Teen Titans
Adaptation
By Cyberwraith9
Legacy: Mettle
"You have a sister? And you never told me!"
The shrill outburst consumed too much precious space in the claustrophobically small interior of the mobile home. Ravager could tolerate the lack of elbow room. He could tolerate the interminable heat, which was worse and stuffier here than outside in the Doldrums. It taxed his tolerance to the limit, but he could even bear the unwelcome sight of the lithe platinum blonde holding a gun at him from behind her computer terminal.
But the high-pitched scrape of Jinx's voice against his very brain as she cried outrage over something as inane as the subject of his family acted as the proverbial straw on his camel's back. "Jinx, you cannot seriously want to talk about this now," he said.
Hex sparked in Jinx's eyes and filled her hands, which she kept leveled at Rose, waiting for a clear moment in which to strike. "Oh, sure. I mean, why tell me about someone important enough to point a gun at you? I'm just some chick you're banging right now, after all," she snarked.
Rose's nose crinkled. "Really, Grant? Her? I guess she looks a little like your mom. But what's with the cotton candy head?"
"You leave my mother out of this!" Ravager barked.
Fingering her hair, Jinx scowled on several different levels, and snapped, "What does that mean? Grant—"
"Ravager," he snapped.
With flittering eyebrows and twinkling glacier eyes, Rose lilted, "Ooh, 'Ravager.' Are you a big bad super villain now, 'Ravager?' Where's your cape?"
"Shut up!" he bellowed, and coiled his disc tighter, his arm aching to hurl it at her.
"Who are you?" Jinx demanded. "What are you even doing out here? And why are you squatting in the world's most geeked-out rattle trap? This is, like, half a step up from a refrigerator box with computers drawn on the side."
"I told you, I'm Rose Wilson. I'm Grant's sister," Rose said impatiently.
"'Half' sister," Ravager said. "This little bastard showed up one day claiming to be my father's daughter. She's been sniffing around our family ever since, trying to weasel something out of us. She's nothing but a scavenger."
"Slade Wilson is my father!" Rose yelled. Her face purpled with rage. "All I ever wanted was for him, for all of you, to accept that. He was a war hero and an incredible man, and I'm going to prove once and for all that I'm worthy of his name."
"Is that what all this robot stupidity is about?" Jinx asked with a sneer. "It's just one big family pissing contest?"
"She isn't family!" Ravager bellowed.
"Don't call me stupid!" Rose screamed over him.
The mobile home buzzed with the waning echo of their outbursts. All three teenagers' arms trembled in the long silence that followed. Gun, disc, and crackling hex stood poised to launch a battle upon the constrictive interior of the Winnebago. Scowls deepened and tempers smoldered, waiting for an excuse, an opportunity, to ignite.
Lowering her voice, Rose asked, "So what happens now, Grant? Are you going to wait here with me until our father shows up?"
His eyes widened slightly, the only surprise his mask would let slip. "That's why you're doing this?" he asked.
"Well, duh," she snapped. "I only left a trail a mile wide with that control signal. That's why I thought you were him when you showed up. I knew he would ignore such a sloppy attack and head straight for its source. It was the surest way to get his attention."
"Wait. I thought your dad was dead," Jinx said to Ravager.
He scowled at Rose. "He is dead. Which means not only is this game of your moronic, but also pointless. So call off my father's robots and give me control, and I might let you walk away from this with all of your body parts accounted for."
"You're such an idiot, Grant. There was never any body found. Slade's alive!" Rose exclaimed. Cooling, she added, "And I can put a bullet through one of those eyeholes in your silly little mask. So threats aren't going to get you anywhere but dead."
"There was never any body because the Titans annihilated it. That super powered lout of a leader vaporized him. If Dad were alive, he would have contacted me by now. I would have heard something. What do you have that makes you so certain he survived?" he growled.
Rose rolled her eyes, but kept her gun steady. "A brain, for one. I dug around until I found one of his hidden Caribbean accounts. There's been activity on it within the last three months. What do you think that is, a postmortem withdrawal?"
"I think it's carrion scum like you," he snarled. "Hanger-ons, or old associates. That old coot, Wintergreen, for one. Father dealt with criminals. I sincerely doubt that they would be content to leave his money to rest in peace."
"Oh, now you're just being dense," said Rose.
Hesitantly, Jinx glanced at Ravager, and said, "I hate to say it, but she has a point. Nobody ever produced a body, and Slade was one tough SOB. And that bank thing is—"
"Whose side are you on?" he roared.
"Easy," Jinx said. "I'm on your side. Say the word, and her body is dust in the wind, okay? I'm just saying, maybe your dad isn't dead like you thought. That's a good thing, right?"
Ravager's scowl remained affixed to Rose. His arm trembled. "Last chance," he told Rose. "Drop the gun, walk away, and never come back."
"Grant, we can work together," Rose said, changing gears. Her gun never wavered, but her voice softened with possibility. "If this doesn't work, we can try something else. We can team up. We can look for Slade together. I don't want any handouts or anything. I just…I want a chance to show him what kind of daughter he has. Is that so bad?"
Ravager laughed in cold rebuttal. "Team up? I hate to break it to you, but I've already got a team. The majority of it is standing outside right now. With one word from me, they'll tear your little wagon to the ground with you in it like you were tissue paper. In fact, after this little desert goose chase you've put us through, I imagine they're eager—"
The wall of the Winnebago caved inward with a sharp shriek of rending metal. A dent the size of a basketball pushed in between where Rose and Ravager stood. All three teens jumped at the sound and whirled their readied attacks upon the dent. Hearts pounding, they listened in anticipation, forgetting their mutual antipathy for a moment. A muffled groan filtered through the dent, with a thud following shortly after.
"Shit!" Gizmo's scream carried through the open door. "Ambush!"
Ravager glanced at Rose. Thoroughly confused, she lowered her gun with a nod. Their temporary alliance rushed through the door of the Winnebago with Ravager in the lead. All three of them stopped cold at the sight that greeted them in the oppressive heat outside.
The dent had been Mammoth's doing, though not by choice. He lay by the Winnebago, rubbing his head and glaring at the reason for his double headache. A set of red arms and legs extended from under either side of Mammoth, with a soft groan wafting up. Gizmo crouched by his side with a pair of cannons extended from his tech pack. Shimmer stood to Mammoth's other side, stirring the air with her power.
Behind the glow of his sonic cannon, Cyborg stood against the sudden rush from the mobile home with the SLICER at his back. A metal spider scurried across the ground to leap into his empty wrist, where it became his hand once more. Stony resolve composed half of his face, the other half remaining steely.
"That little kiss I blew at Mammoth was one of the lower settings," Cyborg called to the Tyrants. "Any of y'all wanna try one of the higher settings, go ahead and make a move. I'm feeling good and twitchy after all that yapping."
Ravager coiled his arm again. His explosive disc trembled with tension. His glare threatened to leap from his mask and kill Cyborg itself, reality notwithstanding. "Damn your metal hide!" Ravager roared. "How many times are you going to jam your bionic cadaver into my business and foul everything up?"
"Versus the number of times you pop up to screw the city with your retreaded villain remix? I'd say that ratio's gonna stay one-to-one, Ravvy. Now drop the Frisbee and give it up before I make you shake, rattle, and roll," Cyborg said.
Rose's gun cocked noisily at Cyborg, earning her the full attention of his sonic cannon. "What is this, 'Alpha Male Posturing One-Oh-One?' Somebody just shoot him already!"
Cyborg glared at their newest player. "This isn't exactly tin foil I'm sporting. And it goes all the way to the bone, in case you were thinking about shooting my meal ticket here," he said, and tapped his cheek.
"Yeah? How bulletproof is that shiny red bullseye on your face?" she cracked, and shifted her aim to his left optic.
"You'll be up to your ears in a sonic ass-kicking before your finger even twitches," he promised her.
Gizmo's cannons lit with green fire, their barrels aglow in anticipation. "Go ahead and shoot, y' glitchy windbag. I'll punch a hole through you so big that I'll be able to drive my tank in your guts."
"It's one versus six, Cyborg," Jinx told him. "More, if Billy isn't dead under Mammoth."
"Four," he retorted. "Shimmer and Mammoth can't do jack without getting closer." The observation drew scathing silence from the siblings, and more groaning from underneath Mammoth.
"Even still, you're done. We all know you won't aim to kill. You know every one of us will," Jinx sang through a wicked smile.
Cyborg stared down the sinister seven, glad that his cybernetics prevented such human failings like hyperventilation or fearful trembling. His rock-steady cannon and even breath certainly maintained the illusion that he wasn't worried in the least. He needed that illusion to buy more time for his wafer-thin plan to take effect.
Lifting his arm, Cyborg rested his aim upon the immense satellite dish atop Rose's mobile home. The aperture of his cannon narrowed to its tightest configuration. "Then I guess I'd better make my one shot count. Say bye-bye to your robot control."
"No!" cried Rose.
Ravager lowered his disc to clutch his side for a deep belly laugh. "That's it? That's your threat? I was going to blow this eyesore off the map anyway. Go ahead and shoot. Then we can kill you and get the hell out of this dirt hole."
Outrage burst from Rose's cool composure. "You can't do that! Those are my robots! Do you know how long I've worked just to get them?"
Gizmo scoffed and jabbed his cannons at Cyborg. "He's not gonna blow up shit. He knows that without a command signal, the bots will go berserk and tear apart everything they see, just like last time. It's a bluff."
"Maybe," Cyborg drawled. "Or maybe I'm stuck in a no-win scenario, so I figure if there's no way to stop them outright, the best thing I can do is make sure you can't use them."
"Go ahead," Ravager said again. "I don't care one whit about them. This whole endeavor has been a waste of time and sweat. If you could hurry this along—"
"NO!" Rose screamed. Her platinum hair whirled as she grabbed Jinx by the throat from behind and jammed the pistol into the witch's temple.
The standoff shifted immediately. Ravager's hand snapped at Rose with a saber that had been drawn faster than any eye could follow. The tip of his blade dug into the soft flesh of Rose's throat, but did nothing to sway her pistol from Jinx's head.
Jinx quelled the hex in her hands and remained as still as possible with a disgusted look on her face. Mammoth and Shimmer both looked to the new conflict, rooted by confusion. Billy pulled himself from the ground and dizzily split into three to keep watch on all facets of the standoff. But Gizmo kept his hateful glare and lethal arsenal locked on Cyborg.
"Power down your laser beam, Tin Man, or I swear I'll spread her magic little brains all over her boyfriend," Rose shouted. Twisting the pistol's barrel into Jinx's temple, she hissed, "And no hocus pocus. I even feel a tingle of hoo-doo, and you get to find out if you're faster than a speeding frikkin' bullet."
"Pull that trigger, and you'll hit the ground before she does," Ravager promised Rose. "I'll carve and peel your face until you look like your namesake. A raw, bloody little rosebud."
Jinx bristled beneath Rose's gunpoint. "How about we come up with a solution that doesn't involve me dying? Just give her the goddamn robots!"
"Not happening," Cyborg and Ravager said together.
"Titan, lower your noise gun before Rose does something she won't live to regret. Rose, let Jinx go before I do something you won't live to regret," continued Ravager.
"Not until he gets the hell away from my transmitter!" Rose said.
"What is the frakking problem here, people? I told you, there's no way ol' gear guts is gonna let that horde trash his precious city," scoffed Gizmo. "This is all a big bluff. Let's just blast him already!"
The corner of Cyborg's mouth tweaked. "Bluff? I wouldn't bet on it. I've got four of the heaviest heavy hitters on the planet standing between Jump City and your daddy's screwed up leftovers. Any one of them could handle this problem on their own without breaking a sweat. I guarantee, with all of them working together, the city won't even see the robots before they're stomped out hard. I'm just here to see if I can't make the cleanup a little easier for everybody."
With the edge of the city behind a wall of red power at his back, which had been erected by allies he didn't fully trust, Beast Boy could not afford to take chances. As soon as he cleared the wall with the wings of a buzzard, he morphed and enlarged, and fell to the ground as a dagger-toothed Utahraptor. His clawed feet crushed two robots whole, while his jaws halved a third, and his tail batted a fourth.
The animal in him howled at the stench of the pneumatic fluid pouring from his mouth. He shunned his darker half, which longed to take this new shape far from the battle in search of tastier fare. Or better still, why hunt, when morsels could be found at hand? The swordsman in the arms of their other mechanical aberration made his mouth water even from half a battlefield away. The smell of the doe in the blue cloak made his blood boil with hunger.
Beast Boy tried to channel these other instincts into the battle, to turn his urges upon the swarm of robots around them. For every robot he smashed, countless more took its place. His claws ripped their armor like paper. His hide rebuffed their powerful blows. They piled upon him, forcing him to lash out with greater ferocity.
He did not like taking a predator's shape. Each time he did, he felt it take away another piece of who he was to feed his beast. The sweet scent of his friends' fear, the adrenaline rush of combat, all made the beast stronger. Each time, Beast Boy felt less like himself and closer to becoming that monster in the jungle he had unleashed.
Still, he fought. Still, the robots came, coordinating their attacks in twos and threes that forced him to be come faster, stronger, fiercer. Still, his beast thrived. Still, he gave up more of who he was for the sake of others.
His foot plunged through the stomach of a charging robot, shearing it in half. Its legs careened into the force wall behind him. Its torso clutched his leg, clinging to unlife with murderous resolve. The whole of its power erupted through its glare, sweeping through the meat and bone of Beast Boy's knee. Agony struck Beast Boy out of his lizard skin. He fell as an elfin human bereft of a leg.
Beast Boy's howl tore Raven's focus out of the soul-sickles extending from her hands. Her ethereal constructs dissipated as she looked down and watched Beast Boy topple backwards while his shin fell forward with a robot wrapped around it. His name exploded from her lips. "Garfield!"
She dove in a whirl of cloak and thrust her other self into the pack of robots scavenging the injured Titan. A wave of black ether threw the robots bodily from atop him, and then sealed into a translucent dome as Raven landed. More robots pounded on her dome in frenzied effort to slaughter both Titans inside. She ignored them, and took Beast Boy's contorted face into her hands.
"It's going to be okay," she said, wincing as his claws wrapped around her arms. He convulsed underneath her, forcing her to pin him with her legs. She said it over and over, trying to reach him with the impromptu mantra: "It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay."
She steeled herself with a deep breath, and cringed at his arching, sobbing howl. Her defenses lowered to accept his pain in order to heal him. But instead of the amputational torment she expected, she felt a curious tingle in her own leg. She looked back at his stub with a confused frown as he thrashed beneath her.
Raven gasped. The scorched stump at Beast Boy's knee bulged and rippled as if a swarm of flies were trapped beneath his skin. Before her eyes, the wound burst open bloodlessly. Bone stretched from the knee, glistening white, growing at an incredible rate. Muscle and sinew wrapped around it, racing the bone to the end, where both branched out and wove into a clawed foot. Green skin emerged over the dripping muscle. In seconds, Beast Boy had a bare, new leg sticking out of the charred hole in his pants.
Beast Boy gulped for air as Raven climbed off of him. Both of them stared agog at his new leg, and then at his former leg still trapped in the deadened robot's grasp. Their eyes converged, hers, astonished, his, terrified.
"Garfield…that was…" Raven came from another world, and lived a magical life on a daily basis. But the ability to spontaneously, nigh-instantly regenerate an entire limb floored her. "How…?"
He grasped her arm with manic fear. "Don't tell anyone. Please," he pleaded.
"Why—?"
"You can't tell anyone!"
Rivulets of black bile ran under his claws, staining her ashen skin. Raven scowled, and rested a hand on his crushing grasp. "You're hurting me," she told him.
He glanced down and saw her blood. Something wild sparked in his eyes. His nostrils flared. Then he yanked back his hand and clutched his hair, curling into himself with hyperventilating gasps. His new foot dug into the dirt with claws that were slightly longer than they had been before.
"I'm sorry," he squeaked. "I didn't mean to… Please don't…"
"I won't tell anyone," she said, pressing down on the cuts in her arm. His claws had barely scratched her, just enough to break the skin. A modicum of magic and a brief doubling of their sting sealed the cuts without leaving scars. Closing the wounds seemed to ease Beast Boy's shuddering. "Are you okay?" she asked.
He traced the tips of his clawed toes. The foot tingled, but otherwise felt fine. He never would have guessed it was brand new. "I…yeah. Yeah, I'm set."
Pressure mounted between Raven's temples. She looked up and saw a battalion of robots clawing at them through her dome, which began to crack beneath the strain. She threw her will back into the dome and said, "Then let's go."
The dome burst outward, flinging robots in every direction as the two Titans rejoined the battle. Beast Boy threw himself into a new shape, that of a tremendous ankylosaurus, and began smashing every mechanical thing in sight with his club tail.
Raven gathered her soul-self to slash anew when her cloak jerked her out of the air in the hands of two robots. The pair swung her hard into the ground, stunning her with the force of her landing. She coughed and rolled over to shield herself from their glowing eyes.
The two robots menacing her lost their heads to the sweep of a bone-white blade. As their bodies crumpled, they revealed their executioner, who lowered his sword and offered Raven a helping hand. "You need to watch your cloak," Brother Blood said. "These things are grabby."
She scowled at his smirking tone. Then she thrust her hand at him and launched a stream of soul-self. Blood staggered back as the soul-self split and curved around his body to converge upon a robot that had leapt to catch him unawares. The black ether shredded the robot into metal confetti that rained upon the flinching Blood.
Standing on her own, Raven brushed clean her vestments, and said, "Likewise."
More robots rushed their position. Raven stepped toward Blood, reluctantly putting her back to his. Components crunched underfoot as they turned in tune with one another's footwork, facing the endless horde around them with preternatural collusion. Lasers sizzled against barriers of soul-self that swept from Raven's hands, and bounced off the deft parry of Blood's bone blade.
"Admit it," Blood said over his shoulder, shouting above the roar of the battle. "You thought I'd be dead by now, and here I am, saving you."
The horde closed around them. Oil sprayed from the ends of Raven's soul-talons, which she slashed through robot after furious robot. She wrenched a robot in half, flinching at the geyser from its pneumatic entrails. "Congratulations on not being hamburger. But you hardly saved me. I can take care of myself."
Blood kicked a sparking robot off the end of his sword, and then decapitated it with one swing. "Oh, no question," he quipped.
Raven spared a glance back and felt grudging admiration for Brother Blood. He possessed unmistakable prowess with his blade, which twained the armored terrors around them without any visible effort. Her own ethereal blades couldn't cleave the robots so smoothly. "What's that blade made of?" she asked.
"This sword is our greatest relic. It's called 'The Hand,'" Blood replied in mid-swing. "Legend claims that the sword was crafted from the body of our Lord. It will strike down any foe of any power thanks to His divine blessing."
She grunted, bumping backs with Blood as a wave of robots crashed against her soul-shield. "Cute story," she said.
His sword flashed over the top of her hood. Its blade parted her soul-shield as though it were a curtain of water, sending shivers through Raven's core. The entire line of robots harrying her shield was cleaved at their waists. They fell, deactivated, as Raven retracted the shreds of her soul-self and glared at Blood.
Even through his mask, his smile was palpable. "You say 'story.' I say 'faith,'" he said.
She grabbed the clasp of his cloak and yanked him toward her, pulling him out of the clutches of the next wave of robots. Her shield reappeared whole to protect his back. With her face all but pressed into his chest, she fought, and snapped, "Faith? I suppose you think your magic sword will make a convert out of me, too."
He put his arms around her to parry laser blasts aimed at her back. "If you choose so, certainly. Would you like a pamphlet?"
Her shield stretched with tendrils to bat the robots away from Blood's back. She glared through him with ethereal senses to guide her soul-self. "I have no intention of being baptized in blood," she told him.
Blood's swordplay bent his face toward hers. His green eyes narrowed inside the silver skull. "The Church stopped advocating blood rites some time before Christianity's second Crusade. That's an unfair characterization we've struggled with for centuries."
"So sayeth Brother Blood," Raven said.
"Blood is life. It's the binding tie between us all. Why shouldn't we celebrate the life we all share?" he countered.
A stray blast struck the hilt of his sword. Blood cried and drew back as his sword clattered behind Raven's feet. The robots pounced upon their chance, pouring behind Raven to outflank her.
Raven grabbed his clasp again, this time jerking him down to his knees. "Stay down!" she shouted. Ether roiled in her hands as she gathered her self, closing her eyes to shut away the thousand distractions of the battlefield. Her will focused into a single point, which she shaped with a shout: "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"
Soul-self swirled from her gesture into a sphere of wire-thin tendrils. Another gesture exploded the sphere, expanding its tendrils through the robots' ranks. The tendrils whipped through the robots seemingly without effect.
Then the robots jerked and staggered. Tilting forward, the foremost robots slid apart into neatly cut slices, clattering onto the ground. The rest proceeded to fall into cross-sectional pieces, at the passing of her tendrils.
Brother Blood lifted his head to stare in wonder at the twenty yards of scrap metal encircling them. Oil dripped from his helmet's horns as he looked up to the drenched, heaving, incredible sorceress looming over him. "Wow," he whispered.
Raven smirked. As she bent to return his sword, she quipped, "Concentrate on protecting all that blood before—"
The instant her fingers brushed the sword, Raven felt a terrible rage swallow her whole. She collapsed with a snarl as every last defense she possessed was shattered by the presence of the sword. Hate, pure and unyielding, plunged into her very soul, where it awakened the demonic nature she worked every moment of every day to suppress.
She tried to pull her hand away, but the sword held her fast. She clutched her forehead, which burned with the emergence of two more eyes. Her four-tiered scowl glowed with crimson power, power not of her own, power forced upon her by a distant presence she had known and feared all her life.
Brother Blood took the sword from her grasp. "Thank you," he said. "I…" He stopped to watch her face contort back into a pained semblance of normalcy. "Are you all right?" he asked.
Raven panted, doubled over in the wake of the baleful surge. She opened her single set of eyes, colored twilight once more, and saw him reaching to help her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She shoved his hand aside and backed away, terrified.
Unknowingly, she backed into a renewed surge of robots, whose claws hung poised to dice her as she had their brethren. But a barking rifle spared her their grisly intent. She flinched at the burst fire that shot past her, and then looked over the collapsing robots at her rescuer.
"Keep alert, children," Mother Méhymn chided them both sharply, and lowered the barrel of her rifle. "These monsters come without end. Brother Blood! Keep your hand on that sword or I will staple it there."
Blood caught Raven's glance as he approached. Once more, his smile was palpable in spite of the skull mask. "Yes, Mother Mayhem," he answered. His hidden smile went unanswered, as Raven took to the air and left the Church's leaders without a word.
Mother Méhymn scowled at her insolent high leader, and then broke from him before the insanity teeming around them could draw upon their pause. She wove through the horde, ducking claws, vaulting over wreckage. Pins popped from her thumbs as she loosed a pair of hand grenades behind her and rode the shockwave of the explosion into the air, her cloak billowing behind her.
Metal hands cradled her fall. She slid from Tek's hands with a curt, "Thank you, child," and then plunged back into the fray. Her rifle marked her passing, leaving robotic ruin sparking in her tracks.
Tek marveled at the woman's bravery. Her own heart thundered with fear deep inside the alloyed folds of her armor. She felt a feathery tap against her back, and turned to find the remains of a robot that had crushed itself by trying to tackle her. Three more stood behind its wreckage with eyes aglow to blast her. She recoiled on instinct.
Tiny spheres detonated at the robots' feet, filling the air with a thick haze that turned red with the robots' confused lasers. Flashing steel cut through the haze and the robots. When the smoke cleared, Bushido stood over their disjointed bodies.
"Why do you hesitate?" he demanded of Tek. Sweat poured from his face, mixed with the fluid of his enemies. His shoulders bobbed with ragged breath. His katana ran black with oil.
"I just…" She looked at her arms, and the deadly cannons extended over her wrists. Each time she tried to use them, her mind forcibly returned her back to that moment in the Electronique. Each time she looked into the faces of Slade's resurrected army, she saw herself curled inside the bus, frozen by her own fear.
More robots leapt upon Tek from behind in her moment of introspection. A wave of Bushido's hand put shuriken in their eyes, blinding them to his lightning sword. Their heads fell from their bodies as Bushido grasped Tek by the frills on her helmet.
"What did I tell you when we first came to the city together?" he told her, dragging her visor down to meet his stern face. "You cannot afford doubt. It will kill—"
He screamed at the glancing touch of a laser. The sleeve of his keikogi blackened as he jerked to one side, allowing the blast to continue into Tek. It curdled the white enamel of her armor and startled her, but nothing more.
Tek caught Bushido and wrapped him in her embrace, protecting him from the laser blasts that followed his cry. Smoke curled from her armor beneath the energy onslaught as she pressed his face toward her visor. "Ry! Ry, are you okay?"
Groaning, he tried to move. Her arms may as well have been a metal cocoon. "Release me," he said. "If you will not fight, then I must."
"You're hurt," she said. "Hang on, I'll get you back over the wall and—"
"Release me!" he bellowed. The heat of the lasers made him sweat and pant. He struggled in vain against her grasp, and said, "You will not remove me from this fight. Remove yourself, if you want to do some real good. You're endangering the rest of us."
"I want to help, I do!" she sobbed. "It's just, the last time, I—"
"Last time! Always last time!" he snarled. "The past is immutable, the future, unknowable. Live in the present. Change the here and now! Or get out of the way for those who have the courage to do so."
This time, when he shoved, Tek let him go. He stumbled from her grasp as a green lion batted aside the robots that were blasting Tek. The lion shrank into Beast Boy, who steadied Bushido with a hand to the shoulder that inadvertently brushed the swordsman's burn.
"Time for hugs later, killer. Tek can take care of herself. Let's go!" Beast Boy told him.
The shapeshifter became a grizzly bear that scooped Bushido up with his snout and charged deeper into the battle. A last, telling look lingered on Bushido's face as he gazed back at Tek. Then he turned to face the horde with katana held high.
Tek watched them go, feeling shamed by how backwards Beast Boy's words had been. She had spent her morning whining to Doctor Hayden about the past she didn't have, whereas now, the past she did have kept her frozen with fear of failure. She couldn't fire her guns for fear of killing someone, which meant that countless more would die when the robots breached the magic barrier. She couldn't bear the thought of failing the Titans again, and failed them all the same because of it.
A hollow gonging sound pulled her visor down. There, she saw herself, bereft of armor or skin suit, dressed in her jeans and Batman T-shirt. This Tek cackled as she dented the armor's alloy with her bare fists.
"Little Tekkie, little Tekkie, always crying about what she can't do!" her other self sang viciously. "Wah, wah, wah, I can't open a door! My guns don't work! I don't want to fight! I don't want to fight!"
Screaming, Tek brought her massive fist down upon her laughing doppelganger. She hammered her knuckles into the girl's dark hair over and over. "I—DON'T—WANT—TO BE—YOU!" Tek shrieked between blows. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"
She punched until her armored knuckles dug into the earth. Panting, sobbing, she pulled her fist back and stared into the warped faceplate of a drone robot, which stared back at her from its fist-shaped crater. It had been offline since her first punch, and now lay scattered in flattened chunks. It was not, nor had actually ever been, a laughing girl with deep-seated emotional problems.
She stared down into the wreckage until it grew too blurry to see. The inside of her visor ran with her tears, muddying the battlefield. More lasers struck her charring armor. She was beyond noticing them.
Tek was so sick of herself. She was sick of never feeling right, like she was supposed to be better than she was. She'd defeated herself before the robots had ever gotten to her. This time she didn't even have the excuse of her monster, which was caged behind her new medication. She'd beaten herself. She was sick of herself. She was sick to death of her whiney, useless self.
But didn't I just kill that self?
No. That was a robot. Don't be crazy.
Too late for that. You're already hallucinating that you killed your weaker ego.
But then, if you're crazy, you can't tell the difference, right?
Tek's plasma repeaters slid into place. Her sob became a growl became a scream became a roar as she whirled her aim upon the teeming horde gathered before the wall. Her blurry visor put green boxes around those she distantly remember were her friends, and colored red everyone else. White light filled the battlefield for an instant before collapsing into her weapons to pour out in staccato bursts of pure destruction.
Plasma bolts burned through the army, tearing robots apart with even the most fleeting of blows. Tek's fire swept the battlefield like the spray of a hose. Beast Boy and Bushido flattened against the ground as bolts lanced overhead to decimate the robots they were battling.
Over the screaming and the sound of robot demise, Beast Boy shouted to Bushido, "What the hell did you say to her?"
Bushido shrugged as best he could on the ground. The movement ignited the pain in his arm. "The right thing?" he said uncertainly. When he looked again to Tek, his proud smile fell into fearful disarray, and he shouted her name in warning. "Tek!"
She couldn't hear him. Nor could she see the quartet of robots that ambushed her from behind. They leapt onto her back, her shoulders, and her arms. But rather than attacking, they clamped onto her armor, their chests glowing bright. The glow surged, and the robots detonated, swallowing Tek in fire and thunder.
The blast shook Beast Boy back onto his feet. He exchanged his human legs for those of a cheetah to streak across the distance to the column of smoke where Tek had been. In the unbearable seconds it took him to reach her, the smoke thinned into a fine screen. Tek's massive outline wobbled in the smoke and emerged as a blackened, sparking mass.
She dropped to her knees as Beast Boy reached her. "Tek!" he cried as soon as he had human lips again. He grasped her helmet, and then yowled and yanked his hands away from the superheated char. "Tek! Speak to me!"
Her entire upper body lolled. If she fell, Beast Boy would have to jump aside or risk being crushed. Her tinny voice belted from the armor's grille in a punch-drunk shout. "Did I get them?"
Beast Boy couldn't help but smile. "Yeah," he said.
"What?" she shouted, turning her helmet.
He filled her visor with a thumbs-up. "Yes," he shouted.
"Good," she sloppily shouted back. "I was scared, but I shot, I shot guns, my guns, and they all kerploded. What's ringing? Are the robots ringing?" She looked around, swayed and confused.
The dizzy question gave Beast Boy pause. He and Tek had been standing still for several seconds. By all rights, they should have been swarmed by now. He looked back across the battlefield, searching all along the edge of the red barrier that stretched into the distance.
Every robot on the field had stopped cold, some of them in mid-attack. They stood as statues, blank eyes unfocused, battered bodies frozen. Raven hung in the air with a motionless robot clutched in her soul-talon, readied to smash it when its lifelessness had struck her with surprise. Bushido and Brother Blood were likewise uncertain of their enemies' sudden stop. Only Mother Méhymn continued putting bullets into the robots' heads like a merciless executioner.
Beast Boy started to voice their collective question when he heard the nine-note musical summons of his communicator. He pulled the device from his belt, read its seven word message, and grinned. "Ha!" he crowed. "Way to go, Vic."
"What?" shouted Tek.
"It doesn't have to be this way, Grant," Rose said. She spoke carefully so as not to pierce her neck on the saber's point. "We can still work together on this. Think about how proud Slade would be if we showed up with a dead Titan and his army all wrapped up and ready to go."
Ravager glared at her, with Jinx caught between them. "That would be so much more convincing if you weren't still holding a gun to Jinx's head. Let her go before I give you another hole to breathe through."
Rose matched his glare, and then guided his gaze with hers. "Not until your metal buddy drops his gun, and you get your sword out of my face."
"Rose, listen—"
"No, you listen, Grant!" She thumbed the hammer of her gun back with a click that deafened Ravager to everything but the sound of Rose's voice. "You have three seconds to drop your sword and get the tin man away from my transmitter, or I'm going to empty Pinky's head here and now!"
Nervous sweat budded on Jinx's face. She stared at Ravager, stiffened with fear. Her magic was powerful, but not so much that she could survive a bullet to the head. Elemental magic would be too slow in killing Rose to stop her pistol, and chaos magic might even set the gun off. Bad luck was bad luck, even for her. "Grant…?"
When Ravager made no move, Rose dug the pistol barrel into the side of Jinx's head, making the witch wince. "One! Two! Th—!"
"Okay!" Ravager dropped his saber and stepped back with his hands raised. "Okay. Don't hurt her. You win."
"Bullshit!" Shimmer and Mammoth exclaimed in unison, wearing identical expressions of disgust.
All three Billy Numerous duplicates hung their shoulders in disappointment. "Aw, boss, you folded like a one-legged mule in a race!" one Billy said.
One of the others added, "Plum lost some dang ol' face there, he did, Billy."
A smug victory shone in Rose's smile. "Really, Grant? Really? You have lousy taste. Now, get him away from my transmitter, and you can go back to playing super villain with your little girlfriend here."
Reluctance bounced between the remainder of the Tyrants in a look as Ravager collected his saber with a grim swipe. All of them, save delighted Gizmo, trudged toward Cyborg with bitterness dripping from their scowls. Jinx remained in Rose's grasp, twice as bitter for being made the damsel in distress.
Cyborg kept his panic bottled behind a cool frown. He needed a moment more for his plan to work. From the look of the Tyrants marching on him, he had much less than a minute. Keeping his cannon trained on the satellite dish, he said, "That must really stick in your craw, being outmaneuvered by your kid sister, 'Grant.'"
Ravager drew his other saber and crossed them into makeshift shears. "Enjoy that tongue while you still have it," he said.
"I wouldn't take it too hard. From what I can see, Slade wouldn't have wanted either one of you," Cyborg continued with a shrug.
The callous statement rocket Ravager in his tracks. He swung his swords out to stop his other Tyrants, much to the consternation of Gizmo. Though he couldn't see it, Ravager could feel Rose's ire building alongside his own behind him. "Shut your filthy mouth, Titan," he growled.
"Just kill him, Grant!" Rose yelled, red-faced.
Snickering, Cyborg said, "It's actually kind of cute. I mean, dressing up like him? Resurrecting his greatest hits? Too bad Slade wasn't into cute. He was big on talent. I guess that's why both of his Apprentices were Titans."
"Shut up!" Ravager roared.
"Shut him up!" screamed Rose.
"Robin and Terra. Hmn. Kinda like he hand-picked the son and daughter he always wanted. I guess he wasn't crazy about the kids he had. And now that he's dead—"
"He's not dead!" Rose shrieked.
"—you two are left squabbling over who he would have loved more, when the truth is, I don't think he liked either one of you. Am I right?" Cyborg said.
Rose yowled and swung her gun from Jinx's head. The pistol barked three shots that sparked against Cyborg's chest, making him duck involuntarily. His sudden flinch made Gizmo clutch his triggers, launching green energy from his cannons that blasted the dirt at Cyborg's feet.
Jinx grabbed Rose's shooting arm. A breath of water magic froze the gun in the blonde's hand, biting Rose with frost. Rose screamed as Jinx slammed her hand back against the side of the mobile home, shattering the frozen gun and breaking Rose's frosted fingers. A handful of crackling hex shoved Rose to the ground, where she gasped in agony.
"Shoot me now, bitch!" Jinx said through her teeth, and gathered a killing stroke of chaos magic above her head.
Blinded by dirt, Cyborg staggered backward. Then he toppled under Ravager's boots, which landed atop his chest. Saber edges bit either side of Cyborg's neck. He looked up at Ravager, who knelt on Cyborg's chest, poised to decapitate the Titan.
"Who's the favored son now, Cyborg?" he said with a mad gleam in his eyes. "I have his name, I bear his colors, and now I have his army."
As Cyborg tensed against the swords held to his throat, he felt his communicator stir with the response he had been waiting for. The last piece of his plan fell into place as his mind aligned with two separate processors.
"Two out of three ain't bad," Cyborg told him with a strained smile.
Before Ravager could react, the desert air split open into a swirling black portal the size of a garage door. Ravager recognized the power as Raven's, and raised one of his sabers in preparation of the impending arrival of the other Titans.
He could not have been more wrong. From the portal poured an endless stream of Slade's drones. The robots spread into the area with precise coordination, surrounding the Winnebago and the assembled villains in a matter of seconds. Their eyes glowed with the promise of death. Their claws were poised to sunder anyone foolish enough to break their line.
Seconds after the last robots emerged, the portal rippled with the arrival of the other Titans. They charged onto the scene and spread out, covering the rest of the shocked Tyrants as Ravager climbed off of Cyborg.
Swords held aloft, Ravager backed away from the rising Cyborg. He bumped into one of the innumerable robots that were keeping his Tyrants separated and guarded. "What the hell is this?" he demanded.
Cyborg tapped his head. "This," he said, "is what a good wireless connection can do. It took me a while, though. Your little sis is one hell of a programmer. For a second there, I didn't think I was gonna get through her firewall."
The sight of her stolen army being turned back on her drove Rose to furious tears. Her throbbing hand did little to help. "You boosted my signal? But you were going to destroy the transmitter!" she cried.
"Didn't Gizmo already tell you? I was bluffing. I needed a little time to make it happen," Cyborg said. Grinning at Ravager, he added, "The standoff would've given me enough time if Ravvy wasn't such a romantic at heart. Good thing you're both really touchy about your daddy issues, too."
Gizmo's cannons whined with mounting destructive potential. He swung their barrels at the robots surrounding him, and said, "Here's a thought. Who fraggin' cares? Let's just blast these scrap heads and kill everybody! Tyrants Terrorize, am I right?"
"Not a bad idea," Cyborg said, "except that you're a much better engineer than you are a programmer, squirt."
Outside the ring of robots, the SLICER rumbled to life. It rolled forward, its massive tires forcing the robot curtain to part or be crushed. The cannon atop the tank swung down to aim directly at Gizmo as the tank rolled to a stop right in front of him.
Gizmo fumed. "Get your scraggin' code out of my tank!" he screamed.
Brushing his hands clean, Beast Boy leaned against one of the statuesque robots, and propped his bare foot up against its leg. "Yep, looks like this one's all wrapped up. Plus, now we've got our own robot army! Sure, it'll need a new coat of paint, but—"
All around them, the robots stiffened and dropped their arms. Their eyes began to flash in a pulse that grew steadily faster. An ominous glow emanated from each of their chest plates, accompanied by a harmonious tone whose pitch climbed painfully.
Beast Boy jumped off the robot and clapped his ears. "I didn't do anything!" he cried on reflex.
Cyborg searched with his eyes and with his wireless signal. Both led him to Rose, who leaned against the Winnebago with a heavily modded cell phone in her good hand. She glared back at Cyborg, and said, "Just because you have one signal doesn't mean you have exclusive control. I just gave them their termination order. That's a one-way countdown, spam can."
Enraged, Jinx hexed the robots separating her from Rose into dust. Fire pooled in her hands as she leapt at the blonde. "You little—!"
Rose sidestepped the fiery attack. A lash of her boot sent Jinx to the ground in a heap. She tossed the phone at Cyborg as the other Titans and Tyrants converged on her, and ran, calling, "Enjoy your next fifteen seconds of not being a crater!"
She hurdled the ground that Shimmer transmuted into molten rock, and slid on the gritty ground out of four Billys' grasps to grab the handlebars of a dirt bike that lay stowed underneath the back of the mobile home. In one smooth motion, she dragged the bike upright and straddled its seat. Her foot shoved Bushido aside when he tried to tackle her off her bike, which started and streaked away in a cloud of dust.
Cyborg grabbed Bushido by the scruff of his keikogi. His link with the blinking robots gave him access to their countdown. Rose hadn't been bluffing in the slightest, and he knew firsthand how devastating these drones' self-destruct systems could be. "Raven! Far away! Now!" he shouted. She was a step ahead of him, already pushing the air aside to form another portal.
Mere steps away, Ravager helped Jinx to her feet as the rest of his Tyrants gathered close. It was galling to Cyborg that, with just another few seconds, he might have time to grab Ravager and end the Tyrants' threat once and for all. The glare Ravager gave him seemed to echo Cyborg's thought in reverse. "Jinx, wind! We need altitude!"
As Cyborg dragged Bushido through Raven's portal, he heard Gizmo whine, "But my SLICER!" The next instant, he was stepping out onto a lawn made of gravel that crunched underfoot. A suburban model home stood before him in an empty neighborhood. And an entire row of men in red cloaks lifted their state-of-the-art assault rifles at him, making him stop so hard he skidded a few feet more.
"Hold your fire!" Brother Blood called, waving off his troops. They did as they were told, and bowed in reverence as Blood left Mother Méhymn and his priests to greet the other Titans emerging from the closing portal. To the confused Cyborg, he said, "Welcome back, friends. Were you successful?"
His answer came from the blinding flash that consumed the horizon. Dirt and metal mushroomed into the red sky. The deafening blast came an instant later, first underfoot, then through the air, rattling the Titans, the Church, and the houses surrounding them. As the column of debris rose in the distance, the sky faded back to blue, and the roar waned into a background rumble.
Cyborg looked back at the mushroom cloud alongside the rest of the Titans. He felt sharp dissatisfaction at their lack of capture, but it was tempered with a sense of closure. The last of Slade's insane bid for power was gone. It had cost Cyborg a home, a jet, and two friendships, but it was finally done. He was glad to be rid of the robots at last.
Uncovering his ears, Beast Boy said, "I guess it's too much to hope that one or two of our sworn nemesises got caught in the robocalypse back there, huh?"
"One can always hope," Bushido chimed pleasantly.
The quip made Cyborg realize he was still holding Bushido by his gi. He let the assassin drop, and noted with disgust, "We would've had Rose if you hadn't let her get away. That doofus with the math symbol on his chest came closer to nabbing her than you did."
"Who was that girl, anyway?" Tek asked tinnily, changing the subject with a note of annoyance in her voice.
Cyborg stared into the mushroom cloud. Remembering Rose's and Ravager's bickering, he wondered with a pang if Slade's presence in the city was truly gone after all. "Knowing our luck? Somebody who'll be back with another headache for us too soon," he said.
Raven pursed her lips and ran the applicator over them, masking them with a twilight color that matched her eyes perfectly. It had taken her weeks to find the color. She was glad to know that all of that repugnant shopping hadn't been in vain.
Examining her lips in her meditation mirror, she said, "That's when we got your signal. I found your coordinates, formed a portal that could carry the drones, and…well, you know the rest. That was clever, taking control of their signal instead of just blowing everything up like you usually do."
Cyborg leaned against the countertop across from her, watching in fascination. Seeing Raven in makeup felt wrong, but also exhilarating, like seeing Bigfoot ordering a fast food combo meal. He kept expecting her strapless dress to be revealed as an illusion that would melt away if he concentrated hard enough, but the dark blue fabric remained wrapped around her in spite of his stare.
"Why are you doing this in here?" he asked, and gestured around the Commons. The recreational room seemed poorly equipped for getting ready for a night on the town.
She looked up from the mirror, and then glanced out the long window to the urban night outside their grounds. "You wanted to 'debrief' me. I need to get ready. Multitasking."
"We could have done it in your room, if it would make all that primping easier," he said.
Glaringly, Raven retorted, "You're not going in my room. Not again." She waggled the mirror at him with an arched eyebrow.
He grinned. "Can't blame me for trying. So, the Church of Blood really just showed up to help out? Weird, but actually cool. I guess maybe they aren't so creepy after all."
Raven's face darkened in the mirror. For just a second, she thought she saw another set of eyes lurking in her dark eye shadow. She set the mirror aside, no longer able to look at herself. A shiver ran through her weary soul, which yearned for Dominic's peaceful embrace.
"They're revolting," she said. "Are we done here?"
"Yeah. I've had enough for one day." He stood with her, and stretched. Dozens of kinks and pops warned him that it would be a long auto-maintenance cycle tonight, but that could wait for a few hours at least. "I could use about a metric ton of pizza right now. Gar and me are gonna go grab a slice at Hot Za. If you and your spooky hunk aren't too tired from smooching, you're welcome to meet up with us later."
They walked up the stairwell leading to the Habitation Wing. Raven didn't bother to rise to his bait. "I think we'll be just fine on our own, but I'll pass the message along," she said, climbing the stairs ahead of him. When she reached the top, she stopped, surprised, and added, "Besides, it looks like you have your own date."
Cyborg trotted after her to make sense of the curious statement. He stepped into the Habitation Wing hallway, and his jaw dropped. "Legs?" he asked, befuddled. Then he shook his head and tried again. "I mean, Tek?"
Tek waited outside of Cyborg's door, tapping the toe of her platform sandal impatiently. Her smooth legs tapered endlessly from a short pleated skirt that complimented the yellow halter top draped from her neck to just above her midriff. When she saw the pair, she stomped toward them, her legs moving in wonderfully distracting ways that stunned Cyborg.
A cross look creased Tek's brows. "Hey, Raven," she said shortly, her voice steady and stern in a way that neither of the other Titans had heard. "You look great. Heading out? Say hi to Dominic for me." Her stormy eyes rose to Cyborg, and she said, "You. Stay."
Raven shrugged at Cyborg's confused look. She sidled around Tek cautiously, mirror in hand, and said, "Don't wait up."
Cyborg watched her go, envious of her escape from this new insanity. "Okay, I give. What's with the getup, Tek?" he asked, already sorry for doing so.
She jabbed a finger at his chest, and said, "Stop treating Bushido like crap."
Of all the mistakes to make at that moment, Cyborg picked the worst: he laughed. "What? I haven't done anything to Captain Death-Kill-Maim-Murder, so what's—?"
Her strappy platform sandal clacked furiously on the floor as she stomped, and said, "That right there! You all keep calling him names! You blame him for everything! You act like he's garbage that you're just hauling around until you can dump it somewhere. So knock it off!"
Cyborg sighed. He massaged the bridge of his nose, and said slowly, "Tek, I know you don't understand, but Bushido tried to murder us. He's only here so we can keep an eye on him. Friends close, enemies closer. That sort of thing."
Her voice dropped twenty degrees as her eyebrow arched. "Oh, I see," she said, folding her arms. "Whenever you meet somebody dangerous, you just make them a Titan so you can babysit them. Is that it?"
"Sorta," he said. Then his eye bugged in realization. He waved his hands, and said, "I mean, no! Not you, I mean. You were different. He—"
"I'm not different. You made me a Titan. You made him a Titan. So we're either both Titans, or we're both just freaks you're keeping on a leash. Which is it, Cyborg? Am I Titan?"
He wilted under her scathing look and icy tone. "Of course you are, but—"
"Then so is Bushido. So start treating him like it." She saw Beast Boy emerging from the stairwell, carrying a sandwich and a curious look for all the commotion he heard from downstairs. Jabbing her finger at him, she shouted, "Gar! Start treating Bushido like a Titan!"
The sight of Tek so oddly dressed and yelling at him startled the sandwich out of Beast Boy's hand. He yelped, and asked, "What? What did I do?"
"Skip it!" she snapped, as Cyborg stared and Beast Boy mourned for his fallen sandwich. "Now, we're all going out for pizza. All four of us. And we're going to have a great time, because we're teammates, we're all friends, and I look pretty, damn it!"
"But…"
"Now!" Tek marched to Bushido's room, wobbling on her unfamiliar shoes. She pounded on his door for a solid minute before he answered, dressed in a simple black robe and carrying a book tucked under his arm. Before he could ask, she said, "Get dressed, because we're going out for pizza."
Bushido blinked. "But I do not like pizza," he said.
Her face flushed red. "We're going for pizza!" she said. Looking back, she fixed Beast Boy and Cyborg in her terrible glare. "You two, go wait down in the lobby. Ry will be down in a minute, and then we can go. MOVE!"
The pair scampered down the steps to escape her shrill wrath. Once they were out of sight, Tek sagged against the wall next to Bushido's door and gulped air as though she were drowning. Her whole face and bare shoulders were flushed red. Her hand shook as she smoothed down her hair.
Bushido leaned out of his door in confusion. "Are you to wait for me here, then?" he asked cautiously.
She clutched her stomach and tried to make the hallway stop spinning around her. "In a minute," she said breathlessly. "First I have to go throw up."
Ops was dark in Tyrants Tower. The lights were off, the monitor, just a window. Moonlight shimmered off the ocean, filling the room with soft, pale shafts of blue light that ebbed and flowed like the tides themselves.
The doors parted, spilling fluorescence into Ops. Jinx stood in the doorway, and called softly, "Grant? Grant, are you in here?"
No answer arose. She stared across Ops, entranced by the sight of the Pacific caught in night's embrace. As her eyes adjusted to the moody light, she saw a cap of trim, dark hair peeking over the edge of the couch. It hadn't moved at her call.
She frowned, and walked through the closing doors. Her footsteps echoed in the silence as she circled the room to the couch set before the empty window monitor. There, she found Ravager still in his armor. He slouched into the cushions, his hands folded across his belt. His helmet sat propped on the table by his legs. Its hollow eyes stared at him.
She lowered herself onto the couch and slouched alongside him. For a few moments, she just gazed upon the ocean, watching the light ripple on its dark skin. "Those twerps know how to pick a view, huh?" she asked.
"My father would be ashamed of me," he said flatly, unable to meet her surprised glance.
Jinx stroked the hair from his forehead. It stuck with sweat and still smelled of battle. "Oh, Baby Face, no," she murmured.
He didn't twitch at her touch. "Some amateur poseur swooped in and made a grander gesture in one day than I've been able to do in months. By herself. And she has enough faith in him to believe that he's still alive. Why can't I?"
"Because you're not insane…ish," Jinx said, stroking his hair. "Plus, she didn't even come close to winning."
"I just keep thinking: what if my father is still alive? What if I should have been looking for him all this time, instead of swearing vengeance in his name?" He tapped his helmet with his boot, and asked bitterly, "Do I even deserve to wear this?"
"Um, duh?" Jinx laid her head on his shoulder, spilling her unbound hair across his chest. "You're the baddest dude I know. What do you think I stick around for? Your winning charm? Not hardly. It takes a lot to impress me," she told him.
His glove creaked as he opened and closed his fist. "I had her. I could have killed Rose and taken everything…I could even have killed Cyborg. And all I had to do was…" He glanced down at Jinx, trailing off. Closing his eyes, he said, "Slade would call me weak for making that kind of choice."
Jinx slid her hand into his, and closed her eyes when she felt him squeeze back. "I wouldn't," she said.
They stayed on the couch, listening to the distant crash of the surf, and fell asleep one after the other, hands still intertwined.
"And so he asked me if I could now row the boat with both my arms broken," Bushido said, and pushed aside his half-eaten slice of tofu cheese pizza. "To which I replied, 'absolutely, but canoe?'"
Soda sprayed from Beast Boy's nose, misting the table and their pizza in a fine coat of high fructose corn syrup. He clutched his face and pounded the table, choking, "Canoe! Ha! That's hilarious!"
Chuckling, Bushido finished, "And that was my last trip to Wisconsin."
Tek and Cyborg joined in the laughter, filling the Compound's outdoor patio with ringing joy that it sorely needed. Their takeout pizza had been finished or left for leftovers. Only a single light over the patio door kept the late hour from swallowing them in shadow.
Still in her self-terrifying outfit, Tek leaned back and enjoyed the sight of Cyborg laughing with Bushido. She had known that Beast Boy wouldn't be hard to sway. The shapeshifter didn't have a begrudging bone in his body. But the tenuous peace between her other two friends had been something she wanted very much. As uncertain as she felt, she also felt good for making it happen, even if it only lasted the night. That was enough of a baby step for now.
She checked her watch when her yawn nearly unhinged her jaw. "Holy smokes, it's late. I should hit the sack. But this was fun. We should do this again."
"Maybe next time you'll actually make it outside instead of just ordering delivery from the lobby," Cyborg teased her.
Bushido glanced under the table, and said, "She would first need shoes in which she can walk."
Tek sneered playfully at them both as she gathered up the pizza boxes. They sat in a small tower on her hand as she wobbled to her feet, and said, "Ha, ha. Gar, could you give me a hand so I don't break my neck here? I'd ask these dorks, but they're too busy trying to be mean to a cute girl."
Beast Boy grabbed the sliding door for her, and stuffed one last slice into his mouth. "Canoe," he chortled around a mouthful as he followed Tek inside.
The door closed, leaving Bushido and Cyborg in the privacy of the patio. Still chuckling, Cyborg asked Bushido, "That guy in your story? You killed him, right?"
"Oh, absolutely," Bushido said. "But I didn't think anyone would find that part funny, so I omitted it. I think the story works much better without it, don't you?"
Their mirth sobered into hard looks at one another. Cyborg's fingers drummed on the wire tabletop, their rhythm slowing as he thought. They stopped altogether when Cyborg spoke. "You know I hate your guts, right? That I'm just waiting for you to spring whatever game it is you're playing?"
Bushido nodded. "It is only fair. I did try to kill you. To be honest, I'm still disappointed that I did not. It feels like I was cheated."
Through the glass door, Cyborg watched Tek stagger through the kitchen on her sandals. He sighed. "But I haven't exactly been fair to you since you got here. Not that a tough guy like you can't take it, but…well, it isn't right. And I'm sorry."
Without a trace of irony, Bushido said, "It is all right. I am remarkably tough."
"Look, like it or not, you're a part of this team. You need to know that, no matter how I feel about you, I've got your back. Always. Just like I need to know that you've got mine. You get me?" Cyborg said.
"I do." Bushido nodded, deathly serious. "And you must know that, regardless of my past, so long as I tell you that I am with you, you can rest assured that I am with you, and will offer you nothing less than my best effort. My honor will allow nothing less."
He followed Cyborg's gaze with his own, and found Tek's smile too infectious to resist. "She is a remarkable girl, I must say. Regardless of what I say or do, she is determined to be my friend. It is refreshingly uncanny."
Cyborg nodded. "She's something special," he agreed.
The two young men, once bitter enemies, formerly bitter teammates, shared in an amicable silence as they watched Tek lose her footing and fall completely out of her towering shoes, upending herself over the counter with an explosion of empty pizza boxes.
"Not too graceful," added Cyborg.
Bushido shook his head. "Indeed not."
Rising from his chair, Cyborg activated the hologram display above his arm. He made his habitual check of the security systems in preparation to turn in for the night. With mild surprise, he double-checked the lobby entrance logs, and said, "Huh. Raven still hasn't made it back. Guess she wasn't kidding about waiting up. I hope she had fun tonight."
Slowly, luxuriously, Raven awoke to the soft, soothing tones of an unfamiliar ceiling and the downy touch of satin sheets. A pleasant ache rippled in her abs as she stirred, stretching more muscles that were curiously sore. She felt supremely relaxed, despite the thin sheen of sweat over her skin. A soft, steady, adorable snore emanated from the pillow next to hers. It began lulling her back to sleep almost immediately.
Then everything struck her at once: the unfamiliar bed, the sweat, the aches, the snore, and the alarming realization that she could feel the satiny sheets from her chin down to her toes. She sat bolt upright and flung open her eyes.
A strange, enormous bedroom greeted her, furnished with opulent antiques. She was lying in an honest-to-God four-poster bed with gauzy curtains. Portraits of gothic strangers lurked on the walls. Somewhere, a grandfather clock counted the seconds of the late hour.
She looked down, blushed at the abundance of ashen skin she found, and yanked the sheets up to her chin. Dominic lied beside her, his arms tucked under his pillow, his bare back stretched above the sheets. He wore the same sheen that she did, and snored in obliviousness to her thundering heartbeat.
Raven curled her knees to her bare chest and hugged her legs, and clasped her eyes shut. "Azar, no…" she croaked.
To Be Continued
Oho, loyal readers! As another story arc draws to a close, we're left with more questions and more developments! Will we ever see Rose Wilson again? Is Slade really alive, as she claims? Has Tek conquered her inner demons? And, oh, I suppose there's this business with Raven, too…
Well, tune in next week for some completely different questions to be answered, as we move halfway across the country to a little city called Metropolis. Next week: Higher Calling, a delightful tale of old friends and new heroes. See you then, when (don't I always say it?) the best is yet to come!