Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Coil ❯ Start a War ( Chapter 2 )

 

“Coil”

Chapter 2: “Start a War”

Disclaimer: I will once again reiterate the sad fact that I do not own Teen Titans. DC Comics and Warner Brothers have that honor and so far, they haven't seriously screwed up yet.

Author's note: Is anybody unhappy that Robin's away from the Titans . . . and more importantly in some people's minds, away from Starfire? It should be stated for the record that in this story, the Titans are slightly older than they are in the show and when people grow older, they sometimes grow apart. What happened in the last chapter was a more extreme instance of such.

Have no fear, though; the Titans will still be appearing in this story. After all, it has yet to be revealed what Slade is up to with his rediscovered dark powers and the Titans have to deal with the fact that in one way or another, they drove Robin away.

Yes, people, Blackfire will appear in this chapter. Whether or not she'll meet Robin here . . . I leave that to my fertile imagination.

By the way, the Justice League (Flash and Dr. Fate specifically) will have cameos in this chapter.

Let's continue on from here.

“I feel really freaking stupid right now,” Beast Boy spoke.

“As opposed to when?” Cyborg asked in a futile attempt to lighten the mood.

“We failed him,” Starfire said. “He was suffering inside because of the power inside him and we shied away from him in fear instead of helping him.”

“Fools,” Raven intoned angrily. “All of us.”

“Don't see why you're including yourself,” Cyborg said. “You're the only one who'd actually go near him without flinching.”

“I could have done more,” Raven admitted. “I have a bond with him; I should have sensed that he was going to run away from us and stopped him.”

“Could you have stopped him?” Beast Boy asked. “If he really wanted to leave, could you have stopped him?”

“What are you implying, Garfield?” Raven asked. “That Robin might have tried to hurt me with the darkness dragon?”

Beast Boy held his hands up in surrender. “No!” he replied. “I was just worried . . . I mean, you said that that dragon was such a badass that even your dad pissed his pants at the mention of him!”

“Darkness dragon or not, he is still Robin,” Starfire said. “And I failed to see that. I should have been happy when Robin asked me to see a movie with him. Instead, I spent my time with him fearful that he would hurt me in some way when I know that he would never deliberately harm me.”

“We have to face it,” Cyborg said. “He's gone. He's gone and I don't know if he's ever coming back. From the sound of that message, it's not like he'll be back anytime soon.”

Late at night in Los Angeles, a convoy of three armored vans was driving down an isolated street.

“Why do we gotta transport these diamonds at this time of night?” the driver of the lead van asked. “It's three o'clock in the frigging morning!”

“We're transporting these diamonds at `three o'clock in the frigging morning' because nobody but the lunatics would be out at this hour,” the guard in the passenger seat replied. “And since this happens to be our job, I advise you to either stop complaining or shut the hell up.”

The driver was about to reply when a pinkish-purple beam of light punched through the reinforced glass of the windshield and blew a hole in his head. The guard next to him had enough time to yell, “What the hell?!” before attempting to stop the van from crashing into a parked car.

Too little, too late.

“What happened to Pugsley and Hirsch?” the driver of the middle van asked.

“I don't know,” the guard next to him replied. Then they both looked out the windshield and saw a feminine shadow with glowing purple eyes. That was the last thing either of them ever saw as death streamed from those glowing eyes.

The middle van spun out of control now that its driver was no longer among the living and crashed into the first van.

“Who the hell is doing this?” the driver of the last van asked.

“I don't know,” the guard next to him replied. “Stay here. I'm going to see what's going on.” With that said, he opened the passenger-side door and climbed out of the van.

“Whoever you are, show yourself,” the guard ordered.

The mysterious shadow with death-dealing eyes turned those malevolent glowing orbs upon the guard and he found his gun melted into slag, forcing him to drop it for fear of being burned, and then he found himself dead with a smoking hole in his chest.

The driver slammed the accelerator and drove as far away as he could from the scene. He wasn't going to let what happened to the other five men on this convoy happen to him. Unfortunately, the shadow with death-dealing eyes moved faster than the maximum 120 mph he could accelerate the van to and grabbed onto the handle of the passenger-side door, then smashed the window open and slid inside.

“Who are you?!” the driver queried in a panicked tone.

“A woman who's about to get very, very lucky,” the shadow answered in a young woman's voice before reaching out and snapping the driver's neck. Then she tossed him out through the window and slid into the driver's seat, stopping the van before it could crash like the first two. She got out of the van and walked to the back, tearing the doors open with deceptively delicate fingers and thus revealing cases full of diamonds. Wasting no time, she opened the cases and removed a fistful of diamonds from one of them, placing them in a pouch on her belt.

This should fetch me a pretty penny, she thought. Gotta thank that son of a bitch for running his mouth while he thought I was asleep.

Having gotten what she came for, the shadow flew away into the night.

In the morning, a civvies-wearing Robin sat in a cybercafé reading an online newspaper. The article he was reading detailed the robbery of a diamond shipment making its way to entrepreneur Jackson Steele. According to what the police had found, the drivers of all three vans and their accompanying guards had been brutally murdered and that the third van, the one actually carrying the diamonds, had been ripped open by what seemed to be bare hands. There weren't that many details, perhaps to protect Steele, perhaps simply not to terrify the public due to the apparent gruesomeness of the murders. At any rate, Robin could guess what had happened.

A super-strong robber who can blast holes in people and reinforced glass, Robin thought. I suppose I'll have to put a stop to whoever it is.

He shut down his laptop, closed it, and placed it in his backpack, then slung it over his shoulders and walked out of the cybercafé. He got on his black R-Cycle, which had had the R-emblem disguised by a black cover, and revved it up before driving away from the cybercafé and back to the apartment complex where he lived. Once there, he parked his motorcycle in the parking lot and placed his helmet in the helmet compartment. Then he pulled his keys out of the ignition and walked into the complex, taking the elevator all the way up to the top floor and entering his apartment.

The apartment looked just like that of any other young man . . . a mess. Not a complete mess, but there were definite signs of disorganization if one looked at the obvious.

Robin had bought the apartment with the money from the trust fund Batman had set up for him upon reaching his eighteenth birthday under the name Alvin Draper, which was one of many false identities the Dark Knight had set up for him in case his civilian identity was compromised. At the time Robin had attributed that to his mentor's sheer paranoia, but thinking on it now he was actually rather grateful to him. After all, it wasn't as though nobody would ask questions if the ward of Bruce Wayne turned up in Los Angeles.

Robin walked into his room and looked at a poster depicting a dragon of fire battling a dragon of darkness. An ironic smile formed on his face as he remembered how much the conflict between the two dragons resembled the conflict between him and Slade. Regaining his focus, he placed his hand on the wall and the section of wall holding the poster receded to reveal a doorway. He stepped inside the doorway, entering what an outsider would deem the most advanced crime lab in the world. Of course, that would be predicated on that outsider having never seen the Batcave.

Robin sat down in front of the giant computer in the center of the crime lab and typed on the keyboard. Several keystrokes later, the image of the black gem Slade had acquired all those weeks ago appeared on the computer screen. A few keystrokes later, the computer was doing a search through all computer databases in the world for a match.

A few minutes later, Robin saw a message on the screen: “Match found.”

“The Gem of Black Death,” Robin murmured. Reading out loud, “`The Gem of Black Death is one of a set of four gems: the Gem of Black Death, the Gem of White Famine, the Gem of Red War, and the Gem of Blue Pestilence. When all four gems are united and brought to the Hand of Amon, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be released and this world will come to its end.'”

There was more, but it wasn't as important to Robin. What was important was that he knew the reason for Slade's theft of the black gem back in the museum at Jump City. However, he didn't know where to find the gems. He was certain Slade knew how and where to find them, so that meant he would have to track down Slade to find out how he located the gems.

Back at Titans Tower, Cyborg had just discovered the same thing as Robin.

“What do we do?” Beast Boy asked. “Slade can locate those gems and we can't!”

“Why would Slade wish to destroy this world?” Starfire asked. “He helped us save it when Trigon conquered it.”

“That was just him getting even with Trigon for screwing him over,” Raven replied cynically.

“I can't help but feel that there's more to what Slade's planning besides the destruction of the world,” Cyborg said. “Since when has he ever been so obvious about anything he's planned?”

“Never,” Raven answered. “That's how he's able to trip us up. He makes cryptic threats and statements and sets up ruses to distract us while he continues on with his real plans without interference.”

“How do we find the Apocalyptic Gems before Slade does?” Starfire asked.

“We contact the Justice League's top sorcerer,” Cyborg replied.

“You mean Dr. Fate?” Beast Boy deduced. “Aw, man! Do we have to?”

“What do you have against Fate?” Raven asked.

“He's creepy!” Beast Boy replied, as though that were a sufficient reason.

“He's not creepy,” Raven contradicted. “You simply don't like being around people smarter than you are.”

Cyborg resisted the urge to add, “And that would mean pretty much everyone else on the planet.”

“Regardless of his `creepiness,' Dr. Fate is an extremely experienced magic user,” Starfire stated. “We need all the help we can receive if we are to locate those gems before Slade does.”

“All right,” Cyborg said. He went back to the Titans supercomputer and opened a channel to the Justice League's Watchtower. The face that emerged on the screen was that of the Flash. “Hey, Flash.”

“Hey, Cyborg,” Flash greeted with a grin. “What brings you here?”

“We need to get in touch with Dr. Fate,” Raven replied.

“Sure thing, Rae,” Flash answered with what could have passed for a wink, but no one could tell underneath the Scarlet Speedster's mask.

“I think he likes you,” Beast Boy whispered to Raven.

“Please,” Raven whispered back. “He likes anything that's pretty and has curves.”

Soon enough, Dr. Fate had taken Flash's place at the screen.

“I see you need my help,” he stated calmly.

“Not yet,” Cyborg amended. “But we do need you to tell us something. First, have you ever heard of the Apocalyptic Gems?”

“The Gem of Black Death, the Gem of White Famine, the Gem of Red War, and the Gem of Blue Pestilence. Yes, I have,” Fate answered.

“Then you might be able to answer the next question,” Cyborg spoke. “How do you find those gems?”

“Why would you want to find them?” Dr. Fate asked.

“Because Slade's after them, that's why!” Beast Boy shouted.

“Slade?” Dr. Fate repeated. “The industrial saboteur?”

“Yeah,” Beast Boy confirmed irritably.

Dr. Fate did not speak for a few minutes. It seemed to the Titans as though he was in deep thought, but it wasn't as though they could tell through the golden helm that concealed his face.

“There is a way of locating the gems,” Dr. Fate finally spoke. He held up a steel bracelet with eight gems embedded inside it and a clear crystal in the center. “The gems and crystal in this bracelet are attuned to the energy of the Apocalyptic Gems and will thus enable you to track them. However, you will have to come up to the Watchtower to receive it.”

“Sure thing,” Cyborg answered. Man, I can't wait to check out the Watchtower! Have they updated the tech over there yet?

Within mere moments, the four Titans were transported to the Watchtower.

“Hey, guys,” Flash greeted with a grin aimed at Raven's direction. The grin faded when he noticed Robin wasn't there. “Where's Robin?”

“He left,” Starfire replied sadly.

“Why?” Flash asked.

“It's not something we'd like to talk about,” Cyborg answered.

At that moment, Dr. Fate strode toward them with the locator bracelet in hand. “Here you go,” he said as he placed the bracelet in Raven's hand, eliciting a blush from the young half-demon. “Be careful. I only have so many.”

“Thanks,” Raven uttered before the Titans were transported back to their Tower.

“Aw, man,” Cyborg moaned. “I never got to check out their mainframe!”

“It's not like we were there for that reason, Victor,” Raven stated as she attached the locator bracelet to her wrist. “And you can visit their Watchtower again if you feel like it.”

“They only let us up there for emergencies,” Cyborg sighed.

“Raven, are you attracted to Dr. Fate?” Starfire asked.

“No,” Raven replied.

“But you were blushing when his hand made contact with yours while he was giving you the locator bracelet,” Starfire claimed.

“You're aware the guy's married, right?” Beast Boy chimed in.

“I am not attracted to Dr. Fate,” Raven insisted. “You're all just talking nonsense.”

That night in Los Angeles, a sandy-haired man with a shady expression was pacing up and down a particular section of sidewalk.

“Where is he?” he muttered. “Said to come to this corner and he ain't even here, the miserable S.O.B.”

Just then, he heard a voice whisper, “Psst! Over here, you dumb goombah.”

The shady man entered the alley from which he had heard the voice. In the meager light, he could see a man who was better dressed than he was but slightly shadier than he looked.

“Jesus Christ, man!” the shady man exclaimed.

“Keep your freaking voice down,” the shadier man whispered harshly. “There ain't a whole lotta people on this corner, but you can't be too careful; you never know who might be watching.”

“This ain't Gotham City, this ain't Metropolis, this ain't Star City, this ain't Keystone City, this ain't anywhere those goddamn masked freaks like to hang out and bust up people like us,” the shady man retorted.

The shadier man resisted the urge to tell the shady man that Superman didn't wear a mask, instead choosing to ask, “You got the money?”

“You got the goods?” the shady man asked.

“Yeah,” the shadier man replied. “You got the money?”

“Sure,” the shady man answered, pulling out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills and giving it to the shadier man as he gave him the goods, which turned out to be at least two kilos full of cocaine.

“You two . . . just made a big mistake,” a cold, harsh voice whispered from within the shadows.

“Who's there?” the shady man asked.

“And you said `this ain't anywhere those goddamn masked freaks like to hang out,'” the shadier man half-spat, half-sneered.

“Show yourself, you goddamn freak!” the shady man yelled, pulling out a gun.

“You don't even know where I am,” the voice whispered. “What makes you think you won't shoot your friend by mistake instead?”

“Cool it!” the shadier man snarled. “He's just trying to freak you out! That's how those masked freaks like to operate!”

“Well, he's gonna be a dead masked freak!” the shady man yelled and fired three shots into the darkness. However, he didn't hear the thump of a body falling onto the asphalt.

“Big mistake,” the voice growled and then something came at the shady man from the shadows, striking quickly and brutally. By the time it was over, the shady man had a bloody nose and a quickly swelling lip. “Now . . . do you mind telling me who you were going to sell that cocaine to?”

“Screw you,” the shady man spat.

“Wrong answer,” the voice hissed and again, the thing from the shadows thrashed him, ending by pinning the shady man to the wall with a forearm at his throat and a pair of hellish blank white eyes staring at him. The shadier man tried to get away, but the shadow with the hellish eyes turned in his direction and a moment later he was tightly wrapped in black cord. “You stay.”

“What the freak do you want?” the shadier man asked.

“Who were you going to sell that cocaine to?” the shadow asked in a hissing growl.

“Ahh . . . ahh . . . th-th-the Hell's Dragons,” the shady man replied in a terrified voice. “They're a gang, hang out downtown.”

“And what do the Hell's Dragons do with the cocaine?” the shadow asked.

“They sell it to people on the street,” the shady man replied.

“What do they do with the profits?” the shadow inquired.

“They give me forty percent of the profits and spend the rest on platinum jewelry, rims for their cars, and other crap like that,” the shady man answered.

“What do you do with that forty percent?” the shadow questioned.

“I give it to my employer!” the shady man yelled. “He has an office in this strip club called Torrid Nights, but I don't see him. This guy at the door takes the money to him for me!”

“Thank you,” the shadow whispered and the shady man was certain that the shadow was smiling cruelly. “You get to keep all your limbs in one piece.”

Then the shady man found himself tied up next to the shadier man and the shadow was gone.

Robin stood on the rooftop of the building facing Torrid Nights, dressed in a new costume. He wore what looked like a short-sleeved black wetsuit with a burnt silver robin emblem on the chest and a scarlet stripe extending from it down to the insides of his legs. Black ribbed pads adorned his sleeves, thighs, and knees while his feet were encased in buckled black steel-toed boots and short black gloves with stainless steel pads on the backs covered his hands. He wore a burnt silver utility belt with a robin buckle around his waist and a black cape around his shoulders. A bird-styled black domino mask concealing his eyes completed the ensemble.

I'm going straight to the top of the food chain, he thought as he leaped toward Torrid Nights, landing in front of the doorman and knocking him unconscious before he had a chance to defend himself. Then he slinked to the back door and entered through it, climbing up to the rafters to keep out of view of the dancers and the horny males watching them. Thankfully, the rafters were not very well lighted, so it was relatively easy for him.

Inside the second-floor office of Torrid Nights, a short and chubby man sat at his large mahogany desk, counting his money . . . and there was plenty of money to count.

“Good evening,” Robin's voice rasped out.

The man yelped in shock. “Who's there!?”

“Just someone who's taken an interest in your . . . extralegal business practices,” Robin answered from his hiding place.

“What extralegal business practices?” the man asked.

“The kind that involves using street gangs to sell drugs for you,” Robin replied. “Of course, since you have someone to act on your behalf with guys like the Hell's Dragons, your hands are kept relatively clean. And of course, since the money is exchanged in cash only, there's no actual record of your dirty dealings, so even better for you.”

“So what?” the man retorted. “You basically said it yourself that there's no existing evidence of what I do. And even if you were to take on the Hell's Dragons and beat confessions out of each and every one of them, the public thinks of me as a respectable businessman. No way would the police believe the word of a bunch of thugs over mine.”

“Of course not,” Robin agreed. “You've got enough of the force in your pocket so that nothing's actually done about what you do. Sure, the little guys - the street thugs who sell for you - end up in jail, but the police don't bother investigating any further after that.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” the man asked.

“As of now, you are on notice,” Robin replied grimly. “This city will no longer be a safe place for scum like you. Not as long as I'm here.”

The young vigilante could practically smell and taste the fear that emanated from the man. Idly, he thought to himself that the gratification he felt from that fear was probably what Batman felt when he put the screws to some thug or fat cat crime lord.

He didn't have time to meditate on this or terrify the crooked businessman further, as he heard a commotion down in the club. Robin departed from the crooked businessman's office and into the club, which now looked like a scene from Dante's Inferno. The patrons and dancers were running around in terror, scrambling over each other to find a way out of the inferno Torrid Nights had become.

“It's going to be a hot night,” a familiar and much hated cool voice purred.

“Slade!” Robin spat. “What are you doing here?”

“Robin. What a pleasant surprise,” Slade remarked. “I see you've finally started listening to me and left your foolish friends behind.” The shift in his eye let Robin know that he'd raised an eyebrow. “I rather like the new costume.”

“You didn't answer my question,” Robin snarled, “but I already know why you're here.”

“Do you?” Slade asked. “Humor me and tell me my reason for being here in this place.”

“You found out that there was an Apocalyptic Gem here and you came to get it so that you'd be one step closer to ending the world,” Robin answered.

“How very astute of you,” Slade mused. “But you still haven't figured out one thing.”

“And what would that be?” Robin asked.

“What I really intend to do with those four gems,” Slade replied.

“I don't need to know what you intend to do with those gems,” Robin snarled, drawing his Bo staff from his belt and extending it to its full length with a press of a button. He also transferred a portion of the darkness dragon's power to the staff, causing it to ignite in black flames.

Slade drew and extended his own Bo staff, wrapping demon fire around it.

The two warriors charged at each other, their fiery staffs clashing against each other. Slade swung his staff at Robin, but the vigilante moved out of the way with almost ridiculous speed and swung his staff low to knock Slade's feet out from under him. Unfortunately for him, Slade stepped on his staff to prevent Robin from using it on him and then kicked him right into the flames. Robin wrapped himself in his cape, relying on the polymerized titanium to protect him from the flames.

Who the hell am I kidding? Robin thought. This is hellfire. Nothing made on this planet protects you from that.

Fortunately, he had something not made in this plane of existence that protected him from the flames: the power of the darkness dragon. As a result, Robin emerged from the hellfire unscathed.

“Ah, so this is the power of a darkness dragon,” Slade uttered. “Impressive.”

A black fireball formed in Robin's hand and he tossed it into the air, then jumped up and kicked it straight at Slade like a soccer ball. Slade managed to dodge the fireball, but it splintered into about thirty smaller black fireballs that all targeted Slade. The masked mastermind dodged as many as he could, but he couldn't evade all of them and he ended up battered by the remaining five black fireballs.

When the smoke cleared, Slade was looking rather well. Not entirely unscathed, as the fireballs had blown small holes in his Kevlar-and-armor suit, revealing singed flesh.

At least he's not a walking skeleton this time, Robin thought.

“You have a better grasp of your dark powers than I would expect for one so new to the game,” Slade remarked.

You should kill him, a voice that Robin didn't recognize as his own rasped in his thoughts. Kill him for all the suffering he's caused you and your friends.

Who's saying that? Robin wondered.

“Eyes on me, Robin,” Slade purred before blasting him with hellfire. “I'd like to stay and chat, but the second Apocalyptic Gem waits.” He cut a large hole in the ceiling with his hellfire and jumped up through it, landing right in the crooked businessman's office.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Someone who is very interested in what you have,” Slade replied. “A gem. Colored white, red, or blue. I know you have it in here. Would you prefer I kill you and find it myself?”

“You're not getting your hands on that gem!” Robin snarled as he landed in the crooked businessman's office.

“And what makes you think I won't?” Slade asked arrogantly.

With a scream of rage, Robin jumped into the air and kicked Slade. However, Slade caught his ankle and threw him at a wall, but Robin flipped in midair and landed on the wall, using it as a springboard to charge at Slade again. This time, Slade caught Robin by the wrist and threw him into another wall.

“I'm not sticking around for this crap,” the crooked businessman mumbled and tried to make a run for it.

“I don't think so,” Slade muttered and rushed to intercept him with supernatural speed. He grabbed the corrupt businessman by his thick wrist and channeled hellfire into him, torturing the man's very soul. “Hellfire doesn't do very much spiritual damage to the innocent, but you are by no means innocent, now are you?”

The corrupt businessman screamed in agony.

“Tell me where the gem is, or I turn up the heat until you're nothing but ashes,” Slade threatened.

“It's on top of my cane!” the corrupt businessman yelled.

“Thank you,” Slade replied and threw him down the hole into the flames. Then he turned to Robin. “You have two choices: Stop me from getting that gem or save his miserable life. You can't do both, and I know it will torture your heroic soul if you allow even a man as despicable as him to die so that you can stop me. So what will it be?”

Stop him, the voice hissed. Who cares what happens to that piece of garbage down there?

Ignoring the voice this time, Robin jumped down into the burning club and wrapped his cape around the crooked businessman, ushering him out of the club.

“Thanks,” the man managed to gasp out.

Robin took back his cape roughly and wrapped it around his shoulders once again. “I didn't do it for your sake,” he spat out coldly before firing a hook out of a grapnel gun and swinging away.

He has two Apocalyptic Gems and I'm still no closer to figuring out how to keep him from the remaining gems, Robin thought. It's time I called in some help.

End Notes: All right, so Blackfire and Robin didn't meet in this chapter, but you can guess who robbed that three-van convoy, can't you? Don't worry; they are definitely meeting up in the third chapter.

Who is this help Robin intends to call in? Knowing what he's dealing with, he's going to need the help of someone experienced in sorcery, but who exactly is he going to? You'll find out in the next chapter.

Without giving too much away, I can safely say that Robin won't forget all about that drug ring that crooked businessman set up. He's still gonna be itching to take down that scumbag, but how exactly does he intend to do it and how will he balance it with stopping Slade from unleashing the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Let's just hope our now-solo Boy Wonder doesn't stretch himself too thin.

The guidelines for reviewing that I set up in the first chapter still apply . . . but I dare someone to violate them. Come on. I can take you.