Teen Titans
Adaptation
By Cyberwraith9
The Low Road: Trading Back
Third Street had been the first to suffer the wrath of the Teen Tyrants. Six months ago, the would-be conquerors of Jump City attacked this revitalized neighborhood, whose shops and residences had scarcely recovered from the last disaster. Years after the brief war between the Titans and Tyrants had ended in a cataclysmic nightmare, many on Third Street would still remember that fateful attack, that random and brutal first strike. The Tyrants' second attack on the neighborhood was far briefer, less memorable, but much more confusing.
The beginning of the afternoon rush hour panicked to a halt in the face of a red wave that consumed the street. Tires gripped the road in screeching fear, their cars abandoned by drivers that fled from the red wave. Pedestrians dove into shops and doorways, hoping to escape the wave, which grew a thousand sneering smiles as it drew closer.
"Come, my villainous brethren!" the lead Billy Numerous called back to his horde of likenesses. He leapt atop an abandoned car, posing on its hood to point out the looming Compound at the end of the block.
Another Billy leapt over him, landing on the car's roof in a more dramatic pose. "Yes, onward! Let us drink deep of the cup of victory, and sup on the Titans' demise!"
Pale hands shoved through the crest of the Billy wave, parting it for Shimmer to burst into the lead. "Hey, dinguses! This isn't Masterpiece Theater. You do it like this!" she said.
She gestured to the sidewalk, where a gaggle of early commuters huddled in fear. A fire hydrant planted in the sidewalk in front of them bulged as its red skin evaporated into hydrogen smoke. Water erupted from the uncapped main, spraying a geyser that soaked the stricken commuters and the Billy horde.
"Mwa-ha-ha-hah!" Shimmer bellowed at her soaked, fleeing victims. "Fear the dampening powers of Professor Skankalor!"
"I thought your name was Shimmer," a nearby Billy said.
Shimmer shrugged, evaporating the geyser's spray as it fell upon her. "Meh. I'm not in love with it."
Shadows passed over Shimmer and the Billys, calling their evil attentions overhead. Kid Wykkid floated above the street in the throes of his cloak. Three negative cars soared alongside him, their colors made monochromatically stark by the touch of his soul-self. Where he passed, the summer air grew cold and stale, making even his fellow Tyrants shiver from the inside out.
Terrible light filled his hood as a red mouth opened beneath his red eyes. "Run away," he hissed in booming reverberation. "Flee. Go already."
His soul-self trickled out of the hovering cars. Glass and steel sang as each car dropped into another one abandoned on the road below. Screams erupted with each crash, and again as Wykkid's soul-self selected new cars to lift into the air.
"Honestly, where's the showmanship?" one Billy clucked, and shook his head at Wykkid's rain of subcompacts.
Shimmer and the Billys ducked involuntarily when a bus sailed overhead, this one not guided by anyone's soul. The double-length bus arced and nosed into the street, chewing a trench through the pavement with its momentum. Cars flipped aside at its coming. Fear-frozen pedestrians ran screaming from the bus's rumbling stop. Its crumpled door sighed open one last time, and then fell off its hinge.
Blackfire leapt through the wake of her. She burnished the street with a war cry, and pounded the ground with her heel. The street cracked and heaved beneath her, the pavement's groan drowning out the screams of the panicked crowd before her. They ran faster, crushing each other to escape the wave of blackbolts she flung over their heads.
Billy blinked, and looked to himselves. "Of course, there is the other extreme to consider," he said.
"Excess has its place," another Billy said, nodding sagely.
Behind the creeping Billy horde, Ravager marched with a saber drawn and face bare, glaring at the mass hysteria that boiled away from their approach Each scream stabbed his ear, cutting away his resolve in small, torturous slivers. Each step he took toward the Compound cost a little more of himself.
He sheathed his saber and unclipped two orbs from his equipment belt. "That's good," he said loud enough for the back edge of the horde to hear him. "Slow, steady, and plenty of property damage. Give people time to clear out." He tossed the orbs to either side. Each orb rolled beneath a parked car, which then jumped atop a sharp explosion.
Jinx flinched at the exploding cars. She wormed her hands tighter into her armpits and jogged to catch up to Ravager. Hopping briefly on her tiptoes, she said, "I don't see them. Us. Whatever. Maybe they aren't in the Compound."
"Then this'll draw them back fast enough," Ravager said, and holed a mailbox with his gauntlet's laser. "They won't want to give up the place without a fight." Turning his scowl upon her, he added, Why aren't you up front? You're like a pink, sparkly wrecking ball."
Another car dropped ahead, dying in a crunch that drove Jinx's teeth together. Pink sparks jetted from her buried hands as the screams reached her. "I just…It's really loud right now, Ravager," she said. Another scream, and her eyes clenched, bottling a roar in her head.
Ravager held back a second pair of grenades. He slowed, watching her cringe with every crash and scream. Concern blunted his sharp eyes, if only slightly. "Kid, you gotta keep it together," he said. "I know you're—"
Her eyes snapped open, blazing with chaos. A gust of wind arose from nowhere to shove Ravager back from her. "I know!" she snapped. "I don't need to be babied!"
The air around them stirred, rippling with uncanny heat. Ravager stepped carefully, keeping his hands raised between them. "Easy, kid. Easy. No babying, I promise."
Just as quickly, the chaos in her eyes reordered into shock. The air around her died, struck dead by the alarm in Ravager's face. Jinx clapped her hand over her mouth, and squeaked, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…I didn't…I'm not gonna lose it, I swear. I swear, Ravager, I won't. Please—"
Ravager lowered his hands. He hid his concern behind a soothing voice. "Okay. It's okay. We're all feeling like jerks right now. Just concentrate on keeping it together. Just until we find…us. Okay?" She nodded to him, and tried to turtle her head down her collar. He sighed, and said, "All right. Now, let's—"
A silver shape stomped down in front of them, cracking the street as it startled them back. Blackfire straightened, brushing debris from her bodysuit. "The way is clear," she announced.
She pointed across a phalanx of Billys to the tranquil grounds of the Compound. The screaming masses had fled the street entirely. Only the crackle of unattended fires and the gush of an absent fire hydrant cried out to the Tyrants.
"Right," Ravager said. "Let's move."
He broke into a run, with Jinx trailing behind him. Blackfire leapt overhead, crossing the distance in a single bound to join Shimmer and Wykkid at the double doors of the lobby. Racing between a crowd of merging Billys, Ravager joined them a moment later, stopping himself against the metal handle of the doors. Pausing for a sharp breath, he yanked the doors open and barged through.
Intellectually, he knew that the Compound's defenses would not reduce him to sentient oatmeal in the lobby right away. Still, he held that sharp breath until his fourth step inside, when Blackfire and Wykkid entered after him. Shimmer held the door for the single, unified Billy, who staggered to his knees and dumped the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Jinx came last, cracking the glass as she passed.
"Okay," Shimmer said, looking around. "Home sweet lobby. Now wha—"
Thick metal shutters slammed down over the doors and windows. The Tyrants jumped together as the lobby atrium flashed red with emergency. Klaxons protested the Tyrants' presence while the air shimmered with pink pixels that came together into a smile.
A SARAH Sim manifested before them, her pink skirt-suit flashing cherry in the emergency lighting. "Hello! You have been identified as potentially hostile aggressors. You have ten seconds to submit to voluntary incarceration before you will be forcibly detained."
Hands clapped to the sides of her head, Shimmer shouted to Ravager over the klaxon, "Your computer wife is mad at you! Quick, program some flowers and chocolate!"
"Sarah," Ravager shouted, "Endgame: Vader Six!"
The pervasive red left the lobby. The klaxon stopped. Nodding to Ravager, Sarah chirped, "Welcome to Titans Compound! Do you require assistance with your emergency?"
Uncoiling from his cloak, Kid Wykkid hissed, "What exactly happened here?"
Ravager jogged past Sarah to her desk at the end of the lobby. Pressing a hidden switch, he summoned a small computer terminal from the whirring interior of the desktop. "I programmed a bunch of last-chance scenarios into our system. That one was in case we needed to add one of our nasty acquaintances real quick for a team-up. It grants everyone under the code temporary, honorary Titan membership."
Wiping his mouth, Billy said, "Why would you ever wish to grant an enemy instant access to your… I am going to stand quietly now." He brushed the front of his uniform and faded into the background, away from Ravager's reproachful look.
"Here's the plan," Ravager snapped, and emptied his scabbards into his hands. "Spread out. Wykkid, take Ops. Everyone else, check-and-go on your way up. Keep within earshot. We'll secure Sector Prime and make our stand there when they get back. Sarah: door."
"Of course," Sarah chirped. "Welcome to the Titans." The security door ratcheted open, spilling light into the fluorescent hallway. As Ravager rushed past her, leading his Tyrant pack, she called after him, "Shall I inform Cyborg of your arrival?"
Ravager made it through the door before the words registered with him. Half-turning, he skidded, and exclaimed, "Inform who of my—?"
Sonic waves converged on Ravager's chest, blowing him off his feet. He slammed back into Blackfire, who staggered with the blue flash as he bounced off her chest. The rest of the Tyrants backpedaled behind Ravager as he pulled himself onto his knees to glare at his attacker.
The Teen Titans stood across Sector Prime, lined up like an execution squad. Cyborg anchored the line at the far left, and retracted his sonic cannon with a ready grin. He made a show of checking his arm's display, and said, "My, my. I am so disappointed. Really, was traffic so bad that it took you this long to get here from Tyrants Island?"
"Traffic didn't look so bad over our fancy cameras, Cyborg," Tek, unarmored, called from the line's opposite end. "In fact, it looks like they just blew right through it."
Shaking his head, Cyborg said, "Just like a villain to keep you waiting, isn't it, Tek?"
Ravager struggled to his feet, biting down on his wince. He had been shot with sonic cannons before, but never with so much skin or so many organs to feel it. Sudden sympathy for all the people he had ever shot came to him unbidden, fueling the cauldron of rage that bubbled where his thoughts had been.
"Give us back our bodies," Ravager snarled.
"Hmm…" Cyborg hummed loudly, tapping his chin. Metallic pings echoed from his alloyed smile. "How about 'no?' I rather like my body just the way it is, thank you. Minus one or two features, but I think I can figure out ways around that."
Bushido guffawed and slapped his knee. "Y'hear that? We're the heroes now, cow pies! Y'all are nothin' but stinkin', low-down, no-good lowlifes. How's that jigger you?"
"That's it?" Shimmer snapped. The air roiled at her shout. "No stupid speeches? No, 'This is so daddy will love me' monologues? Just 'no?'"
Starfire beamed, her face becoming a toothily smug crescent. "Speeches? Those are your department now. We're the mighty heroes. Glorious, golden, shining, and stalwart," she said, and ran her hands down her sides as she turned her smile upon Blackfire.
"Well put, Starfire," Cyborg said. "Now, why don't you run along and rob a bank, or something? We'll handle things from here."
The cauldron in Ravager boiled over, spilling white-hot hate into his veins. He quaked, and clutched his sabers to still his hands. "You think you can just take everything away from us like that? You think this is funny?" he bellowed.
Cyborg smirked. "I think I already have."
Stratagems and reason withered in the heat of Ravager's rage. He could only think of taking back Cyborg's smug face, even if he had to cut it off to do it. He swung his sabers up, and bellowed, "Tyrants Together!"
Cyborg's smirk fell with his shout. "Titans Terrorize!"
Sonic blasts bracketed Ravager's charge. He ran at the scattering Titans, trying not to think about the way his feet pounding the floor sent shivers up his shins, or how his chest thumped with exertion. He ignored the sweat trickling down his back, and the hair in his face. Bobbing and weaving on instinct that wasn't his, he ducked Cyborg's shots. His only concern was tearing Cyborg open and yanking out the parasite inside.
The edge of a sonic blast ruffled Ravager's hair as he landed in a crouch before Cyborg. Ravager's sabers flashed, tearing apart the cannon's aperture between blasts. Cyborg cried out as he stumbled back. He deflected a saber from his neck with his arm, kicking a spray of sparks into his face.
"Take care, Ravager," Cyborg said, and reverted his cannon into a scarred hand. "You could really hurt someone—"
Ravager roared and stabbed. The tip of his saber found a subtle seam between plates in Cyborg's chest. His sword plunged through, severing lines and tearing servos, turning components into useless, broken tumors. Hydraulic bile bushed from the wound as Ravager yanked the blade out. Cyborg slackened, trying to scream, producing a choked sigh instead as he dropped to his knees.
"Guess you didn't think this through, Cy," Ravager said. He circled around and kicked Cyborg's shoulder, shoving the heavy Titan onto his face. "I know every inch of that tin suit you're wearing. Including the primary motor function hub I just julienned. Course, you'll just reroute in a few seconds…"
He grasped one saber in two hands and plunged it into Cyborg's back. The space between the Titan's shoulder blades burst with pressurized fluid. Cyborg tensed, and then fell limp, wheezing in pain.
Jerking his blade free, Ravager continued, "…to 'that' backup hub."
A hooked weight swung around Ravager's head, trailing a chain that snared his neck. The hook vanished behind him as the chain drew taut, pinching shut Ravager's airway. He gurgled and grasped at the chain. Laughter struck the back of his head, coming closer with each jerk of the chain.
Bushido shortened the chain hand over hand, pulling himself toward his catch. "Well, ain't that a right pretty sight there? I finally get one o' these here toys to work, and wouldn't y' figure, it's on the boss-man himself." His foxy face shone with delight. "Ninja Boy for the win, hombre."
"Ahem."
Twisting his grin over his shoulder, Bushido saw a single Billy standing behind him. His grin doubled as he drew his katana with one hand, using the other to keep the chain taut. "Well, ain't you the handsomest devil I ever did have t' kill? I gotta say—"
"Yes, you clearly do," Billy sighed. "Let's fix that." The one Billy exploded into five, who each split again, who leapt forward in a gymnastic blur that filled Bushido's vision with red.
The swordsman swung blindly through the blur surrounding him, only to lose his sword to a chop that made his wrist scream. He flung daggers from his sleeves, pellets from his sash, and poison needles from his collar. He emptied his keikogi into the blur, tearing through the garment for more weapons, until finally he stood bare-chested and unarmed.
The blur surrounding him stopped. Ten Billy duplicates encircled him, each of them holding one of his weapons. They tightened their circle around Bushido with the resolve of a hangman's noose. The Billy with the katana swung his blade upright in mocking salute. "I believe you got the worse of our exchange. And never call yourself 'ninja.' It demeans you."
The besworded Billy stepped away from his duplicates' ensuing massacre of Bushido. He knelt beside Ravager, who gasped and coughed with his throat in hand and a chain draped around his shoulders. Ravager's voice crawled from him, withered and weak. "That's twice that guy's tried to kill me," he said.
Helping him stand, Billy said, "You must admit, his first attempt was far more impressive."
Ravager coughed up a bitter little laugh. He leaned heavily against Billy and watched the remaining duplicates stomp Bushido out of the fight. "They're not gonna…?" asked Ravager.
Billy shook his head. "No broken bones. No ruptured organs."
"At least he's getting the ass-kicking he's always needed," Ravager quipped hoarsely.
He and Billy flinched at a golden shape streaking overhead. Then they were knocked aside by a shapelier silver shape that chased the golden sprite. Violet and emerald stars shot between the chase, swamping the air with the smell of ozone. Black scars mottled the floor and walls all throughout Sector Prime where their chase had led them.
"What's the matter, Big Sister? Feeling too heavy to fly after me?" Starfire sang as she flew backwards. Bolts leapt from her hand to chew the scenery around Blackfire.
Blackfire batted aside the starbolt barrage. Her eyes blazed, cutting a swath above her that trailed behind Starfire's evasive laughter. "Come down here and face me!" Blackfire screamed.
Twirling in the air, Starfire lilted, "Why? Why should I? I could just leave right now. Leave the planet, leave the system. I could go back home and be the daughter Mother and Father always wanted. I'm the favorite now, Blackfire. I'm the one everybody loves."
"You are a monster!" Blackfire ran into a leap that carried her to the second level of the cavernous hall. Her boots bent the railing as she bounded off the edge and into the open air. She caught Starfire's pirouetting toes and yanked, turning the sprite's laugh into a yelp that followed them both into the floor. Tile belched into the air as both sisters cratered, trapped in a tangle of limbs.
Starfire rose first. Yanking back Blackfire's hair, she drove her knuckles deep into Blackfire's stomach. "You whining little girl! You always have to be the special one! Well, now I'm special!" she bellowed, and buried her fist in Blackfire's face. "I'm the favorite now! Everyone will love me, just because I'm small, and helpless, and weak! Ketar, Komand'r, rutha pek'tal! Rutha! Rutha!" she screamed, and hammered Blackfire.
Blackfire's scowl blazed, punching Starfire to the edge of the crater. Blackfire drove her heel into her sister's eye, and screamed back, "No one loves you!" She kicked, and screamed, "You are weak! You are small! He left you because he did not love you! He hates you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!"
Her boot ran red with blood as she stomped the world out of Starfire's eyes. Starfire fell limp against the crater's side, her glow extinguished. Heaving, Blackfire dug her fingers into the concrete foundation to quell her trembling. She turned her head, unable to stand the bloodied sight of Starfire.
A green gazelle leapt over her crater. It stood on its hind legs and staggered into the shape of Beast Boy. His feet slipped in opposite directions, splitting the rest of him onto a floor that was rapidly dissolving into water.
Shimmer sprinted around the crater's edge and tackled Beast Boy from behind. Her arm hooked around his throat, her legs around his waist, as he reeled onto his feet with the Tyrant clinging to his back. Her fist pounded the side of his head as she snarled, "Gimmie back my dude-dangle! Give it, or I'll tear it off, you handsome sonofabitch!"
The molecules of the floor kept dividing into simpler liquids, confounding Beast Boy's balance. "Ow! Leggo!" he cried. Then he gagged on her arm, which tightened across his throat. His claws raked Shimmer's forearm to no avail. He fell backward, caught in her grasp, unable to breathe.
"You good-looking, lima-skinned, rotten, slut-dressing…" Shimmer beat his head and squeezed his neck and bit his pointed ears and kicked his back, all while the world around her took itself apart.
Beast Boy burst from Shimmer's grasp in a wave of fur and quills. A hideous roar cut his mouth into a muzzle that slavered hungrily. Dark, empty eyes turned upon Shimmer, eyes that rose to tower over her atop a massive frame of sinewy muscle and claws.
Shimmer scrambled backwards on all fours, gaping at the creature. Its growl touched her deep in the pit of her stomach, exciting a fear in her older than civilization, older than language. She became prey beneath its glower. Trembling, she stammered, "Y-You…It's you, i-isn't it? Y…You're real?"
The beast stopped its claws around her throat. Its toothsome face lowered to hers, tasting her with its snub nose. Its eyes stared through hers, watching her tremble. Its growl trailed off with a snort. With one final whuf, the beast pulled back. Meaning filled its hollow glare, a silent message meant for what lay behind Shimmer's wide eyes. Then the beast shrank.
Beast Boy lolled where the beast had been. His eyes danced in their sockets. "Wh…Where did I go just now?" he murmured.
Shimmer answered with the crunch of knuckle on bone. She spun Beast Boy to the floor, and then kicked his head until he left the fight. Hunched over him, she caught her breath, and said, "Yeah. That was messed up…and ow!" As she breathed, her broken hand caught up with her thoughts, steamrolling over her surprise. She clutched her hand, and said, "Ow! Son of a… Is my head really that hard?"
A wall of shadow rushed from underneath her to block a second shadow culled in the shape of a spear. The spear point pressed hard against the wall, reaching for Shimmer's throat. Shimmer yelped and fell back as Kid Wykkid emerged from the wall and thrust his wizen hands against the spear's encroaching tip. "Yes," Wykkid hissed. "Now pay attention, or you're going to die."
Raven appeared behind the hovering spear from a smoking ball of nothingness. A wicked grin cut her face as she grasped the shaft of the soul-spear. Bracing against the air, she shoved the spear, stretching its point through the wall toward the folds of Wykkid's flickering cloak. Her glowing eyes shone through the strained soul-wall.
Wykkid clapped the point of the spear as it pierced his soul-wall. The tendons in his hands threatened to burst through his paper skin as he kept the tip from plunging through his chest. "You're obviously not bush league," Wykkid hissed to Raven as the spear inched closer to his heart. "You pulled off an impressive piece of magic, swapping our minds and souls like this."
Raven's grin twisted with murder. She lurched forward, putting her metaphysical weight into one last killing stroke. But her hands slipped down the shaft, which refused to move. She jerked and pushed, but the spear hung frozen in the air, deaf to her whims.
The essence of Wykkid's breached wall drained into the spear, pouring through Wykkid's fingers into the tip. His bloody glare flashed as he hissed, "But you still made a mistake. My power is my soul, and it still outclasses yours, no matter which glorified sausage you shove it in."
An enormous ebony raptor took form from the spear. It stretched its scything wings, overshadowing the horrified Titan still clutching its leg. Raven backpedaled from its snapping beak, which caught the edge of her cloak. She swung from its mouth until it tore the fabric, launching her into the floor. She bounced twice and did not rise.
Wykkid huffed with spent concentration. His soul-self dissipated overhead. Shimmer's hand kept him on his feet. "That was pretty awesome," Shimmer told him. "But you know you're not supposed to hit girls, right?"
"Keep it up, and I'll hit another one," hissed Wykkid.
They both were bowled over by a crackling pink storm that rushed through them, panting in panic at the tremulous pursuit of Tek's armor. Jinx felt the Titan's giant metal grasp reach through the cloud surrounding her. Cold fingertips grazed the back of Jinx's neck, making her run harder.
"No!" she cried. She tried to focus some of the hex that spewed from her, but its crackle and flash refused to let her think, and the pounding footfalls behind her kept her running at breakneck speed.
"Hard to control, isn't it?" Tek called, laughing tinnily. "All that chaos, just aching to explode out of you. You're like a walking bad luck charm, and you just can't stop."
A loose piece of floor caught Jinx's toe. She stumbled over the debris, slowing just enough for Tek's grasp to catch her. The armor's hand wrapped around her chest, crushing her arms into her sides. Jinx yowled as the floor dropped out from under her. The hand tightened, squeezing the rest of the air out of her.
As Jinx struggled to breathe, Tek's glossy scowl filled her face. "Now, this?" she said, and gestured to her armor. "This is easy. Just think it, and the suit does it. No control, no effort. The only difference now is, underneath…" She tapped her chest. It gonged under her knuckles. "Now there's a real fighter under the hood, not some sniveling nobody."
A sliver of air wormed into Jinx's lungs. She used it to fight back the blackening edges of her vision, and then pushed it back up her throat as hoarse words. "You're right…" she choked.
"About you? Duh," Tek said with a hidden sneer.
The pink sparks dancing in Jinx's skin vanished. In their place arose a pink blaze, a crackling membrane of chaos that consumed her whole. Jinx let go of the hex, and the inhuman snarl behind it, allowing both to run rampant through her. As the last of her mind submerged into the monstrous hex, she murmured, "No control…"
Every component in Tek's armored arm separated beneath a blinding flash of hex. The smoking pieces rained at her feet, revealing a stubby human arm whose skin suit peeled in the pure chaos. As Tek collapsed in pain, Jinx rose in her maelstrom.
It blazed from her eyes and hands, taking shape around her. A colossus of hex loomed over Tek. Its outline warped with flickering intent. The Tyrant at its heart lifted her arm, directing the grasp of the colossus to close around Tek's helmet. Tek's scream was lost in the crackling chaos. She found it again when the colossus tore the helmet off around her ears, unveiling her horrified face.
Hex billowed through Tek. Every fuse in her armor blew at the same time, burning through her skin suit. A ton of dead metal hung around her as she dangled in the colossus's grasp. It grasped her chest plate and pulled, tearing the entire front off her armor. The metal screamed, and Tek screamed with it. She closed her eyes against the glow of the colossus. Her chest seized.
Thirty seconds later, she exhaled, and opened her eyes. Her dead armor rested on the floor, no longer awash in the dissipated colossus's glow. Jinx knelt beneath her, doubled over, breathing hard. Vestiges of hex wisped off her body. Sweat dribbled from her chin as she looked up and saw Tek's shock.
Sucking a breath through her teeth, Jinx said, "Okay. Maybe a little control." She reached through the scar torn in Tek's armor and drew a small bottle from the trapped Titan's belt. Popping the bottle open, she ate one of its pills, and sighed.
A giant's hand of shadow grasped Tek by the shoulders and lifted her away from Jinx. Wykkid guided the dead armor to the center of Sector Prime, where the other Tyrants gathered their counterparts around Cyborg's still body.
Ravager stepped aside for Tek to be added to the Titan pile at his feet. He waited for Jinx to amble over, and then rested his boot on Cyborg's neck, leaning down to meet the Titan's face.
"I really hope you take a lesson out of all this, Daddy's Boy," Ravager said. "It'll give you something to think about while you're rotting in a six-by-six cell with all your idiot friends. You can't beat us. You'll never beat us."
"Don't matter what we're wearing," Shimmer said, tugging on her leather straps. "We rule."
Glaring bloodily, Wykkid hissed, "Now, you're all going to enjoy a nice stay in our holding cell while your second-class demon teaches me the spell to fix this."
A low, winding cough trickled out Cyborg's parted lips. It thickened into a coarse laugh. "Why wait?" he groaned. "Raven?"
The glow in Raven's eyes faded. She smiled. Ravager realized too late, and cried, "No, w—!"
A cold, fiery presence reached through his chest and grabbed hold of everything he was. He felt himself pulled through a pinhole inside of his stomach. The world around him collapsed into swirling darkness. He screamed without a voice, flailing without limbs against a universe that wasn't there. Time grated him for eons until what remained was raw and empty.
At last, he found his eyes again. He looked through a haze of static at a sideways Compound. Cold tile pressed into his cheek. He tried pushing his body from the floor, and found that his arms and legs wouldn't listen to him. Red letters in his eyes told him that his motor function hubs had been destroyed.
A boot heel pressed into the side of his face. He twisted his eye, and cringed at Ravager's looming face. Ravager swung his saber sharply, testing his arm. Laughter pealed through his smile. "You vainglorious buffoon," he crowed. "You were right. How could we ever hope to beat the mighty Titans in their own home?"
"Ow! Shit!" Shimmer shouted at the top of her lungs. "Is his head that frikkin' hard? Damn it, ow!"
As Ravager laughed, Cyborg turned his gaze back to the floor. The other Titans lay sprawled ahead of him. Raven tried to rise, but was knocked back by Blackfire's sharp kick. Starfire's face floated in a puddle of her blood. Bushido lay in a jumble of odd angles. Beast Boy was little better, facedown in the tile with his hind end kinked in the air. Only Tek was awake, left to struggle whimperingly in a prison of her own armor.
"Wha…What's going on?" Tek moaned. "Cybo…Cyborg? Cyborg! I can say your…! Oh." She sagged with understanding.
Ravager's swing dipped. His saber's tip tasted Cyborg's neck, drawing a line of hemotrolium from the alloy. "So predictable," Ravager said. "You just couldn't wait to track us down and take back your miserable little lives. So desperate to prove yourselves. To prove to yourself that you were still the hero. A little goading was all it took for you to stab yourself."
Ten Billys congregated behind Ravager, laughing and chattering. The foremost of them tossed his katana atop Bushido. "Y'all do the heavy lifting, an' then we swap back," he said.
"Amen, Billy," another Billy hooted.
Wykkid hobbled with his arm slung around Jinx's shoulders, breathing hard. Jinx grinned madly at Cyborg's wild eye as she crowed, "Poor Wykkid here had to put everything he had into keeping everyone in different bodies. When he let go, it was like snapping a rubber band."
Clutching her hand, Shimmer staggered toward the Titan pile. "Yeah, yeah, perfect plan," she muttered. "Except numb-nuts here broke my goddamn hand!" She snatched the katana from Bushido's back and gripped it in her good hand. "Here's your dangle, asshole."
Cyborg screamed for his body to move. He rerouted his systems every which way he knew how. But he was a victim of his own success. He could not move. So he watched his best friend jerk and gurgle as Shimmer pushed a katana through his back.
"Gar!" Tek sobbed. Tears cut her cheeks as blood pooled over Beast Boy's back, pouring down his sides to fill the floor. "No…NO!" she screamed.
"Oh dear. One down," Ravager said. He sneered, and added, "Actually, let's make that one and a half."
Pain howled in Cyborg's back as Ravager sheathed his saber in the Titan's spine. Errors flooded Cyborg's tearing eye. The blade made hash of his electronics, plunged through organs, and nicked the edge of his power core. Shutdown warnings flashed, overlaying Ravager's sneer.
Squatting, Ravager grasped Cyborg's face, forcing him to spend his final moments watching Ravager's triumph. "Well, not to worry. You were kind enough to add six brand new Titans to the roster, weren't you?" Laughing, he said, "I honestly thought you would just disable security to get back inside. But this? You really have done all the work for us. Oh, Sarah?"
The air swirled into a pink-suited blonde with a dapper smile. She chirped, "Yes, Ravager?"
"We'll need to see about disposing of some trash," he began.
"Endgame: Terra Six," Cyborg blurted.
Jinx's hex struck Cyborg too late to silence him, though it skipped him across the floor all the same. As he tumbled, he saw the walls of Sector Prime reconfigure themselves. Panels slid aside, revealing cannons of all manner of shapes and sizes. Blue and green and red and gold energy glowed, lighting the cavernous space in a festive buildup that took aim at six distinct targets.
"What 'n tarnation?" the Billys swore, backing together.
Awash in the security systems' impending fire, Sarah stepped forward and nodded to Ravager. "Hello!" she said. "You have been identified as potentially hostile aggressors. You have ten seconds to submit to voluntary incarceration before you will be forcibly detained."
The menagerie of weapons whined louder, chasing the startled Tyrants back toward one another. They bumped backs in a circle. Crackling nervously, Jinx looked back and snapped, "Time to go. Wykkid!"
Two Billys grabbed Ravager, pulling him into the folds of Kid Wykkid's swirling cloak. "This isn't over, Titan! You hear me?" roared Ravager. "This isn't—!"
The cloak folded around them, and then upon itself. As it shrank, its last mote seemed to linger, as though something were pulling against it. Its final, shadowy shard tore free with a loud pop and a wave that pushed through the air.
"No threat detected," Sarah said. The walls around them ratcheted, their pinpoint lights fading back into the panels from which they had come. Stepping smartly, Sarah found where Cyborg had landed, and lifted him as though he weighed nothing. When his lolling head fell toward her, she smiled, and said, "Situation normal. Do you require further assistance?"
Cyborg didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the question. He gasped instead as a bloodied green head poked up from the pile of his friends. "Gar!" Cyborg shouted.
His shout made Tek look up from her tears. She nearly wrenched her arms off trying to leap out of her armor to hug the shapeshifter struggling to his feet. "Gar! You're alive!" she sobbed, and wriggled to no avail.
Beast Boy staggered toward Cyborg, dripping blood from the sword that wagged in his back. "Tuh…T-Terra. You said 'Terra.' Whuh…?" he said tiredly.
Any relief Cyborg felt left him in a rush of guilt. He motioned with his chin for Sarah to carry him forward. Feet scraping behind, he was dragged to meet Beast Boy. "Another special code. In case…"
Another groan made them turn. Raven rose shakily, clutching her cloak around her. Her hood made the lines around her scowl deeper. "Let me guess," she grunted, limping after Beast Boy. "A protocol that puts the latest recruits on the naughty list?"
"In a nutshell," Cyborg said to the floor, unable to lift his head, unwilling to lift his gaze.
Beast Boy grimaced. "Way to twist the knife," he grumbled. Then he yowled as Raven grasped the katana stuck through him. She yanked it out, making him crumple in pained relief. Panting, he said, "Thanks."
"You're welcome," she said, and tossed the sword.
Staring up through his brow, Cyborg watched Beast Boy straighten with a deep rumble that bared sharp fangs. Curiosity and wonder filled Cyborg in equal measure as he asked, "Gar, how are you…? I thought you were dead."
"Uh…" Beast Boy froze, his hand poised over the closing wound in his back. "Later? I think we've got some bigger worries right now." He looked back at Bushido and Starfire, who still bled without stirring.
"Guys?" Tek called, still wriggling as the others hobbled toward her. "Uh, 'yay' for winning, but what if the Tyrants come back? I can't even move, and—"
Raven waved away her concern. "Don't worry. Our defenses already got them. They should figure that out as soon as they get where they're going. She hid her satisfied smirk behind her hood and felt the residual thrum of the runes hidden inside the walls around her.
Too quickly, she lost her smile to a steady babble of emotions trickling up from her midsection. "Besides, Garfield was right. There are bigger problems right now," she muttered.
"Great! Just absolutely, totally great, Grant!" Jinx shouted into his face, scouring his scowl and the rest of the Tower's Ops with accusation. "Look at the wonderful, steaming pile of victory you promised us all. Look!"
She swept her arm to where Kid Wykkid lay, surrounded by a circle of his uncertain allies. His eyes were frozen, mere pinpricks of red light in the smoldering depths of his hood. Smoke wafted from his rigid body, choking the room with the smell of sulfur.
No amount of poking by any number of Billys would rouse Wykkid from his state. One of the Billys pulled his finger out of Wykkid's cloak and wiped it on his leg. "He is good and toasted, folks. I don't know what hoo-doo he pulled to get us outta there…"
"…but damn if it didn't backfire on him like a cheap bottle rocket," another Billy finished.
Blackfire shoved them both aside. Disgust crinkled in her brow as she stalked out the doors. "I've had all I can stomach from you mouth-breathing apes today. Don't bother me until I tell you to."
Following after her, Shimmer muttered, "Ditto that, minus the 'apes' part. I'm gonna go fix my hand and find a drink." She cradled her wrist all the way through the door. Her icy glare lingered long after she had gone.
Ravager stood as a stone against Jinx's tidal tirade. "You're unbelievable. You could have just killed him right then and there. Lopped his head off! We won! But noooo," she spat, her nose scraping his. "You just kept yapping until he beat us with three words. Three! Words! You puffed up, arrogant, useless little—"
His hand moved like lightning. He grasped her jaw, squeezing her cheeks until her lips pursed shut. Without moving, without effort, he drew her toward him, lifting her toes from the carpet. She grasped his wrist to keep from choking, and squirmed at the cold fury glinting in his glare.
"Shut up," he said. "Shut your goddamn mouth, you slattern bitch. You shut up, and you do as you're told, or so help me, I'll run steel through your heart just as if you were one of them. Speak like that to me again, and I will wear your tongue."
He threw her aside and stomped out of Ops. He didn't need to look back. He could feel her glare buzzing against him with bad luck that ached to take him apart.
Ravager didn't care. His innards boiled, churning, pounding against the inside of his armor. The black harness felt as though it were trying to eat him for his failure. Throughout Jinx's rant, he had only heard Slade's voice chiding him. His father whispered to him now, using not words, but a disappointed tone that nearly broke the young Tyrant.
He burst into his room and tore the harness from his chest. It crumpled in the corner, out of sight but not forgotten. Inescapable. Desperate to look anywhere else, he fell into his mirror, grasping its sides. He lifted his eyes and saw a two-toned face staring at him from a rack in the reflected wall.
A small card hung from the mirror. Ravager plucked it from its tape. It was the card he had left before switching bodies with that revolting sack of metal.
Thoughts of Cyborg stirred in his memory. He clenched his hand, remembering the sensation of Smith's gratitude pressed into his palm. The grateful looks of the police, the satisfaction of stopping Doctor Light…in another lifetime, it might have been a worthwhile pursuit. But he had made his choice.
He opened the card. His message had been scratched out. A single word had been written underneath.
"Soon."
At one minute to eleven o'clock, precisely, Raven roused from her meditation, steeled against the inevitable knock that would bother her before bed. She lowered her legs from her floating lotus position, grunted at the twinge in her leg.
She ran a hand over her fresh vestments. A dozen aches barked from underneath the fabric's sheen. She was healing, but gradually. It galled her to think that she had no one to blame but herself. If she had thought about it, she might have guessed Ravager's scheme.
But she had been angry. They all had. She glanced across the room and found her own reflection glancing back at her. It was a plain reflection, at least to her. Pasty, sometimes dull, and with hair that would never amount to much…but she would fight for it all over again, because it was hers.
Her hand stopped beneath her navel. Her palm wrapped around the bottom of her stomach. Only a truly scrutinous eye could spy the slight curve in her outline, but it was there. It was growing. When she pressed down, she felt the soft babble under her skin grow warm with affection.
She jerked her hand away and closed her cloak. Beast Boy would be arriving any second to pester her. It would only make his visit worse if he saw her fussing over her stomach. He was…
He was late?
Raven checked the clock. It was one minute past eleven o'clock, precisely. She confirmed it on her communicator, and then again on her computer terminal. Tapping its keyboard, she said, "Sarah, where is Beast Boy?"
"Beast Boy is currently in the Wardroom," her terminal said.
All the way across the Compound. So, Beast Boy had finally listened to her. She would finally have a night of peace, free from his inane banter and clumsy condescension. At last.
Raven stood hunched over the computer terminal, making no move for her bed. It was a trick. Beast Boy didn't listen to her. Ever. He was just lulling her into a false sense of security, probably as some weak attempt at a joke.
She waited. The door should have smoldered beneath her expectant stare. Her otherworldly senses stretched into the hall, waiting for that telltale blare of emotions. Minutes passed in silence, unbearable now because at any moment Beast Boy would arrive to break it.
Her foot tapped, anticipating the lashing her tongue would whip into his unwelcome cheer. This time, she would make the notion stick. Beast Boy would leave her alone once and for all. If he ever showed up…
Nothing. The door remained unknocked. She jabbed her terminal again, and snapped, "Sarah, where is Beast Boy now?"
"Beast Boy is currently in the Wardroom."
Raven slapped her door panel before her computer finished answering. She marched into the hall, steering her scowl toward Sector Prime. If Beast Boy wouldn't come by so she could tell him to leave her alone, she would track him down to do it herself, and maybe, finally, have some peace.
She climbed the stairs and floated across Sector Prime, crossing through the moonlight that bathed the battlefield below. Ops stood dark and empty. No one was on monitor duty. Raven didn't notice. She landed at a door on the top level and punched its control.
The Wardroom opened, revealing a room filled with a single, long table of lacquered wood. The other Titans sat along the table, with Cyborg at its head. He wore a large, clunky, blinking device mag-clipped to his chest, with wires trailing from its plug through the breach in his chest plate.
"So, how long?" he asked.
Tek shook her head. "Dunno. It's like a…a pulled muscle. It hurts until it's better. But I'll let you know when it works again. And I can still do monitor duty."
Nodding, Cyborg said, "I might ask you to pick up a few extra shifts in the next couple of days, considering. But there shouldn't be much trouble." He cleared his throat and peered down the table. "Uh, Kory?"
Brutal bands of black and blue masked Starfire's bandaged face. She stiffened in her seat, far down the table from the rest of them. "I ab fide," she said. Her braced nose whistled. Her swollen brow attempted a scowl.
"Right. Ryuko?"
Nodding down to the sling around his arm, Bushido said, "I'm fine. The damage is either temporary or cosmetic." His raccoon eyes twinkled with mirth. "Even I cannot keep me down for long."
Cyborg's faze flickered toward the door. His eyebrow shot up. "Raven? You're up? Gar said you had gone to bed already."
Daggers shot from Raven's eyes to skewer Beast Boy's nervous smile. He deflated in his seat as she frostily replied, "Did he?"
"No problem," Cyborg said, oblivious to her glare. "I was gonna tell you tomorrow morning anyway. I'm taking you off the monitor rotation for the next day or two."
Her glare narrowed into slits.
"Just for a little while," he assured her. "I was talking with Gar, and frankly, after what he told me, I thought you should take some time—"
The windows behind Cyborg frosted with a sudden cold snap that billowed out of Raven. "I don't need any time off," she told him, rocking him back in his chair. "You think I can't pull my weight because of what's happening to me? You think I can't handle it?"
As Cyborg stared numbly, Beast Boy half-rose from his chair. His gaze darted to either shocked side of the table. Plastering on a smile, he said, "Wow, is it late! Raven, would you walk with me back to my room? I'm—"
"And you!" Raven barked him back into his seat. "I told you to leave me alone, and now you're telling Cyborg that I need to be coddled because I have a…a…" She gestured to her stomach, her furious tongue tripping. "—a parasite ready to eat my life from the inside out? You had no right."
"…parasite?" Bushido echoed softly.
Raven drew her cloak tight with an imperious gesture. "Yes. I'm pregnant. Fine. But that doesn't mean you can take me off this team. You can't just throw me away. I won't leave. Not because of some—"
"Gender swap," Cyborg mumbled dumbly.
She froze. The rest of her rant bottled in her throat as she tore her glare off of Beast Boy's clutching chagrin. She watched Cyborg stare, transfixed, at her cloaked stomach. Slowly, gutturally, she whispered, "What?"
Cyborg tried to shake his head clear. "The, uh, gender swap. Gar…Gar was telling me how weird he felt, all the hormones and equipment changes, and I thought if it was quiet that you two could…could, uh…" He gesticulated, as if he could pluck his thoughts from the air itself. No matter where he looked or pointed, it felt wrong. "…you're pregnant?"
Even Starfire's hard, swollen face softened. Her eyes glistened with a thousand feelings that tightened in her throat. "You are with a child?" she asked.
Tek and Bushido both echoed the question with slackened jaws. Beast Boy slumped in his seat, red with sympathy for the horror blossoming on Raven's face.
Raven stumbled backward. Her hand flopped blindly until it struck the door control, shutting away the room filled with eyes. She staggered along the walkway, grasping the rail to keep upright. Her psychic walls cracked from the inside.
She needed to leave. She needed somewhere quiet to meditate, to contain the storm that tore through her thoughts. She fought to hold her walls up with what little calm she had left. She needed to leave.
The sound of a door opening behind her made her jump. Without thinking, she pushed through her own shadow, opening a portal. To where, she didn't know, and didn't care. Someone behind her cried her name, but was cut off when she slipped from the world.
She emerged on the roof of the Compound. The night air was still warm, thick with the smells of the city that walled her in with its lights, and its sounds, and its people everywhere. There were so many people around her, each with a million thoughts and feelings that they shared with her without meaning to. But for the first time Raven could recall, the noise inside of her blared louder than the noise around her.
She collapsed against one of the air conditioning units mounted on the rooftop. As soon as she drew near, the droning metal device coughed up black sparks, and died as she sat against it. She drew her knees to her chest and huddled inside of her cloak, closing her aching eyes to the endless twinkle of the city.
The lights lining the edge of the Compound's roof flickered. One of the bulbs burst with a loud pop. Then another.
What a joke. What a cosmic joke. Raven had fought her entire life for control. The monks used to warn her that control would be the only thing that could save her. Not her powers. Not her family. Only by keeping a death-grip on every aspect of herself could she ever continue to exist.
And at the first opportunity, she had thrown it away. For what? For a boy. For a boy who hadn't even loved her. She had experienced twenty minutes of pure, open, free love at the cost of her life, and it hadn't even been real.
She wasn't dying. But the monks had been right. She had thrown away her control in one moment of weakness, and now her life was over.
And the punch line of the joke was, she couldn't even have her control back again. No matter how much or how often she meditated, the damned child growing inside of her kept bombarding her with its emotions. Simple, pure, mindless…it never stopped. It never quieted. It destroyed her concentration, and made her fly off the handle and make an ass of herself in front of her teammates. Former teammates.
She needed to leave. She would have to leave. And she hadn't realized it until she thought Cyborg was making her leave. This life was no life for a mother, to say nothing of a child.
She couldn't stay. She had to leave.
Another source of simple emotions approached her, moving cautiously across the rooftop. She felt his concern even above the din of her own torrential turmoil. She hugged her legs tighter, and gritted her teeth.
Beast Boy said nothing. He walked slowly, softly, lowering each step onto the rough tar paper. In the time it took him to reach her by the air conditioning unit, she could have crossed dimensions and escaped with time to spare. But she remained huddled beneath her cloak as he leaned up against the side of the unit.
"It's…It's really loud out here, isn't it?" he said. He stared out at the city. Its sights and sounds and smells poured into him, yelling secrets at him that no one else would ever know. "What did you call it? Overwhelming? Yeah. All of those people at once. They're in my nose, in my ears…but I can't imagine having somebody inside of me. That's…it's gotta hurt. Right?"
"Why won't you go away?" she moaned into her knees. Another light bulb at the edge of the roof burst.
He sighed. "Look, I know it's been a long and crazy day. Personally, I'm gonna go sleep for three days straight, and then I'm gonna go drink, like, eight gallons of Gatorade so I can pee standing up forever. I just wanted to tell you something before you shut everybody out."
A long, shuddering breath emptied her chest. She dug her fingernails into her legs, and braced herself. "What?"
"I am never gonna leave you alone. Ever. Never-ever."
Two more bulbs popped at the roof's edge. Raven squeezed her eyes until they hurt.
He leaned heavily against the air conditioning unit and stared out at the city. "Look, I know you've got this whole cooler-than-you goth thing that makes you all aloof. And that's cool. It's your thing. So if you need to pretend like you're all alone, then fine. I'll give you some space.
"But I'm never gonna stop bugging you. I'm gonna be there for the next million years, trying to get you to smile, or dragging out to watch stupid movies with me, or teasing you about your smelly herbal tea, or hiding whoopee cushions in your books, or any of that.
"And when you start getting bigger…well, yeah, there're gonna be some fat jokes," he said with a shrug. "What can I say, I like the easy ones. But I'm not gonna stop there. I'm gonna keep pestering you to eat. I'm gonna make sure you're sleeping when you should, and staying away from caffeine that's not in chocolate form."
He leaned over the edge of the unit, speaking directly onto the top of her hood. "And let's face it, when the kid comes along, you're gonna have to buy him twice as many toys, 'cause I'm gonna want to play with them too. And I'm gonna teach him to whine, and whine, and whine, and whine until you buy us both ice cream. Hell, I'm gonna teach him all the best swear words, especially the ones that aren't quite swear words, but should be.
"And it's not just me. Everybody downstairs is freaked out, 'cause they're wondering what they're gonna do to help. Not if. What. Ry's even talking about baby names. What do you think of 'Yoshi?' I guess it was his grandfather, or something. Personally, all I can think of when I hear it is dinosaurs, but that's me."
He trailed off, watching the edge of her hood ruffle in the warm breeze. If he didn't smell her, he might have thought she had teleported out from under her cloak. Rising slowly, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "That's, uh…that's really it. You can pretend to be alone all you want. But none of us are going to leave you alone. You're stuck with us. Sucks to be you, huh?"
He stepped back. "Yeah. Well. Um, goodnight, Raven. Get some rest, okay?"
As Beast Boy walked away, he heard a murmur riding the soft breeze. Anyone else would have missed it, but his ears heard it clearer than anything ever said to him in his life. "Don't…"
He stopped, and turned. Raven hadn't moved a muscle since he had arrived. He could see nothing but her cloak, and her boots peering out from under its edge. She flapped in the wind, curled tight in a ball against the air conditioner. "What?" he asked.
Another light at the roof's edge fizzled and popped. He heard a low sound escape her cloak, choked, and almost drowned out by the sound of soft sniffles. "Don't go," she whispered.
Beast Boy paused on the rooftop. He knew that if he sat back down, Raven wouldn't want to talk. She wouldn't apologize for accusing him of blabbermouthery, or for yelling at him. He knew for a fact that she would only grow worse from here, now that her secret was out.
But he was walking back to her even before he finished deciding in his mind. He sat down on the roof with his back against the air conditioner, and folded his hands in his lap, and sat next to her without a word. What else could he do?
He stayed.
To Be Continued
This story arc…didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would. But there it is, all the same.
Next time, the Titans bite off more than they can chew when they take on the most powerful force on—or orbiting—Earth. And one of our Titans will finally discover where she came from, and why she's here. Stay tuned for Lost Little Girl, coming up next time. Until then, keep reading, because the best is yet to come.