Steph Brown sighed as she wandered the halls of Titans Tower, still getting used to her home-away-from-home. Training for today was over, but she wasn’t ready yet to leave the calm quiet of the island for the bustle of Gotham City. Her purple cape billowed softly behind her steps as she circled the tower, every loop bringing her a floor higher as she passed her teammates’ rooms.
Cassandra’s door was open, and the sight put a grin on Steph’s face, along with an idea in her head. “Heya!” She called, pushing the cracked door fully open, and smiling in at the other girl.
Still garbed as Kasumi, but without the dark cowl that covered her face, Cassandra nodded and pressed a slim finger into the spine of the book she was reading to keep it open.
“What’s up? Nothing, right?” Steph sat herself on Cassandra’s bed with a bounce before the other girl had time to answer. “God, I’m so bored! You wanna go do something? Let’s go shopping!”
Cassandra blinked, but didn’t protest as Steph’s hand grabbed her wrist and pulled them both back up off the bed. “You’re always hanging around in here, time we got you out into the sun, isn’t it?”
“Shopping? Really?” Carla’s lilting voice drifted into the room as she leaned causally on the doorframe, her eyebrow raised at the other two girls.
“Yeah, wanna come with? It could be like a little bonding outing thing,” Steph grinned.
A short laugh barked out of Carla’s throat. “
Mierda, chica, I wouldn’t be caught shopping in the store NEXT to where you get your crap clothes.”
Steph stole a look at the battered sneakers she was wearing with her costume, and huffed. “Fine, we didn’t want you to come anyway.”
“Whatever you say,” Carla shrugged and left, as the three boys came laughing together into the hall, all fresh from more training than Steph had been up for herself.
Cassandra signed her concern to see Steph sigh the way she did, but the blonde put a bright smile back on her face. “Ah, who cares about her? C’mon, this’ll be great.” Bounding off the bed hard enough to close Cassandra’s book, Steph grabbed the other girl’s arm and rushed into the hall. “I’ll change into my street clothes and we’ll go paint the town!”
“Change, huh?” Garfield turned his head around as the boys passed by Cassandra’s door, slipping down to a snake’s height and quickly slithering along the floor to pop up in front of the girls. “Need any help with that? Any difficult buttons?”
Steph stuck out her tongue, but with a small giggle. It was Cassandra’s icy stare that sent Gar shrinking back. “No, but you can come shopping with us if you want.”
“Yeah, mean it?” Gar grinned, drawing an almost cruel laughter from Vic and Juan, who were still walking down the hallway.
“Really, bird-brain? Gonna go off to the mall with the other girls?” Vic snickered, and Juan scoffed.
“Howbout you and my sister switch, si? She’s more of a man than you’re gonna make,” he added with another laugh.
Garfield shrugged off their insults, walking back the way he had come and taking Cass and Steph with him, an arm around each of their shoulders. “They laugh now, but I’m the one who gets to spend the afternoon with two beautiful ladies!” He grinned at the both of them, and they set off toward town for the day.
*****
Dinah sighed as she sat in her first-floor office, her fingers clacking over the keys of her computer, the rhythmic sound broken occasionally as she stared out the window into the lush foliage of the island. But time and again, she returned to her paperwork and her vigilant news-watching, neglecting to watch as closely just outside her window.
He had grumbled at the idea of swimming, but his enhanced speed and stamina made the journey feasible, when most men would never have been able to make their way to Titans island. Ravager grinned to himself now, after enough rest, enough time hiding among the trees and slowly snuck toward the tower itself.
This was going to be too easy.
With a loud crash, the rock in Ravager’s fist shattered the glass of Dinah’s window, sending shards flying into the room and sending the heroine diving under her desk for cover. He had enough time to climb inside and ready himself before Dinah was back on her feet.
That wasn’t to say that Dinah wasn’t able to fight. The Black Canary wasn’t a respected name because she could be trapped behind a desk. Ravager was caught off-guard by the sonic blast of her Canary cry, and thrown into the far wall of the room as it hit him full in the chest.
Even so, Dinah couldn’t make it to the panic button on the wall before Ravager’s enhanced muscles drove him into her path. “No, no,” he started to taunt her, smirking at the woman as she threw a sharp kick. His hand shot out to grab her ankle and toss her back to the ground. “Do I have to put you in a cage, Canary?”
“Great, Banter. Just what I’m in the mood for,” Dinah muttered, rolling back with her weight on her shoulders to kick her feet into Ravager’s stomach. “I don’t know how you got here, jerk, but you’re not leaving.”
“Not planning on going anywhere,” Ravager shot back, flipping over Dinah and landing by her head, with a cruel, sharp kick to her temple. “Neither are you.”
She glared back up at the masked man, but Dinah’s eyes slid closed, and she lay still but breathing on the floor. Ravager grinned down and left her there, pausing only long enough to tie her wrists and ankles with a sturdy length of rope from his pocket. He didn’t want to kill her, not yet. He could kill them all together, when he’d subdued them all, one by one.
*****
Dinah’s convertible sped through the Windy City, top down, Stephanie at the wheel, singing along to the song on the radio. Beside her sat Gar, transformed into a green Labrador Retriever, head stuck out the window. In the back was Cass, quietly looking at the scenery passing by.
“You know,” Stephanie said as ads came over the radio. “We need a theme song.”
“A what?” Gar asked.
“A theme song. For the team.”
“A theme song,” Garfield replied, retaking his human form and looking at Stephanie.
“Yeah. Something like… ‘When there’s trouble you know who to call’!” she sang.
“The Ghostbusters?”
“No, not the Ghostbusters,” Stephanie said to him. “Us! The Teen Titans.” Garfield shook his head. “Then we can get a TV show and a movie deal, and little action figures of us. Like Spoiler with portable laptop, or Kasumi with kung-fu grip… What is kung-fu grip anyways?”
Gar sighed, shaking his head again while Cassandra tapped on Stephanie’s shoulder and pointed. “Oh, we’re here,” Stephanie said, looking for a place to park. “Thanks Cass.”
*****
“You know,” Garfield said after he finished signing what felt like the fiftieth autograph that day, this one to a pair of girls his age that flirted and giggled while he wrote and finally winked before heading off, “I think I should change my name. Beast Boy makes me sound like a kid.”
“What would you change it to?” Stephanie asked from inside the nearby changing room.
“Hmmm… How about… Beast Man!” Gar told her.
“You mean like the He-Man villain?” Stephanie pointed out, poking her head around the door. “The
inept He-Man villain?”
“Good point,” Garfield said.
“So then, how do I look?” she asked him, stepping out of the change room, wearing a sexy, one-piece swimsuit.
Gar’s mouth just dropped over as she modeled it for him.
“Yup. Definitely not a kid anymore,” Stephanie teased, Cassandra laughing silently from her nearby seat.
*****
The metal creaked and groaned under the weight that Vic had put onto the machine, rhythmically pulling and relaxing to work his muscles. His breathing was controlled, even, deep, and his skin glimmered with more than sweat, the metallic shine all that betrayed his new, enormous strength to the outside world.
Vic had been doing a lot of thinking, lately. There had been a lot to think about. The superpowers, he was dealing with pretty well, all things considered. It was an adjustment, but it couldn’t be taken back. There was nothing to be done but get used to it, so Vic didn’t waste his time. What he was thinking about was this hero gig. There were a lot of perks to the Teen Titans, but was he really cut out to be a part of it?
He was too lost in contemplation and regular, mechanical movements to notice the footsteps behind him. When the blow hit the back of his head, Vic barely had the time to stifle his cry of pain, lurching forward out of the weight chair with stars flickering at the edges of his vision.
The last thing that Ravager wanted was to give him the time to recover, but the punch he’d thrown at Vic Stone’s neck was hurting his fist now, the skin red under his orange glove and throbbing. “Damn freak! Someone should put up a sign or something.”
Vic shook out his head and pulled himself back to his feet, facing Ravager. “Whoever you think you are, you are messing with the wrong guy.”
“Say that now, but you’ll be singing a different song when I win,” the other man grinned under his mask, and bolted forward before Vic could see him moving. A jab of fingers between Vic’s ribs sent him back to the floor without his breath, even as Ravager swore loudly at the painful crack from his hand. “Only when I’m through with you, you won’t feel like singing.”
“Shut up and fight me,” Vic shouted, scrambling to his feet again with a hand clutching the sore spot on his side, sweat already trickling over his body from his workout. “Or can’t you fight like a man?”
“Think I’m stupid?” Ravager actually laughed, enough to make Vic charge forward in anger. Stepping to the side, Ravager added, “I’m not about to waste my life when I can do this instead.” A small shining smoke bomb appeared between Ravager’s fingers, and shot into Vic’s face as he ran past, in only a moment’s time.
The scream tore from Vic’s throat this time as the smoke clouded his eyes and nose, flooding his lungs as he gasped for breath. It stung and choked him, but more debilitating was the tranquilizing gas mixed into the bomb. Before he could properly curse Ravager out, Vic was on the floor for the last time, and the world went dark.
*****
She was running, but kept her steps slow. She must have been running, from the way she kept looking over her shoulder, even as she walked through the city streets. Short, dark hair feathered over the girl’s exotic features, looking as if she were from somewhere else no matter where she was. Her clothes were subdued, baggy, keeping her hidden among the crowds on the sidewalk as she continued toward wherever she was going.
For a moment she thought she felt eyes on her back, from the other side of the street, and she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt farther down in front of her face. The feeling passed, and she sighed. She almost melted into the brick of the tall buildings around her, keeping herself as invisible as she could.
At times she almost felt connected with the world, but today, like most days, she floated through it. The smells from sewer vents and food carts wafted past her nose, the noise of talk and traffic closing around her ears, the sights of bright city light and tall concrete filtered through her dark eyes, but none of it anchored her. None of it made her feel part of the city around her.
But as she passed a television running in the window, something dragged the girl back to the world and held her attention. She paused in front of the set as the news flashed pictures of six other teenagers, from well-posed portraits to blurred, barely-captured photos. “In just a few weeks of work, the Teen Titans have clearly made a name for themselves,” the announcer’s bubbly voice came muffled through the glass.
“Teen Titans…”
She started to walk again, toward wherever she was going, away from whatever pursued her.
*****
<“This is gonna be good for us, Carla. If I can do anything about it I’m not gonna let you throw the chance away,”>* Juan paced in front of his sister, who lay sprawled on the couch in the entertainment center, moving her head so that he was never blocking her view.
*translated from Spanish
<”I don’t need the ropes shown to me, Juan. And I definitely don’t need these jerks ‘teaching’ me. And you don’t either, why do you think you do?”>
<”Fine, so don’t learn, don’t get trained,”> Juan threw his hands in the air and then folded them over his chest. <”But we never had it this good. We got a place to stay now, and a nice place! I never seen a TV that big. And food, and work, and damn it Carla we don’t have to scrape for it here!”>
<”Yeah, whatever. I’m not pretending I like being some jerk hero’s little pet. All shut up with all the little toys and trotted out to play with,”> Carla stood now, facing her brother with blazing eyes.
<”Well how about I help you get out of that?”> Both twins snapped their heads toward the intruder, who shrugged. “So high-school Spanish ain’t the best. You get the idea.”
Juan set himself into a defensive stance, but Carla wasted no time barreling toward Ravager with her fist drawn back for a punch.
For the first few minutes, the fight was clearly one-sided. Punch after kick after jab landed on Ravager, keeping him unable to run or fight back. Juan and Carla passed him between them like a kickball, confident in their abilities, and failing to notice how little their attacks were really doing. Ravager allowed himself to be battered long enough to hear Carla start to laugh.
His fist flew up as Juan landed a kick on his back, throwing Ravager’s punch straight into Carla’s stomach. She doubled over, swearing loudly and struggling to catch her breath back from the unexpected shot. In the moment’s worth of time that Juan paused to call her name, Ravager grinned and took off down the hallway.
<”You cheating son of a bitch!”> Juan was off before he had time to think, his brow twisted in anger as Carla still tried to stand straight. It was the work of no time at all to catch up to Ravager, but he was still one step behind. He didn’t notice the golf-ball-sized bit of metal that flew past his head, bouncing once on the carpeted hallway before setting off a blast that shook the whole tower.
Even if Carla had been able to stand again after the blast knocked her down, the gap in the floor was too wide to be easily crossed. As it was, she fell hard to the floor and smacked her head, keeping her stuck next to the couch as her brother raced through the halls.
Ravager wouldn’t stop running. Juan couldn’t understand why, when he knew what kind of speed he was facing, Ravager wouldn’t stop. The speedster was going backwards, keeping his eyes locked on the intruder, his power making it easy to stay ahead. But as they raced each other down the tower, something started to happen. Juan’s feet were slowing; it was harder and harder for him to manage the intricate footwork to run backward at that speed without tripping over himself. More worryingly, he could feel his speed slowing. By the time the combatants reached the bottom floor, he was still fast, but not fast enough anymore.
“What did you do?!” Juan skidded to a halt in the entrance hall, putting his fists up again and ready to fight as hard as he still could.
Ravager shrugged. “Can’t be sure. But it’s good news for me, huh?”
He was momentarily silenced by Juan’s sharp punch to his jaw. But Ravager bounced back, and quickly. The fight was more even this time, man on man, fists on fists, until Ravager leapt back from Juan and drew a long, wide sword from his back. Juan’s lip curled into a sneer, and he charged the intruder anyway.
“Got guts, don’t you?” Ravager weaved to the side, lazily knocking Juan’s punch away with the blade.
“More than you,” Juan shot back without so much as pausing as he whirled around, using the sword as leverage to drive his leg hard into Ravager’s back. “I didn’t beat up a girl.”
Ravager grunted at the kick, but kept the smirk on his face. “Needs defending, does she? Sounded like she can take care of herself.” He shoved the blade forward but cut into the air, as Juan ducked down to the ground. “Look on her face when she hears you said that, gonna be priceless.”
“Shut up!” Juan leapt back to his feet, behind Ravager again and ready to throw a sharp punch. The blow hit, but gave Ravager the chance to drive his sword over the speedster’s hip. The cut was shallow but bled freely, and the pain was enough to make him fall.
“Why don’t you?” Ravager laughed to himself as he stepped away from the injured boy. “Four down…”
Then the door opened.
Steph and Gar were laughing, their arms weighted down with shopping bags, looking at each other rather than into the room, until Cassandra snapped into action. The mute girl put out her hand to stop her friends from walking any farther, short black hair falling around her steady face.
Ravager only grinned wider. “Three to go.”
They all jumped into action without another moment’s loss. The shopping bags spilled onto the floor, left there as Gar raced for the intruder, galloping forward on horse’s hooves to trample over him. Ravager ducked to the side and out of the way, sending Gar careening toward Juan’s still form.
Cassandra was waiting, moving herself into position so that Ravager nearly ran into her when he dodged. Her eyes were full of cold fury, as her training took control. She could tell in an instant that he was trained, too. His blade flashed through the air, over her head and breaths away from her arms and stomach, as she ducked and weaved around him. She was focused on defending, on keeping him busy, while Ravager slashed the air, leaving her no moment to take the offensive.
*****
Meanwhile, Stephanie was running. She cursed herself silently as she raced around the corner toward the stairs for not having brought her weapons along; Spoiler needed more stuff than any of the other Titans did. She skidded to a halt when she saw the open door, Dinah’s boot sticking into the hallway. Steph could only pause for a moment, gasping at the sight of their mentor lying still. She knelt and shook a hand on Dinah’s shoulder, breathing a sigh of relief when the woman groaned.
“Thank god! Wake up, Dinah, I gotta go get ready!” Steph pulled herself back to her feet and hurried to the stairs, trying not to think about the fates of the other Titans.
*****
Cassandra didn’t cry or shout as she went down, the blast from a small explosive in Ravager’s arsenal knocking her back into the doorframe. She slid to the floor as the impact slammed through her spine, while Ravager kept himself upright, sliding with the shock wave and turning toward Beast Boy again. Dropping the point of his blade to the ground, Ravager beckoned Gar forward. “Show me what you got.”
“Oh, I got plenty for any scum that hurts my friends!” Gar barreled forward, the anger staying in his eyes as they turned from human to rampaging rhino. When Ravager flipped into the air and over him, Garfield barely had the time to reduce his mass before he dented the wall; a brilliant green sparrow soared up toward the ceiling a moment before he would have hit, and spun back around to shoot like a dart at his attacker.
Ravager was ready. All he had to do was put up his hand at the right moment, taking a sharp, slashing cut to his palm, but deflecting the bird.
“Pick on someone your own size, why don’t you?” Garfield growled, the sparrow growing into a grizzly bear in an instant. He stood on his back legs, teeth shiningly sharp as he stared down the intruder.
But Ravager smirked again. “Don’t mind if I do.” He reached into a pocket on his belt. Beast Boy threw himself forward, knocking Ravager onto his back, not seeing the small object until it was too late—a dart stuck out from Garfield’s fur, spreading a cold, stiff sensation from his arm into the rest of his body. Beast Boy morphed back into a human shape, falling backward as Ravager stood up, frozen in place on the floor.
*****
Steph tore out of her room in her Spoiler costume, feeling more useful with the gadgetry on her belt, but her mind still ringing a panic alarm. She heard Garfield scream for just a moment, and raced to the railing to look down the tower, into the entrance hall.
“Yo! Someone there?” Cyborg’s voice rang into the hall, and Steph was off in an instant to find him crawling toward the railing, his body stiff and his face worried. “We got ambushed—I heard an explosion up where Juan and Carla were,” he explained quickly, wincing as he dragged himself to stand upright. Her hand reached to try to steady him, but Victor shrugged her off. “Go find them!”
“Juan’s downstairs, he’s hurt,” Steph called back, even as she took off to find the broken hallway. She could hear Cyborg hitting hard against the railing as he dragged himself along, along with the noise of the fight below.
*****
It was down to Kasumi and Ravager, the silent heroine seething with anger at the sight of her two fallen teammates. She was a whirlwind, a flurry of expert kicks and punches that battered at Ravager’s tightly-held guard.
“Pretty thing like you,” Ravager started, keeping the smarmy grin on his face as he ducked and dodged, “You deserve better, don’t you? What’re you doing with these weaklings?”
Kasumi said nothing, and wouldn’t have even if she could. She had learned among her first lessons never to respond to banter; its purpose was to distract her. Instead, she replied to Ravager with a sharp-nailed jab between his ribs.
Ravager kept back the cry of pain, though his grin slipped away. “Fair enough…not a talker, I got it. Still doesn’t make sense,” he added, throwing himself to the side to send Kasumi over-balancing, and sweeping his leg along the floor to trip her forward. “Dad like you’ve got and you’re wasting your time here?”
The mention of her father pierced through Kasumi’s stony focus as she saw the floor race up to meet her. That one moment was all that Ravager needed, what he had been hoping for—he drove his foot hard into the small of her back, hearing her spine pop and pinning her to the ground.
He raised his sword with a triumphant smirk, sure the fight was over. And then the tall window above the door burst open with a crash of glass, and the blade was knocked out of his hand.
*****
“Mas! Can you hear me? Are you over there?” Spoiler called across the chasm, craning her neck and finally catching sight of Carla’s brown head barely stirring. “Carla, wake up!”
Vic had forced his way to the edge of the hall a few minutes after Stephanie, and he shifted his gaze between Carla across the ruined hall, and the fight several stories below. “We gotta get down there…We gotta do something,” he insisted, but stumbled as he tried to start running downstairs, denting the railing in his grip as he steadied himself.
“What can you do? What can I do?” Steph’s voice broke as she stared down at the fight, watching as even Kasumi started to fall. She shouted back across the break, “Carla, we need you, get up, please!”
Spoiler hoped that her shout had finally done the job when she saw Carla roll over and sit up, but she knew the crash of glass from the entrance hall had probably been more effective. Her bright eyes turned quickly to the new arrival, a muscular man dropping down from the rope he had swung from and kicking the sword out of Ravager’s hand. He wore little other than black, form-fitting pants and a long-sleeved shirt, making the red hood around his head and the faceless red mask pop out in her sights.
“
Dios mio, what in damned hell is going on?” Carla pressed her fingers to her temple, standing to look through the broken hallway to watch.
The fight was almost over by the time all three of them were watching. The newcomer was fast, accurate, and impossible for Ravager to hit. On the floor, Kasumi rolled toward the wall, holding her back where it ached from impact. Beast Boy was able to shake enough of the poison out of his system to turn his head, and Menos was waking up as well. The Teen Titans sat in the round, all with a different view of the impressive performance.
Ravager was furious, and it showed in his punches. “Who the hell do you think you—“ He didn’t even have time to finish the question before a strong hook from the man slammed under his chin and cracked his head backward. Ravager fell, out cold on the floor, leaving the Red Hood the only man standing.
*****
“I’d feel better if I knew who you really were, but we owe you big time.” Dinah still had an ice pack on the side of her head, sitting outside with the rest of her battered team, and shaking hands with the man who’d identified himself only as Red Hood. It was calmer outside, seated on decorative logs and boulders, than inside where repairs were already being made.
“I hope it’s enough to know I’m a friend,” Red Hood replied. His face was obscured totally by the red mask. All the Titans could make out was the movement of his lips as he talked. “And I’ve been following Ravager. I’ll be more than happy to take him where he belongs for you,” he added, his foot tapping the shoulder of the unconscious boy.
Stephanie leaned forward with a grin, cocking her head as if it could help her see him. “You were really something else.”
“Yeah, that was pretty awesome,” Beast Boy agreed.
<“Wouldn’t’ve needed his help if I coulda got off my ass,”> Carla muttered in Spanish, roughly kicking a pebble on the ground.
Juan put a hand on her shoulder. <”It’s okay, sis. None of us were any better.”>
Stephanie spoke up again, her purple hood down so the cool breeze could play through her hair. “We could probably use your help again, if you’re ever around. Couldn’t we?” She added to Dinah as an afterthought.
Though her arms folded across her chest, Dinah smiled. “I suppose so. I gotta admit, it was a good first impression.” She stood now, facing Red Hood. “You’re welcome at Titans Tower, if you ever need to be here.”
Dinah thought she could see the small smile under the hood. “It’s an honor,” he told her, taking Dinah’s hand and bringing it elegantly to his lips. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
With nothing more, he hoisted Ravager’s limp form over his shoulders, and left in the speedboat he’d used to get there. Steph gave a small sigh as she watched him leave. “Talk about timing.”
The Titans chatted among themselves as they split up again, Carla and Juan starting on a walk alone around the island, Cyborg making his way back in with the construction. While all the others left, Cassandra watched the boat get smaller and smaller in the distance. She narrowed her eyes as she watched it fade.
