Teen Titans #50: "The HIVE War" Part 3

I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
Vince Lombardi

Battle is an orgy of disorder.
George S. Patton

-1-

Kid Flash was having fun.

For the first time in a long time where the Titans were concerned, he was not only healed from his injuries, but also able to work at full capacity. He raced at speeds beyond comprehension to take down the HIVE troopers and the one armored unit that had focused on the police.

He had been out of action for so long, and wounded even longer; even the events at STAR Labs which had led to Scarlet Wing joining them had not really required much of his abilities. Now, for the first time in a long time, he was up to full power.

The power of speed.

The troopers were relatively easy; even their armor--which he was impressed to note had some kinetic-sapping properties no doubt designed to counter him specifically--only slowed him down a fraction. Cumulatively, it could have gotten him down to, say, Dagon’s speed. But too many of them had gone to face the others. With the help of a few police bullets, he took the HIVE troopers down fairly easily.

Which was not to say he wasn’t wary of the fact that they had taken steps to compensate for his powers. The HIVE were cutting edge technologists--it was part of who they were. The moment he forgot that, he’d be in deep trouble. And he’d had enough trouble from his injuries to ensure he was more careful.

There was also the fact that the police had lost more than a few of their own to the HIVE. The surviving ranking officer, a captain, was grim. “Looks like your friends chickened out.”

Kid Flash sighed. “No, they lured most of the HIVE away to waste time trying to get through their forcefield while I helped you take down the rest.”

The captain nodded unhappily. “So what happens now?”

Kid Flash grinned. “Now? Now I start harrying them from the rear.”

-2-

Kid Flash was wrong about one thing; the HIVE were not wasting their time trying to take down the Tower shield.

Technology was the HIVE’s business, and while it was true that Deathstroke had never given them any technical data on the Tower defenses, they did not need such to force a breach in the shield. With their plasma lances and field disruptors, it was only a matter of time.

Nightwing, however, had anticipated this. He knew they would get through eventually; but they would be delayed enough for him to get his troops into position.

That was why he sent Dagon above. To watch, to wait....and be ready to strike.


-3-

Dagon waited.

Nightwing had told him what he needed him to do. On some levels he was looking forward to it....on others he wasn’t.

Oh, Nightwing had given him plenty of leeway on how to do this. But that wasn’t the point. He didn’t exactly want to be in this situation at all.

Not that he blamed Nightwing; not in the least. You used the skills you had available in the best possible manner.

That wasn’t the problem. Dagon had fed on some of the HIVE Operatives without actually doing them serious lasting harm when Rose had helped them escape that base in the Rocky Mountains; but he hadn’t enjoyed it. Like the few other vampires he’d met since his....transformation....Dagon didn’t enjoy feeding on people. Even the scum that deserved it. Even though he could easily spare the life of the target in question.

Nightwing knew he would spare their lives; and Nightwing’s trust was something Dagon appreciated. And he knew that this was psychological warfare; the HIVE would not be intimdated by Batman-style tactics. But, slaves to science as they were, an unfettered vampire would unsettle them.

Pure technocrats like these hated and feared what they could not rationally explain away.

No, Dagon would not like it. But he would do it. Not just because Nightwing asked him to. He was a Titan now, had been for some time; fully accepted. That meant more than he could ever say; and only Raven, with her empathic powers, knew.

Dagon waited patiently. He was ready. When the HIVE breached the Tower shields, he would be waiting to descend upon them with horror and determination.

They had no idea what awaited them.

He grinned in the dark.

-4-

Scarlet Wing was concerned.

Of all the Titans, her powers were most bound up with her ability to fly. Troia had super strength; Starfire had her starbolts; Dagon’s mist form was invulnerable to most forms of attack. But in close quarters, without the ability to fly, what could she do?

She had mentioned these worries to Nightwing privately. To her astonishment, he had laughed and assured her that even on the ground, her combat skills were formidable. That, he told her, was part of why the few training drills she had previously had with the Titans, before the HIVE attack, were ground-based.

She knew how to fight while flying. Street level combat was where she needed work; and now it would be put into practice.

Cyborg’s shields had not dropped....yet; Scarlet Wing watched him. He had re-plugged himself into the Tower’s computer network down here, not only keeping that shield up but also modifying the training room to Nightwing’s specifications.

This world was still cold and strange to her in so many ways; so much darker than her own had been. Before she had lost it forever. But the Titans still thrived and tried for the right thing; even the darker ones, like Raven and Dagon.

What chilled her the most was that Dagon actually liked her. She didn’t know what to make of that.

What she did know is when the HIVE got this far, she would do everything in her power to stop them.

Too many good things, good people, good concepts, good worlds, good Universes had been lost. She knew that better than most.

It wouldn’t happen again, if she could help it.

-5-

Deathstroke was moving.

He wasn’t in New York yet, but it would be a matter of minutes. The news of the fight at the Tower was all over the radio bands by now; the police were trying to cordon it off.

Deathstroke smiled grimly. They wouldn’t have much luck with that. Especially against him.

He had to give the Titans credit for their determination and skill; they had eluded death and defeat at his hands several times, resisted one infiltration and turned another--his own daughter--to their own advantage. They had escaped the HIVE base. They had gone through many other tribulations, and not since the Starro crisis had they suffered a single casualty.

That would soon change.

For some time now, they had led a charmed life....but that life was very soon now to end.

Before the Titans, he had never failed a contract. It did not matter that the contract would no longer be paid up and his former employers were also trying to kill him. Well, it did matter, but not on the level of professional work ethic. What mattered was that his previously-unblemished mercenary record had soured. That had to be rectified.

Killing uncounted HIVE operatives along the way? That was just a nice bonus. To be sure, he would have to continue guarding against them in future--maybe even to the point of destroying the organization entirely--but that was a secondary consideration. They were not metahumans, but more importantly, he had been hired to take down the Titans--by two separate clients--and had failed both. Oh, he could blame the Titans’ escape from the HIVE base on the HIVE themselves, but he hadn’t stopped it, and he had been there. And then there was the matter of them turning Rose against him. That made it personal.

Very personal.

-6-

Troia stood ready.

It was just a matter of minutes, now, before the HIVE would breach the shield. She and Cyborg were the first line of defense, but not at the front doors.

They had considered and rejected the notion of having her and Cyborg at the doors when the HIVE entered. Not having them there would make the HIVE suspicious, but Dagon would take care of that. Once they made the mistake of entering the lower levels--probably splitting up their numbers in the process--she and Cyborg would pound them, yes. But that wasn’t enough. They had to make sure the rest of the HIVE goons fell for the trap.

There was also the matter of the HIVE’s tank-like armored units. The only way those would get down below is if the ground floor itself was destroyed--and that would be a very serious matter indeed. Those would have to be taken out above, with minimal damage to the Tower superstructure. To that end, they would fight those machines up there, with Dagon’s help, and almost certainly Kid Flash’s also. But they would let some of the enemy troops slip past, in the “confusion.” It was long since past time to “fight smart”.

She was pleased.

-7-

HIVE Operative DeGoss was determined.

He had once been a Colonel in the Army, but had seen the weakness and foolishness of playing the game by the rules, or even of attacking enemy countries when there were so many sheep and victims in America itself that deserved destruction. At first, he had begun building an army on his own, but even then the HIVE had been happy to back and finance him.

He had been defeated by the Titans some time before, dealing Beast Boy a serious injury that had hospitalized him for a time. On the other hand, Terra had likewise hospitalized DeGoss. The HIVE had rescued him from the prison infirmary, given him full-bore operative training in their own organization, and replaced his plasma blade with a more energy efficient and deadly version. He also had an electrified whip and a laser gun attached to his belt.

Once he had been out for conquest; then profit; and then finally, just mayhem. Now the HIVE had given him a new purpose; kill the Titans, once and for all.

There were several metahumans coming up through the HIVE training program; but none of them were ready yet. But he was more than ready. He was determined, and experienced.

Nor was the timing of his march--behind all the armored units and almost all the troops--an accident or lack of foresight. With him were four commando stealth assassins. If the Titans survived all the previous assault waves, DeGoss and his team would finish them off by surprise and ambush. Possibly Deathstroke too.

And finally, they also had with them a robotic minigun on a jointed tripod with its own shroud and limited AI.

It was not a question of win or lose, or win or die.

It was demanded that they win.

-8-

Cyborg knew that time was almost up.

The part of the shield in front of the Tower was wavering and flickering as the HIVE agents wore it down. Soon it would come to battle.

Dagon would get the first strike, and Cyborg was pleased to let him. The vampire always unnerved him; the fact that his skills were all the more useful in this situation made it all the worse.

Mind you, he had gotten used to him. He had thought much worse of Terra when she arrived.

His thoughts were disrupted as the shield fell. Reluctantly, he backed up, Troia beside him. As the HIVE troopers moved in, they felt, rather than saw, Dagon drop down from above like the shadow of death.

Even as they had time to process that, they realized Kid Flash had used the opportunity to move in, fighting his way through the HIVE ranks. Cyborg unshipped his white noise cannon and opened fire.

Kid Flash had cut the enemy troop numbers down to a handful, as Dagon dropped from the rafters. That didn’t leave that many actual soldiers to defeat. Dagon would be able to handle them, meaning that, for the moment, there would be no soldiers to lure into the trap by the time they were finished with them.

But that was no comfort; they still had to take out the armored units before they damaged the superstructure of the Tower to a critical point. The Tower had been built with super-powered damage in mind, and reinforced after Circe’s attack; but if they managed to fire enough times, they could bring the building down from within.

“Kid Flash,” Troia said into her communicator, even as she slammed a shoulder into an armored unit to hold it back. “Let Dagon take the remaining troops. Help us push the armored units back.”

She had used the communicator because otherwise there would be no way that Kid Flash, moving at his incredible speeds, would have heard her. She could have asked Raven to do it, but she was waiting below.

As it was, however, it worked perfectly. His gold and scarlet form ripped at the treads and damaged the weapons, so that the armored units would not be able to damage the superstructure. Troia knew he would have preferred to set up a whirlwind, but it was difficult to do that within the Tower; and in any case, they didn’t want these wannabe tanks flying up into the Tower.

Without too much effort, but not exactly nonchalantly either, Troia lifted one of the armored units up by its front end and carried it back out of the Tower. Behind her, Cyborg was shoving the other one out.

She unceremoniously dropped the armored unit on its treads, which severely discombobulated the crew inside, who were already shaken and demoralized.

She flew over to where the surviving police were, while Cyborg finished pushing out the other armored unit and Kid Flash ripped up the treads.

She looked the surviving police sergeant in the eye. “When the next wave comes, take Nightwing’s advice and let us handle it. Don’t waste any more of your people’s lives.”

The sergeant’s jaw dropped. “More are coming?”

Troia nodded grimly. “And we are luring them into our base as a trap, not hiding. Understand?”

“All right,” the cop acknowledged wearily.

“The Starro Crisis still looms too large in your mind,” she said, not unkindly. “Trust us.”

“It’s not that,” the cop protested. “We have to do something!”

“Clean up; protect the populace, get them out of the way...and call for triage.”

-9-

Terra hated waiting.

Troia had already reported in by now that, with Kid Flash’s help, they had finished off this second wave. But there would be more. Oh yes, there would be more.

Terra just didn’t want to wait. She seethed with impatience and frustration. All this hurry-up-and-wait made her think of the military, which she had thankfully been too young to be in.....but it also reminded her of her time as a villain, a time that she could never forget.

Kid Flash had joined them now, and Raven was paying more attention to him than you simply would to a teammate. Not that Terra minded; in fact she approved. Seeing the two of them together, like she was with Beast Boy, gave her a closer bond with Raven than would ever have been possible otherwise.

“The next wave is about five minutes away, and another behind that,” Cyborg said. He was plugged into the Tower computers again, and Terra could see that distant unfocused look in his human eye.

“They’ll be suspicious if no one is out there to greet them,” Terra said to Nightwing. “Let me go out there, chief.”

Nightwing didn’t quite smirk. “I appreciate the thought. But we want the ones with high physical resistance taking the hits, and that means Troia and Cyborg.”

Despite her intentions, her temper rose. “Kid Flash doesn’t have super strength or resistance!”

Nightwing was impassive; how did he almost always manage that? She had seen him tired and worn out, especially after Gotham went down the tubes, but he always seemed to keep his cool. “No, he has super speed; and he had cops backing him up. This time the cops will be clearing from the area, and I’m not sending him out there again.”

“I could create a suit of armor out of rock,” she protested.

“A suit of armor, no....but could you control it remotely?”

She blinked. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then when the next wave comes, do it.”

She grinned, and bounced back to Beast Boy.

Things were looking up!

-10-

Beast Boy was nervous.

He gladly embraced Terra as she came back over to him, but there was no proper time to do anything, and well he knew it. So did she. Like Kid Flash and Raven across from them, they could only console each other, and see the worry reflected in their lover’s eyes.

Nightwing and Starfire, on the other hand, just occasionally glanced at each other as they made what preparations they could. Beast Boy supposed they had been doing it longer.

As for himself, he was somewhat at a loss. His usual bad humor didn’t really apply. They were under siege, and unlike the previous attack by Circe, it could bring the whole place down. Of course, they would do everything they could to prevent that.

But still...

Things had been bad before. That possible future. Speedy’s personal problems. The Starro invasion. Being captured by the HIVE. On and on and on.....but the HIVE was bound and determined to take them out, and would throw everything they had at the team until it was done.

Beast Boy wasn’t sure he and his teammates would make it.

None of the others seems to be showing it, though; except the new girl, Scarlet Wing; and Raven, who always knew what each of them was feeling. Terra was excited and wanted to kick some butt, most of the others were businesslike.

But though he tried to cover it, Gar felt.....fear.

-11-

Starfire was a warrior, first and foremost.

She fought with passion and rage, but not without tactical consideration.

To her mind, there was no doubt that they would defeat the HIVE. The question was whether or not all of them would survive it.

She did not want to lose Nightwing, or any of her teammates. Scarlet Wing needed mentoring. Troia needed support. Nightwing needed someone who understood him. And Troia, Terra, Scarlet Wing, and Raven....and yes, herself also.....needed sisterhood.

Needed understanding. Needed belonging.

Starfire had already lost too much, and too many, before she even came to Earth.

Not to mention what had happened between her and her sister.

She would fight, to the end.

She just hoped it wasn’t the end of anyone she cared about.

-12-

“They are coming,” Raven said.

She could feel them.

The next wave of stupid pride, hate, and blind loyalty to a particular brand of technocracy rolled towards her--towards all of them--like a tsunami.

She couldn’t divine thoughts, or read emotions too clearly, unless she knew the person very well. But so many HIVE operatives together at once...it was hard to miss.

Being an empath was never fun. The astral plane was full of horrors she couldn’t begin to describe. And then there was her heritage. That was something she tried not to think about. Hopefully it would be a very long time before she had to face Trigon again.

Assuming they survived this, of course. She did not show her fear the way Beast Boy did. But it was there, lurking in the back of her mind.

She leaned her head gratefully against Kid Flash’s shoulder, and waited for the next wave of the siege.

-13-

Nightwing was focused.

The next wave was almost here. It was larger than the ones that had come before it, Cyborg’s readings told him that much. And there was at least another behind it.

It was like what happened to Gotham, but on a smaller scale. The HIVE weren’t taking on all of New York, though. Not yet. They saw the Titans as a threat to their plans that must be removed.

Some--perhaps even some of the police still left outside--would blame the Titans for this, would blame all heroes for this. Nightwing wondered if they realized that without heroes, the grimmer, meaner elements of society would simply take over, powered or otherwise.

Several people in government that he’d been forced to work with sprung immediately to mind.

But he wasn’t really thinking about such abstractions right then. He was mostly worried about countering the HIVE menace. A menace that was not directed at the Titans with full force. The “fortress” trick he had set up would work one more time, at best. And while he didn’t know for sure, he had a gut instinct that Deathstroke would take advantage of the chaos to move in himself.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. But he had been through enough--and seen enough, and learned enough--that he was going to see this through. The back of the HIVE would be broken today; and if Deathstroke struck again? Well, the Titans would use their abilities to bring him down too.

Utilizing their abilities in the best possible combination, that was the key to super-powered teamwork. They already had the camaraderie--even Scarlet Wing was coming around in that respect, surprisingly quickly given what she’d experienced--so what they needed, and what he’d already tried to achieve, was unity of tactics, especially where their powers were concerned.

“In range,” Cyborg announced.

“Troia, Cyborg; go. Terra, summon up your rock statue.” Nightwing clenched his fists. His time as Batman had given him some of Bruce’s iron-clad determination. They must win; and he couldn’t afford to lose any of them. He wouldn’t.

Without Cyborg plugged in, it was harder to keep tabs on events. There were a couple of high-angle security cameras on the Tower that the HIVE hadn’t hit, and he had a pair of monitors tuned in to those.

On the screen, he saw Troia and Cyborg exit the building. Terra, standing beside him, squinted uncomfortably. “Never done this without line of sight before,” she murmured.

“Focus, Terra,” he said absently. Beast Boy patted her on the shoulder.

She raised both hands above her head and made clenched fists. Her hands glowed. On the monitor, behind Troia and Cyborg, a sloppy, slovenly giant of mud and rock erupted out of the ground. Following them, it pelted into the advancing waves of the enemy.....

To Be Continued....