It was fairly easy to snap Beast Boy out of his kiss-induced trance; all Cyborg had to do was give the smaller boy a wet willy. One saliva-covered finger in the ear canal later, the three males were running down the streets, in the direction the alien girl was seen leaving in.
"Dude, did you really have to do that?" Beast Boy cried, gesturing to his still-moist ear.
"Yes," Cyborg replied, the grin on his face telling a different story. Beast Boy shook his head, both in exasperation and to clear the remaining spit out of his ear- gross.
Red X ran alongside the other two males silently, smiling underneath his mask. These two were pretty funny. He was about to join in, a joke lined up on his tongue, when the sound of an earth-shattering explosion rocked his world. The masked hero instinctively threw an arm in front of him, lowering it a moment later once he realized no debris was flying at him. A glance to the left revealed that Cyborg and Beast Boy were equally startled. The three males exchanged glances, then wordlessly ran towards the source of the explosion.
What they found was both what they were looking for, and something completely unexpected. The orange alien girl from earlier was there, which was good, but she was fighting a bunch of reptilian aliens. Not so good.
Red X immediately jumped into the fight, slinging around X-shuriken and blasting X-shaped weaponry from his palms. Occasionally, he would teleport behind a scaly alien, burying his wrist blades in their backs.
Cyborg and Beast Boy followed, with the android blasting extraterrestrials with his arm cannon, while Beast Boy simply morphed into a T-Rex and stepped on them. The alien girl was putting up quite the fight, as well, tearing through her opponents with these weird green bolts of energy, or punching their lights out with her incredible strength.
The teens fought for a few minutes, taking down dozens of the lizard-like aliens, before they finally noticed that the swarm was beginning to diminish. It seemed that their efforts had borne fruit, and the fight was coming to a close. At least, that was until they noticed the spacecraft hovering in the sky, a laser primed and ready to disintegrate the whole lot of them.
The ship was huge, blocking out the moon. It was made of an orange metal, and shaped like a V, but slightly more rounded. There were spikes protruding along the ship's perimeter, though they didn't seem to serve much purpose other than to make the craft look intimidating. The charged laser hung in the center of the ship, like the solitary eye of a cyclops, glowing maliciously.
Unfortunately, the ragtag group had noticed too late, and were powerless to stop their approaching demise. Red X grabbed Beast Boy, who had momentarily shifted back to his human form, then teleported the two of them fifty feet away; the edge of his range. Turning back, the masked vigilante swore when he saw that the red beam of death of been fired. He wouldn't be able to get back and save the other two. But he could damn well try.
A quick leap through space, and Red X was next to Cyborg. He shot a massive X-shield from his palm, severely draining his power reserves, leaving just barely enough for him to grab the redhead and drag her over. Once there, human and alien hunkered down. Cyborg did likewise, huddling behind one of the legs of the giant letter.
The three waited, and waited some more, until Red X got impatient and peeked out from behind his red shield. What he saw was quite astounding. A black, slightly transparent wall was holding back the laser, though some of the energy was deflected and struck nearby buildings. FInally, the ship stopped firing, and the same black energy morphed into a claw, flying up and tearing the gun off the spacecraft.
That threat dealt with, the redheaded alien flew out from behind cover, resuming the fight. Red X and Cyborg followed, with Beast Boy sprinting in as a cheetah. The remaining twenty or so green aliens went down easily, too shocked by the previous display to put up much of a fight. Not that they had really been doing so in the first place.
In another few minutes, the fight concluded, and the winded heroes, plus the alien girl, stood in the middle of the carnage. Wrecked cars littered broken streets, and crumbling buildings cast ominous shadows on the four. Rex X winced; fights between superpowered beings never ended well for the little guys.
"So, uh… Good job?" Beast Boy said, trying to cut through the tension which fell upon the quiet battlefield. Cyborg, recognizing the attempt for what it was, smiled weakly.
"Yeah. Not so bad for an alien, a robot, a masked dude, and a booger."
"Don't forget our resident sorceress," Red X chimed in. The others looked at him, confused, then glanced in the direction he was staring. Their eyes landed on a person wearing a hooded blue cloak, which covered their face and body. The only thing the teens could see was the figure's ashen-gray mouth, and their glowing purple eyes.
"That was you, right?" Red X asked, though he was confident he was right.
"...In a way. How'd you know?" the figure asked, their voice identifying them as female.
"Lucky guess."
The young woman was silent for a moment, before deciding it didn't really matter. "Whatever. So, what's going on here, anyways?"
"That's a good question. Care to explain, Miss Alien?" Red X asked, turning to face the redhead. He crossed his arms absentmindedly, though the gesture was interpreted as an attempt at intimidation by the alien.
"You all were the ones that decided to get involved with matters that had nothing to do with you!" she yelled acidicly, startling the group. Her hands lit up with green energy, and everyone took a big step back.
"Woah!" Red X cried, his metallic voice echoing through the empty streets, "Relax! It was just a question!"
She stared at him, hands sizzling, before she stood straight. "If you must know, I was taken prisoner by the Gordanians, to be given to their ruler as a... Prize." She struggled to force the words out, ashamed that she had been in such a situation.
"Well, all that matters is that you're free, right?" Red X said, trying to take her mind off the negativity.
She stared at him for a long while. "Yes, I suppose it is… Nice." She seemed unfamiliar with the term, yet still used it. Red X filed that away for later.
The teens stood in a disfigured circle- except for the sorceress, who was keeping her distance- and simply stared at each other. Gauging reactions, unsure what to say, nervous, X didn't know. Thankfully, Cyborg seemed to be pretty good at defusing tense situations.
"Well, I don't know about y'all, but fighting aliens makes me hungry. Hows about we stop at a pizza place, grab a bite to eat, and get to know each other a little bit?"
Beast Boy grabbed onto the offer like a lifeline, enthusiastically shouting his agreement. Unfortunately, the others were a bit more… Reserved.
"I'm good," the cloaked girl said. Her tone indicated that she was going to leave at any moment, but thankfully she seemed to have other plans.
"What is this… Pizza?" the alien girl asked, a finger on her lip in curiosity.
"It's only one of the best foods on Earth!" Cyborg boomed. "Come on, girl, you definitely gotta try some. It'll blow your mind!"
The now-concerned alien backed up, raising her hands to defend herself. "Why would I wish to blow my mind?" she snarled, glaring at Cyborg.
"It's just a saying here. It means that something's going to amaze you," Red X said, saving the frightened android, who flashed him a quick thumbs-up.
She lowered her glowing hands, becoming docile in an instant. "Oh~. Why did you not say so? I will gladly partake in this pizza."
Taken aback by the mood swing, but quick to recover, Cyborg turned to Red X. "So? How about it?"
X crossed his arms, helmeted head tilted to the side. After a moment of thought, he turned to the cloaked sorceress. "I'll go, though I'd prefer if the entire team were there." Her head snapped to him, purple eyes boring holes into him, but he didn't flinch.
Beast Boy perked up at the word. "We're a team?" he asked, looking up to the black-armored hero with awe in his green eyes. Red X tilted his head to the other side.
"Well, not exactly. But even if we're all going solo, it'd be nice to know we can still count on help if we ever need it."
"Like the Justice League, right? That's basically what we did today, comin' together to fight alien baddies and totally kickin' butt! Then we go off on our separate ways into the sunset! We even have our own alien!" he cried, pointing at the orange-skinned girl. She didn't seem to take offense to how he referred to her, too caught up in the references to things she had no clue about. It would take a bit of work to get her acquainted with this world. Luckily, Red X had a bit of experience with that sort of thing.
"Sort of," he said in response to Beast Boy. "On a much smaller scale, of course, but the concept's the same."
"Dude, that's so cool! So do we get our own epic name? Like- like the… The, uh… Young Justice League?" Beast Boy finished lamely, scratching the back of his head with an awkward smile.
Red X twitched imperceptibly. "No. Nothing like that, otherwise the actual Justice League might come and investigate the people who're using their name. If they don't like how we do things, they might try to force us to stop."
"What!?" Beast Boy cried in shock. "No way! They're heroes, dude! They don't do evil stuff like that!"
X grimaced under his mask, shoulders tensing up slightly. "Take it from me, kid; the Justice League isn't as perfect as it seems."
Fiddling with his right gauntlet, he pressed a few buttons, calling his vehicle to him. Things had taken a turn for the awkward, and he didn't want to be in this kind of atmosphere. He knew he had lost a lot of respect from the starry-eyed shapeshifter by insulting his idols, but after some of the things he'd seen…
His musings were interrupted by the roar of an engine travelling down the street. Turning his head, X stared at the familiar sight of his unmanned X-Cycle racing towards him at highway speeds. The other teen heroes backed up slightly, ready to attack, but were shocked when the bike stopped in front of the masked hero. He swung a leg over it, settling into the seat as if he was born there.
"Well, I see you kiddies later."
With a two-fingered salute, Red X revved the engine, spun the motorcycle around, and took off down the street, leaving behind a group of confused super-powered teens.
This story has not gotten a lot of love from me. Then again, a lot of my stories don't… Maybe I should do something about that. Not now, of course, but eventually. Like, in a few years…
K bai :D
