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#10
APR 15 |
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“Weapons of Self Destruction” Part One
It was a tip off from an anonymous source that led him back to this town, the last place he wanted to be. But if the tip was correct, something bad was going to go down, and he knew that this would be something that the Teen Titans wouldn't be able to handle on their own.
As he overlooked the city from the building he was standing on top of, he eyed the building just across the way. Something bad was about to happen, and it was going to happen at S.T.A.R. Labs.
Titans Tower
“Any luck finding Tim or Bart?” Connor asked as he walked along the beach of Titans Island with Cassie.
“Bart's been coming and going from his dorm room, but no one can ever seem to catch him when he's there,” Cassie replied. “He's managing to pass all of his classes without ever even showing up. He zips in, takes the tests, and leaves. And Tim's had no communication with anyone except Static.”
“We might need to visit Jump City to pay him a visit,” Connor said as they walked along. “I'm glad we reformed the Teen Titans, but it just doesn't feel the same without Tim or Bart here. This team needs Robin and Impulse.”
“I know,” Cassie replied as she looked over at him. “But they'll always have a spot on this team whenever they're ready to come back.”
“I don't think we can trust him,” Rose said as she looked over at Virgil as the two were sitting in the team rec room. She was playing pool, leaning over the table as she spoke.
“Jay didn't even know he was the son of a demon,” Virgil told her as he sat on the couch, reading a book. “I know I just met the guy a few days ago, but he seems like a really cool person. Has he given you a reason not to trust him?”
“Everyone gives me a reason to not trust them sooner or later,” Rose told him as she sunk all the balls in one shot.
“And what about me? Did I give you a reason?” Virgil asked he looked up from his book.
“If you really have to ask, I'm not going to tell you,” Rose told him as she walked out of the room.
Jay Young sat on the edge of the Titans pool, watching as Seren swam laps around it.
“What do you think, Seren?” Jay asked as he kicked his feet in the water. Ever since he found out that his biological father was Trigon, he had been having trouble accepting the truth. The last few days had been giving him nightmares about the whole situation. “About this whole son of a demon thing?”
Seren came up above the water and looked at him. “I think that biology is not important in how we choose to live our lives. Where I come from...well, it's not exactly the best place in the ocean to be raised, but even knowing what kind of people my parents were...it didn't change the person that I wanted to be.”
“Which was?”
“I wanted to help all creatures of the ocean, like my hero, Aquaman,” Seren told him as he climbed out of the pool. Jay averted his eyes as Seren got out. “I still hope to meet him someday and hopefully be able to call him my mentor.”
“Dude! What did we tell you about wearing a swimsuit?” Jay asked as Seren looked down at his body.
“You land dwellers and your sense of modesty,” Seren said as he wrapped a towel around his waist. “Jay, it doesn't matter who your father wants you to be. Who do YOU want to be?”
Seren walked out of the room as Jay just sighed, looking down into the water and into his reflection. He breathed a sigh of relief at seeing he still only had two eyes instead of four.
Vince was outside, looking down at the water rushing up onto the beach. He kneeled down in his smoky form and focused his concentration as he put his hand in the water, picking up a small bit of water in the palm of his hand. He smiled as he looked down at it, but it soon slipped through and back into the ocean.
“I'll get the hang of this, yet,” Vince promised himself as he tried again. “I am a real boy, and I'll prove it.”
S.T.A.R. Labs
“Los Angeles. Home of the Teen Titans. It's been statistically proven that any city where one superhero or more sets up shop has had its crime rate elevated. It's people like the Teen Titans that cause crime and corruption to rear its head. It's the younger generation that's responsible for the way things are.”
Cody Wyatt stared outside of the window on the highest floor of the S.T.A.R. Labs building where he was being held currently. He couldn't actually see, due to the dark shades that were covering his eyes to keep him from activating his powers, but he could feel the warmth of the sun coming through the window, hitting him as he stood there. Inside of his body was the soul of Joseph Wilson, a.k.a, Jericho. The son of Deathstroke the Terminator had originally been thought dead, but his soul had been saved, harvested by Inertia as a bargaining chip to get Deathstroke to work for him.
When the deal between Inertia and Deathstroke soured, Inertia threw Jericho's soul into the timestream, nearly two decades into the past. Jericho's soul, having no body, bonded with a stillborn baby, taking over its body. That baby was Cody Wyatt, whom Jericho grew up to believe he truly was, his personality being buried deep within his new brain's subconscious.
Later in life, Cody would meet, and fall in love with Bart Allen, the hero known as Impulse. The two would attend UCLA as a couple, until Cody's memory of his previous life was brought back as Jericho's personality took over. Impulse had managed to defeat Jericho and had him sent to S.T.A.R. Labs, but not before Jericho had played one last cruel trick on him, making Bart question whether their love was real.
It was now several weeks later, and the doctors were still unable to decipher whether or not Cody Wyatt or Jericho was the dominant personality. Only Cody/Jericho knew the absolute truth and he reveled in every minute of torturing the doctors with it.
“I won't be in this place forever,” Cody said as he stood in his cell with a straight jacket wrapped around his body. “When I get out, I'm coming for you, Bart. You and all of your friends.”
Downtown, Los Angeles
A shadowy figure stood on top of a building during the late afternoon. Everything had to go perfectly if his plan to come to fruition, and the man really hated it when his plans went off track. He looked at his watch and hit a button, sending a signal to start the game.
The sidewalk was crowded with people, too many to notice the one person who should have stood out. She was dressed in an ice blue costume that looked like it had a diamond-dusted coating on it. On her head was a pair of icy blue cat ears, and long sky blue hair. She approached a fire hydrant and kicked it up, sending water shooting sky high.
“The boss said to ice as many people as it takes to draw them out,” Waterlynx said as she concentrated her powers, manipulating the water to shoot at the crowd of people.
“So, let's ice them,” a man in dark blue bird-theme costume said as he held out his hands, icing the water over as it hit the people, encasing them in ice. Ice Raptor laughed the people who were out of range of the water started running and screaming.
“Aw, they're trying to get away,” Waterlynx said she focused her powers, causing water to shoot up out of the sewers in the nearby street, sending the manhole covers flying and crashing to the ground.
“All hail the new guys in the town!” Ice Raptor shouted as he started turning the falling water into chunky hail, striking everyone within distance.
As icy hell started breaking loose, people tried to get away, only to find more manholes were exploding with sewer water, with more hail falling. As one young man tried to get away, he found himself pulled into an alley by a third costumed vigilante. This one was wearing a protective fire proof mask, and wielding a blowtorch.
“Thanks for saving me, man!” the young man shouted as the blowtorch turned on in the man's left hand. In his right, he was holding a dead puppy. “Wait, what are you –NOOO!”
His cries were soon drowned out as the Dogwelder went about his business. When he was done, he exited the alley to find his next victim, leaving the young man on the ground with a dead puppy welded to his face.
It wasn't long before the Teen Titans had received the call and were on their way. When they got there, they saw the carnage and were shocked that someone could do this kind of thing.
“What the hell is going on?” Superboy asked as he started flying through the ice, seeing all the frozen people.
“Superboy, Vince, Seren, see if you can get these people unfrozen, some of them might still be alive!” Wonder Girl said as she flew behind Superboy. “The rest of us will find these psychos and deal with them.”
As the Titans moved forward, Ravager looked up to the top of the building, seeing a quick glimpse of a shadow moving away.
“It's not really hard to tell who's doing this,” Superboy said as he looked through the falling ice and saw Waterlynx and Ice Raptor enjoying the carnage. “I'd say it was the two freaks in the fruity costumes that were causing this!”
“Then let's teach them a lesson, shall we?” Static asked as he flew his hoverboard toward the duo, who quickly created an ice wall to block them off. Wonder Girl punched her way through toward them.
“Sorry, that trick doesn't work on me!” Wonder Girl said as Ice Raptor started firing ice spikes at her. They bounced off of her bracelets as she deflected them, before being hit by a barrage of water from Waterlynx. Ice Raptor froze over the water that had hit Wonder Girl, freezing her in a block of ice.
While Superboy, Aquaboy and Vince were trying to break and thaw as much as ice as they could, Mindwarp was trying to use his psychic powers to determine who was still alive.
“A lot of these people are going to have horrible frostbite, but a good portion of them will survive if we hurry!” Mindwarp said as he was pulled into an alley and shoved against the wall by Dogwelder, who held up a dead puppy. “Oh, HELL no!”
A few minutes later, several blocks away at S.T.A.R. Labs, all the attention had been diverted away from the building, meaning that security wouldn't be as tight. It helped to hire three psychos who would create such devastation as to make sure that anything else would seem light in comparison.
But still, such an operation required stealth and timing. Something Deathstroke the Terminator excelled at. He easily dispatched the few guards in the lobby before making his way into the building, knowing the Teen Titans would be far too busy to deal with him. He'd deal with the Titans face to face soon enough, but first he needed a few things to fall into place.
Static got through the ice wall, just in time for a barrage of ice spikes to fly at him. Using his powers to summon a trash can lid, he deflected them. Tossing the can away, Static saw Waterlynx standing in the water that she was using to attack as he charged it, sending a charge into it that was just small enough to take her down.
“You're going to pay for that!” Ice Raptor shouted as he started shooting more spikes at Static, but while he was distracted, he was hit in the back of the head by the trash can lid that Static had tossed away, being held by Vince , just as Wonder Girl broke out of the ice she'd been encased in, sending ice shards flying.
“That was fun,” Vince told them. “Maybe this should be my new weapon.”
“Nah, doesn't suit you,” Static told him. “Come on, let's get back to the others.”
Dogwelder was about to weld a puppy to Mindwarp's face as he closed his eyes and focused. A tap then came on Dogwelder's shoulder, and as he turned to face Mindwarp, the blue tinted fist of Mindwarp's soul form hit him, sending him flying into the wall, forcing him to let go of Mindwarp's body.
“There you are!” Superboy shouted as he flew into the alley, seeing Dogwelder laying on the ground. “Is that a dead puppy?”
“Come on, you two, we still have lives to save and shit!” Static shouted from the street as the two headed out.
Deathstroke found the directory of the various things and people that were being kept at S.T.A.R. Labs, searching through it until he finally found the room he was searching for. He could be out of there within minutes as long as the Teen Titans were kept busy. With the security alarms disabled, what little guards there were taken out, and the police responding to the emergency downtown, there was only thing that could slow him down now.
Deathstroke finally stood outside the room of Joseph Wilson. His son was on the other side of the door, just waiting for his father to rescue him. Deathstroke opened the door and saw someone standing at the window, unmoving.
“Joey?” Deathstroke said softly as he approached the young man. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes,” the young man said without turning around as Deathstroke got closer. “You're the guy who's in a world of trouble.”
As Deathstroke took another step closer, the person staring out the window threw off the straight jacket and turned around, extending a bo staff in his hands.
“Hello, Deathstroke,” Robin said with a smirk as he twirled his staff. “I was wondering when you'd get here.”
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To Be Continued
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