Small note: This chapter is hardly the best one I've made. It's nothing special really, just a build up for what will happen in the next chapter.
Chapter 4: The Sum of His Parts
Today was a good day for everyone. The sun was high in the sky, the wind was gentle and barely any clouds were in sight. And what was even better, no criminal had so far shown up to spoil the Teen Titans' day at the park.
"Mmmhmm… would you look at that. A little sunshine, a little breeze. Only one thing could make this day better…" Cyborg commented happily as he reached into a grill and picked up… "… Four and a half pounds of baby fat ribs!"
How in the world he could eat so much, no one will probably ever know. He quickly stomped over to a table and sat down next to Robin who was currently devouring a hamburger.
"Man, I love picnic food" Cyborg stated as he began to gorge himself upon his piece of meat with vigor. Next to him, Starfire was slurping happily away at a drink she had in her hands.
"Agreed, Cyborg. This tiny yellow beverage is truly delightful" she said before continuing slurping it down. Both Cyborg and Robin stopped eating as they saw what exactly it was that Starfire was drinking, and they immediately stared at her as if she had just grown a second head.
"Uhh, Starfire…" Cyborg began, but found himself unable to finish the sentence, too horrific for him.
"… That's mustard" Robin finished for him instead, looking just as unnerved by what he was seeing.
"Is there more?" Starfire asked happily while hugging the bottle of mustard affectionately. The two boys looked at her with dumbstruck disgust, though they said nothing. No words could be spoken in that situation anyway.
Those two were not the only ones disgusted at what they were seeing. If Robin had been paying more attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed by now that ever since they stepped inside the park they had been under constant watch by a tanned girl with long blonde hair and sea green eyes wearing a grey trench coat.
The wonders of make-up, wigs and colored eye lenses. They allowed even someone as distinguishable as Raven to blend in and remain inconspicuous. She had secretly been trailing them ever since they set foot outside the tower, keeping to the shadows a much as possible.
But now, as she sat alone on a park bench not too far from the Titans, she began to wonder if it was all worth it. Watching Cyborg ravage a piece of meat like a starving wolf while Starfire was drinking mustard like it was a soda was not a very pleasant view.
"Remind me to never get invited to a dinner made by Starfire. I prefer to keep living" Raven muttered quietly.
Still, even if this was disgusting to watch, she had work to do. She still needed to kill Robin, and to kill Robin she needed to deal with the other Titans.
And for that, she needed information on how they acted, what their strengths were, what their weaknesses were, who they worked best with, who were the bigger threats etc.
"It will all be worth it in the end" she mused to herself. A commotion from the team brought Raven's attention back to what they were doing. Apparently they had decided to start playing a game.
She just witnesses Robin run right over Beast Boy who had morphed into a triceratops and threw the ball at Cyborg. The ball came closer, Cyborg was ready to catch it. He was in a perfect position.
"I got it! I got it!" he shouted enthusiastically. Then he just froze up like a statue. The ball hit him in the head, and he fell over like a log.
The rest of the team gathered around him in panic while Raven discreetly moved closer to get a better look. She, like the Titans, was wondering what had just happened.
For a while, nothing happened. Then, Cyborg finally opened his eyes again.
"Cyborg, are you alright?" Robin asked in concern as Cyborg groaned.
"Yeah" he answered as Starfire and Robin helped him stand back up "Thanks"
"Okay, what just happened to you?" Argent asked. Behind a nearby tree, Raven thought the same thing. 'Yes, what could possibly cause you to shut down just like that? And more importantly, how can I exploit it?"
"Something must have gone wrong with my system" Cyborg answered as he began running a diagnostic on himself.
"Aw man, my power cells are dying" he suddenly stated. Unseen, Raven's eyes widened in surprise 'Power cells? That's was causing trouble for him?"
"Dying?!" Starfire burst out in shock. Cyborg was quick to reassure her.
"It's only a battery, I'm fine. Happens every couple of years. Just a natural part of being unnatural" he explained, but Raven could easily detect the underlying feelings of depression and sadness.
His powers were making him a form of outcast, unable to experience joy on the same levels of others. No matter how normal he may look or act, he would always feel that he was anything but natural on the inside. He would always be… different.
Raven could most certainly relate to him on that level.
"So, what do we do?" Robin asked, obviously this was not his area of expertise. Cyborg just picked up the ball he had been hit with and handed it to Robin.
"You keep playing, I go home and change batteries" he answered before walking towards the tower. The others were looking at his back hesitantly.
"You sure you don't want help?" Beast Boy asked.
"Just because I can't have fun doesn't mean y'all can't" Cyborg simply said as he kept walking.
Raven meanwhile was already working overtime to exploit this new piece of information. 'So, he runs on batteries in order to survive. Assuming his batteries has the same weaknesses as a normal battery then with the right tools he should be easy as hell to knock out of the equation'
But it was not long after Cyborg had left that the Titans' alarm went off among them.
"Titans, trouble!" Robin shouted and they were off, Raven following closely behind them.
"Show's over, Mumbo!" Robin stated harshly as he faced today's villain with his team "Now hand over the jewels before the critiques decides to trash your performance!"
Hiding behind a pile of rubble in the junkyard turned battlefield, Raven felt like slapping her forehead. 'He has the element of surprise, has his enemy outnumbered and is occupying the higher ground. And his first move is to say a corny one-liner? And he's fighting a robber dressed up as a… stage magician? Geeze, what is it with heroes and villain these days?! What's next, a coach potato with a remote as a weapon?'
"Now Robin, I'm sure there's a peaceful solution here" Mumbo Jumbo stated calmly before two bombs suddenly appeared out of nowhere in his hands "But this isn't it!"
He then proceeded to lob them at the Titans, forcing them to scatter. He kept throwing all kinds of explosive objects at the team while laughing maniacally.
The Titans tried to fire back from behind cover, but the nimble magician just kept dodging their attacks as if it was child's play.
"Teen Titans, go!" Cyborg suddenly shouted. 'Wait, Cyborg?' Raven thought in confusion as her head snapped in the direction she had heard the voice.
Yup, there he was, ready for battle with an oversized battery strapped to his back. 'So, you would rather forego your own health than leave your team to fight alone. Interesting'
Apparently Raven was not the only one caught off guard by his appearance, as Mumbo never reacted in time to dodge a sonic blast from Cyborg. He was sent flying into a pile of rubble.
Though the guy was quickly back on his feet while pulling out a length of colored rope from his sleeve.
"Nothing up my sleeve, and presto!" Mumbo exclaimed as he lashed out with the rope like a whip, causing it to encircle Cyborg like a snake and bound him tightly.
But Robin had taken that opportunity to come at Mumbo from above with a kick. Though Mumbo just looked mildly amused by Robin's attempt.
"Need a hand?" he asked as he stuck his hand inside an old pipe. That hand suddenly stuck out from a completely different pipe and grabbed hold of Robin's cape, suspending him in the air.
A barrage of punches suddenly came out from more pipes surrounding Robin, who could do nothing but hang there like a piñata. If only Raven had had her sniper rifle with her, or at the very least a camera.
"My turn!" Argent shouted as she formed a massive crimson drill out of her energy and sent it at him. Mumbo just held out his hands as if he was expecting it to stop.
Which it surprisingly did. And with a wave of his hands, the energy construct dissolved into flower petals.
"You think that's good, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" he said as he held his magician hat in his hands.
"Hokus pokus!" he exclaimed and a flood wave of stuffed rabbits burst out of his hat. Argent was quickly buried under the unrelenting, although kind of cute, avalanche. Raven sweat dropped at the scene. 'Beaten by rabbits, now that's just sad'
Beast Boy meanwhile tried to ram Mumbo as a ram (original idea).
"Pick a card" Mumbo said as he brought out a deck of cards "Every card!"
Beast Boy was subsequently smashed back by the barrage of cards the Mumbo unleashed on him.
"For my next trick I require a lovely assistant" Mumbo suddenly said as he brought out a cane from behind his back and somehow managed to reach into the air a snag Starfire with it.
Before she could even react, she was imprisoned inside a wooden box with only her head and feet sticking out. The whole scene soon turned more sinister as Mumbo brought out a saw and held it over her.
"It's only fair to warn you, I have no idea what I'm doing" he revealed.
While Starfire was looking fearfully at the saw in Mumbo's hand, Raven was looking at the whole scene with something akin to disbelief. 'These guys managed to beat me and my teammates, who were the top students at H.I.V.E. Academy, and now they're getting overpowered by a second-rate stage magician?' she thought before letting out a mental groan 'I'll never hear the end of this'
Though before Mumbo could begin cutting, Cyborg tackled him from the side, pinning the smaller man underneath his heavy form.
"I hate fighting dirty. Shall we clean you up?" Mumbo asked as water suddenly spewed out from the flower he wore on his clothes and flung Cyborg off of him. He crashed right into a garbage truck.
Though sadly, his external power pack was destroyed in the process. And without a power source to sustain himself, Cyborg shut down. The back compartment was soon opened and Cyborg's lifeless body was dumped into a conveniently placed hole in the ground.
Though none of the Titans saw that and they all assumed that Mumbo had taken him as he drove away in the same garbage truck Cyborg had landed in. they were quickly in pursuit of the robber.
But Raven lingered just a little while longer. She had seen where Cyborg's body had gone, and could not help but feel a little amused over the fact that in the desperate attempt to save their friend, the Titans were actually running in the wrong direction.
Casting a quick glance at the direction the team had run off to, Raven wondered curiously how long it would take for them to realize that Mumbo had in fact not taken their friend. Would they still be able to get back in time to save him?
Well, no matter. If the Titans failed to rescue their friend, then it was one less obstacle in Raven's path. But for now, she needed to catch up with them if she wanted to see the end of this show.
It was not hard to catch up with them, Raven just needed to follow the trail of weirdness that Mumbo left behind. Seriously, was he even trying to get away? Even a blind man could follow his trail.
And once she caught up with them, she had a first row view of the humiliation that was the Teen Titans getting outclassed and outmaneuvered by Mumbo one after the other.
The fighting had first taken place on ground level, but now they had moved to the rooftops. Mumbo was still ahead of them, bouncing from one rooftop to the other like he was a kangaroo. Three of the four Titans were in hot pursuit, but Raven had lost sight of Robin. Mumbo suddenly spun around with his wand in hand.
"Abra cadabra! Alacazab! Hokus pokus!" he shouted as he fired away blasts of magic at his opponents. But Raven was getting bored by this really fast now.
"You'll never stop the Amazing Mumbo! Never, nev…" he was in the midst of his rambling when a shuriken came flying out of nowhere and knocked his wand from his hands. Robin was quick to swoop in and catch it in the air.
He turned towards Mumbo and with a satisfied smirk, he broke the wand in two. Mumbo gave a wail of horror before he broke down into tears as his magician clothes disappeared to reveal a middle-aged man dressed in simple work clothes.
The Titans were quick to surround him and Robin strode up to grab hold of his clothes and hoist him to eye level.
"No more tricks! Where… is… Cyborg!" he demanded. Mumbo just looked at him in confusion.
"How should I know?" he asked. The answer did not sit well with the team.
"Where is he?!" Robin demanded again.
"You took him from the damned junkyard!" Argent exclaimed angrily.
"What have you done with him?!" Starfire asked just as furiously. Not too far from them, Raven smiled to herself. 'And here is where the bomb is dropped'
"Nothing! Honest! When you broke the wand you broke all my spells! Even if I had done something it would've been over now, poof he'd be standing right here!" he explained frantically to them. A look of realization passed among the Titans.
"If Cy's not with him, then he's still back at…" Beast Boy began.
"… The junkyard!" the whole team finished together.
"So, do I still have to go to jail?" Mumbo asked merrily from where he had been dropped to the roof. The whole team turned to glare at him.
"I thought so" he mumbled to himself. Robin suddenly turned towards his team.
"Nice work with the shuriken throw by the way. Didn't know that any of you knew how to use it" he said. The whole team looked at him in confusion.
"Uhhh, Rob. None of us threw that shuriken, we thought you did" Argent explained uncertainly. Robin's eyes widened in surprise before they narrowed in suspicion. If none from his team threw it, then who did?
As his eyes traveled across the rooftops, he caught a quick glimpse of blonde hair behind a ventilation shaft before it disappeared out of sight.
"Hey, you!" he shouted as he ran in the direction he saw the hair, the rest of the team staring after him in surprise. When he reached the area, he found it empty but he most definitively saw a shape dart down a fire escape and disappear into an alley.
Firing his grapple gun, he swung after the person. As he landed at the entrance to the alley, he found the person had run into a dead end. He was trapped.
"Alright, who are you?" Robin demanded as he stepped inside the alley. The person at first had his back turned to him, but now he turned around to reveal himself to actually be a girl with blonde hair and wearing a grey trench coat.
"I must say, it took you long enough to spot me. I've been trailing you the whole day without you ever noticing" the girl responded condescendingly. Robin's eyes narrowed in anger.
"You were spying on us?!" he burst out. The girl just gave him a mocking smile.
"I prefer the term 'discreetly observing'. Sounds much more friendly" she retorted. Robin grew even more suspicious of her. That voice, he was sure he had heard it before, but where?
"If I were you, I wouldn't dally around here for too long. Your metallic friend still needs your help" the girl stated calmly. Robin immediately bristled as his mind jumped to hasty conclusions.
"What have you done with him?" he demanded furiously of her. She just laughed at him.
"Oh, I've done nothing. But there are maybe others who would do something to him if they found him first" she responded humorlessly. "Though don't worry. We'll meet again soon enough. I'm just getting started after all"
And with that said, the girl pulled out a flash bang and threw it to the ground. Robin had just enough time to cover his face with his cape before it went off.
When Robin felt safe to look again, the girl was gone.
At the end of the day, the Titans had managed to rescue Cyborg and were once again in the park enjoying the day. But Robin could not find much enjoyment anymore today.
That girl, who was she? Why had she helped them? And why did Robin kept feeling that he had met her before?
Too many questions, not enough answers for them. Whoever she was, Robin could just feel it in his bones that this was not the least time they would meet.
She would be back in time, and Robin would be ready for it.