Teen Titans #52: "Rise of the Wildebeests" part 1

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Issue #52: "Rise of the Wildbeests" Pt. 1
Written by: Jay McIntyre
Cover by: Jamie Rimmer
Edited by: Brian Burchette[/center]

“Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god”
Francis Bacon, Sr.

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
Samuel Johnson




Acre province, Brazil, near the Peruvian border.
Fifteen years ago.

There were ruins here. Ancient, undiscovered ruins, that were (as yet) far from the reach of any logger. No one from the outside world had ever even visited since the original inhabitants had died or fled. No Conquistador had ever set foot in this place; whatever had killed or driven out the natives had done so centuries before their arrival.

Which was exactly what drew Edwin Steel to the place. He styled himself an explorer and adventurer, but really he was nothing more than a grave robber, a scavenger.

The nearest settlement was a tribe of Tupi. The place was, of course, whispered of in hatred and fear in their tongue, and though they held no love for Edwin or any other outsider, they warned him away. He, in turn, sneered at their superstitious, savage nature and pressed on.

He found the place on a sweaty night when the moon was three quarters full, hacking his way through the jungle undergrowth and the weeds. His enthusiasm and arrogance never waned, but at times like this he felt the weight of his years. Now pushing forty, he wasn't quite the young "adventurer" anymore. One of these expeditions into the ruins was going to have to be the last, big score that he could retire on. Fun as it was, thrilling as it was, his body was having more and more trouble keeping up with his lifestyle.

The temple was mostly intact. It was neither a pyramid nor a more traditional religious building, but contained elements of each; a square base with a round second floor, and a dome interrupted by spikes. Despite the ravages of the jungle--a climate utterly merciless to buildings--it was relatively intact. That suggested advanced construction techniques, at least by the standards of the tribes that had lived in this area. The fact that it was so relatively squat also led him to believe there might be extended underground catacombs.

He disdained the chipped and damaged stairs leading up, and instead found a hole in the base just to the left of them, almost hidden by the jungle brush that had grown around it.

Cutting a path with his machete, he let himself down into the depths...



Titans Tower, Today:

"Rose!" Terra shouted.

"Hey, good to see you too," Rose Wilson smiled back though the videophone monitor.

"You found our west coast.....um....branch office?" Terra managed.

"Ha," Bumblebee said from behind Rose.

"Not exactly. Joey--my brother--led me here."

"So that was what I sensed," Raven murmured.

"Well it's a relief to know that you're safe, and that's one less thing for us to worry about," Nightwing said. "Your brother....."

"Half-brother. C'mere, Joey!"

Joseph stepped into frame and waved once.

"He can't speak," Rose put in apologetically. "His throat was cut when he was a kid. Vocal cords severed."

"Azar," Raven murmured.

"I'm sure he has his own unique gifts," Nightwing put in.

"Runs in the family," Rose agreed.

"But," Nightwing went on, "While I'm glad to know you are safe--and still with us, in a roundabout sort of way--I don't think Bumblebee called just for that. We already knew about the West Coast team, after all."

"Yeah, Cyborg and Starfire already paid us a visit, as I'm sure you know. But Rose and Joey joining us was part of the reason we called, yes. The other reason was something our.....original leader.....forwarded to us."

"Oh great, more Checkmate song and dance," Troia sighed.

There were murmurs of assent from behind Bumblebee. Even Joey nodded.

"Yeah, as you can tell, that was our impression too. And that's part of why we called you. It may be big, a trap, or just a serious problem. We might wanna pool our resources on this."

And more formally bind our teams together, Nightwing thought to himself. Out loud he said, "Is it closer to us, or you?"

"Pretty far from both of us, actually. The Brazilian government has reported some unusual activity...."



Acre, Fifteen years ago...

It was a short drop to the floor, about five feet maybe. But it was another twenty degrees colder down here, an instant drop that made his body, sweaty from the jungle and the travel, race with chills. Good way to get sick. And simply being underground wouldn't make it this much cooler, that fast. Not even at night. Something else was going on here.

Supernatural? Magic artifacts? Or maybe some alien technology was buried here, and that's why the natives ran away? If so, Edwin couldn't exactly blame them. Anyway you looked at it, there was certainly something down here worth looking for.

Edwin was no simple thug. His revolver was no ordinary weapon; forged of moonlight steel, and the bullets were silver coated, and painted with mystical ideograms. His bowie knife was coated in silver and likewise inscribed. He could've wished for body armor, but moving through the jungle in such was impossible. But what was possible--more than possible--was him being ready for anything.

He had landed in a relatively small room; the hole he had come through was not a window. It didn't look like the jungle growth had caused it either. It was almost as though something had....forced his way out.

He sheathed his machete. Wishing to draw his bowie knife, he drew his flashlight instead. There had been a door once....now it was rotted away. The corridor opened beyond. The walls were....tile? Was that even possible? And there were symbols in each little tile, painstaking detail work. He examined some at close range. Green and blue, mostly, amazingly well preserved. But the strange thing was that none of the symbols were anything he recognized. They weren't like other Central or South American symbols, nor Egyptian hieroglyphics. Looping, twisted, snakelike. For the first time, Edwin felt something like fear.

But he wasn't about to turn back. Clearly, this place was the mother lode! He kept going. The corridor was slowly but surely slanting downward; confirming his suspicions of detailed foundation work.

Then he stopped.

There was a light up ahead.

A bright blue light.

He turned off his flashlight, swallowed grimly, and set his jaw.

He tightened his grip on his revolver and advanced.....but very slowly.



San Francisco, Today:

Risk and Omen watched as Bumblebee continued to talk to the New Yorkers. Rose paced back and forth. Joey--Jericho--watched her with fond eyes that were also somehow sad.

"...they sent several of their own super-powered operatives to a site of strange energy activity near their border with Peru," Bumblebee went on. "None of them returned."

"Energy spikes?" Nightwing's image frowned.

"Checkmate apparently noticed it through spy satellites. That's why they forwarded it. If we don't deal with it eventually, they will."

"But you don't want to do it alone," Nightwing prompted.

"And, if we handle it, it will probably go better than if we let Checkmate do it," Bumblebee agreed.

Nightwing nodded, and a thin smile briefly flickered across his features. "Sounds like it was Speedy specifically who sent this one."

"Yeah. But I wonder if he sent this one without his superiors knowing..."

"That was my thought, too. Is your team agreed to this?"

"Aside from Risk and Golden Eagle, who don't really care, yes."

Nightwing turned away from his monitor. "Vote," he called over his shoulder.



Acre, Fifteen years ago....

Edwin Steel came down the end of the ramping corridor, and into the blue light.

The room was small and square and the best preserved of any room he'd seen so far in the place. There were only the first few cracks here, and no weedy growth in them.

But that wasn't what drew his attention.

In the middle of the small chamber was a glowing blue orb of something that looked like glass, but almost certainly wasn't. It rose from a small ivory plinth on three steel rods that seemed to penetrate the orb....or did they?

Edwin grit his teeth. He wanted to salvage this thing, yes. But not while it was putting out that blue light. It made his guts turn to water, and not in a cowardly way; he literally felt as though his stomach and intestines were loaded with fluids. If he was going to take it anywhere, he would have to shut it down.

It wasn't modern technology, at least not human technology; there was no plug or switch that he could see. It would devalue the find for sure, but he was smart enough to know there was no way he could move this thing while it was still powered. And he already had the idea that if he stayed here long enough, the power would do something unpleasant to him. That was certainly why the natives had fled, and the surviving tribes were filled with superstitious fear. Superstitious, but not ungrounded, he could admit now.

So reluctantly, he raised his revolver and fired.

The crack of the revolver was painfully loud in the enclosed space, yet it echoed down the corridors and outside to where it scared the local wildlife.

Edwin winced from the noise.

The globe was unaffected. The bullet had not ricocheted; it had simply vanished.

Now Edwin truly was afraid. Clearly this trip wasn't going to work out. He turned to run.....

....and blue arcs of energy lashed out from the globe and enveloped him.

He screamed....but not for long.



Houston Texas, Now....

The teams flew their respective jets to Houston as a meeting point, to get acquainted properly, before heading for South America. They met out on the runway. The sun had just set, so Dagon was able to take off his helmet. There was some press coverage; photographers and local tv cameras at a respectful distance.

Terra and Rose embraced gladly, and she shook Jericho's hand. He smiled, faintly.

The others were more wary. Certainly the New York team was happy to see Rose, but beyond that there was caution and not a little tension. It was true that Cyborg had suggested they become a permanent Titans team in the first place, but that didn't mean everyone was smiles and handshakes.

Raven and Omen eyed each other, and nodded. Each could sense dark things about the other; each knew this was not the time or place to discuss them.

Scarlet Wing seemed fascinated by Golden Eagle. "They tell me you come from a race of aliens?"

"My mother is, yeah. Dunno who my dad was."

"Oh, I'm so sorry....." Scarlet Wing stepped back a little, face sad, wings curling up.

Golden Eagle scowled at her, then looked at the other East Coast Titans. "What's her problem?"

"It's no problem, just...." Scarlet Wing was unable to finish.

"She comes from an alternate reality with steam punk technology and Victorian-era morals," Troia supplied.

"Great," Golden Eagle sneered.

"My reality exists no longer," Scarlet Wing sighed.

"Oh....well, that's pretty bad," Golden Eagle admitted, looking a little sympathetic.

"Hey," Kid Flash said to Risk, "Good to meet you."

"Yeah?" Risk was unimpressed. "Thanks, flash-in-a-pan. I hear things aren't going so well for you speedsters at home."

"I see that your name involves the risk of saying something stupid?" Kid Flash said. He said it lightly, but his eyes flashed; and he was not the sort who was easily roused.

"This is ridiculous," Bumblebee fumed. "We're not just all on the same side here, were two branches of the same team." She made a point of shaking Nightwing's hand.

"Something that, so far, neither the Justice League or the Outsiders have managed to do," Nightwing agreed. "Though the Justice Society has a second team, after a fashion."

Terra also knew that the Suicide Squad had, at least at one time, a secondary team called Task Force X, but she didn't know if it was still true, and in any case felt it unwise to bring it up.

"I heard that you dealt with the case of that Professor Terrible," Starfire said to Risk.

"Yeah," he said, obviously not staring at her eyes. "We took him down."

Starfire did not react to his rather obvious inspection. "Team unity is a good thing," was all she said, and then walked away.

"Forget it," Golden Eagle said to Risk. "She's with Nightwing."

"Lucky bastard," Risk muttered.

"Yes," Nightwing agreed from behind them, "I am."

Both of them yelped; Terra laughed.

Beast Boy frowned, scratching his head. "I don't get it."

"Don't get what?" Dagon asked them.

"Which one's the comedy relief? Every team needs a sense of humor."

"Perhaps they haven't found one yet," the vampire shrugged.

"Aqualad is part-time," Rose said. "Don't know if he qualifies as funny, though."

"Ah jeez Rose, I missed ya," Terra said, laughing.

"Feelings mutual," Rose grinned.

"Still, that does raise a valid point," Bumblebee said. "You guys have a lot more members than we do. I don't know if we need quite that many, but...."

"I don't think any of mine are willing to switch," Nightwing apologized. "In fact, we're sorely tempted to steal Rose back from you."

Bumblebee smiled and shook her head. "No, but I wonder if we should go on a recruiting drive."

"Sound plan," Nightwing agreed. "Just screen carefully. You know about Rose's history; and Terra's. Next time we may not be so lucky. One of the reasons our team isn't looking for any more members right now."

"Yeah," Bumblebee sighed. "But enough small talk. We better get going. One plane or two?"

"Two," Nightwing said. "Never know when you'll need a spare. You have our landing data?"

"A remote private airstrip in Brazil," Bumblebee agreed. "I'll give you the coordinates."

"Hey, what about that spill in the gulf?" Rose asked.

"Superman's already looking into it," Nightwing said. "Probably Aqualad too. Let's move."



Acre, Brazil, Fourteen years and eight months ago.....

The thing that had once been Edwin Steel awoke.

It remembered being Edwin Steel, but it was no longer him, and was not in any way troubled by this. The Orb of Recreation told it that it had been asleep for two months during it's metamorphosis into it's current, proper, superior form. This did not bother it either. What did bother it was that two month time lapse had depleted the resources of it's body. The Orb of Recreation had used it's energy to sustain it during that time, but now that that it had awoken, it would need to feed.

To feed, it would have to hunt.

Not just for food, it knew, as it bounded int a cloudy but well-lit day in the Brazilian jungle. But also for recruits. Others would be needed besides itself. Yes, others...it was the first, the Prime, the Superior. But any leader needs an army. And this army would take time to build. But that was all right. The Orb was patient. It had all the time it needed.

As the creature bounded into the jungle, it felt the memories of the Orb of Recreation echoing through its new, strange mind.

The Orb had been brought to this world by a race that was now long dead. The Orb had felt it's creators die, many thousands of years ago. It did not feel any remorse about this, exactly; it had viewed that data as counter to it's objectives, yes. But without it's masters, it had no purpose. It had what a later generation of humans would call a sophisticated Artificial Intelligence; and it had calculated that it needed a new purpose after their death.

It had originally landed in the continent called Africa, though that land had not been in it's current location nor had all the same life forms back then that it had now. Its masters had still been alive then....and for several years it had served them faithfully, healing their wounds and reconstructing local life forms into new genetic creations acceptable for it's masters' experiments. Then their world had died, and the few surviving masters in the research outpost had abandoned quickly, leaving it behind. The Orb knew their efforts to save the remnant of the species had been futile.

Over time, it had adapted a few of the local creatures to serve it and advance its own plans for reorganization of this world. Indeed, it had taken the imprint of one of the animals that had arisen in Africa as its template; what was in nature an herbivore, turned into a fearsome beast. But it wasn't until the rise of the current species--these humans that the creature itself had once been one of--that the Orb had found creatures that were of ideal stock for transformation for its new purpose of planetary reorganization.

The journey to what was now South America was long, complicated process, some of it by the Orb's plan, and some of it not, involving land bridges that no longer existed and various migrations of its "stock species". But once it found itself here, it decided the location was as good as any other. Its previous generation of followers had set up the temple as it's power base, but it had sent them out before they had recovered from that act; before there were enough of them. Before they were ready.

It would not make that mistake again.

The Orb was patient, and barring a truly powerful outside influence, it could not itself be destroyed. Its creatures could, though. So this time it would be patient. This time it would wait, until it had the numbers it needed.

The creature that had once been Edwin Steel did not review these thoughts in detail; instead they were a constant background murmuring in it's subconscious. It understood the information as much as it needed to. Now it was hungry. It loomed over the tribal village its human self had passed through two months ago. Several women were out with their children, talking and chatting.

It would only need one to feed upon, but others would be needed. To increase the numbers of the new breed. The breed the Orb had created. The breed that would rule the world.

Two of the women looked up, and shouted in horror as something not unlike a predatory cousin of the Wildebeast loomed over them. A wild mane of hair from its head down the back of its muscular neck; terrible feral eyes, a slavering maw full of teeth. Agile, flexible muscles, built for speed as well as power.

The Tupi women were neither weak nor helpless; and their ancestors had long ago learned that women often had to protect their young. Only one quailed in fear. The other five screamed war cries and charged. The eldest boy, a lad of eight, joined in the attack.

Not that it made any difference....

(Continued)

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