Word Crimes

September 15, 2018:

There's a new gang on the block.

And they want show the world that they've got their stuff down.

Down to the letter…

EXT. - TITAN TOWERS - DAY

Where Titans Tower be at.

Characters

NPCs: Typeface, Spellcheck, Wordsmith, Metaphor, Synonym, Antonym, Idiom

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: Word Crimes


Fade In…

Once Upon A Crime…

There was a man. A man by the name of Gordon Thomas that found himself on the wrong side of the letter of the law. In time, he became a person that had to make opportunities. Eventually, he combined his knowledge and resources with a few other like minded individuals that also felt as though they had to do bad things to survive in this new world.

These men and women all followed the same Code of Grammar. They believed that everyone needed to learn a few valuable lessons. If they had to teach the world with violence then so be it.

Long Island, New York City was the first stop on the Inaugural Tour of the organized group of… whatever they were. They stood tall as their Spellicarrier (which was a very cheap and very bad rendition of the Helicarrier) arrived from above. The hovercraft made a lot of noise and the platform showed about a few dozen 'followers' or 'henchpeople'. This was obvious because their various outfits consisted of black turtle necks, gray pants, black boots and black beanies. Printed on each of these turtleneck sweaters were various phrases to indicate their names: Pow, Bang, Oof, Zonk, Kerplunk, Wham, Bam, Boffo, Biff, Smack, Crunch… and so on, so forth. There had to be at least thirty of them. And they all were holding various weapons that had been designed to look as though they were various styles of punctuation. Exclamation Bats, Pipes and Staves. Question Mark Guns. Semi-Colon Claws. Others held Riot Shields in the shape of large Periods. It was a very large group of some very weirdly dressed fodder.

Standing on a raised platform on the Spellicarrier were seven individuals. Each of them primed and ready for battle. Each of them with their own particular set of skills, abilities, weapons and maybe even powers. Who knows. Either way, let's meet the crew…

  • Benjamin Pancake aka Spellcheck. Contortionist du jour and decked out in an armored uniform that's been littered with red editing marks. Masked and Cowled, because of the huge red Checkmark on his head, there's a good chance this one's utility belt features some serious red lining gadgetry.
  • Wilhelmina Smythe aka Wordsmith: Perhaps the brains of the outfit, she's sitting in a hoverchair with a bunch of holoscreens around her. That hoverchair looks like it's armed to the teeth, as well. Or, well, maybe it looks like she can control a bunch of things from it. Either way, probably someone to keep an eye on. When she's visible.
  • Sydney and Anthony Nims aka Synonym & Antonym: These twin terrors are dressed in matching outfits that are the complete opposite of each other. Hanging off each other like they were posing for a picture, each of them are wearing a pair of gauntlets and chest pieces that look as though they are ready for battle. Synonym's suit has arrows pointing towards her chest plate and Antonym has arrows pointing away from his. Weird.
  • Maribel Mathers aka Metaphor: Looking as though she just stepped off the cover of an underground street album, the Microphone Mistress looks ready to either rock the mic or rock the fight. Her red fishnets might give a bit of a clue to her powerset but… then again, not all caged birds sing.
  • Ichabod Dioceles Matterhorn aka the Idiom: Perhaps the biggest of the bunch, this eight foot powerhouse is all brawn… but perhaps even more brains. His huge size and battle ready outfit is played for serious even with the glasses we wears on the bridge of his nose and the Graduation Cap that he's got on his head. It's a weird combination but, whoomp, there it is.

"Friends! Romans! Countrymen! I stand before you at this moment, at this hour, to speak of what dreams may come! Together, we shall prove to this city that words matter. Words hurt. Words are our weapons. We shall overcome this materialistic society and take back what has always been there since the dawn of intellectual mankind! We. Are…"

And that's

  • Gordon Thomas aka Typeface. The armored and lettered individual stands proud as he gives his speech to all those that have gathered to help him achieve his goals. He may have been upgraded a bit because each of the letters attached to his body and face seem to be glowing with various shades of something or other. It's weird. And also kind of kooky. Even though he looks menacing in a weird way.

Anyway, back to the speech.

"… THE ELA! THE EVIL! LITERACY! ASSOCIATES!"

The entire crowd start chanting, "ELA! ELA! ELA!"

Typface turns and points off in the direction of the giant T that is Titans Tower, using his L shaped cane. "Today, we take Titans Tower. Tomorrow, we take the world." Dramatic Pause for emphasis. Then: "A is for…" Wait for it. "ATTACK!"

Incoming Crazies.

*

"I have no words."

It is, literally, the only appropriate thing Spider-Man can think of, as he stares down the glorious menace of the Spellicarrier and its grammar nazi cohorts from the comforts of his perch on the entrance of the tower.

Dumbstruck as he is, he thought it was pretty good, all told.

Honestly? He wasn't even planning on really staying at the Tower today. Patrol work called, and also a few special side projects he's been devoting a very reasonable and not obsessive amount of time into since he learned of the incident with Tony Stark.

But submarine sandwiches from Delmar's also called, and so Spider-Man absconded with his beautiful mixture of bread and meat and condiments to the tower. To enjoy. Eat in peace and quiet. Because who would ever attack a giant T building?

… THE ELA! THE EVIL! LITERACY! ASSOCIATES!

Oh. Right.

And so, Spider-Man sits there on the entryway to the Tower, his sub half-hanging from his mouth, mask rolled halfway up his head, white lenses squinting with incredible incredulity as he scratches the side of his head. Slowly — s l o w l y — he removes that sub from his mouth.

"Wait! WAIT!" he calls out, clearly seeking to be a voice of reason here today, to stop this madness—

"SO ARE YOU SAYING LITERACY IS EVIL??"

— or that. It could also be that.

"OR THAT YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH LITERACY IS THE SOURCE OF THAT EVIL? I NEED CLARIFICATION HERE BEFORE WE FIGHT BECAUSE I'M KIND OF CONFUSED ABOUT YOUR DEAL AND IT'S REALLY THROWING ME OFF."

Spider-Man: Diplomat.

*

It's not often that they get visitors on their little strip of island. Actually it's kind of surprising since it's such an obvious architectural faux pas. Who in the right mind decided that a giant 'T' would make for a great building design anyway? It is a question Impulse has asked many a time and has either received no satisfactory answer or simply not been given an answer at all.

The resident speedster of the group had been out and around the island itself for a jog. Or maybe it would better be called a game of tag. That's been a little while ago, his attention thoroughly captured by the aerial arrival.

"Iiiis there gonna be some kind of special event?" he asks no one at all, really, given that his current immediate company can't really speak. The noise of the helicraft and the accompanying commotion has equally drawn the attention of the large pink feline that stands beside him. Clawminator Destrucat Mk. II has reached a rather impressive height for something that had started out as your standard breed of felis catus, her head coming up nearly at chest height with the speedster who holds onto a leash attached to the harness she wears. Her ear flicks, eyes tracking the movements, tail swishing in slow, deliberate s-curves.

"Is it for politics? I think it's for politics. …although I guess politicians don't wear stuff like that," Impulse notes, scratching his head. "C'mon Clawmy, let's go see what's up." He gives the cat a pat, giving her a bit of a start as she eagerly launches in the direction of the Tower.

*

INSIDE one of the rooms of the Tower, eyes flicker open.

Hovering inches above her bed, Raven remains as she is, sitting cross-legged and casual in dark violet shorts paired with a black tank top with overlapping straps. A hand reaches up to brush the longer strands of dark hair away from her face as her brows knit together under the red jewel now shifting on her forehead, working away at the sudden shift in ambiance.

Baffling as it is, it isn't too difficult to find out that something is indeed going on somewhere around the whole building. Inside, outside - the tones and emotional settings are distinct.

So much for finishing her block of meditation. Personal down time afterward has been cancelled until further notice.

Floating off to the front of the bed, Raven touches down lightly, crossing over to open the door and see what is going on. And it isn't too hard to miss the giant hellicarrier out those big ol' windows. By the time she gets to open space, darkness has swathed her in her usual cloak and gear, liquid and feather-like prior to acting like normal cloth. "…What in Azarath…?"

…And perhaps it's a good thing she can't hear Spider-Man yelling. Or Impulse asking all of the questions. Because she's going to catch up with them eventually. There's just a lot to process here.

*

INSIDE another room of the tower, a great disturbance is felt.

And a hand slips under the wrong end of a sewing machine.

"Aaah! Son of a WHEN BLOOD IS SHED LET THE STAFF OF ONE EMERGE."

Grimacing, Nico clasps the ancient artefact. She walks out of her room, which she has deliberately blanked out the windows of, to look out through the hallway windows, which have only a discreet divider in case people run around in their jammies on their way to the shower.

The grimacing gets worse when she sees the SPELLICARRIER.

SOON

Nico emerges from the elevator bearing the Staff of One and walks forwards. Nico is wearing a XXL-sized shirt on an M-at-best-sized torso and it thus resembles a tabard. The shirt is for some obscure cause in NYC, and looks new. She is also wearing red jammie pants and a pair of gray fluffy slippers, as well as wielding the Staff of One. Without her makeup on she looks a lot crankier, even before the… you know…

"Spider-Man, who are these nerds?"

*

TITANS TOWER FACT: It was actually built by the City of New York, under the supervision of STAR Labs' own Silas Stone!

So if you want to look at it that way, it's kind of totally Cyborg's fault that the Tower is T-shaped.

ANYWAY

It's actually not easy to keep track of every water vehicle moving along the East River. While the water might not be the most pleasant in the world (don't drink it) there's still enough people with boats in the area that they might want to go for a little sail, or various commerical use vehicles, and of course there is an actual boat for getting back and forth from Titans Island, though it sees relatively little use.

So it's not like the hovercraft which has been rather ambitiously christened the Spellicarrier sets off some series of finely tuned alarms to prevent any unknown aquatic access to the Tower. Not that Red Robin didn't try to set something like that up with Cyborg's help, it's just, you know. It didn't really work.

HOWEVER

The Red Knight is on duty in the operations room, sitting at the conference table (it is shaped like a T) in his chair (it has his logo on the back, so does everyone else's if they have one (Zatanna's logo is still two Zs)) monitoring the emergency feeds, and generally being on duty, when it becomes clear that there's something going on. There's a lot of movement in the Tower, and checking the cameras reveals…

… …

… … …

"Mrmmng," Red Robin mutters to himself, rubbing the bridge of his nose through his domino mask, before getting up to head outside, onto one of the balconies. "This is because I made fun of Kite Man the other day," the vigilante decides. "Or maybe Condiment King."

*

Typeface turns as slowly as cinematic prowess will allow, "/Spider-Man/." His fist clenches at his side like an Arthur meme. It stays there for a moment before he raises it up and invokes his inner JK Simmons, "SPIDER-MAAAAAAAAN!" Yup, sounds like ol' Typeface here is not exactly happy to see New York's Menace-ist. "You dare mock the ELA?! You dare question our sanity?! Our love of literacy and language arts?!" Typeface grins to himself. It's an evil grin. Sinister, even. Typeface places a hand on the shoulder of his red-lining associate. "Spellcheck! What say you give /Spider-Man/ a crash course on IRREGULAR HYPHENATION!"

"With pleasure!" Spellcheck turns and looks up towards the Tower of Titans, narrowing his masked eyes at the Webslinger. Both arms come up, in reverse because it looks grosser and those gauntlets on his arms fire a pair of red cables aimed to hook into the tower and yank himself in a flinging motion towards the Spider of Men. Upon impact with the solid surface of the tower, those red cables, Spellcheck's Underlining, explodes with spray of red colored glue-hesive. Definitely in an attempt to try and keep the Wallcrawler in place for these sharp red check spikes on his boots as he sails in.

Typeface turns back to his Associates: Synonym and Antonym are taking selfies together. The Idiom is reading a novel. Wordsmith is swiping through holoscreen after holoscreen after Galaga screen after holoscreen. Metaphor's practicing her 'rap hand movements'. Typeface clears his throat and nobody pays him any attention. Typeface sighs and slams his L cane into the platform.

"Behold, Titans!" Typeface raises his hands above his head as if he were the target of this entire thing. Or that he's trying to be more maniacal than he's capable of being. With a big A on his face. It's weird. "HEAR MY PAIN! THE SOUND OF VIOLENCE!"

The horde of punctuation-ly armed henchmen, aptly named the Sound of Violence, clear off the Spellicarrier and start their race towards Titans Tower in the same style as every cinematic army of people rushing their enemies. Anything in their path is going to get destroyed as well. Good thing the Spellicarrier hovered close.

It is the sound of a wave of fodder fools that pull the attention of the ELA Inner Wordle. They all look up and stand at more rapt attention now that Typeface is making things happen. The Nym Twins step forward to jump into the fight but Typeface's L-cane is held up in front of them.

"H is for Hold On." Typeface says with a raised eyebrow. "Let's see, exactly, what Titans have actually come out to P is for Play…" Typeface casts a glance over at the hoverchairing one. "Wordsmith?"

Wordsmith swipes solitaire away and pushes a couple of buttons on one of her holoscreens. A pair of drones appear fly out of a slide away section of her hoverchair and take off into the air and skim towards the tower, scanning all lifeforms along their path. "Drones hot, Typo."

"… it's /Typeface/."

"Whatever." And the Wordsmith is back to her gaming with a roll of her eyes.

Typeface rolls his eyes as well and refocuses his attention on Titans Tower. "That's it. Come out to play, you incessant fools! The ELA is ready to cite you… TO DEATH!" Typeface waits for his close up.

"M is for… Maniacal Laugh."

And all of the Main ELA-ers start their various maniacal laughter. The words; "Ahaha hahahaha hahahahahahahaha!" actually appearing out of Metaphor's mouth before clattering to the platform in a pile of A's and H's. Weird.

*

Spider-Man, who are these nerds?

"I don't know but I think they might be trying to say something about how words are part of Satan's plan or something? Maybe also commas. Trying to find out, but I mean, you're into the whole goth thing right? Is grammar evil? I feel like my whole world is being turned upside down right now-"

SPIDER-MAAAAAAAAN!

"Jonah?!"

The exclamation comes like someone struck with PTSD as Spider-Man whips his gaze back around to that rascally rabble of literacy-based lunacy. Lenses squint, as he slowly tugs down that mask, carefully wraps and sets aside his sandwich (be safe, sandwich!!) and stands up from his perch. "… no. Wait. I don't think even Jonah would be this desperate. Then again, he is an newspaper editor-"

And given who the foes they find themselves facing, that joke has layers to it.

Not that anyone has any time to really savor the nuance of it, considering that the wild SPELLCHECK is upon Spider-Man soon enough with all his contortionistic carnage brought to bear. Spider-sense blaring, the webbed vigilante's lenses widen as the nimble villain goes swinging past him — to attach to a wall — and spray adhesive gunk at him —

"AH! Hey, what, come on, stop stealing my schtick! There's already like five other spider-people and then Red Robin is sticking to walls everywhere, you're totally diluting my brand hereeOH NO RED PEN OF DOOM!"

And this is the sound of Spider-Man, as he flips to the side and off the entryway, evading /most/ of that red editor's glue-hesive. Most. Some of it snares his right foot as he lands, only to be presented with the swift approach of a spiked boot. He twists with a sudden swiftness that would better belong with the world's greatest acrobatic plus plus, balancing himself on his webbed (/stealing his brand/) foot as the other snaps up into the air and his body bends at a near 90 degree angle. The boot nicks his chest, cutting through the suit and earning a bright red gash. Teeth grit behind the mask —

— and then, with a -=thwip=-, Spider-Man shoots a web-line for Spellcheck's back, to adhere and hopefully yank him forward —

— right into the vigilante's waiting knee.

"Hey hey what's with the violence! Grammar have always been a great loves of mine!"

He apologizes.

For nothing.

*

"Oooohwowsomething'shappening," Impulse observes as he races on, getting ahead of his overgrown kitty in his eagerness to see what all he's missing. "Oh awesome, a circus!!"

A themed circus!

There's no immediate sign of whoever had shouted, but then that's because he speeds up again as he closes in on the unfortunate members of the Sound of Violence who happen to be at the back of the group. A finger tap on a shoulder here, a sudden face eyeballing them up close there—

"Whoa, what's with the outfits? Hey, do those actually work? Those are weapons, right? Wow, you guys are really hardcore with this letter thing— Are you called the Alphagang or something? -oh wait, I get it now."

An abrupt screeching halt and the red and white-clad Titan is visible for longer than a split second, wearing a grin as he stops in front of a few of the word minions. "Bad guys!" His revelation is followed by a blur of punches and foot swipes, and on the opposite end of the wave he'd started on he appears again, waving at…someone.

"Go get 'em Clawmy!"

Which is about when giant pink not-quite-battol-cat leaps into the fray to jump on people and chew on clubs. Watch the claws!

*

Back Inside: ever so calmly, Raven lifts a hand to her ear where a comlink should be. One that possibly is there, awaiting team communication at its finest. "…You're seeing this, aren't you?" she asks in her usual raspy, whispery tone, clearly speaking to Red Robin just in case he isn't aware of the situation. After being around him for some time, she has an idea that he is never caught off-guard by anything. (At least, he makes it appear that way. Which is, by all means, great.) "Because I wish I was not."

Eventually, she exhales a sigh. The 'attack' doesn't seem to be backing down, and since something more has happened, she finally decides she shall go and assist her teammates. A hand lifts, opening a portal to shuttle her outside in less than a second.

The second portal appears somewhere above the other Titans as Raven gets to hear the tail end of Typeface's villain spiel, followed by the dulcet sounds of Spider-Man being…Spider-Man. Dark lips fold in on each other, forming a tight, thin line the longer she realizes that yes, this is indeed happening.

There's no fever dream involved. No hope of actually waking up and having pancakes like normal people tend to do. This. Is. This.

Arms rise, giving way to physical forms of darkness stretching up and out to destroy some of the drones sent the Titans' way. "You have the gall to come here and fight?" comes the vocal resonance and the blank-white of her stony glare. "Then so shall it be."

*

"I never met my," Nico begins to answer Spider-Man, before pausing, readjusting, and saying, "Oh."

Spider-Man senses someone and Nico looks that way too. The Evil Language Association has successfully woken her up. "Okay, Buttface," she says, brandishing her staff Typeface, "Did I ask you? Are you Spider-Man? Can you do whatever a spider-can? Do you have a tight ass? No, I posit, sir, you do NOT have any of these traits and so you can stop -"

The drones whip past her and scan her in great detail. Nico stares at them, and then draws a near-visible dotted line from her eyes to the drone to the flight path back towards where someone is in a hover chair. "Huh," Nico says.

But between her and this person who might possibly be intelligent or a commander - and either way, that's the place to be - are a sea of people in periods and semi-colon costumes.

Nico has a limited quantity of spells to cast.

So she mostly doesn't do anything here - and by 'mostly' we mean that she follows in the wake of others, and periodically swings this ancient artifact (some might call it sacred, but not necessarily to God) around like a baseball bat at the midsection of a goon.

*

Someone is late to the party.

And said reasons for being late is apparent when a door manifests out of nowhere. Teleportation is one of the first tricks that Zatanna Zatara has mastered, and the last few years have seen her refining the art if not just because those she tends to teleport tend to get sick in the process (Red Robin and Spider-Man being a few of these, especially the latter given his heightened senses). So somewhere, in the middle of the burgeoning skirmish, a door manifests out of nowhere, threads of magical energy weaving it into being and dissipating once it it solid. It even has a star in the middle.

This wooden appendage leading into some point in the ether swings open, and she steps out.

The way she is dressed will at the very least tell her compatriots exactly where she was. Despite everything, she has not yet given up her dreams of being as important of a stage presence as her father, the Great Zatara. The last few hours have seen her performing in Manhattan, for a celebrity-filled benefit put together in support of the victims of the Hell's Kitchen disaster. Fishnets, black stilettos, corset, tailcoat, gloves. She has her father's tophat resting in an angle over midnight curls left tousled by her last act of the evening, which had her trussed and suspended over a tank full of real electric eels.

"Hey, everybody. I'm— "

Clawmy leaps across her line of vision. And since the last thing she expected to see is a giant pink cat rocketing out of her periphery, she backtracks instinctively and steps on something soft.

She glances down at the remains of a carefully-wrapped-and-set-aside sub sandwich under her heel, now hopelessly squished. She winces. Hopefully someone wasn't intending on eating that.

Ice-blue eyes lift, and lips part slightly at the sight of the Spellicarrier and the hordes of grammar nazis spilling into the island, with the present Titans moving to engage.

"….back…?"

*

Pretty much at the point Spider-Man is complaining about everyone else stealing his schtick, Red Robin is in the process of vaulting over the balcony railing and, yes, sticking to the side of the Tower thanks to the geckskin insets on his costume. It's almost like he knows.

But surely he doesn't. Right?

"Yeah, unfortunately," he confirms to Raven; where her voice is whispery, his has that focused, easy confidence he's worked very hard to assume. The guy who's in control no matter the situation: That's the kind of leader the Titans need, so that's the kind leader he needs to be.

Rule one is never let them see you sweat, you see. Rule two is fake it 'til you make it.

From the backpack of his more lightweight Titans costume, a 'cape' of black and red strips unfurls, before suddenly hardening into a pair of wings; as he pushes off of the wall, the muon repulsor thrusters kick in, giving the former Boy Wonder the gift of flight, just long enough to carry him over the developing melee… At which point the wings tuck in, and he drops like a stone onto one of the Sound of Violence goons, springing into action; fighting goons is like comfort food for him at this point in his life, collapsible staff whirling out to full extension as he starts his own sound of violence.

"Spider-Man, why are these guys so mad at you?" he wonders, assuming that they're here for the wall-crawler, for whatever reason. "We need to get to their leaders and put an end to this ASAP."

The drones appear to be just a weird nuisance at the moment, but then just when it seems like things can't get any worse, there's a sudden magical flare, and a door appears in the middle of the island… But rather than another threat, out steps Zatanna. Who is dressed for work. Which…

"H-ey Zee," Red Robin calls, distracted by the stage magician's appearance long enough to get hit in the head with an exclamation mark bat.

"Ow! You look nice!"

*

"Avast, Spiderman! Prepare to be CORRECTED!"

Spellcheck grins as he's managed to take a swipe at the wallcrawler. "Hey! Wait! What're you—" It would seem as though the Spellcheck was a bit too hasty in his attack. Not prepared for this 'Spider-Sense' that he (or Typeface) didn't even know about! "Wait! Wait! I just got this suit!" The webline is a quick snatch and the face is a quick smack right into the knee of the Web Knight. Spellcheck's head goes back up, the sound of his nose being crunched still in the air, as he goes backwards and away from the slickest of Spiders.

As he goes backwards and towards the ground, Spellcheck fires an Impact Underline at Spider-Man's chest, the impact of which has been designed by the Wordsmith to explode into weighted Underlines to pin a target to the ground. Webbing? Pfft. It's not even webbing, dangit!


Maybe their clothes have been rigged up with sound effects because the likes of Pow, Bang, Oof, Zonk and others are taken to task by the Speedster that has arrived. There's also a lot of yelling and screaming when there are CLAWS added to the fray. Bodies fly this way and that, getting rocked solid by the tag team of Speedster and Feline Friend.

"Well, well, well. I spy with my Little I…" Typeface stares at the screen hovering above his L Cane showing the feed from one of those I Drones that IMPULSE is all up in the mix. "Ohhhh, Synonym?" Typeface even sing-songs that a little bit. "Would you mind showing that Speed Demon down there that anything he can do… U is for U Can Do Better?"


Synonym's lips curl up into an evil grin as she looks over at Typeface. "Thought you'd never ask." Synonym's chest plate glows for a second, the piece in the middle shimmering the same red and white as Impulse's costume. Synonym shudders for a moment, her body shaking and vibrating with speed she didn't have before and she offers a salute, "Later, Losers. I'll outrun this brat, Typo." And she's gone.

"It's /TYPEFACE!"

"Whatever!" Synonym shows up in front of Impulse in record time and leans against a random solid object big enough to lean on. "Hey, Quick-E-Mart." Synonym winks and tosses her hair… WITH HER MIDDLE FINGER OUT. "Catch me if you can't." Syn makes some kissy faces at Impulse and she's gone again. SPEED BATTOL.


Typeface returns his attention to his holoscreen when I, Drones are exploded by the magics of the Raven. "Ah! Confounded Conundrums!" Typeface flails his L-cane around for a moment before turning back to his Associates. "Idiom! It is your time to shine, my friend!" The L-cane is pointed in the direction of the Raven.

"Hm?" The Idiom looks up from his book and adjusts his glass. "I say, ol' chap, must we really engage in these futile fistcuffs? Perhaps a hearty debate over a spot of tea would suffice in settling our differences, hmmm?" The Idiom does not seem ready to do any sort of physical battle.

Typeface sighs and shakes his head. He forgot half of the Idiom is a pacifist. "Very well. I suppose she's correct in her views then." Typeface remarks. "Perhaps, JK Rowling /is/ overrated."

The sound of eye-glasses being crushed in the palm of a mighty hand can be heard. They hit the Spellicarrier's floor only to be followed by the novel from before as the oversized brick steals super leap branding from someone to leap in the direction of Raven! Huge fist reared and ready for some PUNCH ACTION. "JK ROWLING IS A MAGNIFICENT WOMAN! PERISH, HEATHEN! PERISH!"

Typeface grins at the other half of the Idiom that has come out to play. The Opinionated Lunatic.


As the Staff of One becomes the Staff of Whoop Ass, those Sound of Violence goons get doubled over and staffed the eff out one after another. It's like clockwork with no oranges up in that crowd. The sight of this has Typeface grinning yet again. "Ah! I see things are becoming as volatile as I had hoped! Wordsmith? Would you care to do the honors?"

Wordsmith spies where Typeface is pointing and shrugs. "Eh. Why not." And the hoverchair lifts up and off in the direction of where Nico is in the Crowd of Cronies. Another slot on her hoverchair opens up and a large magnet (cartoonishly styled) pops up and out on an extendable arm to see if it can't 'attract' that Staff of One from Nico's grip.


"AHA!" Typeface is keeping an eye on everything it seems as he spots a Magical Door and someone coming out of it. "A new player has arrived!" Typeface turns to look at one of the remaining Top Associates.

"Yo. Don't even say it, Pops." Metaphor's already walking towards the exit of the Spellicarrier and pulling her hood up because That's Gangsta.

Typeface blinks a couple times and then just moves back to watching the chaos.

Metaphor's sneakers hit the ground and she just starts walking in Zatanna's direction. There is, of course, a crowd of heroes and henchmen fighting in front of her and she's not about to be one that can't take care of business. So, she just throws her hands into her pockets and starts rappin' a bit, his feet clearly walking to a beat, "Move, bitches, get out the way. Get out the way, bitches, get out the way. Move bitches, get out the way. Get the hell out my way, bitches, the eff out my way…" Everybody can understand the words that're coming out of her mouth because they really are coming out of her mouth! They hard-sound constructs become a lyrical reality, the letters themselves punching and shoving anybody that's in her path, cutting a swath through the Sea of Sound of Violence to make getting to Zatanna a helluva lot easier.


"Ah yes. There he is. A bird of any other color is just a bird in the bush." Typeface doesn't care that it doesn't make sense. Instead, he's more worried about it sounding decidedly sinister. Which, to him, it does. "Antonym?" That perks up the remaining twin. "F is for… Follow That Bird."

Antonym flips over the side of the Spellicarrier and disappears into the crowd. Almost literally. As the Red Robin is whooping goons like goldberg, the Antonym pops his head up here and there, keeping a close eye and waiting for his moment. He sneaks up behind a pair of goons that are in Red Robin's staff path. His chest piece glows with the same colors of Red Robin's costume. They swirl counter-clockwise for a moment and reappear, inverted. As both of those goons get staff'd, where Antonym once stood, there is now the spitting image of Red Robin… but not. His costume is a darker inverse of Red Robin's, with heavy blacks and what not. Cape. Mask. All those nine yards. He grins. "Hello Red Robin." Those I, Drones must've made this next line possible. All that damn scanning. "Black Bird Begins." And here comes the Black Bird Antonym's telescoping /spear/ attack! Maybe the magical arrival distraction will make this even easier.


Typeface watches from his perch on the Spellicarrier. Smiling.

*

"YOU DON'T GET TO BLAME THIS ON ME I DO MY GRAMMAR GOOD"

Maybe that answers Red Robin's question in and of itself.

Spider-Muay Thai delivered roundly, the webbed menace that is Spider-Man yanks his foot out of its snare moments later with a grumble of "i don't like seeing what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot" as he scans the battle with those careful white lenses. A lot of things are going on. First:

"Oh wait what Nico what the heck are you wearing? Is that your new costume? Because like…" Long, pregnant pause.

"… I really don't like judging teammates so I'm just not gonna say anything. That's teamwork!"

Next: "Holy crap, battle cat! Look at how colorful it is! And with the claws! Is that our mascot?? Wasn't there a dog or… something, or… uh… huh. Well, whatever, hey new mascot!!"

And then next: "Wait wait wait. Zee, did you get a new costume too? Is everyone getting new costumes?! Man this is kinda undercutting my big secret plans-"

Which is when we bring the point back around to:

"W-wait, what about my ass-"

And this is the story of how Spider-Man gets -just- distracted enough to get underlined. Specifically:

"I AM NOT A TYPO, STOP!"

He leaps. He twists, amazingly. He fires off his web-shooters. But it's just a second too late. And as that red adhesive explodes and glues him down, his own webbing flies, to liberally adhere to Spellcheck's face, leaving Peter to just kind of…

… lay there.

Trapped in not-webbing.

"i don't like this"

It's okay, he'll get out in a second.

Once his pride has recovered.

*

Is this a new costume? Zatanna glances down at herself. "They're work clothes, Spidey," she tells him. "Stage clothes. This isn't really something I save up for a big brawl." Tim's greeting has her smiling at him, wiggling her gloved fingers. "Hi Re— " SMACK! She stares as their fearless leader gets clubbed over the head with an exclamation point.

"…I think my evening just went from 'okay normal' to 'really bizarre'," she mutters.

With Typo/Typeface calling the shots, she watches as the lieutenants of the present threat split off to tangle with each and every one of them, including Metaphor who decides to clear a path between herself and the newly-arrived magician. Even the lyrics are familiar, but as a tried and true veteran of the strange and (often) terrible, and a lifetime aficionado of words and the benefits they bring, especially to someone like her, she points her black-and-white stage wand directly at the woman heading straight for her.

"I'm fresh out of tricks," she tells her. "But for you, I might have something else up my sleeve. And with that, she starts twirling the wand…

But her other arm folds behind her, and true to the classic traditions of misdirection, fingers weave in American Sign Language:

ECNELIS

*

"Hey guys, I'm still not convinced that we aren't fighting some really weird circus troupe. Did we make someone mad recently? Or is this another argument about whether or not the 'Titans' are supposed to have an apostrophe in the name?"

Impulse sneaks in a few head scritches to show Clawmy that she's a good girl, yes she is! Playing with all the funny people that make weird noises! …okay so that can probably go for just about anyone here right now but the cat at least seems to know how to pick her targets.

It's not long after the speedster's jumped back into things, vaulting over another sound effect before he's once again made to stop. He'd caught that blur and finding another speedster (?!) has joined the fray, is of course a bit baffled. The surprised look on his face lingers a moment longer as Synonym casually flashes the bird, altogether confusing when paired with the kissy lips before she's gone again. Except not quite, because he can see her as she tears off.

"-oh no you don't..!"

Another blur to join the first, a confusing glimpse to catch since they're both sporting the same colors. But at least that makes them hard to be targeted by friendly fire. Right? Right…?

*

Nico's head snaps up to look at Zatanna - whose appearance she half-felt and fully-heard - when Red Robin praises her appearance. This may get her socked in the mouth.

It does not because she turns around to tell Spider-Man, "I was SEWING SOMETHING! This is my COMFY TIME outfit!! If these dipthongs hadn't attacked now I'd be in this really astonishing qipao style thing with — Arrrggh!" The argh is partly because of course she expects that in the cultural space of 'whose dress is best,' Zatanna's simple but powerful outfit would outshine whatever dark confection she spun in the clothes-baker, but also

Because a magnet is pulling at the Staff of One.

The Staff of One is deeply bound to Nico's soul but it is not some kind of object that exists outside of space and time. Thus, it is hard for Nico to drop it unless it is either trying to get away or someone breaks her hand. It is, however, possible to parry - as Semicolon #4 managed to do with his singular katar fist before he found out his teeny little buckler shield was not sufficient to avoid getting clubbed in the scrote.

The long and the short of this is that when the Staff of One starts pointing towards the Magnet of Doom, Nico looks up and assesses matters for a moment before leaping off the ground. "I wanted to talk to you anyway," she says as she tightens her grip on the staff.

Once she's attached to the magnet, she turns her head up to say to Wordsmith, "Trust me, you don't want this thing. And WHAT IS YOUR DEAL. Why are you attacking this place?? Are you looking for the other big T building? It's in midtown!"

*

When it comes to Red Robin's leadership capabilities, Raven remains impressed. And when he's not being corny with the jokes, he genuinely cares about the rest of the Titans. Admirable stuff, right there.

It lasts until he gets a little distracted by Zatanna's work outfit. But now isn't the time to judge. Despite the flashes of color she catches out of the corner of an eye, she's busy concentrating on taking care of a number of the drones with her magics. What she fails to see is another person adding to her problems.

Being slammed - literally - by Idiom and his punchiness is one of the worst feelings to experience. Emotions can have that effect too, but this has the physical 'OW' factor behind it. Raven feels her stomach cave inward as she goes with it, trying to back up as quickly as she can while in the air. Yet she recalls the one time she picked out one of Rowling's books at a local library to pass a few hours before patrol once. Sadly, she remembers nothing of them.

"-Should've stuck to writing one book," she hisses after a seething breath is drawn in through her teeth. Still wincing in pain, she refocuses on Idiom, trying to summon shackle-like structures to hold fast the flurry of fists before they do any more damage to her or her…friends.

*

He deserved that headache for getting distracted. Batman would be so disappointed.

"Yeah I have a brilliant idea," Red Robin mutters to himself as he switches his staff to a one-handed grip at the end. "I'll start a superhero team, because starting a superhero team never draws attention like this." It's a single movement, sweeping his battle staff to clear the space around him, a twisting build of momentum to take goons off their feet and then slam into them again a second time on the way down, the limber vigilante bending backwards to complete the sweeping motion before drawing the staff in…

Just in time to come face to face with a carbon copy of himself.

"Oh, buddy," Red Robin says, his mouth tugging into a slash of a grin beneath his domino mask, the wind off the East River rustling in his spiked-up black hair. "You really shouldn't mirror match a guy with so many issues to work out about himself."

Antonym's staff is instead a spear, a trick the Red Knight has pulled on a few occasions (but never against people, because that would be wrong), leaving the vigilante less that completely defenseless. Because instead of trying to dodge in a traditional way, he steps in and slightly to the side, reaching to grab at the spear's shaft below the tip: The downside of a weapon like that, of course, is someone getting inside the reach. Someone getting into a position where they can control where it's pointing.

Especially if they try to aim the point of the spear so it buries itself in the ground, stopping your charge, and giving themselves a pivot to leap up and catch your head with their thighs… Which is what the vigilante is trying to do, to turn all that forward momentum into 'Antonym gets slammed onto the ground' momentum.

"How are you guys on obscure punctuation?" he wonders, keeping most of the strain of combat out of his voice. "Do you have an angrily confused guy called Interrobang?"

*

"URK!"

Spellcheck catches webbing to the face and does not like it. "MPHGRPHGL!" Spellcheck can't even witty banter at this moment. And then he stops struggling in trying to get himself clear of the webbing, realizing that whatever he's just said, can't have been spelled correctly and he sighs. That sound, at least, makes sense. He goes onto his belt and pulls off a White Out Grenade, pulling the pin on it and dropping it on the ground beneath him. He closes his webbed eyes and drops in cinematic slow motion onto the White Out Grenade. A moment later, the grenade explodes and white-out colored glue-hesive explodes up and around Spellcheck, grabbing him and yanking him even closer to the ground, cracking ribs and his Underline Launchers, his Penshooters?

Either way, Spellcheck turns his head to look at Spider-Man with a half-webbed, half-glued masked expression of: 'I Stand Corrected', the red cables from his Underliners oozing out from beneath him and coloring the white out liquid adhesive, creating a pool of 'blood'.


Metaphor comes to a stop close enough to Zatanna for a showdown and just keeps her hands where they are. "Oh, you pretty fly, we both rockin' fishnets. But I'm gettin' paid so I can't let you stop my bidness." More lyrics show up. "So don't get mad if I tryin' to get rich. Sorry, pretty lady, but my words gon' have to cut a bi—"

Metaphor blinks. She tries again. Nothing. No sound. Words aren't even appearing. Beneath that hood her eyes go slightly wide and then her lips smirk up. She gives an impressed nod. But then holds up two fingers and points to herself to indicate that two can play that game.

Those two fingers fold back down and her hands come back up as she starts swiping and slicing through the air, mouthing silently the words to her latest rhyme, at the same time her fingers start twisting and folding as if she were clearly from whatever streets she's from. It's a weird combination that may work in a manner similar to Zatanna and her magic. The words she's rappin' not appearin' but the silent swipes of her gang signs and rap hands aiming to slice Zatanna up a bit. Invisible Blades!

American Sign Language v Ebonic Gang Signs! GO!


Synonym burns in her blurring as she's definitely trying to show off. She's either flirting or just trying to keep Impulse busy because having a speedster on the field would definitely ruin Typo's plans. She's the distraction. She usually is. She turns around in her running to make sure that Impulse is catching up. "Meep meep!" She flicks her tongue out at him, pulls the Roadrunner feet hop and turns up the speed. Running /away/ from Titans Tower! The chase is on!


Semicolon #4 crumples childlessly to the ground. "Mother… Staffer…" He's done.

Wordsmith raises an eyebrow when Staff of Nico arrives on her magnet and completely in range of her Laser Pointers. Which, for the record, are just lasers. But first, a little monologuing.

"Oh, well, that's easy. Typeface has put together this incredible band of literary and language arts themed villains. See, we figured that alone none of us could stand a chance to the heroes around. We've pooled our resources, however, and decided to make the world tremble beneath our feet as we arrive on the scene. Making our presence known by stealing this giant T. For you see, while you're all distracted by us… Typeface is taking care of the real business."

So much monologuing. She's forgotten to press 'fire' on the laser cannons that are lined up with Nico right now.


"ONE BOOK?! ONE BOOK?!?!"

The Idiom roars in anger as he lands after punching the Rowling Hater. "CEDRIC DIGGORY DIED SO THAT HARRY POTTER CAN LIVE AND YOU WANTED ONE BOOK?!?!"

Idiom attempts to aim another powerful punch but his arm gets yanked backwards by a shackle of magic. He goes for the other arm and that too is shackled up nicely. His head tilts and he growls, holding up both of his arms and seeing the magical chain connecting both of the shackles together… and then to the ground.

A few breaths later and the Pacifist reappears, "Oh my scones, what have I done?" The Idiom blinks his eyes and the fists that were just moments ago trying to punch the hell out of anything in their path, open up to calm and defeated hands. "I dare say, mum would shine me knickers straight away if she heard I was fighting about Harry Potter again. Could there be a chance that we can keep this ugly matter between us?" The Idiom looks pleadingly at Raven. "I'm willing to pay. How does ten Galleons sound, luv?"


Black Bird (Antonym) doesn't even know what the hell happened. Usually, people are so freaked out by seeing their mirror match selves that he only has to look intimating. His attempted spear stab is deregulated with the ease of a Gotham Knight and the Black Bird slams into the ground, wincing in pain. When he hits the ground, his chest piece flickers, as well as his 'mirror image' overlay. For just a sec! "We don't. But good idea." Black Bird mutters up at Red Robin. "Hey! Wilhelmena!"

"IT'S WORDSMITH IN THE FIELD, YOU IDIOT!"

"WHATEVER!" Black Bird rolls his eyes, domino mask and all. "Write down that Interrobang idea!"

"Already did!"

Antonym refocuses his attention on Red Robin. "Exes, man. Am I right?" Perhaps this was all some weird distraction attempt because aims to fire a taser bola at Red Robin from his wrist gauntlets!


Back on the Spellicarrier, Typeface pinches the bridge of his nose. He has no idea how much longer his Associates are going to be able to keep these Titan fools busy.

"Associates! Keep those Titan fools busy!"

Typeface swoops over to the center of the platform and slams his L-can down into a slot in the middle of the floor. He pulls the bottom of the L apart to make it onto a T.

"Hahahaha. Yes. T. T is for…"

The Spellicarrier starts making sounds like its peeling itself apart and shifting and sliding parts around. Metal creaking and switching places with other metal. It's a whole big thing. A whole process.

"… Transform."

Oh. Dear.

*

"I feel — guh! — I'm being forced — buh! — to look at my dynamic with my rogues from their perspective — gnuh!"

This is the lamentation of Spider-Man, as he methodically rips his way free of that red adhesive desperately trying to keep him on the ground. On the plus side: at least the red blends into his costume??

"Hey, maybe you should call yourself Irony Mark —"

FWOOM

And as he recovers himself, Spider-Man stares at the fallen Spellcheck, who bravely dove onto his own grenade in an explosive burst of white material that just looks — I mean — just look at it. One lens scrunches in, the other out, in a look of utter… well… bafflement. Disgust? Disgusslement?

"- oh hey you just blew yourself, neat."

"… up. Up. Blew yourself up. Shut up."

And for a minute, Spider-Man just stands there, wondering what to do with that guy, self-corrected (he doesn't want to think about all the ways that could be innuendo, shut up), lying in a pool of his own whiteout blood (also gross). He scratches the back of his head.

"So um I'm just gonnaaaaa —"

thwip thwip thwip thwip thwip goes Spider-Man's web-shooters as he tries to make a nice comfy cocoon with which to cling Spellcheck to the earth. He's about to pay himself on the back —

— and that is when he notices the Spellicarrier.

Transforming?!

"Oh my god it's a Voltron!!" exclaims Spider-Man, 'eyes' widening in dawning horror.

"So like — Red — I'm not going to say I told you so about needing the building to be able to transform into a giant robot, buttttttt hopefully my emphatic gesturing will be enough??"

And here he gestures. Emphatically.

"DO WE HAVE ANY ANTI-VOLTRON DETERRENTS HERE??"

*

It is an immutable fact of the universe that more often than not, a magician's greatest enemy is usually herself.

And hubris. There's that, too.

Zatanna smirks, and perhaps it is her underestimation of her opponent's abilities that gets her in trouble - now that she can't exactly hear her, and she's not exactly familiar with gang signs, not really the street-level superheroine that other Titans are, she is rid entirely of the means to be able to determine just what is coming. So she does not anticipate what follows next; intangible blades, as if the very wind has been weaponized, slash at her tailcoat and fishnets, with one long swipe shearing off her bowtie and tearing at the metallic skeleton of her corset, leaving pieces of it exposed through satin. There's a cry, ice-blue eyes blurring with tears of pain as she staggers backwards and nearly drops on her knees.

Red blossoms through the white and the places in which her fishnets have been slashed.

"…okay," she breathes. "That's it. I've had a really long day, and all I want is a bubble bath, so…"

First, she throws her wand right at her face.

"SIHT PARW."

Duct tape. It comes out of nowhere, spooling over the woman's fingers and while that is happening, despite wounded and bleeding, Zatanna charges across the distance, crimson drops of her very life scattering in each step. This is in no way her full plan. This will require a bit of work, but for it to be successful, she has to force Metaphor's attention to where she needs it to, and at present, it is herself…

….and the curled set of knuckles that she's swinging for her jaw once she gets close.

Oh my god, it's a Voltron!

"A what?!" the magician cries, spinning around, and gawking openly at the transforming Spellicarrier.

"…no, Spidey. That's a Gun-Damn."

…look, she doesn't know what a Voltron is.

*

Impulse races after Synonym, entirely set on catching up to her. Internally he's working out things along the lines of lightbikes in a certain movie to try and cut her off. That'd work, right? He has to wonder how fast she really is. Can she go through walls too? Is she processing things the same way?

Wait, where are they even going?

The thought's a quick one that might as well have been on the wind that whips past and now well behind him. It's not that thought that has him stop dead in his tracks.

Because he just heard a most amazing thing that he just can't miss.

Synonym all but forgotten for the moment, Impulse cranes his neck around, eyes wide behind his yellow goggles as he looks back towards the Tower, the Spellicoptor or whatever it's called, and the rest of his teammates. Voltron? Gundam?

"Giant robots?! Wherewherewhere?!?!?"

Speedster. Easily distracted. Synonym was so five seconds ago. Somethingishappeningwiththegianthelicopterthingerandhe'snotgoingtomissthis!!

*

Raven can't help but flinch when the fist is raised, but she doesn't back down once the shackles are in place. Hands hover and finish the movement, cutting off and back down to her sides the moment the madman and his love of J.K. Rowling's brilliance start to subside.

Although her heart beats against her ribcage, she keeps her neutral facade up, breathing in and out as she drifts slowly down to take another look at Idiom. Who is now a Pacifist again.

Seriously, the change in demeanor is absolutely astonishing.

Swallowing down another portion of the punch pain, Raven shakes her head. The deep blue of her eyes return briefly as she considers his polite request. "…I…think there may be an exception to make of this situation, yes," she agrees, albeit sounding a tad puzzled by the switch. It is sort of strange for people to lose their cool about things like books, but everyone has a passion for they need to put somewhere. This man has his interests invested. "But deal. Ten galleons it is." A beat. "And perhaps I can give it another shot. One book is one book and not the entire series…"

She would have been fine if things ended at that. But the dang spellicarrier transforms.

"…Tell me this," she says, glancing back toward Idiom with a renewed done-ness in her solemn expression. "Does your hellicarrier always do this, or is it a special occasion?"

*

"You guys don't have to be evil," Nico tells Wordsmith now that she's up close. Her eyes flick around to screaming outrage on the part of others. Her eyes return to Wordsmith as she continues. "Like if you steal this tower, then what? You have to put the whole thing somewhere. It's not like it's a kilo of coke, it's a BUILDING. Are you just gonna throw it in the sea? The literary world already has a reputation for pettiness, do you just want to make that WORSE??"

She tightens her grip on the staff.

"These people, the Titans," Nico says.

"They don't deserve this. I know Spider-Man is controversial, I know Zatanna posts on Youtube a lot. But they're good people, they help people. You remember Hell's Kitchen, right? I saw Spider-Man nearly kill himself trying to get people out of the burning building. He didn't hesitate he just went the hell in. He asked me to back him up, and I did, with my incredible magic staff, but he was gonna do it even if I didn't."

She turns her head, her chin pointing towards the others. "Red Robin. He found me in a squat and he was like 'hey come crash with us.' He didn't have to do that. Raven, she puts up with me. Cyborg, he was sweet to me when all he had to do was say 'hi' and tell me where the bathroom is."

Zatanna unleashes tape. Nico turns her head away to gaze up at Wordsmith.

"Please," she implores. "Before this goes any further. Before someone gets hurt, or worse, take a moment and — is that a ing TRANSFORMING ROBOT?"

Her eyes flare magenta, as does the Staff of One. "LASERS SHOOT AT GIANT ROBOT," she commands, with the power of the ancient and eldritch.

"Where the hell did you get a giant transforming robot?? My parents ran coke and murdered hookers in Los Angeles and they barely had a leaping ATV! It didn't even FLY! Are you Youngblood or something??"

*

Exes, man. Am I right?

"Believe me, I know," Red Robin replies sympathetically, right before he gets caught by the taser bola, the electrified wire wrapping around him, and…

Uh…

"Suit's insulated," the vigilante explains, and again there's a certain sympathy there. "You wouldn't believe how many guys out there do some kind of electricity gimmick. This one time, Penguin had an umbrella that was a stun gun, right? Electric arc, lights up your nervous system like a Christmas tree and down you go. Since then, insulated suits."

On the other hand, the bola did tie him up, his arms effectively bound to his sides until he can manage to break the cord or wriggle free. So, that's a problem.

"Anyway…"

Not nearly far enough away for any kind of comfort, the Spellicarrier, which seemed like a rather overly grand name for just some hovercraft, starts to transform. Naturally, Spider-Man thinks they needed their own transforming robot. Naturally, Zatanna calls back to her limited experience with mecha anime. Naturally, Bart gets distracted.

"You Alpha-Bits got something really wrong."

He can still kick, at least, and that's definitely what he goes for, trying to slam a heavily booted foot across the side and back of Antonym's head, somewhere between a soccer kick and a shining wizard.

"T," he calls out, "is for TITANS TOGETHER!"

*

Spellcheck is all webbed up with nowhere to go. But hopefully some of that glue-hesive has gotten into the web-shooters! Just for a little flavorful gunkage.

New Gear Unlocked!: Red Webbing.


Metaphor's in the middle of spitting some dope silent lyrics. Too many that she's not even really paying attention to what the hell Zatanna's up to. She's into her rhyme and that's probably figuring that she's sliced the magician up something fierce by now. When she looks up, though, she spots a wand headed at her face.

"…"

Still silent, even street gangsters flinch when magic's involved. Both hands stop gang signing as she brings her arms up to protect her face from whatever dark magics are upon to befall her.

… Instead, she gets duct taped up. All up in the hands.

"….!"

Furious, Metaphor throws her head back to throw her hood off and she's even flyer without it. Struggling against the tape bonds and unable to make her lyrics a reality, Metaphor can't stop, won't stop the Zatanna Knuckle Shuffle!

BLADOW!

Metaphor is stone cold rocked the party and spins right around from the force of the punch. She lands face first on one of the many goons that have been gooned up in this piece by now. One that happens to have Bladow on his shirt.

New Spell Unlocked: Street Magic.


Synonym cackles as she continues to speed-speed-speed-speed-spee— "Huh?"

Synonym spins around, still speed-running backwards as she notices that the Impulse is gone. "Sugar Honey Iced Tea!" Synonym stomps her foot and there's a splash.

"…" Synonym looks down to see two things that she doesn't really want to see. The first being that she's standing on water. Way too far from shore. And the second? Her power replicating chest piece blinking and the colors of the Impulse fading out the moment the Titan Speedster is out of range.

Synonym has time to double middle finger in the direction of Titans Tower before she falls into the water.

New Speed Trick Unlocked: ACME U-Turn


Idiom is pacified and shackled. "God save the queen." is all he has to say in response to Raven's acceptance of his deal. "You're alright there, Scaremione!" Idiom tugs against the shackles enough to go into one of his pockets and comes out with exactly ten Galleons. Probably can't be worth much unless there's a real Wizarding World somewhere. At the very least, Raven can use them to get her and the Titans into Universal Studios!

"Blimey!" Idiom blinks at the transforming Spellicarrier. "Also… /Wicked/." Idiom's not sure which response is the best.

"I swear on the World's End that I had no idea that thing could do anything of the sort. This is /fascinating/."

Oh and then Raven has decided to give Harry Potter books another chance. And that is all Idiom needed to hear.

"Bloody 'ell! You're not going to regret this! Okay, so, the second book in the series is called Harry Potter and the…" Yeah, he's pretty much just going to talk up the entire rest of the series right now. No more violence from him.

New Friend Unlocked: Idiom!


Wordsmith raises an eyebrow. She might've been listening to Nico's speech or she might've been playing Candy Crush on one of her screens. It's hard to tell. Either way, she's easily distracted and unfocused when she really needs to be. She whirls the hoverchair around though, disengaging the magnet in the process and stares slackjawed at the transforming Spellicarrier. "Dafuq?" Wordsmith reaches for her personal phone and holds it up. Filming and no longer ready to fight.

New Spell Ingredient Unlocked: Blood of the Young.

Meanwhile, those hoverchair's laser cannons fire off in the direction of the transforming transport.

The Black Birdof Antonym sighs when the taser doesn't do a damn thing. He even looks like he's about to get frustrated and tantrum a bit. But then Red Robin explains and Antonym just nods along with the words. "Wait, you fought a penguin with an umbrella?"

Confusion from trying to picture that and then the transforming machine that they rode here on are enough to keep the Black Bird from realizing that he's about to get kick-stomped in the head by the much smarter version of himself.

WHAM!

The connection is solid and Antonym tilts back down towards the ground. An utterance of, "Nevermore." before he smacks into the ground and loses consciousness. In doing so, his Opposite Overlay chest piece powers down and he returns to his former word-themed glory.

Just KO'd.

New Damage Type Unlocked: Wordplay

Battle Cry Bonus: +50 to all Titan Members Attacks


Typeface stands tall and proud at his T podium as everything moves and shifts around him. He rises up and above the water as the Spellicarrier's new shape becomes revealed in a slow and methodical manner. Huge legs. A mighty tail. Thick body and torso. Tiny little robot arms. And sliding into place and protecting Typeface is a metal skull of familiar shape with glowing and angrily designed eyes.

"TITANS!" Typeface's voice booms out of the giant beast that has become revealed to the Island of Long. Those laser cannon shots ricochet off the metal hide.

"I PRESENT TO YOU, YOUR DOOM!"

Wait for it. And while you do, a closer look at this gigantic beast will show that the entire thing is made out of random words. Any English words that have all been shaped and twisted and combined into this enormous prehistoric shape.

Inside, Typeface hits the 'Drumroll' button and that actually happens. This giant thing must have some serious speakers built into it.

"THESAURUS REX!"

*

Spider-Man has unlocked a new Spider-Fashion!

"Ewwugh so much gunkkkk-"

He will be more appreciative of it later, when he has time to analyze it and reappropriate it in the Spider-Lab.

(NOTE: Spider-Lab is just the lab but with Spider-Man in it)

(NOTE 2: or sometimes rubber spiders for Halloween)

As it stands, his attentions are currently thoroughly preoccupied with the sight of that SPELLICARRIER transforming in mid-air into a… a… what even is that? What's going on?! Is that a — a —

"my god," whispers Spider-Man. It's no Voltron.

"It's a Zord…!"

"A… Wordzord…! Wait, how does that make any sense-?!"

(Un)Fortunately (?), the webbed vigilante doesn't have that much time to process it. Because that thing is huge. And just shrugged off a laser beam. The situation looks daunting indeed.

But there is their fearless leader. Mounting up the rallying call. Bringing everyone in for that one great moment. Spider-Man knows what's coming. He's prepared.

T, Red Robin calls out,

is for TITANS TOGETHER!

"TITANS TOGETHER!"

shouts Spider-Man, exactly one second after Tim starts the call, so it comes out more like,

"T""T""I""I""T""T""A""A""N""N""S""S" "T""T""O""O""G""G""E""E""T""T""H""H""E""E""R""R""!""!"

A second passes by after that discordant overlap.

"Dangit I'm sorry I swear I'm so close to getting it but okay now I gotta go reenact that really old movie about the animatronic dinosaurs except they're evil and also one of them eats Wayne Knight okay bye-!"

And off Spider-Man swings, making up a web-line as he yanks himself towards that colossal thing with wide white lenses.

"So um, anyone know how to beat Grimlock's more linguistically-capable cousin, because I could sure use some advice here I realize as I go barreling into the world's angriest Dinobot in the world-!"

*

"YEAH! Titans togeth— TYRANNOSAURUS REX!!"

Even better than any ol' giant robot in his book! "I'm with Spider-guy here; when're we getting one for us??"

Impulse stands amidst KO'd sound effect minions, staring up and up at the robotic thing. For something presented as their doom, he looks much too in awe about it. To be fair, one does not see giant robots shaped like carnivorous dinosaurs made up of words every day.

"Oh, right. We should probably do something about that, huh," he notes after Spider-Man's quip. "I got nothin'. But I bet it's easier to do from the inside, seeing as how those lasers didn't do anything."

Single Synapse Theory once again in action, as no sooner does Impulse suggest this that he dashes directly for the massive dino-bot's tail. Going up!! And in! Who needs doors when you can vibrate through solid objects? He's going straight for the head as it seems tactically sound and well, that guy that liked to talk a lot had disappeared in there, hadn't he?

*

She was absolutely not expecting that to work that well.

Zatanna stares at Metaphor's unconscious body on the ground, before looking at her fist, and then back down to the silenced rapper. "….I guess all that conditioning is paying off after all," she breathes, before shaking out her fingers, because she's not accustomed to being physical and over the slashes she has already sustained, she can anticipate bruises in the next few days. After calling up more duct tape to wrap her opponent around in, rendering her a silver-sheened mummy, heels pivot to regard the massive beast the Spellicarrier has become.

The THESAURUS REX, says Typo/Typeface (which is it, really, she's not sure).

"…oh, hey, it kind of looks like a Yoshi!" she exclaims, cherry-red mouth tilted upwards in a smile. How she even knows video game references is anyone's guess, but she did spend several weeks cooped up in John Constantine's paranormal version of a basement apartment trying to hide from the people who put a blood curse on her, and there wasn't much to do but that.

She would also say more, but then Spider-man is already swinging for the dinosaur, saying something about a Grimlock (a what?). "IT'S OKAY SPIDEY," she calls out. "I DON'T THINK DINOSAURS EAT SPIDERS, SO YOU SHOULD BE SAFE."

It's really hard to tell whether she's serious. She could simply be delirious from the blood loss she's experiencing, but either way, she turns her attention towards the water swirling around the mecha-dinosaur's legs and points her stage wand towards it. "EZEERF!"

And it does. Reality bends to the whims of the Mistress of Magic as buffeting waves from the bay encrusts and solidifies into ice in an effort to at the very least immobilize the thing before it sets a metal-clawed foot on the island, and hold it there while the rest of her team attempts to dismantle it.

*

"So you don't know anything about this either?" Nico asks Wordsmith, skeptically. "Stop playing Fate for a minute, we're all gonna die."

"Titans together," Nico says, experimentally. It feels good. Despite the evil robot dinosaur, she takes a moment to savor it, before she shifts herself and explains to Wordsmith, "If it comes to eat me, I'm not leaving, so it's probably gonna get you too. That's just the way it is."

What a nice person! Well, she's not hitting her in the dome or anything, so there's that. As her eyes narrow and she loses one of her fuzzy slippers in the slipstream, Nico thinks. She thinks /hard/. She then accidentally thinks laterally: maybe it'll work out.

"Red Robin!" she calls out. "Impulse, Raven, everybody! That thing's like, composed out of codified language! Use new stuff! Like—"

Nico racks her brain for a good example. "I can't even!" She does not finish the sentence. /A novel idiom/.

*

Well. New friend GET. One can think this is a plus, in a way? Apparently Idiom doesn't know any more about the transforming spellicarrier, but at least he's honest about it. And it does look pretty neat doing the transforming thing. Into a giant dinosaur shape.

"…Well, you're not wrong…"

'T is for T TI TA TA A A N NS S S TO O G G E E T T H H ER R R! !'

She squints. Hard.

Sometimes - just sometimes - Raven wonders why she stays with these people. Her teammates. They're all weird, but they still have a job to finish.

The galleons are hefted a few times before vanishing into the depths of her cloak. "Okay, I'm going to have to do a book club with you later," Raven interjects, holding a hand up for visual emphasis. "Stay there, please." Stepping away from the man, she holds her arms out to either side of her body. The ends of her cloak stir, fluttering around, behind, rising the more she floats upward. The color drains from her eyes once more as she conjures up the giant shadow bird, the raven summoned by three foreign words in resonant whispering among the prattling and rallying responses of the Titans.

And it soars, becoming the eyes and ears of Raven as it catches a glimspe of a red and white blur, the blot of red and blue swinging toward the Rexbot. It flies over the frozen path Zatanna creates, diving down to attack-

'Use new stuff!' Nico's voice seems to ring out closer than Raven thinks, her concentration faltering as she explains something about codified languages. "-What now?"

*

It's much easier to get out of being tied up by a taser bola when you're not currently in a fight; once Antonym is dealt with, Red Robin is able to wriggle himself loose, discarding the spent weapon and retrieving his staff, because now there's Thesaurus Rex to deal with.

In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not how the vigilante expected to be spending his Saturday night. Not even Spider-Man whiffing the team rallying cry can really make for a distraction from this turn of events, because you don't see a robot dinosaur every day. Unless you're in the Batcave, anyway.

Or maybe play a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn?

"If it's a Yoshi then it would definitely eat Spider-Man," the vigilante notes, since Zatanna brought it up with her ancient retro gaming reference. "At least it's not a Kirby, though." No, wait, this is getting sidetracked. Completely off-topic. A chill wind blows in off of the East River, as Zatanna tries to use her magic to force Thesaurus Rex to chill out, while the other Titans strike with their own abilities. Except Nico tries to attack it with unconventional grammar.

Red Robin frowns at that.

"We should of thought of that earlier," the Red Knight intentionally mangles the English language, no matter how it hurts his very soul to do it. "Since they supposively like it when you're talking proper-like, we should just talk irregardless of the rules. Isn't that not right?"

It might not do anything except really annoy Typeface, but that's a perfectly valid tactic. Naturally, Red Robin being Red Robin, he supplements this approach by throwing batarangs at whatever parts of the Thesaurus Rex look like they might be vulnerable. Batarangs that beep.

The beeping gets quicker, because they're going to explode.

*

THESAURUS REX roars by Typeface's command. It stomps and splashes through the water on its way to the island. Making mini tidal waves and whatever else it needs to on its way to collect the giant T that is Titans Tower.

Typeface controls the giant robot dinosaur from the inside and is loving it. If anybody can see inside, he's just dancing around at the controls like he just opened a new Transformer toy.

Another shift of the controls to send the tail into a swinging motion. That's the plan, at least. But! It doesn't get to happen because Zatanna's backwards speaking has created something a little too cold for comfort. THESAURUS REX cannot move. Any of its lower body. It's frozen solid. In a huge block of ice that is this body of water.

"What?!" Typeface slams on the controls and servos and things whirr with too much power. Sparks fly. "What?! No! No No NO!" The THESAURUS REX starts rocking from side to side. It looks like its doing the Mario.

In the distance, Synonym's popping back out of the water, just as it's freezing. She's almost to shore when the water locks up around her ankle and stops her escape. Cold.

While Synonym's tantrum happens in the background, THESAURUS REX continues trying to break free of the frozen land that has taken away its most powerful joints.

"What're you— what?! You can't even what?!" Typeface's yelling means that he has to use one hand to try and control the THESAURUS REX and that doesn't work out too well in the long run. The giant dino starts to creak as the words go opposite directions. They don't work in tandem as they did when Typeface had the upper hand. No, things are a lit different when the Titans… are Together.

THESAURUS REX is weak to explosives and those beeping batarangs each cinch their way into a groove or corner of the transformable beast. One by one they explode and the THESAURUS REX starts to fall apart.

"No! This can't be happening! I worked too hard for this to happen! I wrote a dissertation and everything! No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

When the neck of the giant dinosaur explodes and the head starts falling towards the frozen water, Typeface flails! He leaps out of the falling head and doesn't even have time to try and catch himself. Instead, his body falls like a ton of dictionaries and he smacks hard into the iced water below.

The ice cracks under the weight and for a moment, Typeface is still conscious. Conscious enough to utter one final phrase, "O…" He groans. "… O is for Ouch."

THUD.

STAGE CLEAR!

… Somewhere in the distance, Idiom's voice can be heard, "Huzzah!"

*

As Nico says what she does, and while Red Robin is busily butchering the English language, the expression Zatanna wears on her face is indescribable. She looks like she's been stabbed on top of being cut into ribbons.

But with the fight over, she exhales a breath, watching with some degree of morbid interest as the Thesaurus Rex falls apart and Typo/Typeface is knocked unconscious. Rubbing the back of her head and with a glance around…

…well. It's time for clean-up, isn't it?

"Well, at least it fell apart before it could prove your theory," she tells Red, before pointing her stage wand on the island and its vicinity.

"YROTIRRET 'SNATIT!"

And so she claims this island, the building, and its nearby perimeter her teams' domain.

Which inevitably means everyone else who isn't a Titan is a tresspasser.

….and everyone knows how Zatanna's infamous anti-tresspassing spell works.

And this is how, in the end, the ELA members have been temporarily transformed into clams, to be eventually gathered up in a tank, and to be delivered to the authorities.

*

In the end, quiet settles over Titans Island, though part of the tree line is now ruined.

At least, silence settles over the island until Zatanna, her stage (and possibly future heroic??) costume tattered, decides to cast a spell over the whole place.

As it happens, Red Robin has gotten into the habit of deciphering the witch's backwards speech, and he hears what she's casting even if he can't really feel the way the magic settles in, her will being wrought over the entire island in a way that will hopefully get undone sooner rather than later, in case they have any uninvited visitors. But for now… For now, it's turned all those poor trespassers into clams.

The Red Knight lets out a faint sigh at this, though honestly he can think of a number of security and tactical advantages to having the island magically warded, but for now…

For now, the vigilante crouches carefully over the clam that used to be Typeface, and will be again when the curse wears off. One gloved index finger pokes the shell of the ELA's polymorphed leader. And he says:

"I hope you learned your lesson about musselling in on other people's territory."

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