Daywalker was officially panicking. If Blood Red Ramona was making a move on the territory of a gang with a shaken leader, how long would it take her to make her move on a gang with a dead one? Yeah, they had two metahumans; one metahuman was as good as five normal people, but it's always the sixth one that gets you.
Daywalker did consider himself lucky, having landed himself in a gang that had first one, then two teenagers with superpowers. Most other gangs didn't have a single one. One was a bit of a wild card sometimes, but the other – boy could that kid fight. He was a one-man tornado. Literally.
Daywalker nervously fiddled with a bit of wire that was supposed to fit into the switchboard he was working on. The others were conversing in low but urgent tones, but Daywalker was too nervous to think about difficult stuff right now. He was a technological man; working with wires and computers cost him no extra brain cells.
Trying to settle down, he wired his twisted wire into the circuitry on the back of the board and connected two points. There was a spark and some of the lights on the board flashed. Good, good. The system was ready for a try. He forgot all about his dead friend and the crazy warlord that could be storming up their front steps any moment; this was where he, Daywalker, belonged – amid blinking lights and green circuit boards.
Pulling his laptop onto his knees, Daywalker activated the controls for the new security system. The computer started to whine and some of the lights on the board at his feet flashed again but an error message popped up on his screen and the lights died. He hit the enter button again, reinitiating the boot-up. Again, the error message popped up on his screen and the switchboard refused to co-operate. How could it not work? Daywalker had wired the whole thing by hand, double and triple checking the blueprints.
Maybe yesterday, when Matches was leaning over it and his cigarette ashes fell between the wires? It must be that. Everything else went perfectly. About to stand up and gives Matches a what-for, Daywalker got his answer.
"The wire you just put in was frayed and the board short circuited. Try re-wiring it with this."
Daywalker accepted the copper wire spool offered and flipped over the board and sure enough, the new wire was separated into a million hairs at the middle point where he had been twisting it nervously.
"Oh, wow, thanks, I mean, I'm just so nervous and this is a habit I have and you know how bad habits get when you get nervous gee, I thought everyone was holding a war meeting over there but its good you weren't because I would of never have thought of that myself because, you know, I was too busy being nervous – "
Here Daywalker stopped. He was looking over at his friends. Ryo's red-jacketed back was facing him. Double F was standing at his side. Iceman was perched on a crate, rolling his eyes at Sucker Punch who was hovering over him nervously with another cup of water. Matches was deep in conversation with Ryo and Double F and Patts was nervously polishing his favourite pocket knife.
There was something wrong with this picture. Something very wrong. And it only took the red head 1.03 seconds to figure it out.
"I'm telling you, we need to evac now. I bet you Ramona knows where our base is already and is just waiting for the perfect moment." Matches rasped urgently.
"There is no way she know where the Base is. Its secret, that the point." Ryo massaged his forehead. This was a mess. As acting leader he had to decide something fast.
"What if we – " The rest of whatever Flamethrower was going to say was interrupted by a scream.
Everyone whirled around to find Daywalker sprawled on the floor amid pieces of his prized switchboard. Standing casually beside him was a slim teenage boy in a dark hoodie with raven black hair and a pair of sunglasses.
"Cig Head is right, you know. There are a group of sixteen ugly-looking people marching down the alleyway to the chain-link fence that runs around the facility at this very moment." He picked his way through the mess around his feet, all casual like, because boys appearing out of thin air and wearing sunglasses at night is completely normal. "If I were you, I would escape now, while I could, or get ready to fight my way out."
Mass shock was the first reaction. The second was Matches.
"Cig Head?!" His husky voice rose two octaves.
There was movement overhead and a second figure dropped from heaven to land among them. This one was a girl in a green jacket with a long blond ponytail and a one-shouldered pack.
"You should trust him, you know, he hacked into your security system and watched the cameras while you children squabbled around down here."
This development too was met with mass shock.
"Are you just going to stand here or are you going to get ready to fight?" Artemis bellowed and everyone jumped into action.
Ryo dolled out instructions as boys scurried around, arming themselves with any weapon at hand; Patts—his pocketknife, Matches—a crowbar, Daywalker—a homemade Taser and Sucker Punch… well, he didn't really need a weapon. He had two growing out of his wrists.
Amid all the confusion and movement, one person had not taken a step.
Flamethrower had just had the most severe brain-fart in the history of man and womankind.
"You…Robin…Artemis…Here…I…What…I don't even…" she was turning pale and starting to sweat. "You guys…Me…Here… Ryo, I don't… Oh my god…"
Artemis took two steps forward and five-stared her confounded and flabbergasted teammate in the face. That seemed to snap her out of her complete dumbfounded-ness. Still, she stared at Artemis with dinner plate sized eyes.
"What you need to do now is to help your friends, ok?" Flamethrower nodded slightly. "You need to go help them protect this place." The younger girl took a big breath and nodded, more confidently this time. She looked over at Robin, who gave her an encouraging gesture and she dashed off.
"Okay, people, lets give Blood Red Ramona a nice warm welcome."
Watching her go, the Young Justice archer shook her head.
"God," Artemis's eyebrows dropped. "When this is over, she is going to have hell to pay."
Robin was only half paying attention. "How many crates do you think they have in here?"
The knock on the big metal doors of the old crate factory resounded throughout the whole building.
"Fasterfasterfasterfaster." Matches motioned urgently with his hands.
Patts baulked slightly and sprayed the liquid from the plastic jug in his hands as fast as he could. When he wetted all the marked spots on the floor, the pink haired boy sprinted towards the door and threw the rest of the clear liquid over the thick sheets around the door. When the bottle was empty, he threw that too and sprinted back to where Matches was hiding. He had just dove behind some crates when a voice sounded out through the building.
"My condolences," smirked a voice, definitely female. "I heard about Runner and come as quickly as I could. Let me in and maybe we can talk."
Everyone waited with baited breath. Robin had strictly instructed all of them not to respond to any sort of provocation, not that anyone was really considering it anyway.
"Awww, has all this rough living stripped you of your manners? So un-gentlemanly, not rushing to open a door for a lady." You could hear her wicked smile in her voice.
"Oh, all right, if you want to play this way." Blood Red Ramona sighed, her sigh echoing in the huge space, "I don't have all night, you know. I still have the north district to clean up tonight, after I'm done here."
Here voice decreased in volume as if she had turned away from the doors.
"Michael, blow them off their hinges. Pronto."
"On it."
There were some scraping noises and tapping noises and after an intense 2 minutes and 7 seconds, there was a click and the huge, gray, metal double doors of Mr. Cane's Crate Factory got blown of their hinges. They flew about ten feet inward and then crashed to the concrete floor.
There was smoke billowing in from the outside and nothing could be seen through it. When he judged the time right, Robin held up his first finger. An arrow whizzed through the smoke and debris, closely followed by two more. There were cries of pain and surprise as the arrows hit invisible targets.
Robin held up his second finger as well and a fourth arrow buried itself in the lighter fluid-drenched material around what used to be the doorway. Flames burst from it's tip and the whole structure caught fire. Burning material and metals stands fell in the path of the advancing group.
There were a good few minutes where everyone thought that Blood Red Ramona was retreating and gone for good. Unfortunately, she was simply waiting for the flaming debris to burn itself out. That it did in due time and when there was a path to walk through, she strode forward boldly with her gang following behind her.
Blood Red Ramona was a striking girl, lithe and fluid with a sharp face and angular lips, hair died bright red to match her lipstick. She even had a red leather trench coat that swirled around her as she walked.
Her goons circled into the empty factory, looking around and spreading out as she stalked in and looked around.
"I know you're in here." She yelled and laughed, her white teeth flashing. "Come out or I'll have to come in and find you!"
The crates were scattered everywhere, impeding movement, most stacked so high that you couldn't see over them. Red Ramona's crew slowly advanced weaving their way between the pillars and walls of plastic, on alert, looking for movement.
There was absolute silence, except for the footfalls of the teenagers searching and the wind that came whistling through the broken windows.
Ramona shook her head. There was something off. She had expected to burst in here, guns a-blazing and be met with a solid wall of offence. But there was no one here.
She watched as her gang went deeper into the field of crates, until all she could see of them were Florence, Conroy, Jeepers, Jinx and Pamma. The others were completely hidden, lost in the crates, looking for Runner's old gang. There was some shiny liquid on the floor and she almost slipped in it, striding toward the maze of crates. Then it struck her.
"Everyone out!" Blood Red Ramona yelled, but too late. From somewhere there came a crackling and fire raced from both sides of the room along the floor, skating on the shiny liquid, no, the lighter fluid poured on the floor. She turned for the door but the flames had already met in a burning barrier between her and the exit.
Blood Red Ramona hissed at the flames as if she could make them part for fear like Moses and the red sea, but they ignored her. From beyond the flames she could see the distorted figures of the Runner's gang circling the flames and heading for the door. Whirling, the leader of the south gang laughed up into the ceiling, a cold and shrill laugh that made ever her followers shiver.
"That's cute! Thinking of trapping us here and running like cowards?!" The lighter fluid spread on the concrete floor was enough to keep the fire burning for quite a while, ten minutes or so, and by then, Runner's old crew would be gone. Robin had made sure that there was nothing near the flames that could potentially catch fire and cause the building to go up in flames, but Murphy's Law is a strict one.
Matches gripped his crowbar a little tighter and glared through the flames at Blood Red Ramona who laughed at him, despite being trapped in a ring of fire. Patts grabbed his arm and the rest of them filed out, Flamethrower and Robin bringing up the back.
Before they made it close to the big metal double doors, Ramona cast out one last line, a last ditch attempt.
"Well well well, look who came crawling back to her rat hole after deserting for the first time. I can't believe they let you came back. Or maybe they were all missing the female company, Forest Fire."
Robin fully expected Flamethrower to ignore the comment and keep walking but she stopped dead. Blood Red Ramona's plan was working.
"And where did you even go? The Justice League?" The red girl smirked, showing her teeth like a wolf. "The people who throw trash like us into chains? Everyone needs a hobby. What's yours—backstabbing?"
There, Flamethrower stiffened. She clenched and unclenched her fists as flames started to lick new red marks on her wrists. About to tough it out and keep walking but Ramona got there first.
"Their standards sure have dropped, to take in a multiple personality psychotic pyromaniac bitch like you!"
That was too much. Flamethrower turned slowly to face her and what Robin saw made his stomach drop a notch.
It reminded him of when he was back in the Bat Cave, when he was still under Batman's wing. Batman had taught Robin about humans and non-humans that could shape shift. Batman also taught him how to recognize when someone was posing as someone else by comparing the original's own postures, gestures, and distinct way of talking to the faker's. To Robin, it seemed as though M'Gann or Martian Manhunter were impersonating Flamethrower in a very un-realistic way.
It was her body, definitely, and her face, but it was not her.
The Other Flamethrower turned stood only inches from him and Robin took an involuntary step back. As Robin watched, it slowly started walking towards the ring of fire, with Blood Red Ramona's gang held inside. It had a different walk than Flamethrower's; where her's was a bit slouchy and she swung her shoulders as if she was carrying weight in her hands, it's—the Other Flamethrower's—was tall and precise, rolling heal to toe with every footfall.
Its eyes were wrong too. Instead of alive with emotion and twinkling with mischief, they didn't show anything. They were like two dead spheres shoved in it's head on either side of it's nose.
The rest of Runner's old gang had been waiting for the pair of them and cycled back to see the hold up. Matches, Sucker Punch and Ice Man groaned when they saw her tall back and slow gait. Ryo swore and held a hand out, motioning for everybody to stop moving and stay where they were.
"Stay where you are. Do not move!" Ryo whispered under his breath to Robin and Artemis.
The fire that danced around the Other Flamethrower's hands left no marks. The flames licked their way its arms to it shoulders, incinerating the sleeves of its gray turtleneck shirt. They ripped across the back of its shoulders too, as if someone had doused the dark material with gasoline. The flames met at the back of its neck, completing a weird arc of fire that cracked and danced with heat. Because the shoulders and the back of Flamethrower's Harley Davidson vest had burned away, it dropped to the ground and lay smoking against the pavement.
Patts squirmed free from the tall dark haired boy's outstretched arm and ran up to his friend, blocking her path with his arms out. His friends called out to him to stop but he ignored them.
"Please, Forest Fire, stop." He looked as if he was on the verge of tears, and he choked to get the words out. "Stop, you don't have to do this." Patts grabbed the front of his friend's shirt, a tear tracing it's way down his freckled cheek. "I know you're in there, listen, please."
The Other Flamethrower didn't even hesitate when it backhanded Patts fifteen feet into the far wall.