Author's Notes: Wow, I can't believe it's been a year since I've started writing about the Misfit-verse! A full year! Can you believe it?
Misfits, X-Men, Joes, Justice League, Dinosaucers, Titans, Leomon and Jake (deadpanned): Unfortunately…yes.
Quiet, all of you! Enjoy this chapter, you guys!
CHAPTER 9: It Ain't Over Till The Fat Demon Sings!
"I'm ready, Slade!" Robin yelled as he jumped within the masked sadist's sights. Slade smiled inwardly towards himself; only the Boy Wonder would know the satisfaction Slade would have at facing his former apprentice, just as Robin wouldn't be equally satisfied until he faced Slade and beaten him once and for all.
"I wouldn't expect any less from you, Robin," and Slade then chuckled as if the private thought was a joke to him before he said with delight, "But no amount of training and steadfastness would have ever prepared you for a one-on-one battle with a servant of Trigon and a member of the Hellfire Club. In this battle, I am your superior. After all, it was merely only a week or so ago when I was able to thwart your pitiful attempts to protect and hide the portal…"
"That's when you tried facing Robin alone," Wavedancer said with venom as she and X23 stood side by side with Robin in tense battle stances, "Wanna try pushing your luck against a Misfit and an X-Man as well, Slade? I'm just jumping for the chance to punch your lights out…"
Slade's body drew up a bit straighter, as if now interested in the challenge of three versus one as he said, "My, my, my…a trio of promising teens unafraid to test their limits? How touching…yet strangely stimulating. I must admit, Robin, that you have an odd yet thrilling habit of seeking the most derogatory of friends, but from the looks of it, these two girls are the proverbial diamonds in the rough, novel candidates for apprentices. Quite a discovery, the thought that I may have a Misfit and an X-Man as my possible protégées. It's simply the little pleasures that makes me glad I am alive now…"
"You won't be once we're through with you!" X23 snarled as she drew out her claws on both hands and her foot with a foreboding, spine-tingling shikt. Althea cracked her knuckles in anticipation while Robin's hand went ever so slightly towards his utility belt.
"This should be a match to remember…" Slade commented idly, as if he wasn't the least bit worried as X23, Wavedancer, and Robin blitzed him. Yet Slade was not worried in the slightest. He was not one of the top hired killers for nothing. The enigmatic male had the ability to use more than eighty-percent of his brain, and with so much mental guile, the killer could easily calculate and estimate every distinct probability in battle, thoroughly analyzing each prospect and chance until he comfortably covered all bases to ensure he would win with unnatural dexterity and finesse. And despite the skill of three fierce warriors such as Althea, Rina, and Robin, Slade was absolutely sure that no matter what, he would always remain the victor once this battle was over.
Robin struck first as he removed several Birdarangs from his utility belt and flung them hard at the masked assassin. Slade easily evaded the razor-sharp discs and projectiles with barely even any conscious effort as he twisted his body and sidestepped as swiftly as the wind, his moves strangely acrobatic and like a dance. Wavedancer and X23 then charged from both sides of their opponent, ready to besiege him with the very training techniques that they had perfected in the dojo of the Titans Tower for the past week. Wavedancer gave a jumping front kick, and upon seeing Slade effectively counter it with a high block of his forearm, X23 rushed in with an elbow strike to get within Slade's comfort zone. Slade simply strafed to the left before he returned a hard knee into X23's back, and biting back the pain of letting her healing factor kick in to slowly recuperate the broken bone, Rina attempted to return the favor with a spin kick aimed at Slade's exposed leg. Slade simply acrobatically back-flipped and caught the X-Girl hard in the chin with his foot with his split-kick. Wavedancer then rushed forward with a series of rabbit punches, all of which Slade simply avoided as he moved back and forth side to side, making it impossible for Althea to even land a strike. Enraged and frustrated, Althea then let out a devastating riposte while Robin now drew out his staff and hammered down on Slade above with quick, ferocious jabs at Slade's head and neck. Slade wordlessly just grabbed the end of Robin's staff deftly before wrenching it out of the Titan's hands, and then knocked Althea back with a swift axe-kick to her shoulder that dislocated on impact and left her stunned on the floor. As Robin tried to deliver a hammer kick on Slade's head, the masked adult grabbed Robin's foot before throwing Robin into a nearby outcropping of rock with a judo throw, sending Robin to collide hard with the wall and crumbling it on impact. Robin fell, dizzy and groaning, while Rina, now murderous, tried to feint to the left before kicking out with her foot to the right and adding a hammer punch. Slade just avoided every one of the X-Man's strikes before he crouched down and sent a devastating and powerful palm strike to Rina's chest that was so forceful, it sent X23 flying back at last ten feet, screaming. Slade scoffed at the bruised and bleeding three, surveying them with disenchantment.
"I would have thought that fighters are wise as yourselves would have already accepted the fact," Slade said none too warmly, "I can anticipate and read your every move; there will be no anomalies in this fight. I have easily brought the strongest and most cunning fighters from all three teams on their knees without even breaking a sweat. The end shall be the same no matter what you heroes try. However, it's amusing, really, to think you three disappointments have a chance to stopping the Armageddon and saving the world…"
"You mean you're actually proud about dooming the world and causing the end of human life as we know it just to please the monster that brought you back to life?" spat Rina as she wiped the blood running from her mouth. Slade's eye gleamed a bit in the light of the lava flowing all around them.
"My dear, X23," Slade remarked idly, "You must think that I am doing this out of the ridiculous notion of loyalty. To tell the truth, I am simply doing this because it suits me…"
"As self-serving and backstabbing as always, Slade…" hissed Robin in unsurprised disgust as he, Wavedancer, and X23 blitzed him again.
Meanwhile, the other members of the Teen Titans, the Titans East, the X-Men, the Misfits, the H.I.V.E. trio, Silkie and Lockheed all managed to split apart and scatter to face their army of nemeses…
"Hellions, attack formation: Zeta-Hellfire!" the leader, Monet, exclaimed in a authoritative tone before she telekinetically lifted several huge boulders the size of minivans, her eyes narrowed in deliberation. Bringing her forefingers to her temples, the dark-haired girl sent them flying in lumbering arcs down upon Scarlet Witch and Jean. The X-Girl halted two of the stones in their tracks while Scarlet Witch then sent a massive hexbolt that immediately crumbled the rest of the rock hailstorm into dust and pebbles. Monet, during this distraction, was attempting to telepathically turn the girls on each other by controlling their minds when a small figure leapt out with a flying kick. Monet, her training from Emma Frost rising instantly, crossed her arms over her head and blocked the foot that was about to smash her right side of her face. Undaunted, Brittany adroitly back-flipped to the ground in front of the Hellion telepath before she did a handstand and high-kicked right underneath the apex of the crossed arms, catching Monet in the torso and sending her stumbling back. Shaking off the cobwebs, Monet glared at the lone Delgado sister as Jean and Scarlet Witch joined the lone Delgado adolescent.
"Well, well, well…" remarked Monet with one eyebrow raised, taken aback, "We thought that Trinity would stick together and try to take down one of us with their conjoined psychic waves."
"One rule about war, Monet: do whatever your enemy least suspects…" Brittany shot back, razzing the black-haired Hellion with a raspberry noisily.
"How true…" Monet shot back before she maliciously then sent a telepathic mental assault to incapacitate them before she slowly but surely attempted to detach each of their brainstems inside their skulls telekinetically. Such an attack would surely leave all of them brain-dead at once. It was ruthless and cold, but it was war. Wanda whimpered as Monet managed to break through the sturdy shields Raven's power left inside of her and fell to her knees, holding her throbbing head as the back of her skull felt like someone was ripping out her brain with a glove laced with fire. Jean, horrified at what Monet was trying to do, then neutralized the mental assault by shielding all of them with her telekinesis, and at once, the pain disappeared and subsided. Brittany then acted as she aimed her purple and pink glovatrix (Jake earlier conceded that Trinity could keep the designs that they stole from his blueprints) and fired several strange projectiles. Monet was about to deflect them, but Wanda, now murderous, sent out a hexbolt from the distracted Monet's blind spot, and with a flash of blue light, the Hellion was stripped of her powers. Monet screamed in rage before the missiles from Brittany exploded.
Paff! Splat!
"Auuuugggghhh!" screamed Monet as her entire face and upper body was now covered with thick, black sludge and white feathers, and no amount of wiping could ever remove it from her person. Brittany smirked.
"Like it? It's a simple tar-and-father missile we designed especially for something in this case. Have fun spending several hours removing it from your face with turpentine, Monet! Well, that is, after you finish treating your bruises, broken nose and black eye!"
"What are you talking about, you little - ?" Monet ranted as she blindly tried to blast the Delgado with her telekinesis by honing in on the sound of the Misfit's voice, yet Jean and Wanda then both simultaneously let loose a cross-punch directly in their opponent's face. There was a satisfying sound as Monet toppled over without a sound, unconscious.
At another part of the battlefield, Xi, Bezerker, and Beast Boy were brawling with Beef. The Hellion was busy dodging the blasts of burning electricity Ray was shooting at him before he then charged the X-Man with his fists swinging, ready to seriously cripple and beat the lanky teen to death. Bezerker's eyes widened as he continued to blast at the hefty and burly teenager, but Beef, like a football player, managed to gracefully avoid and dart narrowly in between the shafts of energy as he got closer and closer before it would be too late. Ray cringed, his face white, as Beef leapt at him with his fist…
WHAM!
A green elephant miraculously, at the last second, shoved Beef into the side, and before the Hellion could do anything, he was jostled off his warpath to attack Bezerker. Roaring and giving off an angry cry through his trunk, Beast Boy then stormed towards Beef with his tusks and trunk ready, his feet sending soft vibrations in the earth as the heavy and cumbersome elephant rushed. Beef grinned as he dived in between the elephant's legs at the last second before Beast Boy could try to subdue him and positioned himself underneath the elephant's stomach. Sadistically, Beef rammed his fists powerfully into the elephant's midsection, and Beast Boy winced as, despite the elephant's solid body, could feel the pain of the attacks. Distracted with the agony, the changeling could only limply struggle as Beef, with his massive strength, then actually managed to pick up the massive pachyderm, raising him over his head before he tossed him deftly at Bezerker.
"Yikes!" Ray yelped as he dodged to the side to avoid being crushed by the immense elephant, but Beast Boy then managed to get over his pain enough to transform into a hummingbird, flittering madly in the air and ceasing his descent. Beef was about to charge again when he yelled, his side throbbing, before he looked down and saw that he was bleeding. Then another set of deep lacerations raked across his cheek and shoulder. Then another set sliced across his back. Then another on his leg. Beef, now guessing that he was being attacked by some invisible enemy, managed to make another grab, and by pure luck, maintained a tight hold across the uniform of Xi who, now distracted, became visible. Xi tried to fight, but then the sandy-haired strong-man painfully grabbed Xi's wrists like a vise and hoisted them over the Misfit's head before Beef then grabbed Xi's legs with his other hand and lifted Xi over his head.
"Gotcha, ya' little snake! I'm gonna enjoy ripping you apart!" Beef snarled as he pulled hard.
Xi screamed in pain as he could feel his spine reaching the critical point before it would snap in half. Thankfully, Beast Boy came to the rescue as a green-skinned triceratops, as large as two SUVs put together and more than the combined ferocity and horsepower, rammed Beef hard in the back, the horn on the dinosaur's snout catching the Hellion full in his lumbar region of his backbone and gouging it rather painfully. Xi fell to the ground, whimpering with pain but the injuries lessening to a small twinge as Beast Boy then tossed a hollering Beef high into the air before the transformed back to human form.
"Dude, now!" yelled Garfield as he bent down to Xi's side, helping the Misfit stand up while the X-Men then unleashed the most powerful electrical blast he could ever summon and cut loose on the large target. Beef screamed even louder, almost falsetto, as the electricity ravaged his body before he lost consciousness and crashed to the ground hard, making an impact with his singed and slightly smoking body. Ray rushed over to Xi as he leaned heavily on Beast Boy.
"You OK, Xi?" The X-Man asked.
"I'll live…" Xi managed to groan as he tried to stand up by himself and tested his back, wincing at the effort but glad to discover that nothing was broken.
"Good, cause the fight's not over yet," Beast Boy sighed with a mixture of relief and dismay.
Meanwhile, Dragonfly was having an electrical dilemma of her own…
"Hey, fly-girl! Fly over here, the Hellions' personal bug-zapper for little pests like you!" snarled Bevatron with glee as he let loose on Dragonfly in the air while the female medic of the Misfits did her best to dodge and avoid the hot surges of energy. Thanks to her Joe training, she was able to remain unscathed, but Lina doubted that she could maintain it for long. Luckily, Silkie, Forge, and Quinn Delgado were engaged in battle with Bevatron alongside her. Forge, wearing a strange, shiny metallic suit and Quinn charged the Hellion, rushing him from both sides and barraged him with a flurry of punches and kicks (Forge was surprisingly adept at self-defense ever since Jake started sparring with him). Bevatron then ceased his attention on Lina in the air before he used his extensive training from the Hellfire Club to return some of physical violence of his own. Forge let loose a hook at the Hellion's face, but Bevatron blocked it before grabbing the collar of the X-Man inventor and yanked him hard toward his knee, driving it into Forge's stomach before delivering an uppercut. Forge stumbled back, dizzy and his jaw numb, while Quinn then flew down with a stomp-kick at her enemy's head. The Hellion managed to dodge-roll the foot and maneuver his way out of close-quarters with the eleven year-old Misfit. Undaunted, Quinn sprang at him, leaping high towards his head area with her leg extended out in front of her in a push kick formation. Sneering that this would be easy, Bevatron raised his arm and blocked it before grabbing the leg and dangling the girl upside down by the ankle, jerking her roughly and ready t6o electrocute her.
"Ready to fry, you little rugrat?" Bevatron sneered but before he could release a crippling surge of electricity, Quinn made one last desperate attempt from her position as she bent back her other leg and kicked the Hellion solidly in the chin as hard as she could, catching him off guard.
"Let me go, you creep!" Quinn shouted before she felt the grip around her ankle lessen, and the member of the Delgado Triplets managed to break her fall by doing a handstand and back-flipping away from the male teen as he rubbed his bleeding and stinging mouth. This was enough for Dragonfly to act…
"Take this, you jerk!" Lina cried as she rammed the sidetracked Bevatron full in the back, using her wings to propel her to an appropriate ramming speed with her arms crossed in front of her, elbows sticking out. Bevatron gave a grunt of painful surprised as his pitched forward, falling face-first on the ground. This gave Silkie the chance to act as he jumped off Lina's back and landed heavily on Bevatron's back before opening his mouth wide and chomping down hard…
Chomp!
"YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" screamed Bevatron, "My butt! My butt!"
"And nothing like a little photo to commemorate this little moment of humiliation," grinned Quinn, snapping her miniature digital camera as Bevatron tried furiously to grab and pry the mutant silkworm off his posterior, with Silkie's teeth deeply embedded into the Hellion's flesh.
During this altercation, Kitty was trying to taunt Jetstream into attacking her as he tore across the sky with his plasma-rocketing powers…
"Like, try coming down here and fight us like a man, you coward!" Shadowcat shouted to the skies above, but Jetstream was no fool. Due to the biochemical-thermal energy that his body expelled every time he propelled himself like a rocket and used his powers, parts of Haroun's body had broken down and disintegrated long ago, and when the Hellfire Club recruited him, they rebuilt parts of his physique with cybernetic parts. Like the Titan, Cyborg, Jetstream was part-robot. And he knew exactly what would happen if Shadowcat ever phased into him…
"I'd rather be a live coward than a dead X-Man!" Jetstream sneered as he took out a laser pistol from his pocket of his uniform and began shooting short pulses of hot radiation at Kitty, who managed to phase through them easily, not even making much of an effort to dodge them. Seeing it was fruitless, Jetstream then rocketed himself at breakneck, lethal speeds towards Piotr who was just below him. The Russian X-Man transformed into his steel mode right before the impact…
KAWHAM!
Not heavily injured but still surprised nonetheless, Colossus didn't even let out a grunt as the force Jetstream transferred to the X-Men was enough to send the heavy, solid-steel armored mutant flying back at least a hundred feet before he crashed into a large lake of lava, disappearing below the surface. Shadowcat screamed in fear as she ran to the edge of the island, hollering as loudly as she could, her voice frantic, "Peter! Peter! Oh Peter, please like be all right!"
"Yeah, like anyone could survive being dunked in a sea of molten rock, valley girl!" mocked Jetstream as he began to soar back into the air, away from being in range to close physical contact with Shadowcat, but then was astounded with gall and rage when Aqualad, taking a flying leap, jumped onto the Hellion's back.
"Guess who, topsider?" Aqualad snapped, not joking in the slightest as he grabbed Jetstream in a chokehold with the crook of one arm and covered the Hellion's eyes with his other hand. Now choking and blind, Jetstream's flight-pattern was incredibly erratic and frenzied, darting in crooked, chaotic lines as the dark-skinned protégée of Emma Frost did everything he could to buck off the Titan. Yet it was no use; Aqualad, with muscles developed from swimming and diving in incredibly deep and pressurized waters, had a grip of pure steel.
"By Atlantis, at least try to make it look like you're putting up a fight!" mocked Aqualad as he strengthened his grip even more while Haroun's fingers dug and clawed at his arms and hands, "I've fought with squids who were better brawlers and wrestlers than you! And they were definitely a lot less slimy and better company to boot!"
"Let go of me, you fish-kisser!" rasped Jetstream in a strangled, dying voice as he tried to shoot up higher into the sky, hoping the speed and G-forces would make the Titan East let go. Surprisingly, Aqualad let go and jumped off the Hellion's back, plummeting downwards back to the Earth. At first, Jetstream was relieved and satisfied…for a split-second. Because Aqualad was covering his eyes, Jetstream had no idea he was flying directly into the chest of a Sentinel robot until it was too late to even try to swerve desperately out of the imminent collision that was going to happen in less than one second…
KAA-BOOOOOMMMM!
"And scratch one Sentinel," smirked Aqualad as he landed back heavily onto the ground while the Sentinel exploded from impact of the discharge of bio-thermal radiation released from Jetstream when the Hellion unintentionally rammed directly into it. Speaking of the Sentinels, the rest of the killer robots Slade and the Hellfire Club had summoned were being challenged from Speedy, Bumblebee, Starfire, Gizmo, Mammoth, Gambit, Boom-Boom, Multiple, Magma, and Quicksilver. Since they could provide wide-ranged attacks powerful enough to take down armies, they all unconsciously joined in the front line to prevent the murderous and towering automatons. The archer of Titans East then acted first as he drew back his bowstring.
"Everyone, shield your eyes!" Speedy yelled warningly on their corresponding communicators right before he let loose a strangely constructed arrow with a strange, cylindrical apparatus on the very front end. The arrow speed with haste before it exploded in a bright flash of light, so bright it was almost like a miniature sun that managed to light the entire sky for an instant before settling the atmosphere back to its foreboding red and black heavens. The purple-and-red humanoid machines made whirring and clanking noises of malfunction as their heads darted back and forth madly, as if they had no idea where there targets were.
"Whoa! What did you do?" Pietro gasped, "What the heck was that arrow?"
"It was a flare-arrow!" Speedy shouted as he let loose a bomb arrow at another Sentinel, dead in its chest, causing it to falter a bit, "It can release a surge of pure light that is so strong, it can blind people! I sent it at the Sentinels so that I could overload their sensory-circuits in their robotic eyes! The Sentinels are blind now! Their circuits to their eyes are now overloaded! Trust me, I've tried this on robots before to know that it works! They're blind now! They can sense us, but at least they can't see us!"
"Finally, the Robin Hood reject finally does something useful other than sniff his armpits!" Gizmo sneered before he, Starfire, and Bumblebee took off in the air. Pulling out his robotic hang-glider strapped to his back, Gizmo flew up in the air while unleashing several machine guns from his sides. Screaming a triumphant and excited war cry, the dwarf-like inventor let loose several rounds of bullets powerful enough to pierce through a layer of inch-thick reinforced steel. Soon, two of the robots were riddled with smoking holes in the frontal regions, but they were still fully functional as their used their infrared vision to detect the H.I.V.E. student and let loose several blasts from the lasers centered in the palms of their robotic hands. Yet they were so busy trying to kill Gizmo, they didn't notice the Tamaranean from behind…
"Yaaaaaahhhhh!" Starfire screamed as she plummeted down at a steep angle, throwing an infinite volley of emerald energy bolts, each one of them burning in temperatures of hundreds, Fahrenheit. One of the Sentinels succumbed to the attacks and fell to the ground, a lifeless mound of smoking wreckage while the other Sentinel turned and was about to fire its laser cannon from its chest. Yet Starfire then built up a great nova of green energy before she used both of her hands to pitch it hard into the Sentinel's chest before it could fire.
KABOOM!
The Sentinel shuddered before its eyes went dark and it fell to the ground, a huge, smoldering hole through its entire body, its lower midsection completely obliterated. Back on the ground, Gambit, at the same time, took out two packs of playing cards from his pockets before he charged all one hundred and four projectiles, the face of the Cajun X-Man glowing with the rosy color of bio-kinetic energy.
"Here, Monsieur Sentinel!" Remy snarled before he let loose at three of the giant androids, actually twirling his body in the air in such a way that the cards flew and spiraled into a graceful, circulating column of kinetic pellets, "Five card poker is a dud! Try a full hand or two, courtesy of Remy LeBeau!"
Kawhoom! Kawhoooom! KAWHOOOOMMM!
Two of the Sentinels instantly perished from the massive explosion, sending them reeling on their backs while the third robot, though heavily damaged, was still standing. Upon seeing this, Bumblebee flew out at the half-blind and smoking Sentinel with her yellow energy stingers out and drawn. The Sentinel then reached out to grab and crush the Titan leader, but wisely, Karen shrunk to the size of an actual bee, and despite its sensitive equipment, the android could not detect any living organism that small as the Titan East member easily zoomed by and positioned herself behind the robot's back. Growing back to normal dimensions, it was too late for the Sentinel to do anything as Bumblebee let loose both of her stingers into the Sentinel's neck, causing it to malfunction at once before the head began to smoke and burst into flames, melting slightly under the intense heat.
Meanwhile, three of the metallic behemoths were being held at bay as they were blockaded by thousands upon thousands of miniature, pocket explosions, each blast eating away at their armor bit by bit, leaving charred, smoking and melted holes. With so many tiny and relatively microscopic pellets, the Sentinels could not decide how to deal with such attacks as they futilely lumbered around clumsily, trying to make their way through the cloud of energy bombs swarming all over them. It was like trying to fight through a cloud of stinging bees and wasps with only your hands.
"Keep it up!" Multiple yelled to his army of clones (at least over a hundred from what he last counted) as each Jamie continued to fire glowing plasma-spheres the size of ball-bearing with the crossbow attachments of their glovatrixes. With so many replicas of the X-Man, it was easy to surround the three Sentinels on all sides before unleashing the projectiles from all sides, not even giving the mutant hunters a second to counter-attack as they all kept up their onslaught. With so many explosions battering them, the Sentinels couldn't even get their bearings. And the battalion of Jamie clones would not run out of ammunition for a good while as a line of them waited to be supplied by a frantic yet energized Tabitha who was handing the clones handfuls and handfuls of time bombs…
"Go, go, go, go, go! We got 'em on the run!" yelled Boom-Boom as she kept making more and more energy pellets for each clone of Multiple to take from her in the assembly line, exactly like she did before with the Enforcers at Megakat City. Except only this time, she was making them as ammunition reserves for a whole army of Jamie doppelgangers. And indeed, what Boom-Boom said was true; one of the metal giants had already fallen, ripped to pieces and unable to take anymore as the numerous bombs had taken a bit of its life with every blast and left it dead and appearing as if it was nibbled and perforated to its final demise.
Quicksilver and Magma were both taking care of a Sentinel each. Amara has maintained her fiery mode and when the Sentinel of her choosing had managed to land on the ground, she summoned several gushers of molten rock to erupt from the hard ground underneath, and with so much of the area around them consisting of nothing but magma, it was easy for the X-Man to build up the pressure through the thin crust of earth. The giant robot didn't even stand a chance as the upwelling of magma exploded with powerful and searing red liquid, knocking it up in the air and melting most of its body armor on impact before its circuitry fell victim to the lava, being rendered into useless pools of metal and plastics in seconds.
"Ha ha! Can't catch me, can't catch me, can't catch me!" Pietro taunted in a fast voice as he ran circles around one Sentinel, avoiding the laser blasts and the attempts for the robot to stomp him flat. Predictably enough, the winds all around the automaton picked up as a miniature cyclone, and the machine could only beep wildly as it flew off its feet and crashed heavily into another Sentinel, sending them both on the ground, having difficulty to get up as they were piled upon each other, tangled and slightly malfunctioning.
Mammoth was the most savage and ruthless in his attacks. Roaring like a wild animal, Mammoth managed to grab the leg off the fallen Sentinel that Bumblebee managed to put down and ripped it off without any hesitation or thought, the exposed circuitry and fibers smoking and sparking madly. Gripping it firmly, Mammoth used it as a makeshift club before he charged toward another Sentinel. The robot, though blinded, still was able to use its built-in heat sensors to detect a rapidly moving form and shot out a devastating laser from its palm directly at the H.I.V.E. ape-man, the radiation powerful enough to incinerate Mammoth's body and skeleton to ashes upon several seconds of contact. Yet with quick reflexes, Mammoth used the Sentinel leg in his hands to deflect the blast, and since all the Hellions' Sentinels were reinforced with reflective titanium-steel alloys, the lasers singed past Mammoth at various angles, but the H.I.V.E. student was able to protect himself and keep the robot's attack at bay. Which was more than enough of a chance for Boom-Boom and Starfire to help out…
"Starfire!" yelled Boom-Boom as she made a plasma-time bomb as large as a wrecking ball, the enormous sphere glowing in various wavelengths of red, peach, and white, before she was able to gently toss it to the flying Titan above her head, "Throw this little surprise at big, tall, and ugly! Aim at the head, girl!"
Starfire nodded, showing she understood as she deftly caught the enormous time bomb and flew directly at the Sentinel that was attacking Mammoth at break-neck speeds. Starfire flung the bomb directly at the Goliath's head, and with a furious discharge, the leviathan was now missing its vital body part from the neck up, the detonation of Tabitha's gift so concentrated and severe, it left virtually nothing but ashes and charred flakes of paint and metal.
"Batter up!" growled Mammoth as he swung the leg with all of his might, and with a mad cloud of sparks and raining shards of burnt metal, the Sentinel was cleaved in half, hewed horizontally before the upper body fell backwards off the legs of the robot and crashed to the ground before burning at once. Still unsatisfied, Mammoth then swung the leg again and struck the still-standing legs of the destroyed Sentinel hard, now sending it flying like a baseball only to come colliding into another Sentinel so hard, the metal legs and appendages were now embedded deep into the Sentinel's back, speared by the body parts of its dead comrade.
In the interim, the H.I.V.E. student Jinx, Toad, and the Blob were charging directly at the Hellion, Roulette as she stood there cockily, with two discs of black, bad-luck hex energy in her hands. With a flourish, Jennifer sent the discs to the ground, and roaring with embarrassment and surprise, Fred fell through the ground and got stuck, unable to extract himself out of the hole that miraculously formed underneath him. Toad then had enough as he took out his wooden bo staff and leapt up high in the air, raising the wooden stick high above his head. Roulette then sent out a powerful black surge of hex-energy at Toad, but surprisingly with great agility, the frog-like Misfit avoided the cloud of crippling power before he struck.
Roulette was sent tumbling as Toad wooden staff struck hard over her mouth, but she grinned as she got up, wiping the blood off her mouth. Toad blinked, taken aback. That strike should have been hard enough to knock her out instantly if not break her neck!
"Hey, what gives, yo?" Toad exclaimed before he looked at his staff and saw why. His wooden rod, which was cared for and polished with great assiduousness when Toad first received it as a present by the Blind Master, was now broken in half and splintered into two useless pieces. Toad gaped as Roulette then powered up another black energy ball.
"Looks like lady luck's on my side, you horrid wart-farm!" she scorned in a derisive tone as she let loose, but Toad managed to leap up and avoid the killing blow before he delivered a flying and powerful hammer kick to the Hellion which the female teen was able to block.
"Pfft! I suppose you'd qualify as a lady, about the same as how Black Widows qualify as loving wives, yo!" snarled Toad as he continued to close in on the Hellion and attempted to bombard the protégée of Emma Frost with a concentrated effort of quick jabs, his fists moving so fast, they were actually whistling in the air. Gasping and realizing that she could be well cornered if this kept up, Roulette then clapped her hands once before Toad had the chance to lay her out flat with a unruly and brutal left hook. To the Misfit's surprise, he was thrown back, soaring several feet before crashing on the ground from the sonic boom that somehow managed to, despite the impossible odds, appear out of thin air just in time to save Jennifer from being subdued. Yet before Roulette could finish off Toad, several surges of pink hex-energy flew in the air in front of her, missing the Hellion narrowly as she dodged, pulling back. Roulette looked up to see a livid, seething Jinx, the pink haired witch.
"Leave him alone, you bleach-blonde tramp!" Jinx snarled. Jennifer raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Well, well, if it isn't one of the mediocre H.I.V.E. rejects who fell in love with a Titan and got crushed because of it? How's it feel to know that you're now probably even in lower standing with your Headmistress for siding with the Titans and Misfits, Jinx?"
"Not as bad as you'll feel when I make you pay with your front teeth what you and the other Hellions did to Shimmer!" snarled Jinx, burning for the need of vengeance and retribution. Roulette continued to bait the witch as she threw several black hex-bolts.
"Too bad you didn't die along with that pint-sized red-haired twerp…what's her name, Selinda? Frankly, if she couldn't cut it as a future villain, it's no surprise she couldn't cut it as a Heartless," Roulette giggled maniacally.
"Bitch!" screamed Jinx as she countered the black energy discs with her own pink hex pulses, both chaos-powers colliding with equal yet opposing polarities and causing several furious explosions of hex-energy. Taken aback from the power of Jinx's magic, Roulette faltered backwards and trying to avoid the backlash of the explosions, which was exactly perfect for Fred, now free from his prison on the ground, rumbled directly at her while Jinx sent more hexbolts.
At the far end of the battlefield, next to an array of desecrated skyscrapers…
"Acid Card!" yelled Tarot, and like magic, a deluge of green, toxic and caustic liquid started to rain down upon Cannonball, Sunspot, Whitelighter, and Mas y Menos. Gasping, Roberto took to the skies, and Sam powered up the gravitational force-field and propelled himself out of range so that none of the acid that fell and splattered upon him would actually make contact with his body. Justin yelped in fright before he managed to orb away and Mas y Menos joined hands before they dashed out of the waterfall.
"I say that it's time we taught this Hellion why it's not wise to mess with us. Don't you agree, dear brother?" Mas asked Menos is Spanish, a meaningful and crafty smile dancing across his face.
"Oh yes, I agree," Menos chuckled, "After all, someone has to give this spoiled brat the spanking she's been begging for…"
With that, Mas y Menos began to swirl around Tarot, the winds picking up, but this time, unlike Pietro, both of them were actually digging handfuls and handfuls of sand and grime, actually taking the time to pick of the gravel and tossing it at the red-haired Hellion. Tarot choked as the air around her grew thick, the grains of rock and dust getting into her eyes, and the sharp shrapnel hammering against her face and skin, making it difficult for her to see and face her opponents. Now seeing that Tarot was fully incapacitated by the unstable min-geysers of sand that were ejecting all around her, Mas y Menos then sped towards the girl, still linking hands and charging with all of the speed they could dare to, going so fast it was as if they were outlines in silver light, like a bullet, before they struck…
Whooooosssh!
Tarot was now actually being carried, forcefully taken off her feet, and she screamed with outrage and annoyance before Mas y Menos then stopped and let Newton's Third Law of Motion take into effect, the force of their run actually sending Tarot flying before she crashed into the wall of a nearby skyscraper, hard enough to cause the stone and brick to crack slightly. Now homicidal and still conscious enough to get on her feet, Marie took another card from her stack of weapons as she called out, "Bullets Card!"
"Oh dear, I do believe we made her angry!" Menos gulped and he and Mas joined hands before speeding off, avoiding the metal BBs that flew out at them, enough to lay waste to a whole house in just minutes and certainly deadly enough to kill two midget speedsters.
"I do believe you're right, brother!" Mas agreed as they speed off.
"Hey, feel the heat, Hellion!" Sunspot yelled as he tried to blast Tarot with a steady stream of black and yellow sunspot energy, but Tarot was not going to be discouraged in the slightest as she used another card, shrieking, "Lightning Card!"
"Sunspot!" gasped Justin as he saw the field now being hammered with shafts of yellow streaks of ionized energy, and Roberto then tried to cancel out a huge blitzkrieg of the attack with a equally ferocious burst of sun radiation, but at the same time, Whitelighter tried to help out…
"En…energy attack!" gasped Whitelighter, and with a shimmer of white sparks, Roberto's energy attack orbed in Justin's hands, leaving nothing to negate and terminate the lightning Tarot sent as it rushed towards the Brazilian X-Man in the sky. Whitelighter had orbed the wrong energy raid.
"Oops," cringed Whitelighter pitifully.
"Whitelighter, you nimrod, you orbed my attack!" Sunspot exclaimed with extreme gall as he twisted his body hard to the right and just barely avoided the lightning by several inches, the electricity zooming past his torso.
"Sorry, I can't help it!" Justin hysterically apologized, yelping as he, Mas and Menos strafed madly to avoid the additional shafts, "I'm still having trouble with my powers! I'm new to this hero stuff!"
"When I get clear of this, I'm gonna chew you out so badly! Next time, don't help me out!" seethed Sunspot before he managed to managed to grab a hunk of wall from a nearby building and flung it at Tarot with his super-strength.
"I said I was sorry!" Whitelighter snapped as he grabbed Mas and Menos and they both orbed out of the way of the incoming slab of stone and metal as it plummeted towards Tarot, but the Hellion then managed to protect herself with a "Shield Card" and encased herself in a bubble of unbreakable force.
"Try and get me now, losers!" Tarot mocked.
"Well, if ya' insist then…I'll happily oblige, ya' backstabbin' heifer!" Cannonball yelled as he charged, launching himself toward the Hellion like a rocket with his fists outstretched, and Tarot apparently wasn't strong enough to maintain a barrier against a powerful missile like Cannonball's gravitational powers…
WHAM!
The force of the blunt strike was so powerful, it shattered the barrier into fragments at once before they faded into thin air, and Tarot only saw a black sea of darkness as the brunt of the intensity left her cold and stunned before she mercifully sank into unconsciousness.
Concurrently, not too far away…
"Fear, fear me!" sneered Empath as he used his manipulative powers on Nightcrawler, Cyborg, and the baby dragon, Lockheed, "You darkest nightmares, your most haunting and terrifying childhood monsters, your most shameful skeletons in your closets….none of it is taboo for me to use against all of you, Titans and X-Geeks! I'm your worst nightmare!"
The Titan Cyborg sank to his metallic knees, clasping his blue, metal hands over his ears and closing his eyes so tightly, a vein was popping out of his forehead as he hollered, "Make it stop! Get the fuck out of my head, you little bastard!"
Kurt was actually crying as he hugged his elbows, now lost in doubt as he wept, "Can't someone else fight? I'm…I'm so tired! I can't do this anymore, all the battles, all the wars, and for what? There's no hope! We'll just keep fighting and seeing the people we love die in vain! We can't keep fighting for something that won't happen! There's no hope for peace! Oh, Mein Gott, please, I don't want to fight anymore! I give up! I don't have the strength to carry on! Can't someone else fight for us?"
"It won't be long now…" sneered Manuel, but then a small figure bounded at him before delivering her foot solidly into the spot in between the shoulder blades of the Hellion.
"Nice try, Empath, but your emotional-manipulations don't work on a telepath like me!" Daria bragged as she nimbly flipped over Empath, soaring over the Hellion's shoulder before she kicked hard with her right foot behind her, catching Empath directly on the middle of his head and leaving him to stumble and fall on his back into the rocky and pointy ground. Daria back-flipped before she aimed her purple and pink glovatrix, but then a stream of flame cut her off before she could fire a bola missile. Daria turned to see the purple dragon roaring at her wrathfully.
"Lockheed?" Daria gasped, "What's wrong with you?"
Yet the answer to her question then came as Empath further suggested his mental probe into Kurt and Lockheed's anger and rage…
"Kill her…she's the enemy…" Empath sneered, savoring the words of his emotional suggestions.
"Kill her…kill her…she's the enemy, she's one of the Misfits who makes our lives at the Mansion a living hell," Nightcrawler growled in a voice not like his own, his eyes full of hate and blood-wrath, marring his usual gentle and kind features before he and Lockheed charged, roaring at the Delgado sister with fists and teeth set and ready. Daria gasped as she used the ninja-training Blind Master instilled in her since toddler age to cartwheel out of the way of a flying kick from the X-Man and a stream of dragon fire from Lockheed. Cyborg was still trying to fight the effect Empath had over his mind, screaming something hoarse. Since half of Cyborg's brain was bionic, it was only logical that the Titan would be more resistant to the mental suggestions than the others. Still, it didn't make things much better for the young female Misfit.
"Oh geez!" Daria gasped as Nightcrawler began teleporting all over the area, making it difficult for Daria to anticipate the X-Man's next move, all the meanwhile barraging the adolescent Misfit genius with punches and kicks, strong enough to seriously cripple her. Empath then turned his attention to the Titan as he telepathically then stumbled on a gold nugget as he ravaged through the android's mind.
"Too bad your mother can't come and kiss it and make it feel all better," sneered Empath as he used his telepathic powers to then retrieve a hidden fact about the Titan, and Manuel then decided to twist the knife a little harder as he mocked, "Oh, but from what I'm seeing from your feeble mind, I stand corrected. You don't have a mother! Of course, any sensible woman who would be willing to sacrifice her kid to become a useless half-robot flat-liner was probably better off dead anyway and - !"
Wham!
Empath was so busy bragging that he didn't see the Titan, at the mention of his mother, rush directly at him, renewed with a sense of steely resolve, before he decked Empath with a swift and final uppercut, actually breaking Empath's jaw as the Hellion toppled back lifelessly. Cyborg panted, trying to recover from his mental "excursion" as now free from the Hellion's powers, Kurt and Lockheed snapped back to normal.
"You got served…bee-yotch," muttered Cyborg poisonously.
"Mein Gott!" gasped Nightcrawler, "What am I doing? Daria, I'm so sorry! I was not in control of my mind!"
"As much as I'm happy to hear you say that, will you please get your hands off my neck?" snapped Daria, and Kurt then realized that he was pinning the Delgado adolescent to the ground and was actually in the process of strangling her. Cringing, Kurt jumped back and helped Daria up as she coughed gratefully.
Meanwhile, the Heartless army was being subdued by Rogue, Avalanche, Cyclops, and Iceman, all of them using their powers to cut the former H.I.V.E. students down and prevent them from engulfing the Titans, Misfits, and the other X-Men. After Leomon had informed them that unless they had the right tools, the students would forever live out their lives as Heartless and could not be brought back to normal under any circumstances considering that they lost their hearts. Unlike Selinda who was able to die a merciful death, these H.I.V.E. students would forever be the mind slaves of the Hellfire Club, being empty shells created to kill innocents and destroy and bring forth darkness, with no hope and no future of ever returning back to normal. It was a fate worse than death. Upon hearing this, though there was some argument, the teens all realized that the only thing they could humanely do was deliver the mutated students from this wretched fate and kill them in battle. Not even the H.I.V.E. trio objected to this; as Gizmo put it so eloquently, it was better to die than remain as some butt-kisser of Slade.
"Keep at it! We're winning!" Cyclops yelled strongly as he tore into a Heartless with a wide beam of his optic lasers, cleaving it into two and leaving it to twitch and it went into spasms of death. Iceman was entombing the as many Heartless as he could in ice, instantly sending them into a freezing and numbing cold before they would die from the eventual stoppage of their body functions and heartbeats. Bobby was crying silently with remorse as he froze another creature of darkness that once used to be a teenager just like was several hours ago. Though he knew it was the only way, Iceman still didn't like it.
Avalanche looked at Iceman before he whispered, despite his feelings of resentment to Bobby for exposing his past, "I know how you feel. It doesn't really get any easier, especially when you know these used to be kids like you and me. But we have to do it, Iceman. If the H.I.V.E. students were aware of this and could tell us, they'd let us know that they wouldn't blame us. Living as a Heartless isn't something anyone would want for themselves, and they wouldn't want this kind of fate. We have to set them free from Trigon's evil and Slade's bidding…"
With that, Lance created a tidal wave of Earth before it crashed down on three Heartless and buried them alive under a suffocating mountain of rock, crushed to death instantly. But it was Rogue who was the most effective as, with some borrowed powers from Quicksilver, dashed within the throng of monsters, weaving in and out before transforming every one she could get close without getting struck by their claws. Before their very eyes, Heartless abominations left and right were being turned to lifeless statues of stone, metal, earth, and water (which helped Iceman generate more ice to freeze the army). Any Heartless she could get within range, Rogue transmuted them into lifeless and non-organic matter. Jetstream from high above spotted this.
"Those powers!" the Hellion exclaimed, "I've seen those powers before!"
"That's right, you bastard!" snarled Rogue as she transformed another Heartless to water, killing it instantaneously from having its entire body and inner organs fail and fall apart, with Selinda's stolen abilities, "And guess who gave me her powers as her final, dying wish to protect her brother?"
The Heartless, though lessening, continued to charge at the four soldiers as they kept the gigantic gathering at bay…
At this point, Brother Blood was quite bothered by the way that the Titans and their allies were slowly turning the tide of battle in their favor, even with the aid of the Sentinels to incapacitate and kill the young heroes, so he knew he needed to act now if the Hellfire Club was ever to succeed. The Shaggy Man then raised a finger at the crystal-energy sphere that imprisoned the young, incarnation of Raven and chanted the ever so familiar words, invoking the powers he stole from Raven at the marriage ceremony, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
With a pop, the sphere shattered in numerous shards, twinkling like diamonds, before Raven, squealing in fright and too terrified to even wail, was held in place by shadow forces of telekinesis before forcefully dragged in the air towards the religious fanatic himself. The ten year-old Raven shivered as she held her white cloak all around her, trying to keep warm, but ruthlessly, Brother Blood seized the front of the child's robes none too gently while he took out a silver dagger from his pocket, the same silver blade that Arella used to join her daughter's hand to Brother Blood's in the temple in Azarath. Trigon didn't even bat an eye at Brother Blood as he watched the battle below with a mixture of amusement and anger, not the slightest bit pleased that the stewards who had helped him escape and conquer Earth were having difficulty standing up to a group of rebels, even though the rebels were vastly outnumbered. Arella, however, was stunned, truly horrified.
"What are you doing?" she cried, her eyes glazed with protective terror, "What are you doing to Raven? Please, don't hurt her! Don't hurt my child!"
Brother Blood simply paid no attention to the priestess' beseeching.
"Quiet, you little, sniveling brat!" Brother Blood snarled at Raven's whimpers, ignoring her pleas to let her go before he raked the razor-sharp edge of the knife across the smooth yet cold hand of the child, and Raven yowled even louder as the red blood began to drip from the deep cut the robed tyrant made. Smiling like the damned, Brother Blood took out a small, thin vial of clear glass from his pocket and collected the blood that dripped from Raven's fingers before he sealed it and hid it for safekeeping in his pocket. Raven then was absolutely hysterical and desperate before her foot shot out and smartly kicked Brother Blood in the knee. The gray-haired man cursed as he hopped around, holding his bruised leg while Raven dashed off into the arms of Arella, sobbing uncontrollably. Arella shushed her daughter, holding her with warmth and care before she spotted Brother Blood now striding towards them with absolute vengeance in his eyes. Arella's heart went cold and numb as she hurriedly protected Raven by placing herself in front of her daughter, trying to placate and calm Brother Blood.
"Don't!" she cried, importunate, "Please, she's just a child! Brother Blood, why did you hurt my daughter? You said that you and the Hellfire Club would protect her from Trigon's evil if I helped you commit the ceremony and bring the Armageddon!"
Brother Blood's face then turned absolutely cold and mercilessly sinister as he clarified, "My dear Arella, I said Raven would be protected by Trigon's judgment…I did not say that Raven would have that same protection from the Hellfire Club and the Thirteenth Order. Oh, and Trigon certainly will not object. He wholeheartedly approved of our little secret plan to exterminate the one thing that can banish him again when the Hellfire Club proposed it to him in the first place."
And with that, before Arella could do anything, Brother Blood stabbed Arella promptly in the heart. The white-robed woman's eyes widened before she slightly convulsed and fell to the ground, her garments now turning red as her life force pooled disgustingly around her. Raven heard screams before she realized they were her own as she wept, shrieking with grief, as she rushed over to her mother's side. Raven was now truly anguished; at that young age, the death of any parent would truly be world-shattering and result in the deepest heartache.
"Mother!" sobbed the child as she gently shook the slowly dying form of Arella, trying to wake her up, "Mother! Mother! Please don't leave me! Please!"
Arella's eyes opened just a crack as she saw her daughter weeping over her form, and weakly, Arella managed to murmuring with a small smile of fondness as she laid a bloody hand on Raven's cheek, tarnishing Raven's gray skin with red drops.
"My daughter…" she whispered tearfully, "My little girl…"
Raven then felt her world collapse all around her as Brother Blood roughly grabbed her by the nape of the child's neck and whirled her around so that she was facing him.
"It is finished, you little brat!" snarled Brother Blood with glee as he raised the dagger high over his head, ready to stab the child in the heart…
Author's Notes: Check back next Friday for the chapter, "You Live, You Die, You Do Some Butt-Kicking In Between" when we finally learn the extent of Trigon's power as he deals with the heroes himself! Can the Titans, the X-Men, the Misfits, and the H.I.V.E. trio handle the demon lord? Will Raven be saved? Will the world be saved? And what is the significance of the vial of blood? Find out some of these answers next week, but until then, read, review, and constructive criticism welcome!
