Remnant of Titans
AN: A new series from me, not that I'm dropping the Issues series at all, but something to help keep ideas fresh and turning. At the same time, like my Issues series, this is more of a rewrite than anything else. While not tied to the Issues Series, it will be able to later down the road if needed/desired. That being said, besides the most basic of the premise this will follow the 'movies'. Now on with the show!
Issue 1- A Grimm Introduction
Bumblebee flew overhead for this joint mission between the Titans East and West. Apparently the period of peace and quiet that the teams had enjoyed had come to an end thanks to their enemies combining forces for some big project.
Having shrunk herself and taken high in the skies, the leader of Titans East was serving as air reconnaissance for the group. Watching her back is Beast Boy in the form of a crow.
"B's, how are we looking?"
Their resident tech expert, Cyborg, was asking for their report.
"Situation looks how you would expect. Bunch of grunts on patrols everywhere. Don't try taking any out, their routes overlap with two others."
"Noted." The young but skilled leader of the West team, Robin, responded.
"Anything else?" The mage of the team, Raven, asks in her usual deadpan tone.
Bumblebee continued her report. "Yeah, they have a few of the Hive students wandering with no set paths that I can tell. Not exactly anyone noteworthy but definitely more trouble than the guards."
"They will not be a threat to us." The alien known as Starfire was certainly confident.
"Don't get too cocky, the big guns are further in." Bee warns.
"And they put up a force field around whatever they're doing." The archer known as Speedy adds from his high vantage point, having scaled a shadowy wall to achieve that.
"I'm in position to keep them from escaping by sea. Their ships will have some trouble leaving but not impossible." Aqualad chimed in from the water. His ability to breath the liquid, dive deep without problems, swim faster than most machines, and communicate with the sea life made him the perfect asset to watch that escape route.
"Beetle, can you scan what they are working on?" Robin asks over the comms.
"I'm trying but the force field is interfering. What does get through is confusing the Scarab." The young man in the alien suit responds as he did his best to avoid patrols without tipping them off.
"Glad I'm not the only one." Cyborg comments as he tries getting his own readings with inconclusive results.
"Great, so we are basically going in blind against whatever they are building there." Robin scoffs at the lack of intel.
Cyborg jumped back on the radio again. "Hey, just be glad that we can talk at all. They have scramblers set up and I've been lucky enough to work through that."
Many of their old foes were present tonight. Aside from roughly one hundred grunts with little more than some high tech guns and possibly a few other gadgets, the old Hive students have a variety of different powers, though Gizmo seems to be absent from the patrols. Instead, the young and foul mouthed technology genius was inside the force field assisting Brother Blood with the device.
But there were other threats around, Adonis in his battle suit, Angel flew low around the docks, Mammoth lumbered around looking like he was itching to hit something, See-More was found providing some assistance to Gizmo in the field, Billy Numerous was a threat if he could make enough of himself but there were already several clones on patrol, Kyd Wykkyd was spotted in the shadows, Cinderblock, Overload, and Plasmus were threats that none should try dealing with alone.
Doctor Light was seen near the force field, likely either protecting the generator or being the source of the field. Johnny Rancid was someone that Robin didn't want to see again, and signs of Mad Mod's hypnosis tech were around though mostly in the form of his various combat robots. Madame Rouge was present and served as a final guard by the force field while Mumbo was out near the edges of the dock. Steamroller and several Slade robots were walking around, drawing more than a little ire from the team.
And the worst part was knowing that wasn't the full list.
"What is the plan, Robin? Shall we hit them?" Starfire asks her leader.
He thought about the situation carefully. There was no way that so many from their rogues gallery would gather together without something big being in play.
He had no idea how the villains got out of prison, especially with so many of them having been frozen the last time he had seen them during their attempt to draw in all of the Titans by ambushing and capturing a few of them as bait for the rest.
Sure, the Titans may have won in the end but there were far too many close calls and reliance on sheer luck during that fight.
This time, he had thought ahead, given the small amount of details they had. Having anticipated that this would be another trap, he had called in Titans from everywhere, having the East team assisting with scouting and doubling their combat effectiveness once needed. The others, along with part of the East team, were lying in wait nearby.
And now was looking like a good time to bring them in.
"Jynx, do you read me?"
"Yeah, I'm here. I still don't get why you made me a team leader." The bad luck girl and former villain called back. She may have left the life of villainy behind but she still didn't want to try getting involved in hero work. At the same time, she had been contacted for assistance in this mission… She did know many of the more powerful adversaries quite well and their strengths and weaknesses. Yet she also couldn't help but feel that she was being used to gain some revenge on these people, which she didn't exactly hesitate to jump on.
"You have experience and you'll see this through." Robin told her in a tone that he was putting every bit of their bad past behind him so that they could both succeed here. And if her ears deceived her, there was a little bit of hope that this would be the start of a trend for redemption for her acts in that past.
"Maybe… yeah."
"Good, bring your team in and get to work. We're gonna need some of these goons drawn away."
"Hmmm… one big distraction coming up."
She turned to her team- Kid Flash, Hot Spot, Red Star, and Bushido. Alright, you heard the little birdie, let's get over there and take these goons down."
"Kole?"
"Oh, you need us too?" The youngest of the Titans of any team, she was a bit of a surprise to have been made the leader. But the trick was that she could keep a cool head and had a knack for getting the others with her to listen… particularly since the powers for most of them could be quite destructive, so things had to be serious when they were called in.
"Yeah, we need you guys to make some noise and take out the bad guys so my team can get in and stop the device from doing… whatever they are trying to do."
"You got it!"
Thunder and Lightning grinned wildly at the prospect of cutting loose while Wildebeest and Killowat were more tame. Kale's best friend Gnarrk stood ready to fight her enemies.
Robin and the others didn't have to wait long to hear the familiar cries of "Titans go!" And it took even less time for many of the enemies to scramble to the erupting fights where bolts of electricity and energy blasts had already begun wrecking havoc among the villains.
"Aqualad, stir up some trouble with Mas y Menos."
"Thought you'd never ask." Moments later waves began crashing hard against the docks, with each one rising higher than the last. For some of the goons guarding the area, they thought it was a result of the device their bosses were using, though that began to change as a red and white blur zipped around and began hitting them.
A wave swept over the docks to push the downed men to the side, but that turned out to be merciful as Cinderblock came charging in.
While the massive concrete humanoid could not hit the rather short but fast twins at all, they couldn't do anything to him either.
The dim-witted villain was stopped by a geyser of water, courtesy of the water manipulation of Aqualad. "Your fight is with me, not them." He grins as raised his hands on either side of himself to gather the remaining water from the ground as swords. "Even if Mas y Menos can be annoying most of the time."
"Ey!" They didn't have time to shout at their teammate any more as the goons began firing on them, forcing the pair to clasp hands to activate their power and run at said enemies.
Robin watched as the fights went on, the various fighters destroying the docks with their powers but could be rebuilt with time, whatever that machine in the force field could do was most likely far more dangerous.
Plasmus plodded into the inner circle, drawing Madam Rouge's attention. "Go! Overwhelm those Titans! Nothing must interfere with what we are doing." At her order, the giant shape shifting toxic goo monster ran off towards the fighting.
"Alright, the rest of us will move in, bring down that force field, and stop that device from doing… whatever it's meant to do." Robin ordered over his communicator.
"Got it!/On my way!" The rest of the team responded, glad to get back to fighting the villains.
"And did you really think that you could sneak up on me?" A woman's voice with a Russian accent spoke from next to Robin, making him jump and throw a backhanded strike out of reflex.
Madam Rouge caught his wrist in her hand easily with a cruel smile. But with her here, how was she there to give orders?
Robin glanced back at the woman he had been watching and then to the one holding him… realizing that she hadn't attacked with her other arm because it was stretched to the ground to become the 'shadow' of the woman guarding the force field.
Or was it that the woman by the field the real Madam Rouge and the one holding him was just a piece of her? It's not like he hadn't already tried beating her by flash freezing and shattering her body, she had simply pulled her pieces back together.
None of that really mattered as the woman from the field began running his way, her arms reforming into blades and jumped at him.
At the last moment, Robin kicked up into the arm holding him, his boot making her hand release him so he could dive out of the path of the sharp arms that cut through the 'clone' with ease. And while the woman gasped at the pain she had inflicted upon herself, she quickly healed that by re-emerging the halves together and then absorbed the entire 'clone' back into herself.
"Ah, now you will fight me at my full strength." She declared as she felt whole once more.
Robin drew his staff and prepped one of his explosives. "Bring it on. This time I'll make sure that you are put into a cell that you can't escape from."
—-
Over with Cyborg, he meant to make a run for the force field generator and Doctor Light but a wall appeared and he slammed into it face first, the screen on his side flickering a bit from the impact.
"Ah, ah, ah, ducky! You need to watch where you're going!" A British accented voice came from behind the young man as he caught his bearings. "In fact, let me teach you a lesson that you won't forget!"
Half a dozen marble pillars on small wheels with a steel box sitting on top with a pair of 'ears' on the side were what greeted Cyborg when he turned around, along with Mad Mod himself right behind them. Wide grin, red hair, and squared glasses along with his trusty cane, the man was ready to fight.
"Come on man, your little toys don't work on us!" Cyborg declares as his right arm shifted to use its sonic cannon and aimed it at the drones.
Two of the drones' 'ears' flipped outwards and fired their own sonic blasts, canceling out Cyborg's and throwing him back against the wall.
"Aw… you should know that to stay ahead in this world, one must always do their homework!" He punctuated that with a jab of his cane into the hero's metallic chest, pushing him over before he could rise to his feet again.
The older man stepped back behind his drones once more as the other four revealed that they had their own variety of weapons from energy blasters to chain guns, even saws.
"Now, detention is mandatory." And the drones began to open fire.
—-
Up high with Bumblebee and Beast Boy, they began to dive down with the latter changing to an eagle partway down and the former reverting back to full size.
Just when they were both close enough to really make out the finer details of the ground and spotting Robin and Cyborg under attack, at least two dozen of the combat robots and goons began firing at them, forcing the pair to separate and dodge.
"It looks like they knew we were coming!" Bumblebee shouted over the wind before she shrank to make herself a smaller target.
In response, Beast Boy let out a shriek of agreement before becoming a hummingbird.
The tiny duo weaved through the blasts until they were at ground level to fight the enemies directly, Beast Boy going after the robots and hammering at their eyes as a woodpecker and Bumblebee returning to full size to kick a goon in the chest so that they fell into a nearby open barrel where they were now stuck.
"Did you really think you could take us on?" A voice very familiar to Beast Boy came from the shadows from which a figure with only their left eye emerged.
Shifting to a bear to smack the nearest trio of robots away, Beast Boy returned to human form to speak. "Slade? But you're dead! How are you here?!"
Slade clapped his hands. "Did you believe that I wouldn't have a contingency plan in the event that would ever happen?" His voice was as slow, low, and menacing as ever, ensuring that anyone who heard him would pay attention to every word. "For me, it was a simple matter of copying my brain functions and everything in it into a computer. From there, I could upload myself into new bodies as I wished."
Bumblebee took down the last goon in their immediate vicinity with an uppercut. "Wait… bodies?"
As if on cue, three more 'Slade' robots stepped out from behind corners, each identical to the first. "Yes, bodies." They spoke as one.
The first one spoke on his own now. "And don't worry, each of us are as strong as the original body, so your ends will be that much quicker with more of me."
"O-oh yeah?!" Beast Boy tried to keep his composure and stomp down the memories of the beatings he and his friends had gotten from Slade when he was alive. Not to mention what he did to Terra. "You spent months going after Robin to be your apprentice, why go after us?"
The Slade's chuckled. "Oh, that is an easy one… I happened to be here when you attacked."
The second Slade spoke now. "And Madam Rouge got to him first."
"Now, let's see if you've gotten any better while I've been gone." The third says.
The fourth stepped closer as the others simply stood to watch, blocking their escapes. "And besides, defeating his friends is an excellent way to break Robin, so I may have my apprentice yet." And then Four attacked.
—
Starfire took to the air at the signal and raced toward the force field. However, Doctor Light saw her and instantly raised his arm to release a bright flash, blinding the Tamaranian princess momentarily, but that was more than enough for Angel to surprise her in midair and deliver a powerful drop kick to the aliens back, slamming her to the ground.
Speedy was nearby but was distracted by something in the shadows moving along with shielding his eyes from the flash.
A hand wrapped in darkness rose from the roof he was on, grasping for his leg, missing as the archer jumped backwards.
Heavy footsteps pounded at the temporarily airborne man, making him look as the hand receded back into the shadows, only to find a yellow hexagonal shield and the arm holding it swinging at him. Too late to do anything, he braced for impact and was promptly slammed by the metal hard enough that he cleared the roof and fell to the ground near Starfire.
"Why do I have the feelings that we were expected?" Starfire comments as she sits up rubbing her head. It would take a lot more than a simple fall to the ground to take her out of the fight, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel some pain from it.
Speedy blinked the stars from his eyes, watching as Private H.I.V.E. went from three to one as his vision cleared. "Ugh, no need to explain, I got the message."
"Time to take them down a few pegs." The yellow armored man grins as he cracks his knuckles. Kyd Wykyd melted out of the shadows, remaining silent but nodding in agreement with a smile. Angel stayed in the air, ready for anything.
"Great, a girl with wings and a knockoff Raven." Speedy scoffs as he reaches his quiver but did not choose one yet.
"And what does that make the other one?" Starfire asks out of genuine curiosity, causing the archer to smirk.
"Eh, just some doofus who's trying too hard to copy someone else but thinks they can get away with giving it a honey flavor."
Private H.I.V.E. blinked in confusion at those words before glancing down at himself, with Kyd looking at him curiously to find the connection.
In the air, Angel made the connection far faster than her colleagues and slapped her forehead in frustration. "Just get them!"
At least they followed her command without hesitation. In response, Speedy drew a pair of arrows and Starfire's eyes and hands glowed bright green.
—
Blue Beetle may be one of the newest to the roster but he was no slouch, able to deal with many of the toughest threats he and the Titans have faced… so long as Scarab cooperates with him. How often that would be tended to vary as it always wanted control but could be convinced to let him handle things himself, which became easier as he became more adept at using the Scarabs abilities. Granted, the stronger the opponents, the more the Scarab would insist on taking full control. That had led to the young man taking more of a beating than he'd like while having to argue with the alien attached to his spine.
And it seemed that he'd be arguing again tonight as Mammoth slammed his massive fist into the armor's side. The Scarab had told him that there were no signs of the brute noticing him as he was sneaking across a wall… until the moment that Robin gave the order to attack.
"Ow." Beetle sat up from the ground rubbing his head. He didn't really feel too much thanks to the armor created by the Scarab but Mammoth had the raw strength to hit hard enough for him to feel it.
Mammoth moved to punch him again, this time with his full mass to put behind it, and Beetle shifted his right hand to his white noise cannon and fired, pushing the massive man back against the wall the fight had started from.
But he was so tough that he shrugged off the attack with little more than a shake of his head.
"Oh boy." This fight wasn't going to end any time soon.
—-
Raven took to the air once she heard the signal from Robin. Her biggest problem was that she was the closest to where the main fight was breaking out and had to dodge more than a few blasts from allies and enemies alike that slowed her down.
That was until a swarm of Slade's old robot goons attacked her with a bunch of energy blasters, forcing her to drop from the air and deal with them.
Erecting a dark magic barrier in front of her with one hand, she used the other to telepathically throw one robot into a few more to get them to stop shooting. Dropping her shield, she used both hands to control the energy that scooped them up and crushed them together, resulting in a pile of mangled metal bodies and limbs.
"I am not in the mood for them." She deadpans before preparing to head for the force field again. On pure instinct, she stopped mid step just as a red and green blade of energy swung through the air where she would have been.
"Aw man! So close!"
Raven recognized the weapon and voice. "Oh great… the couch potato with a suped up remote." She rolled her eyes as she turned to face the wannabe 'top villain'.
What she found was something unexpected- the rotund television nerd was no longer there but the man before her was now fit and muscular, his hair pulled back into a bun while his beard was grown out and tied into a pair of tails. He still wore the same outfit as before, though refitted to suit his leaner physique, aside from gauntlets he now wore along with a pair of fancy, high tech looking boots, even having some sort of blaster on his hip somewhat concealed by his long coat with his iconic universal remote on the other side.
"Umm… who are you?"
"Hmph! Trying to disregard me like before? That will be your downfall!" He began. "I have trained in boxing with Stoney, trained as a ninja under Master Thorn, studied Kung Fu with Master Chinchilla, scoured my lessons of swordsmanship from across the franchises, and built upon my arsenal to have even more surprises in store for you… for I am Control Freak!"
"Huh? You watched some fitness videos and followed their instructions?" She managed to combine curiosity, apathy, and dismissal all in one.
"They were quite enjoyable to watch, a little harder to follow… at first. But the results speak for themselves." He took a deep breath. "I'm your worst nightmare."
Raven narrowed her eyes. "My worst nightmare? You don't even make the list."
Control Freak just grinned at that. "Then allow me to add my name to it."
"No… Azarath! Metrion! Zin-!" She was stopped short from her usual focusing words as she found herself unable to speak… at least audibly.
Control Freak lowered his remote, having used it to mute his opponent. "Haha! Now, let us have some fun." Using the remote, he brought into existence from the Television Dimension to reality a pair of monsters, one looking like a cross between a large dog and a lizard with four eyes and the other a giant insect with mantis-like scythes for arms.
But the man wasn't done yet as he clipped the remote back to his belt and drew from a pouch on his chest what turned out to be smoke bombs once he threw them at Raven's feet, shrouding the area in a white haze.
It didn't help her any that the man had turned off his glowing sword and that both monsters were in black and white, this blending into the fog easily.
'Oh great, he wasn't lying about training as a ninja.' Raven thought to herself as she felt Control Freak's presence fade away to near absence as he moved silently through the fog. Then the beasts attacked.
—-
Back at the device, Brother Blood gazed up on it as Gizmo worked, the minuscule technological genius with a bad attitude could only be seen by his feet as the rest of him was inside the control panel, his size helping him in this regard. See-More would hand him tools as 'requested' while monitoring power levels of said device.
The machine was large by design as a much smaller version had been created by the trio as a proof of concept, though nothing larger than a mouse could pass through it. This new, much larger machine was now capable of transporting an entire city… if the aperture was opened wide enough and was provided the needed power. Even the small one had consumed so much power that it had shut down the lab they had built it in, and that had its own private nuclear generator.
But now, they had a new generator, or rather several generators, that put the one from the lab to shame. That one was like a candle to the bonfire that each of these generators are.
Of course, Blood had a bit of a design added to them so that they would be hexagonal, golden yellow units the size of cars that surrounded the device they were powering.
Said device stood several times taller than even Cinderblock, not including the focusing tines that were each as long as the concrete brute is tall. The whole machine was painted black and covered in hexagon panels, each with their own golden trimmings.
They may have left H.I.V.E. behind years ago but some elements were just too personal to not keep with them.
"How much longer boys?" Brother Blood asks, keeping any impatience he had well under control as his plan was going as he had expected. This time, now that he had gathered the Titans and their newest allies, he was not going to give them a chance to come back from being frozen. No, he was going to send them all somewhere to suffer with no hopes of returning.
"Give me a few seconds!" Gizmo yelled from inside the machine, his feet being pulled inside. "Just connecting this last power coupling."
As rude as the bald boy is, he made up for it with his prowess with all things technology. Anything that he did not know, he could learn and adapt to new, alien technology almost intuitively, needing only a few minutes at most to study its parts to understand most of it and the rest would come from experience as he worked on it.
See-More had his own quirks, mostly relating to the theme of eyes, for whatever reason. But he did have plenty of tricks in that helmet of his that allowed him to play critical support for his teammates. Given that he had made that helmet himself, it was a display of his own technological ability that put him above many of his peers.
"Alright, Googly-Eye, hit the power!"
See-More flipped the large switch as instructed and the power systems hummed to life, the young man watching through his helmet as the device came to life, its various systems brimming with power that was tightly controlled and the machine as a whole pulsed as if it had a heartbeat of its own.
"Hahaha! It's working!" Gizmo cheered as he crawled out of the machine, quickly attaching the panel. Moments later, four large mechanical spider-like legs emerged from his backpack and lifted him up to the control panel where he began to check the readouts of the various gauges on the screens.
"Everything under control?" Brother Blood asks the genius as the boy typed on the controls.
"Oh-hohoho! It's working better than the prototypes! It's like it works best on the large scale instead of the tiny ones we tested! I can't wait to use it on those booger munchers!"
"Quite. Now make sure it is ready for use. You do remember the coordinates of that world with bloodthirsty monsters on it, correct?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"Good, it seems that our first guests are on their way."
See-More looked up to his former headmaster. "You know, there were a couple places like that. Why choose that one?"
Blood looked down at the young man. "Because… in that world, those beasts seemed to be particularly inclined to destroy mankind. What better place to send them than one where they could never rest?"
"And not just because the land we saw was desolate of everything but those beasts?" Gizmo paused to ask the question with a grin.
"Oh, that is a bonus. Had I the means, I would enjoy watching them struggle to survive. Perhaps we could place bets on who would go down first or last the longest?" Brother Blood sounded whimsical at the thought.
"Something to work on once we finish this then. I'll make it my top priority once we get rid of these #%*}."
Brother Blood raised an eyebrow… granted, it was his only eyebrow left since he had himself converted into a cyborg after stealing Cyborg's blueprints. The tech genius was known for his rather colorful vocabulary but even in all of his years, he had never heard that one used, even among the worst villains on Earth. Still, the enthusiasm was welcome. "Yes, you do that. See-More will continue his assistance in the project." Both boys nodded in agreement.
It didn't take long for the machine to take on a life of its own as the air seemed to pulse around it from the power flowing through its systems.
—-
Bumblebee and Beast Boy were thrown to the ground in front of Doctor Light by Slade. "Make sure that they don't go anywhere." The robot orders. The man complied, quickly the pair in his own light barriers so they couldn't escape.
It's not as though the robots had beaten them without suffering their own damage- one was missing an arm and legs courtesy of the jaws of a T. Rex, another had been left twitching and nearly split in half after Bee had stunned it with a good shock and leaving it open for the ankylosaurus club tail to smash it through a wall.
Madam Rouge came carrying Robin soon after looking worse for wear. The young man was currently wrapped up in her arms, looking more like he was being constricted by a pair of pythons.
And in all honesty, Robin would have preferred that he was fighting snakes.
As he was, only his head and feet were left exposed and the former sporting a number of bruises and an eye swelling shut. Though he was aware enough to recognize the Slade robots, and began thrashing in his confines until Rouge threw him into a containment field, courtesy of Doctor Light, before it could close.
"Slade?! How?! You were dead! Twice!" Robin yelled from inside his bubble and pounded his fists against it as hard as he could.
Despite the light bubble doing a remarkable job at silencing Robin, the Slade's still heard him and walked over. "Ah, there you are… You certainly have grown since the last time we met."
The other knocked on the bubble of light to get a ringing sound right over Robin's head. "Perhaps he has but given our current situation we may not truly need him as our apprentice."
The first leaned on the bubble. "But then again, we did enjoy the time converting him."
"True." Slade Two agreed. Then he turned to face Robin face to face. "How about one last shot? You become my apprentice and you will be spared the fate of your little friends tonight?"
"Slade! That was never our agreement when you freed us!" Madam Rouge yells at the man turned sentient robot.
The robot glared at her with his single eye. "And do you think you are in any position to argue? He nearly beat you already tonight."
The second Slade stood ready to fight if needed behind him, while giving the same glare. "Putting you back in ice would be just as easy as getting you out."
Rouge glared at them before eventually backing off.
"Let me out of here and I'll make sure she's back in prison for good and you will stay gone… permanently." Robin threatens the pair with all of the venom he could muster.
"And now you see why I wanted him as my apprentice." Slade One crossed his arms as Two made a show of shaking his head. "He has the skills, the drive to follow through with any course of action to get results… almost, and the need to be the best he can be."
Two added on. "It's just a pity that his former teacher left such an impression on him. Such tight morals yet so willing to stretch them as far as they can go. Makes me want to see them break."
The conversation ended as Raven was thrown towards them looking rough around the edges. Doctor Light caught her in one of his bubbles with a grin- she was the one he most wanted to be rid of.
Control Freak followed soon after, walking casually but a little scuffed up from the fighting. Following him was some large monster with tentacles which was sent back to the Television Dimension by his remote as he gave the pair of far more notorious villains a bow.
"Thanks to your assistance in my training, she was surprisingly easy to take down."
Both Slade's and Rouge had their doubts about the man before and had added onto his training. They both had seen that his greatest skill in combat was unpredictability thanks to his Universal Remote. Throwing in a few other gadgets to make up for any flaws or being surprised himself and he had become a formidable force, especially once he had gotten into shape.
But his knowledge of the Titans and his arsenal proved to be his greatest assets, having kept Raven reacting to him rather than taking the offensive herself during their fight. Thus leading to her capture now.
A pool of shadow grew from that cast by Madam Rouge, with Kyd Wykyd rising up with Starfire in hand. Technically, he held her ankle and she was still struggling, his saving grace being that she was thrown for a loop within his shadows and that reduced her combat ability.
Doctor Light wasted no time capturing the alien girl, nearly taking Kyd's hand with her.
Angel flew overhead, obviously trying to not fall from the air thanks to her injuries from fighting Speedy, but she had taken advantage of the ropes tied around her legs to hook his bow, and thanks to his grip on the weapon, he came along for the ride.
And she made sure that he hit everything along the way that she could before flying high and diving, slamming the archer into the ground but setting herself up for a hard tumble along the concrete as well.
As with the others, Doctor Light encapsulated the hero, weapon and all.
Speedy saw the Slade's and narrowed his eyes. "Oh great, of course you'd be back… somehow."
He was ignored by all but the Titans, though Kyd hurried over to help Angel get up and tend to some of her wounds.
The pair were nearly crushed under a falling Cyborg. The reason was because the young man had been hurled into the air after a couple of rockets had exploded far too close for his comfort, destroying the roof of a building and making him fly.
His fight with Mad Mod hadn't gone well, the man always had layers of traps and tricks between himself and his opponents and the robots that he'd send out to do the majority of the fighting for him, while cheap and mostly disposable, were easily replaceable while having enough power individually to be a concern…. And they always came in swarms capable of coming from any direction.
Needless to say, Cyborg had been on the back foot the entire time and while he gave Mod a good run, he was unable to force an opening to exploit so he could go after the man controlling everything, leading to his current situation of lying in a crater created by his own body next to an injured girl with wings and a boy who's entire existence was about silent shadows.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Mad Mod himself stepped into the light of the massive machine with his cane striking the ground. "Oi! Mind wrapping this up, Doctor?!" He pointed at Cyborg as he was sitting up slowly.
"What!? Hey!" And Cyborg was captured like the others, though he pounded his fists against his prison a few times before recognizing the futility.
It helped that a series of crashing sounds caught everyone's attention, the source turning out to be Mammoth being slammed through the nearest wall propelled by Blue Beetle and his jet wings, the armored boy giving the massive brute a powerful uppercut in the gut just as they slammed into the force field protecting the device.
While the defensive layer held, visible vibrations rippled across it from the impact point.
The pair fell to the ground near the rest of the Titans and their captors but they were so focused on their fight that they didn't notice they had an audience, too busy laying into each other with punches that could crush cars.
"Light! Don't let them near the generator!" Brother Blood orders from inside the shield but now was worried the battle could destroy the machine that produced the force field, possibly harming the device they had spent so much effort planning and building for this night.
The light based villain acted quickly, blasting Mammoth in the chest, surprising both fighters with the interference, leaving the newest Titan open to be captured immediately after Mammoth was out of the way.
"What the?! Hey, let me out!" Beetle yelled from his prison as the pair of legs from the Scarab that rose over his shoulders shot lasers from the tips at the wall of light only to find the effort useless.
"Slade." Brother Blood called out from his place above the robots. "I believe it would be best for us to remove this batch from our world now. Less risk of them getting out somehow."
Slade One looked at Robin. "Last chance."
"I'd rather die." The caped hero glared at the assassin.
Slade Two faced Blood. "You heard him, grant his wish."
Brother Blood grinned. "Gladly. Doctor Light, the barrier, if you would be so kind."
The force field protecting the device was shut down and the pulses echoed across the docks. Gizmo fully activated the machine and the focusing tines glowed as they began to spin, what looked like a black hole soon forming in the center, growing steadily larger to fill the space between the tines.
Then the device revealed that it had articulating joints that brought the black hole down to face the trapped heroes, a wind picking up as it drew closer to the ground that was drawn into the hole.
"Time for your execution." Slade boasted to the Titans over the noise, odd that he didn't seem to need to raise his volume to be heard.
"Oh no you don't!" Lightning flew over the wreckage and hurled a bolt at the villains.
"Sorry we're late." Thunder apologized as he followed his brother's attack with a clap of his hands, sending a sonic boom across the battlefield.
Together, the two attacks knocked Mad Mod off his feet… only to be pulled and sucked into the black hole with a scream of fear.
A battle overhead brought Killer Moth and Argent nearby where the latter flew ahead and past the black hole with her opponent right behind her. Just as he was about to pass the device, she blasted him in the chest and arrested his momentum as he was stunned. Unfortunately for him, that left him open to be sucked in as well.
"Daddy!" Apparently Kitten had been nearby and saw what happened to her father. It was then that her anger got the best of her and she lashed out with her plasma whip at Argent, wrapping the weapon around her waist and bringing the girl down out of sight, where the blonde rushed to handle things personally.
"Get them in there now!" Brother Blood orders.
Madam Rouge didn't hesitate to stretch her arm out to lift the nearest prison, Beast Boy's, up to where it was taken by the wind. Bumblebee followed soon after as Slade made sure that Robin watched as he threw Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire into the hole.
Rouge tossed Beetle up while Slade leaned down to glare at Robin, "Don't worry, you'll be seeing them soon… maybe."
With that last taunt, he threw Robin after the others. Though Thunder tried to save him with a sonic boom, all he managed to do was damage the machine and throw Gizmo into the black hole, the short young man letting out a stream of curses that probably could have peeled the paint off the walls if anyone could hear him clearly.
But the eight heroes and trio of villains had been taken in by the black hole.
"No! You fool!" Brother Blood panicked as he rushed to the controls and tried to regain control of the machine with See-More's assistance. The machine was shut down, causing the black hole to fade away and the machine to return to its normal setting as a tower.
However, the rest of the Titans began gathering around them, many looking worse for wear but ready to keep fighting. A few of the villains had retreated ahead of them, but only a handful.
The Slade's shared a glance and escaped, prompting the other major threats to beat feet as well, Kyd Wykyd had long disappeared with Angel and See-More flew off with his balloon eye. Rouge took to a boat, which she used her hand to cut the seaweed from the propeller before fleeing and Brother Blood escaped with jets in his feet and wings from his back.
Anyone that was left had to fend for themselves against the heroes.
—-
Inside the black hole, the trio of villains found themselves tossed about as if they were in a tornado, with Mod managing to hold onto his cane and Gizmo trying in vain to find some means of escape. Killer Moth had already tried and failed to fly out, settling for just keeping himself as stable as possible.
As for the eight heroes… they were having a far worse time. It wasn't just because they couldn't even attempt to fight their forced travel, but because they were still trapped in those spheres of light. And as spheres trapped in a whirlwind, they were tossed about and into each other over and over again, rattling them within their prisons to a sickening degree. Even Beast Boy was looking greener than normal.
But the light barriers couldn't hold out forever against the punishment, shattering and exposing the Titans to the turbulent winds.
"Starfire!" Robin could barely be heard over the roar of the cyclone.
"Robin!" She was having no better luck.
"BB! Raven!" Cyborg managed to grab onto the pair.
Bumblebee and Beetle grabbed hands before the latter did his best to swing her to catch Speedy. In the process, the archer managed to kick off of Robin to complete the catch, simultaneously pushing Robin into Starfire's arms.
Before they knew it, the whirlwind began to grow brighter, with them falling towards the light. A pulse of energy hit them as they emerged from the turmoil, slowing their fall but at the same time, something of themselves was left behind- ghostly forms of themselves were trapped in the barrier with Bumblebee's, Starfire's, Raven's, and Beast Boy's being the most prominent of the group.
For those who took notice of the event, they didn't have time to think about it thanks to the group impacting the ground, knocking them out.
—
Cyborg was the first to recover, his mostly mechanical body handling the abrupt loss of velocity better than the others, though Blue Beetle was soon to follow as his armor took the worst of the hit for him.
"Aye… what happened?" Beetle sat up, letting his helmet retract off his head.
"No idea." Cyborg answered as he scanned the rest of the group, tending to their injuries as best he can without supplies.
The young man stood up shakily to take a look around them as the larger man continued his care. They were in a forest, a vibrant one at that. The air was clean and fresh, a far cry from what they had been used to fighting in the city. Birds sang around them, though none of the songs were familiar.
"Umm… how long were we out?"
Cyborg stood up and pointed to a nearby clearing. "When I woke up, my systems told me I had been out cold for half an hour. But that… is where we landed." In that clearing there were a trio of craters that were roughly human shaped.
Beetle whistled at the damage before rolling his shoulders.
"Yeah, I feel that too. We both took the worst of the landing when we fell for the others. Star took care of Robin there." He shifted his finger to the smaller crater, which made sense since despite Starfire's height being greater than the rest of the group said from Cyborg himself, she did have less mass with her upon impact.
"Any idea where we are… ya know, besides in the forest?"
"Beats me, I'm not getting anything from GPS satellites." Cyborg points up for emphasis. "Weird thing is that I'm picking up some other signals, possibly ground based. It's kinda weak but I've been trying to decode them since I found them."
"And that's been?"
"About five minutes before you woke up. Been a bit occupied."
Glancing at their unconscious friends, it was easy to see why. Robin had his right arm in a splint made of sticks and vines… on top of his injuries from the fight, Raven had her left leg bandaged up, likely using all of what Cyborg had on him. Beast Boy has a large welt on his forehead and a black eye and Bumblebee was laid on her side as one of her wings looked to be broken. Starfire was pretty tough, looking like she may only have a few minor scrapes and bruises.
"Hey, there's a small stream over there." Cyborg points to his right. "Think you can check if it's good to drink?"
Beetle found it and used the Scarab to analyze the clear, cool water, finding that it was drinkable. Shifting his armor, he was able to filter any particulates as he filled a small tank on his back. Once done, he reversed the flow from his pump, getting a drink for himself as he realized how parched he was.
But while he did, he felt that he was being watched and may have heard something. Scarab wasn't saying anything, in fact it had been rather quiet since the fight unless he spoke to it directly. Unusual given that it generally would ask for control nearly every day.
Dismissing it as his paranoia, he made his way back to the others where Bumblebee and Starfire had woken up.
The boys provided both with a report of their situation and some water, though they had to listen to Bee as she grumbled about her wing and it would take a week for it to heal so she could fly again.
That was when they heard growling from the trees around them. Starfire was the first to spot the danger. "What is that?!"
The others turned to find five beasts stalking their way towards them. They were large and wolf-like, pitch black fur and what looked like bones jutting out from their arms and spines, with matching bone white claws and exposed ribs, even a few small patches of white plates as armor. But the most jarring feature was the head as there was no fur or skin except for where the throat met the lower jaw and the ears, the rest was white skull with glowing red eyes in the sockets.
"I have no idea, Star, but they don't look friendly." Cyborg took a position between the beasts and the injured.
Starfire and Bee stood up ready to fight as Beetle disconnected his water tank and his helmet covered his head, ready for combat.
Both Cyborg and Beetle shifted their arms to their sonic cannons, the beasts deciding then to attack by lunging at them with teeth and claws, both boys having the same thoughts when they reared up. 'They look like werewolves!'
Two of the 'werewolves' were immediately blasted back and the follow-up attacks from the girls…. Never came.
Cyborg glanced back at them. "Hey, what's up?"
"Ummm…" Star tried to use her usual attacks but nothing came from her hands, nor her eyes.
Cyborg was surprised by the development that he was tackled by one of the beasts and knocked on his back, though he got the last laugh when it tried to bite onto his arm and wound up breaking its teeth. "Not today, Fido!" He found time to quip before punching the stunned creature off of himself.
Likewise, Bee found that her electric stings weren't happening, leading her to further confusion and frustration. That forced Beetle to cover for her with a second sonic weapon that blasted one of the 'werewolves' into a tree where it fell limply.
The last beast slipped around the boys and went after the girls, seemingly drawn by their distress. Starfire jumped in preparation to fly out of reach. The beast passed by to strike nothing but air, yet turned to find a surprised target laying on the ground confused.
It didn't waste the opportunity and leapt on her.
"Eeeeeep!" Wack!
Apparently Starfire hadn't lost everything as she was able to kick the 'werewolf' in the chest before it could hit her hard enough to throw it back to where it had jumped from.
Now the beast was the surprised one and it didn't get a chance to gain its bearings as Bee kicked its face as hard as she could, snapping its head sideways.
"Dios Mio… what were those things?" Beetle asks now that the battle is over.
"I have no idea." Cyborg was going to take a closer look at them when each of the bodies began to smoke, quickly evaporating the entire body. "Okay… that is not normal."
"No need to tell me twice, I saw it amigo."
"Ugh… what happened?" Robin finally woke up to see the two girls trying to manifest their powers through their hands and the rest of the group still asleep as Cyborg and Blue Beetle looked at him.
Cyborg gave his friend a flat look, already done with the insanity of the day. "Robin… let's just wait for the others to wake up so I only have to go over this one more time."
"Umm, okay." He looked around to find that they were in a forest. "But where are we?"
"I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't on Earth anymore."
"WHAT!"
On the bright side, that shout did help the others rise a little faster, even if their abused bodies protested, but that only ensured that they were awake.
AN: How was that to get things going? It seems that our favorite heroes will need to figure out where they are and why they are having some certain problems. As for what happened to Mad Mod, Gizmo, and Killer Moth... that will come later.
Let me know what you think!