24. Bad Publicity part 2
"And the blood travels back to the heart through the upper and lower vena cavae," Cyborg smiled, pointing at a diagram with a metal rod. "After returning from its trip to the rest of the body, the blood is pumped through the heart, starting with an entrance into the right atrium. Then into the left ventricle, which pumps the blood back to the lungs to gather oxygen. And the process repeats itself."
He retracted the rod, stood next to Raven, and smiled at the classroom.
"Any questions?"
A throng of fourth graders raised and waved their hands.
"You…in the third row."
The kid blushed and stuttered: "H-How do the Titans talk to each other when fighting bad guys?"
The classroom giggled.
The teacher smiled over from her corner at the two speakers.
Cyborg rolled his eyes and playfully growled. "I thought your gracious teacher, Miss Hudson had us here to teach you about the human circulatory system! Not talk about Titan business!"
"Pleeeeeease!"
"Just a little??"
"You guys are soooo cool!"
Cyborg glanced a red eye over at Raven.
She shrugged and muttered to him: "I'm not saying a word. Part of the agreement, remember?"
"Whole-heartedly." The African American android then grinned at the classroom and whipped out a communicator. "This is what we talk with."
"COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!" the children unanimously gasped.
"It provides us with a….'party line', I guess you could call it. We can all talk to each other at once. Let the others know when one of us is in danger and needs a rescue….with AWESOME SUPER POWERS!!"
The classroom cheered.
Miss Hudson chuckled.
Raven rolled her eyes.
"How do you keep from getting hurt??" A girl energetically asked.
"We look both ways before crossing the street," the android smirked.
"Awwww! That's not what I meannnnnt!"
Kids laughed.
"We're trained professionals," Cyborg said. "We've spent many years and months learning how to look after ourselves. You don't become a hero overnight, ya know."
Mutterings.
Nods.
One kid timidly raised a hand in the corner of the room.
Cyborg pointed at him: "And you there? What's your question?
The child bit his lip but eventually said: "There're some people on television who say the Titans are bad. Is that true?"
Silence.
A fourth grader or two cleared her or his throat.
Cyborg looked down at the floor. He sighed.
Raven blinked at him. She looked at the one, melancholy child and said: "There are people in this world who give up the greater part of their natural lives to look after the safety of many. People like that have fears and faults of their own, but they're willing to put all of such in balance to hone in on the single act of saving one soul a night, if need be. Such people are not afraid to run into a burning building or leap into the stormiest waters if it means upholding a family's well being. Now…when such people…go through all that sweat and toil…and someone has the nerve to say they're bad, do you think that certain someone is correct?"
Silence.
The child blinked…and slowly smiled. It was a sweet smile. "No.….I don't think that someone is…"
The other kids nodded, smiled, and cheered.
Cyborg looked up. He glanced at Raven and smiled.
The dark girl looked away.
"Well class," Miss Hudson walked up. "That about wraps it up for today. Tell Mr. Cyborg and Miss Raven 'thank you' for paying us a special visit today."
"Thaaaaaaaaaaaank youuuuuuuuuu Cyyyyyyyyyborg and Ravennnnnnnnnn."
Cyborg whispered to his female partner: "Good speech. A little cliché, but the kids dig it."
"It was not my idea to come here," she whispered back. "It was a decision made in bad timing. I think we can expect a lot of ugly letters from their parents come tomorrow."
"Raven…will you cool it? We're still heroes, after all. The media can't turn us evil overnight."
Raven looked out the window at the T-Car and sighed. "Speak for yourself…"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I leaned back against the T-Car and exhaled, my arms crossed. A bright sun shone down on me, filtering light through a deceivingly pleasant sky. My shades protected my black eyes the best they could. But it didn't matter. I wasn't using them much.
The Titans had been cordially invited a week ago by the public school system to pay a visit to Miss Hudson's class and assist in teaching a science study. It was all very…..'public relations' oriented. After all, heroes aren't only good for kicking the butts of villains. They helped old ladies across the street and rescued cats from telephone poles too. Something to that extent.
Neither the Titans nor the school system could have predicted the media sensations rocking the City over the last few days. What, with Blake Glover's anti-Titan campaign and all, it was becoming a more and more skeptical world by the minute.
I knew that far too personally.
I lifted a hand to my head and winced as my fingers rubbed over the bandage nestled just beneath my bangs of long black hair.
It could be worse……
I shifted my feet and continued waiting. There was no way I was walking in to 'teach' that classroom after what happened the night before. It wasn't that I was cowardly…but rather…I didn't want to stir up any bad emotions from the faculty.
Not yet…
I felt my place was best on watch by the T-Car. Cyborg and Raven didn't have a hard time agreeing. They were shocked to the core when I returned the previous night the way I did. I think—in some humorous way—they were the cowardly ones. They didn't want to face me person to person. They didn't want to see how close the media had scratched at our egos and found its way to my forehead.
Boy was I angsty that morning……
"Ummm?"
I looked down and squinted.
A first grader with a ridiculously large, Disney backpack looked up at me. He smiled and waved a lunch box at me. "Hello, Mr. Titan!"
I couldn't help it. I smiled and waved back down at him.
"Henry! There you are!" someone who had to have been his mother rushed over and knelt at his side. "What have I told you about running off like that?! You worried me si---" she looked up at me, blinked once, stood up, and walked off with her child in tow. "Come on, Henry. Let's walk this way…quickly…"
I made a step for them, raising a hand….but stopped….and sighed.
It was just as well. In a matter of minutes, my two partners returned. We got into the T-Car and drove home.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Some people have insinuated that I'm nothing but a rebel-rouser. That I'm just a 'hotheaded excuse for journalism at its most venomous'. Oh yes…those are the exact words spoken of me from the mouths of loyal, Titan-lovers. And I'm sure they all expect some dramatic retort to come out of my own lips. But all I have to say is look. Look, dear citizens! Look at the world around you. Look at the crime and the violence and the fighting and riots running rampant in our streets. Look at the Titans and how they're constantly at the center of it all. They are the fulcrums for disaster as much as they claim to be fulcrums of heroism. All chaos revolves around them. Their exploits are merely quests to save themselves, and not the desperate lives of those who dwell in this fine City! Look, and behold, these pictures which were given to me last night! They show the darkest and most mysterious of the six despots—'Noir'—instigating a confrontation with a crowd just outside of the Bayside Plaza! A mother and father nearly lost their son when the Titan confused a truck driver and----
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
WHAM!!!
Cyborg slammed his fist down onto the couch's arm and stood up, growling: "That snake! He's twisting the whole truth!! Why, of all the lying nerve….I soooooo want to crack his camera sucking face in!!"
In the Main Room, Raven sat a few feet away, cross legged. She held her hands out with fingers touching and attempted with futility to meditate. "Will you please turn that t.v. off…," she mumbled lowly. "It is disturbing my concentration…as well as my temper."
"YOU THINK?!" Cyborg shook. "You're not alone, girl!" He punched the remote and the screen blipped off. The android sighed…scratched his metal skull…and looked over towards the far corner. "Sorry you had to hear that creep again, man."
I shrugged. Without looking at him, I resumed my lonely game of solitaire on the kitchen counter.
Silence filled the Titan Tower.
The noonday sun gradually grayed into evening.
Raven continued her chanting.
Cyborg stared into nothingness.
I paid attention to my cards.
Minutes later…
"We can't keep going on like this…," Cyborg muttered. "This just isn't right. We're letting it all get to our heads."
"You mean…YOU are…," Raven managed to say amidst meditation. Her closed eyes fluctuated under their dark lids as she added: "Obsession is the ally to anxiety. You cannot have one without the other. The more you keep this situation circling in your mind, the longer it will be a 'situation'."
"Repression's a bad thing too, ya know," Cyborg frowned and pointed. You're not dealing with this any better than I am."
Raven opened a glaring, blue eye. "Don't push it."
Cyborg glared back.
A beat.
They both looked at me.
I looked up at them.
Silence.
I went back to my cards.
They were still staring at me.
I finally slammed down a four of clubs and faced them both, shrugging empathetically as if to shout: 'WHAT?!'
"We're worried about you, Noir," Cyborg said. "We all know that moron Glover is picking on you the worse. It's okay to be upset."
I 'smiled' at him. Then frowned. Then got up, practically knocking my chair down. I stomped over towards the nearest window and stared out…sighing.
A tiny reflection of Raven in the distance appeared before my shades. Her one open eye was staring silently at me. Eventually, it closed and she was meditating again.
I truly do envy her sometimes……
There was a huge, silver and blue reflection in the window. Soon after, Cyborg's hand was on my shoulder.
I fumed.
"A hero wouldn't be a hero if he didn't deal with his own bit of anger now and then," the android said to me. He smiled, "I'm one to talk, right?"
I was not about to let him make me smile. I shook off his hand, sighed, and leaned against the glass. Eventually I turned around and gave him an apologetic look. I gestured with my hands: 'I think I am too dark for my own good.'
Cyborg chuckled. "Brother…don't even joke about it."
Suddenly, the Titan alarm went off.
Cyborg spun around.
Raven's eyes opened.
All three of us faced the monitor, which was flashing brightly and displaying 'District 7' in red, glowing font.
Cyborg walked over towards a computer panel, typed away, and 'read' something off a small LCD screen. He then spun around and spoke above the alarm, "Looks like an armed robbery. A caravan of robbers in three trucks are redirecting the route of an armored vehicle across town. They're threatening to blow the automobile full of bank notes up along with the drivers of there's any interference."
"…….," Raven stared. "Lovely."
Cyborg stared out the window.
An uncomfortable pause…
"I guess we're going to go intercede no matter what, huh?"
"When would we not?" Raven said simply, stood up, and jumped down to the carpet. "Let's move out….but play it safe."
Cyborg nodded. "Understood." He glanced at me.
I sighed and gave him a weak thumb's up.
Something in his face smiled ever so slightly. "Titans, go!"
We rushed to battlestations.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Outside the Tower, the T-Car revved up and sped down the land bridge towards main land. A couple hundred yards off, a yacht rested in the sea. Two men were inside. A pilot and an observer. The latter spotted the vehicle coming out of the Tower with a telescope and spoke into a radio.
"Glover, sir. This is marine alpha. Looks like the Titans are answering to the crime after all."
A voice replied through static on the other end. "Wouldn't imagine them doing any less…freakin' sheriffs wannabes."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Inside a limousine, Blake Glover sat and spoke into his end of the radio.
"Keep a low profile. My boys and I will follow the scene from a safe distance and get whatever footage we the action before the police hold us and every other citizen off. This day is undoubtedly going to show the Titans off in their ugliest colors, and I want to be there to capture it!"
"Oh, sir!"
Glover jumped. "What is it?"
"Not all the Titans were in the automobile. Now that shadowy one is following after them. Heading towards the same destination, I believe. Man, that guy's fast!"
Glover smirked. "Splendid. Thanks for the update. We'll keep you posted."
The man switched off the radio and pocketed it away.
Across from him sat Glover's assistant, Avery. The richly dressed individual smiled ever so slightly, his arms folded, and asked: "You seem mighty pleased to see the newcomer all the time. May I ask why?"
"Avery…I'm pleased to see the newcomer today," Blake Glover lifted a finger. "THAT….I will admit. He's the most frightening and intimidating of the Titans. And as a reporter, I must angle in on what is most dramatic to get my point across. The Titans are going to cross the line again. I can prove it to you! Just by including that sword-swinging creep with them, things are bound to get ugly."
Avery leaned forward. "What makes you so sure the Titans aren't gonna go soft on those gunmen and contradict you by looking good?"
Glover smiled. "Then I'll see to it that they look bad!"
He tapped on the glass behind the driver. The window rolled down. "Yes, sir?"
"Follow the scene…and keep us safe!"
"Understood."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Ahead of me rested a few rock bluffs against the coastline. Seagulls and pelicans flew up like an upside down curtain as I blurred over the water, leapt, flew over the rocks, and landed on the shore. I kicked sand up as I streaked forward in pursuit of the T-Car. My hair danced. The bandana shook.
My black eyes narrowed.
I kept Myrkstaff sheathed the whole time.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Where are they located now?" Beast Boy inquired.
Raven typed away at a panel on the driver's side of the T-Car and looked at a flickering display.
"Twelve blocks down," she said. "Heading northwest. Twenty miles an hour."
Cyborg's human eye narrowed. "Quite a pleasant cruise for hard-edged criminals. Something's up."
"We're gonna be on them in no time," Raven said.
"I know. And I think we're just gonna have to ruin their Sunday drive. I'm switching on the siren."
Cyborg pressed a button on the dashboard. Atop the T-Car, a blue dome appeared and started flashing a monochromatic strobe. An ear-piercing howl filled the general area.
Motorists parted ways and allowed the Titans to drive through…a little too eagerly for two's comfort.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
As the T-Car passed below, I ran up the side of a building a perched to a stop.
I leaned forward and squinted through my shades.
Blocks away, I saw a trio of rusted cars encircling an armored vehicle. A wall of police squad cars drove in lines ahead and behind the convoy.
A twenty-mile-per-hour standoff was occurring.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"I don't get it. This is nuts!" a driving suspect sweated, looking ahead through the windshield and back in the rear view mirror as a score of flashing lights and sirens marked the asphalt above and behind him and his cohorts. "Even if we do get the good from the van…there's no way we can shoot our way out of this!"
"We'll form a hole to escape," the leader of the pack smirked, leaning his head into the driver's and passenger's seat area. "With some firepower that's not our own."
Another crook jumped. "Just what are you babbling about?!"
The T-Car zoomed into view in the rear view mirror.
The leader smirked. "There's our ticket now. Tell the other two cars to guide us all into the parking lot."
"By the gas station? You sure?"
"Positively. Move it!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Uh huh….," Cyborg nodded as he watched the three cars maneuver the hostage, armored car into the nearest parking garage. "Definitely an invite."
"We must be cautious," Raven said. "The soonest something unexpected happens, I'll already be having my shield charged for deployment."
"How sweet of you," Cyborg replied, stopping the T-Car across the street.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Avery listened on his cell phone. He looked across the space at Glover.
"The Titans have stopped. It looks like those crooks are up to something."
"Do we have sufficient camera coverage?" Glover inquired, leaning forward.
"How's the scene looking?" Avery spoke into his phone.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Atop a balcony of a nearby skyrise, a camera crew rushed up and assembled.
"We've just found the most perfect spot, sir!" exclaimed the director. "We've got the entire parking lot and gas station covered for every square inch! Just let Glover give the word and we'll be ready to transfer over JCN's broadcast!"
"Excellent…stay put. Go somewhere less open if the fight scene gets too hairy."
The director nodded. "I read you loud and—"
WOOOSH!!!!
I rushed past them on the building side.
They all jumped to steady their equipment.
"Whoah!!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I ran along the side of the building, jumped down, perched atop a light post, slipped off, and landed to the sidewalk. I stepped forward to join my friends as they exited the T-Car and squared off against the three vehicles from a distance.
"No…sudden…moves…," Raven insisted.
The two of us boys nodded silently.
Across the way, the leader of the gunmen was the first to get out. He and two other armed crooks marched over to the armored car and forced the two workers out. The innocent men were held at gunpoint as the leader and his nearly dozen compatriots lined up with semi-automatics and sneered at us from afar.
"State your terms…" Raven said.
"You first," the leader smirked, pointed his gun square against a hostage's head. "Gonna smash our skulls in? Blow a few walls down? Make a car explode? I think it's you Titans who're the real threat here!"
Cyborg blinked. "Um…."
"Ohhhhh great," Raven sighed and quietly groaned to Cyborg. "Brainwashed monkeys with guns."
"You heard me!" the leader said, cocking his pistol and forcing it deeper (as if possible) against the man's head. "Let's see what you freaks have got!"
"Death wish, much?" Cyborg grumbled.
"Easy….Easy…," Raven said. Her eyes trailed left and right. Police cars and officers formed a watchful perimeter with barricades. They were entrusting the next course of action to the Titans. "Think….of a plan…"
I sweated.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"What are they doing?" whispered the director as he and his men filmed the scene from high above in the balcony.
"They're just….standing there…," one of the camera men absent mindedly said. "Not even fighting."
"Keep on rolling," the director replied. "As soon as sparks start to fly, I'm calling Glover."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"All right, you cowards!" the leader grinned, shaking the hostage in his grasp. "I'll give you ten seconds!! Show us what real badasses you all are by the end of the countdown…or I make a withdrawal from these guys' bank! In brain matter!"
Cyborg glanced down at the ground. His eyes traveled along the asphalt and over towards the feet of the thugs.
"Ten!!"
"Raven…," the android said. "The leader and his two immediate sidekicks. See their bun barrels?"
"On it…," her eyes glowed a dim gray.
"Nine!!"
"Noir," Cyborg uttered.
I listened.
"The other nine…there's a group of three of them at the very rear….standing close together. Focus on them."
I nodded and clenched my fists.
"Eight!!"
"I'll provide the necessary stun," Cyborg said. He glanced down at the ground. "Let's just hope the sidewalk and the parking lot are all one big piece of matter."
"Seven!!"
"Cyborg…."
"Yes, Raven?"
"I don't think I can focus on three guns…"
"Then just do the leader's and the gunman besides the other hostage."
"Okay…that I can do."
"Six!!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The limousine drove up a block away. There was already a news crew and van ready for Blake Glover as he stepped out and was handed a microphone by a random stagehand.
"Five!!"
"Aren't they going to act?" Avery remarked.
Glover smirked. "Oh….they will." He brushed aside some nonexistent hair, steadied his suit, and walked forward across the street. "They will…."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Four!!" the leader shouted.
The hostage gulped and shivered in the leader's grasp and against the cold of the gun barrel.
"Okay, Titans…," Cyborg muttered in a low voice. With a whir, his hand turned into a rifle behind his back and glowed a bright blue out of the thugs' sight. "Nice….and easy……like clockwork…."
Raven glared. Her gray eyes glowed brighter and brighter. "Right….."
"Three!!"
I clenched my fists. Smoke blurred slightly from my boots. Not once did I touch Myrkstaff's hilt.
"Two!!"
There was a glint of movement on the inside of my shades. For half a second, my black eyes twitched aside and took notice of Blake Glover in full glory standing in front of a throng of cameras beyond the police barricade with a microphone in his hand and---
"ONE!!!"
Raven's eyes flashed as she shot her wrist out.
The leader's and the second in command's guns turned black as they were covered with telekinesis. Ironically, both thugs were pulling the trigger at that precise moment. The bullets exploded inside the barrels under the pressure of the telekinesis and blew out the handles.
"AAAUGH!" The leader and his partner stumbled back, gripping their hands.
"HIIIIIIYAAAAAAUGH!!!" Cyborg shouted, rammed his rifle into the earth, and produced a sonic vibration that warbled across the street, through the sidewalk, and under the feet of the dozen gunmen.
At least half of them fell to hard concrete of the parking lot. The two hostages stirred too, but Raven's telekinesis switched over and grabbed them—hoisting them over towards us and safety.
The three gunmen in the back—the least shaken by Cyborg's impromptu earthquake—raised their weapons and took aim at the two victims.
That's where I went into action. I blurred forward, past the leader, and leapt at the three imposing thugs. I jump kicked a rifle out of one hand, lunged and grabbed a machine gun out of another's grip, and used the butt of the weapon to slam into the third thug's ribs. I spun around, uppercutted the first of the three with my fist and swept the legs out of the second with a kick of my boot to his shins.
They might as well been counting down to 'negative one'!
All around me, thugs shaken by Cyborg's ground shaking were getting up and aiming their guns at me.
I sweatdropped.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
That's when Cyborg leapt in with a growl and started punching thugs' guns out of their grasps one by one, all the time dodging bullets.
I was about to jump to his aid when the flank of gunmen by my side started firing at me from around their car.
I jumped behind the armored vehicle and ducked, using the object to shield me safely as I went into an adrenaline mode.
Things are a lot rougher without Myrkblade.
Suddenly, I looked up and in floated Raven from her task of rescuing the two hostages. She pointed at me, at the armored car, and then at the gunmen firing.
I nodded.
Her eyes glowed a bright gray. She lifted the vehicle off the ground by blackened wheels and shoved it—scraping asphalt—across the parking lot and towards the three gunmen. I ran directly behind it, allowing it to act as moving shield which Raven provided as she floated along above me.
Sooner than not, the thugs' shouted in dismay and dove every which way as Raven's 'shield' slammed into their getaway car with a shower of sparks and aluminum.
I jumped, used the armored car as a stepping stone, and sailed down—blurring—towards the fleeing three. I summoned smoke through my limbs as I punched, elbowed, and kicked the wind out of each of them. I made sure to supply the least number of blows as possible—attempting to make them unconscious with very little contact than normal, as if I was being surveyed.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
And I was……
"Ohhhhhhhh man," one of the cameramen on the balcony smirked as he stared through a viewfinder. "We are getting this!"
"Avery, sir," the director smirked into his cell phone, observing the explosive scene below. "Give him the thumb's up!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
And Avery did.
Glover nodded, smirked, and eyed the cameras.
They turned read.
"On behalf of JCN Broadcasting, this is Blake Glover. I'm fortunate enough to have stumbled upon a dramatic scene in the center of Downtown! Yet more evidence of the Titans in their most primitive, brutal state of law enforcement!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cyborg growled and ducked a bullet shot. He rushed forward and tackled the gunman in question head on. He slammed him down onto the concrete with only enough pressure to stun him. He wasn't going to take any chances with a concussion. His human half sweat as he looked around for a sign of danger and then found two men aiming guns at him.
BANG!!
BANG!
Cyborg flinched.
The bullets turned black in mid-air and streaked around him, ricocheting into the ground.
Cyborg looked up as Raven flew over and chanted: "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
The guns fell apart in the hands of the suspects. They ran off gladly towards the police line.
Cyborg smiled.
BANG!!
PING!!
A bullet flew off his titanium arm.
He winced and looked over.
The leader was up and had a pistol in each hand. He gritted his teeth and started firing like mad.
POW!! POW!! POW!! POW!!
Cyborg dove out of the way.
Raven levitated high into the air, producing a black shield in front of herself to deflect the enemy's attack.
In the meantime, on the other side of the parking lot, I had my hands full of jumping through a throng of armed gunmen, ducking bullet shots, spinning around bodies, kicking thugs in their backsides, leaping and rolling over the shoulder of someone trying to punch me, sweeping legs out from under, and uppercutting one or two crooks into submission.
I had barely caught my breath when two thugs ran to their car a few feet off, grabbed machine guns, and took aim at me.
Subconsciously I reached for Myrkblade's hilt, but I refrained. The image of Glover was still in my black eyes and I gritted my teeth to think what would happen if I unleashed all my normal powers.
BANG!!
POW!!
Time slowed down.
I shut my eyes fearfully and ducked low.
I heard the warble in the air of bullets whizzing by my cranium.
Time resumed, and the bullets flew off the concrete. PING!! POW!!
I exhaled, scrambled back up to my feet, and leapt straight at the two, arms spread wide like a crucifix.
They fired some more, bullets streaking closer and closer to my underarms….
….not close enough.
I landed, gripped them by their collar, and flipped them over me.
They shouted as they flew through the air, only to be caught by Raven's telekinesis and subsequently flung dizzily (and helplessly) into the midst of the police squad.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
As the police apprehended the bruised subjects in the background, Blake Glover spoke intensely into the microphone and pointed at the scene behind his balding self.
"See the disregard they have for human life?! They toss suspects around like rag dolls! Unnecessary violence in my book! As plain as day!!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
On the balcony, one of the camera men smirked.
"Getting only what the Titans are doing?" the director asked.
"Positively, sir."
"Good. Keep it up.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The leader fired off like mad, gritting his teeth.
Cyborg hid behind a car which was quickly becoming a huge, lead pincushion. He readied his laser rifle but—at sight of the cameras in the distance—couldn't bring himself to use it back on the itchy trigger fiend.
"Hahahahahahahaha!!" the gunman cackled as he unleashed punishment through his machine gun on the flimsy shield of an automobile. "Come on and fight back, Titan!!" he sneered. "I'm waiting for you to hurt me!"
"One thing I hate more than psychopaths…," Raven muttered, floating down from behind him and lifting two shards of aluminum with her telekinesis threateningly. "….is a psychopath who doesn't know how to shut up!"
The man turned around curiously. As soon as he did, the sharp shards of aluminum flew down and merely deflected the weapons out of his grasp.
I looked over from my fight and breathed a little easier.
"Give up…," Raven glared. "You should know by now you're not the star of this media freak show…"
"Oh, I'll give up…," the leader said, trying not to smirk. He reached behind him.
Cyborg peered from around the car and saw what Raven and I couldn't. He jerked to action…but was too far away. He looked at me, thought of my speed, and desperately signed: 'Gun!'
I gasped. I got into a stance to blur into action. But just then, a thug jumped on my back. I wrestled with him.
Raven hovered around to face the police.
The leader fingered the gun behind him. "….but first….I've got to thank you for such a prompt arrival…."
Cyborg ran desperately on hulking titanium feet towards him.
I struggled, grunted, punched the thug twice in the face, and shook him off me.
The leader raised the gun. "HA!"
"RAVEN!!"
I blurred over in an instant.
The dark girl turned in mid air.
BANG!!!
I knocked the full weight of my body into the thugs' leader. But it was too late. The bullet flew.
SLIIIIINK!!!
Raven's eyes widened. Her whole cranium recoiled from the impact. In an instant, she fell to the ground on her knees, clutching her face while her robe billowed like a dead flower.
I looked up from where I had collapsed with the leader and glanced desperately over at the wounded Raven.
I could hardly see a thing.
Cyborg panted, staring wide-eyed at Raven. He growled, lifted his heavy foot, and slammed it down over the leader's head.
"RRRRRGHHH!!"
I blurred my hand up and gripped Cyborg's ankle at the last second.
He glared down at me.
I glared up at him.
In an instant…he got the message. He took a breath and lowered his foot gently to the asphalt after nearly doing the impossible.
I looked over my shoulder, taking a deep breath.
Raven finally lifted her hands from her face and looked over.
My heart skipped a beat.
So did Cyborg's.
There was merely a thin cut across her cheek. The bullet had grazed her.
I smiled.
BLAM!!!
THUNK!!
I let out a silent howl, gripped my shoulder, and fell over to my side as the leader got onto his knees with a smoking gun and kicked Cyborg's legs out from under him.
"OOF!!!" the android fell hard to the floor.
The leader stood up, grinning, and reloaded his gun.
I writhed on the ground, gritting my teeth. Blood trickled through my fingers where I clutched desperately to my shoulder. The bullet had gone clean through the meat.
"Stupid…stupid…children," the psychopath raised his weapons and aimed….towards the gas station. "Go fetch!! Ha ha ha!"
My black eyes popped open painfully from under the shades.
I saw the explosions at the end of his gun barrels as he fired like mad at the gas station at the edge of the parking lot. In slow motion I saw the bullets streak their way to an abandoned car at one of the pumps. A patron was in the middle of refueling his vehicle when he ran off from the violent scene. Any random spark from the projectiles could possibly be a disaster. The possibility was too great for me to let them make contact. I jumped to my knees in slow motion, blurred instantly, and streaked a lightning quick path towards the pump. Through mere might of murk alone, I outran the bullets, slid to a stop in front of the pump, and—one handed—finally unsheathed Myrkblade and spun it before me with two and a half flicks of the wrist.
CL-CL-CL-CLANK!!!!
"Hehehehehehe," the villain chuckled. "Back and forth! So foolish, twirp!" With that said, he effortlessly pointed the gun down by his side…and directly into Cyborg's skull.
And that is how everything sacred to the preservation of the Titans' image that day finally….finally…went to Hell. I didn't even realize I was charging the fiend until I was half the distance and half the second towards him. My wounded arm dangled at my side, but my other hand charged up an unseen fury of smoke and murk through my blade as I spun my body around and managed to swing the sword in an upwards arc. A wall of murk cascaded down, danced along the asphalt, and then leapt upwards under the leader's two feet. He was carried up ten feet into the air, flailing and screaming. Just perfect. Less than a second later, I jumped, met him in mid air, and struck the broadside of my blade against his back. He twirled upwards in time for me to spiral my body around and lay my leg into his side and propelling him downwards like a soccerball.
"AAAAAAAAAH!!" he sailed downward like a missile…and landed through the windshield of a police squad car. SMASH!!!!
People gasped and jumped back—save for the paramedics who rushed over to the down man's side.
"Uggggggh," the once haughty criminal moaned desperately. "Hurts….t-to move…."
I landed a few feet besides him, panting, clutching my arm.
And I realized I was having an earful of….him.
"There you have it, ladies and gentlemen!" Blake Glover cackled into his microphone and faced the cameras. "Total disregard for life! A Titan knows no boundaries in his pursuit of so-called 'justice'."
People gasped and held hands over their mouths as they stared back and forth between the injured thug being treated by paramedics and my hunched-over self. There was disgust and scorn in their eyes. But nothing worse than Glover…
"And still he says nothing!" the man went on. "Still he won't answer for his sins! None of them…will ever answer for their sins!"
Cyborg and Raven stumbled to their feet and looked my way.
"The Titans must go, people!" Glover preached, gesturing at me. "Not to action! Not to the streets! But out of our lives for good! Do you want the neighborhood of your children to be a safe haven?!" He turned….and smirked at me where the cameras couldn't see. "…or a battlefield?"
I stared—unbelieving—at this man. There I was, bleeding, my friends' lives in jeopardy, the safety of everyone around the gas station in peril. And yet he couldn't stop targeting me.
I like to think that I'm a person who doesn't let intimidation get to me….but that day……
I actually took a step forward.
Glover glared at me. "What are you going to do, Titan?" he mumbled only so that I—not the microphone—could hear. "What can you do?"
Before I could possibly do anything, my boots were encased in black telekinesis and I was dragged back by a flick of Raven's wrist. "Hold. Back." She commanded.
"Bitter to the end!" Blake Glover smiled and bowed as onlookers mumbled and gasped from behind. "For JCN Broadcasting….this is Blake Glover. May God help us all."
Cyborg glared at the man, but walked directly to the police, who were accosting the dozen suspects disarmed from the entire fight. The leader was carted off into an ambulance and driven—not rushed—to the nearest hospital.
That last thing was a welcome sign to Raven. She let out a huge sigh and turned around….and saw no sign of me.
"Noir?" She beckoned to the air. She filtered the air with her telekinetic sense of spatial awareness and 'felt' something a few feet behind her. She looked into a nearby alleyway and saw but a shadow.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I stumbled into the darkened corridor, wincing. I held my hand out in front of my shades…eyeing the patch of blood drying on it. My shoulder stung like mad…but somehow it was infinitely bearable. Another pain was coursing through my body. It set my arteries on fire.
I practically ripped my shades off, tossed them to the ground, and gripped my bloodied hand over my face. My whole body shook and strained. Uncontrollably, smoke and murk warbled out of my limbs and—especially—out of the clean wound in my shoulder.
A soft pair of feet lowered to the ground in front of me.
"Control it…." Raven said.
I shook my head and pounded the wall with my fist. I started hyperventilated.
She stepped forward and forcibly grabbed my wrists. "CONTROL. IT. NOIR." She commanded.
I winced from the pain of her grip on my arm. It awakened me. I squinted at her through solid black eyes of pain.
"Now….with me…," she nodded. Her eyes lowered. "Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos…."
I shook from her grasp and clutched my head. Smoke warbled from my limbs again. Anger. Rage.
She grabbed my wrists again. "Say. It. With. Me." She glared. "Just mouth it. Now."
I took a deep breath.
"Find your center. Repeat after me."
I lowered my eyelids. Trembling.
"Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos."
I struggled. This was not my meditation. This was not my art.
"Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos."
I inhaled. My lips moved. My thoughts spoke.
Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos.
"Rage must never break through, Noir…."
Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos.
"In mastering it…one does not deny its existence. One agrees to handle it…and hold it at bay…"
Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos.
"No force…..—no man….nothing can intimidate you. Nothing can master you. Nothing can dominate you."
Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos.
"No matter how intense the force of opposition, Noir," Raven said firmly. "You are the master of your self. Control it. I know you can…"
I wasn't chanting anymore. I was on the road to the harmony once taught to me by my Master. Something which the Titans had all seen me do on my own. But none of them could possibly have it explained to them. Not even Raven. But Raven knew an absolute truth that permeated the lives of everyone. And it acted as a springboard for me to reenter my domain and smell the ever rusting mortality of the earth and its gentle weeping across the plains…the grass licked by the wind and rain till it formed a bowl in my heart that overflowed through my obsidian eyes.
I found myself on the floor of the alley, my back slumped against the wall and crying my eyes out. It was hardly the manly thing to appear like. But there was hardly any other safe alternative.
I had embraced Rage—just as Glover desired me to. And all I needed to do was acknowledge Rage's existence and just visit its nextdoor neighbor Sorrow for tea. Thus, my passion was redirected. My body followed suit, and I was hiccupping and hugging myself with my own bleeding arm.
Raven stood over me—still and resolute. I felt for a moment like her shadow.
The girl's eyes lowered on me and she sighed as she said: "You've lasted longer than anyone I've ever worked with, Noir…"
I sniffed and rubbed my wet cheek with my healthy hand. I looked up at her, curious.
"Cyborg ran into it during his first week," she said. "Beast Boy was soon after that. Believe it or not, Starfire was next, though not many have seen her angry. Robin lasted a long time…but when he finally confronted it in full, it nearly hurt the rest of us." She looked deeply into my onyx soul. "Noir, everyone I work with…I've seen them succumb to the pull of Rage at one point or another. I've always thought it was a result of their anchoring to my aura after so many months of exposure. But no. It is not the demon within me that summons the inevitable confrontation. It is the inevitability of life itself. Karma and fate. Light and shadow. Cause and effect. That's why I hardly ever react to things, Noir. I see them for what they really are. Equations. You are an equation yourself, Noir. A very complex and mysterious one…but one nevertheless. And like all problems, you can solve yourself when things go awry. If only you step back, face the facts, and rearrange them to produce order and tranquility."
I took a deep, pained breath and continued staring at her.
Raven turned around. "I am…..regretful, of the way the Eternal Equation has treated you as of late." She glanced at me from around he robed shoulder. "And yet, I realize you have lasted so long. You have the strength to prevail. And such is an inspiration…not just to me, but surely to Cyborg as well. And to the rest of the crew…though they may not be here right now to see you triumph over your greatest adversary yet."
I blinked at her, my mouth slightly agape. I had a hard time feeling the pain in my shoulder then.
But Raven couldn't stop looking at it. "Get up. We're going back to the Tower to recover and get that wound looked at."
I nodded absent-mindedly. Raven extended a hand and helped me up. I winced and leaned on her as we hobbled out of the alleyway, and rejoined Cyborg.
I never got to thank Raven for it…but…the android didn't get to see a single tear.