Disclaimer: The author of this piece of work does not own the Teen Titans nor any of the characters appearing within this work. They belong to whoever they belong to, because I cannot for the life of me remember who owns who and how far up that ladder I ought to go.
The HIVE headquarters was in shambles. It was always a mess, but now even the 4 remaining members of the HIVE FIVE could notice it. But they didn't care. They were just trying to get over the loss of one of their own. Gizmo would grumble unintelligible things to himself as he staggered through the hallways, absorbed in the process of invention. Mammoth just lounged about on the couch, flipping through channels aimlessly, eyes glazed over in a trance not even a major football game would rouse him from. Billy Numerous was in a fey mood, and spent much of his time making bad, humorless jokes with himself and only two duplicates. See-More just spent his time curled up inside a pillow fort.
In the days following the death of Kyd Wykkyd, the topic had come up of just continuing to scheme and plot and go about their lives like normal. Gizmo voiced the concern that they had mourned enough, and that it was high time they all moved on. Besides, Kyd had gotten all sentimental and betrayed them by wanting to "apologize" as his note had put it. And it had gotten him killed. There was no use hanging onto the memory of a dead idiot. They just had to move on, like they did when Jinx left.
But the remaining members of the HIVE 5 knew that this was not like when Jinx left. And while they grumbled their affirmation to move on, they all knew that they may never get over that loss. One of their own was dead, and that wasn't something they were all too comfortable with. Not even Gizmo was able to shake the feeling of loss, despite his own callous arguments that they get over it and just move on. Only weak, simple minded morons clung to dead people like that, he had reasoned. But when the thought occurred that they recruit another member to fill out their 5, so as to get back into their villainous groove, there was a unanimous vote against any replacement.
But a week passed since that night, and nothing happened. They did nothing. Mammoth barely moved from the couch. Gizmo appeared to be eating nothing more than a musty old apple a day. Billy began to read books. And See-More built a pillow-fort each morning, then spent the remainder of the day curled up inside it. The extent of their thievery now was for the shoplifting of food so they didn't all starve. But it didn't have their hearts in it anymore.
Breakfast one morning was interrupted by a loud bang at the door. Which made little sense given they were all inside at the moment, and their hideout was a secret building hidden from the outside world. The only two at the breakfast table were Mammoth and two Billy Numeri crunching into cereal. They looked up towards the door, but did nothing. See-More didn't stir, but all of a sudden, there was a loud commotion from Gizmo's room. Colorful expletives were belting out from the micro-mastermind about his security system, and moments later, the door to the hideout was glowing a purple-pink haze of energy.
The door exploded inwards, flying across the common area until it crashed into one of the now-pillowless sofas. Mammoth, See-More and BIlly turned to look at what was once a locked door to see a person standing in the smoke of the doorway. The clatter of mechanical pseudo-legs meant that Gizmo showed up screaming just as the smoke cleared to reveal the girl standing there.
"Get up ya prissy crud munchers! We're under attack!"
"Is it too late to say I come in peace?"
Mammoth uttered a low growl as he stood from the table, recognizing the voice. The Billy's did so as well, slapping fists into open palms as they instantly multiplied. Gizmo reacted with some indistinct curses as maser cannons popped up from hidden compartments and primed in 0.6342 seconds. See-More did nothing but curl further into the pillow fort.
"Easy, I'm not here to fight… I just came by to, well…" the pink haired young woman stammered, hands held up in surrender.
"Talk's cheap, traitor," one Billy began.
"So you jus' git," another continued.
"Or we gonna have-ta give ya a lickin', you no-good polecat!" a third finished to the chorus of affirmation from the several other Billy's now herding in a gang towards her.
"Geez, can't you cut a girl from slack? I'm not here from for the Titans, okay!" she reacted indignantly, before pausing. Her features softened, struggling to find the right words. "I'm here cause…"
"What, those booger-brain Titans kick you out? Come crawled to us?" Gizmo sneered. Jinx glared at him darkly.
"No! Because Kyd's dead, and I'm the only one of those damn heroes who actually cares enough to feel bad about it! I was his friend too!" Jinx frustratedly shouted, bad luck spilling from her control to hex the lighting, send the masers to fire randomly into the walls, and topple the pillows from the fort.
There was a deafening silence as they all just stood there in the dark.
"Let her in." came the voice from amidst the fallen pillows. In the darkness, all eyes turned towards the blind man. He had somehow found his cyclopean device, and slipped it onto his head. With a twist of a dial, the massive eye blinked, illuminating the doorway like a flashlight. Jinx stood there, uncomfortable and miserable.
"Gizmo, fix the lights, and let her in. She ain't a threat right now."
Gizmo stared daggers at See-More, but when Mammoth and Billy calmed down, the genius tinkerer forced himself to back off. Skittering off muttering to himself, Gizmo found the fuse box and in a few moments managed to get the lights back up and running.
Jinx stepped in as See-More got up from the remains of the pillow fort and joined her at the table. Mammoth merely grunted and picked up the door, then placed it back in it's frame, not bothering with actually fixing it. Soon, they were all sitting at a table, a drink in each one's hands. They didn't say anything for a long while.
"So, how're things with the heroes." Mammoth wondered aloud, breaking the silence.
"So-so." Jinx answered with a shrug. "It grows on you, actually. Some of them are pricks, but I like the rest of it. And Wally's actually a better guy than every other one I've dated."
"Wah-lee?" a Billy questioned.
"Kid Flash."
"Oh."
Another long silence descended once more. See-More sipped at his drink.
"Do you ever miss us? Ever miss being part of the HIVE?" the cyclopean teen asked solemnly.
Jinx turned her head away from the boys, face clouded with conflicting emotions. See-More merely grimaced, and shrugged the question away.
"Ah still wanna no whut happen'd." one Billy muttered.
"Damn'd straight." another agreed. "No stiff ain't turn't up yet. Ain't gonna bury'n empty casket, no sir."
"We aren't gonna hold a funeral for some crud-muncher who got soft on us and bit the dust feeling sorry bout takin' out the enemy!" spat Gizmo, slamming a tiny fist on the table angrily.
"There's nothing wrong with sentiment, Mikron!" Jinx retorted.
Gizmo's chair was thrown away as spindly appendages sprouted from his tech-pack, beam cannons ratcheting into position as the glow of charging proton emission illuminated from the barrels. The young genius' fists were clenched, face screwed up like a child having a temper tantrum. "My. Name. Is. Gizmo." he said through grit teeth.
Jinx merely stared at Gizmo, impassively meeting his furious gaze. A few moments passed, and no one did a thing. Mammoth flicked his eyes between the two, unsure of what would go down now. See-More merely took another sip at his drink, draining it. Then he reached for the bottle in between Gizmo and Jinx that was on the middle of the table and poured himself some more.
"Hmph." A metal appendage grabbed the chair off the floor and righted it, as the cannons disengaged and powered down. The rest of the appendages folded back into the pack as Gizmo seated himself on his chair once more, crossing his arms with a scowl.
"What did he really want at the Tower, Jinx?" See-More finally asked, the question that he'd been pondering for the longest time. Jinx looked at the cyclopean young man. For one who was blind, See-More had always been awfully perceptive. And he hadn't even seen the note.
"He left a note at my place before he went to the Tower." Jinx admitted. The Billy's notably perked up at the mention of this.
"A note?"
"Wha'didit say? Wha'didit say?"
"That he was sorry..." Jinx continued. Gizmo's scowl deepened after making a rude sound. The pink haired girl shot him a nasty glare.
"...And that Kyd said he couldn't bring Starfire and Raven back from where he took them. Not without something in the Tower. And that he needed it to bring them back."
"And what'd he need?" Mammoth asked.
"I don't know."
"Hey, Cyborg!" called out Herald from across the hallway. Cyborg had just been heading back into his lab for another try at scouring the internet for any mention of where Raven and Starfire were taken when he was interrupted by the hail. Turning his head, the cybernetic man laid his eyes upon the shorter teen in a hood with a trumpet at his belt.
"Just wanted to let you know, I've searched all the parallel dimensions I know of to find them. No sign of the two. Sorry." Herald told Cyborg, shaking his head. Cyborg's lips tightened, trying not to show how disappointing that news was. Instead he sighed and put on a smile.
"Well, thanks anyways. If the villain's note was true, then they're still out there somewhere." Cyborg replied, clapping a hand on Herald's shoulder before turning back to his lab's door.
"Hey, uh, wait up a second." he grabbed Cyborg's arm to stop him from leaving. "The note Kyd Wykkyd left for Jinx. It said he needed something from the Tower. You ever figure out what?"
Cyborg shook his head. Herald frowned, and turned away. "Oh. Didn't think so. Just thought that might be important to getting them back, that's all."
Herald received a grunt in reply as the half-man-half-machine disappeared into his lab, leaving the blue-caped Titan outside. In the solitude of the lab, Cyborg fell into a chair by an array of monitors, and began tapping furiously at the keys.
Pulling up the security footage of the night in question, Cyborg went over the feed for the umpteenth time. He didn't enter through anywhere outside the Tower. Obviously, Kyd had simply teleported inside. But, he didn't show up on any of the cameras within the Tower itself. Robin's paranoia in their early years had given them that edge in security that might otherwise have been overlooked. Alarm is tripped when Kid Flash shows up with the warning. Moments later, Kyd shows up on camera for the first time that night, right outside Raven's bedroom. Three seconds later, he teleports to somewhere else within the Tower. After that, Cyborg had a very good understanding of how everything had gone down.
But, it was the beginning that had Cyborg convinced that he was missing something. When Cyborg later arrived to check out Raven's room, he found the door had been slashed open from the inside. It was still locked - to discourage himself and Beast Boy from simply moping around in Star and Raven's rooms, they kept their rooms locked - but that only meant that Kyd had come from inside the room and was in a clear hurry.
To the Titans' dismay, there was no security feed from inside the bedrooms. That was a line Robin did not cross - they all had their privacy, and so the events that transpired in Raven's room were unknown to all but Kyd Wykkyd. And he obviously wasn't around anymore to answer questions. Having engaged the lethal settings of his white-sound-sonic cannon, Cyborg was well aware that the blame for that lay on him. All Cyborg knew was that when he went into Raven's room, there was a chest at the foot of the bed - one he knew hadn't been there before. The lock was still intact and functional, and no matter what Cyborg attempted, he had been unable to open it.
A few days later, he squashed his pride and secretly asked for help from another Titan of mystical bent. He didn't tell Jinx why he thought the box was important, just that he thought it might have clues. A hex from the mistress of malignant luck, and Cyborg found the chest opened with ease.
Empty.
The chest was bare, and Cyborg had no idea what had been inside. Maybe Kyd Wykkyd had gotten what he was after. Maybe there was nothing there to take after all. Cyborg didn't know. He couldn't even do inventory of the things in Raven's room to see if anything was missing because he had no idea what Raven kept in her room. For all Cyborg knew, Kyd had been after a spare cloak of Raven's.
Still, it didn't stop him from thinking about it. About what Kyd Wykkyd would want from Raven's room. What would bring Starfire and Raven back. Beast Boy was taking care of the low-level crimes as best he could, and there were still honorary Titans around to help fill in for the missing three members - Robin hadn't been seen for over a week, now, with no word - but Cyborg didn't have the heart for it. With Robin gone, Cyborg was the unofficial leader of the Titans, and it was not a responsibility he felt up to bearing. His mechanically enhanced body could endure immense ordeals, but this was not one of them.
An alert broke him from his thoughts. The computer displayed a map showing the location of the crime in progress and the details. Control Freak was at it again. Now what, a small army of droids ripped straight from the science fiction Clash of the Planets attacking a local game store? Great. A distraction. Something to beat up and an awful bad-guy to put away. Again.
Grabbing his communicator, Cyborg called the other Titans in the area. "Control Freak's at it again. Titans! Go!"
Standing from the monitors, Cyborg sighed, staring at the screens - at the sly face of Kyd Wykkyd plastered on the frozen frame of the security feed. Turning from it, Cyborg left the lab, heading off to fight the good fight.
A/N: So, it's been a while, hasn't it? My fault mostly. I will admit to that - I haven't been very good about keeping a schedule. I also sort of forgot that I had a few chapters already written out, but hadn't posted them. I'll be doing that shortly, because I've only recently gotten back into this whole fanfiction thing. On the reading side, actually, more than the writing side. And unfortunately, it's been giving me ideas, more to do with all the other fandoms I've gotten into since I last updated.
Still, I'm debating on whether or not to put this fic up for adoption. You see, I'm not entirely sure I have the right head-space to write Wykkyd Shadows. This story was mostly a result of high school angst, self loathing and repeated failed attempts at romance in my real life that translated into needing a better outlet than howling at the moon in the middle of a park at night to vent my frustrations. That, and I kinda thought it'd be cool to give a character who had little on-screen time a share of the spotlight, and maybe craft a cool plot line or two. I've set the stages for that, but unfortunately, I'm not that angsty teenager anymore.
Sure, I'm still plenty angsty, and very much a childish adult, but given I'm not exactly full of time to write and update, nor am I the same person I was when I started this fic, I feel as if it's possible for me to continue this fic, but I'd struggle to keep up the tone and style I did in the earlier chapters. Sure, I've still got one or two chapters already written (which I plan to post soon-ish). But I'm curious as to whether it'd be best to put this story up for adoption, and just pass the new author all my notes on what plans I had for the story and the characters, as well as all the twists and turns and scenes I had dreamed up, and hopefully someone capable of writing the way I have done so far in this story would be able to bring them to life.
As always, I greatly appreciate your thoughts and opinions, dear readers. So, please Read and Review, and always favorite or follow to show your appreciation and support for us writers of fanfiction. And state your thoughts on whether I ought to continue this fic, despite the fact the schedule will be highly irregular and the tone might shift in the next few chapters, or seek to put this story up for adoption, and leave it in more capable hands.
