chiro's Father.

Oh, and the 'Centauri Moons' was used as a shout-out to one of my other favorite shows, Teen Titans, on which Chiro's voice actor, Greg Cipes, appears as Beast Boy! XD

Thanks for reading, as always!