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.â“„.đź…ž...chapter nine...â“„.đź…ž.
The air around her was hot, humid, and oppressive, like she was cooking inside Mother Mae-Eye's oven all over again. Except, her team wasn't here. She was stranded somewhere unfamiliar to even her... Raven groaned through the sharp and pulsing pain behind her eyes. The shallow, brownish-green water she was sitting in rippled when she brought her hands up to cradle her head.
"Raven?" a voice tentatively whispered from somewhere behind her, splashing through the water as he approached her side.
Aang, she remembered through the smarting pain, breathing out. With the thought came a hesitant wave of relief. Her powers might be severed, but she wasn't alone. She wasn't powerless. "You okay?" she asked, wishing she could heal her headache. But when she tried another gentle tug for her powers, a desperate glint in her eyes, nothing happened. It was expected, but still disappointing.
"Yeah," he said, giving her a look-over, and then he brought his gaze upwards to the sepia-toned wetland around them. She stood, and her shoes made soft squelching sounds when she stepped up onto a nearby flat-topped rock. Aang agilely jumped next to her, a troubled look in his eyes.
They were in a swamp. Bald cypress trees extended above the water on their many long, spindly roots, and epiphytic flowering plants tumbled down from the branches like clumps of silvery hair, tangled and messy and razor-thin. A light wind brushed over her flushed face, but instead of cooling her off, it was just as heated as everything else here.
"Where... are we?" she asked, feeling lost.
Even though the climate and vegetation reminded her of a southern bayou, there was something just slightly off about everything here. She couldn't put her finger on it, but the uncanny feeling was buried deep under skin, her arms covered in unexplainable goosebumps.
"I recognize this place," Aang said, and she turned to him in surprise. His nervous expression muted the hopeful words on the tip of her tongue. "We're in the Spirit World."
The Spirit World. Without his bending, or, clearly, her powers. But, that was okay. Aang's story yesterday wasn't all bad: the giant panda that screamed light was a little disquieting but there wasn't anything she thought she couldn't handle with her team— well, with herself and Aang. The real problem would probably be finding a way to get back home.
Aang tossed a cautious look around. Abruptly, he grabbed her arm, his fingers colder than everything else here and making her jump. Raven looked down at him, her purple eyes wide. "There's more," he warned, serious, "This is Koh's realm."
Raven didn't know who that was, but when she looked out over the dark and barren world with new eyes, she realized just how empty and quiet it felt. There were no spirit frogs croaking, no cranes looking for a fishy snack... there was only silence, save for the occasional trickle of water when some underwater creature created ripples over the still surface.
"He's called the Face Stealer," Aang added gravely. He motioned to a spot in the distance, where she could very easily make out the outline of a gigantic, twisted tree, the leaf-less branches on the top reaching outward like human limbs desperately seeking escape. It looked like it was nearly over a hundred feet, taller than the butte rock towers next to it that should have belonged in a drier climate.
The water around them suddenly spurted, large rings of waves pushing past their standing rock and spraying them with the brackish water. Raven stumbled, finding Aang's arm to ground herself. A magnificent wolf as big as the tree looked down right at her, appearing from thin air and washing them out in shadow. The white fur around its eyes looked like a Venetian mask, and its blank stare was cold and assessing. They looked at each other, spirit to spirit, for a long and unsettling moment. Then, finally, the towering creature took another step, jostling the water and trees. The earth rumbled like a receding thunderstorm.
"Aang," Raven found herself saying numbly, "What else is in Koh's realm?"
Aang seemed caught off guard by the question, rubbing the back of his head. "Nothing much else, I think? I was last here when the Northern Water Tribe was being attacked, so I was kind of focused more on that." Aang seemed to realize that his answer didn't help much, so he added, "But Koh is the one we need to worry about."
Raven focused herself. "Right.. you said he, steals faces?"
The Avatar nodded. "If you show any emotion, he'll take your face."
Well, that wasn't creepy at all.
"...But I don't know how that doesn't also kill you? Because how can you breathe without a mouth or nose? Or eat?...The curly-tailed blue nose hadn't looked like it was starving, I don't think?"
"Aang," Raven interrupted, trying to be kind but also wishing she was anywhere but here right now. "Why are we here?"
He quieted and gave the swamp another curious sweep. "I'm... not sure," he finally admitted, looking down into his brown-tinted reflection. Raven followed his direction, studying the way her hair stuck to her damp forehead, purple strands crossing in front of her gemstone. He continued after a moment, speaking to the still water instead of her, "I saw him, I saw Zuko. I'm sure of it. That was him in the city."
Raven considered their reflections.
"And I think he saw me, too. He looked surprised."
Aang had lost concentration, Raven remembered, so she had taken over, pulling up her own intense memories of the scarred teenager in order to bolster the connection. She only knew the other boy from the fight at the mall, but that shouldn't have mattered. Unless... they weren't the same person? Raven let herself sit with the thought, feeling more and more unnerved by how right it seemed with every passing second. So, then, the logic would follow that they were currently in the Spirit World because—
"The Zuko you met must have been a spirit," Aang realized at the same time, his eyes wide when he turned to her. "From the Spirit World."
They shared a concerned look and then simultaneously took in the reddish-brown realm again. The giant wolf spirit was long gone. Silence embraced them, discomforting and overpowering. The Fake Zuko wasn't just any old spirit to bring them to this part of the Spirit World.
He was someone—something thing that was aligned with Koh, the Face Stealer.
Robin parked his motorcycle a block away from Jump City's Bank. The heavy rain dampened the spikes in his hair as he leaned against the storefront, still and silent. Through the window, he could see two figures shuffling around, a pile of money collected haphazardly in the corner. He tilted his head, listening.
"Hold this," he heard Jinx demand, and she didn't wait for a response, dumping an overfilled duffel bag into her partner-in-crime's hands, swaths of money poking free from the top. Before she had even stepped away, the other person had already dropped it the floor with an annoyed huff.
Robin narrowed his eyes, not recognizing the other person's build— definitely not Mammoth or Gizmo, maybe Wykkyd? ...That didn't seem right either.
Save for the criminals in the lobby, the bank was otherwise empty. People had long since rushed out, screaming and in a panic, running head-first into the storm outside. The lobby was a trampled mess, cushion fluff thrown everywhere and broken plexiglass on the floor. The ceiling lights every so often spit out electrical sparks, dim and flickering. Robin watchfully tracked the way Jinx twirled, sliding across the counter space with unbridled glee as she added another pile of stolen money to her collection.
The other one turned his back, saying something Robin couldn't make out, the tone rough and low. Jinx grinned, and then she unerringly looked towards the door.
"We've got company," she cheered, standing next to her partner. The stolen bags of money were now forgotten, but she didn't seem too bothered when she smiled with her teeth and admitted to the empty air, "I've been waiting for this."
"Well," Robin said, silhouetted, all at once standing in the open doorway like he had always been there. The heavy rain continued to rage behind him, relentless. "I'd hate to keep you waiting. That'd be rude."
"Very," Jinx agreed, and the two moved at once.
It was an explosion of light, electric-pink waves meeting a volley of ammunition discs that exploded upon impact. Soot poured free from above them, filling the space with debris and ash. From the corner of his eye, Robin saw the unknown criminal back into the wall, but it was hard to make out his face through the curtain of fog. Jinx laughed heedlessly, completing a backwards cartwheel as she dodged a falling ceiling tile, her hands alight like trailing pink flames.
Once the dust settled, Robin swept his black cloak back behind him, shrugging off the thin layer of debris. His bright red and green colors stood out brightly in the dim lighting, and he held his Bo staff out in front of himself with both hands.
Jinx waved jauntily across from him, one hand behind her back, posed like a dancer. On the wall to his left, he finally saw her partner: a teenage boy dressed in red with a puckered scar over the left side of his face. He stared back at him, eyes like liquid gold, and then blinked very slowly.
"Aren't you supposed to be talking to Aang right now?" Robin asked dryly. Zuko's eyes widened, and Robin filed that away for later, noting sardonically, "I take it the talk didn't go well?" He theatrically cast his gaze over the stolen pile of money and then the flickering bulbs above them, making a point.
"Talk?" Zuko said, his eyebrows scrunched as he looked behind Robin towards the outside where the storm was still going strong, "What talk?" He shook his head, turning back to the hero, and the expression on his face was now furious, "Where is he? Is he okay? I need to see him!"
"To do what?" Robin asked, which he thought was a pretty reasonable question. He didn't lower his staff.
Zuko's face twisted, the scar stretching over his skin, and he opened his mouth to answer—
The ATM behind Robin all of a sudden groaned, creaking like old machines are wont to do when they're about to break. "Behind you!" he thought he heard someone shout, but Robin was already leaping to the side, rolling into his landing. The machine topped over from where he had been standing, the cables breaking and sparking with bursts of unsealed electricity. Robin looked over, catching the full-body shudder of pink energy— before all the lights in the building went out, plunging the three into darkness.
Silence stole the air, until— "I thought he was your friend," Robin said, his voice low with disappointment. "I thought they all were."
In the near-darkness, he could just barely make out the subtle shifts of movement. He heard Zuko snarl from somewhere on his left, maybe near the counter, and then the other boy was ranting loudly, "He is— they are! Who are you, anyway? Why do you care?"
"The Boy Wonder, Robin," Jinx introduced for him, not sounding very polite about it. Her voice came from much farther away, and there was no pink energy to give her away this time.
Robin silently moved closer. "Then why'd you attack them like that?"
"Like what?" Zuko yelled, sounding like he wanted to throw something. There was suddenly a tentative silence, and then— "I already apologized for that!"
"I gotta say," Robin continued evenly, like he hadn't even spoken. "You seem much angrier this time. Did he make you mad?"
He slammed the staff downward, aiming for where the crack had been the last time they'd fought—just as the dim light from outside revealed Zuko smoothly side-stepping his attack, two blades catching the Bo staff with envious ease. The teenager wasting no time throwing the weight back at him, using the dao blades to push him off. Robin transformed the backwards momentum into roundoffs, landing on his feet. Catching his breath, he pointed the staff at the other boy again with a loud fwish!
Zuko stared back unflinchingly, a raging look in his eyes, "Where's Aang? What did you do to him?"
"Safe from you," was his not-answer, and then he was already shooting back with, "Why are you working for Slade? What did he promise you?"
Slade, he saw the villain mouth, pursing his lips. Something dark flashed across his face, and then he was looking back with two narrowed eyes. "I'm not working for Slade," Zuko told him, his voice unwavering.
Robin dropped into a low kick, intending to sweep his feet out from under him. Last time, coming at him with brute force had done nothing but set themselves up for unguarded attacks. He was too strong to face in hand-to-hand combat, but from a distance? He could work with that. But, the other boy leapt to the side without missing a beat, finding himself on the topside of an overturned couch, backlit by the stormy light. Robin frowned, a birdarang now poised between his fingers. He was nothing if not adaptable.
But Zuko... lowered his swords, holding them loosely in front of himself. The expression on his face was troubled.
Robin straightened, watchful. He opened his mouth, not entirely sure what he was going to say— only for the ground under him to roll like it was made out of water instead of stone. The Boy Wonder grunted at the sudden shift, unbalanced, and it seemed near impossible to find his footing again. From behind Zuko, within the deep shadows, Jinx's eyes filled with a frighteningly pink glow, the tips of her hair styled like devilish horns.
They're working for Slade, he remembered at once. Robin snarled, demanding single-mindedly through his teeth, "What is he planning?"
"Wouldn't you like to know!" she sang sweetly. Robin growled, avoiding a pink-colored swipe with only inches to spare. His eyes widened when his heel suddenly slipped on a shifting swell, and he hurriedly spun his arms to catch himself from tumbling to the ground. Jinx laughed louder. "What's the matter, are you running out of luck?"
The magically-cursed floor crested, rising like a wave under his soles. Looks like he'd just have to ride this wave. Robin felt himself slip again, the floor abruptly that much lower, so he extended his staff into the crumbling hole, hoisting himself into the air. He shot towards Jinx and spun into a powerful kick. The witch only giggled, dancing around him with her arms out at her side, brimming with an overabundance of confidence.
"Slade doesn't have Aang?" Zuko interrupted, and Robin couldn't see his face, but he sounded more baffled than angry. Jinx and Robin both hesitated in their combat, looking back at Zuko with vastly different expressions.
Robin took it the most in stride. By ignoring him. "What does Slade want with Aang?"
Jinx smiled, sharkish, and mimed zipping her mouth. She threw the invisible key over her shoulder, pink sparkling at her fingertips like glow-in-the-dark nail polish.
Robin collapsed his staff to hold two ammunition discs in each hand. "He won't get away with it. We'll stop him."
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he's already won," Jinx declared point-blank, less like a taunt and more like stating a fact. "We just had to finish the job!"
The floor under Robin gurgled with color, activating a curse of bad luck around him in a neat circle. His mask widened in surprise, and he had half a second of realization before he was tripping over his now-untied shoelaces, falling chin-first onto the ground. One of the discs skimmed across the floor, stopping next to a purple-heeled boot. Robin looked up at her, watching as her smile turned deadly.
Before he could stop her, she pushed down and kicked the disc back at him. He only had time to brace himself, wrapping himself in his cape as best as he could, before it suddenly detonated in a deafening explosion of fire. He felt himself get thrown through the window, hearing rather than feeling the broken glass spray everywhere around him.
Jinx opened the door, a bell jingling tunelessly from above as she approached him outside. The rain dripped over their faces. "You're done for," she told him, looming over him. "He has what he needs now."
Robin swept his cape behind him, shaking glass from his hair, and there was a sharp crunching under his shoes as he stood up. His cheeks stung from the many small cuts. They just had to finish the job. There were only currently four H.I.V.E. attacks—and without another H.I.V.E. member here, one was now unaccounted for. Realization struck like a hit to the temple. Slade didn't want Aang, or even Raven— he wanted—! Robin pulled free his T-comm, snapping it open desperately, "Titans, get back to the Tower! I repeat, get back to the Tower as soon as possible," someone snapped their fingers and Robin felt electricity shock his fingers, burning hot, but he powered through, "They're after the sword!"
Jinx's eyes were consumed with a void of pinkness. She snapped again, ("Titans, protect—!"), and the T-comm exploded in his hands, overpowered by too much bad luck. He dropped it to the ground, and the small device spit out more sparks, cracked straight through the middle.
She didn't try to convince him he was wrong. "If I take you down," she said, a cruel smile on her lips as she stepped closer, "Maybe he'll consider us worthy of his new army."
Jinx grinned, dark energy coursing through her veins. Robin crouched low.
Except, she never got the chance.
There was suddenly an inferno of heat between them, hungry flames as tall the as the bank burning brighter and stronger than even the heavy rain could quench. Inexplicably, Zuko planted himself in front of Robin, his eyes locked onto Jinx. He was— on fire, in every sense of the word, licks of gold and red blazing with a blinding, scorching intensity around him, but none of his clothes caught on fire, none of his skin burned with blisters. Robin's eyes widened at the show of power, but Zuko only stared back at Jinx, the scar across his face tinted red from the flames.
"So that's what.." she whispered, leaving her thought unfinished. Her expression was steeled when she looked again, "You're going to regret this. You won't be able to beat Slade, he's too powerful." When Zuko didn't answer, she took a step back. Pink was at her fingertips. "I'm warning you, Zuko, you're—"
Robin didn't give her the chance to finish, slamming a smoke bomb onto the wet asphalt. Clouds of grey flooded the street, mushrooming over even the orange-tinted streetlights, darkening the gloomy area even more.
"Aghhhhh," they heard Jinx rage, pink flashing uselessly through the murky exhaust.
"Come with me," Robin said, and he knew the other boy was following, an overpowering warmth at his back even though he couldn't see or hear the other boy. He hoped he wasn't making a big mistake.
Starfire was a shining beacon of green, her eyes alight and fists haloed with molten, thermal power as she flew back and forth, ferrying stranded drivers and families back to the safety of land, whilst also trying to solder weakened cables at risk of breaking.
"Help!"
Starfire shook the rainwater out of her eyes, catching her breath. On the far side of the bridge, a woman was reaching a hand out of a broken window, waving in panic, and the car was flipped all the way on its side, one wheel spinning ineffectively. Through the tinted glass, Starfire saw that the Earthling's face was pink and bruised, but nothing looked bleeding or broken. The Tamaranean swooped down, reaching out to grab the handle of the door, yelling, "Please watch out!" The hand retreated into the safety of the car, and then she pulled, using a quarter of her strength to rip the door all the way off, throwing the severed part behind her carelessly.
The woman gasped, crawling through the opening. Another woman, her nose bleeding and bruised like it was broken, quickly followed after her. They grabbed each others hands in a bloodless grip. Starfire didn't let them waste time with relief, immediately flying them to the team of medical responders on the other side of the bridge.
That... should be all of them.
Luckily, there didn't seem to be any casualties. But the bridge was still crumbling, and she didn't know if it could take any more damage. She narrowed her eyes at another quake, the cables vibrating from the shaking. "That is enough," she snarled, and exploded into the sky. A green comet shot above the Bridge, paused, and then made a sharp 90° turn towards the deck, aimed at a very specific target, "Mammoth!"
The H.I.V.E. villain's satisfied expression slipped into one of apprehension, and he shot of hurried look around. There was an overturned pickup truck on his right, so he picked it up by the hood, balanced it, and then threw it directly at her.
"Ah!" It was too close to dodge, so she braced herself for impact, burning a hole through the engine and coming out with oil grease in her hair and stinking of overheated mechanical parts. That- that zarbnoff! "That. Was. Not. Nice!"
Mammoth smirked villainously, facing across from her on overturned asphalt. Starfire's eyes glowed green, burning energy at her fingers as she landed onto the ground.
The rain soaked them to the bone.
"Let's do this," he rumbled.
"Let's," the princess agreed.
When Mammoth reached strong fists over his head, prepared to bring the bridge down with one final blow, instead of wasting time and energy throwing starbolts, Starfire zoomed at him—and didn't stop, pulling him off the ground by the collar of his shirt and suddenly hanging in the air above the murky water, far from the bridge or any grounding surfaces.
"Waitwaitwait," he pleaded, suddenly sounding much smaller as he felt himself slip in her hold, his eyes fixated on the splashing waves under him as he uselessly kicked his feet out like he was already treading the water, "I'm not a very good swimmer!"
"Then you should not have broken the Bridge of the Bay," Starfire lectured, but flew them down closer to edge of the shore.
Once his feet touched the shallow lip of the bay, he collapsed onto the sand, out of breath. Starfire towered above him, his arms crossed in disapproval. The sound of police cars in the distance got a little louder.
"Titans!" her comm beeped, Robin's voice tinted with a white noise and glitching in and out. When she flipped it open, the screen was filled with static. "Get back to the Tower! I repeat, get back to the Tower as soon as possible! —after—ord—!"
The red and blue lights of the police car illuminated the pair, a team of officers getting out to collect the villain. Without needing to be told twice, Starfire shot into the sky, heading towards the steel Tower in the middle of the bay. Raven, she thought with concern. Aang.
"Tag, you're it," Billy yelled, and a gaggle of red-clothed clones fled across the grassy expanse, laughing. One of them slipped on a muddy patch, pinwheeling his arms to catch himself. He managed it, only for two running Billy's to hit him from behind, throwing all three into the pile of mud.
"Booyah," Cyborg celebrated. They were running from his sonic cannon, so he was still going to count it as a win. He was not going to lose to Beast Boy, not today, and not ever. Billy was sure giving him a lot of points today, so he wasn't even that mad that he had to be out here in the pouring rain instead of inside, making sure Raven and their new friends were going to be okay.
He pointed a powered-up cannon at clone crawling over a bench, snorting when he realized another one was watching from a nearby tree and laughing at the clumsy attempt.
"Hey," someone said right next to him, bizarrely sounding like a small child. It wasn't Gizmo, but a petite-looking pre-teen. Her hair was in a messy bun, water caught in droplets on the top, and her eyes were unfocused but somehow still staring unerringly up at him. She was in a familiar green, and that was the second thing he noticed but arguably the more important.
"Whatchu doing?" she asked casually, flicking something off of her fingers. Actually, he would deal with this after he scored two more points. Cyborg turned back to his targets, but Billy must have managed to scale the dangerous height of a 2-foot tall park bench, and the other one must have wandered off when there was no longer anything to laugh at. He sighed, turning back to the girl patiently waiting for his answer.
"Winning a bet," he answered instead of literally anything else he could have said, like, stopping a villain from terrorizing Central Park, or, talking to a maybe-Toph, maybe-H.I.V.E. initiate, maybe-co-apprentice to Slade. The list went on and on.
"Want a real challenge?" she asked, cracking her knuckles.
Cyborg considered her. The fight at the pier days ago wasn't anything too special, even though it did end too soon. But he'd seen what Katara could do, what Aang could do. He wasn't going to underestimate her. "Alright," he agreed, "But let's lay down some ground rules."
Her smile was all teeth. "All right."
"If I win, you meet my friends."
"Gross," she complained at once, wrinkling her nose. "Who are your friends?"
Oh. Yeah. That did sound creepy, now that he repeated it back in his head. "Superheroes," he described, curious if she'd believe him. When she didn't object, or even ask any follow-up questions, Cyborg cautiously reiterated, "So, you meet my friends, who are superheroes, if I win."
"Deal," she stated immediately. "And when I win, you show me how you did that exploding-blast-kaboom! thing with your arm."
In the face of her confidence, Cyborg hesitated. Was there something he didn't know about here? Katara had said their lost friend was a master earthbender, but she hadn't really gone into specifics. Terra had been a formidable foe with her earth powers, and she had been self-trained. He wasn't going to take her lightly.
"What's the hold up?" Toph asked, half his height and bumping a closed fist against the cybernetic blue of his forearm that he couldn't feel. She blinked at the smooth surface, and he winced, waiting for the slew of questions, only for her to say, without missing a beat, "So do we have a deal or not? I don't have all day."
Cyborg huffed a surprised grunt, "Huh. Okay. Sure, I mean, yeah, you got a deal."
"Fantastic," she said, and her smirk stretched across her face. "I promise not to break anything too bad."
He grinned. "And I promise to not hold back."
It was her turn to sound surprised, blinking foggy eyes in his general direction. "Huh. Okay. I'm keeping you."
Cyborg didn't know what to say to that weirdly endearing but mostly creepy comeback. So instead he threw a titanium fist downwards, slow enough to give her time to react, but fast enough that he suddenly lost his balance when he met empty air instead of the upturned earth he was expecting, spinning himself around. She had shifted to the left, not even moving more than a foot, and Cyborg re-assessed the strategy of favoring hand-to-hand combat.
"Whoo! You go lil' missy!" The army of Billys had gathered around them in a circle, but instead of joining the fight, they were chanting, "Toph! Toph! Toph!" like they were at a sports match.
Their champion grinned toothily, raising her hands in front her, the palms facing inward. "My turn," she said, and stepped one foot forward, sliding it across the wet blades of grass. Was she bare foot? In Jump City? Cyborg frowned, waiting for the earth rise up. But, nothing happened, barring the widening smile on her face and the vague feeling like he had just missed something very important. She taunted, "I kinda feel a little bit bad for how fast I'm gonna stomp you into dirt. Try not to cry for your mommy after this."
This was exactly like the smack talks he'd hear on WWE matches, corny and dumb and fun. "Not if I bring you down first," he returned, and his sonic blaster whirled smoothly, charged and all set to go. He got ready, he aimed, he fired— and finally, the earthbender pulled her hands up, posed in a Southern Praying Mantis form, and a column of mud and rocks rose to catch the blast.
The impromptu audience suddenly went silent. "What," one of the Billys deadpanned.
The electric-blue beam had carved a clean circle through the middle, and through the opening, Toph leaned her head into view. She winced, like she was just remembering something important, "Oops. Oh well, I'll apologize to him later." Without saying anything else, she reached her hands out and pushed, the rocky structure falling towards Cyborg and throwing him into the looming shadow. Without needing to be told twice, Cyborg ran out of the way, knocking a Billy over and slipping a bit on a muddy puddle.
Not waiting for her to get back into position, Cyborg rushed at her, running around the upturned pile of rocks, slicing his hand down with a flat palm. Toph blocked him with her forearm, and then her other hand reached over and grabbed his metal wrist, her fingers small and thin. Cyborg didn't have even a second to feel dumbfounded, before the twelve-year-old threw him over the top of her head and into a stacked pile of Billy's trying to find the best view, like throwing a bowling ball into a column of pins. Cyborg felt his breath catch as he tumbled into the mud.
How—?!
"Titans!" the audio on his arm suddenly went off, the video screen only filled with static, showing a very poor connection, "Get back to the Tower! I repeat, get back to the Tower as soon as possible! —after—ord—!"
"Your friend?" Toph asked, her hands at her side. She didn't look like she was all that inclined to finish the fight right now, her head tilted curiously.
Cyborg stood up. He offered gracefully, "Rematch later?"
She shrugged, but the smile on her face was genuine. "Sure. Best two out of three."
Then, he was turning around and running towards the parked T-car, thinking about his friends back at home. He didn't look back, but if he had, he would have seen the way Toph's eyes widened as she turned towards the inner city, a worried look on her face. From far away, there was the faint sound of a smoke bomb exploding.
This was the last one.
"C'mon, buddy," Beast Boy cajoled, gently placing a slow-walking turtle into the water. "Go, go on." The turtle looked back at him severely, giving him the turtle-version of a stink eye. Beast Boy frowned, looking back at the colorful sign picturing alligators and snapping turtles. This was definitely the right spot, so he pointed a critical finger back at the shelled reptile and lectured, "What's your problem, dude?"
"Probably having to listen to a hair-brained idiot like you," a snotty voice interrupted from somewhere above him. Beast Boy looked up and easily spotted the small villain hovering with his jetpack. A rocket missile was loaded and pointed back at him.
"Well, maybe, you're the idiot here, not me," he fumbled back, and then cringed. To move this along, with a quick-shifting fwip! Beast Boy became over twenty times his size, a green T-Rex roaring back at the human, the pointed teeth gleaming white. Annoyingly, Gizmo didn't look too phased by the sight of the prehistoric dinosaur, laughing as he pressed forward, his fingers hovering over two red ignition buttons on the console.
"Take this, scrum-buffing toe-jamming gunk-eater!" he shouted, but instead of targeting the threatening theropod, the rocket flew past Beast Boy's snapping jaw and made impact at the lions' den, exploding the top of the concrete wall. Crumbling rocks followed, and from their high vantage point, they could see two lions look interestedly towards the sloping make-shift exit.
Turning into a peregrine falcon, Beast Boy sped towards the uncontained habitat, ignoring whatever Gizmo had started to say in response. He didn't have time for this! Raven was alone, a sitting duck for whatever trap they were laying.
"Going somewhere?" Gizmo sneered nastily, appearing right next to him in the air, the fire at his back burning faster and stronger than he'd ever seen, bat-like wings extended out behind him. He tilted, and the metal-tip of the suit snagged a white-spotted feather. Beast Boy cawed angrily, flapping his wings in the other boy's face. He kicked his talons out, and Gizmo shouted, pulling on his handles and letting the wind pull him away so he wouldn't lose an eye.
At the lion enclosure, the changeling landed quickly, back into a metahuman in a blur of green and purple. He surveyed the area and noted thankfully that the lions had turned away, seemingly no longer interested in taking their free ticket out of Jump City's Zoo. Beast Boy considered the opening thoughtfully. There was a boulder the size of a rhino in the middle of the stream of water, and it might just fit good enough to dissuade any curious explorations before the City could hire some people to patch it up.
"What, you in a rush to leave or something?"
Beast Boy jumped, barely dodging a metal spider-like leg as it stabbed the ground he had just been standing on. "Kind of," Beast Boy shouted back truthfully and then transformed into owl, hooting furiously at the villain as he flew at him again, pecking and swiping his claws at the tech suit. Gizmo shouted, spinning to avoid being scratched to pieces.
"You're making me mad, birds for brains," the smaller boy jeered, slamming his thumb onto a small button. One hundred tiny bomb burst free and exploded in front of Beast Boy, throwing the winged creature through the air in an uncontrolled spin—fwip!—Beast Boy ducked his head inside the turtle shell, hurtling towards a muddy patch near a closed food stand. The dirty water sprayed everywhere as he skimmed on the bottom of his hard-shell over the ground, shooting off a trail of sparks.
Coming to a stop, Beast Boy returned to himself to shout up, "Come and get me then!" and burst into the air as a green-skinned pterodactyl.
"Gladly," Gizmo answered, following the high arc of the dinosaur's elegant soar. The beady eyes looked down at him, his beak long and pointed, so Gizmo continued with, "Is that all you—" The flying reptile was now suddenly a blue whale, nearly 100 feet in length. Gravity did its thing, and Gizmo's eyes widened fearfully as the green form got larger and larger as it neared. "—got," he finished in a squeak, screaming as he set his jets for full-power. "Ahhhhhhh!'
The whale whistled gently, and a fin was close enough to lightly bump the top of one of the spider-legs. The ground was fast approaching, and he—had—nothing—"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Beast Boy waited until the ground was less than 10 feet below him before transforming into a cat in a green poof, landing perfectly on the top of the villain's suit. The momentum from the small feline brought them both to the ground in a bopping landing, spinning across the asphalt walkway. Gizmo peeled one eye open, still screaming his head off. Green eyes glowed in the gloomy darkness back at him, and he stopped. His legs felt like jelly. "I'm alive? I'm alive. I'm alive!"
"Fix the lion enclosure," the hero demanded from above him, human-shaped and his hands on his hips.
Gizmo had no choice but to nod in defeat. As Beast Boy watched Gizmo seal the fence, the boulder in its new spot, his T-comm buzzed in his pocket. He wasted no time in pulling it out, thinking Raven with a sting of worry, but it was Robin saying, "Titans! Get back to the Tower! I repeat, get back to the Tower as soon as possible! —after—ord—!"
"I'm outta here," Gizmo yelled before Beast Boy could think of what to do with him.
The animals had all been returned to their rightful habitat, and this had been the last spot that needed re-sealing. So Beast Boy took off like Gizmo and headed straight for the Tower with a strong flap of his wings. His friends were in danger.
The stormy rain outside reminded Katara of the Fire Nation isles, where the warmest and most humid days would warn of severe thunder and lightning strikes. They'd always had to find a cave big enough for Appa and everyone else to lay low, and though the spray of water felt like home, nothing else did. Not the red and gold she would catch in the corner of her eye, not the soldiers marching through the towns, and certainly not the unwelcoming conversations she'd overhear about Earth Kingdom barbarians and Water Tribe savages. Though, of course, no one spoke a single word of the air nomads, because how could they, there were none left other than Aang, the Avatar they had been hunting like an animal.
Lightening struck in the distance, bringing with it the crash of thunder. The lights flickered dangerously in the Tower.
Aang and Raven remained sitting on the floor, as motionless as the glaciers in the dead of winter. It had been long enough time to have three conversation over, but they were still not back yet. Their eyes glowed with the same intensity, a pure soulful white.
"They'll be okay," Sokka said without looking at her. He was perched on the heroes' couch, watching the moving pictures that detailed the parts of the city that were being attacked. He glanced at Katara when the power almost went out again, and she knew he was thinking the same thing but trying not to show it. The screen turned back on almost immediately, so Katara joined him at his side. Staring at Aang wasn't going to bring him back any faster.
Together, they watched as Starfire, a beam of green, bounced in and out of view, carrying people away from the unstable bridge. Beast Boy was a green animal, scaring smaller critters back into their cages. Katara and Sokka couldn't help but be creeped out by the scene—all the animals looked so weird, where were the elephant-mandrills, the hog-monkeys, the tigerdillos? It was like this world had surgically separated all the animals into separate creatures. The two squares below Starfire and Beast Boy showed visuals of the Jump City, with Cyborg chasing a bunch of red-clothed men who all looked the same. In the bottom right corner, the city streets were empty save for Robin's motorcycle, the bank dark and obscured.
"Is that..?" Katara got up, peering closer at the image of Cyborg and the mass of boys with the division symbol on their chest. Sokka didn't get the chance to look at what she was talking about, his eyes widening as he watched a black-cloaked figure get thrown through the window of the storefront. A pink-haired girl stepped into the rainstorm after him. Her mouth moved, and Sokka saw Robin shake off shards of glass, something suddenly in his hand, round and small.
The lights flickered again.
"Toph," Katara whispered, her eyes locked on the unnaturally shaped earth she could just barely make out. She had lost track of Cyborg for a bit, as the screen only showed her the one spot of the park, full of mud and pine trees, but the way the distant shapes moved was familiar. She'd told Cyborg about Toph, had described her power and strength. If it was her, he'd try to bring her back to them. When they'd fought Zuko at the mall, he'd been tight-lipped about the master earthbender, but this—this was good, maybe this meant that she was okay.
Then, suddenly, the screen went black. The lights above them disappeared entirely, flinging them into total darkness. The pale glow from the windows did little with the rain beating down the building, the thunder shaking the Tower with its rumbling.
Aang and Raven remained silent and still, outlined in white.
After a moment in the darkness, Sokka said, "Something doesn't feel right."
Katara couldn't help but agree. With the Tower's main power system out, there was little left to protect her friends. This felt like the Spirit Oasis all over again, waiting with Aang as he looked for a way to save her sister tribe from the Fire Nation. Zuko had shown up then too, and with the sun's glow he had taken Aang, had stolen him away. Aang had trusted her to protect him, and she had failed. She wasn't going to let that happen again. She wasn't going to let him get the jump on her this time.
"Stay here with Aang," Katara commanded, uncorking her water skin. "I'll make sure the Tower is secure."
There was silence, and then Sokka said, sounding uncertain, "I don't know if that's a good idea, Katara. This place is huge, you can't look everywhere."
"I'll be fine," she stated, already moving towards the doors.
"Katara," Sokka cautioned, and she heard him approach her side, putting a hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes, appreciating the grounding feeling, but, "I won't just sit here and wait for him to attack. Not anymore."
"I'll come with you," he immediately said, but she was already shaking her head. "No. Sokka, I need you here with Aang and Raven. In case, well, in case something happens... Please."
There was a pregnant pause, and Katara almost thought he was going to refuse, but, then, "Fine. But, yell if you need help, and I'll find you."
"Thanks," she smiled, putting her hand over his. She squeezed, and then moved forward, her brother watching her back as the doors opened. Then, she was alone in the mostly-dark hallway, the emergency lights a dim red along the floor and ceiling. She didn't know why Zuko was evil again, and she told herself that she didn't care. He had been given enough chances. As she did a sweep of the top floor, wary for any sounds or movement, she turned towards the elevator. She had.. heard something last time, when she'd been on the fourth floor.
She suspected she might hear it again.
Katara punched in the floor number and the red-lighted elevator slowly brought her down, down, and down. When the doors opened, she was met with total silence. She stepped out, and the elevator doors closed behind her, the numbers on the top counting down to one. Katara stared back at the empty hallway, seeing the same steel-plated and grey doors, closed tight. She moved along, checking each locked door thoroughly.
Ch-thunk!
She stopped. It had come from the end of the hallway—from inside the room. The door was locked, still, so without further hesitation, Katara pulled her water free and threw it on the door. She breathed out, winter trapped in her throat, and ice crystals slowly formed, encasing the steel in translucent white. Preparing herself, she let her fear and worry disappear, her eyes cold and determined when she looked up. The water in her hands blasted forward like a tsunami, and the steel didn't stand even a chance.
Katara stood tall in front of the broken entrance, water flowing over her arms, trapped like gloves.
Two teenagers stared back her in surprise. Even with the poor lighting, she could see that one only had one giant eye on his head and the other was mostly black, falling into the shadows save for the ruby-red glow of his eyes.
"Who are you?" she snarled.
"Who are you?" the one-eyed boy shot back in the same tone. The red-eyed one blinked and was maybe- nodding? She wasn't sure, finding it hard to really see much of the room. But what she could see was that (one) they didn't belong and (two) were holding half of a sword that was sprinkled with pinpricks of light like stars in the night sky. It clearly did not belong to them.
"Drop it," Katara commanded, her tone like ice.
"How about—no," One-Eyed Boy said, and he reached a hand up to the side of his head. Katara didn't need a better invitation, throwing her water forward like a dam exploding, and the other boy shouted out, gasping for air as he was thrown into a small pedestal encasing a stringed puppet, toppling the glass over. The black-clothed one was silent and entirely out of her sight. Later, Katara decided, and attacked again.
The boy spit out water, a dark scowl on his face. "Freak," he growled, but he clearly wasn't one to talk, because the next thing he did was spin a dial on the side of his helmet, propelling a giant bubble-like thing at her. Katara flowed like water and found a new path, leaning backwards and away—and the gross bubble missed her, skimming just barely over her nose and then going glurbgh as it captured whatever was on the pedestal behind her.
Suddenly, a black cape swished in front of her, the other boy appearing like a dark spirit from the shadows. Katara planted herself on the floor and fisted her hands. She threw the first punch, and the other boy dodged each one, ducking down and then to the left, right, down—and then caught her fist in a gloved hand. Katara smirked, and the ice-ball in her hand melted on command, water reaching over the other's clothes like creeping vines.
She spun, letting go of Red-Eyes to avoid another bubble-ball-thing from One-Eye. She had lost track of who had the sword. "Who are you?" she tried again.
"H.I.V.E.," One-Eyed answered as Red-Eyes was suddenly standing next to him, both watching her intently.
"Why are you here?"
"To finish the job," the same boy said.
Then she'd just have to stop them, whatever that meant. "I can't let you do that."
And so they attacked again, shrouded in grey darkness, two against one.
The Living Room was quiet and creepy without Katara there with him. Aang and Raven were doing their eerie eyes-glowing, spirit magic stuff, so they didn't really count for good company. And Sokka had also grown used to having access to lights even in the darkness of a nightly storm, but there was no place to start a fire, and he didn't want to burn their Tower down just because he was afraid of a little darkness.
He was fine. Katara probably wouldn't find anything and then she'd come back here and complain some more about Zuko betraying them.
Something skittered across the floor, like an elephant-rat rummaging through a dumpster. Sokka stopped trying to press buttons on the console.
"Hello?" he said to the room at large, hearing a faint echo from the tall walls. Quiet enveloped the room again. Sokka reached over his shoulder and brandished his boomerang. He stepped in front of the couch, in front of Aang and Raven, and faced the door. If it was anyone but Katara—
—the door swished open, and a spiky-haired teenager stood in the middle. His face was darkened by the shadows.
"Robin?" Sokka asked, lowering his weapon. "What happened? Are you okay?"
Robin walked towards him, slow and cautious. When he got closer, the hazy light from the windows cast a misty glow over the other boy's face. He looked— clean, was the first thing Sokka thought, even though the other boy had water in his hair and on his face, and then the Titan was saying to him, "I'm okay, Sokka. But Jinx— she got away with the money. Is anyone else back yet?"
Sokka followed the other boy with his eyes as the hero moved to the couch, stretching his arms over his head and cracking some bones in his back. "Did you see Katara?" Sokka questioned lightly instead of answering him, circling around the couch from the opposite side.
Robin looked surprised. "No, I thought she was with you?" He pointedly looked over to Aang and Raven, nodding, "Did she get lost trying to find the bathroom?"
Without warning, the lights turned back on—painting the world with color once more. Robin squinted back at him, appearing like he always did in clashing reds and greens. Sokka released a breath and said, "No one else is back yet."
"Ah," the hero hummed, fiddling with the rim of his belt. He stopped in front of Aang, looking at him closely. "Aang's still not back yet, huh?"
"You know him," Sokka dismissed easily, coming to stand next to his friend. "Always so easily distracted."
"Hmmm." After a long moment, Robin turned back to him. "I can take over guarding duty if you want to stretch your legs or something."
Sokka wanted to accept. Katara still wasn't back yet, and though the Tower was big, he didn't think she would actually check each floor. But— "I'm good, thanks."
Robin frowned at him. "Are you sure? I'm capable of protecting them, if you're worried about that."
Maybe he was overthinking this. Everything was probably fine, and he should go make sure Katara wasn't lost or getting into trouble. But then, he heard the elevator ding and an alarm shattered the still air.
"Raven," Starfire yelled, throwing open the door, her eyes green and a halo around her fists. A green bear followed after her, roaring dangerously. Cyborg was the last to join them in the Ops Room, a little out of breath as he stopped to lean one hand on the door-frame. "Is everything okay? We came as soon as we could."
Robin stood up, looking to them with an indecipherable expression on his face. "You're all okay?" he asked.
The three nodded and waited. Robin said, "Slade is planning on creating an army of benders. We have to stop him before he can complete his plan." He hit a fist into an open palm, a frown on his face.
It sounded legit, but Sokka's first thought still was: how? followed by, why? It didn't make sense to try to enlist benders from his world. The Fire Nation was under the strict and terrifying regime of Ozai, there was no way the power-hungry monster was going to let some random guy take his people away in the middle of a war. Not without Slade having an army himself.
..Katara still wasn't back yet.
"The sword," he realized, his eyes widening as he realized the how part of the question. Raven had said there was a broken sword that had opened an inter-dimensional portal to their world. So if that's what brought them here, then it would follow that... There was a series of gasps, and Sokka's mind went blank with fear, Katara! "Where's the sword?" he pressed.
"The evidence room," Cyborg immediately answered, and then the team were running to the elevator, brimming with nervous energy as they waited for the box to stop on the fourth floor. When it finally did, they poured out en masse. The door was broken open, flat on the floor. Boxes of evidence were toppled over, glass in cutting shards, and water pooled into the hallway, making shallow puddles.
"Katara!" Sokka shouted and threw his boomerang, not waiting for the others. The whale-ivory blade twirled through the air and then slammed into the back of a one-eyed boy's helmet, throwing him into the ground. On the floor, Katara looked back at him, her eyes a stubborn blue. With a shaky breath, she was standing up again. The water rose with her.
Starfire threw a green blast, Cyborg pointing an electric-blue weapon, locked on, and Beast Boy was a small mouse scampering through the debris in order to be next to Katara.
The villains traded a look, and then, before anyone had time to react, the one in black pulled his hood over his head, the sword clutched to his chest, and then he— disappeared. The one with only one large eye stared back at them, blank-faced.
"What do we do now?" Beast Boy asked after he turned back, looking towards the door where his team was standing, concern on their faces. Beast Boy slanted his head when he noticed, "Hey, where's Robin?"
Their leader was no where to be found.
.â“„.đź…ž...â“„.đź…ž.
Author's Note: Cheers. :)
UPDATE: this was re-written 7/16/23.