Isn't This Familiar?

With a groan, Jinx rubbed at her arm and winced at the soreness she felt. Her last memory had been that shapeshifter shoulder tackling her as…a kangaroo? Just accept it as ridiculous as it sounded. Who would have thought kangaroos had some power in them?

Pushing herself up, the HIVE Five team leader took stock of the situation and found another reason to grimace. The Titan twerps were holding their own—no, more than that, they were winning. Even with Private Hive's reinforcements, they were still winning. Hotspot was on the ropes, so too was Pantha, and the arrogant Private was getting beaten up by a girl. Ridge seemed to be holding his own, but she saw nothing of See-More anywhere. Wait, he was down too.

This was a disaster and she was going to get all the blame.

What were her choices? Continue fighting but only succeed at attrition? The faster the Titans took them down, the easier it would be for H.I.V.E.'s elite metahuman forces to all be taken down. What came next? Prison? A metahuman jail run by A.R.G.U.S.? That was a bad end no matter what. Now, if they could reroute this…but how? How were they going to turn this around? They were not this strong the last time they had met!

Which left the other option: retreat. Immortus was not going to like that, but as far as she knew, there was an ulterior plan at work here. Maybe their victory wasn't as necessary here as she believed. Don't get her wrong, failure here still had its punishments, so while losing wasn't an option, it was becoming a reality.

She weighed her choices and scowled. If nothing else, she could deprive the Titans of a total victory here and that would have to do.

Looking around and making sure that no one was looking in her direction—wait for Ridge to draw the shapeshifter's line of sight further away—she allowed her magicks to go to work. Bad luck is what she brought, and based on H.I.V.E.'s research into her powers, they found it was more magical than some quirk of genetics.

When luck is what you acted on, the possibilities could be endless. Fortunately, if she concentrated enough, she could limit down what would happen compared to what could happen. It wasn't something she did often because of both the amount of concentration needed and it took quite a bit out of her to reduce all the possibilities that could exist in a single moment. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and this time she was exerting all her focus to narrow it all down to one certainty. As pink bolts of magic crackled around her hands, she raised them up and fired straight to the ceiling.

Pink energies raced throughout the ceiling, spreading as far out as she could make it. Seconds later, the cracks started forming, getting bigger and bigger.

On her feet and running, she did a quick search for and—over there! Dodging around flames and Private Hive, Jinx raced towards the fallen body of Kyd Wykkyd. His teleportation had never failed her before. Ah man, he was beaten too? How'd they do it this time? Hopefully his arm was still in one piece.

In the corner of her eye, she noticed a yellow blur. The speedster was coming after her. As fast as she could, and without thinking too hard, she formed a spherical defense of pink, crackling magic.

And then the speedster was past her, feet slipping on the floor, and only stopping when his body slammed into a wall. Good to know her powers really were working in spite of this nightmare scenario.

Skidding to a stop and crouching down, Jinx quickly shook Wykkyd's shoulder. "Wake up! We're getting out of here!" For her efforts, she got a groan. All right, if he wanted to play—

The first chunk of the ceiling crashed down nearby, the boom that echoed from the landing almost deafening. Clenching her teeth together, the team leader fired off a single pink bolt into Wykkyd, and just his bad luck, he was woken from what might have been a nice dream. She could see the disorientation in his eyes, but that was quickly resolved with a quick slap to the face.

"Evacuate! Now!" she roared as more of the ceiling crumbled and fell.

Wykkyd didn't give a nod, but did something better. His cape came up and then everything happening in the mall went black.


This was not good. One look up gave everything away. The mall's ceiling was collapsing and they were all under it.

Correction, lava man was swept up by a cape, the same one that the teleporter used. Whipping his head about, Red Robin spotted multiple flashes of that cape swiping their opponents away. They were escaping. Again. His frustration was an eleven on a scale of ten.

Forget about them. Getting the team out was now the priority. If there was anything that remained true, these guys would give them a second chance. That was provided they survived.

Plaster, sheetrock, and glass fell from above, and he had to keep an eye on it all lest something land on top of him. The booms of the formerly sturdy rooftop landing against the mall's floor was frightening in its own right, but seeing the part of the building no one should be seeing crash landing next to you was nerve wracking.

He made his way to Wonder Girl who was keeping safe by punching anything that tried to fall on top of her. She was hovering in the air while her fist struck debris, redirecting it elsewhere.

"We need to get out of here!" the teen vigilante called up to the armored blonde.

From above, Wonder Girl looked down at him and opened her mouth to answer. Before she could, what remained of the ceiling gave in and it all came down. It wasn't just a piece here and a piece there, but the whole remaining overhead surface itself. Red Robin's eyes widened while Wonder Girl looked straight up.

And then black rushed overhead, the collapsing ceiling being caught by it and all sense of danger became anticlimactic. There was only one person with that ability and that sense of timing.

The black shield bulged upwards causing the ceiling to fracture more and slide towards the sides of the mall's interior, accumulating on the second-story walkway and held in by the railing lining it. When safety was assured, the blackness shrunk away and the afternoon sun shined through what little remained of the ceiling itself.

Levitating herself and moving closer to join the two of them, Raven remarked, "You're welcome."

Though his heart was still beating fast, it was slowing down and so Red Robin gave a nod of gratitude. Then he looked around, searching for everybody else. Visual confirmation about the others' safety was going way too slow for his liking, so he slipped out the communicator that was standard for each Titan and spoke into it.

"Status report: is everyone alright? It's over. Please respond."

He didn't have to wait for the chorus of replies as well as the rest of the team assembling at their location. Some looked a little worse for wear, such as Starfire looking disheveled and having a cut on her forehead. She must have been hit by some debris. The front of Kid Flash was covered with a thin layer of plaster…somehow, don't ask. Beast Boy was shaking some dirt off himself, giving away how the shapeshifter had tried to keep himself safe. Cyborg didn't look too scuffed up, so at least there was that. Wait, someone was missing.

"Anyone seen Terra?" the masked teen asked aloud and it didn't escape him how alert Beast Boy became.

Kid Flash was speedy in giving an answer. "She was tunneling out of here with the hostages. She's probably still outside."

That was good to know, but he needed some confirmation first. A request of their communication lines was made, and after a moment, their missing geokinetic answered. Yes, she was outside and she was asking what was going on. What had been that loud noise? Did something break? Fall apart? Did they need help?

He gave instructions for Terra to wait outside. They'd be coming out shortly.

To the rest of the team, he did his best to hide away the wave of exhaustion that nearly washed over his body. "Everybody all right? Nothing broken? Dislocated? Life threatening?"

There was an assortment of answers, from Cyborg's noncommittal "Fine," Kid Flash's "not a scratch on me!" to Starfire's "Some debris gave me a looking blow but I am able to function long enough before seeking medical attention." Miraculously mostly unhurt. Starfire would still need to be checked out in case of a concussion, though.

Turning to Raven who hadn't said anything, Red Robin said, "Thanks for the save back there." Back to the rest of the team, "Did anybody capture one of these guys? We need to know what this was all about. They were expecting us; this wasn't random. They had reinforcements waiting."

There were implications with that. Were the hostages a means to draw them here? As logical as that was, this wouldn't be the first hostage situation where the local police "forgot" to include them. Only the presence of powers had the Tower receive any call for help. Was there something special about this mall in particular? Like many in the country, it was falling out of use and was on its dying legs. Unless there was a rumor about, say something buried under it during its construction decades ago, even then wouldn't it have made more sense to keep people out and not draw attention to this place?

They needed information and they needed it badly. No way was this going to be another cat and mouse game that played out more like Tom and Jerry. This was the proverbial second chance to bring these people in. They couldn't fail to have them escape again.

"I had Gizmo under wraps," Wonder Girl answered. The armored blonde paused and looked around, a frown marring her face. That couldn't be good. "Where the hell did he…?"

Sighing, Red Robin placed a hand to his forehead and rubbed at his temples. "He might have been teleported away like the rest of them."

"Then where the hell's my rope?" the armored blonde growled, a hand going to her waist. "I can feel it—"

A black bubble rose up from the debris-littered floor, some of it being pushed away by the might of what was obviously Raven's power. The bubble opened up and left behind three bodies. One was Gizmo, still tied up with Wonder Girl's lasso. Next to him was Shimmer who was curled up in the fetal position and the only signs of life from her was trembling. Lastly, there was one of the new ones, the one in the white bodysuit and the helmet who was laid out and sprawled.

Speaking as if she hadn't accomplished more than anyone else here had today, Raven remarked, "I managed to secrete these three away before they could escape. They're all ours now."

It was something. More than what they had ten seconds ago. However, he found himself staring at Shimmer who looked somewhat more paler than he last recalled.

"Is there something wrong with her?" he asked aloud, gesturing to the only captive female.

Not missing a beat, Raven calmly said, "She wanted a rematch and I reminded her of how little power she actually has."

The trembling body remained consistent, not picking up or losing any speed. Something was missing from that explanation. "Did that reminder put her like…that?"

No hesitation. "I made sure she wouldn't forget this time."

"Sheesh, remind me not to get on your bad side," Beast Boy said.

"And yet you haven't learned at all, no matter how many 'reminders' I give you," the pale-skinned girl snorted.

Since Shimmer didn't look to be in any condition to talk, the new guy was so far unresponsive, that left the only one that was still conscious, and that was Gizmo. So, to the little guy still wrapped up with Wonder Girl's lasso, he made his approach and got down to business.

"This is the only time it'll be easy. What are you up to this time?" Red Robin asked with an edge in his voice. He had gotten down onto a knee so as to get a better look at the small male's eyes and hopefully keep them on him. There was simmering rage and anger within that small body, and you know what they say about eyes being a window into the soul, right?

"You think you're so tough, crud stain?" Gizmo sneered, slowing with his futile squirming. "You got no idea who you're up against. When I get out of this, I'll show you—"

"You've been ditched and I doubt your friends remember they left you behind," Red Robin cut in.

"And you think I'm some kind of rat? They'll come back for me. I'm too important," the little techno genius taunted. "Do your worst. I won't talk. But you're dead. All of you. All of you little snotmunchers are dead and you don't even know it!"

He sure was talking a big game, wasn't he? Gizmo practically reeked of arrogance and you didn't have to be Raven to pick up on it. The only question was whether or not he was the type who could back it up or was running high on ego. Based on prior experience, it tended to be the former more than the latter.

But things had been different this time. How fast some of the fighting went and typically in their favor. They weren't the same ragtag group they were the first time they had encountered Gizmo and his lot. This meant more than basic fighting skills and a fragile sense of camaraderie. They had been through so much and more since last time and it was showing.

"You think you're protecting them. You think you're not talking at all. But no one in your position talks that big unless they have someone or something bigger than them behind them," Red Robin reasoned. "Last time you led us on a chase, trying to stop you from stealing rare high tech all over the city, and behind you then was that man in the wheelchair and a half-mad speedster. This time you take hostages, bait, for a trap. You wanted us here, and you had backup. Those other five? They didn't just teleport in, so they had to be waiting. I'm willing to bet you all work for the same guy too. So who is it, Gizmo? Who's pulling your strings this time?"

"No one pulls my strings. I don't have any to pull!" Gizmo snapped back. Little eyes glared at the masked teen, but Red Robin shrugged it off easy. He had seen worse before.

"Could've fooled me," Cyborg commented idly. "I recall you losing your head when some freaky computer program tried to gas us. Played you like a fiddle. Didn't even have to try."

"Screw you, cyborg!" the tech genius turned on to the larger, cybernetic teen. Glowering, "What I wouldn't give to have five minutes alone with you. Take you apart, see what you're made of, find out how you do that thing with your arm. I'd have a hell of a time tinkering with everything."

"Keep dreaming, shortstack," Cyborg snorted. "And word of advice? Wherever they end up sending you, don't drop the soap. I don't think you'd handle what comes next." Without missing a beat, Cyborg raised a hand and answered the hi-five Beast Boy gave him, and doing so without looking away from Gizmo for a second.

"And you'd have to be the stupidest toaster to have ever lived if you think a guy like me can be held anywhere! I'll be out before you can get back to that ridiculous tower you all live in! You have no idea what you're up against! None of ya! You're all dead and don't even know it!" Gizmo shot back, rambling on and on.

Red Robin narrowed his eyes. It seemed if you knew what nerves to hit, you could get Gizmo to say a lot of things. A punctured ego was quick to defend itself, even if it had to use others as a crutch to prop itself up.

As cliche as some of the things the tech genius was saying were, why else would he say them? It was like last time: someone else was pulling the strings, but for what?

Whatever this was for, and whoever was responsible, this whole ambush had targeted them for a reason. Were they that big of a threat? Big enough to be attacked and taken out of the way before the endgame could begin?

That would be a smart move to make, if they were on that level of interference. So who would want the Titans out of the picture? Who stood to benefit from that? Was it someone new to the scene? Someone old? They had never been able to find where the nameless scientist with his hyper intelligent gorilla went. Had they come back?

"Whatever you know, tell us. Tell us now," the teen vigilante ordered their captive little person.

Gizmo snorted in contempt. "Even if I knew anything, there's no way I would tell you crudeaters anything. Stumble around some like the losers you are, and I'll get to watch you each go down one by one. My only regret is that I won't be doing any of it, but I'll be fine if I get to watch."

"Now don't be like that," Kid Flash spoke up, suddenly right next to the little guy in the green jumpsuit. "Surely you can give us a clue or ten! We can be buddies, right? So how about you let us have a preview, hmm? Just a basic idea, no spoilers or anything. We're pals, so what's the harm?"

Gizmo glared at the unsuspecting speedster, then made an interesting sound that just happened to include a deep intake of air. There was a hock, a splat, and suddenly Kid Flash was in no mood to make friends as a loogie slowly slid down his face.

"Okay, I know I'm not caught up with all the stuff people in this era do things, but this is an insult, right?"

"I thought you were suppose to be fast. I didn't think you were this slow," Gizmo sneered.

Putting a hand on Kid Flash's shoulder and squeezing it, Red Robin knew the gesture couldn't stop the teen from the future. However, the mere action should at least anchor the speedster before he went on a homicidal rage which the teen vigilante understood completely. Gizmo here wasn't the most pleasant of people, and kept getting worse by the second. When the speedster didn't do anything rash—thankfully—the masked teen looked to Raven and gave a small jerk of his head in the direction of the captured tech genius.

Raven returned the gesture with the raising of an eyebrow. However, she didn't turn him down. What she did was subtly bring a hand up and her eyes began to glow black.

"Hey! What the!"

The black glow emitting from Raven's eyes now engulfed Gizmo's pack. The straps that held it to the small body from frayed and torn, then the pack rose up and above the hairless inventor, hovering in the air. There were demands, there were swears, and oh the threats slung their way. A lot of it was not repeatable, even for foulmouthed teenagers.

How Raven's powers worked was still a mystery to him, but the results were anything but. There were no outward signs, such as an intensifying of the glow, or Raven expressing anything like exertion. Gizmo's pack looked like it had been made with some fine materials, stuff that looked like it could handle a lot of punishment, and knowing what this guy liked to do, then the pack was certainly very hardy.

That did not stop Raven's power from crushing it down into a very small ball of wadded-up metal that happened to resemble a crumpled soda can.

The second the glow vanished, the destroyed pack fell to the floor, landing between Gizmo's spread legs where it clattered and bounced for a couple of seconds until lying still. The tech genius stared down in horror at the sight of what must have been a prized invention now utterly destroyed.

"You can continue to play the smartass with the lamest set of names imaginable or the next thing crushed is something not lethal but definitely something you will miss," Raven remarked casually.

For his part, all Gizmo found himself capable of doing was opening and shutting his mouth while garbled sounds came out. Very informative there, but nothing useful at all. Since his hand was still on Kid Flash's shoulder, Red Robin pulled the speedster out of his way, then knelt in front of Gizmo.

"You're going to give us something, one way or the other," he said in a calm yet hard tone of voice. "I'm willing to bet that pack was your pride and joy. While Raven might be talking about body parts, you still have some other pride and joys on you, don't you? Those goggles on your head. Maybe a little gadget you keep for emergencies. Little things, but ones you pour blood and sweat into. Now imagine those being crushed just like your pack. How much are you willing to lose? Everything? The cops might mind some broken bones, but all the gear and tech you have? That can be swept under the rug, no matter how loudly you complain about it. You're only going to suffer for as long as you can take. It's all up to you."

The words reached the little prodigy, and the glare was now back in full force. "I take it back. Dead isn't good enough a word to describe how fucked you're going to be when I'm through with you."

So that's how it was going to be, huh?

Standing back up, Red Robin gave the seething boy a neutral look, then stepped away, moving towards Raven. With a low tone of voice, "Anything that isn't organic. Take away all his toys."

Raven's poker face didn't change at all. As the teen vigilante moved away from her, he didn't need to look back to know that her eyes were glowing again. Gizmo's cries would ring out throughout the mall as all the little gadgets he still had were destroyed one by one. For perhaps the first time in a really long time, he was going to be absolutely helpless. A word with JCPD outside would hopefully ensure nothing technological got into his hands while they figured out what to do with him.

As for Gizmo's friends, Shimmer was still in the fetal position. They would have to wait until she managed to pull herself out of whatever Raven had done to her. There was also the nameless, helmet-wearing attacker who was still unconscious. He had some smelling salts on him just in case. What, you never knew when you were going to need them.

First, though, he would need to know about helmet kid's abilities, then he would decide how to neutralize them, and then he would wake him up. There was something bigger happening, and they needed to know what it was. No more stumbling in the dark hoping to get lucky.

Whatever was happening and whoever was behind it was going to get a rude wakeup call that they weren't facing the same kids from before.


The heat wasn't too bad. Try living further to the south and you'd understand. However, there weren't as many places around to find some shade. It was like no one in America knew what a siesta was.

It had been a couple days since Miguel had made his border crossing, and so far his journey had kept him moving north. He hadn't found anything yet. Nothing that looked like his little clue belonged to this place or with that person. Oh, he could find places that used hexagons, but those were with designs that Miguel didn't think this strange little device would be inspired by.

He swiped at some sweat that dripped around his forehead. He took the last swigs of his water bottle, draining all he could, then threw the plastic bottle away in the nearest trashcan he could find. That bottle was going to be a luxury if it wasn't already.

A couple days and nothing. He didn't have the kind of money to wander around forever, hoping to get lucky. It was really expensive in this country, you know? He had maybe another day or two, three if he really stretched it out, and then he would be broke. He needed to find those people, the ones who had shown up and made a scene and make sure they wouldn't hurt anyone else again.

If only he knew who he was looking for. Abejas hadn't been very talkative before he left. Whether it was because he knew nothing, or was hiding something, Miguel had never been able to figure it out. He had hoped whatever those bastardos had left behind could lead him to them…but that hadn't been working out very well.

Don't get him wrong, he hadn't thought this would be easy, but he hadn't expected it to be this hard either. He wasn't sticking to small towns or anything to do his search, give him some credit here! He had gone to the first large city north of Tijuana and that was San Diego. Further north and you'd run into Los Angeles, which was his next stop, provided he still had any money on him for necessities.

Speaking of, he needed to check on what he still had left. His wallet was slipped out of his pocket and…why was there so little in there? He had taken pains to do some exchanging before leaving Mexico, but…the peso to dollar conversation rate really favored the dollar, but he hadn't really thought…

Even if he did his best, three days was really stretching things. He might only get one meal tomorrow and that would be that. A breakthrough would really be appreciated right now. Of course, none happened right now which would have been really convenient so he was still having to hoof it.

Slipping his wallet back to the right pocket, Miguel reconsidered his circumstances. If this was going to be long term, or by the very least several months, he was going to have to find a way to get some cash, and quickly. Odd jobs were really his only hope for that. The big question was where he could find them. It wasn't like there was one gathering point in this city where you stood around and let the odd jobs come to you. Another option was getting a job, but he was really leery about that.

For one, most places were online, so he needed a stable internet connection. Second, weren't there background checks? His illegal status would be found out in a heartbeat and then ICE was going to be all over him. He had no plans to stay here, just find the people who attacked his home. Once he found them, it was back home he was going to. He had a life there, and Gabe. Family, everything important, and it was everything he wanted to return to.

But he doubted the Americans would understand any of that. Come on, think, Miguel. Whether they understood or not, the people back home were counting on you. They were counting on you to set things right and how would it look if you went back a failure? No, failure was not an option.

The desire to find something, a lead, anything, had Miguel on his feet and stalking off. His brown eyes were looking for anything, even if there were people walking up and down the sidewalks and cars filled the streets with traffic. There was so much activity. So much moving around. Everybody was going somewhere. How could you tell who the bad guys were if they blended in?

Along this street was just a long line of stores. They sold a lot of stuff, and a few of them the Mexican national was tempted to go into because, well, let's say he happened to have a fashion sense. There were quite a few storefronts with various kinds of clothing being advertised and more than once did he find himself stopping and staring, mentally filling himself or someone he knew into the wares.

Stop it, that was just a distraction. Keep going and maybe you might find something. Or someone. Say, wasn't there a place he could find where people gathered and maybe he could find information there? But what kind of place was there like that? Did this city even have places like that?

Through his musings, he passed several stores, not all of them clothing, heck, one was an obvious electronics store. It had nice looking plasma TVs, and all of them were currently showing the same image. He stopped to marvel at them, imagining one of those beauties in his bedroom. This wasn't the kind of thing you shared with your sisters. No, no, it was more for private use…

Miguel blinked his eyes, frowning. He focused on just what was being displayed on the TVs. It was some kind of news story, which, why? Why would you show the news and not something else, like a show, a movie, concert, something more entertaining? Who thought the news was a good way to sell one of these?

His eye for fashion, though, zeroed in on someone who really stood out. The scene had a lot of cops in it, there was this large building in the background, but in the midst of it all, he saw someone in a very body-fitting suit that was definitely not blue, or dark blue, or any other color that represented law enforcement. Was that a cape? Did people really wear capes in this day and age? Well, now that he thought about it, the people most likely to wear capes were superheroes. Like Superman. And…Superman. Oh, there had to be others, but that was the only one that came to mind right now.

His eyes lowered to the words at the bottom of the screen, moving from right to left as the news station tried to sum up the story being presented. He got the gist of it, some kind of hostage situation that was resolved, three arrests, and the intervention of the…Teen Titans?

Hmm, now why did that name sound familiar? That didn't sound like a person name, and since there was an S at the end of Titans, that meant it was plural, right? Meaning more than one person, so it was a group name.

A group of people who worked with America's law enforcement to handle big situations such as hostage situations. So where—oh, Highland Mall in Jump City? Is that where that was happening?

His curiosity was more than piqued, so he pulled out his phone, hoped for a signal, and did a little detective work of his own. He did it right there, in front of this electronic store, standing on the sidewalk and—yes, he had a signal! Let's Google this and see what came up.

It took a few minutes, but the initial gist was that the Teen Titans were a group of up and coming superheroes being sponsored by the Justice League. Oh, and get this, they were located in Jump City which was in California, just further up the coast from San Diego. A lot further up. However, in his mind, he put the pieces of superpowers, Justice League connected, same U.S. state, and law enforcement together.

Was there a chance these people could help him? Getting a better look at the TV and then what images he could find online, he was getting the feeling that the teen part of Teen Titans was not some throwaway word. These people might be around his age, meaning they were less likely to throw him out of the country the second they found out anything about him.

Hopefully, at least.

Well, he had a new destination in mind. Sorry City of Lost Angels, but maybe another time. The next stop on this journey of his was Jump City.