A/N: thanks to Irenerb for the review. This chapter shouldn't be as long as the previous one.
Die Hard in a Mountain
Artemis was scared out of her mind. First she had run into Robin while in Gotham; her lie had been poorly thought out and she knew the kid saw through it. Then, when they arrived, fire and water attacked them. Escaping, they soon found out that the siblings of one Red Tornado were responsible for the attack, having taken out the other four members of the team. They found them in the hangar. Miss Martian and Aqualad were trapped in a fire prison, the Martian already unconscious. Down below was Kid Flash and Superboy, sealed up with something she didn't recognize.
And Robin? In a pipe with her, calm as if this was common training with the Batman. It probably is.
"How can you be so calm?" Artemis asked, her Tigress armor getting stripped off. She had a black version of her old costume on underneath, designed for similar situations where the armor would be harmful.
"It's hard," Robin said, looking away. "However, I have to remain calm if the others are going to have a chance of surviving." He glanced at the armor. "You sure that's safe?"
"The self-destruct timer is off, birdbrain." Artemis looked away. "I'm freaking out here, trying to suppress my fears. But it's so hard."
"Listen to me carefully Artemis: you either get traught, or you'll be dead."
"Get traught. I'll try." She looked away, thinking. "How are we going to take them out? It's not like I have an EMP in this quiver. It's almost empty."
"I don't have one on my belt."
"But you could always make one." Artemis jumped at the voice. It was Wally. "Rob. Next time you decide to plant a COM with me, try not to crush my brain."
"Will do, KF. You have any ideas?"
"Yeah. Go to the med lab. Open up the x-ray machine. You'll find a small tube called a vircator. It converts high energy pulses." Artemis watched Robin pull out the device Wally mentioned and plug his wrist computer in. It had been shear luck they were so close. "Reprogram the microwave's emersion unit from x-ray to EMPs." Robin removed the device. "The cascading energy vector should be directed outward."
"A ripple effect. Like dropping a stone into a pond."
"A stone with ten to the twelfth power wattage, yeah." The line with KF was cut.
"So we'll need to hook this up to the cave's main generator," Robin told Artemis, not looking over.
"And where is that?"
"The hangar. Where the Reds are." Artemis grimaced, unsure of their plan. This better work.
Using the access tunnels, the two normals found themselves in the hangar. They dropped down on a ledge across from the generator. "Cover me," Robin told Artemis. She nodded, drawing out her final arrow, and began watching the Reds. Kid and Superboy began with a torrent of taunts, distracting the robots. Everything seemed fine until she heard "the circuit isn't complete." Events began moving faster than she could process. A massive tidal wave swept up Robin while fireballs caused a misfire of her final arrow.
Run. That was all she could think about. Not about her teammates, in peril. Not about the drowning Robin. Just a cowardly thought. Artemis climbed up and slipped into the tunnel before a Red could fry her. Crawling away, she looked down to watch as they kept the other non-super powered hero in water.
"What am I going to do?" she asked herself, shaking. Her mind was a mess, thoughts jumbled together with no order. And then a simple statement popped into mind.
This is just like Die Hard. You know, your favorite movie. Just do what he did. You have MP5s somewhere in the cave. Smiling, she slunk off to get the guns. She just hoped it would be soon enough for the others.
Artemis was hiding ten feet above the Reds when they announced one minute left. It hadn't taken long to get the two guns she had hidden in Wally's souvenir room. She had also taken her old arrow to turn on the EMP should her first plan fail.
She pressed into the COM in her ear. "Do it, KF."
"I got a message from Artemis for you two tin bots!" She released a tense breath, bringing the guns next to her head, resting them on shoulders. "She says, "I have a machine gun now. Ho ho ho."" Wally then laughed, mimicking his version of Santa Claus. It sounded like what Batman would sound like if he laughed at a joke. Shaking the loose thought away, Artemis jumped from her perch.
"Yippie kay-yay, mother fuckers!" She opened fire and the robots were torn to shreds in a couple seconds, the water level lowering and the fire cage fading. Artemis landed hard near Robin. Kaldur announced that Miss Martian was fine. Reaching out to the Boy Wonder, she heard a cough and then a small laugh.
"Way to get traught."
A/N: the idea to throw in the Die Hard stuff came from Movies Are Awesome! by Mr. Wartburg, who used a similar scene with Roy. If you haven't read it yet, what is wrong with you?
