The Roles we Play
Zero Hour Pt. 1
Thank you to all who have stuck by me thus far and read my stories!
***No ownership implied. ***
"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die." –Herbert Hoover
***TRwP***
In a dimly lit underground room sat one of the greatest criminal minds that the world had ever seen.
In front of him sat a very large bag full of money.
The masked man tapped his fingers together several times in thought, going over the meeting he had just been through with one of his 'clients'.
***Flashback***
"No more screw ups this time Slade!" The man shouted, slamming his fist down on the table in rage. "I told you I wanted those brats dead and you failed to deliver. Now you want to be paid even more? I have half a mind to…"
"To do what, turn me in? And when the authorities ask how you came upon this information how do you think you will explain that hm?"
The finely dressed businessman scowled in irritation.
"I lost one of my personal FBI agents from this fiasco Slade I should be compensated for that."
"You lost him due to your own stupidity. You should have known to warn your son not to try and kidnap and murder a hero, even if it was a teenager."
Again the man glared toward the calm and collected mercenary.
"Fine, it took me over a year but I finally managed to 'collect' enough money to meet you price. But know this, should you fail this time the next hit I put out will be on you instead."
"I would expect nothing less." The chrome plated man replied smoothly, before the politician took his leave.
***End Flashback***
The meeting had gone far better than Slade had intended, he was expecting far more resistance and at least another ten minutes of empty threats before being paid.
Perhaps this showed just how desperate the man was, or how far he would hold a grudge.
But now the big question came to light, how exactly to destroy The Teen Titans? Obviously every plan he had concocted up until this point had failed, otherwise he would not be in this situation.
Even now with the significant payment in hand it was a daunting task. The teenage heroes were more than just six people with superpowers or training they were part of a much larger network, an organization that could be called upon should they require assistance.
The only way to be sure of his victory would be to isolate them from this support base.
That was also easier said than done.
The best way to accomplish such a thing would be to remove the other heroes from the equation, but that would take an army striking in numerous places. And splitting ones forces was never a smart idea in war.
Then Slade came upon his answer, a lesson that had been learned through victory and defeat during the second Great War, concentration of firepower and forces.
Rather than target all of them at once he would move against a group at a time, remove them, and then retreat before reinforcements could arrive. Overwhelming firepower at specific points would allow him to remove any advantages a single team of Titans would have.
Then once all but his true targets were out of the way he could begin his slow and systematic destruction of his true enemies.
He had been paid to kill The Teen Titans after all and the contract had said nothing on how to accomplish such a task.
***TRwP***
Meanwhile the Titans were busy enjoying a day at the beach, due to the female's insistence.
"Come on Vic! Don't you want to go for a swim with me?" The pinkette called out from the water.
"Although I am water proof I am still picking seaweed from my joints after the last time I went for a swim, sorry babe." The cybernetic man declined, while shifting slightly to look at their leader, who was currently moping in the sand.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I don't know what you mean Cyborg." The boy huffed in annoyance, while watching Beast Boy give Starfire a ride around the area as a dolphin.
"Ah, still hung up on the fact that the obsession has switched from you to BB huh?"
"Of course not! And I wouldn't say there is any obsession over him I mean what does he have that I don't? I'm the leader and a better martial artist. I have a better tan and better costume. I have super cool gadgets and a motorcycle, what's not to love?"
"Why don't you ask them if you are so confident in your superiority then?" Cyborg prodded while successfully hiding his smirk.
"Oh yeah that will go over well. 'Hey Raven and Starfire, could you tell me why you are more interested in sleeping with Beast Boy than me right now?' Yeah I'm sure that they will…"
"That's one of the reasons." The empath interrupted from behind them.
The Boy Wonder jumped almost a foot into the air before calming himself down.
"Jeesh Raven don't do that, and uh… what do you mean?"
"He isn't obsessive about everything that might prove him inadequate like you are. Even when you were the focal point he never moped around the tower whining subtly about how unfair life was. Sure he was affected by it but that was more of a combination of how we all acted towards him and his senses making him go crazy. Plus he has a healthy balance of work and play, unlike someone who feels like training sessions should be conducted four times a day."
"Hey it is a good idea if we aren't at top shape then we might…"
"We also might be too exhausted and overworked when something bad actually does happen. You know just as well as we do that all work and no play puts us all on edge and is just as dangerous to the team as not training at all." Cyborg chimed in, earning a slight glare from the masked boy.
"You have been treating us more like soldiers than actual teammates Robin that is yet another reason that Starfire and I have been spending so much time with him, plus he's hot." Raven finished with a slight blush.
"You know I am fully supportive of whatever it is you and green bean do I just don't want to know the details about it…" Cyborg muttered, trying to get any images of his 'brother' and 'sister' together out of his head.
"Also I have not been treating you guys like…" Robin started to defend himself, before a beeping alerted him to a message coming to the tower.
"Titans, looks like we will have to cut this short. Back to the tower asap!"
"Yeah, not like soldiers at all…" Cyborg mumbled, earning a giggle from his girlfriend who ran by to start picking up their beach towels.
***TRwP***
"So what's the situation Robin?" Beast Boy inquired, after the team had arrived back at the tower and their leader had seemingly instant changed back into his combat outfit.
"Looks like there has been a breakout at several maximum security facilities across the country, quite a few of our former adversaries are now reported on the loose."
"Of course they are, man what is the point of calling them 'maximum security' if the bad guys can break out of the things on a weekly basis?" the mechanical Titan whined.
"It's not their fault Cyborg I can imagine it is quite difficult to keep a large number of super powered villains locked up in the same building, especially when they have similar interests." Robin replied.
Beast Boy chuckled at the idiocy of that statement, "Yeah what do you want them to do? Put the bad guys in different prisons so that they can't band together and break out? That is asking a bit too much Cy."
The Boy Wonder almost face palmed at how casually his teammate had purposed a solution, and one that actually made sense.
"Well regardless of how easy we might make it seem I am sure there is a good reason for what they do… I can't think of one off the top of my head but that doesn't mean anything. Either way we need to figure out who is behind this. I highly doubt that dozens of villains all escaped on the same day by coincidence and I would bet that someone from the outside is helping them."
The Titans nodded before going through the list of escaped villains.
"Alright Robin what is the plan?" The empath asked, after reading through the list.
"Well since we can pretty much agree that they all had help all we need to do is analyze a few breakouts and then compare them, there must be a connecting link somewhere. Something like a common visitor, or a similar communication. So we will split up into three teams, each of us taking a different location and then analyze what we come up with." The boy commanded, before sending Jinx and Starfire to one prison, Beast Boy and Cyborg to a second, while he and Raven took a look around the third.
***TRwP***
"Alright so what's the prob here?" Jinx called out, as she and the Tamaranean princess walked into the warden's office of the Jail they had been given.
"We had a major villain break out and Robin sends an ex-con to investigate it? Couldn't we have had someone a bit more… useful?" a guard muttered out from nearby, earning him a glare from the pinkette.
"Robin trusts that since I have personally escaped from your so called 'maximum security' prison before that I would know what to look for, I see that you have barely upgraded anything from when I was here last so that's one issues you already have."
"Now look here you little…"
"Little what? I do believe that my teammate here is offering you help whereas you cannot keep the bad men inside of your jail for more than a month at best. Perhaps if you would listen to our suggestions you might be able to fix that?" The orange princess growled out, her eyes shining a bright green to display her anger at the hostility being shown to her friend.
This time Jinx smirked, watching as the warden began sweating with a bit of fear.
"O-of course, my mistake. We are all on edge after such a large security breach and we would be glad to accept any help that you would be willing to provide for us."
"We would be glad to help, so what do you know about the escape?" The pale girl asked, bringing out a notepad to show her professionalism.
"Approximately four hours ago a group of explosions erupted around the facility, these immediately knocked out all communication as well as our surveillance and most of our major defensive security systems. We were only lucky that the door controls are operated on a separate system and thus all of the prisoners were not set free at once." The balding warden answered, before digging up his own notes on the situation thus far.
"After that we have reports from the outer guard stations that a large tank like device was spotted tearing through the ground in the exercise yard, before opening and allowing a large group of inmates to board and thereby escape unhindered. Thankfully the tunnel wasn't built to be an escape passage and it quickly collapsed after the vehicle left, preventing any further escape attempts. We have since repaired the basic communication and surveillance systems, but our defenses are still on the fritz and we are concerned that if another group happened to find this out they could launch an even more devastating assault on our secure facility."
"I assume that you have already called in the national guard and any local military forces that you have access to in order to bolster your garrison, along with securing all inmates in their cells until all exterior walls and positions have been checked, along with installing underground sensors and barriers to prevent such a thing?" Jinx had immediately fallen into a commanding tone, quickly analyzing and using the escape methods that she would have used following such an event.
"Uhhhh…" was the only response the two Titan females received from not only the warden but the entire office staff who stared at the two blankly.
"Perhaps you should get on that then? If there are any more of the breaking outs then we might begin looking for replacements yes?" Starfire followed up, snapping the various men and women out of their stupor and into action.
***TRwP***
As the two girls arrived back at the tower they were greeted by the other Titans, who had finished shortly before they had.
"Alright team let's go over what we know. Cyborg why don't you and Beast Boy go first, then we can compare notes to see similarities." The Boy Wonder gestured towards the two boys who nodded in response.
"Sure thing, alright well it looks like the inmates were able to escape through a large underground tunneling vehicle. Shortly before it was reported to have arrived the security systems throughout the jail were compromised and remotely shut down. Luckily the situation happened during shift change and the extra guards were able to get a handle on the situation before a mass riot began. No identifying marks, no information on the hacker, and no real connection between those taken besides that they all hated us." The cybernetic man summarized.
"Figures, well ours was virtually the same except for that the power in the facility was targeted by explosives rather than a hacker. In the confusion there was also a drilling sound reported and the inmates were 'rescued' before the guards could respond." Raven read off her notes from the investigation with her leader.
"Same here, except the explosives targeted the security systems themselves rather than the power, also the staff at that prison is a bunch of incompetent jerks." Jinx finished.
"So then the only connections we have is that they were all taken at roughly the same time, all security was disabled during the escape, and they all used these burrowing devices." Robin muttered out loud. Turning to his mechanical teammate the masked boy began a new train of thought.
"Cyborg, has there been any vehic…"
"Nope already checked sorry Rob. Whatever these guys used for their escape it was original enough not to be in any of our databases."
"Of course not, that would be way too easy." Beast Boy groaned in annoyance.
"As much as I hate to do the saying, the use of vehicles and the strikes of surgery seem to be the written name of Slade."
The others stared at the Tamaranean for a minute before Beast Boy translated.
"She means it sounds like Slade and unfortunately I agree. The dude does have a way of coordinating ridiculous crap like this."
"Slade…." Robin growled out, before turning to resume his normal obsessive time in the evidence room.
Before he could make it the alarms went off in the tower.
Cyborg immediately ran to a nearby computer station and brought up the alert status, earning the monitor a glare from the man.
"It looks like we are being hacked."
***TRwP***
"So what's the damage Cyborg?" Robin inquired, while the other Titans sat watching the two most tech savvy computer users work.
"Hard to say, whoever it was screwed with a lot of things but most of it looks like diversions, things for me to waste time checking over. At this rate I will have to do a full inventory of the entire Tower's computer systems to figure out what was taken or damaged."
"How long will that take Vic?" Jinx asked, hoping that her boyfriend would not be staying up all night.
"The Tower's databases are quite… extensive. I am guessing a few days to fully check every piece of information."
Robin gave a loud sigh before rubbing his forehead in annoyance.
"Can you automate any of it? I don't want you staying up too long working on this."
"Most of it yeah, obviously there are a few more sensitive documents we will want to check on first but after those are confirmed we can go about just setting up automation. I can work on this though while you guys try and figure out who the heck has been messing with my system."
"Don't you worry about that Cyborg, but I feel it will be a bit easier to track the culprit down once we know what was targeted. It might give us a better clue as to who is responsible." Robin finished.
"Exactly, who would want to steal information from us after all? It's not like we have a complete criminal database, information on dozens of Super Heroes, layouts of major cities and Titan bases, and Cy's entire cookbook saved on our system." Beast Boy noted in sarcasm.
"OH GOD NO! MY COOKBOOK!" The cybernetic man shouted before quickly going through dozens of different commands on the computer to verify that his precious recipes were still there.
The others sweat dropped in embarrassment.
"Oh thank goodness, mah baby is still untouched." The dark skinned teen gave a sigh of relief before giving the others a thumbs up.
***TRwP***
Two hours later and another alarm went off, this time indicating an emergency communication.
While Cyborg went about boosting the signal, Robin quickly answered the call that was nearly consumed in static.
"C….come in….. any… come in….. this is… of Titans… we are….. I repeat….. Need emergency….. I repeat… Assistance…"
It was obviously the voice of a young girl that Robin quickly identified as Kole from Titans South.
"Cyborg get the T-Jet prepped now, Kole come in this is Robin what is your situation over."
"Ro… help….. atta…..ergency….. I repeat….."
Suddenly a loud explosion was broadcasted over the communication signal, along with a scream, before the signal was lost.
"Kole… KOLE!? Cyborg is the jet…."
"Already prepped we are clear for launch."
"Titans move!"
***TRwP***
By the time that Robin and his team had arrived on site the Titans South headquarters laid in ruins.
Craters, burn marks, bullet holes, and rubble covered ever inch of the once gleaming base, and an eerie silence consumed the area.
The Titans exchanged silent orders before splitting off and moving into the building silently, each team taking a different section of the fortress.
Less than an hour later all six heroes gathered in the once vibrant command center, now reduced to broken electronics and irreparable damage.
"What happened here?" Starfire whispered out, afraid that if she made too much noise that the entire room may very well collapse.
"It looks like they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, even with the defense systems they appeared to have been defeated…" Robin answered his tone was hard to remove any worry from his voice.
"Vic, can you get anything off their systems?" Jinx quietly asked earning a slight nod before the mechanical man began checking to see if anything was functioning at that point.
"It looks like all of their tech is damaged beyond repair. All of their databases are offline or completely destroyed. Even if I could get something powered up I doubt it would be fully intact at this point."
"Get what you can. Beast Boy, Raven see if you can find any clues as to where they might have been taken, or hopefully, fled to." Robin commanded, earning nods from the two Titans.
"Starfire, Jinx, and I will see if we can find any clues as to who launched the assault in the first place. Maybe there is something left behind that can help us."
***TRwP***
"Beast Boy, I can't seem to locate anyone in the area besides us. Even extending my empathy's range has yielded no results... Beast Boy?"
The teen in question was busy examining a spot on the ground, appearing lost in his own thoughts.
"Nothing is salvageable electronics wise, you guys get anything?" Cyborg asked as he walked into the room while noticing Robin and his team entering through a separate door.
"Not that we can find, it's a lot of area to search though and the rubble is making it difficult." Jinx replied.
"Wildebeest was injured here, looks like a projectile impact due to the amount of blood on the floor. Pantha must have ordered a retreat Jericho and Kole were the ones dragging him to safety while Gnarrk held the enemy back." The changeling suddenly called out, breaking the others from their thoughts.
"How do you…" Cyborg began, before the green skinned hero began again, this time leading them through the hallway towards the command center.
"Gnarrk fell here, in the hallway. Not enough blood to be sure on his status though, but he did not die here. The others secured themselves in the command room and barricaded the door as best they could."
"That must have been when they sent the message…" Robin intoned, earning a nod from the shapeshifter.
"The sound we heard was the door being blown open, the shockwave must have taken Jericho out, he was never meant for front line fighting. Pantha gave one last desperate charge and was able to hold them at the door at least for a few moments, but she too was defeated. This left only Kole and Wildebeest in the corner. My best guess here is that she used her crystal form to try and shield him, but was tossed aside while he was removed. Afterwards she would have posed no threat to them." Beast Boy concluded, his eyes frozen on the spot he had mentioned where they had huddled at the end.
"A-are they…" Raven whispered out, not trusting herself to finish the horrible question that plagued the team.
"Immediately no, there isn't enough blood and I don't see any signs of disintegration weapons. It looks like they were taken somewhere else. I lose the trail outside the tower, near some scorch marks that look like a transport had taken off."
"So they were abducted… but why? What reason would someone have for going through this much trouble just to capture a bunch of super heroes but not finish them off at once?" Robin muttered to himself.
"No idea Rob but it looks like this isn't the end of the nightmare. I just received an emergency call… from Titans North." Cyborg responded in a grave tone.
***TRwP***
While in transit Robin had immediately contacted Titans East to warn them… there had been no response on any communication line from the base.
Cyborg had begun trembling in fear and anger at the thought of something happening to Bumblebee although they were no longer together his feelings for the girl would never completely fade.
It was all Jinx could do to calm him down enough to hand the controls over to their leader.
The flyby of Titans North Tower showed the same situation as the southern had been in.
Utter destruction.
"We are too late there is no one down there." Raven quietly commented, having reached out her empathic senses to cover the entire area of the fortress and the surrounding area as well.
"Robin… what do we do?" Starfire questioned slowly, fear laced in her voice.
"I… I don't know… but one thing is for certain, we are sitting ducks in the T-Jet. We need to ensure that the Tower is secured and then head back, if not we will activate emergency protocols. Raven I need you to get in contact with the Justice League if someone is targeting super heroes they not only need to be warned but might be able to provide some clues or assistance. Cyborg can you interface with the tower and check all the security systems to make sure there are no gaps or breeches?"
"Y-yeah I'm on it Robin…"
"They will be okay Cy, I highly doubt anyone went through all that trouble and took them away just to finish them off somewhere else. They were taken for a reason, which gives us time to find them." Beast Boy called out over the com system in a serious manner, as if trying to convince himself as well as his best friend.
"He's right, so at the moment we need to stay focused and figure out exactly what our situation is, then we find out who took our friends and we get them back… all of them." Robin declared, earning nods from the others.
***TRwP***
Upon receiving the 'all clear' from Cyborg the Titans landed at the tower and disembarked, heading towards their command center to piece together some sort of strategy.
Moments later the ship that had carried them thus far exploded violently on the landing pad, throwing the teenagers to the ground.
As the heroes recovered from the shock they were quickly assaulted once more. Dozens of soldiers descended from helicopters that had thus remained cloaked nearby, springing a trap long since planned.
Along with the faceless horde came another group of adversaries, super villains that the Titans would normally require their entire team to combat.
Adonis, Killer Moth, Fang, Doctor Light, Johnny Rancid, Katarou, and Atlas all lead groups of soldiers in their assault on the remaining six Titans.
"Rob we need to fall back there are too many to fight up here." Cyborg yelled out, while unleashing a stream of cover fire towards one of the groups of soldiers.
"We don't need to retreat Cyborg! This is our home and we are going to defend it!"
"We are going to die here if we stay and fight!" Jinx yelled, doing her best to take cover from a barrage of energy blasts from the mad doctor.
"Not if we stay together! Titans go!"
Just as the masked boy had shouted the command a small dart-like device impacted Starfire on the back of her neck, sending a powerful volt of electricity through her.
She fell to the ground moments later, while Cyborg charged over to help her and Raven put up an energy shield to give the pinkette time to reposition.
Luckily for the Titans their cybernetic teammate had activated the Tower's defense systems as soon as the attack begun, causing dozens of sentry devices to begin attacking and drawing fire from a large portion of the assault force.
Unfortunately for the mechanical man Johnny Rancid activated a strange looking energy weapon, short circuiting his circuits and causing the dark skinned man to freeze up just as he reached the fallen princess.
"That's two down boys, six to go!" The pale man shouted, earning a loud cheer from the other villains.
"Robin, we need to go now." Raven commanded, before sending a massive wave of dark energy towards the surrounding soldiers, hoping to buy some time.
It was only partially successful as a burst of red energy seemed to shield a large portion of the enemy forces, courtesy of Adonis' new armor.
"We are ready for you this time witch!" The man taunted.
"Now Robin!"
The leader reluctantly agreed, and threw out a dozen smoke pellets, cloaking the entire rooftop and giving Beast Boy time to retrieve Cyborg, while Jinx took hold of Starfire.
Raven quickly teleported the team down into the tower towards the central, and most defensive, areas.
***TRwP***
"Damage assessment, and make it fast team. Those defenses will not hold much longer even with the Tower in lockdown." Robin commanded, while strapping another pack of explosive discs onto his torso.
"My systems are barely functional, whatever it is they did to me knocked out all combat power I have. I can barely walk at this point."
"I am unable to fly or use any of my powers as well." The Tamaranean responded, her voice hollow and emotionless.
"What's wrong Starfire?" Jinx questioned, looking closely into the girl's blank eyes.
"I do not know it feels like something is wrong with my head though."
Suddenly Beast Boy stopped what he was doing, and stared at the orange skinned girl with wide eyes.
"Robin… what did you record about us?"
"What do you mean BB Robin didn't… oh no…" Cyborg quickly hit a few buttons on a nearby council and gasped in conclusion.
"What is it Cyborg, what's wrong?" the empath inquired, receiving a rather nervous feeling in her gut at the reactions of her teammates.
"The scan found something that was copied from our archives, it was Robin's emergency protocols… the ones he created to combat each of us should we turn bad." Cyborg muttered out in defeat.
"Robin… why didn't you destroy those? WHY DIDN'T YOU SECURE THEM FROM THE CENTRAL SYSTEMS!?" Cyborg shouted, turning his attention towards their leader who was busy staring at the floor.
"You know why Cyborg, it's the same reason I created them in the first place. We are too dangerous for these not to exist and we had to have a way to access them should we be cut off from the tower."
"You had information on the other's as well… you are the reason everyone was captured…" Jinx muttered out in shock and betrayal.
Before any more accusations could be made a loud explosion sounded from the roof, alerting the teenagers to the exterior defenses being destroyed.
"Look we don't have time for this. Right now we have to get to the command center and…" The Boy Wonder began before being interrupted.
"And what, wait until they siege us out like the others? This isn't a fight we can win right now Robin, we need to evacuate the tower and come up with a real strategy." Raven intoned with a hiss.
"I'm with Raven I have no intentions of dying in this place." Jinx agreed, earning a nod from Starfire.
"Same here Rob, this place is a death trap." Cyborg chimed in.
Beast Boy remained silent though, staring off into space as if pondering his next course of action.
"Beast Boy what do you…" Raven asked gently, trying to bring her lover back to the present situation.
"Robin, lead the others down to the emergency escape tunnels. With Cy in his condition he is going to need help moving especially with Starfire's powers on the fritz. I will buy you guys time."
"Absolutely not! We are not abandoning you!" the pale skinned sorceress shot back as images of all the previous times he had been abandoned flowed into her mind.
"No you are not." The boy agreed, "You are making a strategic withdrawal. Two of us can't fight right now and they are probably ready for the rest of us as well. We won't be able to make it on speed alone."
"Beast Boy… I am giving you a direct order not to die here do you understand me?" Robin commanded, and upon seeing a nod went to help a protesting Cyborg down the nearby stairs.
"Beast Boy, don't do this… please come with us or at least let me stay here with you." Raven pleaded.
"Not this time Rae. I don't want you being around for this."
The empath was about to question further, but caught the look in the teenager's eyes.
They weren't the eyes she was used to from him. They were slitted, feral, and dangerous.
The boy was tapping into a power that had long lain dormant inside of him.
And she could feel the excitement radiating from his body.
"If you don't come back to me I will never forgive you."
The boy nodded, grinning with elongated fang like teeth.
Raven took one last glance behind her at the boy who was staring straight ahead, as if pondering how best to enjoy his next few minutes.
Then she continued on after her remaining teammates, doing her best to ignore the outcries of her various Emoticlones to turn back.
***A/N***
Wow, a whole lot of stuff going on in this chapter, hopefully I gave everything enough time and didn't rush too badly.
This next section actually gave me a really hard time initially, I had no idea where to begin or what to do afterwards, then the pieces started to fall into place and I am now really excited for the next few chapters.
As many of you may guess this begins the last story arc of "The Roles we Play". I had never intended on this being a super long story but I am glad it went longer than I expected. But fear not there will be much more epic times before this story is all over.
More drama, more angst, and more combat awaits!
Until next time I hope everyone enjoys the story!