Chapter 1 - Life on the streets

Chapter 1

Life on the streets



A young man wandered through the frozen streets of a frigid city, he shivered from the cold with every step. He looked up at all of the tall buildings looming over him and sniffed the liquid back into his nose. The frozen homeless boy kept walking, knowing that things had been worse for him before.

The boy stopped to rest in a mostly empty ally and sat between a few garbage cans. He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to go to sleep. He took a small gold medallion from around his neck and kissed it. Though no words could be heard from his lips you could tell that he was wishing the medallion a good night. The boy then rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes, falling asleep cold and hungry like he did every night.

It wasn't long before some punks came along looking for homeless people to pick on. The homeless boy, who had just gotten to sleep, woke up and saw the disturbance. He felt sorry for the other homeless people in the ally as they were kicked and teased and even beaten. He wanted to intervene, but thought it would attract too much attention. He stood up and decided it was smarter to retreat, but before he could take one step a punk put his hand on the homeless boy's shoulder. “Where do you think you're going?” The punk said, clenching his fist.

The homeless boy pulled his shoulder away from the punk and began to walk away, but the punk and his friends stood in his way. The homeless boy pushed past them and tried to walk away, but the punks grabbed him and slammed him into a wall. “You're staying here, like all the other losers.” One of the punks said, punching the poor homeless boy on the chin. He fell to the snowy ground and the punks started to kick him.

The boy tried to crawl away but the largest punk rested his size thirteen foot on his back. The boy was trying to pull away from them. “Where are you going? Is this place your home? Isn't it good enough for you?” The large punk said mockingly as he picked the homeless boy up by the collar of his shirt. The punks all began laughing as he struggled.

The boy took a deep breath, and his eyes met the punk's eyes. The punk saw the strange golden color in the boy's eyes, he stopped laughing when he saw the boy's eyes begin to glow. “What are you?” The punk asked uneasily, forgetting to put the boy down.

The boy grabbed the large punk's hands and twisted them until he had to let go, then the boy punched the large punk into a group of garbage cans with amazing speed. Then he turned his attention to the other two punks and anticipated their attack. The skinniest one threw a heavy punch at him, but he easily blocked it and kicked the skinny punk into the street. The boy looked at the third punk and threw a strong kick at his face, stopping just short of his nose. He lowered his foot slowly then pointed toward the street quickly. The third punk screamed and ran away. The boy heaved a deep sigh and began to walk down the street again. He looked back at the two punks lying unconscious in the street. “Sorry.” The boy said under his breath.

Not far away a heartless pair of eyes watched the homeless boy walking down the street. “I found him, Jade. Should I move in?” A deep, emotionless voice asked into a cell phone.

The soft voice of a girl came through the receiver of the phone. “No sweetie, I don't want you getting hurt. Let him play with our little friends. Don't let me down Sammy baby.” She said hanging up the phone.

Sam put away his phone and followed the homeless boy with his eyes. He made a signal across the street to a group of strong looking men. When they disappeared from sight, Sam turned and looked at another group. “Remember, we don't want you to hurt this kid. Bring him back with as few injuries as possible.” He said pointing down at the homeless boy. The group of goons nodded in unison and ran to the street.

The homeless boy shivered as he walked down the street. He rubbed his chest to keep warm as he walked through the deadly cold of the city streets. He felt terrible, he wasn't used to this kind of cold. He thought that he would be escaping the cold by coming to Jump City, but something was wrong and the homeless boy could feel it had to do with him. He hated himself for bringing his bad fortune with him everywhere he went, hurting innocent people by letting his fights follow him.

The boy was about to find a new place to rest when he was confronted by another stranger. “It's time to go Tom… You can't get away this time, not unless you can defeat a whole army.” The large stranger said to him snapping his fingers and summoning a large group of goons to surround the homeless boy.

The homeless boy, Tom, was afraid. He was afraid that he might actually lose this time. This had happened to him many times before, but tonight was different. He was tired and cold, and the beating from the punks had mad Tom dizzy. Tom's eyes began to glow again, brighter this time. Tom wouldn't be able to defeat an army, but he would certainly try.

Meanwhile

Jump City was buried in snow. The streets and buildings appeared as a solid snowy wall. The snow storm had not let up since the week before. The snow had made almost all activity in the city come to a complete halt, people would go to and from work every day but life didn't feel at all the same. The Teen Titans especially were feeling the effects of the storm. They all took up hobbies to keep from going stir crazy. Cyborg went back to work on the T car and the training room, upgrading and rebuilding them to be bigger and better. Starfire and Beast Boy put together a puppet show that would perform comedy routines for the others. Raven practiced ignoring the puppet show and reading her old books, as usual. And Robin, the ever vigilant leader of the group, tested Cyborg's newly upgraded training room.

The training simulator had been upgraded to allow the Titans to practice piloting cars, motorcycles, and the T ship through multiple environments and with random obstacles. Robin was practicing his motorcycle driving through a jungle environment, two attack drones chased him through the thick trees. “It's still too easy Cyborg.” Robin said, shooting the drones out of the sky with the motorcycle's mounted turrets. Robin took off his helmet and was back in the tower.

Cyborg was standing at a computer monitor. “I think you're just getting used to dealing with that specific set up. The environment and enemies are supposed to be generated randomly, but the system is having a hard time processing the information.” He walked over to Robin and took the helmet from him. “I'll work it out eventually. For now, we should get some rest. We've been working on this all day. We finally have some free time, we should use some of it to relax.” He said, putting the helmet on a table and walking toward the door.

Robin sighed and followed him, but before either of them could get to the door, the alarm went off. “What was that you were saying about free time?” Robin said cynically, feeling excited to finally see some more action.

They ran to the living room and saw everyone else gathering around the giant monitor. “What's going on?” Robin asked, walking toward the others calmly.

Raven was tapping buttons on the keyboard, bringing up all possible information on the situation occurring down town. “It's a riot… About three hundred people tarring up the streets.” She said, continuing to press a sequence of buttons. “That's weird.” She said suddenly, looking up at the screen.

Cyborg stepped forward. “What is it? Something we should be worried about?” He asked trying to see what she sees on the screen.

Raven pointed at the location of the riot. “Look at the way its progressing… they are all moving as one group.” She said as the marker on the screen moved along the map. “If it's a riot, why are they all going together like that? Wouldn't a riot be a bit more chaotic?” Beast Boy asked, looking at the rest of the group.

“Perhaps it is not a riot.” Starfire said, sounding concerned. “But what else could it be?”

Robin turned and began to walk to the door. “No time to worry about that right now.” He turned back to the others and signaled them to follow. “Titans, go!”

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