A single Slade-bot kept watch over the lonely cove that faced the mainland. It had a small, unused dock which was used by biologists from a university who came to study the sea lions. They would not be coming anytime as the sea lions were away during their annual migration.
Occasionally, a lonely boat would come by; usually full of curious explorers who wanted to get a better look at the forbidden island. If they came into the cove a loudspeaker would blare, telling them this was a restricted area and that they should leave. This hadn't happened in over a month, and the droid patiently kept watch, never growing bored or tired.
As it scanned the cove and the channel that separated the island from the mainland it detected a motion in the water. Using the telescopic lens built into its left eye it zoomed in on the turbulence it saw move into the cove. It saw two large creatures break the water's surface. Both exhaled through blow holes.
The Slade-bot accessed the database in the lair's mainframe, via a wireless interface. Within seconds it had identified the creatures. They were gray whales, on their way to the warm waters in Mexico, where they would give birth to their calves. The database also mentioned that sometime the whales would take a break and rest in the relative safety on the cove before continuing on their journey past the tip of Baja California.
The droid watched the whales, which were swimming towards the beach. The Slade-bot continued to watch the marine giants, which were now very close to the beach. The droid once again accessed the database and found an entry about whales beaching themselves.
This is exactly what the whales did. The Slade-bot activated its backup, a unit that was normally kept offline. The two droids came out of their blind and walked onto the beach, approaching the beached whales, which remained immobile. The two droids separated, each one approaching a whale, preparing to assess if they would need to do something about the creatures, which might attract attention from the mainland.
They approached the large creatures' mouths as they continued to examine them. That was when they opened their mouths unnaturally wide. A sonic cannon shot out of one of the creatures' mouths and destroyed the first Slade-bot. The second droid was caught and crushed in a vise of dark energy.
The Titans stormed out of the whales' mouths, after which they morphed into J'onn and M'Gann's familiar humanoid forms. Cyborg setup a small transmitter on the sand.
"This transmitter will fake out the two droids we destroyed, but Slade will soon figure out that something is wrong, so have to move." The tin man announced as the decoy beeped to life.
"Beast Boy, Rachel, you need to find Raven and begin the revival process. Once you do we'll keep Slade and his droids out of your hair. The revival process should take 30 minutes, but Raven won't wake up right away. Once she's thawed you need to get her out of here. Do your best to avoid detection. If we're lucky, Slade might not notice you at all since he's supervising a Xenothium theft at this very moment. But be prepared for anything. If Slade finds out you're in the cryonics chamber he'll try to destroy Raven and you have to stop him if he does. J'onn and M'Gann are going to disguise themselves as you, so they'll be your decoys … are you ready?"
The green and gray couple nodded. Rachel raised her arms and the hum of the black hemisphere made its appearance. They vanished into the sand, teleported into Slade's lair. Before the mission Robin and Cyborg made an educated guess as to the location of the cryonics room. Hopefully they had guessed right. He held his breath, until he heard the changeling's voice over the communicator.
"We're in." He announced.
Now it was time for step #2. Robin had agonized over whether to simply lay low and only intervene if Rachel and Beast Boy needed help. That strategy was discarded as Robin decided that they wouldn't be able to arrive on time if that happened.
Instead, the decision was to launch a direct, frontal assault to draw Slade's attention from the true target. This is why the decoys were so important. Slade needed to see all five Titans attacking his compound. Robin hoped that Slade would try to capture them and would only resort to killing Raven as a last resort, which meant that they couldn't overrun his defenses. But they also couldn't look like they weren't trying either, Slade would see right through that.
Robin was confident that he could fool Slade. The question that haunted him was: could he fool his nemesis for thirty whole minutes?
-( scene break )-
Rachel's black hemisphere rose from the floor and vanished, leaving the green and gray Titans alone in the large cryonics room. The room was dark and the changeling turned on his flashlight. He gasped when he saw all of the empty tubes.
"She's here somewhere." He whispered in a hushed tone. "Dude it's freezing in here."
Rachel turned on her own electric torch and began to scan the room.
"Over there, Gar." She whispered.
Beast Boy looked in the direction the gray sorceress was pointing and saw it. It was single tube that was completely frosted over. They quickly rushed over to it and stopped in front of the giant Popsicle. With his gloved hand the changeling rubbed the frost from the tube. He felt the tube's chill as he rubbed all of the frost off it. The first thing that became visible was her face, which looked asleep, as if shaking her would wake her up. He knew of course that she was frozen solid, to the point where her brain activity and all of her bodily functions were inactive, and that only a well controlled reanimation process would bring her back to the world of the living.
He completed rubbing the frost away and he saw her. She was dressed in a special white unitard, which was supposed to work with the tube in making sure that she froze without incurring any cellular damage. At the base of the tube, in simple Helvetica font, was her name: "Raven".
"It looks like we found her. Let's get started." He murmured to Rachel.
She didn't respond, and when he turned to look at her, he saw that she was staring, mesmerized, at Raven's still figure.
"You OK, Rach?"
She nodded.
"Sorry, it's just that seeing her, it's … humbling … she's the real thing … I'm just a copy."
"You're more than a copy, Rach, and I'm sure she'll be the first one to tell you that after we get her home." He replied as he unfolded a sheet with the key codes he would have to enter to begin the reanimation process.
"Maybe, but … what if she tells me to give you back to her?"
"She won't … and besides … don't I have a say in that?"
"You mean you would choose me over her?"
He hesitated before answering.
"Are you asking me to make a choice? Do I even have to? She rejected me … in case you forgot."
"What if she changes her mind?"
He locked eyes with her. "She won't."
"So I'm your backup? You fall back, you second choice?"
He glared at her. "I never said that."
"So I am your first choice?"
He pursed his lips.
"Yeah, you are … do you even have to ask?"
"Maybe … maybe I do."
He entered the codes on the unit's front panel and pressed the enter button. He held his breath, waiting for something to happen. After a moment the front panel displayed the following:
Reanimation process commenced.
Time remaining: 30:00
The timer began to count down.
"Phew!" He exhaled. "I didn't screw up."
No sooner than he said the ill spoken words that red lights began to flash in the room, while claxons blared.
"Warning, unauthorized reanimation has been triggered." A disembodied voice announced.
Rachel locked eyes with him.
"You had to say it!"
The changeling flipped open his communicator: "Robin! We have incoming!"
-( scene break )-
Robin cursed under his breath. So much for the stealth approach, now they had to move and fast.
"Titans, we need to get in there, now!"
The team had already located the entrance to the lair, which was a well guarded door in the side of a short cliff. Slade-bots poured out of the door, firing their laser pistols while the heroes charged at them. The Martians dropped their disguises and used their telekinesis powers to trap and crush the robots.
Starfire became airborne and screamed a "hiyaaa!" as deadly energy beams shot out of her eyes, felling droids left and right while Cyborg converted both of his arms into sonic cannons, also blasting the droids as fast as he could. Robin threw volley after volley of his exploding disks. The robots were easy to take out as they rushed out the lair's entrance, proving to be easy sitting ducks. The only problem was that there seemed to be an endless supply of them and they continued to block the entrance, while precious time frittered away.
Robin had given Rachel and Beast Boy orders to retreat if they could not protect Raven. He grunted, as he threw amother bird-a-rang. There was no way they would abandon Raven to a certain death, even If it meant sacrificing their own lives. They had to get inside the complex … now.
"Titans! We going in!" He shouted as he made a circular motion with his arm. The others understood what was at stake and followed him as he charged towards the entrance. The Slade-bots didn't flinch, even as they were mowed down. Shouting a battle cry, Robin disappeared into the entrance, taking down Slade-bots as he fought his way in. The others followed him, bracing themselves for the worst.
-( scene break )-
Beast Boy watched the countdown time drop below the 20 minute mark.
"C'mon! Hurry up!" He growled impatiently at the console. The ECG display started to show a waveform, meaning that Raven's heart had begun to beat, even if it was still only 10 beats per minute. She was alive and that was good.
"Why hasn't Slade arrived yet?" Rachel asked herself.
The room was still unlit, its darkness punctuated only by the few flashing red lights.
"Hello, Titans. Did you really think I would let you just walk out of here with Raven?" The baritone monotone they had all learned to hate echoed in the cavernous room.
The lights came on and the changeling had to stifle a girlish shriek, as they could see that they were surrounded by over 100 robots.
"What are gonna do? There are so many of them?" He howled.
"What else can we do? We fight!" Rachel replied.
Beast Boy nodded and turned to face the horde of Slade-bots that was about to swarm over him. He morphed into a gorilla and began to swat at them, knocking them away. But for everyone he struck down, two more took its place. Within moments the robots were overwhelming him.
He turned to look at the tube. The timer was approaching 15 minutes and Rachel was also busy fending off the robots, keeping them away from the console, with its doomsday orange button still flashing. He could tell that Rachel would soon be overrun, and that meant both she and Raven would die.
He roared as he fought back, throwing robots off of him. He then shouted in agony, as he had been hit point blank by a laser pistol. He staggered as he fought back against the pain and the Slade-Bots began to pile on top of him. Again, he looked back at the console, which Rachel had encased in her dark energy, leaving herself completely vulnerable and unprotected as she fought the droids with little more than kicks and punches.
"Rachel!" He shouted above the din.
"Gar, flee! Save yourself!" She shouted back.
That was when he felt something snap inside of him, and he knew what it was. His mind felt primal and his animal instincts intensified. His muscles grew and his shape changed. He knew what was happening, he was transforming into his alter-ego, a chimera like creature that was so wild that he couldn't control it. It was an act of desperation, one his subconscious was allowing to happen. He didn't fight it and instead embraced it, even if it meant that he would truly be transformed into a monster of nightmares. If that's what it would take to protect his women, then so be it.
He threw his head back and roared defiantly at the robots, which cowered at the sight of the Beast. He shook them off effortlessly. Performing a backward flip he landed next to Rachel, easily swatting the droids away from her. Her face was bloodied, but she looked defiant. And with the Beast standing next to her she was probably invincible.
The Beast made short work out of the remaining Slade-bots, roaring triumphantly as it ripped the head off the last one. The countdown timer now read just under 5 minutes. There was still no sign of Robin or the others, nevertheless, victory appeared to be theirs.
The sound of hands clapping echoed in the room, startling both Rachel and the Beast.
"Well done, Beast Boy, well done. Your alter-ego is more powerful than I remember. You have defeated my robots and humbled me."
Slade stepped out of the shadows.
"But I have an ace up my sleeve." He said as he turned to Rachel.
"The Star of Azarath" Slade's voice boomed.
Rachel suddenly became stiff and stood at attention, as if waiting for a command.
"Go to the console!"
The Beast stared dumfounded at Slade.
"I buried a failsafe deep within her mind, in her pre-birth memories. A place the Martian Manhunter would not check nor find."
The Beast turned to Rachel and roared at her. She did not appear to hear him and approached the console.
"Wait for my order!" Slade barked. Rachel stopped in front of the console. Slade turned to the Beast.
"Checkmate." Slade's baritone echoed in the room. "Surrender yourself to me, changeling, and I will spare them."
Beast Boy morphed back into his human form and glared at Slade.
"Don't feel bad, Beast Boy. You put up a valiant fight, but now it's over. And you came so very close."
The console beeped, the clock indicating that the revival process was complete. Raven's heart beat was normal. Rachel stood next to the console, ready to press the doomsday button, which could still terminate Raven.
"What do you want from me, Slade?"
"You will soon find out, changeling."
-( scene break )-
Thanks to everyone for following. The next update probably won't be until the weekend.
Until we meet again.