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Disclaimer: I do not have ownership or affiliation with the Teen Titans television program in any way, shape, form, or fashion... Gee, I almost sounded intelligent there for a second, huh?



A Dish Best Served Cold-Chapter Eleven





'Beep! Beep! Beep!'


The scanner monitor in Slade's lair suddenly began beeping wildly. Apparently, the scanning of the artifact has just been completed (A/N: Aw, $#@%... That's not good.)

The machinery proceeded to print out a full report on what had been found out. Brother Blood was waiting on it, and yanked it from the machine and read it eagerly once fully finished. The first words out of his mouth?

"WHAT? What does it mean, 'Error'???" he bellowed, infuriated.

Slade walked up and took it from him, but he, unlike blood, was not affected.

"Hmmm.... just as I had suspected. The scientist did say that scanners had little effect on it." He said with a tone of mild interest.

"You KNEW? But then, why did we waste all that time?" Blood groaned.

Slade looked at him coldly. "It wasn't wasted... If you'll notice, there was one, single thing on the report that didn't error." He handed it back to Blood, who read over it again.

"Hmm.... Composition: unknown, error.... age: unknown, error... wait a minute... 'Structural details: hollow'? It's hollow?" Blood asked.

"Precisely. And that's all I was interested in confirming." Slade explained casually.

"Alright, so it's hollow. How does that help us?" Blood persisted anxiously.

Slade did not answer... rather, he snapped his fingers with a metallic 'click'.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a large set of metal double doors near the left side of the dimly lit chamber opened up, and a pale elderly man with a white and black tux suit and a nearly bald head strode slowly through and stood before the two villains... it was Slade's butler, Wintergreen.

"Wintergreen, would you be so kind as to summon Cinderblock?" Slade hissed.

His old valet said nothing, but bowed obediently and walked briskly back off in the same direction he had come.

A couple minutes later, Cinderblock came stomping in roaring loudly and kneeled down on one concrete knee before Slade.

Slade pointed to the artifact and made a motion with his hands as if he were cracking an egg.

Brother Blood was perplexed, but Cinderblock seemed to understand his Master's wishes perfectly.

With a deep, harsh grunt, he lumbered over to the big, ancient slab and lifted it up in both arms. He held it there for a minute... and Slade nodded as if to give a cue.

The golem let out another mighty roar and brought the artifact down on one knee with all of his inhuman strength.

There was the loud, grating thud of rock against rock, and the stone split roughly down the middle... but that wasn't all. From inside of the artifact came a downpour of old parchment papers tied up in rolls with ornate ropes.... Ancient scrolls.

"Scrolls!" Blood exclaimed, excited by the discovery. He walked up to the pile and picked up a particularly large and ornate looking one. Carefully unfolding it he held it out and looked at it...and gasped.

What Brother Blood held in his hand was a detailed map... a map of the entire world. Of course, maps of the world are pretty common nowadays, but this one had something... unusual on it.

Everyone knows that near the top of the world, around the general North Pole area, there is the Arctic Ocean... a vast expanse of water that lies, roughly, between the Northern parts of Russia, Alaska, and Greenland... on a globe, it is just a circle of nothing but water on the very tip top of the earth.

This map had the Arctic Ocean on it as well... but it wasn't labeled, nor was ANYTHING labeled... except for one little island, an island that wasn't there on normal maps. But on this one, it was there, plain as day, and clearly labeled in strange writing, 'Norblitz'. Whatever ancient cartographer had drawn this map up had also gone to the trouble of circling this Northern island in red ink, and marking it with an 'X'.

Blood looked up with wide eyes, while Slade just looked up at him expectantly.

"Well, partner... I'd say we've just cracked this little riddle." He said softly and slowly with a sinister, smile spreading rapidly across his conniving face.

"Excellent... I think it is time for that 'distraction' we discussed earlier." Slade whispered evilly.




Back At Titan's Tower

Jinx sat in her new room, still overwhelmed at what she had done last night. About half of her was giddy at having kissed Sub-Zero, but the other was horrified about how she had done it.

Her mind was abuzz with questions. Did he like it? Was he mad at her? Was he disgusted... or, was he as excited as she was? She shook her head trying to clear her thoughts.

But she was interrupted anyway, as a knock came at the door.

"Uhm... wh-who is it?" she called uncertainly.

"It's just me, Zero." The white haired knight called back.

Her heart began beating wildly. 'Well... I guess I'm about to find out.' She gulped.

Getting up, she opened the door with a shaking hand. There stood Zero, with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Hey... haven't seen you out and about this morning." He said. "I was just making sure you were alright." He explained.

"Oh, uh... yeah, I'm alright." She said.

They just stared at each other for a moment, saying nothing.

Finally, Jinx blurted out, "Oh Zero, I... I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have done that, I mean that was totally uncalled fo-" he gently put a hand over her mouth, silencing her.

Taking his hand away, he smiled. She looked at him. She couldn't tell why he was smiling, but seeing he wasn't mad caused relief to fill her mind. He spoke after a minute.

"Er, Jinx, look... the real reason I came up here was sort of about that..." he began. He walked over to her bed and sat down, taking a deep breath as he did so.

"I... I was planning on going into town today." He said. "You know, it just struck me last night that I never actually got a chance to check the place out. But then I realized that this place is... well... huge." He finished simply.

She looked at him curiously. 'Where is he going with this?' she wondered.

"Soooo.... Anyway, as it is, I'd probably just end up getting lost or something. So, I figured I should probably get somebody... y'know somebody that knows their way around... to go with me... and since I really don't want to trouble Robin, and Beast Boy and Cyborg are enjoying this downtime too much to interrupt them... and since Raven probably wouldn't be interested, and I...Well, frankly, I can't really picture spending the day with Star without either being hugged to death, or losing some trace of sanity..."

Jinx's eyes widened and her jaw almost dropped 'Is he going to ask ME?' she wondered, and her and she suddenly felt light headed.

"I... I was wondering,..." he swallowed nervously and looked at the floor. "If you wanted to... err, if you're not busy or anything... If you would want to........." he couldn't seem to finish the sentence.

She smiled impishly. "Yes?" she said expectantly, clearly enjoying this.

"...(Gulp)... If you wanted to go with me?" he finished very quickly in a faint voice.

Jinx nearly swooned on the spot. She looked at him smiling for a second... and said nothing.

After a moment she asked what she had been wondering all along.

"So, is this... a date?" she asked hesitantly, but hopefully.

He looked back up at her and grinned earnestly. "Well.... yeah, I guess."

She nearly yelped out loud with joy and ran up to hug him again.

"So you aren't mad at me?" she whispered.

He looked down into her feline eyes with his deep, blood red ones with a questioning gaze. "Mad? Of course not! Why in the world would I be mad? That was the best...." He suddenly clapped one gloved hand over his mouth, realizing he had just said too much.

She could've cried, she was so happy.

"Oh, Zero...th-that's the n-nicest thing anybody's ever...s-said about me..." she whimpered softly.

He looked down and sighed. "Well...I wasn't going to say it but, I may as well now... that was the best kiss I've ever had...well, ... technically, it's the ONLY kiss I've ever had, but it's still the best." He said jokingly.

She punched him lightly in the arm. "Oh, you..."

He rubbed his arm tenderly, but smiled genuinely nonetheless.

"So that's a yes?" he said hopefully.

"Of course! I'd love to!" she purred happily.

They smiled and looked into each other's eyes. Without warning, their faces slowly began inching toward each other, their eyes closing and lips pursing together... but the moment was shattered when the alarms went off.

Immediately, they jumped up to their feet, Sub-Zero yanking out his sword Eviglasere, and Jinx charging up her bad luck beams... but they calmed down when they realized they were under no immediate threat. A moment later, Robin opened the door with a panicked expression on his masked face.

"Guys, what are you doing?! Didn't you notice we're being shot at??" he demanded.

Jinx and Zero stared... now that he actually mentioned it, they could hear muffled 'BANG's coming from outside. They had been so caught up in the moment, they hadn't even noticed.

"It's the H.I.V.E.! They're attacking!" Robin explained. "We have to go fight back!"

He ran back out the doorway, leaving the pair to stare dumbly at one another for a second, right before rushing out to help.

As they made their way out, Sub-Zero turned to Jinx.

"The H.I.V.E.? Isn't that where you-?"He started, but she interrupted.

"Yes. And if they've come to pick a fight after what they tried to do to me, then I swear I'll kill them!" she hissed wickedly, her eyes shining neon pink and her hands glowing with fluorescent bad luck energies.

Zero was a bit taken aback by this. A couple minutes ago, she had been such a beautiful, harmless creature, but now, with those glowing eyes, she looked absolutely lethal. But of course, he couldn't blame her for being so angry.

"Yeah... and I'll help you." He said slightly jokingly, trying to calm her a little. He put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed gently.

She looked at him, and the glow of her eyes died down slowly, leaving her with an embarrassed look. She was a little ashamed of herself for losing her temper like that.

By the time they exited the Tower, the other Titans were already outside battling a literal army of H.I.V.E. soldiers dressed in insectoid-shaped yellow and black armor and armed with laser rifles. They were badly outnumbered, but still fighting.

Robin weaved in and out of their ranks dodging laser shots and taking out soldiers with flying karate kicks, birdarangs, and the occasional fistful of exploding discs. At one point, his arm was almost seared by a passing laser beam, causing his anger to get the best of him. He tossed a bola net, which tied up the unlucky soldier's gun, and with a tug, Robin yanked it out of his arms.

The soldier, left unarmed, stared dumbly for a minute, right before Robin jumped down in front of him, and took him out with a punch to the face. The guy's helmet was knocked off, and he went flying with a sickening 'snap', meaning the punch probably snapped his neck. Robin turned to face the other cowering troops, made a 'come hither' motion with his hand, and with a karate yell, pounced at them again.

Meanwhile, Starfire was soaring overhead, raining down explosive starbolts from above, while gracefully swooping and swerving to avoid being pumped by heavy laser fire. But the sheer number of gunshots filling the air made this almost impossible, and before long she was hit directly in the shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain and plunge down to earth, landing with an awful thud. A large group of armed thugs gathered around her and aimed their rifles, preparing to finish the Tamaranean off once and for all... but she hovered back up suddenly and blew them away with a charged starbeam from her eyes. After recovering for a second, she took a deep breath and flew back up into the air, launching another impressive barrage of both starbolts and starbeams from hands and eyes at the same time, taking the fight to them for real.

A massive, green, scaly Tyrannosaurus Rex reared its fanged head back and roared ferociously as its thick hide was pelted by gunfire. It swung its tail in an arc and terminated a broad arc of troops with one, devastating move. Without giving the soldiers a ghost of a chance to regroup, the T. Rex abruptly changed form into a giant, green elephant. It trumpeted loudly with it's trunk, and charged, impaling a couple unfortunate gunners on it's tusks. After tossing them off with a grunt, it changed again to a tiger with stripes of two different shades of green, and pounced on a soldier and tore him up badly with razor sharp claws, and ran off changing to a muscular, green-haired gorilla. It beat it's chest angrily and lifted up a couple H.I.V.E. goons in It's grip and did an Olympic-style hammer throw, sending them flying off to God-only-knows-where.

"AZARATH, METRION, ZINTHOS!!"

A flurry of boulders went flying, all glowing with a sizzling, crackling black magic, crushing about a dozen troops under the sheer weight. The ones who had missed these boulders had little chance to retreat, because a moment later, several of the soldiers themselves were lifted up by Raven's dark powers and flung like rag dolls at their stupefied comrades. During all this, a small squad of H.I.V.E. thugs had come up behind Raven while she chanted her spells, planning on shooting her from behind. But without even turning around, she calmly chanter her three magic words again... and the grunt's guns began to glow with shadowy energy, and levitated up out of their owners' hands and pointed themselves in midair at the soldiers who had held them. Raven held up one hand and snapped her fingers... and the levitating rifles mercilessly blasted their former wielders.

A platoon of H.I.V.E. soldiers screamed as a sonic ray blew them away. Afterwards, Cyborg simply brought his cannon to his lips and blew forcefully over it, producing a low-pitched whistle. He charged it up for another beam, and held it over his shoulder, carelessly blasting a group behind him. The laser beams that managed to hit him did minimal damage because of his armored, metal skin. He dodged several laser shots and took down a trio of troops with a well-placed elbow. They went flying with the loud crack of metal shattering armor and bone. He looked back and held out his cannon, preparing for the next wave...

Jinx was jumping and doing cartwheels, dodging gunfire with ease, and the entire time was flinging hexes haphazardly around the battlefield, causing random calamities to occur to the soldiers for no apparent reason. One bad luck spell lit up the ground beneath a group's feet, causing it to cave in under them suddenly. Another one hits a squads guns, causing them to abruptly explode in their hands, and yet another one hit a group that had been firing at her... and their laser beams suddenly froze in midair... and then, with an almost cartoonish effect, did a U-turn as if they had a mind of their own, ending up hitting the ones that shot them.

Another group was slowly moving in on Sub-Zero... who was standing calm and still in front of them. They aimed their guns. Zero surprised them when suddenly... he started dancing. Or at least that's what it looked like. He was lightly tapping his feet on the ground in a dance like motion, but remained in the same spot. Once they actually began shooting at him, he did a ballet twist out of the way, and dashed at them with Eviglasere pulled out. They started firing again, but he deflected their blasts with his unbreakable ice sword. Once fairly close, he froze in place, did a bowing motion, and then swept back up while swinging his sword horizontally. With that one quick, graceful motion he sliced one of the grunts cleanly in half... and before the others could do anything about it, he grabbed a nearby one and did a waltz twirl, throwing him up into the air... where he zapped him with a freeze ray that turned the lunkhead into an airborne ice sculpture that fell back down and shattered into a gaggle of tiny, frozen shards.

By this time, the H.I.V.E. flunkies must have realized they'd been beaten, because they just turned tail and ran like the little wimps they were.

By the time they were all gone, the Titans regrouped.

"We did it! We beat 'em back!" Beast Boy cheered, although noticeably exhausted.

"Yeah... those little punks'll think twice before messin' with us again." Cy agreed

Robin ran up, gasping for breath, but uninjured.

"Is everyone all right?" he asked worriedly. He hadn't been able to keep up with his teammates in the midst of the battle.

"Yeah I think so..." Zero answered, dusting himself off. But then, he gasped. "Wait a minute... where's Star?"

They looked all over, and before long, found her lying on her side several feet away... she was clutching at her shoulder, which was burnt badly and bleeding where she had been shot by that laser beam earlier.

Robin was horrified. "STAR!!" he ran up and sat down beside her, gently laying her head on his lap.

She looked up at him and managed to smile weakly.

"Y-yes... I will be all right... I do not think it is serious." She moaned softly, her voice wavering slightly. But Robin was not reassured.

"Guys, we need to get back in the Tower ASAP!" he called. He carefully scooped the young alien in his arms and ran back toward the Tower, the rest following behind him.

On the way back, B.Boy noticed something... Raven was limping on one foot slightly. Running up to her he looked at her concernedly.

"Hey, Rae, you alright?" he asked.

"I'll be fine." Was the monotone answer.

"No, really... you're limping!" he insisted.

He kneeled down and saw that her ankle was badly swollen, like she had sprained it during the fight.

"Here..." he said, lowering one shoulder. "Let me help."

"What?" Raven mumbled in confusion.

"Hold on to me... you really shouldn't be walking on that ankle.. you'll just make it worse."

He knew she wouldn't do so willingly, so without waiting for an answer, he grabbed her arm and put it around his shoulders and helped support her weight as she hopped on one foot... she would've just levitated, but she was so worn out from the battle, she had little magic energy left in her.

The Titans made it back to the Tower and began recuperating as best they could... all completely unaware of events to come....