Titans: Elemental

Chapter 96: Birthmark, Part 1

We see the full moon, partially obscured by clouds in the night sky.

We look down to an offshore oil rig, the same one that served as the Titans', then its storage tanks. We see a piece of apparatus that consists of an enormous glowing sphere flanked by a pair of electrodes. Current crackles up and down as a man in a form-fitting black suit stands up into view. It is Doctor Light, but he has made a few tweaks to his outfit since his last go-round; thick armored gloves, each with a light set in its back, reinforcing chest/shoulder plates, cables connecting him to the setup.

Doctor Light, "once I've drained the energy from fifty thousand barrels of oil", his hands glow brilliantly, "I'll flood the city in never-ending daylight!"

The gloves fizzle out as the cables are yanked loose under Raven's control.

Doctor Light, "huh?"

Two of Dick's wingdings hiss toward him; he leaps clear just in time and they slice into the base of his device. Before he can get his feet planted on the glowing sphere, a shot from Vic's sonic cannon blasts it into dust. As the smoke clears, he finds all the Titans gathered on a lower platform, ready to mix it up with him one more time.

Dick, "you know, Doctor Light, for a guy obsessed with illumination, you're not very bright."

Bryan pressed a button on his arm that made a "badum, tsss", noise.

Raven, "next time you're looking to steal something, you might want to pick a target we can't see from our living room."

She steps aside to show Titans Tower, which stands in the distance behind her; the place is literally within sight of home sweet home. Doctor Light's face instantly goes slack in embarrassment as he realizes this mistake.

Rose, "idiot."

Doctor Light, "oh. Well, um…."

He regains his nerve and fires a pair of blinding blasts from his hands, forcing the group to scatter in all directions. They explode upon impact with the deck plates.

Vic, "that's a real pretty light show", he breaks out his cannon, "but sound packs a bigger punch!"

Doctor Light creates a bright barrier to stop the burst that comes his way. Once it has been deflected, he hurls back a fierce shot; Vic has time for one panicked yell, he is blasted off and arcs screaming into the water.

Back to the battle zone, where Starfire and Kom' move in, zigzagging to avoid the shots that flash toward them. A steep climb carries them up past his ledge, whereupon they retaliate with a merciless starbolt salvo that leaves the area full of smoke. It dissipates to show the target intact within a hemispherical shield, which he takes down with a grin before firing a huge beam from the light bulb on his chest. The Tamaraneans take it in the mush and drop screaming to the platform as Dick, Rose, Jack, Bryan and Changeling watch from their hiding places.

Dick, "we need to draw his fire."

Changeling, "you got it. Dude, nice pajamas! Do they glow in the dark?"

Rose gives him a high five for the insult.

Changeling's taunting gives way to a panicked yell and a split-second change into a vampire bat, allowing him to flap away from the blasts that flash down. Doctor Light lets off a cry of his own, tries to cover his head, and shoots again, and Dick takes advantage of the distraction to move in with his fighting staff. A few swings put the walking floodlight off balance for a moment, but he quickly produces a glowing whip and starts to crack away, breaking the staff in two. Dick throws the pieces aside and backs up before Doctor Light's offensive until he reaches the end of the ledge; he then leaps overhead, kicks the man in the back, and heads back the way he came.

Doctor Light straightens up to fire again. Jack quickly forms a shield of Earth that blocks the blast from hitting him, Bryan and Rose.

Jack, "how is a guy like this such a pest to deal with?"

Bryan shrugs, "dunno, but that ain't gonna stop us from taking him down!"

Bryan emerges from cover and zigzags while shooting at Doctor Light.

Light forms two shields of light around his arms to deflect the blasts before Rose jumps in and attempts to hit him with her own fighting staff.

He manages to do the same thing to her staff that he did to Dick's, and grabs her before flinging her into her boyfriend.

Jack drops his shield and shoots lightning at Doctor Light. The mad doctor fires a beam that slowly pushes the lightning back at Jack, sending him flying back.

Doctor Light then emits a frightened cry and jumps out of the way just in time to avoid a dinosaur tail crashing down. Hr goes flying through the air; the appendage belongs to Changeling, now a stegosaurus. The leap carries Doctor Light down to the main platform, where he flops dazedly onto his face. Jack, Dick, Changeling, Kom' and Starfire jump/fly down here; Changeling is back in human form.

Doctor Light stands up, rounding on them angrily, "no one defeats Doctor Light! No one-"

A swirl of black starts to form behind him; his tirade gives way to a scared little noise as he turns toward it. We see the entire shape, which resolves into Raven; impossibly tall and with a forest of tentacles snaking out from beneath her cloak, as when she blew her cool last they fought.

Raven, "remember me?"

The color drains from his face, indicating that he does indeed have a very clear memory of his first run-in with this particular Titan. She towers impassively over him and withdraws all the tentacles as he turns to the others.

Doctor Light, "I'd like to go to jail now, please."

Starfire applauds both the defeat and the restraint Raven has exercised this time around, and Vic climbs up over the side and spits out a mouthful of Jump City Bay as Bryan and Rose walk over. A look at Vic's forearm panel brings a huge grin to his face.

Vic, "alright! The butt-kicking's over and it's almost midnight! Time for donuts! Yeah!"

Rose, "donuts! Yeah!"

As Dick, Bryan and Starfire escort Doctor Light away, Raven, back to normal size, turns toward home.

Raven, "I'll see you back at the Tower."

All the others stop.

Dick, "but, Raven…."

Starfire, "you do not wish to enjoy the nuts of dough? It is like eating sweet tiny wheels."

Jack, "yeah. C'mon, babe. It won't be the same without ya."

Raven, "I just want to get home before tomorrow comes."

She takes off.

Changeling, "what's so special about tomorrow?"

Bryan, "maybe Raven's waiting for the premiere of her favorite show?"

….

We then look down through the water. We pass briefly into blackness and move through the rock of the bay floor, then reach a deep, dry cavern and stop. We look toward its back wall and a patch farther along. We stop as the entire place starts to rumble; after a couple of seconds, an armored hand breaks the surface and light pours up around it. Radiance and smoke boil up from below the surface as the figure emerges fully. The face-hidden behind a black/red-orange steel mask with only one eye hole, the left, is that of the one and only Slade!

He appears just as cool and fresh as the day Terra gave him a boiling-lava shower.

Slade, "the day has begun…."

….

We see the Tower. The building stands dark and silent under the darkened, cloudy sky.

….

We see Raven's room. She is sitting on the edge of her bed. The only sound here is the slow ticking of a clock; an old wind-up alarm in her hands that shows the time as a few seconds before 6:00. She eyes it worriedly enough to screw up the sleep of people three miles away.

Once the sweep hand hits 12, she flops onto her back. She grabs a nearby plushie of Kikachu she had bought and holds it close to her for comfort.

Raven, "six PM. Just six more hours and it'll be over. Six more-"

It is the evening after the battle with Doctor Light, then. A loud knock at the door startles a gasp out of her and gets her standing up. She puts the plushie down next to several other plushies. One looks like a frog with a flower on its back. One looks like a blue turtle with sunglasses. One looks like a baby dragon with a flame on its tail. And one looks like a brown dinosaur with a skull for a head.

Raven, "hello?"

She crosses to the door; it slides open and she peeks out carefully. Nothing stirring anywhere in this stretch, so she moves out for a look around. Passing a flight of stairs, then moving down another passage, then reaching the top of the stairs that lead to the living room, she is greeted by nothing but darkness and silence. The door slides open to show her here. Dead quiet and dark here as well; all the lights suddenly blaze up. The other Titans pop up, a "Happy Birthday" banner unfurling from the ceiling amid a shower of confetti and balloons.

Jack, Dick, Rose, Changeling, Bryan, Vic, Kom' and Starfire, "SURPRISE!"

It certainly is; Raven screams with enough fear to make her hair stand on end and then drops out of sight.

Vic, "um…. Raven?"

They all deflate.

Starfire, "it is merely us, your friends, with warm wishes for the day of your birth."

Dick, "I told you a surprise party was a bad idea."

Bryan, "same here. Surprise parties suck. You might get the crap scared out of you, or you think everyone's forgotten about your birthday!"

Rose, "that happened to you?"

Bryan, "maybe."

Jack, "the fifth birthday disaster…."

Jack and Bryan shudder for a moment.

A circle of black energy forms just behind Changeling's feet and grows into the birthday girl, who is anything but pleased at the surprise bash. The sudden reentry sets him screaming and running.

Raven, "how did you know it was my birthday?"

Changeling, "um…. 'Member last night how you made that big deal about tomorrow? Well, we started wondering what tomorrow was, so we did some snooping…."

The others glare at him.

Changeling, "okay, I did some snooping. And I sorta found a restricted file in the off-limits area of the Titans' computer that kinda had your birthday on it."

Starfire, "and we have been preparing your celebration ever since."

Kom', "we put up tons of decorations."

Vic pops up with a covered dish.

Vic, "I baked my famous eight-layer cake with three kinds of frosting."

He yanks away the cover on this line; the cake expands upward to its full height, complete with candles and enough icing to make good on his description.

Starfire whips over, "and I have assembled for you a traditional Tamaranean throknar….", she holds up on a pillow…., "the crown of meat!"

It is pushed into Raven's face; Changeling beams at the offering, vegetarian though he might be, but she reacts as if it were a half-rotted corpse.

Kom', "I told Starfire it was a bad idea…. Even I hate that tradition."

Dick, "I hope this is okay. We just-"

Raven, "no. It's not. Look. I really appreciate what you're trying to do here…. But I'm not interested."

She wheels toward the door, but Jack is there to try and stop her.

Jack, "what? But…. There will be music and ice cream-"

Starfire, "and a strange game involving pins and the behind of a donkey!"

Bryan, "Starfire, we told you, it doesn't involve an actual donkey…. Unless it's Changeling."

Changeling, "meep."

Vic, "we got a piñata shaped like Changeling. You know you want to smack it."

He holds up said piñata.

Raven, "I said no."

Jack, "babe, come on. I know you're not the most social, but it's your birthday. It's special. You can't let this day end without-"

Raven whirls around, eyes blazing, "NO!"

A burst of her powers pops all the balloons, sends the banner to the floor in shreds, and turns all the refreshments to mush. Jack is left staring wide-eyed, hurt and surprised, with a couple of layers of Vic's cake stuck to his head. Without another word, Raven shoulders roughly past Starfire and the cook and leaves the living room. None of the others can think of any proper words for some moments.

Changeling, "I told you a surprise party was a bad idea."

Dick, "give it a rest."

Jack, Rose and Dick speed past.

Raven hurries away as the door opens and light streams out.

Dick, "Raven! What's wrong?"

Raven, "I just don't like parties."

Jack, "it's more than that. We can tell."

Rose, "we have a bond, remember? You've been inside my and Dick's minds. Let us inside yours."

Raven turns to look back over her shoulder toward them.

Raven, "guys, you three know me better than anyone. You should know there are places in my mind where you can't go- where no one should ever go."

Jack, "we're willing to try if you'll-"

Raven, "I can't."

Dick, "tell us what's going on."

Raven, "just trust me. If you knew anything about the day of my birth….", she walks off, "... you'd know there's nothing to celebrate."

Jack, Rose and Dick glance at one another.

….

We see Raven's alarm clock; it is now a minute or so before 9:00. Back in her room, she eyes it impatiently and taps one knee against the mattress of her bed. The second hand makes its way past 12, marking the top of the hour. Her Pocket Montru plushies sit around it.

Raven, "can't this thing go any faster? Ugh! I just want this day to be over! Relax…. Only a few hours to go…. It might not even happen. Focus…. Meditate…. It'll be midnight before you know it."

She now floats a foot or so above her bed and has composed herself for meditation. The clock rises to eye level.

Raven, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos…. Azarath Metrion Zinthos…. Aza-"

She breaks off with a small cough; she hacks a bit louder and opens her eyes. A low rumbling has started, and flames erupt all around her as she gags and clutches at her throat. When the initial burst clears, the entire room has caught fire, leaving her completely hemmed in on the bed. A deep, gravelly voice begins to speak.

"What you have concealed, you shall become. You have no other choice. Your destiny will be fulfilled."

Embers drop from the ceiling and set the blankets ablaze in rivulets of fire that snake quickly from edge to edge. She stares in mute terror; the flames have formed a design that looks something like a stylized letter S. Raven is now floating well above this.

"The portal must be opened!"

She gasps, "NOOOOO!"

A great flash, and the room is exactly as it was before this cataclysm began. She and the clock are back on the bed, and she heaves for breath as if she has just run the Boston Marathon five times in succession. Dead silence once again; she is sweating buckets, this vision or hallucination has truly shaken her from top to toe. A loud knock at the door kicks her out of this paralysis very quickly.

The door opens to show Jack.

Jack, "are you okay? I heard you scream."

Raven can't take it anymore and starts crying. Jack quickly makes his way over, sits on the bed and pulls Raven into his arms.

She cries into his chest as he gently pets her head.

Jack soothed, "it's okay. It's okay."

Dick and Rose peek in as Jack holds his girlfriend.

The emergency alarm and red flashers go off.

We see Raven's brooch, which also starts flashing in response.

Raven, "trouble!"

….

We see the exterior of a compound of buildings, then the upper reaches of a machine room inside.

The Titans are now inside, rows of pistons cycling at left and right; the "floor" is a network of catwalks, below which many levels of piping can be seen.

Vic, "so, who's the bad guy du jour? Gizmo? Mad Mod? Killer Moth?"

Kom', "let's hope it's someone easy to take down. Like Johnny Rancid or Control Freak."

Rose, "heck, I'd take Kitten at this point."

Bryan, "man, been awhile since we heard that name."

Starfire, "the report simply stated there was an intruder."

Bryan, "not a lot of info."

Changeling, "well, whoever it is, we're gonna totally kick their-"

He never finishes the sentence, as he runs into the back of Dick, who has stopped short.

Dick, "no…."

The green joker gasps, his eyes instantly going as wide as Frisbees.

Slade's face is hidden by shadow, and his other foot is perched on the railing.

Slade, "it's been a long time, hasn't it, Titans? A month? A year? A millennium? Far too long for my tastes, anyway. I was beginning to think I'd never see your smiling faces again."

His perch is at the opposite end of the machine room from their position.

Vic, "you…. How did you survive?"

Bryan starts shaking as Rose holds his hand.

Changeling, "Terra took you down. Way down!"

Dick starts balling a fist

Dick, "Slade. I don't know where you've been, but you shouldn't have come back. I'm still ready."

Rose pulled out her sword and growled, "so am I, you monster."

Bryan slowly pulls out his laser gun.

On Slade's forehead, a glowing mark appears, a small copy of the design that traced itself onto Raven's bed during her vision.

Slade, "that's precious, Nightwing. But I didn't come back for you. Or my daughter. Or even that worthless boyfriend of hers."

Bryan shoots at Slade, just barely missing his head.

Slade's hands are now flaming, and with a feral yell he sends a thick snake of fire out toward the Titans. All scatter before it; the thing bends up from the floor, and as Raven gains a bit of altitude, she finds it headed straight for her. The glare fully illuminates every square inch and casts red reflections into her eyes.

The fire snake lashing up toward Raven, whose red-flickering eyes widen to the point of being ready to pop out of their sockets. With less than a second to spare before it strikes, she conjures up her "soul-self" and escapes through the wall.

Elsewhere, Starfire carries Dick away, Kom' carries Bryan, Jack carries Rose on a slab of Earth and Vic races across the floor to stay ahead of Slade's blast. He jumps clear of the next one and goes over the railing near one row of giant pistons.

Slade, "ever have one of those days where you just feel happy to be alive?"

He warms up again and targets Changeling, flitting nearby as a hummingbird. He drops down in human form and Raven rises from the catwalks. Jack and Rose land next to them.

Changeling, "dude!"

Vic, "yeah! Since when can Slade do that?"

Jack, "he doesn't have a staff like mine, so it's a different kind of magic!"

One boot hits the railing; its partner is balanced here as well and their owner is ready to do his flamethrower impression again. He takes a high, spinning leap and comes down to floor level in a crouch.

Dick, "not sure, but he won't be doing it for long. Titans! Go!"

Changeling becomes a velociraptor as the others rush ahead. First to attack are Vic, Kom', Bryan and Starfire, who unleash a blitzkrieg barrage with their respective weapons; Slade, however, merely creates a shield of fire to protect himself and vaults back up to his platform. As he stands there, imperturbable as ever with arms folded, Dick and Rose throw a handful of discs across the floor. These freeze the conflagration and its creator solid on impact, the ice rapidly spreading upward to cover Slade's head. The pair crouch low, ready to go again if needed, and it is needed as soon as the masked criminal shatters the layer of frost away from his body.

He jumps down and finds Raven and Jack rising to meet his challenge; they bring the ice fragments under their control, then project the deadly shards straight at him. A few deft leaps and sidesteps keep him from being skewered, but as soon as he gets clear, Changeling jumps down from above as a gorilla to have a bash at him. Slade slides backward out of his reach; now Starfire moves in, both hands blazing, and he quickly throws up a shield. It protects him, but the hits push him backward a good distance.

When Slade has regained his balance, he hurls a fireball up at Starfire and Kom'; now they try to create a starbolt barrier, but his shot overpowers it and they are blasted down. Behind him, Vic and Bryan have moved near the shaft of one wall piston. They get the best grip they can and manage to tear the entire thing loose from its moorings, intending to knock the enemy out of the park with it. The weighted end comes around in a thundering arc, dead on target, but Slade merely creates a layer of fire on his body for a moment and lets this burn cleanly through the makeshift club. Bryan and Vic's minds are completely blown by this exhibition.

Vic, "whoa!"

Slade, "'whoa?' That's it? No clever comment? I was looking forward to that."

Needled in just the wrong place, the two men drop the remains of the piston and charge. Slade ducks underneath their punches and raises one hand, forefinger poised behind thumb as if ready to flick something away. It stops just short of Vic's face, a spark of fire flashes from the fingertips, and the flick comes with enough force and heat to throw him backward.

Bryan and Slade then enter an extremely one-sided fist fight, which ends with Byran being flung back towards Vic.

Here comes Jack and Raven, just in time for Vic and Bryan to plow into them; above them, Changeling swoops down as a falcon and zeroes in on Slade. A few nimble jumps carry the target up over the pistons and onto a high catwalk, and a moment later, the Titan is up there and reverting to human form. His next bound takes him far along its length, where he comes down as a triceratops. What Slade does next is to touch one set of knuckles to the planks, sending traces of fire across its width and toward the green behemoth. A second later, the section beneath Changeling's feet collapses, weakened by the fire, and drops him toward the floor. As rubble thunders down all around, he resumes human form, then becomes a vampire bat and flaps away.

Behind Slade, Rose and Dick swing onto the intact end of the catwalk and start slinging discs. They detonate everywhere, but fall short of the fleeing villain, and Rose charges through the smoke with her sword at the ready. The pursuit carries her into a forest of turning gears, with Dick close behind; they hop among them, but cannot catch sight of Slade right away. Finally, they get an eyeful; the man is riding up on a slowly rotating gear. In one hand is his own fighting staff, it flares up, and he gives a savage yell and jump. Dick and Rose back up on the giant metal teeth to keep from getting their skulls cracked or cooked, and the three spar for a moment before one hit burns through Dick's weapon. He eyes one smoldering, half-melted piece as Slade steps unflappably along the gear's teeth.

Slade, "take my word for it", he raises his staff close, "you shouldn't play with fire."

He kicks Rose out of the area and then gives one fierce roundhouse that sends Dick, glowing and smoking, down to a distant, horizontally-mounted gear.

Slade, "it really has been nice seeing all of you again."

He looks to one side. We look just behind him to the floor catwalks, where he has focused his attention on Vic, Bryan, Jack and Raven; the former two are cold, the latter two on their feet.

Raven, "I just want this day to end!"

Slade jumps down to them, "I think we both know this day is far from over."

She stares uncomprehendingly up at his concealed face.

Slade, "hello, birthday girl. Ready for your present?"

….

Reviews:

raven 2012: rest assured, I have big plans for this and the Trigon arc episodes….

Canadude 2029: glad you enjoyed my take on the episode so much, and yeah, Kikachu will have big plans in store….

pokemonking0924: thanks. Yeah, the Blackfire mirror joke was one of my favorite jokes I added in. And yeah, your suggestion was great.

Bailey Radcliffe: thank you very much. I'm glad you're so excited for more. Hope your story goes well.

Guest: well, I'm sorry you don't like the name Jack. I personally like the name and felt like calling each character by their real names most of the time, minus Channeling for now.

….

And thus begins the Trigon arc. One of the best story arcs in the entire show.

This episode gave me plenty of moments to show Jack and Raven's relationship.

As well as Bryan and Rose's reactions to Slade returning.

If you guys haven't already voted on my newest poll for an upcoming Ben 10 story, vote now. And make sure you pick 7 options when doing so.