Chapter Four
Alien Battle
Raven was alive…but that could change at any second.
Frankly, Cyborg was amazed that she was still breathing at all. By all rights she should have died the moment the creature had exited her body. He supposed that the only reason she had not died was because of the half-demon thing. Cyborg kept hoping that she would go into that weird floating trance thing and heal herself, but that was not happening. She was just laying there and Cyborg thought that even though she was not dead yet that she would stop breathing at any moment. There was a lot of blood, despite Cyborg's attempts to stop it with the tablecloth. He couldn't believe it, but he had a feeling that Raven was dying right here in his arms. He hated that thought.
A shadow fell over Cyborg and he looked up to find that Robin and Starfire were back, along with the dog. Robin looked really pale a bit on the shaky side, and Cyborg really couldn't blame him. After all, it had happened so fast that the entire team was still reeling a bit.
"Is she alright?" Robin asked, and even though he looked like he was going to throw up his voice was calm and steady.
"No." Cyborg said, not wanting to elaborate. He did not want to mention the fact that he had no idea if Raven was going to live or die, and there was a higher possibility of dieing than living.
"What can we do to help her?" Robin asked.
Call a mortuary and arrange a nice funeral. Cyborg thought, but he didn't say it out loud. Realistically he knew there was very little they could do. Had they been near a hospital they might have had some hope, but out here in space there was literally nothing any of them could do to help Raven. Cyborg could tell from his sensors that the hole in her chest was large and deep, and there were probably vital things that he couldn't pronounce damaged. But Cyborg knew that they had to at least try to do something, or none of them would be able to sleep at night.
"I need someone to go to the med lab and get some supplies." Cyborg said.
"But the monster may be out there." Starfire said with a strange expression. The look on the normally kind alien looked ready to kill something, preferable a small something that resembled a snake.
"Dude, I can be there and back in a flash! Cheetah speed!" Beast Boy said. Robin gave him a stern look.
"What about your hands?" he asked the little green shape shifter.
"Dude, they healed a while back. It's no problem." Beast Boy said, and before his leader could ask him another question he had shifted to a cheetah and sped away.
Robin frowned. It was true that besides Raven Beast Boy was the quickest healer of the group. It had something to do with that animal DNA inside him. However, those burns had been very severe. And wasn't Beast Boy limping a little when he had left?
"Do we go after the fiend?" Starfire asked, her eyes sparking like mad.
Robin thought for a moment. "No," he decided. "Splitting up the team is a bad idea, and the monster is not first priority. Stabilizing Raven is. Plus, I have a feeling it will be back."
"What makes you say that?" Cyborg asked.
"Think about it, the thing that was on Raven infested her with that snake monster. I think it has an insectoid life cycle. Like a wasp or a human bot fly. Have you ever heard of those? There's a type of wasp that implants its young into another bug, when the eggs hatch they destroy the host, kind of like what happened here."
"Oh man, I hope you're not going where I think you are going…" Cyborg groaned.
"Unfortunately I am. If this thing is some sort of bug then first off it is probably not through metamorphsising. It might just be building a cocoon somewhere and is transforming as we speak. And if it is like a wasp then it will want two things when it comes out of the cocoon. Food…and hosts.
"It doesn't look like a bug." Cyborg growled.
"Maybe not, but I'm going to assume the worst here. It may just bob along as a small snake thing, but if it doesn't and it transforms like an insect there is a chance that it will be bigger and stronger than it is now. I'm not going to split us up and take the chance that it is more dangerous than it is. I don't want anyone else hurt.
"So we just wait for something to attack us?" Cyborg asked.
"Yes. We don't have that many options, Cyborg. We are basically stranded in this tower with that thing. We have no way to call for backup or escape, unless you sneaked a spaceship in the tower?"
"Naw, the T-Ship might have worked, but that thing was left in the garage under the tower. Which is back on Earth."
"You see my point then?" Robin asked.
"Yeah, I see your point." Cyborg said as he looked down at Raven. He had always thought of her as one of the toughest girls he had ever met. Part of it was her powers. It was hard to see her as anything other than powerful. She didn't look that powerful right now, though. She looked even paler than usual, and her breathing was becoming shallow and slow. Her eyes where closed, and Cyborg guessed that she had fainted, probably from blood loss.
Cyborg was afraid.
A blur of green rushed through the halls of the tower, paws aching every time they hit the floor. Beast Boy had thought he was well enough to make a quick run to the med lab, but the soreness in his pads was proving him wrong. He ignored them and ran on.
He arrived at the lab in record time and shifted back to human. His hands felt raw, but he chose not to pay attention. Instead he swept through the lab almost as fast as he had run as a cheetah, grabbing medicine and bandages and even those scary looking needles. He even got both kinds, hypodermic for shots and the weird little ones for sewing stitches. He didn't know if stitches would help Raven, but he wanted to leave nothing behind just in case.
Storing everything he could into an empty first aid kit, Beast Boy turned back to a cheetah and raced back to the others, praying to whoever might be listening that Raven would survive this horrible event. He had already lost his parents; he was not going to lose anyone else!
As he skidded into the room where the others were he saw Robin at the controls of a computer. As soon as Beast Boy arrived the Titan's leader pressed a button. Immediately the windows where covered with steel shields and metal reinforcements came down around the doors and other exits, including the vents.
They were locked in.
Beast Boy returned to human form and gave Robin an odd look "What's going on?"
"I'm locking the place down. We are going to lay low for a while."
Beast Boy nodded and approached Cyborg with the kit. Cyborg took his one remaining hand (the other still on Raven's…well her chest) and looked through the items, nodding at some and putting others aside.
"Okay," Cyborg said "I'm going to need help here. I need someone to hold her up and other person to help me bandage the wound."
Starfire volunteered to hold Raven. Guessing that Cyborg would need as much access to Raven's injured body as possible, Starfire lifted the other girl gently by the arms while keeping them away from the injured area. Cyborg was glad she did this, as he needed to wrap the bandages completely around Raven's body, and this way her arms where out of the way.
"Beast Boy, listen to me," Cyborg looked at his little friend, who was looking surprisingly serious. "I'm going to remove the tablecloth, when I do we have to do three things relatively quickly. First, we have to get her uniform off-"
"What!!!!!" Beast Boy bellowed.
"Look, I don't really like it either, but I need to get to that wound, and the uniform is just going to get in the way. Do you understand?"
Beast Boy gulped and nodded. It was just his luck that his first look at a naked female was going to be when said female was dying. Great.
"I need you to stand by with this big gauze pad here." Cyborg continued, holding up the pad in question. "Now, as soon as the uniform is off you place the pad over the wound, and then I'm going to wrap these bandages around her. Did you get all of that?"
"Wait till uniform is off then put on pad." Beast Boy nodded "I got it."
"And BB?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't…you know…stare."
Beast Boy turned red. "Yeah…right."
Cyborg gulped. He really did not want to do this. Actually, what he didn't want was to Raven find out that he had…um, removed her clothing. He was afraid that she would kill him, even though he was only trying to help. Steeling himself and trying not to think of furious half-demons, he gently removed the tablecloth. Raven was still bleeding a little, but not too much. Moving as fast as he could, but trying to be gentle, Cyborg turned one of his mechanical fingers to a pair of scissors and gently cut down the uniform, starting with the collar and heading downwards. It was done in a few minutes, and Raven was now very exposed.
Beast Boy was now faced with a dilemma, he didn't really want to look at the wound for fear of losing his nerve, and his lunch, but he also was afraid to move his eyes in any direction. He was quite aware that this was his first time at looking at a female's breast (they were right there for all the world to see) and he felt very embarrassed by the fact that he could see them.
Oh, Raven's going to kill me. Beast Boy thought. Soon as she wakes up I am a dead man!
"Beast Boy, the pad. Now." Cyborg said, snapping the changeling back to his duty. Gently Beast Boy placed the pad over the wound. He tried very hard to concentrate on his own hands. No. Where. Else.
He kind of failed.
Cyborg was now wrapping Raven's upper body in bandages. Whenever he got close to Beast Boy's hands the little green guy would briefly lift them to let Cyborg through. Within moments it was done.
"She is going to be well again, correct?" Starfire asked, looking very sad. "She will recover now?"
Cyborg didn't know what to tell them. He was certain that Raven was going to die, but he didn't want to say it out loud. But he didn't think it was right to shatter Starfire's hope.
He settled on a half truth.
"I don't know Star, I really don't know."
A few hours later.
Gi sensed the air once again; searching for the cocoon he knew must be here somewhere. He had been crawling in the vents for a while, and he was cranky.
A strange scent wafted across his nostrils, a scent he had smelled before. It was the scent of corn fields and blood. He growled in anger. It was the Crazy Boy-Priest! How had that little monster gotten here? Well, it did not matter. Gi followed the trail of the Crazy Boy-Priest, knowing that it would lead to the cocoon, and the Crazy Boy-Priest.
Gi rounded a corner and came face to face with the Crazy Boy-Priest. He was a small boy no older than ten or so. He was wearing a grey suit that looked like it belonged on a preacher. He was standing over the Xenomorph cocoon, canting something Gi could not understand. Sensing the other creature behind him, the Crazy Boy-Priest turned and smirked at Gi.
"You are too late, sacrilegious beast." The Crazy Boy-Priest's voice was high and a bit squeaky, a bit like the voice of an evil imp. "This one belongs to He Who Walks Behind the Rows now."
"Crazy Boy-Priest worships nothing but dust on wind." Gi growled. "Fool before and fool now. He will destroy all, even you, stupid human boy."
The problem was that Gi could not kill the Crazy Boy-Priest, and Gi knew it. The Crazy Boy-Priest's death would only result in his master possessing his body, and Gi knew that he could not defeat the Boy-Priest's master.
Right about then the cocoon started breaking open. A pair of large, red bat like wings appeared first, startling Gi to no end. THAT was a new feature! He had never seen that! A pair of claws followed the wings and soon the rest of the Demon-Xenomorph and wiggled out of its cocoon. It was twice as big as Gi, and was colored a dark red. Instead of the classic Xenomorph carapace it had a pair of large, wicked looking horns. Its tail looked like a demon's forked tail that was sharpened to a point. Other than that and the wings it looked almost exactly like Gi, right down to the thin coat of slime covering it.
"GO!" the Crazy Boy-Priest raved. "Destroy the unbeliever in the name of our God!"
A flash of light, and the Crazy Boy-Priest vanished, leaving Gi with the Demon-Xenomorph.
The two Xenomorphs growled and snarled at each other, their drool pooling on the floor. Suddenly, Gi darted forward, his claws flashed as he slashed the other's face at the jaw. He then turned and fled down the vent tunnel, knowing that the other would follow him. It did, and Gi noticed that while the creature was larger, it was also a bit slower than himself.
Gi found an opening to an open area, which turned out to be the gym. He twisted around and climbed just above the vent opening. As the Demon-Xenomorph went through the opening, Gi lunged and landed on his opponent's back. Snarling, Gi stuck his inner mouth into the back of the other's neck. Roaring in anger the other bucked and slammed into a few walls, trying to dislodge its passenger. Gi's own bladed tail cut and slashed at the ribs and stomach of the Demon-Xenomorph. The creature's blood was not acid, like Gi's, but some sort of red liquid fire that burned.
Eventually the Demon-Xenomorph caught Gi's tail in its mouth and managed to fling the other Xenomorph off. Before Gi could respond the Demon-Xenomorph had jumped on him and was tearing off his arm. Gi's own acidic blood mixed with the others, and it resulted in a mild explosion. The Demon-Xenomorph was flung backwards.
Gi realized that he could not fight this monster with only one arm, so he turned and fled. Survival instinct had taken over, and while Gi was more intelligent than most Xenomorphs, he was still a creature of instinct and his instincts were telling him to survive at all costs. Limping he exited the gym as fast as he could.
The Demon-Xenomorph picked itself off the floor. It turned its head towards the doorway and growled.
An Author's Note: Hope you all can guess who the "Crazy Boy-Priest" is. Just in case you don't know it is Isaac from Children of the Corn. I don't own Children of the Corn, Stephen King has that honor!
