[authors note]
Titans don't belong to me, etc etc.
Long chapter; so sorry! My motivation is shot now, but I'm trying :/ Please read & review 33
Thanks!
Update: Chapter revised; May 2013.
-ch six: ground control to major tom-
Starfire paced across the sidewalk, wringing her hands and glancing around nervously every few seconds as she had been for the past hour. As the first flashes of green entered her sight, she looked up and flew forward, mentally thanking her friends for being so noticeable. "Beast Boy, Robin! Have you heard anything? Seen anything?"
"No luck, Star," Robin responded cooly, though Star had known him long enough to understand he was actually very worried about their missing friends. His steely exterior betrayed nothing. She flashed him a small smile, hoping to cheer him up.
Her leader caught it and nodded briefly, though he was quick to continue with business as usual. "Let's split up and see if we can't find anything. I'll take the northwest. Beast Boy, you can take the south. And Starfire, you handle the northeast. We'll meet back here in two hours. If you find something, say something. Alright?"
Beast Boy and Starfire nodded and the three parted ways. As Starfire flew away, she noticed the worried expression on Beast Boy's face, and found she was wearing one to match. With a sigh, she gained altitude, praying her friends were unharmed and safe.
"Still out cold?"
Vane leaned against the wall of the holding room, eyes rolling over her surroundings. It was small and dark room with one light bulb hanging over head. A special glass wall separated her from the prisoners with two rows of metal bars, humming with a unique electrical current, running perpendicular and separating the cell into three parts. Raven was situated in the far right, Cyborg in the far left. Beside her was a table and an uncomfortable wooden chair, both unoccupied.
Zephyr stood in front of the glass, eyes fixed almost boredly on the two teenagers as he responded, "I should commend you for your totality." Should, Vane thought, but he won't. "By what means did you achieve these results?"
"I cut off her oxygen," Vane reported, pointing at the cloaked girl. "And this one got a toaster to the noggin." She pointed at Cyborg.
For a moment she thought he'd paired his light 'hah' with a thin grin, but she was mistaken. Miffed slightly, she shuffled the pile of papers in her hand and stepped forward, holding them out to his right side.
"They're under sedative, though. I had them searched by the techies. They disconnected their homing devices and signals in their communicators but left the rest intact, in case you were interested. They had to hack Cyborg's system to shut off the homing device in there and change a few codes – that's all included in the description on his papers, by the way – and they discovered Raven had a signal device in her brooch which was also removed and destroyed."
After her report was finished he took the papers from her hand and flipped over the headings of each one. Finding no error, Zephyr merely gave her a sidelong glance, meaning 'get'. Vane turned on her heel but only got as far as the door frame before he addressed her once more.
"Where are you going?" He didn't turn to look at her.
Vane froze, knowing by his tone that it wasn't wherever she thought she was going. "To further my research on the remaining Titans…?"
Zephyr continued to speak toward the glass. "You have more Titans to catch. Return to the control room to find coordinates on the alien girl through the Titans' communicator. I expect this one to be quick."
A complaint rose through her throat but the first syllable had barely passed her lips when he turned his head slightly. She still couldn't see his eyes, much less his face, but she knew she didn't want to catch the evil look he had prepared in case she started to whine. Vane cracked her fingers as she cleared her throat and said, "Oh, uh. Right. Okay."
Zephyr remained motionless as the small girl looked to the ceiling with contempt. She took another step out the door when something sprung on her, prompting her to spin back around and approach the glass pane with half a smirk on her jaw. Her grey eyes fell upon Raven.
"Before I go, I need to borrow something from our witch friend here."
Thirty minutes of searching later, Starfire's hopes were still unconfirmed. So nervous was she that when her communicator crackled, she jumped.
Robin's voice crackled: "Robin, reporting. Nothing to find over here. Beast Boy?"
"Dude, this part of the city is so dense. But I don't see anything. Not even a single clue. There's a creepy abandoned stadium in the distance I have to get to. Maybe they're there?"
Starfire sighed while Beast Boy made an odd noise. He'd probably tripped. "I too have found nothing, but I will continue to look diligently. Our friends have to be here somewhere."
"That's the spirit, Star," was Robin's parting encouragement. She nearly put her communicator away when Robin started again. "There's an empty warehouse somewhere along the outskirts of your part, Starfire. Maybe you should look there."
"Thank you, I will," she said wearily. Starfire hoped she wouldn't find her friends in a creepy, abandoned warehouse, but more than that she hoped she would find her friends soon.
The warehouse came into view rather quickly. It was a huge, hollow block of gray. Starfire flew down to the entrance and approached it carefully. The silver heels of her boots made a dull clunking sound as she walked over the concrete. Boxes everywhere cast shadows down upon her as the sinking sun shone through the large, industrial windows at the top of the walls.
A flash of blue material caught her eye. "Hello?" She called instinctively, turning to face what she'd seen. There, her friend stood, facing the back wall. Too glad to be suspicious the alien called out, "Raven!"
Raven turned around with a flourish. As the cape flared out behind her, Starfire became dreadfully aware she was wrong. Slender hands removed the hood that shadowed her face, and there stood Vane, grinning like a chesire cat. "Hey, Starfire! Sorry I'm not who you wanted me to be. This is Raven's cloak, but don't worry, I'll give it back to her when I'm done with it."
The redhead girl immediately took a defensive stance, her feet leaving the floor and her eyebrows furrowing. She demanded, "Where are my friends?"
Vane unlatched the cloak and tore it away from her body, ignoring Starfire as she breathed, "Goodness, it's much too hot for that. No wonder your friend always wears a leotard with that. It's intense."
As Starfire rose into the air, she followed suit, casually manipulating the air to raise her up while she examined her fingernails as though her opponent was a boring friend she was forced to have a chat with.
Starfire wrinkled her nose and pushed forward a little. "I asked you: where are my friends? I wish to have them back now please." Despite her formal speech, her voice was hard and cold, ridden with anger and the desire to send a bitch flying. The air surrounding her fingers took a tint of green as she prepared to use her starbolts.
"Careful, Star." Vane purred, voice absolutely oozing with something condescending and luscious. "Do something crazy and I just might do the same… to your boy, Robin."
The alien girl gasped, her expression changing quickly from shock to anger. "You will do nothing of the sort!" She shouted. "Robin is fine, he is in the city-"
Vane was quick to cut her off. "Don't be stupid. Robin," Vane paused and pulled Raven's communicator out of her pocket, "is mine now." She watched the Tamaranian's blood boil with her every word. "Want him? Come and get him."
In an instant Starfire developed a savage look in her eyes; she needed no further encouragement. With a war cry she launched forward, starbolts glowing in her hands. Without hesitation or mercy she attacked Vane. Such rage had been unforeseen, and the smaller, brown-haired girl was succumbed to submission when the much stronger Starfire grabbed hold of her and whipped her at the ground. As she struggled to regain control, starbolts rained all around her, striking her body like white-hot punches.
Vane threw her arms out and regained control, swiftly flying past the next round of bolts and shaking her head. "Didn't see that coming," she muttered to herself and looked up at Starfire. The alien girl growled and sped down towards her. Vane attempted to dodge her, but moved only seconds too slow. She was seized by the ankle and tossed to the side, where another round of starbolts hit her in the chest and stomach.
She swallowed the pain and directed a number of old parts around the warehouse at her prey – wrenches and boxes and factory parts left to rot. Starfire wove smoothly between them, furthering the distance between her and her assailant when she had to and coming closer when it was safe. Like two angry birds the girls flew through the air, dodging and throwing attacks without any pause. It felt like forever that Vane was being chased around by the starbolt-hurling girl, and that certainly wasn't how this battle was supposed to go.
She paused and manipulated a box, heavy with something inside, into the air and hurled it at Starfire. The alien girl responded with a snarl so girly it would've made Vane laugh had she not paired it with an intense starbeam, shooting right through the box and hitting Vane square in the chest. With its force she flew into the concrete wall behind her, dropping to the ground upon impact.
Enough was enough, Vane decided when she coughed up something nasty. Zephyr had instructed this battle be a short one, and though she greatly desired to beat and bruise the alien girl for the way she had intensely handed Vane's ass to her at the start of the battle, she was short on time. She and Starfire stared each other down for a moment, the latter's eyes glowing brighter until she shot beams from them again.
Wind brought boxes soaring up to shield Vane from her starbeams. As soon as they blew up, falling in fiery pieces around the alien girl, she flew up in circles, narrowed eyes searching for where her opponent had disappeared to. She found out quickly when Vane's arms wrapped around her neck and elbows from behind. Before the alien could grab and break Vane's arms, she hissed, "This is the same way Raven went too… well, sort of."
Quickly, she rotated her arm position and covered Star's mouth with her hand, and began to suck the air from her lungs. Starfire's struggle was more dignified than her fallen teammate's, though once the air began to leave in great amounts she went slack instead of throwing a fit. When Starfire was unconscious, Vane brought her down to the ground. She smiled proudly, at first, seeing a small amount of blood on the silver part of her top. Then she realized it was only her own, and frowned.
Vane started towards the cape she'd cast away earlier. A crackle stopped the wind mover in her tracks.
"Hourly report in – still nothing here." Robin's voice crackled from the communicator on Star.
Vane cursed and rushed forward, grabbing it while BB replied, "Same goes dude."
She tried to wrench open the back of the communicator. "Starfire?" Robin asked.
Vane grew panicked. The back wasn't opening.
"I have a location. She's really close to me. I'll go make sure she isn't slacking off," Beast Boy joked.
Finally, Vane chucked it at the wall. Leaning over and breathing heavily, she watched with satisfaction as the device shattered. Electronic bits and pieces flew from the sight of impact. The sound of its destruction nearly distracted the wind mover from footsteps on the concrete ground. She whipped her head around, and saw Beast Boy in tiger form, standing in the glare of the sun. Vane's mouth curled into a grim baring of teeth while she straightened her back and threw back her shoulders to face him.
"No," Vane snarled at the green Titan. "No, not another one of you."
Beast Tiger roared, but she was not about to be intimidated. Vane wiped the bloody corner of her mouth on her dark gray shoulder and flung her hands out to the sides. The bruises were obvious and swollen, and her head raged like the tornado she was creating, but Vane would not allow herself to be defeated today.
As the tiger's green tail whipped from side to side, Beast Boy evaluated the situation. One wind-controlling crazy chick? Check. One defeated Titan behind her? Check. No way he could win here? Check. With those three criteria all met, he decided his best effort was to run.
Vane caught his glances as he looked around for an escape and howled, "NO. You're not going anywhere."
Starfire had roughed her up better than she gave her credit for. Even if Vane gave it her all, she probably wouldn't have been able to fend off Beast Boy. Panic shone in her eyes as he transformed from a tiger to a Tyrannosaur, and stormed forward towards Vane as if to fight her. Thinking that was what he meant, she drew the cyclone towards herself and then aimed it and prepared to fire it into his eyes. However, BB simply turned into a hummingbird and flitted away.
Her funnel dissipated almost immediately. She stood in the windy aftermath, knees shaking with exhaustion while her mouth gaped openly in surprise, disbelief, and shame. Quickly she snapped out of it. He'd seen her, and they now knew she had the Titans. Vane needed to return to the underground as fast as possible; before Beast Boy could tell Robin and they could find her.
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