Hey everyone! *Friend growls and snaps at my hand* Hey, behave yourself! Ahem, anyway, here's the next chapter! I hope you guys like it, and please review. *Looks away, eyes widen* No, my brother isn't food! Spit him out right now, you naughty friend! *Growls and leaps at me* AHHHH!
Fen fired his blaster at the pile of eggs, watching then explode in a mess of green goop. He knew that if he had had emotions, he would undoubtedly be grinning like a maniac. And he could have chosen to smile. But in a world like this, he couldn't afford to be distracted even for a second. Smiling was a distraction, an unnecessary display of happiness. He had already risked it once that day, he wasn't keen on doing it again.
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Fen couldn't believe it, just couldn't! His system must be glitching. He had sustained quite a head injury, and that was likely impeding his scanner. Why, after almost fourteen years of no other sentient organic beings, would six of them suddenly be just over the hill? It made no sense! His system had to be malfunctioning, there was no other explanation. But, even though it was almost certainly a malfunction, he had to be sure. Fen's face fell into an even deeper grimness. He would have to be fast. Who knew how long the aliens would be distracted? He needed to get this done and get back to egg blasting.
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Flash popped to his feet, seemingly unaffected by the near death experience they had just gone through. "Well, that was interesting!"
Superboy growled. "I don't like this place."
"Um, guys?" Everyone looked up at Miss Martian.
She was pale and shaking, one hand pressed over her mouth. She pointed a trembling finger at the ground, looking like she might throw up any minute. About two feet from where she landed, a skeletons hand stuck out of the earth. It looked old, with dried out weeds growing over and through the fingers. Miss Martian started to fall over, but Superboy caught her. "I almost landed on it." She whispered.
Robin stepped in, trying to distract her. "Let's just… go to the top of the hill. Try and see if someone's causing this." Miss Martian nodded, trying to regain her composure as the group began to hike up the hill. But when they reached the top, everyone lost their composure.
The land before them was, for lack of a better word, desolate. Great metal skeletons were all that remained of what had been skyscrapers. The ground was hardly visible, just a sea of broken glass and graphite covered concrete chunks. Overturned vehicles were rusted husks, their windows shattered and their tires long since shredded. Trash and ashes blew through the air, and the sky was a solid cloudy gray. Plants had tried to grow back at one point, but all that was left of them was dried out remains.
The team looked at the carnage with shock, all of them at a loss for words as they viewed the destruction. Kid Flash finally managed to whisper, "What happened?"
"A nuclear war."
Robin jumped. He had forgotten that Red Tornado was there. The red robot was surveying the desolate landscape with the eye of a surgeon. "I am picking up trace amounts of leftover radiation, and the amount of destruction suggests war. This leads me to believe that there was a nuclear war."
Robin mentally kicked himself. He should have figured that out. But no, he had sat there and gawked like an idiot. He quickly pulled up his holographic scanner and searched the area, trying to find clues about the source of the dimensional rift. He frowned and rescanned, unsure of what he was seeing. "Guys, I'm getting something, but it's weird." Everyone crowded around, eager to focus on this new development instead of the destruction around them. "There's definitely something there, but I'm having a hard time picking it-"
A giant creature shot over the hill with a horrific screech, its cry mixing with the metallic clank of metal on metal. Robin had only a split second to observe it before it struck, but his mind instantly absorbed every detail of the awful creature.
It was about six feet tall from where he stood, with a metallic lizard body and a cobra like tail. It had six centipede like legs with on its bottom half, with six longer legs sticking out like oversized, remote control javelins. Its mouth was filled with multiple rows of jagged, spiraling teeth, and its buggy eyes were filled with multiple slit pupils. Yellow slime drippled from its open jaws, hissing as it splattered on the ground. The thing struck with the speed of a cobra, lashing out at the group of heroes with a bone chilling hiss.
Red Tornado leapt in front of the group and conjured a twister, sending the horrific thing crashing into an overturned bus. It picked itself up slowly, as if it thought it had no need to rush. It turned its head toward the sky and let out a high pitched keening, the spines on its back bristling as it screamed. Other piles of rubbish began to stir, and Robin didn't have to be an expert on these things to know that it had just called to reinforcements. The alien (Robin was beginning to think of it as an alien) turned back to them, rushing at them in a sudden burst of speed.
This time, the team was ready. Artemis fired a shocking arrow at it, and the thing collapsed on the ground, its legs twitching in the air. Another one immediately climbed over its dying comrade, and was joined by a second as it charged. Superboy easily intercepted them, crushing the head of one before throwing the other nearly one hundred feet across the wasteland.
Five more grouped together to take the team on, but suddenly, they all shied away from the group. After another moment, all of them scurried into the mess of wrecked vehicles and cinder blocks. Robin turned to see what they were running from, and was shocked by what he saw.
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Fen looked at the group from his perch on one of the only standing trees left. They were a strange group, all wearing outfits of some sort. Fen got the indication that they were likely heroes. Their abnormal body signatures seemed to support this theory. The aliens had scurried away at the sight of him, and one of the heroes turned around and saw him.
But Fen wasn't focused on that, he was looking at the robot next to them. He wasn't sure what to do about it. His program clearly said to keep any robotic alien lifeforms away from the safehouse. This thing was clearly sentient, but he was a robot and was, by definition, an alien. So he would have to dispose of him.
A human with dark skin called something to him, but Fen couldn't hear anything. He squinted and tilted his head to the side, running a full systems diagnoses.
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Fen opened his mouth respond, but shut it again when another message ran across his scanner.
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Oh well, he'd just have to get this over with. He converted his one working blaster into a blade, and flew toward the robot as fast as he could.
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"Guys, look." Robin pointed toward the young man in the tree. The team turned to look.
He had stark white hair and pale skin, with a pair of bright green eyes that showed bright even behind his visor. The boy had silver armor with pulsing green highlights, and black liquid was dripping from his head and wrist. He was observing them with cold indifference, like a police officer identifying a body at a car crash.
Aqualad stepped forward, trying to communicate with the kid. "Hello, friend. Do you know what happened here?"
The unnerving silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity. The boy tilted his head to one side. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then, to everyone's shock, his arm shifted into a curved blade. With no change of expression or even a sound, the boy launched himself at Red Tornado. Before anyone could even move, Red Tornado lifted his hand and conjured a cyclone. But Red Tornado didn't count on the boy having rockets. He easily dodged the twister and crashed into Red Tornado, the blade slicing through his body with a peculiar metallic screech. The two pieces of Red Tornado thudded to the earth, and everyone's mouths dropped open.
Robin was the first to react. His hand shot toward his belt and pulled out a peculiar looking disk. He threw the disk at the boy, hitting him on the chest. The disk stuck like a magnet, and blue electricity suddenly sparked over his body. The boy teetered for a moment, then fell to the ground next to Red Tornado. As he landed, his armor melted into flesh and his hair turned dark black. Everyone stared for a moment, unsure of what to do now. Finally, Kid Flash said, "So we just… glue him back together, or what?"
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Fen lay on the ground, unable to move as the technology virus ran through his system. His own system was fighting it, but he was unable to move and fight the code destroying virus at the same time. He could see the group of people moving around and talking, but with all his systems currently offline, he had no way of knowing what they were doing. He decided to focus on his own problems. Desperately, Fen constructed a temporary firewall, and in one quick motion, stood up and ripped the disk off his chest. The virus immediately lost its aggressiveness, and his system destroyed it in less than two seconds.
But Fen knew there was still a problem. He was losing too much oil, and battling that virus had taken a lot out of his system. His retinal screen glitched out for a moment, and in that moment, something slammed into Fen and pinned him to ground. His vision realigned, and he saw a very angry looking boy in a black t-shirt had his hands around his neck. His vision began to blacken around the edges, and Fen felt that he would need air very soon.
No, NO! The sofa is not a chew toy! *Glances at you guys* What are you still doing here? It's over. *Reviewers glare* Well, too bad. You'll just have to wait like everyone else. *Reviewer starts shewing my arm* AAAAAH! Stop that! *Friend starts to chew other arm* Seriously!? You guys better review if your giving me this much trouble!