East: Collide (Teen Titans: Future Storm)
In which Cerdian is a dick, Lian drops him on his ass, and they run into trouble and meet the other players in this drama.
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: East
Chapter: Collide
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nil
Cerdian was not having fun on the surface so far. First of all, he’d had to wander through Steel City looking for a place to stay so he could sleep. He’d found his way to a hotel with a pool, which was good for his Atlantean physiology, but he’d had to pay for it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have surface world money, so he’d had to part with a doubloon salvaged from some sunken ship to compensate. Fortunately, the doubloon was rare enough that it granted him a considerable length of time to stay in the hotel while he got his bearings. The Atlantean boy didn’t sleep in the bed in his room; he slept in the pool.
Morning came and Cerdian swam, still wearing the wetsuit-styled garment he’d been wearing when he first arrived on the surface. He performed seemingly endless laps through the pool, thankful for the treatment that made its water safe for him. The laps were his form of meditation, giving him a greater sense of tranquility and inner quiet. He needed that, especially if he was going to hold back the cursed power that burned within his veins.
After he finished, he rose from the water, only to see a teenage girl in what he vaguely recognized as a bikini. Her hair was dark blonde, streaked with an even darker color, and her bikini did not leave that much to the imagination. From his vantage point, she seemed tall, not quite as tall as him, but taller than average. Also, he noticed that she had an expression that while not quite a smile was nonetheless an expression of approval . . . and interest. He didn’t have time for a girl to be interested in him.
“That was some great swimming,” the girl said. “No, beyond great. It was like you were one with the water.”
“That’s because I live in the water,” Cerdian replied dryly and somewhat patronizingly. He began to move past her, but she gently grabbed his arm as though to halt him in his tracks. “Release me. Now.”
“You staying long?” she asked. “I’m here all weekend. Room 310.”
Cerdian sneered. “For all you know I could be some kind of rapist, murderer, or other kind of madman. And you insist on throwing yourself at me and telling me where you’re staying. Do you find me attractive?”
“Not really, you jerk,” the girl answered, letting go of Cerdian roughly. The Atlantean boy merely grunted and continued on his way, exiting the pool room and the hotel. He would have to find some surface clothes to wear; he didn’t want to call too much attention to himself by wearing a wetsuit all the time. If he’d been at a beach, it would have raised far less suspicion, but he was not at a beach.
Cerdian found himself in a shopping mall, walking around looking for a clothing store. He passed by a music store, a DVD store, an electronics store, and even an ice cream store. None of those stores received more than an idle glance from him. After about ten minutes, he made his way into a clothing store that sold gothic attire. He scanned the items in the shop before turning to an employee and asking, “Is everything in here black or some shade of red or purple?”
The employee, a girl with fishnets covering her legs and a leather skirt molding to her hips, answered with a succinct, “Yeah, unitard boy.”
Cerdian merely spared her a dark glance before moving into the stacks of clothes looking for something that would fit him. In the end, he chose several black shirts, one of them bearing a crimson bat emblem, several black pants, a studded belt, and a pair of buckled boots. After trying them all out and finding them suitable for him, he kept his favorite set of shirt and pants on and came out with the rest.
“I’ll be buying all of these,” he said, flipping a doubloon to her. “I trust this will be more than enough.”
The employee bit the doubloon to make sure it was real gold. “I don’t know how much this is worth, but I’m sure you could buy the entire store if you wanted. Anyway, let me bag all of that for you.” She eyed him in his new attire. “You actually pull off that look pretty well, at least compared to all the posers that come in here.”
Cerdian didn’t pay attention to the compliment. He waited patiently until she had bagged all of his newly purchased clothes. Once she’d done that, he took the clothes and departed without a word, just barely hearing her mumble, “Bastard. But a cute bastard.”
Now that the mage-prince had his surface clothes, he was ready to depart from the mall when he spotted a familiar head of curly red-orange hair. Without really thinking about it, he moved toward it, casually removing other shoppers from his path and not paying attention to their cries of discontent. They didn’t matter to him; nothing mattered except possibly seeing the face that had become an ever-present feature in his dreams. When he finally reached the redhead, he grabbed her shoulder . . . and was summarily flipped onto his back.
“Cerdian, you’ve really got to learn how to approach people more politely,” a familiar, snarky voice observed. “Lesson One: Never try to grab a girl from behind. Never. It leads to things like this happening to you.”
Cerdian looked up and saw lime green eyes twinkling with mischief and lips upturned in a devious smirk. In the back of his mind, he observed that there was an audience watching, composed largely of women and the shoppers he had so casually moved aside on his single-minded quest. The women seemed rather appreciative of the girl’s move, while the shoppers had rather satisfied “serves him right” looks on their faces.
“Lian,” he greeted tersely. “How long has it been? Since the Christmas party?”
“Yeah, and you haven’t been to see me since,” Lian answered. She extended a hand, one that Cerdian gratefully took. She helped him to his feet with remarkable ease, given the fact that Atlantean bodies were denser than human bodies. “Has magic school kept you busy?”
“Yes,” Cerdian replied. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Lian asked.
Cerdian leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Not here.” Lian got the hint and began walking quickly, easily balancing herself on the heels she was wearing. Cerdian followed her, muttering about the irrationality of high-heeled shoes and wondering how surface females could stand wearing them, much less walking in them. Fortunately, he was muttering too lowly for Lian to hear him; otherwise, he would have the archer’s wrath to deal with.
Finally, she pulled him into a shop selling scented soaps and candles and turned to him. “Now what is it you wanted to tell me that you couldn’t say out there?”
Cerdian leaned forward and whispered, “My father sent me. His mages received word of something happening here in this city. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. You?”
“Attending college here in the fall,” Lian replied.
“Why move all the way from Star City to here?” Cerdian inquired. “Wouldn’t that keep you a considerable distance away from Mar’i?”
“I wanted a change of scenery,” Lian answered. “And Mar’i flies really fast. She could be here in no time at all.”
Cerdian shrugged nonchalantly as Lian got a good look at him. “Leather pants look good on you,” she said.
“I’m glad you approve,” Cerdian spoke tonelessly, beginning to walk out. Lian followed him, the clack of her heels resounding in his sensitive ears. The two teens wandered aimlessly through the mall. Cerdian wanted to leave, despite the fact that he had nothing better to do and Lian was right there. Speaking of Lian, he could smell her perfume and her underlying natural scent. It engulfed him and he felt that long-repressed obsession come forth again, keeping him near Lian like her shadow.
Elsewhere in the mall, Iris was in a CD store listening to thirty-second music samples, thumping her foot and nodding her head to the beat. She was so absorbed in the music that she almost didn’t notice the redhead and the dark-haired boy walking past the entrance to the CD store. When she recognized them, she whipped her head toward them in a super-speed motion. She removed the headphones and dashed toward them, halting in front of them in less than a second.
“Iris!” the redhead exclaimed in surprise.
“Iris,” the dark-haired boy echoed calmly.
“LianCerdianwhatsup?” Iris asked, her words coming out in a jumble.
“We’re good,” Cerdian answered simply.
“Thought you’d be back in Keystone by now,” Lian said.
“Youwannagetridofmedontyou!” Iris shouted, sounding like a chipmunk given too much sugar. Just as Lian was about to stammer out an explanation that would appease her, she burst out laughing. “It’s summer, and you’re here, so I’m here!” She looked at Lian’s feet. “Heels aren’t good for you.”
“You’re just jealous I look good in them,” Lian retorted, tongue out in a teasing expression.
Iris just ignored her and looked at Cerdian. “Never figured you for a Goth, but it looks good on you. How’ve you been, waterboy?” The answer she received was a noncommittal grunt. “Always cheery, aren’t ya? Anyway, I’ve got another delivery to make and I’ve stalled long enough. See ya!” She dashed away in a blur of motion, changing into her costume as she ran.
In a midtown apartment, a nude Lian opened her bedroom wardrobe and reached past the front row of clothing to withdraw her costume. She pulled on the pants first, followed by the sleeveless jacket vest with her signature hood. On came the archer’s gauntlets and knee-high boots, followed by the quiver and belt. She slid her crossbow into the belt holster and clipped her collapsible bow to the back of her belt. She put on her reflective sunglasses and raised her jacket vest’s hood over her head.
Now that she was fully geared up, she exited her room via the window, rappelling with the aid of a grapple arrow down to the apartment complex’s parking lot. She found her motorcycle, unmolested due to its taser-based security system, and straddled it. She started the motorcycle and rode out of the parking lot and into the streets of Steel City.
Red Hood sped through the city, just looking for trouble. She wasn’t looking to get in it, although that could be potentially fun. She was simply looking to stop it. As she rode, she got the feeling that the city was being annoyingly quiet. There was hardly a thing out of place, which somewhat irritated her as she was looking for some action.
Oh, well, she thought. At least just riding around like this will make people think twice before starting trouble here.
To her surprise, she felt a weight suddenly land on the back of her motorcycle. Red Hood nearly swerved into another car, but quickly regained her composure and kept riding. She turned to regard her stowaway with a wary expression beneath the visor of her helmet. “Flamebird, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Warning you,” Flamebird replied. “Stay out of my city.”
“Don’t pull that Batman garbage on me,” Red Hood answered, unable to help a brief chuckle. “What’s the matter, Lizzie? Scared I’ll steal your thunder?” Another chuckle issued from the archer upon hearing Flamebird’s discontented growl. Just as the blonde vigilante was about to retort, a giant black fireball flew at both girls, who jumped off the motorcycle to evade it. The fireball destroyed the motorcycle and left a small crater in the street.
“What the unholy hell was that?” Flamebird asked.
“Look up,” Red Hood replied.
The two girls looked up and saw something hovering above them. It resembled a shadow, only with fiery edges. Its eyes were red embers and its shape was androgynous. Other than that, it had no discernable or distinguishable features; it was just darkness given a humanoid shape. Terror trickled down Flamebird’s spine as she looked upon it.
“Die,” the shadow hissed in a genderless voice, sending a wave of black fire at the two girls, who sprang out of the way. Red Hood quickly pulled out her collapsible bow and unfolded it to its full size, nocking an arrow and firing it at the shadow. The shadow simply caught the arrow and snapped it in half. The arrowhead released a cryonic gas, freezing the shadow, only for the shadow to burn its way out. A blast of fire struck the shadow, eliciting a roar of anger from it. “So you reveal yourself, Fireheart!”
“Fireheart?” Red Hood echoed, turning to look at Flamebird. To her surprise, Flamebird’s hands were smoking. “Flamebird? What’s with the smoking hands?”
Flamebird didn’t answer, the smoke around her hands igniting into flame. She projected that flame at the shadow, which created a barrier against which the flame harmlessly collided. The barrier then became a battering ram of black flame that would have struck down Flamebird had Red Hood not tackled her out of the way. Flamebird barely grunted a “thanks” before pulling out three birdlike shuriken and engulfing them in a fiery aura, throwing them at the shadow, which batted them aside.
“Is that all you can do against me, Fireheart?” the shadow asked.
Flamebird grimaced in anger and summoned fiery wings, using them to confront the shadow in the air. “What do you want with me?” she asked.
“To torture you,” the shadow replied. “To break you. To ruin you. To kill you. That is what I want.”
Flamebird’s answer was another blast of fire, this one seeming to engulf and obscure the shadow. When it faded, the shadow was still standing and apparently outraged. It made that outrage known by waving his hand, the air rippling with his motion and knocking her out of the air. If not for Red Hood catching her, she would have had a very rough impact against the ground.
“Now aren’t you glad I came to your city?” Red Hood asked cheerfully.
Flamebird merely groaned and pulled herself out of the red-clad archer’s hold. She would have returned to attacking the shadow, but Red Hood grabbed her wrist, holding her back. “What are you doing?” Flamebird asked indignantly.
“Keeping you from ending up dead?” Red Hood answered sarcastically. “It’s obvious that your powers - which you neglected to tell me about, by the way - aren’t exactly stopping that thing, so just continuing to plug away isn’t the best strategy.”
“Are we supposed to run?” Flamebird suggested.
“Yes, running would be a good idea right now,” Red Hood confirmed. “Running to get reinforcements, that is.”
“And where are we going to find those reinforcements?” Flamebird questioned. “Well?”
The shadow lowered itself to the ground, casually strolling toward the two girls. It didn’t seem to be in any hurry, but then it clearly presumed that neither heroine was in any way, shape, or form a danger to it. In truth, it didn’t seem that there was much either of them could do to the shadow. Before it could attack, though, a maser blast halted it.
“Who dares?” the shadow asked. A blur of red raced around it, striking it so quickly that it was virtually invisible to the eyes of Red Hood and Flamebird. The shadow lashed out, sending the blur hurtling away from it. The blur stopped, now becoming visible as Kid Flash.
“Not very nice,” the speedster said, snapping her fingers many times in the space of one second to set off multiple sonic booms with which to attack the shadow. The sonic booms did knock it off its feet, but other than that, they did not slow it down in the slightest. Before Kid Flash could react, the shadow had grabbed her in a telekinetic chokehold.
Red Hood pulled out her crossbow and fired a series of explosive bolts at the shadow, Flamebird engulfing the bolts in her flames to give them a little more “oomph.” The combined attack didn’t do that much damage to the shadow, but it disrupted the shadow’s concentration enough to force it to release Kid Flash from its psychic death grip.
“Thanks,” Kid Flash said.
“You’re welcome,” Red Hood responded.
Before the fight could continue, a spell portal opened and Cerdian stepped out of it. He was no longer in the clothes he had purchased from the gothic clothing store, instead wearing his usual wetsuit-like black-and-blue garment. His eyes shifted from dark purple to dead white as he looked at the shadow; even the pupils were no longer visible.
“Possession,” he spoke.
“Possession?” Red Hood asked.
“Yes,” Cerdian replied. “I see it. There are three entities melded to create this monstrosity. One is an ancient evil that has only now embodied itself. The second is a more human evil. The third is an innocent, an innocent somewhat tainted, but an innocent who is being used as a vessel for these evils.”
“How did you see that?” Flamebird asked.
“The Clear showed me,” Cerdian replied.
The shadow glared at Cerdian with burning eyes. “The Fireheart will die. You cannot stop that.”
Just then, water burst forth from a nearby fire hydrant on Cerdian’s mental command. Cerdian leaped into the air and jumped onto the spout of water, guiding it psychically in a surfing-style attack on the shadow. To his shock, the shadow transmuted the water into vapor. Cerdian recovered quickly, though, transforming the vapor into a needle-like hail of water particles that he directed at the shadow. The shadow snarled at him and waved its hand, causing the air to ripple and strike down the Atlantean mage-prince.
Cerdian’s dead white eyes glowed and he shot a force beam from those eyes at the shadow, a beam that was almost effortlessly deflected. The shadow charged Cerdian in a blur of fiery motion, Cerdian barely able to block the attack. He grabbed the shadow by its forearm, holding it back from striking him. The shadow simply shot a fireball at Cerdian, knocking him away.
“Looks like I have no choice,” the mage-prince muttered. His eyes glowed again and purple-white lightning began to gather in his right hand. He clenched his fist as the lightning concentrated itself around his hand, being molded into a blade.
“What do you expect to do with that little knife?” the shadow taunted.
Cerdian’s answer was to run toward the shadow, the mystical lightning around his hand crackling. As he charged, the shadow rushed at him, black fire gathering in its hand in the form of a blade not unlike Cerdian’s. The two combatants lunged past each other, striking simultaneously. Their respective elemental weapons dissipated, revealing that Cerdian had been sliced in the shoulder. The shadow seemed to be unharmed.
“Is that all you have?” the shadow taunted.
Red Hood, unable to take anymore, nocked three explosive arrows and fired them all at the shadow, which simply redirected them at her, Flamebird, and Kid Flash. The three girls dodged the explosive arrows and another maser blast was fired at the shadow. More maser blasts followed, raining down on the shadow like fire from Olympus. A vaguely humanoid blur flew at the shadow, assaulting it with swift and precise strikes. Unfortunately, the shadow grabbed its attacker and threw him a considerable distance. The attacker flipped in the air and turned his unwilling flight into an agile landing.
“Bobby!” Red Hood exclaimed.
“Right now, it’s Darkstar,” Bobby answered. He was dressed in the exo-mantle unique to the Darkstars, a crimson full-body suit with a silver fringe wrapped around the shoulders. A black starburst-like shape inside a white diamond covered his chest and his hands and most of his arms were encased in long white gloves. He turned to the shadow. “As for you, keep the hell away from my friends.”
“Or what will you do?” the shadow asked.
“Something like this?” a female voice asked, as a powerful wind attacked the shadow, each individual air molecule striking like a sharp needle. The other young heroes turned to see a platinum blonde dressed in a zip-front corset and leather briefs along with thigh-high boots and elbow-length gloves. “And if that’s not enough for you . . .” She waved her hand and a street lamp twisted itself, wrapping around the shadow and binding it. When the shadow saw her, it roared in fury and escaped from its bonds, attacking her.
Before the corset-clad girl could defend herself, Cerdian, Kid Flash, and Darkstar had interposed themselves between her and the shadow. Cerdian fired another force beam from his eyes, while Darkstar fired his masers. A warping aura manifested around the shadow, absorbing the blasts and seeming to transport them somewhere else. Kid Flash picked up a rock and threw it while simultaneously vibrating her hand into intangibility. Now charged with unstable kinetic energy, the rock became a grenade, but even that could not stop the shadow.
A large shadow covered all of the combatants, obscuring most of the light. A giant black-covered hand grabbed the shadow and picked it up. The six heroes looked up and saw a giant dressed in a black costume with red edges on the sides and insides of his arms. The traditional representation of the atom adorned his chest and his face was concealed by a black mask with large red lenses.
“You murdered my mother,” the giant snarled, his voice booming throughout the area.
The shadow generated an aura of black flame that forced the giant to release it. Instead of immediately descending to the ground, the shadow grew in size to match that of the giant.
“If those two start fighting, the entire city could come down around everyone,” Flamebird uttered in concern.
“Thank you, O mistress of the obvious,” Red Hood drawled.
The giant seemed to realize this as well, as he shrank down to average human size. The shadow shrank as well, tilting its head in a movement that suggested it would be smirking if it had lips. “Do you have any useful powers other than size changing?”
The size changer braced himself for an attack, one that was blocked by a telekinetic force field thrown up in front of him by the corset-wearing girl. The shadow unfortunately pushed through the field, only to be blocked by another field behind the first. It pushed through that one, too, but a third field blocked it.
“You can’t protect him forever!” the shadow shouted, just before an explosive arrow fired by Red Hood detonated upon contact with its back. With a scream full of spleen, the shadow turned on the archer, telekinetically throwing her around like a rag doll before she crumpled against a car. A groan of pain was the only sign that she was still alive.
The cursed power within Cerdian throbbed, begging to be freed of its restraints. This time, Cerdian was in no mood to fight it, having been driven to a rage by the sight of Red Hood’s telekinetic beating. Burning patterns vaguely resembling both veins and spider webbing emerged on his face, crystallizing into an ebon color. Purple-black embers burned in his dead white eyes and a similarly colored aura emanated from him.
“Darkheart . . . round two,” the mage-prince threatened.