Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans
TT
"We could go to the Pizzeria." She said.
"Good idea." Gar agreed. "So...what do you want to do now?"
"Perhaps we should make for the time we wasted for tutoring." Rachel suggested. Gar smiled broadly.
"Sure, Rachel." He agreed, in a way Rachel had never heard him speak before.
TT
Robin held his magnifying glass steady as it was crucial it did not move a millimetre. He was concentrating on the 'red blinking thingie' which was in fact a camera. The Titans were now very cautious of what they did in the tower and they were on the constant search for duplicates of the tiny camera. Even with the magnification, Robin discovered it was quite a task examining the minuscule parts of the tiny object. It was so quiet you could hear a feather drop. His mind was set in deep thought; it could be perturbed by the tiniest thing...
"Yo, Robin!"
"AHH!" Robin dropped his magnifying glass and he fell over in shock. Beast Boy burst out laughing.
"Dude!" Beast Boy sniggered. "I thought you were meant to have good reflexes or something!" Robin glared at him and got up.
"Did you just ignore the 'Do not enter' sign on the door?" Robin growled, holding the magnifying glass.
"What 'do not enter' sign?" Beast Boy looked at Robin, confused. Robin deadpanned.
"The one on the front of the door in bold, capital letters." Robin resisted the urge to call Beast Boy a rude term.
"Oh, that 'do not enter' sign..." Beast Boy said in the most irritating tone imaginable. Robin wondered if he was just doing this to wind him up. "Well, dude, remind Starfire that there's a sign there."
"Why?"
"She always seems to be allowed in when that sign's up-"
"Okay, Beast Boy! What are you here for?" Robin interrupted him hastily.
"Well, I was just wondering what you'd had found out about the red blink- sorry, tiny cameras, so far." Beast Boy answered.
"I would've found out more if you hadn't interrupted me." Robin said, gritting his teeth.
"C'mon dude, you've been here for hours, you must've found out something!" Beast Boy pointed out. Robin sighed and picked up some sheets of paper off the table, seemingly where he had some notes jotted down. Robin quickly scanned them.
"I would tell you what I found, Beast Boy, but most of it would fly over your head." Robin admitted. Beast Boy shrugged.
"Nah, tell me, I'm curious!" Robin began talking about the different functions of the tiny camera that he had discovered which included its quality, material and design which ensured it to sustain many different attempts of destroying it, but apparently wasn't strong enough to withstand someone's foot. Robin continued talking in Greek, of what it sounded to Beast Boy anyway, and when he finally stopped...
"I still need to delve into that a bit more, and Cyborg could help a lot with it... you didn't understand a word of that, did you Beast Boy?" Beast Boy shook his head, looking dazed.
"Dude... just... I'm gonna go now and try to learn Greek so I can understand that." He left the room, looking bewildered. Robin chuckled to himself before going back to his work.
TT
Garth was relieved he didn't have an anger management problem; otherwise he would've killed the last girl who was ogling at him. During his past few lessons, he had often been spied by a lot of girls and it was starting to get really annoying and uncomfortable. Of course, he knew why this was so- the darned T.V. show. Teen Titans was heading for his despised list.
And he didn't have a despised list until today.
He let out a growl of frustration when a voice yelled out whether he would like to go on a date this Friday. He was thanking everyone in heaven for the fact that Toni hadn't been in any of his classes until lunch so she hadn't seen him being stared at by 9th Grade girls. He wasn't the type of boy who admired being in the spotlight so this was a terrible experience for him. Just when he thought it couldn't be any worse, the familiar voice. that resembled a cat's screeching, rang out again. No doubt who that could be.
"Garthie-Poo!" Garth froze. Was it...? It couldn't be! No...no...please no... A pink clad girl in his year marched in front of him.
"Hey Garth," she purred. Garth resisted the urge to throw up and just at the close the gap between them was. "You free, tonight? Because, I'm like, free and my parents are away tonight. You know... my bed sheets were just like, cleaned so we can-"
"No! NO!" Garth yelled in her face and practically ran for his life. However, Kitten wasn't giving up just yet. He turned the corner and his eyes caught sight of the Cafeteria's double doors. Never before did he appreciate the cafeteria so much. It always tightly packed making it difficult to find someone. He couldn't even risk looking behind him to check where Kitten was. He was not going near that freak. He opened the double doors and his jaw dropped.
It was almost empty.
Only a couple of people were sitting at the tables and the most tightly packed table was where Garth's friends were sitting- Rachel, Gar, Richard, Kori, Wally, Jenn, Joseph, Kole and Toni. Garth was pleased to see there were many of them.
"Hey Garth!" Gar waved, much too loudly for Garth's current situation.
"Ssh! Hide me!" Garth hissed, rushing over to them. They looked at him strangely but obediently pointed to the place behind Jenn and Joseph. He hid behind them and Wally threw a couple of bags on him to conceal him, for good measure. Jenn deadpanned.
"What's with you and throwing bags on people?" Jenn asked him. Wally shrugged nonchalantly and continued eating his spaghetti. Kitten opened the double doors with flourish and Richard's eyes widened.
"Hide me too!" he whispered, already anticipating the consequences of Kitten interacting with them. But it was too late. Kitten had spotted them and marched over to them, hands on hips.
"Hello... peasants." She sneered. Not surprisingly, Kori was already fuming. "Have any of you seen Aqualad around?" A couple of them had jerks on their faces signalling they were about to laugh but Toni, keeping a straight face, come out with a reply.
"Aqualad doesn't come here you idiot. He's a television character." Toni sneered. Kitten rolled her eyes, as if Toni was being stupid.
"Duh, like, he does!" she shrieked. Kole, Joseph, Wally and Jenn had to protect their ears from such a high frequency, though Richard, Gar, Rachel and Kori were used to this.
"Yeah, and I have a pet fly called Walk!" Toni said sarcastically.
"Well he does and I'm not gonna bother explaining it to you losers," Kitten sneered. "Anyway, he's like totally hot-"
"What did you say?" Toni said scathingly. If Kitten, or anyone, thought her boyfriend was hot and said it in front of her, you'll end up with a broken arm.
"I said he's hot! Are you like, blind or something?" Kitten laughed.
"Look, you dumb bimbo, Aqualad is a character and he has an actor. The character is not real. Understand?" Toni explained it to her slowly, getting ready to get up and advance to punch Kitten.
"Well, whatever, I saw his actor! Happy?" Kitten glared at Toni. "Why am I hanging around here anyway? Have you seen him or not?"
"No!" everyone chorused in unison to make the point more clear.
"Thank you! Like, I just wasted like, two minutes talking to you people! When I could've been making evening plans with Aqualad..." She strutted out of the cafeteria leaving the others to relax without destroying their ear drums. However, Rachel realised it was time to head off for their judging at the auditions and with a goodbye, Gar, Rachel, Kori and Richard left the cafeteria. Garth came out of hiding once he was sure the coast was clear and sat in Kori's seat.
"Now I know what Rich feels like." He muttered, letting out a relieved sigh.
"I get ya." Wally agreed. Toni was looking furious and was ready to kill something. Kole noticed and was a little wary of her but otherwise, didn't take much notice. Roy decided to come in at that point and he had an impossibly wide grin on his face as he sat in Richard's seat, next to Garth.
"You're looking happy." Kole noted.
"Yep." Roy breathed happily. "Just been talking with Jade."
"Your girlfriend?" Jenn said. Roy nodded.
"Why didn't you bring her over? Is she shy?" Jenn asked. Roy snorted loudly.
"Shy? Shy! She's the last person who would be shy. No, she said she had to do something important." Roy explained. Everyone else nodded, understanding and murmuring words of 'oh, right'.
"Have you guys noticed Gar and Rachel lately?" Wally said suddenly. "They seem different!"
"They do?" Toni said. "Didn't notice."
"They do. They seemed...a little happier?" Kole said, trying to pick the right word.
"Isn't Gar always happy?" Garth pointed out.
"Well...they seemed to act differently around each other." They discussed the matter nonchalantly for a couple of moments before Karen walked in, beaming. She sat next to Toni.
"You're looking happy too." Wally noticed.
"Well it might be because Vic just asked me out to the dance!" Karen said, excitedly where the girls showed the same amount of enthusiasm.
As Karen was a top gossiper, Roy decided to ask her if she knew anything about Rachel and Gar's different behaviour. She answered quite casually:
"Oh, he asked her out."
"What!"
"What!"
"What?" Karen said. "Y'all sound surprised. It was about time."
"I didn't think Gar had enough guts to ask her out." Joseph signed which Kole immediately translated. Karen looked at Joseph, with a somewhat stern look on her face at the fact they didn't really expect much of Gar.
"How'd you find out?" Toni asked Karen. "Did you just ask?"
"No, accidentally on purpose, I eavesdropped their conversation." Karen answered. "Speaking of which, can I steal some of your chips, Toni?"
"How is chips got anything to do with you eavesdropping?"
"Eavesdropping makes me hungry."
"...Fine." Toni let Karen eat her chips. "Why can't you just get some? Do you have no money?"
"I can't. There's no food." Karen indicated the food bar which everyone looked at. It was indeed empty and was lacking food and dinner ladies. The lights were even switched off.
"Where is everyone?" Garth muttered. No one answered Garth's question, even when they had a vague idea where they were.
TT
Almost everyone was escaping the school at a rapid pace. The minority of the students were either at some after-school clubs or were in detention. Gar, Rachel, Richard and Kori watched with envy as they watched Vic leave with their other friends who sent them useless sympathetic glances. They stood nervously in the small queue for detention. They had not recognised anyone in the queue as none of them had been in detention frequently. They were mostly made up of punks, goths and emos as people would name them.
"Dude... what do you think Mr. Mod's gonna do to us?" Gar said, a little unsurely. He wasn't used to the detention environment as he had only had detention a couple of times, due to long strings of undone homework.
"I just assumed he was gonna make us sit there and stare at the wall. Or maybe read a book about England's History." Richard rolled his eyes.
"Whatever it is, I'm not looking forward to it." Kori spoke for everyone when she said this. Mr. Mod finally appeared, looking uncharacteristically gleeful and his gait had an excited swing to it.
"Alright-y my duckies... in you go; and I've set you some lines for you write 500 times." He announced. Everyone let out a groan- it was typical of him to use an old punishment. As the queue started filing in, Mr. Mod whipped out his arm in front of Rachel to prevent the four from going any further.
"Uh... is there something wrong, Mr. Mod?" Rachel asked, wondering if he was about to shout at her at the way she was walking.
"Well, you're not going to be in this detention class." Mr. Mod had a strange grin on his face, never seen before by his students. "You're in a special one. Follow me." He swiftly turned around and started marching, and the other four followed, a little uncertain and surprised. They were a little apprehensive of what Mr. Mod had in store for them.
TT
"Get in and sit down on the chairs." Kori, Gar, Richard and Rachel followed the order without argument and sat down on the chairs. It was a bit odd how the chairs were laid out; they were lined up facing the whiteboard. Mr. Mod stood in front of them with his hands behind his back.
"Now, you're probably all wondering why you're all here." Mr. Mod started. "Well, the Principal has discovered a new teaching method that would teach students to learn their subjects inside and out. He needed some guinea pigs and I suggested you." They blinked, not having heard this before.
"How does this 'Teaching Method' work?" Rachel asked, curiously.
"You'll find out if you were patient." Mr. Mod snapped. "First, I'll strap you in so you're nice and comfortable." Mr. Mod began leaning down and pressing buttons which seemed to be on the legs of their chairs. In a millisecond, their wrists, ankles and waists were strapped in securely- a little too securely. They were little unsure now about what was happening next as it didn't seem like a normal detention was going to happen. Then, Mr. Mod walked over to his desk drawers, retrieved an old stereo and pressed play. Some soothing music started playing.
Gar, along with the others, started to feel a little more relaxed as the musical tune seemed to urge them to rest their muscles. While they listened, and felt a little out of it, Mr. Mod went over to the computer and tapping ensued. The music stopped after a minute and there was an odd silence.
"Don't nod off to sleep you ruddy kids!" Mr. Mod yelled and they sprung to life. Their eyes widened and suddenly were staring at the board as if it was Barack Obama.
Richard started feeling a little dreamy and his mind felt empty. Slowly, he felt as if his current thoughts and feelings were being eradicated by simply staring at the board. He started feeling as if he was losing control, as if he was floating upwards. His sense of feeling started to drift away. His eyes felt as if they were spinning in circles, in shades of black and white. He managed to grasp some last thoughts... Basketball... The Dimension Transporting Machine... Teen Titans... Teen Titans!
Just before he lost control of his mind completely, he remembered last night's episodes. He recognised the black and white screen- wasn't it something to do with Mad Mod? And what did it do...? Think...Richard think... don't lose your head...
"Hypnotise!" Richard suddenly bellowed loudly.
"What!" Mr. Mod said, sounding surprised but his face didn't match his tone.
"You're hypnotising us!" Richard accused. He looked at his friends fearfully; Rachel and Kori seemed to be in part hypnotisation and part conscious. Gar was completely out of it and was drooling.
"What makes you think I'll do that?" Mr. Mod barked, louder than necessarily as he marched up to Richard.
"'Cuz you're British?" Richard retorted, just to annoy his teacher. He turned a nice shade of puce. "Now let us go, you crazy hypnotist!"
"No! I need to try this! It's all so good! I got it off that T.V. show... and I thought- why hasn't this been done before? It'll make kids learn their History instead of dozing off!" Mr. Mod yelled. Richard started struggling and Mr. Mod held him down, his hands clenched over his wrists.
"You're not going anywhere." He said, grinning menacingly. Richard narrowed his eyes and with one swift motion, he kneed Mr. Mod in the place where it hurt most. He fell to the ground due to the force and in pain and Richard began searching the chair frantically for the button that would release him. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead; he had never been so frightened of a teacher before. But he knew he was more than teacher. Mr. Mod was beginning to recover and Richard had found the button with his foot. All he had to do was press it.
Mr. Mod saw what he was doing and many things happened at once. Mr. Mod got up and lunged at Richard and at the same time he got his ankle on the button which released him and he jumped out of the seat just before Mr. Mod landed in it. Quickly, Richard, put his wrists in the straps but because of Mr. Mod's position, he couldn't do anything else. Then, he started releasing his friends from the grips. Gar fell onto the floor when he was released but the other do girls stumbled as they regained their balance.
"Quick! Let's get out of here before he gets up!" Richard ordered. The girls took a few moments to find themselves and then they ran out of the classroom, shutting the door behind them.
TT
"I feel... confused... and my head hurts..." Kori mumbled. She was sitting in the Nurse's Office along with Rachel who was sitting beside her and Gar who was lying down on a bed.
"What happened, dear?" the Nurse asked. "Can you remember anything?"
"I remember Mr. Mod taking us to detention and then putting us on chairs. Then he put this soothing music on and I felt all relaxed. And then...I saw swirls of black and white and felt I was losing control of myself. Like I was becoming unconscious." Kori answered. The Nurse frowned, obviously not hearing such a story before. She was expecting some sort of bang in the head.
"What about you, sweetie? Do you remember anything?" the Nurse turned to Rachel.
"It's the same as Kori's." Rachel said. "My friend, Richard, said he was hypnotising us." The Nurse looked shocked at such a thing.
"Why on earth would a teacher want to hypnotise someone?" The Nurse said, shaking her head. "Well thank goodness you two have recovered. But I'm not too sure what to do with your friend over here." The Nurse got up and walked over to Gar. The other girls followed, their eyes held concern.
"Do you happen to have any experience with knocking people out of hypnosis?" Kori asked hopefully. The Nurse shook her head.
"No, but he might wake up after some time." The Nurse said.
"How long will that take?" Rachel asked.
"I'm not too sure. A couple of days, maybe weeks." The Nurse said. A knot twisted in Rachel's stomach. Gar had to wake up; their date was on Saturday...
"If that happens, we might have to take him to the hospital." The Nurse said sorrowfully. Kori and Rachel were silent for a moment, as they looked at the drooling Gar with spirals replacing his pupils. Most people would've found his constant drooling and noise-making amusing but no one cracked a smile. In fact, it was so quiet they didn't notice Richard walk in.
"How's he doing?" he asked suddenly.
"Whoa! You could've given us a warning!" Kori gasped. "He doesn't seem to be waking up anytime soon. We might have to take him to hospital."
"I've never seen such a case before. People always have woken up after 30 minutes at most. " The Nurse commented. She started looking for some tissue to mop up Gar's drool from the floor.
"What's the time Richard?" Rachel asked her friend. He looked at his watch.
"4:30pm." He answered. "Detention would've ended by now."
"What do you think is going to happen to Mr. Mod?" Kori asked suddenly. "I think we should report of what he did. It's serious!"
"Fired, hopefully." Rachel muttered darkly.
"From a cannon. If we're lucky enough, he'll land in England and stay there so he can have a go at hypnotising the English kids." Richard added.
"Hahahahah!" Rachel, Richard and Kori stared. The Nurse stared. Their eyes had grown twice its size.
"Gar, why are you laughing!" Kori exclaimed.
"Dude, that was funny!" Gar sat up and laughed. Then, his laughter died down when he noticed the looks on everyone's faces. "Wait... don't you get it?"
"We get it Gar, but what we don't get is why you suddenly woke up." Rachel said. "Do you think laughter somehow takes you out of hypnosis?"
"Seems like it." Richard said, looking relieved.
"Honey, do you remember anything?" asked the Nurse. "Anything at all? From an hour ago?" Gar frowned, wrinkles forming on his forehead. He shook his head. The Nurse asked him a couple of other questions such as: 'Do you feel a little sick or queasy?' or 'Do you have a headache of any sort?' When the Nurse was sure he was fine, she dismissed them with a friendly smile.
TT
"Oh! Look! I have a text message from Vic!"
"Read it then!"
"Okay, okay!" The four detention escapees were now settled in Richard's expensive car and they were now being dropped off outside their houses. Gar had received a text from Vic and was now reading it, Rachel noticing that his reading ability could be improved.
"Vic wants us to go over to his house." Gar said. Then his face enlightened. "He says he's almost finished the Dimension Taker!"
"Wish he told us earlier..." Richard muttered as he did a swift, illegal u-turn.
"That's great!" Kori exclaimed who was sitting in the shotgun seat. "It's about time we got to the bottom of this Teen Titan business. I think they've finished season one already!"
"They have?" Rachel raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Where did you hear that?"
"Some people were talking about it." Kori answered. "Season 2 will be starting soon."
"How do you know that?"
"It's kind of obvious; they're airing new episodes so quickly." Richard said, for Kori. "Whoever made the stupid show likes to have no spaces between his episodes."
"But dudes, the show's brilliant! You're all sounding like you don't like it." Gar said. They all looked at him, sighed wearily and looked away again which left Gar with mild confusion.
TT
They arrived at Victor's house and as soon as they entered, Vic appeared in the hallway.
"Where did you come from?" Gar yelped who received a shock.
"The lounge? C'mon and follow me, guys, we're going to the Lab."
TT
Once again, Rachel, Gar, Kori and Richard were blown away by the hi-tech and efficiency of the metallic and scientific instruments set out around the lab. Mr. Stone, otherwise known has Vic's Dad, was leaning over the large machine that was oh so familiar to them having first seen it's duplicate last week or so.
"Is this thing almost done?" Gar asked, unable to cover his eagerness. Mr. Stone turned around to face them.
"Yes. We just need to review everything's in place and working correctly. More tinkering is in order which I'm going to let Vic handle." Mr. Stone threw a spanner in Vic's direction and he caught it, signifying he was controlling all work on the machine by himself.
"I'll be leaving now. It's all done to you Vic." He gave him an encouraging smile and left the Lab. Vic had a broad smile on his face as he looked at the spanner with glee.
"YES!" he cheered, punching his fist into the air.
"I think he's happy." Richard grinned.
"Right y'all, I'm gonna let you help me finish this thing but first..." Vic went over to a cupboard and started rummaging through it. He got out five white, starched lab coats. He threw one to each of them; the one they received seemed to fit their body shape perfectly.
"Wear 'em so you don't get oil on ya." Vic said.
"Oil?" Kori repeated. "Why do you need Oil?"
"For this door." Vic opened the narrow and tall door revealing a small cupboard space inside. It made a sharp, squeaky sound which made them cringe. "It keeps making that noise; it bugs the flip out of me."
They began working on the Machine with concentration, precision and getting yelled at by Vic. They couldn't blame him though; they were absolutely terrible with mechanics aside from Rachel who had helped him out before. She even was starting to use vocabulary that Kori, Richard or Gar had never used or heard before. It was in fact, fun helping Vic with the machine as laughs and mistakes occurred often. After a couple of hours, Vic called it a day. He had been right about the oil: Each one of them had their hands covered in it. He said it would be hard to wash off but it didn't bother them that much.
Kori went over to some shiny, metal cupboards and began looking at her reflection in the least vain way possible (is that possible?). The top cupboard provided the reflection of her face while the bottom one provided the reflection of her body.
"Wow, this lab coat looks really nice!" she giggled. It somehow fit her figure perfectly even though Vic had only thrown one at each of them randomly. Richard watched her admire the lab coat (*cough* her figure *cough*) but eventually realised he was staring at her and looked away, cheeks flushed. He hadn't noticed Kori look at him via the metal mirror.
Gar and Rachel exchanged amused glances, for various reasons, and then turned to Vic. They remembered to take their lab coats off which the others followed suit.
"When do you think the Machine will be finished?" Gar asked. Vic judged the machine, making 'hmmm' sounds.
"If y'all come on Saturday, after the fan mail of course," Vic grumbled. "Then we can finish this and head off for the dimension." Kori and Richard walked over to hear the plan.
"Oh... well..." Gar flushed slightly. "I don't think me and Rachel can..." Victor frowned.
"Why not?" Victor asked.
"Well... you see... me and Rachel have... to go somewhere..." Gar started awkwardly. Rachel looked a little embarrassed.
"Where?" Kori pressed on.
"Gar and I are going on a date." Rachel blurted out flustered. There was silence.
"Oh how wonderful!" Kori exclaimed as if Rachel had announced there was world peace.
"Well done, Gar!" Richard congratulated.
"Finally!" Vic commented. "That's a good excuse, guys, 'cuz I'll just get Kori and Rich to help me."
"Okay, good." Rachel smiled, relieved.
"So dude... can we eat dinner here cuz I'm starving?" Gar said, grinning sheepishly.
"Sure, but you'll have to eat Steak and Potatoes." Victor said sarcastically and walked out of the lab.
"I'll just eat the potatoes." Gar said, not realising the sarcasm. Richard followed them, chuckling and the two girls stayed behind. You could hear someone shout: "Hey, Vic! Where's the nearest sink?"
"Are you okay, Kori?" Rachel frowned as Kori had held her back. Kori didn't look worried; she simply looked a little uncomfortable.
"Uh, yeah, I was just wondering if you remember what we decided last week..." Kori started. Rachel made a face which indicated she was attempting to recall what Kori was talking about. Then she remembered.
"Oh. It was that deal thing, wasn't it?" Rachel said. "That if one of us expresses our true feelings to a boy the other person has to..." Rachel had a ghost of a smile on her face.
"What?" Kori said, wary of Rachel's supposedly amused expression.
"I'm guessing you're not ready yet?" Rachel guessed.
"I want to give it some more time." Kori admitted. "A little more time to think about it all."
"Don't worry Kori; I'm on the same boat." Rachel reassured. "And, to be honest, I kinda thought that deal thing was just a joke." Kori blinked.
"Oh. Let's pretend I thought that too..." Kori said. "And so the deal isn't official?"
"Agreed." Rachel had humoured smile on her face, which Kori matched, and the two of them trooped out of the lab.
TT
I updated less than I should've this summer. Very disappointed with myself but oh well, you can't change the time you get inspiration...unfortunately.
REVIEWS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
P.S. You may enjoy the next chapter...