Hand Into The H.I.V.E. (Titans)

Twas brillig in downtown Jump City; about two o'clock then. A crack of Sun had broken free of its cloud blockade and bathed streets with a warm glow, casting sanctuaries of shadows along the western row. Office workers were back from lunch hour, refocusing their efforts on that last push before home time. Children were in the park playing- You know what? Forget it.

When is it ever a nice, normal, uneventful day when an intro begins like this? You, the reader, know what's about to happen. I'm just kidding myself with the suspenseful buildup. So look over there - big out of place hot-air balloon. Filled with supervillains. About to attack City Hall.

From out the basket flew parcels of pixels, nestling inside them was an explosive each. A rain of death peppered the bustling council offices. Sections of roof began to cave. Now two figures leaped from the floating transport, landing amongst the panicked civilians, sent into disarray. They took their place at the top step of City Hall.

Emily was doing the thing she did best other than train, patrol. Seemed to be all she was good for anymore. Watching the balloon, she couldn't help the curiosity. Emily pulled out her communicator and stared at the balloon for a while before speaking into it. "Guys, I may need back up at city hall, standby." Shooting over, she was pretty sure this was some kind of holdup. It was too obvious though...they would need someone to play marksman. Swat tactics. "Let me guess." Pointing at Hydra she laughed. "You're the tough one. The sniper is the smart one..." and then she pointed at Pix and laughed. "And you're the one with the weird powers."

Well it was going to be a bit of a pain having three people do the job of an entire wrecking crew, but if they continued diligently, then they could finish within the hour. Then all that was required was to leave a note on the rubble for some Titans to find, and report back to Headmistress with - wait. Was that a... TITAN!? (o_O) One showed up? Was she lost?

Alright. They were finally getting somewhere. At last, a Titan who didn't break records for being fashionably late. Pix was impressed. H.I.V.E. academy had spent so long studying them he was beginning to suspect they were mythical. No amount of intelligence reports could make up for the real deal though, "Starstrike, right?" It began.

"Correction. I'm both weird powers and the smarts. Our sniper is... the dancey one." As quite rightly pointed out, Pix's abilities were unusual. He was a walking computer sprite, body consisting entirely of pixels. Even his face was just a series of changing emoticons (^_^). He prided himself on having a distinctly unique superpower.

So to business. It'd been so long. How did these hero vs villain confrontations go again? Was someone suppose to offer a hot beverage? Ah screw it. Hugh would just be informal, as always. He checked his pixelated wristwatch, "We were about to settle in for the afternoon. Level this building. But seeing as you're on time, we should get down to business. Take this message back to your friends-"

As Hydra finished talking, she did not notice that someone was right behind her, he became Steel and kicked her off the building from behind, she could probably break the fall somehow though, he jumped down, still as Steel, intending to land on Hydra Let`s not waste any time trying a diplomatic solution.

Emily waited until the speech was over and clapped slowly and sarcastically. "OK, correction, you're the strong stupid one, right?" She smiled when Meta slammed her into the ground, looking at the the other one. "And as for you Pix...your power level is pretty low. It's a shame, really. You're the only one with sense from the group." A shockwave would shoot out from her as she transformed into her first form with her hair igniting to blonde. Shooting forward, she would try to tackle Pix to the ground and pummel his skull in. She knew he'd reform, but if she kept up the pressure things would go just fine.

What a shame. Their foe didn't realise the majesty of Hydra's speech. And that was where the voice would have helped! If Hydra had done the voice, everybody would have been tearing up right about now. Such missed opportunities... But in their efforts to be theatrical the two H.I.V.E. students had forgotten to watch their six. Now there wasn't just one Titan, but two! They were like buses.

Caught off guard, Hugh watched wide-eyed (0_0) as Hydra was sent flying. Z3R0 should have prevented that. Dumb robot's programming must have had him watching Starstrike too closely. A beautiful example of cooperative fighting, working in tandem. HIVE would not be beaten on teamwork. It was time to get in the game.

A successful analysis from Starstrike correctly interpreted Pix's strength levels. Hugh was on the back-foot when matching brawn with brawn. The kind nod to his competency, though, did not go amiss before the Titan sprung into action, "More sense than you realise." (^_^) As the tackle was initiated, Pix's head flew off. It shook free an outer layer of pixels to reveal a metallic undercoat. The head was nothing more than a camouflaged surveillance droid, serving as both video and audio feed.


Weeks ago, Pix had asked his troublesome android to build him a drone for use on missions. To her credit, the machine was reliable. Unfortunately, as was Nix's humour, it turned out sorta silly looking. It was filled with pixels, a medium Hugh could move psychically, thus achieving flight. With its ears and whiskers folded away, it was head size as well as shape. The remaining torso, of this pixelated clone, was nothing more than a shell.

A shell filled with C4.

"Gotcha." The real Pix was still sat in their hot-air balloon, controlling the drone's progress via video goggles and microphone. Starstrike had triggered his trap card. By striking this pixel clone, pressure activated explosives were about to detonate right in her face. He'd tricked his foe into punching a bomb. Power-level, smower-level.

Emily managed to figure out what was in the shell in less than a second. Explosives. For some reason she felt like she should be really really surprised and yet...not even slightly. Instead of bringing it to the ground, she threw it as high as she could into the air, avoiding impacts. Instead she created a little ball of energy on her index finger and fired it into the decoy before forcing it to turn around and fire at a ridiculous speed straight toward the balloon itself. "I have to hand it to you, you're smart. But you better use every trick in your arsenal."

Meta looked around as the smoke rose, Meta calmly became paper then jumped, landing on a roof nearby, away from the smoke, then became steel in case he was attacked.

Toji stands back up, grinning."Well, well, if it ain't Stripes. I see you still have that abnormal hairdo. Whenever are you gonna fix that, anyway?"

Juugan winces, going into a temporary Corner of Woe."He is right. I am nothing. At least he has his hair balanced, despite it's annoyingly bright color......I don't deserve to live....."

Toji snickers, running past him, only to get a shot to the back of his head."Yow!!!!Dang it!!!!"

Juugan glares at the young halfdemon."Don't think I'm gonna let you fight them, you so called Demon Cheiftain!!!"

Pix, and by extension his droid, were pretty irate, "No way! Do over! I call cheat!" The orb's display screen flashed across various outraged emotes. The sprite loathed it when he was out-thought. Especially when he'd put his utmost into the planning session. The last time a hero had completely defied his expectations, Pix had devolved into an apocalyptic rage. Just attacked everyone indiscriminately, like a child.

A year had passed since that debacle. No one was going to see him throw caution to the wind again. So long as he unloaded his bloody-mindedness elsewhere, "Juugan!" Hugh in the balloon had picked up his HIVE communicator after sighting their newest member. His presence improved their chances significantly. But Pix was not in a mood to be charitable, "You better not have followed us here just to get at Lightning Wolf! The Headmistress will have our heads if she thinks we disobeyed her order to come alone!"

The drone rounded on Starstrike again. It's face flashing red with a cheap lighting effect, "Alright. You passed level one. Welcome to level two." The robot was backing off into the cover of Hydra's smokescreen, "Extreme Tetris. Guess which packages go kaboom."

From out the hot-air balloon poured dozens of shapes, each one consisting of pixels. They dive-bombed straight for City Hall. Yet despite the implied danger, only one of these casings contained an actual bomb.