A/N: Yeah, I know no-one wants to read this over RTJ, but tough.
BIGGEST CHAPTER EVER - OVER 2200 WORDS WTF
Oh and all of the THREE people who REVIEWED are god(esses?) and as such get their Atlantian, because literally all of you said it'd be cool.
SELF INSERT GUESS WHO I AM OMG IT'S SO HARD!
Alright, calm. Read and please, please, please, please review this. Hell if you only read it it'd still be great, because I'm currently sitting at one hundred and twenty views, two favourites and one follow, and I think I'm going to cry. (Okay, not really.) Even if you want to say it's bad, then bloody well SAY IT! I am a man and can handle such emotional turmoil as haters. Geez.
Oh yeah, the story. Here you go. I don't own musics. At all.
Mine's Better, Just Saying
In the morning, Raven rubbed her eyes and tiredly floated down to the common room, where every Scarlet Striker had somehow appeared during the night.
"So where exactly is this Stratowing of yours?" Cyborg was asking Electron. "And what even is the thing?"
"Currently? It's about half a mile below sea level just off shore." Electron replied. "It's the greatest jet ever created."
"Ah, no, I bet my T-Jet could blow it outta the water." Cyborg challenged. Electron snorted.
Silhouette beckoned Raven over and slid her goggles up her face. "Hey Rae. The "Leaders" are just discussing when we're leaving. And by discussing I mean they're arguing."
"Of course." Raven sighed and sat down on the sofa. "Do you want to separate them, or should I?"
"I'll do it. I need the amusement."
Raven watched with a fair amount of said amusement as the British girl disappeared then reappeared between the Cat and Robin and steadily pushed their heads apart.
"Okay, Strikers, Titans, we are going down to get the plane, and then we are going to take it from there, all right?" she announced, as Robin and Cat turned their backs on each other and walked (Robin stomped angrily, and Cat managed to flounce in a way that didn't compromise his masculinity) to opposite sides of the room, before they realised that their teams were both going out of the door and hurriedly fell into step beside them.
Robin was beside Raven. Which was annoying.
"Can you get a read on any of them?" he asked.
"Reverb has too much noise in her head; Cat's too crazy; Electron has a load of static or something in his brain; Blades doesn't have emotions, as far as I can tell; Flareup's mind is flirting with me; and I like Silhouette too much to intrude in her head." Raven replied.
"Figures. Star and BB like Reverb because she's happy. Cyborg and Electron are already science bros, and I," Robin admitted grudgingly, "may have some slight admiration for Cat and Blades' tactical skills."
Raven crossed her arms. "But you still don't trust them."
"They don't trust us."
"Silhouette trusts me." Raven said, shrugging. "She told me her name and everything."
"Yeah, but you told her your name too, so that point is moot."
"You are such a stalker."
"Whatever, we're at the shore." Robin said evasively, and jogged up to the beach where Silhouette was tapping at a communicator and Cat was scuffing at the sand. Raven followed.
"Can you bring the jet up or not, Depthcharge?" the girl was telling someone-or-other on the communicator.
"Apologies, my lady, but I am being tailed by one of Orin's puppets." the communicator spat back in gruff, angry voice.
"Orin's puppets? Cat, nasal scan. What d'you smell?" Silhouette said, immediately businesslike.
Cat inhaled through his nose deeply, then coughed. "Well, short range I can smell Raven's lipstick: hmm, blueberry, how exotic; the lovely scent of wet dog, which I assume is Beast Boy; fire; salt, et cetera." he commented. Raven rubbed the back of her head awkwardly at Robin's curious look.
Silhouette rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Cat."
"Fish. Explosives...well, that must be Depthcharge...but there's someone else down there. Definitely a water-dweller."
Suddenly Robin's communicator burst into life. He opened it and Aqualad's worried face appeared on the screen.
"Robin! There's a huge jet down here, a couple hundred metres off shore, guarded by a known Atlantian criminal! Are you guys okay, because this guy's seriously – by Neptune, what the hell's that thin-"
The transmission cut out as the largest explosion Raven had ever seen went off in the water somewhere in front of them, spray shooting thousands of feet into the air.
"Jesus Christ, Depthcharge! I said no killing the Titans!" Cat berated his communicator.
"I did not kill him, landstrider, as much as I should have liked to." the gruff voice replied. "I shall bring the fool to surface immediately."
Minutes later a tarnished gold helmet broke the surface of the water, and a man built like a tank walked out of the surf, carrying Aqualad and unceremoniously dumping him on the sand.
The new arrival was almost seven feet tall, and wore archaic, tarnished gold fish-scale armour, with three holes in the chest which were spaced enough to be an old wound from a weapon such as a trident.
Aquaman carries a trident, Robin thought.
The armour should have extended into a chainmail skirt, but this had been ripped apart and was now only a few straggly lines of chain which extended halfway down the man's thigh.
His legs were coated in the smooth black waterproof fabric that Aqualad wore, but two tall gold greaves with images of sea monsters embossed onto them covered his lower legs. On his feet were boots made of a matte black metal with stripes of gold.
His belt was festooned with circular explosives of all sizes, from hand grenades to modern smart mines.
The helmet lacked a left eye-hole, but the other one revealed a burning orange stare. The crest reminded Robin of a sailfish's fin, serrated and tall, while the cheekpieces covered the man's face and instead had images of a beard made of an octopus' tentacles.
The most striking thing about this "Depthcharge" (for that was evidently the man's name) was his lack of a left hand, and instead he had a huge harpoon blade seated in a golden stump.
Depthcharge idly kicked some water onto Aqualad's face, and the boy woke up, coughing.
"Robin! ...hang on, who are these guys?" he spluttered, surveying the scene.
"They're a mercenary group we're helping. You just met their naval division." Robin replied, and pulled Aqualad to his feet.
"Naval division? That's Octanus A'kar! Ex-Atlantian army, they kicked him out after he punched out King Orin and blew up the palace."
"It was misunderstanding." Depthcharge shrugged. "I only blew up half of palace."
"Same difference?" Aqualad retorted in shock.
"Okay, okay, life stories later. Plane?" Flareup interrupted, cocking an eyebrow at Depthcharge.
"Of course." the Atlantian said, turning to the sea and pushing a button on his belt.
A few seconds later a big, silver-white jet burst out of the ocean, flew towards the shore and then lay in the water a few metres away.
"Plane." Depthcharge declared.
"Shall we?" Cat asked, indicating the plane.
"We shall." Robin replied.
"Wait, we have to swim there?" Beast Boy interrupted.
Swimming there wasn't so bad. Raven, Beast Boy and Starfire just flew over, sat on the boarding ramp and watched the rest.
Robin, of course, had an inflatable one-man boat in his belt, so he just rowed over, then packed up the boat like nothing had happened.
Blades just jumped, landing hard on the wing of the jet and then walking along the fuselage until he found the door. Raven got out of the way, as she wasn't keen on being crushed by eight hundred pounds of muscle and metal.
The two Atlantians swam, each keeping one eye one each other and the other on the other's team.
Electron powered up his boot jets and hovered slowly over the bay until he could land on the boarding ramp and walk up. Flareup followed him, though her method was somewhat more hot: she fired huge gouts of flame out of her palms, boiling the water below and almost setting Starfire's hair on fire before Raven pulled her out of the way.
Reverb's boots fired millions of decibels into the ground, making her float over, but she considerately turned off the sound before she was over Star and Raven, saving them a trip to a hospital for deafness.
Silhouette swam sedately across, her goggles over her face, pulling herself up onto the boarding ramp with Raven's proffered hand, then laughed at Cat's dallying, shook her head, and disappeared inside.
Cat looked at the water for a full minute, then huffed, took a small joystick from his coat pocket, and physically moved the plane up and fifteen metres to the left, until it was hovering just above him.
Electron handed Raven a black rope, saying "Just throw that over the side, will you?" which she did, then Cat clipped a thing on his belt to it and zipped up the line with a whirring noise.
"Could you have picked a more roundabout way to get on board?" Silhouette asked Cat from her co-pilot's seat.
Cat snorted. "I'm not getting wet. What do you think I am, a dog?"
He sat down in the pilot's seat, put some headphones on, flicked a few switches on the control panel in front of him, pushed a button marked T.O.M. and then pushed the throttle all the way forward.
The Stratowing shot into the air and soon the Titans Tower was a tiny speck in the distance. Cat levelled the plane out and cut speed to half, then pushed the T.O.M. button again.
He reached up and pushed another button on the higher-up panels. The opening bars of Cascada's "Every Time We Touch" filled the plane, until he pressed the button again, grumbling about "bloody Julie screwing with my plane."
This time, some screaming chords from Guns 'n Roses played. Cat pushed the button again.
"This Is The Life" by Amy Macdonald. Cat pushed the button again, earning a dirty look from Silhouette who had been nodding her head in time to the beat.
The music flicked from dubstep to metal to classic rock, back to metal, went on a bit of a tangent with some Irish violins, decided it liked dubstep again, played some Pavarotti just to screw with everyone, and then Cat hit his head off of the dashboard.
"God dammit, TOM, just give me my George Michael for once." he nearly wept.
The radio seemed to consider this for a minute, then the smooth saxophone of "Careless Whisper" filled the plane and Cat leaned back.
"Thank you, you useless, infuriating plane."
Raven - who was sitting in a chair across from Reverb, who was playing with her gauntlet settings - asked her companion what TOM was.
"Oh, TOM's the autopilot. He likes to mess with Cat."
"He?" Raven raised an eyebrow.
"TOM's an AI Electron built. He runs the autopilot, flies the plane when we're not around, and he gives us intel and things when we're in the field. Electron says he's based off a guy who was in his Physics class at school."
"So TOM's an acronym? What's it stand for?" Raven asked.
"Tactical Overview Module or something. If you wanted to know more you should ask Electron. He's way better at that stuff than me. I just built the radio." Reverb replied. "I think he's in the back with Cyborg, being sciencey. Come on, I'll show you!" she giggled.
Electron and Cyborg were indeed in the back of the plane, racing some little flying drones around the room while someone else watched.
Reverb ducked under one effortlessly and then cleared her throat.
"K. How's it going?" Electron asked her.
"Oh, we're going unsecret now? Okay." Reverb asked, a little surprised.
"Well, Cat said we're good for unmasking, but it was definitely Boss-Woman's idea."
The two Strikers laughed. "Sorry, it's a bit of an in joke." Electron explained. "I'm Alexander, by the way. This is Kimberly."
Reverb's helmet hissed. She lifted it off and put it on the small table, frowning. "I wanted to introduce myself, Xander." she said, hitting him on the shoulder.
"Vic. That's Rachel. And is the inside joke how Cat's probably the most whipped guy on the planet except Robin?" Cyborg replied.
Raven turned on Cyborg irritatedly. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Besides the totally obvious fact that you and the colourful one are probably the most shipped thing in that little tower you inhabit?" the "other person" asked, checking his nails.
"Ah...uh...who are you again?" Raven asked, thrown.
"This is TOM's holoform. Just, you know, if he ever comes out with weird fanfiction references, that's a minor glitch in his programming I haven't been able to fix. There's also a mistake in his personality coding which makes him more English than actual English people, so don't be too offended by that." Alexander explained.
"It is not a mistake, it is providence at work." TOM said snootily. His red-haired holographic self wore a green jacket and a pair of black trousers, and ridiculously shiny Cuban heeled boots. "Don't ever change it."
"I can't, you disabled my access to your personality drives!" Alexander retorted. "And your appearance settings!"
"With good reason. You can't modify perfection." the AI replied.
Cyborg elbowed Alexander gleefully. "At least my jet doesn't sass me at any given opportunity."
Alexander shot him a grin. "Oh-ho-ho, but does it have a snazzy holographic body?"
Kim tapped Raven on the shoulder and nodded at the bickering pair. "Let's go, unless you like contained explosions."
Raven snickered and stepped out of the door.
On reaching the cabin, she suddenly noticed something.
"Kim, your hair is blue."
"Yeah, it is. That's you just realising now? Ugh, I feel so ignored." Kim replied in mock despair. "I used to have blue highlights, but I went on an underwater op and some water got in the suit, the dye sort of ran, and now I have navy blue hair. You know your hair's purple, right?"
Raven touched her own hair, laughing. "Sometimes I forget, and people stop me in street wanting to know how I got my hair like that."
"Born with it?" Kim asked.
"How'd you know?" Raven said, surprised.
"Your eyebrows are the same colour. Okay, hair-dye-girl friend, let's go annoy Blades!"
Raven sighed. "Why do I get the feeling this won't end well?"