Teen Titans
Adaptation
By Cyberwraith9
The New Order: Titan's Flight
Tek grumbled miserably at the salmon swimming past her shoulder. The salmon weathered her unkind words and continued on until it left the light her armor cast. It vanished into the murky water, leaving Tek alone with her negative thoughts. Moodiness wouldn't win her any friends in Jump Bay. But then, salmon make poor friends anyway.
She trudged through the ocean floor, her enormous armor feet slurping in and out of sandy quag. The water made even the slightest movement a trial. Even with her suit doing most of the work, Tek felt her limbs cramping with fatigue. Whoever had installed the super-dimensional armor into her prior to the start of her memories clearly hadn't intended it for underwater adventure.
The suit's interior cooled her exertion. It dried her skin as fast as she could sweat. "I love you, suit," she huffed, and dragged her feet, "but seriously, would it kill you to transform into a submarine, or a jet ski? Even a propeller would help."
Sunlight rippled on the water's surface three hundred feet above her. It was still and quiet. For a fleeting moment, she contemplated hiding underwater while the lunatics chasing her gave up. She could bury herself in the sand, like the crabs she kept crunching underfoot, and remain safe.
"Sure," she told herself, and winced as another crab met its end beneath her heel. "Then, when those psychos get bored looking for me, they can tear the city apart to find me. Heck, they may do that just for fun."
A wordless command projected a map across her visor's heads-up display. She watched herself as a little blip trundling slowly through the blue expanse of the bay. Ahead, where the seabed began to rise, lay the island on which Titans Tower stood empty. Half an hour's walk behind her lay the shoreline.
She sighed, and then groaned when her foot plunged into a derelict lobster trap. "Great. Back to the Tower. Then what, alley girl? Gar and Raven didn't answer your call before you took the briny plunge. Vic's still discombobulated. And that X guy…"
Her eyes stung with the memory of Gloria Xang, her new and obnoxious social worker, crushed in her own car without warning. Red X and his gang had laughed off the incidental murder while bashing Tek through the city.
She sniffed and shook her head, and redoubled her pace. The HUD faded from her visor. "Get a grip. You've got one job left as a Titan. Just keep it together until someone else comes. Then you're done. Keep it together. Focus."
Tek kicked the lobster trap off her foot and climbed the gradual slope toward the island's shore.
An ill wind billowed the scalloped cape draped from Red X's shoulders. He perched atop the ledge of a skyscraper. Chipping statuary flanked him on either side, old gargoyles that had stood vigilant for decades as he did now. He watched the city bustle. Petty people with petty lives scurried far beneath him.
Behind him on the roof, his gothic witch sighed with impatience. "You know, the rooftop contemplation thing has been done to death. But you know what hasn't? That stupid robot girl. We should be taking care of her," Jinx insisted.
His gaze never left the city. His statuesque pose did not so much as twitch as he asked, "Jinx, why did you get into this line of work?"
She massaged her eyes and leaned on the gargoyle next to him. "No, see, this is not the way to be handling this. Instead of getting me to tell you about my past, so you can pretend to listen before speechifying about your past and how all the horrible things from your childhood will be made up for when you rule the city, we need to be proactive. I've tangled with this girl before. She's not much on brains, but she doesn't go down easy."
"Humor me," Red X said.
Rolling her pink gaze, Jinx said, "What do you want to hear? That my dad abused me? That mom didn't stop him because she was too drunk? That my life was a loveless suck-hole until the day I was bitten by a radioactive stage magician? Sorry. I was born with tons of magical potential that manifested as pure chaos. I taught myself to shoot that chaos because, really, the world sucks. So I take what I want, and to hell with everybody else."
Jinx could feel the speech rattling behind Red X's skull mask, begging for release. Every word he spoke had been lovingly chosen, and poured from his hidden lips in a reverberation tinged with nostalgia. "My father taught me everything I know about violence. He taught me to hunt any creature, beast or man. He taught me how to shoot, how to fight. I learned invaluable skills from him. But when I told him I wanted to follow in his stead, he balked. He had taught me because it was all he knew, and a father must teach his son something. But he wanted a different life for me."
"Yawn," said Jinx, never doubting that Red X wasn't listening to anyone but himself.
"And then the Titans murdered him," he said.
Her jaw snapped shut. "Okay. Not 'yawn.' Those goody-goodies really…? She drew her finger across her throat questioningly.
Red X nodded. "It was murder most foul. The Titans poisoned him, usurping his place of power in the city. Distraught, I gathered you, my players, to enact a performance that will confound the Titans with guilt and force them to confess their wrongdoings."
Jinx's shock fell into annoyance. She leaned around, trying to catch X's blank gaze from the city. "That's 'Hamlet.' Are you crazy? Because I don't work for—"
The rest of his body didn't move, offering Jinx no warning as he raised his gauntlet to her throat. Its blade snapped to the side of her neck, keeping her frozen and off-balance on the ledge. The sprawling street below dizzied her. She didn't trust her new command of the winds enough to catch her from a fall of that height.
"Hmm. So it is," Red X said amicably. His blade didn't budge. He didn't even glance at Jinx's quiet fear. "Luckily, it has the same message. I didn't get into this for spite or greed, like you. Spite cools with tolerance. Greed can be sated. I fight for vengeance, Jinx. And only when I have destroyed the Titans, and burned their city to the ground, and listened to the scurrying ants underfoot as they cry out for 'heroes' who will never come, will my thirst for vengeance begin to quench. I'm not crazy. I'm mad."
He swept the blade into his gauntlet. Jinx staggered back from the ledge with a gasp. Blood smeared her palm where she rubbed her neck. Her glare burned into his back as hex burgeoned in her hand. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow your ass off this building right now," she snarled.
Finally, the statuesque Red X turned, his glare chilling the hex from Jinx's hand. "Because you know I'll succeed. Because you're spiteful and greedy, and you want the fruits of my work: the death of the Titans, and the dominion their absence will bring. At my side, you'll stand unopposed in Jump City. And all you need to do is put up with one mad avenger for a little while longer," he said.
Jinx lost the contest to X's hollow eyes. She blinked first. Lowering her hand, she turned from his glare and scoffed, "Drama queen."
Static crackled from Red X's gauntlet before Gizmo's voice emerged. "She's hunkering at Titans Tower, or what's left of it. See-More and I are closest. We'll crunch the little scud before she knows what hits her."
X grasped his gauntlet. "Gizmo, hold your position. Wait for me."
"Calm down, barf bag. I'll save you a slice."
"Gizmo? Gizmo!" Red X cursed his silent gauntlet as he hopped from the ledge onto the roof. He whirled upon Jinx, and demanded, "Fly me to the tower immediately!"
Wind whipped her long hair as she gathered a gale that could carry them both. "What's the hurry? Gizmo's great with techies like her. Plus, he's got your eye guy to back him up."
Despite his mask, he managed to convey a deep annoyance to Jinx. "You didn't listen to a thing I speechified, did you?"
Jinx grinned in spite of the cut on her neck. The air around them howled into a localized tornado tinged with pink. They drifted into the heart of the storm, where Jinx's will kept them safe and aloft. Above the howl of the wind, Jinx yelled, "Don't worry, Hamlet. I'll have you there quick enough to catch the big fight in Act Five. Just keep away from any poison swords."
"And humor, too? You were a real bargain," he shouted back.
The hallway swam with pitch. Without power to light itself, the Tower had become a dread place. Her penlight had done little to dispel the dark on her trek to Ops. Now she paused outside the double doors of the old command center. She was breathless, but not from her long climb up the stairs. She hesitated, but not out of fear. Her communicator hung by her lips, waiting for the rest of her distress call.
"Please," she said, "if anyone's listening, you have to help. There are no more Teen Titans, and Jump City is in real danger."
As she rambled the rest of her message, she realized just what her words meant. She wasn't a Titan anymore. Cyborg had passed her off to Social Services like a buck. And without the Titans, who was she? Some dumpy little amnesiac with a drug problem?
The monster in her head snarled at her whiny thoughts. She cringed.
"Um…that's it. Hope to meet you soon," she said, and shut her communicator. Clicking off her penlight, she jammed her fingertips into the crack of light between the doors. That crack grew with a mighty effort of her miniscule frame. With grunting and straining, she forced a gap in the doors wide enough to squeeze through.
Welcome home, she told herself glumly, and surveyed the derelict expanse of the room. Charred shapes teased her memory. She remembered the couch where they'd watched movies and played games, and the kitchen where Beast Boy and Cyborg had fought constantly over what counted as "meat" in a meal. What she didn't remember, and saw now, was a stranger in white.
Tek screamed and fell backwards as a boy in a flowing white keikogi leapt from the shadows. Metal flashed from his hand and struck the door above her. Landing on her hands and rear, Tek stared up in horror at the knife quivering where her head had been.
"I'm sorry!" her attacker said hastily. He raised his hands as he approached Tek, who held her suit on the cusp of its dimensional portal, ready to snap over her if need be. But the young boy seemed earnestly chagrinned about the attack. He kept his hands high, and stayed out of her reach as he said, "You startled me, and I didn't recognize you. I thought you might be a villain invading the Tower."
Tek studied him as she stood. The boy was barely as tall as her. He smiled at her with golden features and foxy eyes framed with coal-black hair. The keikogi masked his body, but the teal belt cinched tight at his waist suggested a wiry frame beneath those canvas folds. A long sheath hung from his waist. When her posture relaxed, he lowered his hands and bowed to her.
"You didn't recognize me?" she asked incredulously. She yanked the knife from the door. It dislodged on her third try. "Who are you? And who taught you to throw knives at strangers?" she demanded, punctuating her words with a wave of the knife.
The boy gingerly extracted his knife from Tek's wild swing. It disappeared into his flapping sleeve as though it had never existed. "Forgive me, please. My name is Ryuko Orsono, and I am here to help," he said. "I am an honorary Titan. They call me 'Bushido.'"
She didn't recognize the name. She had never heard of him. That alone should have made her suspicious. But with everything that had happened, the thought of help made all her annoyance vanish in a puff of hope. "Really? That's great!" Tek gushed. Then confusion creased her forehead. "Wait… I just finished calling for help, like, two seconds ago. There's no way you could have gotten here that quick. Are you a teleporter?"
Her confusion spilled into his face. His expression tilted. "What? No. What distress call?"
"Didn't you hear it on your communicator? Does this thing even still work?" she asked, and rattled her communicator next to her ear.
Bushido shook his head. "Er, no. I will have to check my messages. But I didn't return to the Tower for a distress call. I came here to help in the rebuilding efforts, to aid the Titans in their time of need. Where are they?"
Tek's lips tightened. "You're looking at them. I'm an honorary Titan too. Sort of. It's complicated. But everyone else is gone." The grim words rang hollow in the pit of Tek's stomach. It reminded her of why she had come to the Tower in the first place, even before being attacked. It was time for her final mission, and she would carry it out, however useless and unimportant it might be.
Why would Cyborg ask her to get something from the Tower? He had to know there was nothing left of value, not after Slade destroyed it. Unless… Unless what he wanted her to find wasn't useless at all, but integral to rejuvenating the Titans. Maybe it was a test. A test! Cyborg wanted to know whether or not she was worthy of being a Titan, and so had trusted her to find some secret weapon, or a computer file, or something so pivotal that the Titans couldn't continue on without it. This was her chance!
"Um, excuse me, miss…?" Bushido interjected.
She stepped back to the doors of Ops, closed her eyes, and concentrated on the instructions Cyborg had given her. With a deep breath, she paced forward, stretching her legs into Cyborg-like steps. "Tek," she answered offhandedly.
"Miss Tek, may I ask, to what distress did you make your call?" Bushido watched her stagger across the floor. Not knowing what else to do, he fell into step behind her, mimicking her long stride. "And what are you doing now?" he added.
When she reached her tenth step, she turned sharply and continued toward the wall. Bushido remained three paces behind, aping her swinging arms and tongue in teeth. "Cyborg gave me one last mission for the Titans. He wanted me to get him something important from a secret safe in Ops," she said.
Bushido followed her to a seemingly innocuous wall. As she patted the wall down, he watched over her shoulder, and asked, "Why was it your last mission?"
She cringed. Her stomach lurched, and she cursed her loose lips. "That's complicated too," she muttered.
Her finger pressed a hidden switch in the wall's nook. The wall squeaked as it split, swinging open. Both teens stepped back, and marveled at the pristine steel of an enormous safe door revealed behind the wall. The safe shone in comparison to the rest of the charred room. Its door reflected their awe perfectly, except for the keypad mounted in the center of the door.
"What is it?" Bushido asked.
"I don't know. Cyborg didn't say, except that it was super-important, and I'm the only one he trusted to get it." He hadn't said that, exactly, but surely he had meant it that way. She knew it. Hand trembling, she reached for the keypad. "Two. Six. Six. Nine. Two. Four," she rattled off with each key she pressed.
The safe door beeped, and slid up into its housing. Behind the door was a solid core of metal wrapped around what appeared to be a single drawer. When Tek pulled the drawer, it slid completely out of the metal. It was a security lock box.
Bushido eyed the security box. "After all that, I was hoping for something more…impressive? Some kind of weapon, perhaps."
Tek knew better. She knew of Cyborg's cleverness. Inside this box could be any number of gadgets, or super secret files, or some third thing she couldn't come up with at the moment. She tucked the box under her arm and took half a step toward the door. "Okay, I've got the MacGuffin," she said proudly. "Now I'll just…"
She couldn't take it back to Cyborg. That would just lead Red X and his goons straight to him, where he and the rest of S.T.A.R. Labs would be helpless to defend themselves.
"…I have no idea what to do next," she admitted. Her shoulders fell.
"Perhaps if you elucidate upon the danger of which you earlier spoke, I could offer a viable course of action," Bushido suggested.
"Huh?"
"Why were you so afraid when you came in? Before I threw the knife at your head," he clarified.
"Oh. There's these super villains chasing me. I don't know why, but they have some kind of freaky Titan jihad going on. I recognize most of them. Their leader is this scary skull guy with a thing for exploding crosses. Then there's this other guy with a huge—"
Her explanation dissolved into a scream as a beam of boiling red light carved through Ops' doors. A red blast blew the door into razor shrapnel. Tek and Bushido shrank from the peppering shards and watched a figure enter Ops through the smoking doorway. See-More's glowing eye preceded him through the smoke. His laugh came soon after.
"What's going on here? A Titans pep rally? Ha!" See-More crowed. He touched the ocular rig circling his head, turning its lens green. Then he spread a wave of devastation from his eye that tore apart everything it touched.
Tek shrieked again as she ducked behind the kitchen counter. The metal box rattled against her chest. She tried calling forth her armor, but everything was too loud and happening too quickly. The monster in her roared with such force that she shut her eyes. She curled around the box and tried to ignore her monster long enough to armor up.
A presence at her side made her look up. Bushido crouched next to her, also using the counter for shelter against the entropy spewing across Ops. "This one, does he have any other powers? Regeneration? Strength? Speed?" he asked.
"I don't know? Isn't the eye thing enough?" she shrieked.
He didn't answer. Bushido timed the green wave's sweep, waiting for an opening. Then he leapt after its passing and cleared the counter. Tek never saw him draw his blade. She heard only the faintest whisper of steel before she saw a katana flashing in his hand.
See-More saw Bushido coming. He cackled and changed his eye's color from green to white. "Let's go, ninja boy!" he cried. Raw force leapt from his eye, punching through the far wall with ease. See-More began correcting his aim, laughing all the while. He didn't recognize the swordsman from Red X's descriptions, but he wasn't about to waste a good opportunity, either.
Bushido became a ghost. He danced across the floor in a blur of white that See-More could not pin down with his beams. The young swordsman crouched low one instant, only to be airborne the next. He twisted horizontally through the air above a wasted shot and landed gracefully.
In seconds, the laughable distance between the two shrank to nothing. See-More's mirth faded when his shooting gallery became a melee. He reached up to change his eye. He never got the chance. Steel flashed, consigning See-More to eternal darkness.
Tek peered over the counter with enormous eyes at the sight of Bushido cleaning his blade on See-More's sleeve. The villain knelt before Bushido and clutched the remains of his ocular rig while a scream tore from his throat. Blood gushed from the eye beneath his hands, giving Bushido pause. He leaned down to better see See-More's single eye socket inside the broken device. "Fascinating. Your powers weren't entirely technological?"
"W-what did you do?" Tek asked, rising from behind the counter. She hugged the security box fiercely and gaped at the maimed villain.
Bushido afforded his foe one last, disinterested look. "I disarmed him. Shall I dispatch him?" he asked with a flick of his sword.
"No! No, no, no, no!" she cried. "Are you crazy?"
He frowned in consideration of the question while Tek circled the counter and See-More writhed in agony. Sheathing his sword, he said, "I don't think I'm crazy. But then, were I crazy, I would be a poor judge. Do you think I'm crazy?"
"Look what you did to him! Why would you—?"
Movement tickled Bushido's eye from outside the window. "We should duck," he said, and shoved Tek down. Blue energy sizzled the air over their heads a second later.
Spidery stalks carried Gizmo through the broad, empty Ops window. Squat cannons sat on his shoulders, glaring with blue protonic energy that he leveled at the heroic pair. "Don't move, stink bags!" he shouted. Then his gaze fell on the blood streaming from See-More's face. Staggering back on his mechanical limbs, he cried, "Holy hell! What did you do to him?"
Bushido responded with smoke pellets prestidigitated from his sleeve. Oily gas billowed at Gizmo's feet, blinding and choking him long enough to miss the swordsman dragging Tek to her feet. Protonic bolts sprayed from the smoke cloud, hastening them out Ops' doors.
They ran down the hall, ignoring the curses and random bolts landing behind them. Bushido had yet to break a sweat as he calmly asked, "Is there a plan for retreat?"
The security box thumped against her thigh as Tek followed him. Panting, she said, "This is where I ran to. I'm kinda out of ideas."
"We must fight or escape," he said.
"I know, I know!" she moaned, clutching at her hair. "The rest of Gizmo's buddies are probably already here. If only we had something faster than them, like a car, or a boat, or…"
A sudden idea struck her silent, which worried Bushido, because they were rapidly running out of hallway. Clanking footsteps three turns behind them made him prompt her, "Or what?"
"Downstairs!" she cried.
His eyebrow quirked. "The basement would be a far from ideal stage for a last stand."
"Not the basement. The Vehicle Bay!"
Red X staggered as the pinkish wind deposited him onto the beach. Before him loomed the rocky bluffs upon which sat the Tower. He felt a chill of excitement flow up from the sand and course to the tip of his head. Here, in the land of his enemies, his work would truly begin.
A spray of sand reminded him of Jinx's presence. She kicked grit from the polished tip of her shoe, and said, "Ugh. This place smells like orca hork. Why not just let Gizmo nuke the island into glass and get it over with?"
Grasping his gauntlet, X radioed, "Gizmo, report! What is your status?"
"Those scat munchers got See-More!"
A thrill tickled X's spine. "There are other Titans in there?"
"Maybe. There was some kind of ninja with the robot girl. He carved the eyeball outta See-More's head with a freakin' sword. Now he and the girl are down in the garage. I got 'em cornered, though."
Red X paced the beach, looking for some way up the bluffs. He cursed Jinx for not landing them outside the Tower. And where were Mammoth and Shimmer? "Cornered how?" he demanded.
"They locked themselves in some kinda big, shiny, futuristic jet-thing. Not sure who they think they're kidding, though. Without any juice, there's no way they can launch…uh-oh."
"Uh-oh? What 'uh-oh?'"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The bluffs above them belched thunderously, spewing fiery boulders ahead of a tremendous metal door. Jinx saved them from the avalanche with a canopy of hex. The door tumbled end over end and then splashed into the ocean.
"What the hell is going on?" Rex X shouted above the hiss of rocks vaporizing in Jinx's hex umbrella.
The bluffs roared again, this time with the power of four immense thrusters that drove a gleaming silver jet out of the launch tunnel secreted in the rock. X and Jinx caught only a glimpse of its long, sleek underbelly and angular wings before they tumbled back from the hot lash of its wake. Seated in wet sand, X watched the jet disappear into the sky. A screaming, spidery shape broke away from the jet's nose and tumbled into the ocean.
Red X stood in a fury of flying sand and pointing fingers. "What are you waiting for? Go after them!" he bellowed at Jinx.
The witch pulled her face out of the beach and unloaded a good portion of it from her mouth. Her eyes flashed at X. "What do you want me to do? I fly as fast as the wind. That thing looks like the space shuttle's juicing little cousin. There's no way."
Blades leapt from his gauntlet. He lowered the tip of one to Jinx's nose. "No!" he screamed. "It isn't over! It isn't over until every last Titan is dead!"
A matrix of dancing pink engulfed X's blade. The tempered steel dissolved, wafting as dust on the breeze. Jinx stood with more hex in hand and gestured to the vanishing glow of the jet's thrusters. "Wake up, Baby Face. It's over, and we won! That was the last batch of Titans in town, and they just hightailed it out of here. There's nobody left."
He reached into the sky as if to pluck back the jet. No trace of it remained. "But that's not… It isn't…" he faltered.
Jinx watched him grasp at nothing. The hex faded from her hands. She had known him for less than a day, and in that time she had hated him, feared him, dismissed him, and even admired him. But now she felt sorry for him. His whole being hinged on the Titans' destruction. Even in the lowest moments of her career, Jinx had more than her hatred to which she could cling. Red X did not.
She took him by the shoulder and steered him from the beach. Her hand kept him upright until he found his legs again. "Let's go. We need to pick up Gizmo and see what's left of See-More," she said.
The yoke rattled in Tek's hands while she watched clouds roll beneath the nose of their jet. Throughout their harrowing takeoff, she'd thought silent prayers of thanks for Cyborg, who had built the Icarus from an alien scout craft they had captured months earlier, and who had kept the craft in such impeccable repair that it still worked even after weeks of neglect. She also gave thanks for the Icarus's seismic cannons, which had been able to solve their problem of the inoperative launch door.
Something red lit up and flashed on her instrument panel. She kept praying.
Bushido sat in the copilot seat. "Sat" was a generous word for it—he crouched on the seat's edge, his hands constricting the armrests, his body tensed to the point of trembling. When he could no longer see the world whizzing beneath them at ungodly speed, he relaxed enough to remember to breathe again. "I am…grateful that you know how to fly," he said slowly.
She added her spotty memory and its skills she had yet to fully unlock to her list of thankful prayers. "Me too," she muttered.
"Pardon?"
"Nothing," she said.
They fell silent. The soothing whine of the engine eased Tek out of her adrenaline rush. She felt her monster and her panic waiting for her. She and Bushido were out of danger for the moment, but what next? None of the other honorary Titans were answering her call, besides Bushido. Except…
"I know about you," she said without preamble. "I know who you really are, Bushido. You're not a Titan."
Bushido glanced sidelong at Tek, who did not meet his gaze. "Is that a fact?" he asked pleasantly.
His hand drifted imperceptibly toward his blade, until she said, "You're just some kid who thinks this is his big shot. You went to the Tower looking to join the Titans." She gave him a sad smile, and said, "Sorry. I only knew because whoever gave me my powers also made me into this weird living super hero encyclopedia. If you were really a Titan, I would know everything about you just by looking at you, right down to 'boxers' or 'briefs.'"
He relaxed again, and his hand fell into his lap. A reflection of her smile sprang into his lips. "How disconcerting," he said.
"But you have to know," she said gravely, "what you did to that eye guy was wrong. Seriously wrong. Titans never hurt people like that. They do their best to make sure that everyone stays safe, even bad guys. They don't...do that."
"They?"
Running a hand through her greasy hair, Tek said, "Look, in all honesty, I'm not exactly a Titan either. Cyborg kinda…fired me. I was just there to pick up that." She gestured to the security box seated at a station behind them. Whatever was in there, though, would make her a Titan again. She knew it. Cyborg would see how hard she had worked to retrieve his secret weapon, or whatever it was, and reinstate her in a heartbeat.
"I see. So there are no more Titans," Bushido muttered. "Then what do you propose we do?"
"We get help. Let's call the Justice League, or something," said Tek.
He smirked. "Certainly. Do you have a way with which we might contact them? Or perhaps you can simply fly your heavily armed aircraft into space and demand their attention."
Her monster yowled, stirring her to anger. "Well, I could always fly my heavily armed jet to Metropolis and talk to Superman!" she retorted with a scowl.
"Where he will doubtless take the word of two strange teenagers, one armed, and the other…what is it you do, again?" he asked.
Tek clutched her head and groaned. The monster prowled her skin, yowling for the contrarian boy's blood. She felt an urge to leap atop him and tear his throat out with her teeth, and urge that wasn't quite her own. Bloodlust rang in her head, louder than ever, making it impossible to think. "Shut up!" she shouted, and doubled over.
The smirk fell from Bushido's face. "Are you all right?" he asked.
His hand grazed hers. Rage exploded behind her eyes. The monster roared, filling her with itself. She shrank from his touch and bolted from the cockpit. "Bathroom," she squeaked hastily behind her. The sliding hatch slammed shut.
Bushido found himself alone in the cockpit of an aircraft he could not fly. He stared first at the closed hatch, and then across the chrome and white interior, and finally at the endless array of switches and buttons that surrounded the steering yoke. Another flashing red light appeared on the panel.
He laid his sheathed blade across his lap, bowed his head, and prayed with a whisper.
The tiny confines of the Icarus's bathroom rattled at Tek's' thrashing. She reeled against the sliding door, weaving her hands through her hair as she grasped at the violent thing living in her head. Blood trickled from her bitten lip as she kept her monster's roar from tearing out her mouth.
Leave me alone, she sobbed in her crowded head.
Behind closed eyes, she saw her monster's face. Great red jaws dripped hungrily as its cruel eyes burned through her. She felt it reach through her, clawing for her arms. It would take her arms for itself, and rip, and gnash, and tear until every living thing that could harm it lay dead at her feet. Its jaws split with another roar that shook her mind, spraying rage through her thoughts.
Tek screamed and fell. Her head struck the stainless steel toilet. Stars blinded her as pain consumed the monster's roar for a brief, dizzying respite. She staggered against a small compartment beneath the sink. Its door fell open.
Through fading stars, Tek saw into the compartment, and spied a small bottle of pills sitting on the bottom shelf. Frantically, she contorted herself onto her hands and knees and snatched the bottle. It had no labels, only a childproof cap to suggest its contents' purpose. She fumbled with the cap. Already, she could hear her monster's roar growing between her ears. She hoped and prayed, and swallowed two of the pills. Bitter and chalky, they dropped into her stomach. Let this work, she thought. I need this to work!
Tek tensed and waited. At first, the monster roared louder than it ever had, like it knew what she tried to do. She felt a warm trickle on her lip, and wiped blood from her nose. But then, as her hope began to wane, the monster's roar dimmed. It dwindled. Finally, it stopped. The only noises Tek heard were the hum of the engine and the gasp of her breathing.
She stared down at the pills in wonder. For months, she had abused potent tranquilizers to quell the bloody monster in her. Even those had failed in the end. But when she needed it the most, these pills had bought her peace from the monster. Even the ache in her head felt better.
Pounding on the door made her scream in surprise. She heard Bushido through the door. "Is everything all right?"
Tek palmed the small bottle and straightened herself as best she could in the cramped bathroom. Then she slid the door open and stepped out into the carrier compartment, a long room lined with benches and equipment lockers that Cyborg had designed from the former spaceship's cabin. Bushido stood a respectful distance away as he examined her. A stack of blue cloth and a folded map sat in his hands.
She edged out of the bathroom, keeping her pills hidden behind her back. "I'm fine. What's that?" she asked of his holdings.
"Clothes, and an idea. I found spares of your uniform in one of these lockers, as well as extra communicators, food rations, tools, and several cases of a 'Booyah' energy drink. The clothes I thought you would appreciate because you…how to put this delicately? You smell awful," he said pleasantly.
Tek took the clothes with a blush. As she extended her arm, she saw him notice the track marks in her elbow. She drew back the clothes quickly. "And the idea?" she asked, unable to meet his eye.
Bushido unfolded the map and spread the world out in paper segments for Tek to see. "I had pondered the problem at hand, keeping in mind the likelihood that teenagers such as us will be unsuccessful in contacting the Justice League, short of hovering over a city and demanding to speak with its members."
Imaginary Leaguers tore apart the Icarus of Tek's mind. She shook her head. "Bad plan," she agreed.
"But, and this is perhaps a misconception of mine, if you are indeed a 'hero encyclopedia,' as you say, you are also aware of heroes' locations. For instance, you know from where Superman and Batman operate?"
"Um, duh?" Tek found Metropolis and Gotham city, and pointed to both on the map.
"Green Arrow? Wonder Woman?"
She pointed to Star City, and then to a blank section of ocean.
"Captain Marvel?"
Her finger found Fawcett City. "So? What's your point?"
"What about younger heroes? Heroes more inclined to heed our call, and join us in saving the city? Can you find those?" Bushido asked.
Tek snorted. "That's it? That's your plan? My brain doesn't work like that. I have to see or know the hero before I can rattle off anything about them. I'm not like a hero yellow pages."
"Tek…"
Bushido's gaze guided hers down to the map. Her finger had moved on its own, and now hovered over Chicago, Illinois. As she stared at the map, a sense of certainty overrode her confusion. She didn't know how or why, but she knew without a doubt that someone fitting Bushido's description waited for them in Chicago.
"Where else?" he insisted.
Her finger moved again. London. Los Angeles. Atlanta. "This is unbelievable," she murmured, half amazed at the information trapped in her skull, and wholly annoyed that Bushido had accessed it with nothing more than a map and an idea.
He smiled serenely. "As I see it, we are two socially conscious adolescents in possession of the necessary will, equipment, and information. Who better to pull together a team of able-bodied, like-minded adolescents with which to combat the forces of evil?"
"Us?" she squeaked.
Bushido shook his head. "No. You. I was never a Titan, but you were."
"But I got fired."
Bushido leaned over, watching her finger map out a host of promising leads. Then he met her gaze with clever eyes, and asked, "But do they know that?"
Tek felt sick to her stomach at the thought of turning around and facing Red X alone. She wished with all her heart that one of the other Titans would appear and take charge. Even Terra would have been a welcome sight! But it was just her, a half-pint swordsman, a map of possibilities, and a jet with a questionable amount of fuel.
Her mouth tasted of watery pre-panic vomit as she muttered, "Titans, go…"
The night sky glowed red over Jump City. Choking smoke plumed above the streets, curtaining its skyscrapers in a haze that burned the eye and scraped the lung. Buildings too new to be lived in, some even still under construction, crackled in careless fire left in the wake of a vile celebration.
Mammoth bent, shouldering another car with ease. His mouth spread with a deeply satisfied breath as he smelled the carnage around them. Then he heaved his car, watched it sail through the smoke, and cheered when it landed in the police cruiser parked at the far end of the block. Armored officers scurried from the cruiser before it burst into flames.
"Man," he said to Shimmer, who melted a lamppost into acid with a single touch, "I forgot how much fun it is fighting people who can't fight back."
Shimmer cackled her agreement. 'We should torch an orphanage. Does anyone know where we can find one?"
Above her, Gizmo roamed the streets on his spidery stilts. His protonic cannons punched holes in the landscape. Touching his temple, he willed a Wi-Fi search engine into his eye lenses. "Hang on. I'll Google one. It'll be funny, 'cause they think they already don't have anything!"
Jinx lagged behind, trailing fire in her winding path. The joy of destruction felt incomplete. She glanced up at an older building, spying one gargoyle too many among its statuary, and knew why. "You guys go ahead," she said. "I'll catch up later."
"We should pick up ice cream and eat it in front of them," Mammoth suggested.
As her friends continued their party down the street, Jinx paused and concentrated. She was getting better, but it still took considerable effort to call up just enough wind to fly. Her first attempts with elemental magic had resulted in bad hair days and near-death experiences. Now, she gathered a gale beneath her and soared, judging distances and force on the fly to drop her perfectly onto the ledge.
Just as she'd thought, Red X was brooding in the shadows of a fearsome gargoyle. His mask lay at his feet, leaving Jinx to smirk at his moping expression. He glanced up at her, and asked, "Why aren't you celebrating?"
"Why aren't you?" she retorted, and sat next to him. "I know you're new at this, so here's a clue: we won. Sure, See-More's useless now, but so what? No more Titans! That's the golden ticket, Charlie. Punch it, and ride the good times, because I guarantee they won't last long enough."
He leaned on his knees and watched the city burn. "This feels all wrong. I've trained my whole life. When my father died, I thought this would be my purpose. To avenge his death, and destroy the Titans. But when it came down to it, the only Titan I could even find is some weakling poser, and all I did was chase her off. Now what do I do?"
Her face twisted with disgust. "You aren't seriously complaining about winning, are you?" she asked.
Rex X rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry. My existentialism must be depressing you. Go. Have fun with your friends. Enjoy your petty crime and mindless destruction. I'll just sit up here and try not to bother you while I figure out what to do with the rest of my life."
Jinx grabbed his face and kissed him. She ignored his muffled squeak and his brief struggle, and held him fast by the chin. Her tongue teased his until he kissed her back. Then she pulled away, grinning at his dumbfounded, adorable expression.
"See what I did there? I saw something I wanted, and I took it," she told him.
Slowly, a smile crept across his face. "Take it again," he said.
"Make me."
He snared her and dipped her across his lap for a slow, intoxicating kiss. Jinx felt years' worth of repression pouring out of him. She happily reciprocated, fingering his chestnut hair, savoring the taste of his desire, until at last they both needed breath.
Gasping, Jinx didn't fight his tentative embrace. She rested her forehead against his and purred, "What's your name? Because I'll tell you right now, no matter how good you are, you'll never get me to scream, 'Oh, yes, Red X, yes!'"
Flushed in the light of the fires, he said, "Grant."
"I'm Nichole. Now get off your ass and show me a good time, loser."
"Drama queen," he teased back. Chuckling, he rose with Jinx still in his arms. A grappling line leapt from his gauntlet and snared another burning building. With her at his side, Red X swung into the city for some petty, greedy, altogether satisfying debauchery.
The Titans were no more. They owned the night.
To Be Continued