Chapter Text
“So, if there’s six of you…“
“Then why aren’t you called.. you know, like..” Gar finishes Wally’s thought.
❝Sinister Six is trademarked.❞ Dick answers.
“Seriously?” Cyborg asks,
❝It’s a whole comic thing, some company owns it. Might be a movie soon.❞ Dick clarifies.
“Oooo I have got to get in on that! Comic IPs are mucho dinero these days” Beast Boy says, much to the frustration of the six villains surrounding them. Six villains, all associated with HIVE in one way or another. All outfitted with giant, yellow “H” insignias on their chest. Jinx, flustered, yells,
“Will you twerps make your move already?! We aren’t going down without a fight!”
“Yea! HIVE won’t let us! So let’s get this show on the road!” Gizmo, the team’s tech-genius, shouts. Robin shrugs,
❝If you say so… Titans, Go!❞
The New Teen Titans disperse from their formation. Starfire blazes through the air, blasting starbolts at Plasmus. Mammoth marches towards the group, but Donna intercepts him with an uppercut; she catches him by the harness on her way to the sky where she pummels him more. Cyborg’s sonic cannon follows Gizmo’s jetpack trail before his operating system notices an inefficiency.
“Star! Trade me!” The fire blazes upwards to follow Gizmo. She aims a bolt for his jetpack, and catches the twerp as he falls. Cyborg’s sonic cannon shreds right through Plasmus’ outer layer. That’s three. Kid Flash rushes Shimmer, side-stepping between each swing of her glowing blue hands as she attempts to transmute his skin to acid.
“Almost!”
Whoosh! “Not quite!”
Swoosh! “Ok, now you’re just getting lazy.” Wind rushes around her; she can’t move. A green boa constrictor laughs as it closes around her body. She shrieks.
“Tooooo easy, Kid!” The beast taunts. Four.
Across the way, Robin jump kicks Jinx. The woman luckily dodged. The Boy Wonder lands in a crouch and swings his leg around hers. Another lucky dodge. Behind her appears the shadow of a raven. Her wings unfold open; pink energy drains from Jinx and into the darkness. Finally, Robin lands his strikes and down she goes. Five, Robin counts. Now where’d number six go, he asks himself as he gleams the road and adjusts his green gauntlets. Beast Boy cheers and asks when’s lunch. But we already ate, Starfire tells him like it matters. Donna, however, focuses on Robin. She’s always known when something has his attention.
“What now? We won, the cuffs suppress their powers, it’s all working well.. uh, we should be all good?” She asks with hesitance as she peers from behind him. Robin hmms. His brain’s blank. Where’d the sixth hostile go? His head hurts.
“Dude, can’t you join us?” Beast Boy asks.
❝Aren’t we forgetting something..?❞ He turns to Donna and the others but they’ve disappeared. The street’s been replaced with dirt. The sun by spotlights.
“Robin, won’t you join us?” His mother reaches out her hand. His father leaps from the platform. His mother follows. Their rope tears. The Boy Wonder jumps, in a last ditch effort to save them this time. He’s older now, maybe something will be different! He pleads. Darkness follows his descent. The big top swallows him whole. He drowns in fabric; his screams muffled by the heavy tarps. He pulls himself out of the grave and into the cavernous dwellings beneath the manor. His suit’s locked within a display case. He stares at his reflection, the mask aligns with his eyes. His blues get lost behind the white lenses. Where are they? The mask, it’s, I cant, he panics. It won’t come off. His breath hits the glass, then his hands and fists. He’s stuck. And he can’t break out. He can’t break OUT.
His knees hit the asphalt and his gloved hands follow. He coughs his life out.
❝Where’s…wheres.. where’s PSIMON?!❞
“Dude, who’s Simon?” Beast Boy asks. Cyborg shrugs. The other Titans share concerned looks amongst each other.
❝The sixth!❞ In between deep gasps, ❝the sixth member.. where’d he go?❞
“Uh, they’re called the Fearsome Five for a reason bud.” Wally helps him to his feet. Dick clasps his best friend’s hand but all he feels is a stiff, grainy plank. These aren’t his friends, just puppets. The street turns to a stage, buildings replaced by curtains.
“Teen Titans, Go!” His friends shout in unison. Their puppet master pulls them towards an unseen threat, hiding in darkness behind the curtain stage left.
BANG.
Robin flinches. Five more gunshots empty the chamber. All the Titans surround the Boy Wonder. Lifeless. Gone. Led to their deaths by their leader. The stage crumbles beneath him. Darkness engulfs his mind. More mind games, he thinks. Psimon’s near. Who knows what he’s done to his friends in the real world. Echoing in his mind, he hears,
“Psimon says, SLEEP” He lands with a blanketed thud on a stretcher; blinding fluorescents surround him. Batman rushes his gurney down the endless hallway. He fights the restraints. A laryngeal mask hides his speech but no anesthesia flows.
❝Batman?❞ Is this real? Doesn’t matter, where are the titans? But he can only muster, ❝Batman..save the Titans.❞
Wind rushes through the hallway. A red and yellow blur breaks the restraints. A trail of fire carries him to the end of infinity, bursting through the unreachable hallway doors. Light surrounds him. Wally helps him stand but he swats the speedster away. Robin rips off a gauntlet and finally feels the asphalt. The real asphalt. Now he takes Wally’s help.
“Dude, what happened to you?” Silence.
❝How many were there? Who did we just fight?❞ His trained professionalism proceeds him, Robin asks to confirm his surroundings.
“Uhh earth to bird brain, you helped us remember? The Fearsome Five as in, Five losers.” Beast Boy says.
❝Cyborg, pull up security footage. Whatever’s in our vicinity. Last ten minutes.❞ Vic complies to the request. Grainy footage shows the Titans surrounded by Jinx, Gizmo, Mammoth, Shimmer, Plasmus, and Psimon. During the ensuing brawl, every Titan passed amicably by the psychic. He turned down the fight and simply observed.
❝Working theory? Psimon shielded himself psionically. Dammit! I knew there was a sixth! He knew I was right and dove deeper. I should’ve-❞ He cuts his self-loathing short to check their surroundings. Before the hallucinations began, The Fearsome Five minus Psimon were subdued on the street. “Cyborg! What’s the current footage show? Now!” 7 Titans, five missing villains. One left behind.