Author's Note:
Credit where credit is due. Some of the ideas for the fight were
taken from the Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction game for the
Gamecube, Ecksbox, and PS2
Titans Tomorrow
Chapter Seven: Strength In Numbers
Elephant Man and Superboy charged at each other again, both clashing with a duo of powerful fists. The blow shattered more windows for blocks, but Superboy came out on the losing end, getting launched backwards towards the building he'd just dragged himself out of. But this time he had anticipated that outcome and prepared, flipping over in the air and springing off the building with his feet.
The push off he gave himself shattered the wall in a fifteen-foot radius around the point of impact, but it gave Kevin enough momentum to blast by Elephant Man. The sonic boom that occurred has he broke the sound barrier knocked Elephant Man on his backside, and Kevin turned around to make another pass…
This time the half-human peppered the brute with a stream of burst eye beams, which again did no damage. Still, Superboy moved much faster than Elephant Man, so as long as he kept up the momentum, he had the advantage.
Flying a good distance both vertically and horizontally from the attacking mammoth, Kevin let out a charged stream of his eye beam power, much stronger than the earlier bursts. Elephant Man dived out of the way and the beam slammed into the sky bridge; concrete and metal exploded out from the impact.
"Stand still, Elephant Thing." Superboy's taunts were audible at a distance via a talent Uncle Clark had taught him that essentially amounted to Super Ventriloquism. "This won't hurt that bad!"
"Incorrigible punk!" barked Elephant Man, even as he stood up. Superboy was a step ahead of him, blasting him with another powerful burst of his eyebeams. His foe managed to raise his arms in time to block, but the attack slammed full into him, burning into the flesh on Elephant Man's arms and driving him back with kinetic force… And off the sky bridge altogether.
"Aw spiff it," Superboy spat as he flew after the brute, trying to make sure he didn't flatten anyone on the way down…
Elephant Man crashed through a narrow sky bridge and fell onto the Alva building's massive base below, right into an occupied parking lot. As pedestrians fled, Elephant Man pulled himself out of his own crater and grabbed cars and crushed them onto his fists as though they were boxing gloves. Even as Superboy landed, Elephant Man had already begun rushing him. Kevin managed to dodge his first two punches, but he was soon hit again and again by the makeshift brass knuckles.
His shirt torn and soaked in gasoline, Kevin blocked a blow with the sheer force of his anger and smashed Elephant Man into a dazed stupor. "I've had enough!"
Then he blasted his laser eyes… at his own clothing…
Instantly the gas fumes surrounding him ignited, and an explosion blasted both villain and away in opposite directions…
But Kevin wasn't an idiot. He used his tactile telekinesis field to keep the fire on his skin and not on his jeans; the effect was something like a fusion of the Incredible Hulk and The Human Torch, and it was just what the hybrid was going for. Kevin blasted forward, slamming a duo of flaming fists into Elephant Man's face, staggering the villain backwards. His own body felt like he'd need to sleep for a week to recover, but he had to stop his foe first…
"I guess I could call you Dumbo," Kevin joked, finally finishing his attack by lifting Elephant Man with his telekinesis and hurling him across the lot into the Alva building…
The fire went out and Superboy, minus his shirt, had not been burned in the slightest. His shirt, of course, was completely gone. This revealed that his arms were now very bruised from the fight, especially the shoulder that Elephant Man had kicked earlier. Kevin, much to his horror, realized that he was breathing hard; this might have been partly due to the fire consuming his oxygen, but…
"What is wrong, Kryptonian?" Elephant Man, now holding a metal street lamp, strode towards the topless hero with a calm confidence. "Has this fight taken a toll on you?"
Kevin shook his head. "Nah, I'm just getting warmed up."
"Then perhaps it is time for you to cool off." Almost as fast as Kevin could react, the metal post slammed into his side. A second strike missed when Kevin flew straight up, wondering why anybody would still even bother driving a car that used gasoline in 2049… Or maybe that was why Elephant Man had chosen that one… Who knows…?
"Come on Dumbo, you know I can take more than that!" Kevin taunted. Truthfully, though, that strike had hurt more than he cared to show. What was it about this stupid brute that allowed him to fight a quarter-Kryptonian quarter-god so effectively? Who did he think he was?
Obviously, he was currently Mario Mario, as he had just hurled himself into the sky with impossible jumping ability, managed to hit Kor-El with his metal pole once again. Superboy went flying straight downward, crashing through another sky bridge and through a window into a day-time dance club…
Panicking, Superboy ran to the window to see Elephant Man leaping up in order to attack him again. "You've got to be kidding me…"
"SUPERBOY! WE LOVE YOU!" screamed a teen babe nearby.
"Love you to, hottie," said Kevin, "but no time for that now. Big guy, really ugly, trying to kill me. Gotta run!" Kor-El threw himself out of the window and towards Elephant Man, slamming several powerful punches into his chest…
Elephant Man head butted the teen, knocking him backwards and then following up with another strike from his metal pole. (Apparently he was straightening out all the dents Kevin made after every strike.)
Superboy blasted down and landed in a water fountain around an outdoor shopping center. The fountain exploded and the water drenched his body. Kevin's head smashed against one of the chunks of the fountain and starting bleeding. It would take weeks to repair all the damage he was doing to the city…
And then he heard the sound of Elephant Man landing outside and the screams of confused shoppers as they fled in fright.
"You lose, teen hero," Elephant man said.
Kevin looked up to see that he had twisted the end of the street lamp post into a spikey instrument of death..
Kevin shivered. This was it… he was going to die… And he couldn't just restart the game or wake up in his bed and have it all be a dream…
This was it…
Elephant Man raised the spear and plunged it down into Superboy's bare chest… or at least that's what would have happened if a red and black blur hadn't streaked past him, dragging him away from being skewered.
"Wha…" Superboy asked, as he stared up into the masked face of a hot young redhead babe. "Who…"
"Robyn," she said curtly. "So much for you helping us."
"Huh?" Slowly Kevin sat up to see that the girl who had identified herself as Robin was not alone. Her two friends were another young man in a green coat that was circling around Elephant Man in a terrible Hapkido martial arts stance, and a young woman with cybernetic arms had a baseball bat…
They were clearly both spiffed.
Kevin then looked down at the 'R' emblem on the chest of the young woman who had rescued him, and suddenly realized why she looked so familiar. She wasn't a redhead named Robyn... she was Robin, sidekick to Batman!
Suddenly his hopes were raised a bit…
Very slightly...
Robin winced as she studied Superboy's wounds. He was a mess; that was for sure. She forced a way a few impure thoughts about how hot he was topless and pulled him to a place away from the battle.
Thankfully it seemed that Elephant Man was focusing most of his attention of Phaeism, who, not being solid, was mostly immune to the brute's attacks. Claire's bat had proven ineffective, so she'd bounded away hoping to find something she could use to fight him with…
Robin got Superboy situated and then darted over to Claire. "Doesn't that arm of yours have a weapon form or something?" she asked.
"Well, yeah, but I have to get it ready and that takes a while…"
Elephant Man huffed and puffed, then blew Phaeism away; he immediately turned his attention to the girls and smashed a powerful fist in towards them. Claire and Robin both dived out of the way and Robin returned fire with two birdarangs, one sleep gas and the other exploding.
Neither seemed to have any significant effect on Elephant Man…
"I'll fight him, just get that arm of yours ready!" Robin turned towards her foe, drew her pair of escrima sticks and ran forward to attack him.
"Ugh, make my arm into a gun," Claire muttered in the mean time. Like that's even legal… Of course I needed it to protect myself from the lavender lynx and vole spiders, but It can't be something so obvious…
She unhitched a lever here and pulled a switch there, slowly transforming her arm into the photon cannon that the company had illicitly supplied her with.
Robin, on the other hand, used her agility and speed to hammer Elephant Man with all she had, and she seemed to come up empty handed.
Phaeism attacked him by trying to cut into his legs, but that seemed to be worthless. His hide was too thick to just slice open, so Phaeism had switched to try and trip him up. His assault seemed worthless, though, as he was mostly tripping him towards Claire…
Finally, Claire finished transforming her arm into a gun, and opened fire, blasted 'bullets' of concentrated photons into Elephant Man's thick hide. He reeled from the blast and staggered backwards, more in smarting pain that actual damage.
"Keep it up as long as you can," Robin shouted, hurling a flash-bang disc to blind Elephant Man. Claire fired several more shots before stopping to let her arm cool down.
Robin saw that he'd backed up to the edge above the Undercity, and decided that time was worth him smashing up some more stuff; her force gauntlets fired a blast that sent the massive brute flying off the shopping center platform into the abyss below…
The Titans quickly regrouped around the injured Superboy. "Are you okay, dude," Phaeism asked, offering a hand.
"I'm… alright," Kevin Kent said, standing up slowly and on shaky legs.
"You look like you've just lost a fight with a meat grinder," Claire said. "Is that guy really strong enough to beat you.?"
"He caught me off guard," Superboy barked. He was clearly being defensive.
"Listen," Robin said, "I doubt what I just did will keep him down for long, so if there is anything we can do to get you back into fighting shape before he recovers…"
"Take me up," Superboy said. "I'm part Kryptonian. If you let me get above the ozone layer, I can recharge faster."
"How do we get you up that high?" Claire asked, somewhat incredulous.
"I can fly." The tone in Kevin's voice was so obvious as to make Claire feel stupid. "Just get me to a roof top for a recharge."
"I can do that," Robin said, reaching for the young man…
Phaeism arched an eyebrow. "You know what, I'm not sure you two should be together. I swear I just saw lust in your eyes even through that mask."
Robin sweatdropped, but quickly regained her composure. "D..don't be ridiculous. You can't carry someone that fast…"
Pushing Robin aside in protest, Phaeism walked to Superboy and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was clear he was focusing deeply because his eyes were closed and his mouth completely still… Robin was good at reading people…
Suddenly, both Superboy and Phaeism dematerialized into a cloud of fog that begin to shoot straight up at a much greater average velocity than Robin climbing with her grapple or jet boots would have been.
"Nobody told me he could do that," Claire said.
Robin shook her head. "I would have if I'd known myself."
At the very top of the building the cloud coalesced into Alex and Kevin once again…
Superboy blinked. "Well that was interesting."
"I can morph anything within my bio-electric field as long as it is made of organic matter. That's why I can morph my clothing."
"Too bad," Superboy said, standing up and letting the sun beam down on his face and arms and chest, "you couldn't materialize me a new shirt."
"Not omnipotent."
Superboy nodded, letting the sun beam down on him a minute before throwing himself into the air towards the edge of the atmosphere.
Suddenly, Alex's communicator crackled with static. "Phaeism here," he answered it.
-Phaeism!- Robin's voice came from the other end. –Get down here now! Dumbo is back!-
Sighing in frustration, Alex
walked to the edge of the building and let himself fall into the
abyss below
Robin backflipped away as the hurled metal wrecking ball blazed past her into a nearby truck (the old, non-hovering variety) and caused it to explode.
Claire continued to blast him with her photon cannon, but he seemed to be shrugging it off by this point, despite the fact the front of his body was covered in small burn marks.
"Can you throw that wrecking ball back at him?" Robin asked.
"I'd have to anchor myself and turn by gun back into an arm…"
Robin frowned. "Forget it then." She leapt into the air and hurled an ice explosive disk at her opponent, but he blocked it with his wrist… Ice spread out and covered his whole hand, and caused the Elephant Man to twitch.
"Wench!"
"Is that the best you got?" Robin smirked, drawing an electric birdarang.
Unable to break the ice off, Elephant Man charged at Robin with it still there, and she hurled her boomerang forward and it dug into his flesh and began to shock him.
Unfortunately, Phaeism arrived and struck him with a powerful bludgeon blow at exactly the same time..
Do the math…
Stunned and solid, Phaeism fell to the ground and gasped when he realized what had happened. Elephant Man jerked the birdarang from his flesh and dropped it, and then smashed the ice against the ground where Phaeism had just been. Alex had rolled out of the way and managed to losing his molecules up enough that he wouldn't die from an attack…
Still the ice would slow him down too, so he made sure to avoid things as best he could.
Claire came in staving off the mammoth's pursuit with some blasts from her photon cannon, and Robin blasted him from the side with her force gauntlets. "Focus fire! Take him down…
Elephant Man went down hard and got up screaming, a burst of anger prompting him to pound the ground. The shockwaves sent the young heroes flying backwards and gave the brute a chance to get his wits about him…
Suddenly, two foot falls reached his years, and Elephant Man turned to see Superboy, still shirtless but now with dry pants and his bruises largely healed, standing behind him with his arms crossed.
"You again?" he barked, clearly annoyed.
Superboy just spat on the ground in front of Elephant Man, and then pistoned back a fist and drove it directly into one of the photon canon burn wounds. Elephant Man shouted in rage and pain as he was sent sprawling backwards.
"Yeah. Me."
Robin got to her feet. "Come on, now! Hammer him! Everybody together."
Claire muttered a few choice curses and blasted at his knees while Phaeism turned into a pair of scissors and cut off one of his fleshy ears…
That drew the loudest cry yet, and when he swung to smash the culprit, he only hit gas.
Superboy followed up with another powerful punch, this time into the base of the brute's left tusk. The sound of ivory cracking had never been so satisfying.
Force gauntlets blasted Elephant Man back again, and Superboy flew underneath the wave and then uppercutted the mammoth into the air… A clearing that had a view of the ocean presented itself…
"Can you swim?" Kevin asked…
"Um… yeah…" Elephant Man was clearly confused.
"Good." And with that, Kevin blasted his most powerful kick ever into Elephant Man's rear, sending the brute flying off towards the horizon where he crashed into the bay near Titans' Island with a satisfyingly large splash.
Not believing what they had just seen, all the Titans stood wide-eyed as Superboy landed.
Kevin walked forward and studied the rag tag team, and finally said, "So, are we like gonna be a team or something, or was this like a one time deal?"
"Any reason you didn't do that before?" Claire asked, rubbing her aching shoulder where the metal attached to the skin. "Kicking him off into the horizon like that?"
Kevin shrugged. "I had to get into the right mindset. I guess you guys softened him up for me."
"Time out," Robin said, stepping forwards and idiosyncratically sticking a gloved finger to Kevin's chest. (Intentional or not, it still got reactions for Claire and Phaeism. They said nothing, though.)
"First of all, we're going to do a formal introduction, and then we'll talk about our offer." And I want your leech—your agent, Leech, here so that he's clear on every decision."
She removed her finger from his chest and started chewing on her lip. "And please shower and dress decently. We're meeting on the roof top of MasterCorp tonight at seven."
"MasterCorp is where—" Phaeism started to stammer.
"Yes, I know," Robin said. The exhaustion in her voice was making her more curt than normal. "I put a tracking device in the arch of your right shoe. Quid pro quo, after all."
Superboy just blinked… "So… why are you all talking about squid and tracking devices?"
