For a long, awkward moment after Robin and the other titans landed on the ground next to the minotaur and winged horsey it held in its grip, its free thumb mere inches away from her head, the two sides just stood there, staring at one another. The titans with rather austere, fiery looks. The minotaur and winged horsey with rather stunned, surprised looks. The former's was the more subdued of the two with just his eyes nearly bulging out of their socket. The latter, though, took the cake in how over the top her reaction was, her eyes not just about bulging out of their sockets, but her jaw so extended it looked more than painful enough for Robin to keep wincing the longer he looked at it.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get that reaction a lot wherever we go,” Beast Boy said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That question I just asked still stands, though: why don't you try fighting someone that can actually fight back, huh?”
“Or somefive?” Cyborg asked, rocking his fists together.
Inwardly, Robin smiled. He was glad to have such strong supporting evidence that the two members of the team that had previously been the most disturbed by the appearance of the horseys and skeptical of their moral and ethical alignment seemed to have really put that aside and come around in concluding as he and the others had that the horseys were, in all likelihood, both not that bad and probably who they were here to help, weird as a blizzard in SoCal in mid-july as they still looked. Amazing what a brief fly over this city and seeing the strange equines go about their daily lives in a not all too disimilar fashion to humans could do to an opinion or two or three or four or even five.
Rather that verbally respond to the queries levied his way, the minotaur looked at the winged horsey, who looked back at him. Then, the two of them looked back at the Titans. Then back at each other. Then the titans. Then each other.
This continued for three more times before Robin slapped his face, having had more than enough, and said, “Look, we just saw swarms of tens of thousands of horses fleeing the stadium on the flight over and saw you about to knock out the one you're holding. I'd hazard that it's a safe guess you're the one responsible, so stop what you're doing, let her go, and surrender now before things have to get… loud.”
Robin had expected the minotaur's mien to become angered at this, but instead, he seemed to grow ever more confused and tilted his head to the side, asking, “What ARE you strange lot? WHO are you?” He turned his head back to the winged horsey. “Do you know them? Are they friends of yours from some odd and previously undiscovered race of talking, sapient monkeys?”
The winged horsey shook her head from side to side like a swivel.
Beast Boy bristled at the insinuation and, pointing an accusatory finger at the minotaur, said, “Hey! We are NOT monkeys, dude!”
“Well, not all of us. Just Beast Boy,” Raven said.
Cyborg erupted into uproarious laughter at that, Starfire placing her fingers daintily to her lips to suppress a far quieter, but no less joyous snicker. Beast Boy now fumed to the point that steam was coming out of his ears.
“Hey!”
“Well then, whatever you lot are,” the minotaur coughed into a fist, “know ye this: I do believe we all are caught in some grave misunderstanding.”
“Really now?” Raven asked.
“So you are not the one responsible for all of the mayhem and pandemonium we witnessed on our journey?” Starfire asked.
“Oh no. I most certainly am,” the minotaur said with more than a little pride. “But, it was not without due cause. Permit me, if you will, to elaborate.”
The minotaur then proceeded to do precisely that, explaining something to the effect of being hired by a mysterious bunch of employers to kidnap the mayor of the city, Mayor Orange, in retaliation for supposedly framing and supposedly wrongfully imprisoning three supposedly innocent business toms--what they apparently called male griffons around these parts--and about some local monarch, a princess 'Twilight Sparkle'--a name that made Beast Boy and Cyborg LOL uncontrollably till Raven slapped them upside their heads with a wave of dark magic--and her friends trying, and failing, to stop him from meeting out 'justice'. Apparently the pony that the minotuar was holding, a pegasus to be specific--for during the minotaur's recollection, the Titans had learned the official nomenclature of the strange, colorful equines about them, including the 'tribe' specific names--was one of the princess' friends and the three unconscious 'earthponies' laying on the dumpster were Mayor Orange, his wife, and his kid daughter.
“…and then I was about to press my thumb against the soft-one's forehead just enough to render her unconscious, but before I could, you lot showed up and, well, now here we are.”
“Interesting,” Robin said.
Stifling a yawn, probably not because the explanation was dry in any sense, but most likely because it had gone on far too long for his famously short attention span, Beast Boy said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real page turner. So when are we gonna toss him behind bars already?”
“I beg your pardon?” the minotaur said, clutching his chest with his freehand. “I take offense to that underlying notion!”
“Which one?” asked Raven.
“Yeah. That your so called 'righteous cause' ain't so righteous?” asked Cyborg.
“Or the idea that we can hack it in the 'tossing you behind bars' department?” asked Beast Boy.
The minotaur stroked his chin and tilted his head and looked off elsewhere in deep thought for a few moments. “Come to think of it,” he regarded the Titans again, a wide goofy grin spanning from ear to ear, “I suppose both!”
As the bull bellowed out in laughter, Robin looked at the rest of the team and silently signaled to them with several covert hand gestures to huddle into a circle to discuss tactics more privately. It took a little longer for certain members—read: Beast Boy--to get what Robin was doing since he never did quite master the difference between the 'huddle up' gestures and the 'let's go out for pizza' ones. But since thinking about food so strongly as to abandon a mission so casually wasn't Robin's style--and because everyone moved around to huddle into a circle--Beast Boy was quick enough on the uptake for Robin's liking for once and soon joined them.
“So what's the game plan, fearless leader?” Beast Boy asked.
“Please tell me we get to make him eat them fighting words,” Cyborg said.
“And wipe that smug look right off his long face,” Beast Boy added.
“Under normal circumstances, I'd say yes without any strings attached and let everyone go nuts. Thing is, this guy has four potential hostages in close proximity and is already holding one. We can't afford the probable collateral of an all out assault from the get go until they're out of the picture.”
“Makes sense,” Cyborg said, nodding.
“Eh, I guess.” Beast Boy looked away from the team to re-regard the minotaur, still laughing up a storm, and then looked back to his friends. “Plus, we wouldn't wanna rough him up too badly. Between you guys and me, he doesn't look so tough. I mean, he looks practically like the minotaur's back home. Rob himself could probably karate chop him down on his own!” he said with a goofy, toothy grin.
“That's where you'd be wrong, Beast Boy,” Raven said.
Immediately, Beast Boy's smile faltered and he and the rest of the team focused attention on her.
“Ummm… okay… care to share with the rest of the class, Rae?” Beast Boy asked, more than a little nervous, Robin thought, as Raven's analysis and conclusions when sizing up threats tended to be spot on and the way her tone sounded didn't portend well, either.
“Well, I may not know what the average power differential between local minotaurs and the ones we encountered on Themiscyra is, but I know for certain that the ones back on our world aren't supposed to be filled with the kind and degree of magic that this guy is.”
Robin perked up at this and asked, “What kind of kind and degree are we talking here?”
“Earth magic. Enough that if it could be put into a big light-bulb, it'd illuminate the whole city and surrounding area for miles for ten minutes straight.” Raven pinched the bridge of her nose and massaged her eyes like she had been up all night looking at a bright computer system in the dark. “It's… honestly very overbearing.”
“Just like the dude himself. Go figure,” Cyborg said with a shrug.
“Yeah,” Beast Boy chuckled, now shivering from how nervous he was. “Go figure.”
“Anything we can't handle?” Robin asked.
“Assuming the worst and that he can use a lot of it all at once, no. Not if we blitz him fast enough. Wouldn’t like our chances in a war of attrition, though.”
“How come?” Beast Boy asked.
“Because he keeps drawing earth magic into himself continuously.”
“So… what? He's like some walking, talking, blowharding battery for earth magic or something?” Beast Boy asked.
“Eh, I'd say he's more like an open system capacitor. Kind of like a solar panel, or photosynthetic plant, or a kryptonian. Just with a sorta hocus pocus instead of sunlight,” Cyborg said.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Always get those two confused.” Beast Boy scratched his brow.
“Any points of highest concentration?” Robin asked.
“Yeah. At his hooves.”
Robin looked at the ground, rubbing his chin in thought.
As he did, a light-bulb must have gone off in Beast Boy's head, for as though he had just had a big eureka moment, he asked, “Wait… you guys don't think he's absorbing earth magic through his feet, do you?”
“Yes, Beast Boy. It'd kind of obvious that's what we'd all suspect,” Raven replied, Robin noting her trying to hold in her natural snark and not really succeeding in the endeavor.
“It does seem to be the most likely conclusion,” Starfire said.
“Then it's settled then,” Robin proclaimed, slamming a fist into his palm. “We have a plan of attack!”
“We do?” Beast Boy blinked owlishly.
“Yes. Raven, I want you to see about manipulating this guy's emotions so that he keeps laughing like he just got hit in the face by a smilex bomb.”
“That's actually what I've been doing since you told us to huddle up.”
Robin and the others opened their mouths to utter their own unique protest at this surprising admission, but Raven cut them off at the pass.
“Before you ask, I wasn't stupid about it. I knew what I was doing and followed proper protocol when against an unknown entity to the letter. I probed the edge of his mind to see if he had any mental powers or defenses of his own. He doesn't seem to have the first but the second he's got in spades. However, they only seemed to be tailored towards direct mind reading and control and were significantly less sturdy against empathy. He was already jolly to the point of ignoring us and you all know how much easier emotional manipulation is if the subject is already experiencing the emotion you're looking for. Even more so when they don't know you can do it and are using it against them. I saw a good opportunity, I took it, and because of it we've had more than enough time to plot. Let's just kindly move on, okay? His laughing is starting to get grating.”
Robin and the others looked at each other, trying to see if any one had any real objections now that Raven had defended her decision so iron-tightly. All they found were naught but shrugs.
“Right. Good initiative, Raven,” Robin said before coughing into a fist. “Anyways, back to the plan.” He pointed at Beast Boy. “Beast Boy.”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to transform into some animal that's fast and difficult to detect, crawl into the hand the guy's using to hold the pegasus and then morph into something large and tough enough to pry his grip wide open. Then I want you to grab the pegasus and get back here.”
“And while that is transpiring?” Starfire asked.
“You and Cyborg are going to tackle Mr. Minotaur into the ground and make sure to get him into a hold where his feet absolutely DO NOT touch the ground, understood?”
“Affirmative.” Starfire nodded.
“Yep,” said Cyborg before cracking his mechanical knuckles. “Can't wait to see if he's all talk or really can match muscles with the best of them. Namely, me.”
“Be careful. With Raven on the team, it may have been a piece of cake testing his mental fortitude, but testing to see how good his physical fortitude is could still run into lots of problems if you start with maximum strength.”
“We hear ya, man.”
“Yes. We promise to only exert enough force to stop one of those delightful little volkswagen beetles speeding down the road at the school zone speeds to begin with,” Starfire said.
“Good.” Robbin nodded. “That's exactly the level of strength I was about to suggest.”
“And what about me? What's my part in all this?” Raven asked.
“You're gonna reel in the Mayor and his family and, in case Star and Cy didn't go hard enough on him and he tosses them off, are going to blast him hard enough to send him back into the stadium, because at that point we'll know for sure he's a big threat and need somewhere big, wide, and relatively empty to keep him contained. Though, we are going to have to make sure Princess Sparkle--”
Boy Boy and Cyborg sniggered up a tempest.
“--and her other friends are evacuated to really focus fire on him.”
“Understood,” Raven said, nodding.
“Good. And lastly, I'm going to throw a couple of smoke bombs to conceal our maneuvers. Now, on the count of 'break', we execute. Three… two… one… break!”
With clockwork precision machined into them by years of practice and experience, Robin and the team made their move. As he had said he would, he tossed two smoke bombs, one at the team's feet and the other at the minotaur's. Beast Boy transformed into a tiger-beetle, the fastest of all insects that creeped upon the earth, scurried along the ground, fluttered his wings into the open space of the hand the bull was using to hold the pegasus, transformed into a sasquatch to get him to open it and let the pegasus go, grabbed her in one of his arms before she hit the ground, and leapt back to Robin's side. Raven used her magic to levitate the dumpster and the Orange family atop it next to her. And, before the minotaur could react to all of these near simultaneous events, Starfire and Cyborg flew and sprinted into him respectively, knocking him onto his back on the ground with both of them restraining him in a hold where his hooves were very much elevated from the ground.
It had all gone down without a hitch, and for a little bit, Robin thought Plan A was all they really needed to discuss in hindsight since it was working so well.
Complications arose, however, as they were want to do in the field of superheroing. Though at least the point of failure had already been foreseen to be exactly where it wound up being.
As it turned out, the minotaur was strong indeed. VERY strong. Strong enough, Robin noted, that only a second after Starfire and Cyborg had brought him to the ground, he had almost succeeded in breaking free and tossing them off, and though they had rallied quickly and re-consolidated their grip, Robin could tell between their grit teeth, straining muscles, and pained expressions that they were only just able to hold him.
“Yeah… okay… this cat is DEFINITELY stronger than the ones from Donna's old stomping grounds!” Cyborg said.
“By a--owww--considerable margin!” Starfire agreed.
“I am… not certain what you… mean by all that… but for what it is worth… you monkeys… are likewise… mightier… than I had… initially… surmised!” the minotaur said.
“We ain't monkeys, man! We're humans!” Cyborg said.
“Mostly!” Starfire added.
“And I am no cat, I am a minotaur!”
Suddenly, the force the minotaur was exerting to escape seemed to increase, and Starfire and Cyborg's grip began to slip, much to their own and the rest of the team's mounting horror.
“And strong as the both of you are… I am stronger… still!”
If the way he was overpowering the two physical powerhouses of the team at the same time was any indication, indeed he was. Maybe not by much, but enough to matter.
Eh. Oh well. Plan B it was, then.
“Raven! You're up!” Robin cried.
“On it!”
Just as the minotaur had finally managed to knock Starfire and Cyborg off him, Raven unleashed a blast of dark magic that sent him precisely where Robin wanted him to go, crashing through the outer, upper walls of the stadium and creating a dust cloud--as he presumably crashed down into the field--that made the prior dust cloud they had seen rising from the stadium look like a lowly hedge compared to a mighty oak.
Next to Robin, Beast Boy put down the pegasus, transformed back to normal, and whistled. “Whew! Nice shootin', Tex!”
“It may have looked good, but it was only about as powerful as a haymaker from Cy or Star,” Raven said.
“Man, you make that sound so small. Just a haymaker from me or Star,” Cyborg said, rolling his eyes as he and Starfire got up and dusted themselves off.
“That's because in this case at least, it was small. It won't keep him down long.” Robin turned to regard the frightened pegasus and knelt down to her level. Making sure to keep his tone as gentle and understanding as he could, he asked her, “Hey there. Are you alright?”
She didn't respond at first, choosing instead to remain silent and stare blankly ahead with mouth far agape. Understandable. He and the other titans had to have looked pretty out-there by native standards, and that was before factoring in that all the superpowers and skill they had just displayed seemed to at the least be able to highly contest the very same foe that had so easily trounced her and her friends if the minotaur's recollection rung true. Were he her, he'd probably do much the same. He just hoped that she was still able to properly understand him.
“It's okay if you don't feel like talking. Me and my friends can be a lot to handle for people who've never seen us in action before. I just want you to know that you and the Mayor and his family are safe now and that we're going to make sure the rest of your friends are too and haul this clown away in chains. We're here to help, not harm.”
Something he had said must have broken through to her petrified consciousness, for her eyes lit up with life, her mouth closed, and she spoke in a voice so small it could honestly count as microscopic--beyond the capacity to be picked up by any normal, untrained human ear, “Thank… you.”
And then, she let out a faint gasp and feinted.
“Well… she was quite the conversationalist,” Raven said.
“Coming from you? Ha! That's a gas!” Beast Boy said.
“Oh, the poor thing,” Starfire said, clutching her heart.
“Little lady must have had her brain overload or somethin',” said Cyborg.
Robin sighed and nodded and petted the pony sadly. “Yeah. Must've had a bad day. A REALLY bad day.” He glanced over at the Mayor and his family and then towards the stadium where the mysterious Princess Sparkle and the rest of her friends were now certainly lying in heaps. “All of them have.” Robin grabbed a hold of and cradled the pegasus in one of his arms and pointed at Beast Boy with his freehand. “Beast Boy! Gather up the mayor and his family! We're gonna put them and the pegasus in the cargo-hold and fly around the stadium until we see the princess and the rest of her friends and put them in too.”
“And while you two are doing this, I suppose the rest of us shall re-engage the minotaur?” Starfire asked.
“Yes. Once we're done, I'll set the T-ship to return to Titan's Tower and drop off the ponies there for their safety and we'll join the fight.” With a press of a hidden button on his glove, Robin opened the cargo-hold of the T-ship and then pulled out a grappling-gun. “Now: Titans, Go!”
With nods all around, the team split to their assigned tasks. Raven and Starfire flew to the stadium with Cyborg sprinting close behind. Beast Boy morphed into a pterodactyl and scooped up the mayor and his family in his claws and dropped them off in the cargo-hold before flying back over his cockpit seat, turning back to normal, and plopping down back into it. Robin fired his line, zipped up into the cargo-hold, secured the pegasus, climbed on top of the T-ship, leapt into his cockpit seat, and piloted it after the others, that trademark unwavering determination and focus abounding in his glare.
*****
The moment she and Starfire crested over the outer stadium wall and in sight of the field, Raven found herself forced to have to slap aside a chunk of rock with her magic hard enough to dustify it. Just as she had suspected, the minotaur was up and at 'em again. By her guess, not long after making the substantially larger crater she saw in the turf as he landed, he had gotten up, carved out the substantially smaller crater she saw next to where he now stood with his hands as he scooped up enough earth, and had been waiting patiently to ambush the first titan he saw. That or, if he was smart, the weakest. Maybe some combination of the two.
Regardless, after that cheeky little stunt, Raven was set on making him pay for that, especially now that it was known for certain that he could take a hit or two or several.
“I'm gonna press him!” Raven said before smacking aside another chunk of rock casted at her. “Gather up as much energy as you can for a follow up--” Raven swerved around another chunk of rock. “--attack after you see me resurface, okay!?”
“Affirmative!” Starfire said, nodding.
Raven nodded back and then, not wasting another second, surrounded herself in her soul-self and dive bombed straight for the minotaur. She took no small hint of satisfaction in how comical his surprise was in the brief moment before impact as well as his pain in the brief moments after as she slammed him deep into the ground at hypersonic speed through the turf and earth, through the reinforced concrete bed that held up the turf and earth, through the basement of the stadium beneath that, and through a good hundred feet of bedrock below that before their momentum halted enough that Raven thought there really wasn't much more damage mileage she could get with this one attack and decided to turn tail--in this case rather literally considering the form of the raven about her--the way she came and let Starfire take a crack at it.
Which she did, in spades. The moment Raven came out of the rather large hole she had dug with the minotaur filling in for the part of drill-bit and her the role of motor, she barely had enough time to bob to the left to avoid the two beach-ball sized rondures of verdant green energy Starfire overhead chucked down as hard as she could, creating a sizable sonic boom, into the hole.
Raven hovered to a stop next to Starfire and dispelled her soul-self. Regarding her, she said, more than a little cheekily, “Cutting it a little close back there, weren't we Star?”
“I had every confidence in your ability to dodge out of the way in time,” Starfire beamed a bit too widely even for her and chuckled and rubbed the back of her head in a way that didn't exactly exude the confidence she claimed to have.
“Just give me a little more wiggle room next time, would--”
Raven's final word was lost over the sound of the energy spheres finally detonating. It wasn't a terribly terrific noise, akin more to thunder five miles distant than booming in one's face, but still was it noticeably loud and still did it cause the earth below to tremble and shake with significance.
“Woo! Did someone just bring down a skyscraper a block away?”
Raven turned and peered down towards Cyborg just then jumping over the railing into the field proper.
“If she did, it'd be several hundred feet under our feet.”
Cyborg whistled, stepping up to the hole and and looking down it. “Think that finally made him take a nap?”
“Cy, behave. You know not to bid fate to come like that.”
“I know, I know. Chill, Rae,” Cyborg said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Just having a little fun. No harm in that, is there?”
As if answering him directly, fate at that moment chose to shut trap its jaws, and from the ground exactly behind Cyborg, the minotaur sprouted up and shut trap its arms around his chest and squeezed tightly enough that even from as high off the ground as she was, Raven could hear his chassis creak.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Now that was quite the withering assault!” the minotaur jubilantly chuckled. “Especially those energy balls after the dark-one took the form of a shadowy, ethereal crow! It might have left quite the welt on my noggin if I did not tunnel out of the bulk of the blast radius in time! Hahaha!”
Needless to say, Raven and Starfire had been trying to get a good bead on him to hurl a torrent of darkbolts and starbolts his way the moment he grabbed Cyborg. But due to the way the minotaur was constantly and subtly juking himself and Cyborg around and how he was using him as a human shield, neither could get a clear enough lock they were sure wouldn't hit their guy instead.
“Unhand our friend at once, villain!” Starfire shouted, hands awash with power Raven could tell she so wished to unleash but could not.
“Again with the insinuation that I am in the wrong! I have known you lot not ten whole minutes and already you vex me more with your claims than the princess and her friends ever did!”
“I suppose that's because we can hit back a lot harder! That phenomenon’s been known to mess with people who think they're in the right when really it's the other way around!” Raven shouted. “Now hold still, would you!? You're making it way harder than it has to be to target you!”
“Well that is certainly the idea,” chuckled the minotaur. “After all, if you two are too busy slinging energy at me, however will I be able to ask and get answers to some very pertinent questions that have been plaguing me. Such as, what else can you lot do? The powers and the power of the powers you've displayed thus far are… amazing! Simply incredible! Fighting you lot is proving challenge akin to what I imagine fighting myself to be like! Exhilarating! Exhilarating beyond measure!”
“That is for US to know!” Starfire shouted.
“And for YOU to learn only when we draw from our bag of tricks when you least expect it to smack you senseless! Like… so!”
It was at that moment that the three large, previously underground water-pipes Raven had been covertly telekinetically unfastening and getting into position since the minotaur had last talked jutted out from the ground behind him and into his back. Though the pipes bent and shattered from the impact and though both the bull and Cyborg were sent flying forward with the former landing on the latter as the two skid along the turf, it left the bull's back wide open long enough for Raven and Starfire to get in a couple of well placed bolts to carefully get him off Cyborg. And once he was flipping haplessly in the air as a result, a sitting duck was an apt descriptor of what he had become. In the next moment, lit up like The Fourth of July and Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve combined was more accurate. Raven and Starfire went crazy, went ham as Cyborg and Beast Boy might say, and didn't stop firing until they were sure the minotaur was unconscious this time, which as the smoke settled and Raven looked down the olympic swimming pool sized crater he was now lying at the bottom-center of, he seemed to be.
There was, however, only one way to know for sure.
And Raven made sure she wasn't the one to discover that fact first.
“I'm not going down there to check.”
As Starfire and Cyborg looked at her, silently asking if she was serious as they both obviously felt they were within the same realm of tiredness as she was, Raven held their silent plea at bay by raising a hand and saying, “I may be the team's single biggest cannon, but I'm a glass cannon. You guys might have comparatively smaller cannons, but those are housed within the armor of main battle tanks or battleships or whatever analogy gets the point across you'd prefer. It doesn't make sense for me of all people to go and check, no matter how exhausted we all are.”
Cyborg and Starfire opened their mouths to argue, but Raven figured that was just reflexive and that before either could even utter a single sound in protest, they'd come to their senses and understand the wisdom in her words. She was right and without saying anything at all, they merely shook their heads and then looked uncertainly at one another.
“Best of the two out of the three?” Starfire asked, raising her hands as though she wished to play rock, paper, scissors.
Shrugging, Cyborg said, “Eh, why not? Take a lot less time than playing thumb war with you.”
Indeed it would and indeed it did, much to Cyborg's grimace conveyed chagrin, as he was the one who quickly lost out. But, true to his nature, Cyborg sucked it up, shook his head, and only grumbled a little bit as he quickly jogged to the edge of the crater and leapt down next to the minotaur and proceeded to kneel to examine him.
“Anything?” Raven asked.
“According to my scanners, and just my plain intuition based on his breathing and pulse rate since I don't really know what the biology of his run of minotaur is like, it's Dr. Cyborg's extremely informed and scientific diagnosis that big man here's out like Grannie Cyborg the day after Thanksgiving.” Cyborg stood up and raised a thumb at his teammates. “Good work, ladies. I'm a little… irate I got used as a hostage and didn't manage to help y'all blast him till the cows came home, but still, A+ material, girls.”
“After the sweat we put into it, it better be,” Raven said, wiping away a pool of the stuff sticking to her brow.
“Are you certain of your conclusion, Cyborg?” Starfire asked.
“Yeah, pretty much.” He waved her over. “Come on down and see for yourself if you're so worried. Two of us are probably gonna have to connive some way of restraining him anywho.”
After some hesitance, she obliged him, flew down next to him, and did her own inspection.
For her part, Raven was satisfied with what Cyborg said and elected to stay where she was, remembering for the first time in the couple minutes it had been since the team broke off that Robin and Beast Boy had their own assignment. One she decidded to check in on to see how it fared.
Now that her focus wasn't razor sharpened on battling the big bad, she could hear the roar of the T-ship's engines clear as day and looked to see it flying low over the field--only about ten feet off it--with Robin inside whereas Beast Boy was exactly on the field in the form of a cheetah. Raven looked ahead and found what--or rather who--they were moving towards: a lone, orange furred, normal horsey--pony--with a trio of apples adorning each flank just lying out on the field for some reason. When Beast Boy reached the pony, he shifted into a kangaroo, grabbing it in such a way that Raven was able to see its face more clearly and determine it was a mare. Then, he leapt into the back of the open cargo-hold, depositing the mare there before leaping back out and assuming the form of a cheetah again, continuing the hunt for the princess and her friends and anyone else needing help as a consequence of the minotaur's sudden, uninvited crash of the stadium's grand opening.
Pressing the micro-communicator in her ear, Raven asked, “How goes the easter egg hunting?”
“From the looks of things,” came Robin's voice, “we got everyone. Or at least, everyone within the bounds of the stadium.”
“Why the hesitation?” Raven asked.
“Because we have a couple extra and yet I'm fairly certain we're still down a pony. But we still can't find her anywhere despite all our other success. We'll keep looking for a few minutes, though, before expanding the search.”
Raven nodded. “Speaking of success, our fight with the minotaur was resounding. Turns out all it took was me and Star blasting away at him like he was Godzilla. Cy didn't even get a single hit in. In fact, he was used as a human shield by the minotaur at one point. He's still super salty about it.”
“I can imagine,” Robin said, Raven knowing for a fact that although his voice remained dry and monotone as it was want to do when he was in work mode, he was smiling like she was on the other end. “He wasn't too banged up then, I take it?”
“Just his pride was. But for the rest of him, yeah, he's fine. From what I can see,” Raven turned away from the T-ship and Beast Boy back to her other friends down in the crater with the minotaur, “he and Star are wrapping around the remnants of three big underground water-pipes I used earlier on the minotaur to restrain him. Doesn't seem like Cy's sweating all too hard.”
“Good. Since everything seems so locked down on your end, care to lend me and Beast Boy a hand?”
“I was just about to suggest the same thing.”
And so, Raven flew to help them find the mysterious missing member of Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends. However, even with her help, once again they quickly came up empty. Deciding to call it quits where the stadium proper was concerned, they soon regrouped with Cyborg and Starfire, who by this point had extracted themselves and the minotaur from the crater and had been seeking and applying new things to surround the bull in to make it that much more difficult for him to escape.
“And with this last lamppost, that should about do it,” Cyborg said, dusting his hands off after he and Starfire had finished bending said lamppost around the bull, he and her crossing their arms over their chests and smiling at their accomplishment.
“A job well done. Most well done,” said Starfire.
“I'll say,” Raven added, flying down next to her friends.
“Yeah,” Beast Boy said, having run up to them as a roadrunner before morphing back to normal. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you two should quit your day jobs and make bank becoming pro metal sculptors. I mean, if it worked for the guy that convinced Chicago that shiny, reflective, big bean they got was a work of art worth their time, effort, and money, then it's gotta work double for this giant metal cocoon thingy you guys got here.”
“Don't remind me,” Raven said, rolling her eyes. How that guy got away with that and yet lacked the foresight to know people would just call his 'masterpiece' the big bean despite it being so obvious just never sat right with her.
Soon, the T-ship landed on the turf next to them, and Robin opened and leapt out of his cockpit right next to the minotaur's head. Crouching down to give his own, quick examination, Robin nodded satisfactorily and quickly stood back up.
“Good work, team. Textbook, even.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, what'd you expect? 'Ponyland's' villains to be something we couldn't handle pretty routinely?” Beast Boy said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Weren't you whigging out about those same ponies being brain sucking aliens just a few minutes ago at the tower?” Raven asked.
“Well, yeah, but that was then when we didn't know nuthin' and cuz the little guys honestly look more than a little creepy. But now we know a whole lot more about them and the guy that was giving them so much trouble and it's all honestly nothing much to write home about. I mean, if this was the 'big, terrible danger' Larry was so concerned about, we should be whisked back home any moment now, right Larry my dude?”
Beast Boy smiled widely and looked around, waiting for the aforementioned chibi imp to appear, say they were all finished, and send them back on their merry way home. He didn't come, just as Raven had expected, and all Beast Boy wound up doing was making himself look foolish, also just like Raven expected.
“One: don't mess with fate like that. That's the second time someone's done it today and we all know by now that it never ends well,” began Raven. “Two: since Larry or any other imp very clearly isn't coming to end this little misadventure now, this minotaur guy isn't the real, underlying threat we've been sent to help deal with. At most, I'd guess he's just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Whatever he is, and whatever's going on, I suppose we'll find out once we take everyone back to the tower for some questioning,” Robin said. “Until then, though, we still have to--”
“Be bested by us in battle should you choose to resist, foul cretins!”
At that, all the titans looked back and up towards the sky, for there, from on high, the presumed owner of the voice was descending. No one knew which of the two aprroaching alicorns the voice belonged to at first--the tall white one with the ethereal, tricolor mane and sun on either flank or the shorter dark blue one with the ethereal lighter blue mane and crescent moon upon a splotched backdrop of black. But after they both landed ten feet away from the team, it was soon made quickly apparent.
“Unhoof Princess Sparkle and her friends at once, fiends!” loudly proclaimed the smaller, dark blue one in the exact same voice that had spoken before.
“And explain yourselves, or face the wrath of the full force of the equestrian crown upon you!” said the white alicorn.
*****
“The crown?” thought Robin. He looked at the two alicorns a little closer and sure enough, adorning each of their heads was a crown and they also wore various other regalia one would consider royal. So, they were monarchs indeed, and by the sound of it, pretty important too. More so than Princes Sparkle, even?
“Okay... first off: who am I speaking to, exactly?” Robin asked nonchalantly, calmly stepping in front of the rest of the team--between them and the alicorns.
“We shall be asking the questions here in this round of the parlay, ape!” the dark blue one said, pointing an accusing hoof at him. “And how DARE you show the gaul to play so coy with us!” The dark blue alicorn tsked. “Not knowing who WE of all ponies are! Honestly! The intellect of villainy over the centuries must have deteriorated far indeed if you feel us so foolish as to dignify such a question with an answer!”
“But I honestly don't know who you two are,” Robin said as honestly as he could. He gestured to his team behind him. “WE honestly don't know who you two are.”
“Yeah, I don't know if y'all need glasses or contacts or whatever, but we ain't exactly from the house next door,” Cyborg said.
“Or the one down the street,” said Beast Boy.
“More like a completely different world,” Raven said.
“One that is very far away indeed. As in, not even in the same universe,” said Starfire.
“What!?” the dark blue one shouted. “That is preposterous! Ridiculous! Absolutely absurd! Why, I take back what I said and instead say the villainous mind has gotten quite the deal more creative since my day to craft such elaborate, fanciful, and downright improbable fantasy, believe it themselves, and expect others to as well!”
The white alicorn sighed and hung her head. “No, no. It's... actually quite probable.”
“Sister!” the dark blue alicorn said, utterly flabbergasted. “Do not tell me you actually believe those… those… wait… what precisely are they?”
“Therein lies my chief point as to why I believe them. They are not any known sapient race on this planet and they say they are not even of this planet. I suppose their race's name is even, human, is it not?”
“It is,” Robin nodded.
“Though I am a member of an extraterrestrial race that merely strongly resemble humans known as tamaranians,” Starfire said.
“But she's weird,” Raven said. “And also the exception to the rule. Most of us are indeed human even if not… normal humans.”
“But… but...” stammered the dark-blue one, “how could this be? The only known parallel universe with humans that has been confirmed is the one Princess Sparkle stepped into via that mirr--oh.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes widening in realization. “Right. I had forgotten. Forgive me.” She nodded solemnly and took a step backward, the white-one taking a step forward.
“This may sound like an odd question, but did any of you arrive to this world by way of walking into a statue of a rearing up horse belonging to a school known as, 'Canterlot High'?”
Out of all the crazy, outlandish things Robin had heard thus far that day, the white-alicorn's question was certainly up there. He briefly glanced back at his team and saw they were universally in agreement with his take on things without needing to say anything.
“Uhmmm… no… I can't say that we did. We got here a different way.” Robin stopped for a moment to place a fist under his chin in thought. “Though now that I think of it, our method may actually be considered a little… stranger.”
“Perhaps it is best if we… start over. I have a strong feeling we got off on the wrong hoof with our antagonism,” the white-one said. She pointed a hoof to herself. “I am Princess Celestia, highest and sovereign ruler of these lands, the pony nation of Equestria.”
“And I am Princess Luna, co-highest and co-sovereign ruler of these lands, the pony nation of Equestria,” the dark-blue one said, pointing to herself. “And sister to Princess Celestia.”
Robin nodded. So the monarchy in charge of the whole country was really a diarchy. He could dig it. Even if having two monarchs sharing executive authority was weird and probably lead to many a bureaucratic nightmare, sort of like countries that had both a president AND prime minister calling the shots from the top. In any event, it probably was a good sign that neither seemed to be the 'evil queen' type to loathe having to share power. “I'm Robin,” he said, pointing to himself before pointing to his team individually and then saying their names. “And that's Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven. Together, we're a superhero group from our world called the Teen Titans.”
With that, Robin proceeded to explain the gist of the situation. Overall, it was very similar to the rundown he gave the minotaur, though of course, he was at more liberty to go into more detail this time. He still couldn't tell the two everything, and if he did outright fib, the biggest thing he fibbed about was Larry and the full picture of his powers and his nature and relationship to the Titans, explaining him as an 'eccentric pal' of theirs with spacey-wacey, timey-wimey abilities--Beast Boy's words, not his--that liked to traverse the multiverse, saw ahead in this world's future, and determined the best course of action to prevent the bad times he saw on the horizon was to take the team and their base and move it here to help the good guys already here. But aside from that whole can of worms, Robin was as honest and forthcoming as he was with the other titans--numerous instances of secrecy and paranoia he had learned from and learned to absolutely not replicate notwithstanding.
During the elaboration, though, his old detective instincts, honed and refined by years of tutelage under The Dark Knight and solo work and leading his own superteam couldn't help but kick in. Thusly, he could not help but take special note of the two rulers and their reactions to everything. For the most part, they were as to be expected. A little better than he expected, even, all across the board. The picture perfect portrait of two princesses stoically taking in a lot of information at once and a lot of very interesting information at that without any outward display of emotion, extreme or subdued, at all. Robin could certainly say this about them: he wouldn't want to play a game of Yugi-Oh! or chicken with either. But be that as it may for the bulk of things, Robin still managed to parse out three instances where the neutral facade on their faces faltered and they just couldn't maintain playing at being expressionless statues.
The first was when Robin explained the basics of the minotaur's powers and how they seemed to work and the same for the Titans themselves. They both seemed taken aback by this. Understandable. The minotaur, he and his friends, and what they could all do was pretty weird.
The second was when Robin tapped danced around the minefield of an issue that was the whole Larry conundrum. They both seemed downright off-put and more than a little… annoyed at this for some reason. Again, completely understandable. Larry was very, very, VERY weird and just as much irksome.
The third time, however, was by far the most… intriguing one to Robin. It was when he was explaining the minotaur's motivation and thusly had to get into the whole finger pointing debacle with the mayor and others accusing the three toms of wrongdoing and locking them up on one side, and the minotaur and his mysterious 'employers' and likely the three toms as well accusing the mayor of wrongdoing and saying he should be locked up on the other side. Princess Luna was surprised, confused, and most prominently of all, angry. VERY angry. Definitely far greater than a woman--mare--of her station should have shown in this situation. For her part, Princess Celestia didn't seem angry at any point, but she more than made up for it by looking significantly more surprised and confused initially and then displaying a different emotion than wrath entirely and the most distinct emotion by far, disappointment, just as much as Princess Luna's irateness.
As Robin's elaboration drew to a close, his gut told him to remember Princess Celestia's reaction especially, as it was likely to be very relevant in the near to mid-future.
“That was… quite eye-opening, I would say,” Princess Celestia said.
“Yes. That is certainly… an acceptable means to describe it,” said Princess Luna.
“Well, I for one am glad that you five strike me as perfectly reasonable and restrained individuals. Heroes, no less!”
“Indeed,” Princess Luna said. “When we first saw thee, we deliberated for quite the embarrassing span of time whether to strike at thee immediately from the shadows or announce ourselves and give you the chance to speak.”
“Sadly, I fear it was a courtesy we were a hair's breadth away from not extending,” Princess Celestia said with a sad smile. She bowed her head sorrowfully and said, “Please, forgive us.”
“Yes,” Princess Luna said, mimicking her sister. “Please.”
“It's alright, really,” Robin said, placing his hands up. “Believe me, at this point, we've instigated enough misunderstanding fights ourselves that we would have talked you two down without attacking back and anyone having to get hurt anyways.”
Princess Luna seemed to bristle at the implication, however unintentional on Robin's part, that even with the twin advantages of the element of surprise and the first blow working against them that the Titans would still be able to recover and rally enough to dialogue with her and her sister and deescalate things. So much so she said, “With what we had in the works, mayhaps not.” After a look from her sister, though, Princess Luna sighed, eased up, and said, “Still, in any event, we are most glad conflict, especially senseless conflict, did not have to erupt.”
“As are we, Princess,” Robin said, gesturing to the rest of the team to nod, which they gladly did, and then nodding himself.
“So,” Princess Celestia started with a sigh, “I take it then you intend to take Mayor Orange, his family, Princess Sparkle, her friends, and those two completely unconnected, no-way-affiliated-with-anything stallions you found to that base of operations of yours you mentioned, this--Titan's Tower, was it?--to get medical attention, correct?”
“Yes,” Robin said simply, no way belying that he found the way she'd said something just then a little… odd. “It's kinda the only place with the requisite facilities we know of, so, by default, it's kinda the closest and best one too. Unless, of course, either of you two Princesses have any good suggestions.”
“We know of quite a few places, actually,” Princess Luna began.
“But they would only have the benefits of proximity and familiarity,” Princess Celestia continued. “I can certainly say without a shadow of a doubt that if Titan's Tower is even halfway as astounding as you five and this--” she pointed at the T-ship. “T-ship, was it?” After Robin nodded, she finished by saying, “--then it should have the most advanced and effective hospital on the surface of equis.”
“Thank you, your majesties,” Robin said, bowing. “We hope it's to your expectations, especially since it sounds like you two would like to accompany us there, correct?”
“If you would have us,” they said in stereo.
“It would be our honor to host you. As well as any military and/or law enforcement personnel you'd wish to have as your escort.” Robin scratched the back of his head. “I should warn you though that however big it looks, it's actually quite cramped on the inside and only gets more so if there are too many people. You can go nuts on the outside, especially the island the tower actually sits on, but inside, I wouldn't recommend you bring in more than, say, 72 at most.”
“So roughly five squads and a half, then,” Princess Luna muttered, tapping her chin with a hoof in thought. “Thank you. That is quite generous and should more than suffice.”
“What of the minotaur, though, if you do not mind me asking?” Princess Celestia queried. “Are you bringing him to Titan's Tower as well? If so, I would highly advise against it.”
“As would I,” agreed Princess Luna. “The consequences of a breakout would prove disastrous.”
“After seeing him in action, I would tend to agree, princesses. However, in addition to being an above world-class hospital, Titan's Tower is also a state of the art holding facility and jailhouse designed to house a couple dozen supervillains of this guy's caliber at any one time. In fact, it's far more suited and geared towards that task and purpose than being a hospital.”
“So if you're really sure the tower's medical tech is way better than anything y'all got--” Cyborg began.
“Then you may rest assured that its containment technology is even more in advance of this world's technology for that given function,” Starfire finished.
“I know you're concerned about the safety of your subjects and fellow princess, but at this point, housing them and the minotaur in the same place really is the smartest play,” Robin added. “But since at the end of the day, they're your subjects, where they go seek medical attention should be left in your hands--hooves. What I'm not going to budge on is the minotaur staying with us, because believe me, we really are the best place to keep him with the least likelihood of him getting out.”
Robin didn't like having to sound so blunt and forceful to the two monarchs since they honestly seemed alright, but he wasn't sure of a subtler method of getting them to get it and he really did want them to get it.
After some hushed whispers and quiet deliberation amongst themselves, though, the princesses seemed willing to acquiesce.
Princess Celestia daintily and gracefully coughed into a hoof and said, “After some… spirited discussion, my sister and I both agree that your original proposal is--”
“Exceedingly preposterous.”
Robin's eyes and those of everyone else immediately turned towards the exposed head of the minotaur in his metallic cocoon to find him awake and with his nose turned up.
“For it presumes that I would permit this to occur without contest and success in said contest,” the minotaur continued. After chuckling at the various looks he was receiving, he then said, “Like… so.”
Then he took what by all accounts, including Robin's own, looked like a completely normal, regular, in no way atypical, breath.
And then… he exhaled.
And that was where things went crazy, quick.
And went south, swiftly.
In the brief but intense moments Robin spent airborne after having been blown back like everyone else, he deduced that the minotaur must have had some sort of as of yet unseen super-breath power that if the below arctic chill he felt wafting on his skin was any indication could also likely double as a kind of freeze breath. The reason it hadn't been displayed until now was obvious: Raven and Starfire had lucked out and knocked him out before he even had the time to bust it out--and being perfectly honest, in Robin's experience, the true utility of any breath power, no matter how powerful, tended to lay in one using it when your opponent didn't know you had it and/or using it when they least expected and preferably at the most opportune moment where it'd do the most damage. Having four out of seven of your enemies less than five feet in front of you, the fifth enemy less than ten, and the sixth and seventh less than fifteen certainly counted as such a moment.
But despite all this, despite being so understandably taken off guard, Robin still kicked himself all the same for not catching onto the minotaur's play earlier with all the telegraphing he'd done in hindsight. He was the team leader, the boy wonder of a tactical detective, the smartest cookie in the jar for that sort of thing, and yet like everyone else, he felt he had allowed himself to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book far too easily without much of anything to show for it.
Nothing but losses to show for it.
For as it turned out, the super-breath the minotaur exhaled was truly more of a freeze-breath in this instance than even Robin had initially suspected. Raven and Beast Boy had been frozen solid into icy statues of themselves, utterly immobile. Starfire and Cyborg managed to escape the same cold fate thanks to their resistance to chilling temperatures on account of tamaranians possessing weird, alien biology that permitted them to survive unaided in a vacuum for an extended period of time and Cyborg's parts being second to none in terms of quality. Yet still were they knocked away and knocked off their guard long enough for the minotaur to flex his way out of his impromptu metal cocoon prison with a sound like thousands of soda cans crumpling at once, rush them, and deliver an uppercut to each of their chins so devastating that the both of them were sent back-flipping into the horizon farther and faster than Robin could reasonably be expected to track even if he wasn't tumbling along the turf and screeching to a rather painful halt at the time.
All that left Robin with was himself. Wondrous, but still ultimately human boy up against two tons of titan tearing terror.
It was a ridiculous prospect, Robin knew. He had just recovered from the breath attack and taken a fighting stance. The minotaur in the meanwhile could have been upon him several times over now with his speed to the point he could have hit him as he was crashing on the ground.
But he hadn't.
Instead, after dispatching with the team's muscle as he had, the minotaur just stood there, fists on hips, cape billowing in some unseen breeze as he smiled widely and oddly heroically. “Come now, there's no need for any more violence. Not like you could mete and dispense much, what with your team being out of commission and you being… well… by your lonesome.”
So, the minotaur agreed indeed that Robin's chances in a fight were slim and just wanted to talk and undoubtedly gloat while he was at it. Presumptuous, but an accurate presumption in this case. Robin's guard did not waver, though, as he recalled something important and said, “But I'm not by my lonesome, technically. The other titans might be down, but I still have the royal sisters on my side.”
“He is right,” Princess Luna said, walking up to Robin's left.
“He does,” Princess Celestia said, walking up to Robin's right.
“Your majesties,” the minotaur said, bowing politely. “Forgive me ever so greatly for my latest job causing such a fracas as to garner your attention AND intervention. You must understand that it was not my intent.” The minotaur then performed a prompt about face and leisurely strolled toward the T-ship. “Just as you must understand that it is not my intent to come across as rude now, but as much fun as I have had conversing and clashing today, I am on the clock and have spent far too much of that clock's time NOT extracting the mayor. So, I shall do so and be running off then.” He waved goodbye to them. “Toodles, as they say in your country.”
Not three steps closer to the T-ship had the minotaur taken before Princess Luna cocked her head to the side and asked, “Is… is he just… ignoring us!?” in absolute disbelief.
“It would appear so,” Princess Celestia said with a glare.
“But… but why, sister!? Why would he do that to US of all ponies when we have ample opportunity to strike no less!?”
“Same reason he's ignoring me too,” Robin said. “Because he knows, or at least thinks he knows, you're not a threat to him. Not really.”
“What, what, what!?” Luna shouted, turning to him. “But… but… we are the two sisters! Raisers and lowerers of the sun and moon! Two of the most powerful spellcasters in all the nation! Rulers defacto and dejure of the land with centuries of wisdom and experience and skill behind u--”
“And yet not only is he so confident he could best us in battle, but trivially so at that,” Princess Celestia interjected.
“And he wouldn't be entirely wrong on that front, either,” Robin said. “He's already proven himself capable of demolishing Princess Sparkle and her friends and the rest of my team. Compared to that, we just don't stack up. Not enough to even tickle him, in his mind.” Covertly, Robin keyed in a particular sequence using the various buttons in his gloves. “But that's where he went too far with his assumptions, and where we're going to make him pay for his hubris. In FULL.”
The minotaur finally made it to the cargo-hold and threw a fist back, no doubt casually expecting to pierce through the ramp and pry it open just as easily as when he got out of his metallic cocoon. Despite himself, Robin couldn't help but smile widely at the look of surprise on the bull's face as a barrier of staticy blue energy activated the moment his hit would have struck true, the metal beneath completely unharmed. Robin also couldn't help but snicker inwardly at the looks the two princesses were throwing him, and explained, “Like them? Those are the T-ship's brand new energy shields, installed courtesy of another group of more cosmic, space-faring heroes called, The Omega Men. I activated them just now.”
“Energy shields?” Princess Celestia asked, astonished. “You mean like a force-field small but powerful enough to run off a power supply on-board your vehicle and envelop it to protect it from attacks on command?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes went wide with wonderment. “Oh me oh my oh me. How… how--”
“Novel,” Princess Luna finished for her.
“Yep,” Robin agreed. “Kind of hoping that between the novelty and the fact that it's pretty heavy duty to the point where it took a full minute of the whole team pounding away at it to lower it that it'll take our friend here long enough to bust through for us to talk shop and draft a blueprint for his downfall. And on that front, I feel I have to ask,” he took a couple steps forward and then about faced to regard them, “do either of you know a thing, anything at all, about this guy?”
“Nothing for certain,” Princess Celestia said as the minotaur followed up with his second punch against the T-ship's energy shields. “Only rumors and hearsay. You must understand: Equestria does not have any offensive intelligence gathering capability. We do not go into other countries to collect information on their folk, you see.”
“In my line of work, rumors and hearsay can't be easily discounted since a lot of times they're treasure troves of information more valuable than the official, verified yarns people weave, so please, tell me any scraps and parcels you know. It could be crucial in ways you're not aware.”
The princesses looked at each other as if trying to find any objection to Robin's request in the other's face. Finding none, they both nodded and turned back to him.
“We believe him to be one of the demifysikos,” Princess Celestia said.
Robin raises a brow. “Demifysikos? What's that?”
“In his native minotauran, it would translate into braytish as something like 'semi-natural',” Princess Luna answered. “It is a term dubbed by minotaurs to refer to those exceedingly rare of their number than can use magic extensively, for though minotaurs are a race that all typically possess horns, they by and large have no command over magic the way unicorns and alicorns do, and point of fact, generally have about as much command as earthponies do.”
“Yet unlike most unicorns and alicorns, the magic of a demifysikos tends to be… exceeding in its power,” Princess Celestia said. “But thankfully, by that same turn, it also tends to be rather limited in its variety and utility in a way unicorn and alicorn magic typically isn't. Demifysikos magic is thus more akin to a pony's special talent magic in that regard.”
“Right… special talent magic… gotcha,” Robin said, hoping he sounded convincing as he rubbed his chin in thought. “So, for example, a demifysiko could be alarmingly adroit in, say, fire magic and very few if any would be able to challenge him in it, but ask the same guy to transmute lead into gold and suddenly he's about as useful as I'd be at that task.”
“That would be correct,” the princesses said in stereo before nodding in stereo.
“And one more thing,” Princess Celestia said. “They also typically tend to have a source of magical power external to themselves and a very severe weakness a clever opponent in the know could easily exploit for great gain. Often times, this weakness is being disconnected from that external source of their power.”
Now THAT got Robin's attention, even over the frustrated cries of wrath of the minotaur now going absolutely ham on the energy shields, still to absolutely no avail. He remembered Raven's words about how the minotaur seemed to be siphoning off earth magic from the ground into himself to power his abilities and how the magic seemed to be most concentrated in his hooves. But by that same token, he also remembered how poorly the test of the initial hypothesis--that it was through his hooves' connection with the earth that he drew power--went. For even though Starfire and Cyborg had kept his hooves off the ground for well over half a minute, he still managed to out-muscle them and break free.
Something was missing. Something wasn't quite adding up despite so many pieces of this picture puzzle having fallen into place. He did a little bit more thinking, about how this all seemed very reminiscent of the ancient tales of greek heroes and villains, suspecting the answer must have lied somewhere on that train of cognition since everything seemed to gel so well with that. Eventually, his mind wandered to a particular of the legendary accounts, one of the fabled 12 Labors of a certain Hercules, or Herakles as he was not known in latin, but the original greek.
On a hunch, he asked, “I don't suppose either of you stumbled on his name, by chance, did you?”
Princess Luna huffed. “'Twould have been difficulty beyond compare not to since apparently he is quite fond of boasting of and heaping praise upon it.” She rolled her eyes.
“Antaeus. That is his name,” Princess Celestia said.
It clicked. Suddenly, in some great, glorious, cacophonous epiphany, it all clicked, and Robin's eyes went the widest they had on this whole caper. “Say that name again, please.”
“Antaeus,” Princess Luna hesitantly said on account of the wild look Robin must've been sporting. “His name is Antaeus.”
So, he hadn't misheard and merely filled in the blanks his mind wanted to fill. Good. That was... good! The best news he'd heard all day, even!
“Thought that's what I heard,” Robin said, grinning slightly. “Because that means I've got a sure fire way to win.”
“You do?” the princesses asked in stereo.
“Yes. But it's going to have to require some mutual trust and cooperation or else it could backfire in a big way.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Princess Celestia said, uncertain.
“It doesn't have to be. Not if we get the execution down pat. Regardless, it really is the safest option.”
“As well as the only option, I presume?” Princess Luna asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.” Robin gestured for them to get closer so they could huddle up. They obliged and he said, “Now here's the plan,” and then explained his plan to them. All in all, he'd say they handled it rather well, though of course they took issue with the grand assumption that the whole plot's success or failure hinged on. Still, they agreed it was overall much better than anything they had devised and ultimately decided to go along with it. All Robin had to do now was ensure his bit went off flawlessly to perfectly set up the princesses for their parts, which shouldn't have been too hard since, after all, Robin was a master manipulator of unguarded egos.
“Alright then, Princesses, time to break!”
With that, they left their huddle and Robin turned around and slowly approached the minotaur, getting to within a half dozen feet of him before asking, “Excuse me, Mr. Minotaur, sir?”
Huffing and puffing from his attempts to break through the energy shields now, the minotaur gave a few more half-hearted punches before wiping away the sweat dripping from his brow and matting down the fur there and facing him. “Y-y-yes, errr… Robin, was it?”
Robin nodded.
“Bully. Joyous to see something I do go right for a change in recent history after the confounded set back that trying to get past this force-field surrounding this infernal contraption of yours has proven to be.” He wiped some sweat tumbling from his nose. “Speaking of, would it be too much to ask you to deactivate said field so that I may finally grab the mayor and be off, mayhaps?”
“Not a chance,” Robin replied, smile unfaltering.
The minotaur sighed. “I suppose watching me literally beat my head against the wall here is too good a comedy.” He began stretching out his arms a little. “Plus, being honest, at this point I dare say I have already invested too much of my time and energy not to rise to the challenge gloriously and dismantle your accursed field all on my own might. Merely having you lower it would be a smidge too anticlimactic and ultimately unrewarding, me thinks.”
“Speaking of rewards,” Robin said before reaching for his utility belt and pulling a familiar metallic disk from it with his 'R' emblem painted in the center, “here, I wanted you to have this. You deserve it.”
“Ummm… thank… you?” the minotaur said, taking it with one hand and scratching his head, confuddled, with the other. “If you do not mind my asking… what, precisely, is this little discus you have given me here and to what end have you given it?”
“Like I said, it's a reward. More specifically, a trophy, a keepsake for you to bring home to commemorate your astounding victory over The Teen Titans this day, oh most noble one,” Robin said with a bow and fanciful flourish of his cape.
“He is lathering it on a little thick there, would not you agree, sister?” Princess Luna whispered, unaware that Robin could still very much hear her with how attuned his sense of sound was.
“Hey, if it works, it works,” Princess Celestia replied, Robin practically feeling her shrug.
Robin's smile widened for a sec before returning to as it had been prior as he lifted his head back up towards the minotaur and answered the second half of his query. “I wanted you to have it as a token of respect. See, it's not everyday that someone we face manages to trash us like you did, and on those rare occasions, I've made it sort of a team tradition to give such a worthy foe something, a little gift, to remember us by.”
“Oh… well… thank you very much for your hospitality, Robin,” the minotaur said before bowing slightly. “It is nice to know that you monkey human things can be such good sports to your adversaries.”
“We're not monkeys,” Robin said, struggling to not break character for a moment but mentally managing to rally at the last moment. “Anywho,” Robin began, turning around and slowly walking away, “I'll just leave you back to your work and watch forlornly at a minimum safe distance of fifty or more feet since, you know, there's absolutely NOTHING I or the royal sisters could do to even contest you and all.”
“Oh… yes, well… good luck with that!” the minotaur called as Robin went away, waving as he did.
“And good luck to you too, mister!” Robin said back, also waving before putting both hands behind his head and whistling jauntily to the tune of the classic war jingle, Bombs Away. He soon made it back to the two princesses and turned back around to watch the minotaur more closely inspect his 'present' with his eyes, nose, ears, and even his tongue weirdly enough.
Eventually though, he seemed satisfied and put the disk in one of his toga's pockets and resumed bashing his fists fruitlessly against the T-ship's energy shields. Six punches in, he said to himself, no doubt low enough that he thought Robin couldn't hear, “You know, what an amicable fellow that Robin is. I certainly do not wish to cross paths with him and those other 'Teen Titans' when this is all over as foes. They seem like such straightforward folk.”
All Robin could do was chuckle lightly to himself and think to himself about how deceiving looks could be. When his amusement had plateaued, he looked to his left and then to his right at either princess, stopped whistling, looked forward again, and muttered out, “Tick. Tick. Boom.”
Immediately after muttering the last consonant, two rapid ticks sounded from the minotaur's pocket, startling him out of his shield smashing routine, but before he could do much else, the R-disc in his pocket detonated with a boom. And not the smaller boom associated with the typical explosive R-disc either, but a BIG boom that was the product of the specialty R-disc he had handed the minotaur, one that worked off the same principle as Speedy's quantum arrow by drawing energy briefly from the quantum realm for maximum devastation in a deceptively small package. Robin hadn't exactly gotten all the bugs worked out yet, especially since he was just reverse engineering Speedy's tech by mimicry without Cyborg's more specialized tech expertise to help, but he had managed to get enough explosive power to equal the same amount of energy found in three max strength uppercuts from either Starfire or Cyborg. A bad day for anyone on the receiving end to be sure. Granted, since it wasn't a shaped charge, the explosion was omni-directional--as was typical of explosions--meaning only half of the energy, 1.5 Starfire/Cyborg uppercuts worth, could ever actually hit the minotaur. But that was alright in this case since the true purpose of the quantum R-disc wasn't to even really hurt him in any real sense.
It was to launch him high enough into the air, far, FAR away from the earth below.
“Now! You're up, princesses!”
With stunning celerity and perfect synchronicity, Princess Celestia's and Luna's horns glew gold and dark blue respectively, and around the minotaur, two telekinetic fields of magic the same color formed, pushing him aloft further and further than he would have gone just from the explosion alone.
“Do either of you sense the earth magic leaving his body, yet!?” Robin yelled.
“Nnnnn… no!” Princess Celestia strained through her teeth, sweat practically pouring from her brow from the amount of magic she was pouring into the spell.
“Nnnnn… not… yet!” Princess Luna shouted, in much the same boat.
Robin was a little disappointed, though only just. He figured Antaeus' power had a fairly reasonable, meaning longer than three second, timer to it before it left him. Otherwise he would have lost it every time he leapt into the air or was knocked into it by an opponent, like now. He just hoped the time limit wasn't something crazy like half a minute or a full minute. According to legend, the Antaeus of his world would lose his power a moderate ten seconds after being away from the earth, and since the parallels were already so striking, he was banking on that consistency of similarity extending to the power countdown for this Antaues. In about five seconds, he'd know for sure.
Antaeus, however, had another plan. One that did not involve him floating idly by, helpless in the air. About four seconds in, he started pulling out every trick in the book, everything he could do, to help gravity along in pushing him back down to terra firma. He thunder-clapped with his palms, he used the non-freeze version of his super-breath, and of course he air-shoved with his hands and feet. While the fact he was spinning uncontrollably thanks to the explosion and the way the two sisters were applying their magic certainly made things considerably more difficult for him, by second six, it looked obvious Antaeus would touchdown right before second ten ticked by despite the princesses looking like they were gonna keel over from their efforts.
But that was also okay, or at least, Robin had a strong hope it would be. For ever since the quantum R-disc went off, Robin had been manning something most peculiar he had been wondering about ever since seeing it before the princesses had enlightened him.
A cannon.
Pinkie's party cannon.
According to them, as the name would imply, it belonged to one Pinkie Pie, the pink pony Robin and Beast Boy had found and placed into the T-ship and one of Princess Sparkle's friends and fellow element of harmony. The last they had heard of the cannon had been in a very strong worded letter from Princess Sparkle detailing how Pinkie had, in some hair brained prank of hers, tested out a special cake batter of hers using some super-adhesive called Gak on her one day out of the blue.
How she had gathered so much of the stuff when even an ounce of it was highly difficult to make and highly coveted by even those most in the know was beyond the princesses, but given that Pinkie had bothered to bust it out at all and the context clues of the battlefield, the three had all come to the same deduction. One wherein Pinkie must have used the Gak batter at some point during the elements' bout with Antaeus and stuck him to one of the walls where, because Gak was apparently just that tough, he couldn't break out with his super-strength and had to use the freeze-breath variant of his super-breath to bust out--since apparently extreme cold was both the only thing that could really forge and sunder Gak--and then proceed to wreck the elements from there.
While the princesses had also warned Robin that Pinkie and things associated with her had an innate tendency to be, in their words, completely random and unpredictable, and that he shouldn't rely on the cannon as a safety net because of this, from the sound of things, for whatever reason, Robin figured that Pinkie seemed to be quite consistent with her fascination and affinity for Gak and wouldn't have a cannon of the stuff just fire streamers or balloons or whatever when he pulled the det-cord. Plus, he was kind of out of alternatives since he could only throw so many explosive R-discs at a time and even if they all struck the minotaur at once before he hit the dirt, he doubted they'd juggle him long enough.
And so, with a faith in a device he had never used crafted by someone he had never really met loaded with something he knew very little about, Robin fired the cannon, aiming for Antaeus' center of mass.
And his faith was soon rewarded.
With astonishing speed, speed that just shouldn't have been possible for cake batter of all things, the green ooze shot forth from the barrel and struck Antaeus right in his back at a roughly 45° angle roughly at the nine second mark. Though because of this, about half of the energy was dumped into moving him sideways, the remaining half devoted to keeping him up was enough. More than enough, adding an extra two seconds to his fall.
And so, when the cannon's smoke cleared and Robin could see more clearly again, he was greeted to the wonderful, odd, and wonderfully odd sight of Antaeus--covered from the neck down in green, Gak cake batter--hovering face down and toes up just a few inches from the ground in the magic glow of Princess Celestia and Luna, desperately sticking his tongue out towards the turf below.
“Nnngh! Nnngh! Come on! Come on!” he said, stretching his tongue out to lengths Robin hadn't known minotaur tongues could extend to, but ultimately and unfortunately for him, to no avail. Finally, after several seconds of the rather humiliating and childish display, Antaeus yelled out in frustration and threw his head back, shouting to the skies, “It is true! It is so true what Pinkie said! Gak be whack! Gak be SOOO whack!”
Robin, curious, plucked a blade of astro-turf from the ground and placed it within the barrel for five seconds. When he removed it, he found it covered in hardened Gak batter. Despite his best efforts, including dropping the thing to the ground and stomping on it with his steel-toed boots hard enough to shatter reinforced concrete--yes, even the steel re-barb--the small amount of the green stuff wouldn't even budge and the faux blade of grass remained trapped.
Placing the Gak covered bit of astro-turf into one of the pockets of his utility belt, Robin regarded Antaeus and smirked. “Yeah, that's at least one thing we can safely agree on.” Then, he promptly pulled out an electro-birdarang and beaned him in the head with it. After he stopped screaming and convulsing and passed out from the electricity coursing through his veins, Robin turned toward the princesses and asked, “How are you two holding up?”
Panting up a storm, Princess Celestia wiped away a veritable puddle of sweat from her face and said, “Oh, you know, hanging in there. A lot like our minotaur friend here, funnily enough, only in reverse.”
“So in other words, we are this close to failure where keeping him suspended is concerned whereas he was and still is this close to success,” said Princess Luna, holding her hoof in front of her nose by a hair's breadth for emphasis. “Normally two tons would be foal's play for either of us, but after doing our best to negate his efforts to get ground side--”
“I got it. You're both tired.” Robin looked back to Raven and Beast Boy, still frozen from the freeze breath. Pointing to them, he said, “I'll try and thaw them out and get them to take that burden off your magical shoulders.”
“Please, do hurry,” the princesses said at the same time.
Robin heartily acquiesced to their request, ran over to Raven and Beast Boy fast as he could, pulled out one of his bo-staffs, and started chipping away like he was mining for ore during The Great California Gold Rush. His focus was on Beast Boy since he had the better recovery rate and didn't need the same level of concentration and mental clarity for his powers as Raven did for hers. Soon, he was freed, and after some 'achooing' and an economic run down by Robin, he transformed into a pterodactyl, grabbed Antaeus in his claws, and hovered up to a nice safe hundred feet off the ground, both princesses promptly falling flat on their faces and taking in greedy gulps of air.
“Whew,” said Princess Celestia. “Luna, remind me when the last time we had a magical work-out like that was?”
“I do believe it was the last time the Northern Dragon Flight tried to sack equestria, some eleven hundred odd years ago.”
“Huh. Has it really been that long?”
“Could've fooled me,” Robin said, in between grunts as he now focused on busting Raven out. “From where I stood, you two rose to the occasion like seasoned champs.”
“Hehe,” chuckled Princess Celestia, weakly. “We still got it, don't we, sis?”
She raised her hoof for a hoofbump.
Obliging her sister, Luna said, “Yes,” bumped her hoof against her sister's, and finished with, “we do.”
The two princesses then promptly collapsed into sweet unconsciousness, smiling from ear to ear just as Robin had broken Raven out and she thusly left unconsciousness with a few coughs and some sneezes.
“Ro--Robin?” Raven asked in between shivers.
“No. Red Robin's.”
Raven scowled. “You know I hate that pun. And that restaurant.”
“Sorry. Couldn't resist. You gotta admit, you kinda set yourself up for that one.”
After taking a few more moments to wake up and get her breath back to normal, Raven shook her head and said, “Yeah, yeah. I guess I sorta did.” After Robin helped her back up to her feet, she asked, “So… what happened.”
“Long story,” Robin said, shrugging.
“We at least win?”
Robin stole a glance at Pinkie's party cannon and then at the slumbering sibling monarchs. “Yeah,” he smiled, “I'd say we did pretty handily. Errr… hoofily.”