2009: Thanks to bb-is-the-cutest-ever and Rodnii for their reviews...
Edit: Hopefully this looks better.
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Demonic red lights blinked angrily throughout the tower, accompanied by loud, electronic screams. An attack was underway in Jump City. Robin, who had been awake, reflecting his life choices, anyways, was up, uniformed, and locating the crime scene within five alarm rings. By seven, he'd pinpointed the location and was tapping his foot impatiently. Screech ten, and Raven and Cyborg were out, ready to go. Around fourteen or fifteen, Starfire was floating, and by twenty, BeastBoy had finally arrived.
"Titans, go!"
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"Ugh!" Raven grunted as she hit the ground, covered in thick purple goo. The violet-haired girl heard starbolts zinging over her head, and saw Cyborg blast off a sonic boom through the monster's middle.
Robin flicked explosive disks at Plasmus as he sprinted towards the villain, swiftly dodging splurts of green and purple gunk. As the disks exploded, giant globs of toxic plasma fell like goopy poison rain over the area. This clearly was just making a mess.
"This isn't working!" Raven growled at Robin, shielding them both from a spray of goo. "I can see that, thanks," he sneered back, thinking. "Quick! Plasmus 6 defense!" He shouted, finally remembering the plan. He hoped the others would, too.
Fortunately, this training exercise had come up in recent weeks, and it only took a few brief moments to reorganize and execute. BeastBoy transformed into an elephant, and started soaking Plasmus with water. The giant blob, distracted, allowed Robin a window to run fout from behind Raven's shield. Calculating all the variables that could possibly cause failure, he threw a huge lash of non-explosive, smaller silver disks at Plasmus, and they lodged all over the monster. Better too many than not enough, and calculating took too long. Cyborg aimed at the monster resetting the frequency for his sonic cannon, then fired simple electromagnetic waves at Plasmus.
A blast of electric energy shocked Plasmus, amplified by the disks lodged in his slime, and the gooey monster fell to its knees, momentarily paralyzed. Raven encased Plasmus with dark energy, and BeastBoy sprayed water towards the dark-magic barrier. Although it could not get wet, the water stayed in the air. Using freeze-disks, Robin froze the shell, and Plasmus was trapped, held to with electricity, and capped inside of a 'magic' and ice sphere.
Twenty minutes later, the shock forced Plasmus into unconsciousness, and slowly returned to his humanoid body. The Titans felled the barriers, and exchanged high-fives while Plasmus' host body was reloaded into a full-time sleep cylinder.
"Those ElectroDisks work like a charm, Cy, good work," the Boy Wonder complimented his older teammate, patting Cyborg's back proudly. The duo had just come up with them a few weeks earlier. This was perfect as a test drive."Good work, everyone," the leader said, turning to the girls and BeastBoy.
"Star, distraction was nice... Raven, excellent casing. Soak job was good, BeastBoy," Robin rambled, stretching, "Now, we should head home. It's already three, and we scheduled a training session at six-"
Cyborg and BeastBoy groaned dramatically, falling over.
"...And, since you were aroused in the middle of the night, make that seven." Robin finished. He didn't like to delay practice, but in this case...His proposition was still met with grumbles and mutters, albeit slightly cheerier ones. At that very moment, there was a flash of white lightning, and a resounding crash from farther downtown.
"You...You have got to be kidding me..." Raven muttered grudgingly.
"What? Overload? But we got rid of his-" Cyborg sputtered, remembering how he'd crushed the villain's hard drive when it tried to steal his car.
The white flash appeared again, and a toaster flew past the Titans. A lot of other electronics began whirring by, smashing into one another. The white flash was growing, and it looked like a star, and soon enough..
"Titans, go!" Robin shouted heroically, springing into action, towards the light show.
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The practice time had again been extended, begrudgingly, by Robin, and as soon as he said it, RedX had come from only God knew where, and they'd started fighting again.
'What in the name of Bruce Wayne is going on?' Robin thought, decking RedX a good one. Or so he thought, the holograph filtering around his fist. 'Plasmus, Overload, RedX... Not all in one night. Hell, not even in a week.'
Robin turned on his foot, towards a loud thunk-pah-crash. Starfire had been flung at a wall and landed in some trashcans, out cold, from the looks of it. The wall around her glowed with green specks, and there was a crater where she'd slammed into the building. RedX had mirrored a starshot back at her. The one she did with her eyes – these wer far more lethal than her starbolts, and had potential to stun even the strongest Tamaranian, but especially a worn out one. Concerned, Robin started for his teammate. Cyborg shouted at Robin to look out, and suddenly, the black teen was in front of him.
Exactly what RedX had planned. The XMark he'd slung cut through the Plexiglas covering on Cyborg's circuitry and immediately shut his computers down. Cyborg's human strength, not enough to hold up the bulky hardware, fell, obsolete, to the ground. He apologized to Robin, looking ashamed.
"Azarath, Metrio-Mmph!" Raven had been halfway through her meditative spell when RedX had sealed her mouth shut with one of Robin's trademarks, the XClaim. Raven would struggle with it, but it was made special, and it wouldn't come off until the battle was far done. Then, a red gas shot from it, and Raven fell, shocked. Asleep. RedX, apparently, had modified his design. It was down to BeastBoy and Robin, now.
Suddenly, Robin felt a swift gust of air from behind, and swung around barely quickly enough to block RedX's blow – the real RedX.
"What are you doing, here?" Robin grunted, kicking his opponent in the ribs. He staggered backwards, and Robin took advantage, grabbing the sleek figure in a tight hold.
"Mmph! That's none of your business, Ratbin!"
RedX reversed the hold, and punched Robin squarely in the face. Robin felt his nose start to bleed, and tossed a left hook at his rival. Miss. The Boy Wonder took a rough right uppercut to the jaw, and bit his cheek. He tasted copper.
A loud screech resounded, and RedX pivoted on his foot, unsteadily. BeastBoy, now an eagle, tore a large gash in RedX's mask, and six long, painful, inch-deep gashes down the front of his uniform. Robin knocked RedX down, and pinned him.
"What's going on, RedX?" the black-haired boy growled, looking the other in the eyes. Or, where they would be under the mask.
Rather than RedX's voice, Robin heard Slade's.
"I'm watching, Robin."
Robin's head whipped around, because the voice hadn't come from the figure beneath him. Warm blood was seeping from the wounds of the fallen man under him. He looked back at RedX, and BeastBoy was suddenly next to him, quiet. At that moment, a red light blinked on RedX's suit, and a puff of red gas was shot into the boy's faces. They both stopped, wide-eyed, before they fell over, paralyzed.
RedX wriggled out from beneath Robin, noticeably wincing at his damages.
"Mmgh.." the person grunted. RedX began to walk away, staggering slightly.
BeastBoy stared at the stars, thinking. Not much else to do. His mouth felt frozen, like everything else. He saw the other Titans out of the corners of his eyes. He should feel proud – he'd lasted one of the longest of the fighting tonight. The freakish lot that it was... But... He didn't. The green-haired guy felt he didn't do much tonight. Spray water. Give Cy or Robin a lift for an attack. Couple of scratches on RedX. Hell, RedX seemed to have forgotten about the shapeshifter until he'd gashed up his pretty little uniform.
After an hour had passed, roughly, Robin's bones began to creak as he moved. BeastBoy still felt statue-esque. The Boy Wonder rose, stretching his taut muscles. BeastBoy let his gaze slide along his teammate, admiring the slim, slightly bulging muscles of his calves, thick, strong thighs. Probably enough power in one leg to give even Chuck Norris a good fight, he bet. He noted that Robin had a small pooch of muscle below his navel, and that his stomach dipped into a strong, well-developed chest. The slender frame twisted, and BeastBoy got a good look at the muscles as the fabric stretched with his twisting. As he saw his leader look down, he shut his eyes quickly and feigned sleep.
Starfire was stirring across the lot.
The sun was poking at the sky, turning it from black to gray. They'd been fighting for...well, over three hours. Starfire looked up, and stood, shakily. She floated, and held her head, wincing slightly. First and foremost, she sought out Robin, and gently toughed his shoulder in a motion of comfort. He put his hand over her own, briefly. Then, with a quick pat, he turned back to stretching. "Uh...Star, could you go take the XCl – that thing, I mean – off of Raven?" he said, and bent to loosen his back up. It crackled noisily.
Starfire obliged quietly, floating low to the ground towards Raven. She knelt on both knees, and sat on her feet. She placed Raven's head in her lap, and started removing the binding carefully.
Robin looked at BeastBoy, who had closed his eyes. The youngest on the team looked exhausted. The Boy Wonder knelt down, and looked closer. Nearly black crescents under his friend's eyes were painfully deep, and he wondered how he'd missed them earlier.
"Hey.. Ah, BeastBoy, can you move?"
No response, just a quick intake of breath. Kid fell asleep, Robin presumed.
The dark-haired boy knelt next to his green friend, and grabbed his ankle. He pushed upwards firmly on the other's foot with the flat of his palm, stretching it. It popped healthily, and Robin released the pressure. The joints were still too tight. He did the same for the other foot, and popped his friend's fingers, shoulders, and elbows. The torso was popped and stretched out, and Robin carefully popped and stretched out his teammates legs. After he did all this COₐ- releasing from BeastBoy's system, he massaged some of the major pressure points on his friend's body.
'Why am I going through all this trouble? If I could get up, so could..' Robin looked again at the young man's tired eyes. 'Well...Maybe I'm a bit hard on the kid. I guess he deserves an easy way out, this time.'
The changeling suddenly made a weird breath intake, kind of a fluttery, swooping breath, and rolled over on his side.
Robin grinned. 'Unparalyzed. I win..Now, Cy.." Robin stood, and walked over to his computerized friend. He pulled his own creation out of Cyborg's back, and took out his T. Communicator, which doubled as a reboot system for Cyborg. Since their fights with H.I.V.E...Well, Gizmo offered lots of inspiration, to say the least. Robin let the T. Comm work, and within minutes, Cyborg was fully operational, although achy and in need of a battery charge. The cyborg rose, and stretched. He told Robin he was going find the T-Car, but he'd see them in a bit.
When Robin turned around, BeastBoy was snoring, and Starfire was tossing the XClaim away, and picking up Raven.
"Robin?"
"Star, uh, Raven, she-"
"She's weak... I will take her back home. You will be riding your cycle motor?" Starfire asked, hovering nearby. She began to float off slowly, like a balloon on a hot day.
"Yeah… Yeah, I'll just...I'll see you later," The teenager said, waving. Starfire smiled sweetly at him, before turning around and hurtling off with the cloaked medium. Robin turned back to BeastBoy, who was solidly asleep on the pavement, curled into a half fetal-position. He didn't feel a small grin work its way onto his chin as he sat down next to his friend.