Teen Titans: Incarnate - Chapter Twenty Three

[Reaper of Despair]

Chapter Twenty-Three: Machinations

“Where have all the good men gone,” Tek asked melodiously, adding, “And where are all the gods?” Her sweatpants swayed to the beat that thrummed through Ops as she bent into the refrigerator, collecting the last of the Tower’s fresh fruit for the smoothie she found herself craving. It felt good to be out of the open-backed jumpsuit the Titans had designed for her, even if it meant she had been left behind and alone while they rushed off to who-knew-what. “Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?”

Being a teenaged newborn, Tek found no end to her amazement in the process of discovering herself. The amnesiac woke up each day eager to discover something new. Even her name sounded alien, having been bestowed upon her only two weeks before by the Titans’ resident shapeshifter.

And so, while flipping past TuneTV on a boredom-fueled channel surf, the discovery that she loved music brought Tek an immense joy. She listened to everything she could get her hands on: pounding rap, soulful jazz, dramatic ballads, ear-splitting rock, and twanging country. She loved it all. And the subsequent discovery that she lacked even one iota of talent for music didn’t keep her from singing along to each song once she’d learned its lyrics. Nor could her roommates’ pulled faces keep her from crooning.

“Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?” sang Tek, asynchronous with the track’s talented tenor as she dropped chopped pineapple and orange into the blender. “Late at night I toss and turn, and dream of what I need.”

Tek drew breath for the chorus through a rare smile. She loved this song. It always seemed appropriate, living where she did. She took the remote to Cyborg’s ludicrously-sized, self-indulgent sound system and lofted its volume to cover the electric grumble of the blender. Her arms flew out as she spun, smiling and singing and dancing, all clumsily.

“I need a hero...!”

The Tower quaked beneath her, throwing Tek to the floor. Her scream was lost in the shriek of stressed metal and shattering glass. The tremor ended as quickly as it began, leaving Tek to tremble on her own. Seconds later, the lights flickered out, and her pounding ballad faded from the room’s hidden speakers. Sunlight poured through empty frames, their giant bay windows heaped upon the floor in jagged pieces.

Unbearable silence choked Ops, broken only by the bass timpani in Tek’s chest. Jellied legs lifted her from the carpet and spun her in a slow circle as she tried to process thoughts through a rush of adrenaline and fear. “H-hello?” she called out. “Is anybody...um, Computer?” Her spin stopped on the center pane of Ops’ massive bay window, the only one to survive the quake by its unique design, as it doubled as the Titans’ main view screen. “Hello? Computer?” she stammered.

Tek shrieked and jumped as the window derezzed into screeching static. Three feet in the air, she saw the static become a black screen with flashing red letters. “INTRUDER ALERT!” a synthetic voice bellowed at her. “SECURITY BREACH ON LEVEL FOUR. AUTOMATED DEFENSES INOPERATIVE. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE –”

The screen and voice fizzled, faded, and disappeared entirely, leaving Tek to stare in horror at the calm, glistening ocean through the window. “It’s okay,” she whispered breathlessly. She reached for her waist, muttering, “I’ll just call the others on my comm...” The cold emptiness of her sweatpants’ elastic waistband met her fingers. “- on!” she finished, and then wailed.

No. Stop crying.

She drew in a deep breath. The situation wasn’t nearly as bleak as she imagined. From her sketchy memory, she reminded herself that they lived in California, which experienced frequent earthquakes. Cyborg’s constant Tower upgrades left its systems prone to glitches, which could explain the loss in power, as well as the ominous report of intruders. Because she was totally safe in the Tower. The Titans had told her so.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong,” Tek told herself, drawing upright. She dried her face with her palms, adopting a confident look that did not match her twisting innards. “You’re going downstairs, and you’re going to find your communicator. Then you’ll call the others...”

The Tower shook again, this time more subtly. A high-pitched cackle vanished into the tail end of the tremor, possibly the product Tek’s fearful imagination, but possibly not.

Tek shivered. “- and then,” she continued shakily. “You’re going to curl up in your room and wait until this giant T stops being so scary.”

*****

Lieutenant Smith of the Jump City Special Crimes Unit dove behind his patrol car. His weather-beaten fedora flew off his head and burned in the laser barrage he ducked to avoid. “Get down, you mooks!” he bellowed.

His officers ducked behind the patrol car perimeter they’d set around the Bank of Perez. Doing so saved them from the scissoring crimson streams of laser, which originated from and melted through the bank’s opulent glass entryway. Glowing glass goop drizzled down the front doors, illuminating portions of their attackers behind the glass wall. No one cop ever saw a whole picture of their attackers, merely snatches of midnight-colored muscle and deadly, stark glares.

The air above the patrol cars sizzled. Smith gritted his teeth as the smoldering halves of his hat fell before him, the tragic victim of the barrage he had narrowly avoided. “I’m missing Katie’s birthday cake for this?” he muttered. “Dandy. I suppose now’s about the time things get worse.”

His spoken thought became reality as the ground beneath his hands and knees began to shake. Before long, he heard a rumbling that grew closer from behind their perimeter. Smith rolled himself into a crouch in time to see the biggest, most frightening tank he had ever seen roll around the street corner.

The massive vehicle barreled straight for Smith, shaking the street with its bulk. Smith had trouble rising in the face of the tank as it screeched to a halt, digging long furrows into the pavement behind its locked treads. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” he shouted, stamping his foot. The laser blasts burning past his head didn’t register with him as the side of the tank folded open, allowing six reasons for his chronic stomach pain to pile out.

“Lieutenant.” Robin greeted him with a curt nod, his cape drawn around him like a cloak. Then he ducked involuntarily as the laser barrage continued. “Titans, down!” he bellowed, and dove behind Smith’s car with the rest of his team in tow.

Smith joined the line-up, muscling Starfire out of the way so he could yell directly in Robin’s ear. “Do you have any idea how much I dread seeing you kids?” he asked, before turning his attention to their vehicle. “Jesus H. tap-dancin' Christ! What is that monstrosity? You’re in California, not Iraq!”

“Who is attacking the bank facilities?” asked Starfire, hoping to end Smith’s impotent rant.

The old cop’s face twisted with angered wrinkles. “Not sure. They haven’t made any demands, or tried to escape. Hell, they didn’t bother taking any hostages. They kicked everybody out and set up shop inside. But if we so much as poke our heads out...”

A laser blast shattered through the windows of Smith’s squad car, peppering them with superheated bits of glass. With the exception of Cyborg, everyone quickly shook themselves free of the stuff before their hair or clothes were singed.

“You get the idea,” Smith said. His grimace deepened.

Cyborg risked a brief glance over the edge of the hood. “I count three different firing vectors.” His organic eye twinkled as it wandered back to the rear, where his new baby squatted. “I can link up with the CUTTER’s fire control systems and take them out from here.”

“Well, that’s a great plan, assuming you aren’t very attached to the bank,” Terra said. Cyborg’s smile fell.

They turned to Robin for a judgment call. The Teen Wonder was already halfway over the car, crushing the edge of its roof with his steadying grasp. He cleared the car in a single bound and sprinted toward the sprawling steps of the bank. It didn’t take but a second for the three marksmen waiting within to converge their shots on him. It didn’t matter.

A primal scream tore from Robin’s throat as three lasers united dead center in his chest. Capable of cutting steel like butter, they couldn’t even scratch Robin’s tunic. He charged up the stairs, curling his palms. His brow furrowed deeper as he forced energy into his hands, shaping them into spheres as he cleared the last step in an acrobatic leap. Bird bolts shot from his hands in midair and burned three neat holes in the glass.

Haunting silence fell over the entryway by the time Robin touched down. The Titans and police rose slowly from the barricade. If Smith had looked shocked at the CUTTER’s arrival, he now stood flabbergasted at Robin’s display of power. The rest of the squad followed his lead and his expression as he asked, “What the hell was that?”

Raven circumnavigated his car with a sniff. “He works out,” she muttered.

Beast Boy lingered as his friends pressed on. He flexed next to Smith, and added, “Dude does, like, twenty push-ups in a row. He’s rock.”

Cyborg didn’t share his friend’s good spirits. He led the way up the steps, preparing his scowl. It wasn’t ready fast enough; Robin slipped through the bank’s doors, intent upon his targets within. “This our new policy?” he called out, heedless to the troubled looks Starfire and Terra gave him. “Shoot first and ask questions later?”

The door flew open for a limp body cast in black spandex to roll out, forcing Cyborg back a step. The body’s empty white eyes stared up at Cyborg while its chest spilled over with burnt hose and sparking wires. Similar eyes strode out the door in a scowl leveled at the rest of Robin’s team. “Not a new policy when it comes to robots,” Robin shot back.

A perfect circle of red blotched the construct’s mask. Raven knelt down and traced its edge with her finger. “Does anyone else think these toys look familiar?” she asked.

“Slade.” The word rattled from Terra’s lips. Her face and voice dripped with disgust.

Laser fire smashed through the remainder of the entrance’s glass and danced between the loitering teens. A glancing blow ricocheted off of Cyborg’s shoulder and neatly parted Beast Boy’s hair. The shapeshifter yelped and ducked behind his buddy as his teammates braced themselves for battle. “Speak of the devil,” Cyborg grunted.

Through the shattered windows, the Titans saw a stirring in the shadowy depths of the bank lobby. That stirring grew into a small army of Slade’s lanky, lethal robots, their soulless eyes glinting crimson in the glow of their weapons.

“Looks more like the devil’s helpers,” Beast Boy growled at the approaching phalanx.

His growl echoed in Robin, growing into another howl as he crashed through the entryway remnants. His teammates stood frozen in his wake for a second, stunned. Starfire was the first to fly after him in silence. The rest glanced among themselves, shrugging collectively.

“Titans, go,” said Cyborg.

*****

Eerie light trickled through the bowels of Titans Tower, drawing jagged shadows across the floor and turning Tek’s home into a terrifying nightmare. She crept through the corridors, guided by emergency lighting and a bouncing gaze that tried to be everywhere at once. A frying pan from the kitchen trembled in her sweaty palms.

“Two floors down. Down the hall, around the corner, and there’s the room.” Tek repeated the phrase under her breath every few steps to shore up her crumbling courage. “You can do this, alley girl. There’s nothing wrong. It was just a glitch.”

A soft growl came from the vents, spitting an icy chill down the back of Tek’s tank top. She screamed before she could identify the noise as the central air conditioning. Several deep breaths later, she continued down the hall, cursing her home for betraying her; every familiar sound had become frightening; every shadow hid a monster. She could practically feel the fuzz on her scalp turning gray.

Tek approached the corner spoken of in her mantra. She recognized the Evidence Room on the right. The landmark helped calm her frazzled nerves, for it was only a few steps further to her room. Then she saw the only light currently operating in the Tower. It spilled out beneath the Evidence Room’s door, which sat forced open. Tek could hardly hear the voices worming through the broken door over the hammering of her heart.

“Be careful with that, you skeeve!” a shrill voice screeched through the gap. “Do you even know what that can do to us?” The voice drew Tek forward to the crack in the door, where she peered in. Another outburst from the voice made her jump back. “Stay away from that! What did I just say?”

When she found the courage, Tek pressed her eye into the door’s gap again. An unfamiliar trio lurked in the middle of the room, pushing glass cases aside to make space for a large, angular metal cylinder. The one who spoke, who was still speaking now, stood at the base of the cylinder with his hands and goggles buried in its circuitry.

The companion he had rebuked wore strips of leather in what could generously be called a jumpsuit, hiding her dark eyes beneath a scowl the same color as her rusty shock of hair. The third, a thin girl with a complexion as pale as Raven’s and twin tufts of bubble gum hair, handed tools to the little green one as he griped for them.

“This is what you do on your Friday nights, isn’t it?” the leather-clad girl said. She examined the little one’s work with a sniff. The air around her wavered, as though rolling with intense heat. The effect mesmerized Tek until the pale one spoke.

“Cork it, Shimmer. Gizmo’s proven himself. All you’ve done is complain.” The pale girl spared Shimmer a nasty look before returning to Gizmo’s side. “Keep it up, and you’re gone. I don’t care whose sister you are.”

Shimmer sniffed again, this time amused instead of disdainful. She began to wander through the Evidence Room in a fit of boredom. Each artifact, which Tek had looked upon with wonderment, barely rated a second’s glance with Shimmer. The surly redhead picked up a regally clad puppet and jammed her hand up its keister. “These guys have the dumbest crap. We don’t have anything like this in our place,” she noted, working the puppet’s jaw with unseen fingers.

“Our place,” pink-hair piped in. “You don’t live there yet.”

“Whatever, Jinx.”

Tek watched them continue on, unsure of what to do. Beast Boy had mentioned other heroes who were allies of the Titans, but only in passing. Could these be they? But then who had set the intruder alarm off if they hadn’t? And her mysterious memory, somehow intimately familiar with all things Titan from the moment of her alley birth, had no recollection of these three. No, she told herself. It would be the height of naïveté to think that these people were here to help her. Everything about them screamed of villainy.

As she pulled away to run to her communicator, her pan bumped into the doorframe. The metal resonated in her hand with a soft hum. She froze, sucking in breath, and pressed her back to the door. Dead air burned in her lungs as she waited, unable to think, unable to move.

“What the hell was that?” asked Gizmo, crushing Tek’s hopes from the other room.

Seconds inched by in silence. Tek’s chest blazed, begging for air, but she dared not breathe. Part of her screamed for retreat. Another wanted back into the room. But neither side had time to win over the other; the cool door at Tek’s back melted into icy water, splashing over her shoulders and onto the floor.

Tek screamed and spun around. Shimmer stood opposite her in the doorframe, and lowered her hands with a sick smile. “Lookie here,” she purred, crossing her arms. “Some excitement.” She tilted back to speak to her friends, but her eyes never left Tek’s heaving chest. “So which one is this? The alien, or that emo chick?”

Lilac energy crackled in Jinx’s eyes. “Neither,” she said with a scowl. “This one is new.”

“Doesn’t look like much.” Gizmo scampered forward until his backpack sprouted a quartet of thick, jagged legs. The mechanical stalks lofted him high above their heads, giving him a prime angle to fire the compact cannons his pack produced next. “Let’s blast her and see what she does.”

The sight of three sneers converging on her proved too much for Tek. She scrambled backward, dropping her pan, and stumbled into a full run that carried her around the corner. She could hear the grin in Shimmer’s voice as she called, “Tally ho.”

*****

The rooftop door of the bank blew off its hinges on a final blast of emerald energy. Scraps of robot sprayed across the ruined door as it landed, littering the bare rooftop with smoldering metal. Overhead, police helicopters circled the building, stirring the sticky afternoon air with their loud rotors as they searched for signs of trouble.

Beast Boy jumped out first, followed soon after by a parade of his teammates. He wore a vanquished robot’s mask as a crown, crowing over the remains of their last foe. “Ha! That was the coolest fight we’ve had in a long time,” he cried. “Seriously! Totally awesome. Did you guys see the way I -”

“We were there, Salad Head,” Cyborg shot, silencing him. He scanned the empty rooftop, leaving no spectrum unturned. “Whatever those mannequins were trying to keep us from, it’s not up here.”

Terra brushed the tarpaper covering the roof with her glove, gazing about. “That’s impossible. There’s nothing else out here.”

Cyborg’s scowl deepened. She was right, of course, but so was he; the rooftop hid no secrets his sensors could find, and he trusted his sensors more than any ten normal or metahuman eyes. He watched thermographic images of Starfire and Beast Boy walking the length of the roof on opposite sides. They were shifting pillars of reds and oranges to Cyborg, set against the cool blues of the stonework. When he glanced down at Robin, he had to blink at the bright flare of his body heat, brightest at the chest where the symbiote rested. “So what now?” he asked.

Robin didn’t answer at once. He stood a handful of steps from the door, cloaked in his fluttering cape. The wind danced in his hair and carried to him a sense of foreboding, stronger than the one that had guided him through the bank. His brain fought against the sluggish calm of Doctor Brown’s tranquilizers as he searched the scene. His masked eyes could not find anything more substantial than Cyborg’s scanners, Raven’s empathy, or Beast Boy’s nose had yet yielded.

“He’s here,” said Robin.

Ponderous applause startled the Titans from behind the structure that housed the door. They whirled collectively, searching for its source, and found it in the dark figure circling into sight. Thunder clapped each time his hands united. A smile glinted in his single eye. “I’m pleased to see all those abilities aren’t dulling your senses, Robin,” Slade said. “Your company still leaves something to be desired, but at least you aren’t completely hopeless.”

Energy lit in Robin’s hands with some effort. Starfire’s hands glowed as well. Cyborg’s arm mechamorphed and took aim for Slade’s chest. Beast Boy crouched and grew, snarling into a velociraptor that circled around their formation. The ground beneath them clamored in tune to the amber glow of Terra’s eyes.

“My 'company' is just fine,” retorted Robin. He kicked a piece of robot at Slade, purposely missing. “Yours is in pieces. Surrender and we won’t go too hard on you.”

Slade stopped before them. Hands clasped neatly behind his back, he offered Robin a slow nod. “Here I stand,” he told them in a low, calm voice. “It’s your move.”

The Titan pack surged forward with Starfire in the lead. But Starfire jolted to a stop at the arm Robin swung out in front of her, and landed in a stumble. The light of her eyes faded for confusion, which she turned upon Robin’s heavy scowl. Her teammates paused at the sudden stop. The twinkle in Slade’s eye froze.

“This is wrong,” said Robin, talking more to himself than to his team. “Slade’s never fought unless it benefits him, and unless he’s sure he’ll win.”

Beast Boy’s once-again-human legs jittered. “Are you kidding me? He’s right there!” he shouted, waving his arms at the placid Slade. “And you’re not even gonna try to smash him?”

Golden worry floated at Robin’s shoulder. “Robin?” asked Starfire.

Robin’s eyes locked with Slade’s. The two masked figures stood in a mental showdown, each trying to read the other in the tensed silence. At long last, Robin’s mask drew wide with surprise. “Everyone, get back to the Tower!” he shouted.

“Very good, Robin.” Slade praised him in a flat voice, and without applause.

Raven glanced between the glaring pair. Curiosity quirked her twilight brow. “Did we miss a step?”

“Get back to the Tower!” Robin bellowed. His glare broke from Slade’s to burn into his teammates. Cyborg’s thermographics caught sight of a brilliant flare in Robin’s lenses. He switched to the visible spectrum in time to see crimson light fade from Robin’s mask. “Slade wants us here,” growled Robin. “He drew us out. That means he doesn’t want us at home. Now go!”

The acidic tone spurred them into motion. Cyborg caught Raven’s hand as she took to the air and rode on borrowed levitation down the side of the building. Veloci-Beast Boy dipped his head and scooped up a yelping Terra, and then leapt over the roof’s edge, morphing in mid-jump to become a gliding pterodactyl.

Robin watched them go, unable to overlook the single lollygagger in their retreat. “Starfire...”

“I will not leave you to fight alone,” snapped Starfire.

She met Robin’s hard look with one of her own, eyes aglow with determination. “Fine,” he said, turning back to where Slade stood. “Just follow my lead and stay out of my -”

The rooftop was empty once more. Robin and Starfire spun opposite each other, searching the tarpaper ground for signs of his escape. Glowing hate colored Robin’s search red as he called out, “Slade!”

Starfire flitted from one end of the roof to the other, riding the gentle breeze. There was no trace of Slade anywhere, and the distant sound of police helicopters covered what subtle sounds his movement would have made. “He has departed,” she said. “Perhaps he has followed the others. Perhaps you were wrong...”

Robin thrust his chin up and shouted to the sky, “You can’t fool me, Slade! I’m not going anywhere until you’re just a grease stain on my boots!”

“Exactly what I was counting on, Robin.” Slade’s voice echoed from all around. “I had hoped to fight you without any distractions,” he continued, earning a fierce and undirected glare from Starfire. “But I suppose we take what we can get.”

The two heroes drifted together, turning back-to-back in search of the disembodied voice’s source. Their hands lit with colorful energy, ready to decimate the first sign of Slade’s two-toned visage. Robin’s bird bolts flickered in-hand, faltering as he called, “Whatever your game is, Slade, it’s over. I’ll stop you once and for all.”

“You’re right about one thing, Robin,” the low reverberation called back.

Movement from above caught their eyes. The teens’ arms shot up, pouring dozens of bolts above their heads in the blink of an eye. The snap shots danced wildly around the tiny, blinking sphere that fell at them. Robin and Starfire parted on instinct, only having time enough to make space for the sphere to drop between them. As Robin saw the first flash of fire rip from the sphere, he heard Slade finish:

“The game is over.”

*****

The de-powered bedroom door couldn’t fight Tek’s fear-driven strength for long, but the seconds it took to force them open went agonizingly slow. She struggled through the gap before the door’s hydraulics snapped it shut, and she stumbled onto her carpet with a whimper. She crawled to her bedside, clawing at its sheets to pull herself upright.

Yellow salvation glinted from her nightstand. Tek snatched the communicator up and flipped it open. Buttons crumpled beneath her thumb as she pressed every control she could find on the device. “Hello?” she shouted into its open face. “Can anyone hear me? I need your help, please!”

The screen flickered a moment. She almost felt relieved, until Gizmo’s face resolved itself from the static. “I don’t think so, Chicken Little,” he said, sneering at her. “I started jamming all frequencies even before we cut the power. Your dork friends don’t even know anything’s wrong. But don’t worry.” A sick smile spread over his munchkin features. “A couple of our friends are coming to keep you company. Heh.”

Tek screamed as her door exploded into shards. She dropped her cackling communicator and slid back hard against the bed, cowering from the massive wall of hairy muscle that ducked through her doorframe. His muttonchops spread into a grin as he glanced down at Tek. “Look what we got here, Psimon. The snots got themselves a pet kitten.”

His companion squeezed around him, coming into view. Tek screamed again at the newcomer, a young man in dark clothes and a long, flowing coat. His hawkish features unsettled her, but her scream came at the sight of his throbbing brain, which was visible through a glass dome that served as his scalp. “Quite a plain specimen, actually, Mammoth,” he noted.

“Who...w-who are you?” stammered Tek. She curled her knees to her chest and gaped.

Mammoth chuckled. He leaned in close, snorting in her face. “Who do you think?” he asked. “We’re the Mean Titans. Now who are you?”

Trembling, Tek’s eyes darted back to her communicator. “I...I’m a Titan too,” she told him. “Stay back!”

His chuckle grew into a full guffaw. Tek yelped and flew back as Mammoth flicked her in the forehead, lighting stars behind her eyes. She crashed onto the opposite side of the bed in a heap, her head throbbing and spinning. “So what’s your shtick?” laughed Mammoth. “Bleeding?”

“It will be soon enough,” said Psimon, snickering.

Tek lay still, unable to think or move for all the pain shooting from her forehead. She felt the beast inside her clawing at the chemical bars of its cage. The injections began to fizzle beneath the weight of her adrenaline. She could feel the beast pushing at her psyche, and began to cry. “No,” she whispered. “No, please...”

Mammoth mistook her pleas with gusto, slapping Psimon hard on the back. “Listen to that,” he said to his crumpling companion. “One love tap and she’s already begging.”

The narrow space behind Tek’s bed flooded with blinding blue light, forcing the villainous pair back a step. Psimon shielded his eyes with spindly hands and squinted into the brief nova. “What in blazes is that?” he snapped.

Three seconds later, all hell broke loose.

********************