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21/07/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
Robin and his team approached the tower, hidden under the cover of the sudden storm.
Which was all the cover they had, given the tower's location was situated out in the middle of the bay, standing tall atop an artificial island made from the covered over remains of the Gordanian ship that had once held Starfire.
In hindsight? It may have been a bit too defensible. And isolated. The only way to easily sneak up on the tower was underwater which... was actually a commonly used tactic, once Robin started to think about it.
Ra's Al-Ghul's League of Shadows. Half the nutjobs with their crazy technology could build submarines. Scuba diving was a thing. Atlanteans existed.
Robin... was feeling less and less safe as he considered the question of 'How would I break into my own home' but there wasn't much he could do about it.
Sea mines were illegal, even for heroes. He'd checked.
Only having one road that led directly to and from the tower was also a problem. A single choke point was good against enemies but it made escape into something of a problem...
Still, it wasn't as though the enemy team had set up ambushes along the road. Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, Raven and Beastboy came up on the tower soon enough.
That was when things started to get confusing.
The front door? The one that was barred and locked?
It was wide open, a growing puddle just beyond the doorway. Inside of the tower, the emergency lights were active and drawing on battery power.
Which meant the elevator was out. Hurrying past the inactive door, the team rushed into the emergency stairwell-
And found the giant teen, the hulking wall of muscles, Mammoth. Not quite passed out but dazed, whimpering and staring blankly upwards.
"What the-?!" Cyborg shouted, his right hand transforming into his Sonic Cannon as he aimed it at the enemy teen's head. "What's he doin' here? What happened to him?!"
"I don't know," Robin admitted as he tried to circle around Mammoth's insensate form. "Raven, can you put him to sleep?"
"...Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," Raven incanted quietly, surrounding herself in a black shadow briefly before the shadow slithered off of Raven's body. It snaked its way across the floor and wrapped itself around Mammoth's throat.
For a moment, Robin expected the whole thing to constrict and tighten. Instead, a small spot pressed itself down just underneath of Mammoth's right ear. After several seconds, Mammoth's eyes closed and Raven's shadow returned to her.
The giant teen hadn't bothered fighting. At all.
"...Somethin' ain't right," Cyborg said, both of his eyes locked on Mammoth. The organic eye slid down to Mammoth's feet where a small pool, barely a few spots really, stood out black against the red surroundings. "You guys head on up. I'll get the power back on."
The group nodded as one and split apart. Cyborg heading back the way they'd come as the remaining four ascended the stairs. For Robin and Beastboy, that left them climbing by foot. There were no animal forms that genuinely handled stairs any better than people, nor did Robin have full access to his equipment such as his grappling hooks.
Raven and Starfire floated up. Starfire traveled up through the center vacancy while Raven kept behind the boys, providing multiple points of view and defense.
Most of the floors in the tower were unoccupied and left useless. Storage space as well as room to expand when, not if, they gained new members. Some were reserved for Cyborg's use, full of computer equipment or alien technology that had been salvaged from the ship far below the tower.
The silence inside the tower, broken by the sounds of thunder and the clapping of boots on concrete, felt suffocating.
Robin was used to it but he was surprised at the lack of chatter coming from his teammates. Raven wouldn't say much, he knew that, but both Starfire and Beastboy were acting with a level of focus that Robin wasn't used to seeing from them.
Whatever had taken down Mammoth never revealed itself, a fact that left Robin nervous as they climbed higher and higher. Something had to have beaten the boy, and it would've had to be strong to counter Mammoth's massive size.
Had it been the Plush Party? Yuffie had never revealed the kind of strength needed to counter Mammoth and Player One hadn't been included in Alchemist's instructions...
Unless she was a part of the Plush Party?
Seriously. What even was the Plush Party? What kind of hidden meaning was there in Alchemist's demand?
It was a concern that Robin shoved aside as they crested the last set of stairs that led to the main top floor. Passing a spot of rust on the penultimate landing, the team burst through the main doorway-
"Titans, Go!" Robin shouted, one finger pointed straight forward as Beastboy lunged past him, taking on the form of a tiger while Raven and Starfire flew by Robin's sides, their respective powers hovering at their fingertips.
Only for the group to collectively freeze at the sight of Jinx, snoring on the ground. And, over to the side, half-way through the kitchen doorway, was Gizmo. Also asleep.
"Uh... Robin?" Raven asked as she descended to the ground. "I think we might be a little late to the party."
"...Secure them?" Robin half-asked. "I'll call the police to get them taken away- Starfire!" the nominal leader of the informal team suddenly shouted, startling the redhead. "Take Raven and do a sweep on the rest of the tower while we get Jinx and Gizmo tied up."
"Uh, dude?" Beastboy called from where he'd meandered near the kitchen. "I think someone already beat us to tying Gizmo up."
Stepping over Jinx, Robin got a closer look and...
"...I don't think that's legal," Robin commented as he looked at the vaguely familiar harness the boy was tied up in.
It wasn't a perfect match but the boy -did- remember walking in on Bruce and Talia when they'd done something similar.
"He might've done it to himself?" Beastboy suggested as the lights turned back on with a hum.
At the blank, incredulous looks sent his way, Beastboy raised his hands defensively in front of himself.
"Look, I'm just sayin'! We don't know what happened, we don't know what got interrupted."
"...I don't -want- to know what got interrupted," Raven cut in, silencing Robin before he got a chance to say something. "I just want to get this over with so I can go back to my room."
Raven flew off towards the door that led to their living quarters while Starfire, uncertainty in her features, sent the boys a shaky smile before following Raven.
"...We should probably fix that," Robin said after a moment spent gathering his thoughts. "Beastboy-"
"I'm not touching him," Beastboy immediately interrupted, crossing his arms in an X in front of his face. "That's a big No from me, bro."
Robin's lips thinned into a scowl.
He didn't want to touch Gizmo, either.
-----
Alchemist, tired as he was, managed to stay awake.
He was sprawled out on the floor of the living room of his house, his wings draped out over the couch and his tail blocking the hall.
Kary and Jinx were in the dining room, sitting at the table, drinking and talking. He wasn't sure what they were saying. Their words were quiet and at the edge of what he could hear, at least without focusing. It was just noise.
Yuffie would be back shortly, he figured. She was going to be excited and energetic, ready to tell him all about how awesome she'd been as she kicked or flipped and ran circles around the Hive kids.
Meanwhile, he was just doing something low effort, low stress. He didn't want to toss the modified ingot into the forge and start turning it into things, not at the moment. His head hurt too much to even think of dealing with a project that would be so loud or bright.
Instead, he was working on his inventory. He had thousands of new inventory entries from going through the Item World and stealing everything and he actually had a functional means of handling them now.
One of the abilities that he'd gotten on his administrator's unwanted excursion was called 'Salvage'. It gave him two different methods to deconstruct an item to retrieve components, with a chance of getting higher quality components based on the level of the ability. One part of it was an inventory slot that would break things down and just needed time. The other was that it also offered up an active ability that would break things apart within his line of sight and used energy from some arbitrary bar called 'SP' that had changed over to his MP upon returning to his current system.
It worked well with his current system, though. The inventory system he'd experimented with over there had been a grid system with very limited stacking. His current inventory system was a list and tab style.
So, he could highlight and then slide as many entries as he wanted inside of one tab over to the 'Salvage' slot where it would stack, give him a readout of however many minutes and seconds it would take to break down, then it'd spit the resulting materials directly into the inventory.
He was holding on to the enchanted equipment for the moment. Tiffany might appreciate a chance to expand her knowledge with whatever he'd come across, after all. But all the rest?
Was getting broken down.
He had a lot to work with, too, but the dragon's yellow eyes were locked on and watching as the counter slipped closer and closer to zero on a few pieces he'd collected from the dozen odd Daedric suits of armor. He had some pressing questions on those that he very much so wanted answered.
The seconds were ticking further and further down on the stack of Daedric Helmets. 10, 9, 8...
"Dad?" Yuffie's voice called, low and keening from the doorway. Alchemist's head whipped to the side, his brain felt like it followed painfully a second later. "Dad? I don't feel good..."
Alchemist's claws gouged lines into the hardwood floor as he got up and moved. He was too big to easily get around the house without changing but his neck was long enough that he could poke his head through a doorway and crane it enough to get a look around.
He found Yuffie, standing in the doorway of the house, dripping wet with one hand clutching her stomach. Her other hand held the backpack the Plush Party had been stowed in. She was hunched forward, her head tilted down and, by body language alone, Alchemist could tell that something was wrong.
"Yooffie?" Alchemist asked, confused as his sluggish mind worked to figure out what was wrong.
Hunched over. Dripping wet. Cold?
The girl shivered but didn't answer him. She just hunched over a little harder.
Right. Alchemist needed to deal with the obvious before getting her to tell him about what he couldn't see.
"Come," Alchemist told the girl, his voice as soft and gentle as he could make it. He turned back around, smacking the side of his head against the doorframe in his hurry, and curled himself up in the center of the living room.
When Yuffie shuffled in, Alchemist was quick to hit her with a number of spells.
Prestidigitation cleaned the water off of her. Saren's Swift Girding swapped out her armor for a pair of pajamas. Esuna and Cure hit her but they didn't seem to do anything.
What was wrong?
Yuffie flopped on the floor and curled up against his barrel. The numerous dolls inside of her backpack poked their heads out and looked around before crawling out. Bonnie and Freddy looked like they wanted to say something before Freddy saw Yuffie's state and he shuffled the purple bunny away.
Alchemist hesitantly raised one claw and very carefully poked Yuffie's shoulder with the actual digit underneath of the claw.
She curled up tighter to his side.
"...I got sick," Yuffie mumbled. "A bunch of times. My stomach hurts and I don't feel good."
"Ah," Alchemist rumbled. If she had some kind of stomach bug, Esuna should have cleared that up. Had it been her motion sickness?
The dragon wasn't sure but he supposed it didn't really matter at the moment.
What did matter was his daughter.
Carefully plucking a bottle of water from the inventory, the dragon insistently pushed it into the girl's hands. It took a few minutes before she was willing to try and drink it, however.
"...'m sorry," Yuffie mumbled in between large gulps of water. "Don't be mad, okay? I didn't finish my mission..."
Alchemist, rather than get mad, just snorted. He didn't care if Yuffie succeeded.
He'd just wanted the Teen Titans out from under his roof.
When Yuffie looked at him in confusion, Alchemist didn't have any sort of difficult or complex answer for her. He didn't need one.
Instead, he just covered the girl with one of his wings and curled his neck around to properly lay down. After a second, Yuffie seemed to get the message when she put the water down and laid her head against his side.
"...Love you too, dad."
-----
23/07/2003
Slade Wilson waited patiently before the excessive, expensive monitor that took up a significant portion of the wall in his... lair.
How... quaint. If the man were just a few years younger? He wouldn't be engaging in such frivolities.
Time had a way of catching up with everyone, however. Even him. And the mistakes he'd once considered so trivial...
Well. Slade was pursuing an apprentice for a reason and his list of options had been thoroughly pruned by his own hands well before he'd even known he should start looking.
With his hands clasped behind his back, Slade was the very picture of control and poise as the screen flickered to life and revealed the headmistress of Hive Academy.
"We are so sorry, Mister Wilson!" the woman immediately began once the connection was made. Behind her, wearing restraints over their hands and wrists, were the three children that she'd claimed were so promising. "We had no idea that external actors would be interfering in our operations! This Player One proved-"
"A rather amusing distraction," Slade cut in, silencing the woman with a dark chuckle. "And quite well informed as to the identities and histories of your students."
Behind her, the pink-haired girl raised her head to glare at the camera. Perhaps it was meant to be intimidating but Slade could barely find the girl more threatening than a kitten. His own Rose was far more dangerous.
"But," Slade allowed, his lone eye traveling across the faces of the children the Headmistress had sent. "While they did fail at their primary purpose, it is precisely because they succeeded in drawing out forces that were previously unknown."
"...Thank you," the Headmistress gritted out, her jaw clenched as she picked up on the slight derision in Slade's tone. "Your... understanding is... appreciated."
Slade simply nodded as he considered what they'd learned. The new vigilante, Player One, was both vicious and efficient in a way that Slade certainly appreciated but he did not, unfortunately, consider useful.
The boisterous Levia-chan was both talented and skilled. More so than even Robin, it seemed. Her unusual companions also provided her with far more mobility than he would have expected, too. There was potential, there...
And then there was the report given by the students of Hive Academy. A horror story of stuffed animals coming to life and handling the children, well, rather handily. Slade expected there was some kind of mage involved with that incident. One that was not above sending animated drones to perform their dirty work.
"With that said, however?" Slade continued, breaking the uncomfortable silence that saw the 'elite' agents shuffling about uncomfortably in the background. "Your team failed their mission at every metric. I simply cannot be expected to pay you in full for this."
"...No," the Headmistress agreed, her countenance souring. "We... understand that a failure of this level-"
"Half," Slade cut the woman off, his head dipping slightly in a nod. "Your team did succeed in drawing out a number of actors we were previously unaware of. Such information is incredibly valuable and your team certainly suffered enough to justify some form of payment, I believe."
"That- Yes!" the woman coughed, catching herself before she tried to argue with him. "That is incredibly generous of you. We at Hive Academy most certainly appreciate your patronage and we look forward to working for you again in the future!"
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," Slade allowed as he uncrossed his arms from behind his back. Instead, he crossed his left arm over his midsection and brought his right hand to his chin. "And I wish you the best of luck in finding whichever spy is in your school."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Player One, of course," Slade began to explain. His voice remained even and cold as he glared into the Headmistress's eyes with his own. "She was quite well informed of both Mammoth's history as well as Jinx's. Given that neither of them teamed up prior to joining your school? It would be quite the leap for the both of them to have interacted with the same person and, somehow, explained their personal histories with them. Especially given young Mammoth's rather crippling speech impediment."
The Headmistress froze as Slade explained what was, to him, such a very simple observation. She turned, her glare growing more severe as she looked at the students she'd sent-
At which point Slade made a small, subtle motion and one of his few human agents cut the connection.
The man considered the screen for a long, silent moment before he turned to walk away.
How did they expect to run their school, really, when the incompetence started at the very top?
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