Chapter Seven: Trogaar's Vengeance
There we were, outnumbered six to ten, but we weren't going to let that stop us. As soon as the gordanians launched an attack, each of us sprang in to action, fighting them off. Robin was using his staff and martial arts moves that I had never seen before. Beast Boy changed into various animals and fought them in those forms. Cyborg was taking it to them with his bare hands. His cybernetic enhancements no doubt gave him enhanced strength. Raven was attacking by enshrouding various objects, such as street-light poles and parts of vehicles, in dark energy and using those to fight off the monsters.
The alien girl (whose name I still did not know) was using her green energy attacks and supernatural strength to drive them away, like she did against us before. And then there was me. While using my powers I was able to dodge moves quicker and attack faster. The gordanians were apparently not used to fighting such a focused opponent. Just to be safe though, I parried some of their attacks with my shield. Whenever I had an opening, I'd hit them with my sword. It wasn't able to cut them, but the force of my blows were still driving them back.
A moment later, I noticed one of the gordanians had pummeled the alien girl into the ground, so hard that it made a crater. It was about to attack her with an electrical blast from its spear, but I intervened by bashing it with my shield and then attacking it with a three-slash combo. My attack sent him into the wall of a building nearby. My attention turned to the alien girl, who was still in the crater.
"You alright?" I asked her.
She didn't say anything, but she gave me a quick smile, which obviously meant that she was okay. As the battle raged on, the gordanians quickly realized that they were fighting a losing battle and retreated back to their base.
"That's right! Fly back to your ship you reptilian freaks!" I shouted at them as they flew away.
While we witnessed their retreat, the alien girl thanked all of us for fighting them off. A split second later though, I felt my powers fail, and I slumped down in exhaustion. The alien girl gasped and the others gathered around me in concern.
"Dude! Are you alright!" Beast Boy asked hastily.
"Don't worry…. Just give me a minute… I'll be fine…" I said while hyperventilating.
I was so focused on the battle at the time that I didn't take note of how long I had my powers on for. I really needed to use them more conservatively.
I had noticed that Cyborg's jacket had been ripped to shreds in the battle, revealing just how much of his body was mechanical.
"Aww man… my suit." Cyborg groaned.
"So? You look way cooler without it!" Beast Boy said, trying to cheer him up.
"Yeah… Like I'm going to take fashion advice from the kid in the goofy mask." Cyborg said sarcastically, making note of Beast Boy's rather…. peculiar mask.
"Goofy? My mask is cool…. isn't it?" Beast Boy asked us.
It actually did look kind of silly. I wasn't the only one who thought that, because Raven was also shaking her head in disagreement.
"But… what about my secret identity?" he asked.
"What secret identity? You're green." Raven told him.
Beast Boy tried to come up with a reason, but he couldn't. So he eventually gave in and took off the mask. Secret identity? What was that supposed to mean?
After that, Robin informed us that this wasn't over. My strength had returned to me and I was standing up straight again just in time to hear this.
"Now that we've interfered…" he started to say, but the alien girl cut him off.
"Trogaar will strike harder." She said.
I was assuming that Trogaar was the name of the gordanian that we saw on the projection earlier, their leader.
"It is only a matter of time before…" she started to say.
Before she could finish though, the tower that had been placed on the island off the coast earlier once again projected Trogaar's image.
"Fools! The Earth scum were warned!" he demanded. "Your insolence shall be punished! Your city shall be destroyed!"
After that he image faded, and that gigantic spaceship we saw earlier reappeared over top of the tower. A very loud noise came from it and the front part of it lit up. We all saw it. The front of the ship was charging up. It was a laser! And it was pointed right at the city!
"Let me get this straight…" Beast Boy said. "After wrecking a video store and a perfectly good pizza place, now we've managed to make a giant space gecko mad enough to destroy our entire town?!"
"Sounds about right." Raven answered sarcastically.
I knew things looked bad, but I knew if we all did something we might be able to stop it. That's what I was thinking, but before I could tell everyone, the alien girl became angry again, with her attention focused on me.
"All of the fault is yours! I demanded that you leave me alone, but you insisted on the being nice!" she shouted at me, right in my face.
"How is this my fault?! I've just been trying to help! You could've told me about those things in the first place! But no, what did you do? You hit me! You blast me! You….kiss me. And you don't even think to mention that a bunch of space lizards are after you and have a weapon that could level this entire area?!" I shouted back at her.
The others were having their own arguments, but they weren't as intense as the one the alien girl and I were having.
"Well, you…..!" she started to say before I cut her off.
"No! Don't blame this on me! You are the one who crashed here! You are the one who led them here! But instead of doing anything about it, or trying to prevent it, all you were concerned about… WAS YOURSELF!" I shouted at her angrily.
When she heard that, she at first tried to come up with a counter statement, but she couldn't find one. Her expression changed from angry, to sad, and to my surprise, I saw tears forming in her eyes. I just did the one thing I hoped I'd never do to anyone: I hurt her feelings.
I tried to calm her down. Tried to take back everything I had just said. But with the others still arguing I had a difficult time trying to do so. Fortunately, Raven apparently couldn't stand the arguing anymore.
"QUIET!" she shouted.
That caught all of our attention, and everyone stopped arguing, and each of us stared at Raven with various looks on our faces. With all of us staring Raven felt awkward, again. We quickly came to our senses though, and Robin decided on what we should do.
"It doesn't matter how any of us got into this. We're in it." Robin said. "And we're going to get out of it. Together."
He then held out his hand in front of him in an attempt to get all of us to join in. Really? Robin, who was so against being on a team, was now the one to try and convince us to team up? Rather ironic, huh?
But regardless, I agreed with him 100%, so I placed my hand on top of his. The next person to do so was the alien girl, probably still thinking about what I had said to her before. After that both Beast Boy and Cyborg joined in. And then finally, after a few seconds of thought, Raven joined in too.
We decided on a plan of action. Raven, using her powers, would teleport us into the gordanian spaceship. Once there, we would deactivate the laser and take Trogaar down.
Once we were inside, we hid in a crevice in one of the halls to keep from being seen. Robin was about to proceed down the hall, but I quickly stopped him. I had heard several gordanians heading this way, and I was right. I have really good hearing, probably because my ears are pointed a little. When they passed we all quietly sighed in relief.
"We need to find the command bridge." Robin told us.
"Command bridge?" I asked him.
"The area in the ship that controls it." He informed me.
I confirmed that I understood. I didn't hear any more gordanians coming at the moment, so I decided to scout ahead. The others followed quietly.
I was keeping an eye out for any guards and for a way to the command bridge. But at the same time, I was thinking about what I had said to the alien girl before. How I had shouted in her face like that. I felt like a jerk. I had to apologize to her. But when I turned around to go speak to her, she was already standing in front of me.
"I bring you…. apology…" she said.
"No. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that." I told her.
"You… had every right to yell. What you said was all true. All of this is my fault." She told me.
"No… it isn't." I said. "Well… you did crash here, and they did come here because of that. But… you didn't do it on purpose. And you wanted to be left alone… so that they wouldn't hurt anyone. And the whole 'tough girl' act was so that people would leave you alone."
"….You… knew about that?" she asked, looking surprised.
"It wasn't that hard to figure out. I… can be good at seeing the truth in people sometimes." I said with a bit of awkwardness in my tone.
"You… really are a nice person, Link." She said. "On my home planet, only my K'norfka has ever shown me such kindness…"
"Well… you can trust me when I say that… you may encounter a lot of that here…" I told her.
After hearing that, she just kept staring at me and smiling. In fact, her smile was really…. cute. And her eyes were still incredibly pretty. I felt really strange as I looked into her eyes, but I wasn't sure why at first. Then I had a thought. Could it be because I was…?
Before I could confirm it though, both of us were interrupted by Beast Boy. He alerted us to the fact that we had just been discovered! Three gordanians came rushing at us. We were able to drive them away though, and afterwards we hastened our search for the command bridge. Fortunately, we soon found it. Unfortunately, it was crawling with gordanians.
There was a large throne-like seat in the center of the room, and upon it sat Trogaar, the one responsible for all of this. He was even more grotesque in person. Rather than getting up, he commanded his troops to attack us. Except for the surroundings it wasn't much different from the previous battle. Robin beat them back with his physical combat, while Beast Boy showed off more of the animals he could turn into, and Cyborg smacked them around with fists. Raven was using her dark powers like before, but strangely it seemed like she was holding back.
The alien girl had my back while I was swatting gordanians left and right with my sword. It was tough, but it was about to get tougher, because after a few minutes, Trogaar himself entered the battle. And unfortunately for me, it seemed like I was his target.
"So you are the fool who decided to interfere with us." Trogaar said as he stood before me. "Link, is it?"
"What?!" I gasped. "How do you know that?!"
"You didn't think I wouldn't send scouts to this world before invading now, did you?" he asked me. "Yes. When we tracked the girl here, my scouts also witnessed your… encounter with the prisoner."
I backed away slowly. I was a little scared. They had been watching us beforehand?!
"I also heard reports of the battle you had against my troops on the surface. What I heard from that report intrigued me." he told me. "I want to see what you can do, kid. After all, there may be room on my ship for another prize."
If he thought he was going to take me too, he was sorely mistaken. I had tried to withhold from using my powers during this fight, but against an opponent like this, I don't think my regular skills would be enough. I stood ready and activated my powers, and Trogaar saw both my blade and my eyes glow with blue light. Trogaar chortled.
"Interesting. But it'll take more than a little light show to defeat the mighty Lord Trogaar!" he said menacingly.
Ignoring what he said, I rushed towards him with my sword held out. He dodged the first few attacks, but the last strike managed to hit him on the side. However, it did little more than make him stumble for a second. Trogaar laughed.
"My apologies, was that supposed to hurt?" he said mockingly. "I guess you're not aware of just how resilient gordanian armor is. It's going to take more than that pathetic excuse for a sword of yours to put a dent in this!"
Despite what he said, I wasn't going to give up. Then at that moment, while Trogaar's attention was on me, the alien girl swooped in and punched him straight in the jaw, which sent him flying into the wall. She was about to follow up with another attack, but I urged her to stop.
"Leave him to me." I told her.
"But…" she began to say.
"I want to make him pay for what he's done, personally." I said.
She was a bit reluctant to agree at first, but she eventually backed down. Trogaar had recovered by then and came at me with a series of physical attacks. I was able to dodge all of them, and retaliate with an attack of my own, which made him stumble again. Maybe my attacks couldn't damage him, but maybe they'd be enough to wear him out.
All of the sudden, I felt my strength leave me and I was exhausted, which only meant one thing: I had been using my powers for over ten minutes… again! Seriously, I needed to learn to use my powers less recklessly. It couldn't have been at a worse time too, because Trogaar had regained his footing and noticed me in my weakened state.
"What's the matter? Out of steam already? Disappointing…" Trogaar said.
While I was still attempting to recover, Trogaar grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and held me up trying to strangle me, just like in my encounter with that masked man a few days ago. The alien girl and the others saw this and tried to intervene, but their attempt was blocked by several of Trogaar's guards. At that moment, Robin remembered Cyborg's sonic analyzer and asked him if he could rewire it into a weapon. As Trogaar's attention was fixed on me at the time, they had enough time to try.
"You are a curiosity kid…" Trogaar said menacingly to me. "Your appearance is that of a mere human, yet this strange power dwells within you…"
Some of my energy had returned, but it still wasn't enough to break free of his grip.
"And your foolish attempt to aid the prisoner… one you have never met, and yet you feel the need to risk your life to assist her as if you have known her forever." Trogaar said mockingly. "How pathetic… why would you go to such lengths to help a stranger? A stranger who could likely care less!"
The moment I heard that last part, something in my head snapped again, and I'm pretty sure I felt my left arm burn again. That rage I had felt before was back. This time however, it gave me the strength to break free of Trogaar's grip, much to his surprise. We both regained our footing afterwards.
"I didn't need a reason! I helped her out of the kindness of my own heart! But a monster like you wouldn't understand that!" I yelled at him.
The blue light in my eyes had turned from a simple glow, to a surge of flaming aura. Everyone around had noticed that, including Trogaar.
"Boy…what are you?" he asked me.
"….I'm a hero." I answered.
Trogaar's response was a hideously evil laugh. He lunged towards me again, but I dodged his blow so fast, it almost seemed like I vanished. I felt stronger than I had ever been before. I was right behind him, and while his back was turned, I mercilessly slashed his back. Trogaar yelled in pain and stumbled horribly, for my attack had done more than just knock him back.
My attack had cut through his scales and left an open scar on his back. It was only bleeding a little, but I could tell from his reaction that it was painful.
"YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT YOU LITTLE WORM!" Trogaar viciously yelled at me.
He was about to attack me again, but someone interrupted him. It was Raven, who was holding up Beast Boy, who looked gravely injured. She looked annoyed, and I could tell she had had enough of this.
"Leave my friends alone!" she told him.
During all of this, I could feel a strange energy flowing through the entire spaceship, and that energy was spiraling towards Raven. It appeared that it was being gathered into the gemstone on her forehead, because her gem had become enveloped in dark fire.
"Azarath…Metroin…Zinthos!" she chanted.
After the last word, all of that dark energy was unleashed in a devastating attack that nearly blew the spaceship in two! It didn't, but the attack must've knocked out its engine or something, because the spaceship crashed into the bay and floated atop the water.
The strength of that attack also knocked everyone out, everyone except Raven. We were all able to recover though. The gordanians weren't though. They were strewn about ship lying unconscious…. maybe even dead. As I got back on my feet, Raven weakly approached me while still holding up Beast Boy.
"Are you okay?" she asked me.
"Yeah… I'll be fine." I told her.
I may have spoken too soon, because from out of the smoke stumbled Trogaar. Unbelievable! He survived that?! Not only was he alive, but he looked really angry. His claws lengthened as he approached us.
"I… will not… allow myself… to be humiliated… by a bunch of children!" he proclaimed.
But before he could attempt to rip us to shreds, a light-blue laser hit him in the back, right where I had damaged him. He screamed in agony, and then fell to his knees. The one who had fired the laser was Cyborg, who had successfully managed to convert his analyzer into a cannon.
"Alright… I'm only gonna say this once. Boo-yah!" he said.
Actually he'll end up saying that more than just once, but that comes much later. In the meantime, we all made sure everyone wasn't too badly injured. They seemed concerned about me the most, saying that I had taken most of the beating in my fight against Trogaar, but I assured them that I was fine.
The alien girl was observing Trogaar, who was still collapsed on the floor of the ship.
"Is he….?" She started to ask.
"Dead? No, I can hear him breathing. He's just used up all of his energy." I said.
The others gathered around to see if it was true. Trogaar was definitely alive, but after that last attack, he wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.
"So what should we do with him?" Cyborg asked.
"We're not just going to send his butt back into space where he belongs?" Beast Boy asked.
Considering that the alien girl was with us, I found Beast Boy's question somewhat offensive. But I knew what he meant.
"If we just let him go back to his world, what would stop him from doing all of this all over again?" I asked as an example. "No. If you ask me, I say we send him to jail."
"Are you sure the prison here would be enough to hold him?" Cyborg asked.
"Don't worry," Robin said. "I know of a prison to send him to, one that even he couldn't escape."
After we had arranged for Trogaar to be hauled off to this particular prison that Robin had mentioned earlier, we all gathered on the small island off the coast, the one that still had the gordanian tower on it. The sun had begun to rise, and the scenery was spectacular. We were all watching it, but I was watching it a bit further away than the others. After a moment, they had noticed this.
"Hey, Link?" Robin asked. "You okay?"
"I'm fine…" I claimed. "I'm just waiting for that alien girl to come back."
"Link, I'm pretty sure that she's headed back to her home planet by now." Cyborg told me.
Could she really had left already? I hoped that she hadn't… I never even got her name. However, my worries were soon put to rest.
"Don't jump to conclusions." Raven said, pointing to who was behind me afterwards.
The alien girl had come back. I turned around to greet her, but I was in for a surprise. She looked different. She wasn't wearing the same outfit as before. She was now wearing a purple tank top and skirt. She looked cute. Really cute. My whole face almost turned red when I saw her.
"Please… I look… nice?" she asked.
I came to my senses, and nodded to answer her question.
"I… never found out your name. Unless… is it still of no importance to me?" I asked her.
After I asked her that, she smiled and I saw a sparkle in her eyes.
"It is important now. In your language it would be… Star… Fire." She said.
Star. Fire. Starfire? That was an unusual name. But I liked it. It was just as unusual as my name.
"Welcome to Earth, Starfire." Robin said to her. It was reassuring to know that he saw her as a friend now, instead of trying to hurt her.
"I thank all of you for your bravery and help. And…. I wish to ask permission… to remain here." She told us.
"You… want to stay… here… on Earth?" I asked her.
"Yes. I wish to stay here, where the people are most strange. But… also most... kind." She told us.
She was looking at me when she said that last part. That time my face did turn red, and so did hers, as we turned our heads away slightly while still looking at each other.
"You don't need our permission to stay." Raven told her.
"But if you want our friendship, you've got it." Robin told her.
She had my friendship from the start, though I'm glad everyone here was now extending their hands in friendship.
"I guess we could all use some new friends…" Cyborg said.
"We did kind of make a good team." Beast Boy said.
I agreed with him, and I wasn't the only one. Robin suggested that we should keep in touch, and then handed each of us a small round communication device. Cyborg had made them, from his own circuitry. As long as we had these, if there was any trouble, we knew who to call.
Unfortunately, not even this communicator could help me during the perilous journey that I would soon take.
