Chapter 15
"We get down and you do NOT stop, got it!?" yelled Cyborg as they drove towards the battle, "Head straight for the tower!"
"We know!" snapped Saya from the shotgun seat.
"Can't we stay?" called the smaller girl in her arms, "We still need to find Strength!"
"She's fighting," said Raven from the backseat on Starfire's left, "Chariot just arrived."
"How do you know?" asked Yuu.
Raven merely held up her communicator showing Chariot's dramatic entrance from the security camera feed.
As it happened, the fight had ended up covering the blocks they needed to cross to get to Titans Tower. Since they needed to (1) get Yuu's leg looked at, (2) help Robin and Beast Boy with the crazed otherselves, and (3) do (1) and (2) quickly, Cyborg had reluctantly agreed to let Saya borrow his car to get back to the tower.
They would have gotten away too, if it weren't for the few seconds that Raven had taken to show Saya the device. In a single moment, Chariot had driven Mary into Beast Machine and shoved it over a small corner diner.
"BRAKES!" screamed Raven.
The same corner the other group had been about to pass.
Cyborg had dutifully obeyed and hit the brakes, but was not fast enough to keep the hood of the car from being crushed by the massive ape skeleton.
Beast Machine retaliated by shifting into a skeletal spinosaurus and galloping back into the battle, crushing the car further in the process.
"You know," groaned Cyborg, "I'd like for a plan to actually work, just once. I don't even know why we bother anymore."
The radiator burst.
Massive jaws closed over Mary's head, only for the massive fossil to be blown apart by a flaming marshmallow.
Chariot herself leapt off her mount and into the construct's ribs from behind, digging her claws into the sternum and her blade into what would have been Beast Machine's back, had he not jumped out of the derelict construct first.
She nearly cried out when she felt his tail wrap around her left ankle to yank her out of the collapsing creature. She felt herself enter freefall momentarily, before she was caught by a pair of strong, but slender arms.
"Are you alright, friend Chariot?" asked Starfire.
A lunge to the throat was her answer, startling her into dropping the otherself.
Chariot landed on her wheels, rapidly skating away from the flying alien. She'd spotted Death earlier and had no intention of letting her leave alive.
It didn't take long to find her wrapped in several coils of green rope, surely the product of one of the many otherselves that wanted her dead.
She raised her sword and sped forward, he tip aimed towards the center of the green ropes. Only to be surprised when the rope turned into a massive tortoise that easily deflected the blade.
Beast Boy rapidly turned back into a serpentine form to try and recapture Mato, but was forced to flee in the form of a mosquito to dodge the Black Blade that was headed for him.
Mato and Chariot crossed blades again, only for the blonde to see a third blade coming her way, rolling backwards to avoid losing an arm.
Robin, Chariot, and Mato faced each other, glaring back and forth from foe to foe in typical standoff fashion. Each noted the wounds and bruises of the other two opponents. The second one so much as flinched, it would be a free-for-all.
The moment passed.
They lunged.
Outside of the notice of the warring beasts, Strength had managed to drag Terra into an alley with her remaining arm. Once the blonde girl had been safely propped against the grimy wall, Strength decided to take the time to assess the remains of her left arm.
As she'd suspected, she couldn't last long in Yuu's world, not without her host to stabilize her.
She could simply go back, she mused, and she'd be able to repair herself in the Otherworld. Terra, however, would be left defenseless so that was not an option. She had one arm left, meaning she was stuck on guard duty until she could get back.
It's not like she could die in the real world anyways, not without-.
The crash of steel against stone caught her notice and broke her thoughts to see Beast Machine scramble into the alley, leaving the latest gorilla skeleton behind to fall apart under Mary's weight.
"Return her," it growled, "return her to me!"
"Come and get her," growled Strength back before releasing a volley of bullets from her remaining arm.
Beast Machine leapt above the rooftop, avoiding the barrage by mere inches, before it transformed back into its gorilla form, keen on landing atop its opponent.
Strength picked Tara back up with her tail and threw herself outside of the alley. She landed on the other side of the street and tried to run, only for her left leg to shatter like old porcelain.
"Shit!" she cursed more out of irritation than pain.
She loaded her arm back up and fired over and over, hoping to destroy the otherself before it made it out of the alley. Unfortunately, the barrage only served to widen the alleyway, allowing Beast Machine to emerge.
The bestial skeleton used the alleyway to rise and leap above the volley again, aiming both fists towards Strength…
…only to be intercepted by the jaws of a larger much predator. A green giganotosaurus.
"YES!" cried Strength, unaware that the blonde next to her was rising, "Go BB!"
Tara stared with wide-eyed terror. Right above her was one of the largest land predators to have ever existed, holding within its jaws a squirming creature it was apparently preparing to devour. The one armed titan next to her raised a massive Gatling gun at the creature.
"Hold it steady so I can-!"
The jaws broke through the skeleton, lightly pricking the otherself's skin. The terrible lizard seemed to brace itself, closing its eyes in anticipation.
"No," whispered Strength, having figured out what the green changeling was planning, "Beast Boy DON'T!"
The warning came too late. With a final roar, the massive jaws snapped shut, splashing green blood across its muzzle and onto the girls beneath.
Beast Boy released a roar of pure agony, before he collapsed onto the street, changing back to his humanoid form on the way down.
Along the ground laid the remains of Beast Machine. A punctured thorax, amputated legs at the waist, and a caved skull were all that was left of the fading otherself.
"Damn it," she cursed.
"Wh-what just happened?"
Robin leaned back to avoid the golden blade and lunged to parry Mato's slash. Mato, for her part, bounced back from the slash and used the same motion to deflect Chariot's jab. Chariot knocked Robin back with a downward swipe and lunged to finish him off with an uppercut, only to be forced to dodge a green starbolt from above.
Starfire swopped in and snatched Robin out of the battle, allowing Raven to pin the two to the ground with a dark claw each.
"Thanks for the save," he said, "good job Raven. Keep them pinned until we can figure out what to do."
"Really? And here I was thinking of letting th-."
Raven's sarcastic reply was cut off by Mato, who threw her sword with her free hand at Raven's head. Forcing her to dodge and lose her concentration in the process.
Having been liberated alongside her foe, Chariot was free to lunge an attack at Raven, only for her sword to shatter against a dark shield.
"Chariot, STOP!" she yelled as she blocked a strike from a new sword, "Listen to me! You have to regain control! This is not the Otherworld!"
She ducked under a new swipe and took advantage of the opening to bring her head up to Chariots ear.
"Kagari," she whispered, lacing a soft spell in her words, "Listen to me."
She leapt away, leaving Chariot to stare wide-eyed at the ground. The personalities hadn't merged fully, meaning that control would be an issue for some time.
"Ra-Ven-San." stuttered the young girl.
"Good, listen to me and- MOVE!"
Raven shoved the blonde out of the way as Mato managed to escape Robin and Starfire, making a beeline to her opponent.
The spell was broken and Raven was forced to phase through the ground to avoid being decapitated by Chariot.
"This is pointless," she said as she phased up between Robin and Starfire, "every time we capture one, the others intervene."
"Then we'll just have to get them all at the same time," replied Robin.
"But how?" asked Starfire, "Placing our quarreling friends in the same place is worse than putting a quintesson and a cybertronian in the same room!"
"We could tie them down?" proposed Raven.
"With what?" pointed out Robin.
"Chains per-DUCK!"
As the trio spoke, Mato had been forced to break away from Chariot by Mary's re-appearance. The massive spider swatted the blue-eyed girl away with a head butt, launching her over, or under in Starfire's case, the startled titans.
Noticing the dangerous position they were in, Robin shoved Raven away and parried off Chariot's attack. In the same motion, he gripped the blonde's gauntlet and used it to block Mato's sword. Deep scratches were left in the metal, but the two were relatively unharmed.
"I'll keep these two busy!" he called out, "you get something to-!"
He was interrupted by his own mistake. In his haste to block Chariot's downward strike, he did not notice that the angle would deflect his own sword right into Mato's flaming eye.
For the first time since being taken over, Mato screamed.
Strength's eyes cried orange blood.
"No."
Saya's knees hit the ground.
"That idiot!" she growled under her breath as red tears sprung, "Is he trying to get us all killed!?"
"Saya-chan? What's wrong?" Yuu asked.
"Rock's eye's been split."
It hurt.
It was agonizing.
Yomi couldn't remember ever having heard such pain.
She covered her ears, ignoring her parents' cries of alarm.
"Yomi!" cried her mother, "What's wrong!?"
"She's screaming," she muttered, green overflowing from her eyes, "Why is she screaming!?"
Robin's sword broke.
"Rock! Stop!"
He was outmatched.
Whatever her eye injury had done to her, she was fighting like a madman
Chariot hadn't a chance, and had to be restrained by Raven after her left arm had been cleaved off at the shoulder.
Using his bo-staff, he managed to get a lucky hit in and Mato was swatted into a nearby car. The boy teen wonder couldn't help but scowl at the blood that specked his staff.
Where nothing but blue had spurted from Mato's injuries before, her blood had now gained a new feature.
Red.
Not the red of blood, but a candy red tone now joined Mato's royal blue. Like water and oil, the two colors did not mix, but they did sprout from the same injuries.
Robin was shaken from his thoughts when Mato's behavior became more erratic.
She began clutching her head and pressing down on her right eye. She released her head and turned to face the car before she began smashing her skull against it, denting it further.
Fire began to catch.
Crimson fire.
Mato looked back at Robin, who couldn't help but tighten his grip on his staff.
A flaming red eye crying red and an empty eye socket weeping blue stared back.
Author's Note: You know what the easiest way to feel like an ass is? Keep people waiting for several months for an update. I apologize for that.
Life hasn't been all that easy lately. I made several mistakes and ended up on the edge of homelessness. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I got a nice job as an interpreter so there's that. I'm not looking for pity since I'm entirely to blame for the situation I've found myself in, but venting's nice. Word to the wise, if you lose your job don't wait for your savings to run dry before looking for a new one.
Anywho, I took as long as I did because I wasn't entirely certain where this story was going. I'm still kinda stuck, but updates should be a bit more regular from now on. I decided on the pairings and on a main villain. Some designs will be slightly altered to fit the story, but other than that most designs will be easy to find online.
I also figured out a good patch job for a plot hole I found in the BRS anime which might actually be cannon if what happened to Yuu is any indication. You'll know it when you see it.
Finally, I made a mistake earlier that I'll be correcting soon. In an earlier chapter I stated that Mato and her friend are high school freshmen. However, after rewatching the anime, I figured out that they're actually middle school freshmen. This is not that important story-wise, but it does lower their maximum possible age from sixteen to thirteen. It also made me realize that Saya can't be older than twenty one.
I should point out that by the end of the last Teen Titans season Beast Boy and Raven are 19 (14 at "Go!"), Robin and Starfire are both 21 (15 at "Go!"), and Cyborg's the oldest at 24 (19 at "Go!"). In fact, the official comic series changed its name to Titans after the writers realized that none of the cast members are actually teens anymore. It also means that Robin will hit a hell of a growth spurt in the not-too-distant future to reach Nightwing's height.