The restaurant was expensive to say the least; one of the city's finest. High ceilings with gaudy chandeliers and artful flower arrangements on every table gave it a stereotypically posh feel. The mahogany shades leant the atmosphere a rich quality, hinting at wealth and pleasure. In all, Dick was not impressed.
Living his later life as the heir to the Wayne fortune, Dick was accustomed to all manner of fancy eatery. The fact that Alfred, his adopted father's butler, was better at everything than these amateurs only furthered the sterility of it all. But he had to admit, the exclamations from his girlfriend about each new thing made it worth the monotony.
Kori was at the moment a tall woman with auburn hair and green eyes, her complexion masked as a well developed tan. In truth, neither she nor Dick was dressed in their preferred outfits, but it paid to keep a low profile. Still, the fact that Kori insisted on ordering mustard with everything dashed hopes of being ignored, but the cover story of her being a foreign model seemed to work.
Dick smiled at her as he sipped his Champaign, wishing the holo-ring wasn't necessary; she was even more beautiful without it. "Boyfriend Richard, this place of eating is most glorious. Why do you not take us here more often?" the girl asked while sampling her pasta, reminding Dick of the first time she had seen the like. She mistook the dish for a parasite from her native home, and summarily blasted it into oblivion.
"It's expensive Kori," he didn't bother adding the part of his hating these environments, her mood didn't need crushing. Also the fact that Dick was notoriously strict on his budget, moving only for his girlfriend of five weeks; their friends often jokes that Dick was whipped ever since he met the girl, a little over three years ago. Dick of course never allowed such statements to stand in his presence, but he did live with four adolescents; he knew they made fun of him when he was looking away.
A buzzing interrupted his thoughts, and he sighed, pulling his phone from his pocket yet again. Kori had hers on silent, letting any messages go straight to her boyfriend and unofficial leader. Dick had warned a certain friend of his against meaningless alerts; earlier on their date he had gotten four 'emergency' calls from the hyper youth. Of these, only one held any concern, and that was when he had annoyed another member of the team to the point of near murder. Suffice to say, Dick had elected to ignore future contact from his friend, at least for that night.
The name however was not his, so Dick read the message, albeit quickly. Kori looked on with concern, "What is it? Are our friends alright?" Dick's frown deepened, the disguise of the wealthy aristocrat fading.
"Trouble at home, I think we're going to need the cheque." He waved over a waiter and stifled a laugh as Kori hastily consumed down the remnants of her dinner. Knowing the number of stomachs she had still didn't lessen the strangeness of seeing her eat so much. It was just one of the things that made her special, and Dick was glad he had finally dropped the stern façade and kissed her. The fact that they were covered in sticky ink at the time didn't diminish it in his mind; it made her even more special.
TtTtTtTtTtTtTtTtTtTt
Raven was devastated; Cyborg could see it in her face. Her typically pallid complexion was sickly, and her eyes stared into space as she desperately searched with her mind for any sign of Beast Boy. Cyborg hoped the little guy was all right, but at the moment he had a maniac to deal with.
He sent a brief alert via text to Robin and dropped Raven into the T-ship, which he had programmed to surface for just this purpose. He turned around and faced the giant robot bearing down on them, setting his canon to its highest setting. Taking aim at the knees of the Godzilla replica he fired, blue energy furrowing the water but failing to slow the machine.
Raven shook her head, and breathed deeply. He was fine, he had to be. But if he wasn't…she frowned, emoticons arguing in her head. Despite all their fighting, they were agreed on two points; Beast Boy was gone, and Control Freak would pay.
She drew her hood over her face, and allowed her emotions to flow, such as she had only done when her father returned. A second set of eyes appeared, unhindered rage and malice in their stare. She let the nature of her heritage breath, and it exhaled pure destruction.
Cyborg felt the temperature drop, and he knew without looking that Raven had lost it. Few things made the girl truly angry; messing with Beast Boy, whatever the reason, was one of them. He just hoped he would be able to restrain her if she went too far.
Up in the control room Control Freak looked warily down on his foes. A villain was supposed to boast in a situation like this, monologue about their superiority. But Beast Boy had disabled the speakers, it wasn't fair.
He pressed a few buttons, preparing for the final strike, but the systems suddenly flickered and failed altogether. "What? No! You're dead!" a figure dropped from the ceiling, handfuls of wires tossed into the fat man's lap. "It was just a flesh wound…"
Back in the bay Raven was hovering above the ship, cloak billowing about as black tentacles shrouded in mist flickered in its folds. She screamed a guttural and hateful curse, unintelligible as language, and a dozen tentacles shot forth, slicing through the machine menace.
The Godzilla mech fell to pieces; arms, shoulders, head, legs, the cockpit remaining intact only thanks to its central location. Raven retracted the shadowy appendages and tore the roof off with her mind. What she saw effectively disarmed the darkness, as a triumphant and smug changeling stepped forth, hauling a sputtering Control Freak in his wake.
"Dude, maybe you should lead with that next time," Cyborg grinned and hopped onto the floating debris. "Glad you're alright man, Raven had me scared for a minute."
For her part, Raven was as blank as ever, save the stare. Beast Boy tapped his temple. "Brains beats giant tech every time. I turned into an amoeba and waited."
"Nice!" Cyborg said, not noticing the swiftly moving hand of Control Freak. For his part, Conrtol Freak hadn't expected to beat them. It was all part of a grand scheme, to win Starfire back from Robin (now that he knew they were official, this objective gained priority) and to humiliate Beast Boy, his only true nemesis.
So it was with great glee that he touched the remote on his belt, pressing a series of buttons to activate his trademarked tech, grateful for the ignorance of hero types. Seriously, who just holds the villain?
Raven noticed the movements, but too late; her energy bolt knocked the remote away, but the damage was done. Control Freak shook free of Beast Boy and stood tall, a laugh on his lips. "Ha! You have fallen for my trap! Now you are all doomed!"
Beast Boy rolled his eyes, "Dude, we beat you, the robot is smashed. Why are you even here?"
"Questions? Where we're going we don't need questions..." All eyes turned to the fallen remote, which began to glow and vibrate. Cyborg's sensors screamed in his head, and Beast Boy's hair stood on end.
But no one surmised the situation better than Raven, who simply pulled on her hood and murmured "oh crap…"
TtTtTtTtTtTtTtTtTtTt
Starfire carried Robin by his hands, flying through the air with the grace of her people. Her keen green eyes could make out detritus in the bay even from this height, and below her Robin sighed, "At least they were over the water."
"Alright Star, it looks like they have Control Freak. I think we should check on them and head out again, the doors open at…" further instructions were lost as a massive crack sounded from the direction of their friends, and a massive flash of light. Starfire poured on speed, struggling to maintain the joy of flight in the midst of her concern.
She reached the T-ship in the midst of thick white smoke, which dissipated quickly. However, the other Titans and Control Freak were gone. All that remained was a pile of clothes on the ground, in Cyborg's case only peripheral components.
"Our friends, where have they gone?"
Robin pulled a general scanner from his belt. After a few seconds he frowned, "This isn't good, I'm reading temporal radiation,"
"Boyfriend Robin, what has the Control Freak done?"
"I think he teleported them Star…somewhere we can't go." Robin had minimal experience with this kind of radiation; in fact Control Freak had used it before.
Their friends had left the dimension, though to where was pure conjecture. That is, unless they could find out the place they had gone…data which undoubtedly would be on the remote sitting precariously near the edge of the raft like debris. Robin picked it up and amended his statement, "Yet,"