Teen Titans, Too!

By: A J

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

"How we found (and lost) an ally"

Dear Diary,

"Rubber baby buggy bumpers!" I cried, upon seeing the final shape of Aketon's work. (So I never learned the really naughty words; sue me.) Most of Aldarn's body was now armor-plated, making him look like a knight from those old Camelot movies my adopted parents love. The proud father stood back, his brow still sweaty from working the final metal-shaping spells, then turned to me.

"He but awaits a final infusion of mana to secure the connections between his body and the replacements, Your Majesty" Aketon said. He and Miranda stepped back, and watched me with trepidation.

"Here goes …" I held my hands out before me, and concentrated on the feeling in my fingers. Rick and Phobos, in instructing me in the use of my awakening powers, had said it was all a matter of 'feeling the energy' and 'meaning the magic'. So here I stood, wishing with all my heart I could save Aldarn, and having no Earthly (or Meridian!) clue how to go about it. After about a minute, Miranda cleared her throat, and I dropped my hands in disgust.

"Um, aren't you supposed to say something? Magical?" she asked. I gave her a pleading look.

"If I knew what words worked what … something tells me 'abracadabra' and 'hocus-pocus' just isn't what we're looking for here, though." I turned back to Aldarn's too-still form, and concentrated once more on the burgeoning core of my magical energy. 'C'mon, something, anything …' I ran through all the magical words and phrases I could remember from different movies and cartoons, but none of them seemed to fit the bill until … "Triguna, mecoides, tregorum sadis dei!" I intoned, wishing with all my might that the old spell from Walt Disney's 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks'© would help my fallen friend.

"What was that?" Aketon asked, his brow furrowed.

"Substitutiary locomotion," I muttered. 'Damn.' (Okay, I lied, I do know a few of the bad words, but Mom and Dad always told me that a dirty mouth was a sign of a dull mind. In this case, a couple colorful metaphors were more than called for, I figure.) "Okay, okay … anybody know any real magic incantations?"

"Just the one the Prince uses to awaken the golems on the ramparts as night guards," Aketon supplied. I gave him the universal 'continue' wave. I was starting to worry about how long we could keep Aldarn like this. "It's a strange word, he said it came to him from the witch who helped create the golems originally. Kwin … Kwintezense." I looked at him to make sure I'd heard correctly, and repeated it. He nodded once.

"Okay." I turned back to face Aldarn, and breathed slowly, concentrating on my magic.

"Good luck, Aldarn," Miranda murmured, and if it hadn't been for the worry in her voice, I think I would have lost it giggling. I had thought she had a crush on him before I'd known her more than two days. Now, I knew for sure.

'Ahem!' "Quintessence!" I cried, and sent as much mystic energy at Aldarn as I could. One minute … two minutes … My vision began to blur around the edges, and I started to sway on my feet. Just as I fell to my knees, unable to hold up the spell or myself any longer, two things happened.

Aldarn sat up, his eyes glowing light blue in contrast to their usual golden yellow. He gasped once, then started coughing into his now-metallic hands.

And while we three were all trying to spring forward to welcome him back to the world of the living, the door behind us crashed open, revealing Cedric, Raythor, and a half-dozen lurdens with drawn swords.

"Ah, Aldarn, sso good to ssee you're back among the breathing. You're under arresst," Cedric hissed out. Miranda and I both whirled to face him while Aketon helped his son sit up better.

"NO!" I cried, throwing my arms out between Cedric and Aldarn. "Hasn't he suffered enough?"

"He surely has suffered, from the looks of him Princess. But that does not mean that he has paid for his crimes," Raythor stated. He shouldered his sword, and stepped to the inside of the doorway so Cedric could follow in all his serpentine enormousness. I didn't care how much of him coiled into this tiny room, I wasn't budging. "Come with us, boy, and it'll go much easier on you."

Aldarn made more coughing noises, though he was looking in the direction of the two enforcers of my brother's will in Meridian.

"Please, leave him here with me," Aketon pleaded, one arm still around Aldarn. "He's just been restored, and still needs to be watched to ensure the joining takes."

"Conssider thiss protective cusstody," Cedric responded. "Resst asssured, he will be watched." His tongue flicked impatiently.

"A day, please!" Aketon begged. "Just a day! He's my son, please!" Raythor looked at the two of them in confusion, then, at the sight of their similar features, narrowed his eyes.

"Did you know your son is a Rebel, Aketon?" he accused. His sword was straight towards the pair again, and with a twitch of my head, I tried to signal Miranda to block his path while I dealt with Cedric. Unfortunately, snake-puss caught it as well, and hissed out a laugh.

"Do not think to interfere, Your Highnesss. Thiss iss officsial bussinesss of the kingdom, and you do not rule, yet."

"No, but I'm sure my brother is willing to hear this boy's case before letting him be thrown into an oubliette like the last Rebel prisoner." I suddenly wished I could talk to Taranee. Her dad was a lawyer. Maybe he could have argued with them better.

"Why, that iss exsactly where we were taking him, Princsesss. To your brother for ssentencsing."

"No …" Aketon moaned. He knew, better than Miranda or I apparently, what awaited his son in front of Prince Phobos. It was all the incentive I needed.

"Then let my brother come here. Aldarn is in no shape to move, and he's under my protection until he is better." It was the best I could do on short notice.

"Why, Princsesss, that is precsissely why we have brought so much help along. Ssurely you didn't think we meant to take the poor boy on in combat. It wass already known how injured he wass."

Aldarn finally managed to say something coherent. "Fatherr, don't …" He coughed raggedly after that, and I worried about him all over again, hoping that whatever magic I had managed, was enough to keep him alive until my brother got hold of him.

"Cedric," Miranda, Aketon and I pleaded at the same time. His reptilian features creased cruelly around his sudden smile, and I knew our answer was 'No.'

"Take him away," Cedric ordered, and I suddenly found myself being lifted in his tail-coils.

"NO!" Aketon cried, grabbing up one of his tools from the table between us and changing it into a sword with a Word of Power. He was immediately set upon by Raythor, who sure didn't look like he was enjoying his latest duty nearly as much as Cedric.

Miranda meanwhile had shifted to spider-form and webbed the door shut on the lurdens. I'd have applauded, but was too busy trying out my already-drained magics against one of my own teachers. Cedric countered every spell I could manage against him, laughing carelessly.

"Really, Princsesss," he rumbled. "Did you really think to match my might sso ssoon? I haven't taught you nearly enough for you to threaten me …"

He may have taught me bare basics, but Aketon had given me a new spell I hoped Cedric didn't have a counter for. "Quintessence!" I cried, letting out a burst of magic all around me. I didn't have much left, but at this point, I didn't have much to lose, either.

The table and several of Aketon's tools, awakened by my spell, attacked Cedric of their own volition suddenly. Caught by surprise, he released me, and I tumbled to the floor. Doing my best 'Duck, tuck, and roll', I retreated to a corner to 'regather my energies', as my adopted mom always liked to say. The phrase made a whole lot more sense, now.

My spell had one other side effect, I found. Aldarn now stood, proud and unsupported next to his father, one metal hand grasping Raythor's sword, and the other waving a single finger in front of the half-lurden. I wanted to cheer, but before I could, Cedric threw off the table, and swung his tail across the room at the trio. Aldarn saw it coming in time, and ducked, but with a terrible sound like corn going into a tree-chopper, Raythor and his sword were crushed against Aketon, and the blade punched right through the metallurgist.

Aketon slid to the floor, gasping around the sword. Raythor slumped, unconscious. Aldarn whirled on Cedric, and his hands transformed into twin-bladed weapons, like something out of a Predator movie. "That was yourr last act of crruelty, Cedrric." He stepped forth, and slapped the two sets of blades against each other. They rang like a bell, but apparently the sound did something much worse to the reptile before him. Cedric coiled in upon himself, crying out in agony. Aldarn slammed the blades together again, and Cedric changed back to human form before my eyes. He must have brought some of his other senses with him however, for shifting didn't save him. Clutching at his ears, he cowered before Aldarn.

The metal Rebel glanced up at Miranda, who had kept herself in her spidery form, (and hence had no eardrums to fear him,) and he nodded. She slid down and wrapped Cedric up in more of her silk webbing, and the two of them kicked him out the window into the moat.

"That won't keep him down," Miranda chittered. She shifted back to human herself, and was beside Aketon as fast as Aldarn and I were. It still never would have been fast enough.

"M-my sson," Aketon gasped. "Thank the … Light, you live."

"But at what cost, father? Can we save you the same way?" Aldarn's agonized gaze met mine, and I looked at all the tools strewn around the room. Metallurgy … if I could work that spell but one more time, for Aketon's sake …"

"It is too late … for me … son." Aketon grasped Aldarn's hand desperately. "I give you … one last gift." He coughed, and we were all horrified to see blood come out with it. "P-princess?"" He held out a hand, and I grasped it desperately. Dying, choking, he still had enough strength to place one of my hands over his own heart, and the other over Aldarn's reconstituted chest.

"Quin … tessence," Aketon gasped with his last, and I felt some of his energy travel through me, and into his son. Aldarn shook with his sorrow, and sank to place his head over his father's.

"I shall never forget," the mystical cyborg rasped through his tears.

At the sound of battering at the door, and Raythor finally stirring, I looked at them both. My brother might forgive me my part in this disaster, simply because he had some need of me I'd yet to uncover, but the others were not protected anymore.

"You have to get out of here. Both of you!" I fled to the window, and looked out to the moat below. I didn't see any sign of Cedric, but that didn't mean he hadn't emerged somewhere else to return and deal with us. "It's clear. Miranda, take him to Caleb's father. And stay with them. I don't think it'll be safe in the palace for you either, now." I turned back to her, shedding enough tears for both of us. My first friend in Meridian, and now she was in danger of her life, and I couldn't do anything with all my power for her.

"Princess … Elyon. We're only a word away. If you need us …" Miranda couldn't finish her sentence, and started her strange humming sneezes, the closest she got to crying. Aldarn gave her a pitying look, then the two of them hurried to the window.

The door gave an extra-hard shudder, and I turned away. I couldn't watch them leave, or I'd be right behind them, regardless of the cost to everybody. I already knew the extent my brother had gone to to get me here, and what measures he was willing to take to keep me here. I did not want to find out what he would do to those I might side with against him. I spent the minutes before Cedric and a whole platoon of lurdens managed to shatter the door despite Miranda's webbing setting right the table, collecting the tools, and draping the cover Aldarn had arrived with over his fallen father. A swift kick had made certain Raythor hadn't awakened in time to see the others leave.

"Sso, Princsesss, you sstand prepared to ansswer to your brother for your actionss?" Cedric rumbled once he'd broken through. I was the only one on the room, besides the unconscious half-lurden guard captain and poor dead Aketon.

"Don't think I'm the only one with answers due. Aketon's death lays at your scales, and I hardly think Phobos will forgive the loss of his Chief Metallurgist easily," I countered, and swept from the destroyed chamber imperiously. I marched toward my brother in the throne room, not stopping for an instant while Cedric slithered behind. The lurdens, at a loss, split in half, some following us confusedly, the rest seeing to the restoration of their captain and the disposal of Aketon's remains.

I mourned the fallen magician, as well as the flight of his son and Miranda. For now, this fight was still my own.