Gangs
A Fanfiction by Keystone.
Disclaimer: Trust me, this isn't my stuff. Except for the story. I do own that. And Kai. Stuff it lawyers.
Authors Note: Okay so here we have the chapter that is of the sixth position. For this chapter's musical accompaniment, I would implore you to download "Colors", by Iced Earth, and try to get the version off of "Days of Purgatory", the singing is drastically superior and it'll be much more enjoyable. Well, there you go. On with the show. Don't forget to check out "A Hero Is Born", by Dr. Evans.
Gangs
They exchanged hate filled glares until finally Cyborg stepped in between Robin and the Hellspawn. "Okay guys, lets try to be peaceful about this. Spawn, how about I go with you and we try to shut down the portals allowing the demons to enter our city."
"Yeah," Beast Boy chimed in, "That will give us some time to start taking out the trash." He said after he tossed a load of demon bodies into an ever growing pile in his gorilla form. "And I'm wanting to try out my new forms."
"Um, Cyborg, why don't you let me go with Spawn," Raven asked, "He might need my powers to close the portals down. And besides, we'll need your strength to take on the larger demons out here." 'And it will give me some time to get to know this person a little more.' She added mentally.
She pulled back her hood and inhaled sharply, not expecting a thought like that. Oh well, nothing had blown up yet.
Robin finally broke eye contact with the larger warrior and met Cyborg's eyes. "Fine, but I agree with Cyborg, you should stay with us Raven," he said, turning to Raven, "We will need your powers more to combat the creatures and erecting some defensive structures and setting up shelters for any citizens we can find."
Then he faced the rest of his team and addressed them as well. "Starfire? You and BB go to the northern section of the old district and check out the mall. Raven, you and I will go the industrial park and see what's crawling around down there. Cy, go with Spawn and take out whatever is bringing them in." He was about to issue his trademark call when he was quickly cut off by Spawn.
"I would advise against this, little one. Fighting the minions will only cause the alarm to go out, and more reinforcements will be brought in. I will go ahead with Cyborg and disable the gateway. Once their anchor into your world has been severed, then we may proceed with the cleansing."
"So you are saying that we do nothing while those, things, ravage our home? I cannot stand by and allow this to happen." Star spoke up. "We must at least provide some kind of defense for the citizens of the city. I propose that we avoid the monsters accept when necessary and try to gather as many survivors as we can and take them to the tower." She spoke very boldly considering that she probably had no idea as to the extent of the damage done by the pursuit force.
"No mall? Man, I was looking forward to the food court..." Beast Boy sobbed silently.
"Girl, I will assume that since you are not of this planet that such stupidity is common among your people. No one here is likely even alive anymore." Spawn said in response to Starfire's claim. He was beginning to tire of the incessant positivity of this group.
Moving face to face with him, Star's eyes glowed a bright crimson and she responded with a renewed fury none of the other titans had seen in her before. "My name is not GIRL! You may call me Starfire and that only. People are dying and you would have us sit idle and simply wait for you? I refuse to go by your wishes."
"You must wait here until the Nexus has been severed. There may yet be a way to revive them once I complete my mission. But it will require your assistance most likely." Spawn countered, he was in no mood for a confrontation. Hell was not his biggest enemy, time was.
Stepping in between them, Raven took the role of peacemaker. "This is pointless, if the entire town has been wiped out, then separating will only weaken us. We need to stay together in this place while Cy and Spawn here go to eliminate the link to our world. Once they do, then we can clean up the mess."
What angered Star more was not the situation they were in, or the condition of the town she called home, but the validity of Spawn's and Ravens' statements. They were right, and Star knew it. Knowing there was nothing she could do was what bothered her the most.
The scarlet fire in her eye died out as she walked away from the ebony clad elite. "I submit, you may do as you wish. If I may be of any assistance to your cause at all, I will help in any way I can. But please, you must hurry to disable their method of transportation at once." She replied in a low tone, and sat on a broken hunk of wall.
"I am glad you see things my way...Starfire." Spawn answered her, then turned to speak with Cyborg. Starfire felt she had at least earned some of this mans respect. It was but a start, but everything needs a beginning.
"Okay, so how exactly will we shut down these gates, there's like a million of the things around the city." Cyborg questioned. "Is it possible that I could alter my cannon to fire some kind of unholy blast?" He asked, at a loss for what use he would be in closing a portal to Hell.
"That will not be necessary Cyborg. I can disable and destroy the Nexus on my own, but it is a taxing procedure and I will need your strength to protect me while I close the path. My presence at the hub will summon all the nearby hunters to come and try to capture me. You have the power to keep them at bay while I close the pathway." Spawn concluded.
Cy smiled as he processed the thought. "So, the mightiest soldier in all of Hell needs my help in shutting a door, is that what you're saying? Well I can't blame ya," he started flexing his titanium muscles in jest, "I'd want my help in stopping a horde of undead demons, too."
His green eyes narrowing, Spawn replied "Never mind, I need one strong of mind to assist me. I'll do it on my own." Then turned and started walking away.
"Uh..." Cy was confused, but determined to go and make sure it was done anyway, "Hey I was only kidding! Hey, wait up man!" He yelled as he took off after the departing specter.
"I hope they get their job done okay." Robin mused. The rest of the Titans found something to do. Beast Boy ran through his transformations and experimented with the dragon to move around some sizeable chunks of stone. Raven manipulated the stone and formed rock sprites, marched them around the plaza and then collapsed them. Starfire paced and Robin practiced his bo kata.
Cyborg had caught up to Spawn and the two had walked silently out of the plaza and around a corner. The stalked down the decimated street, small fires raging inside the broken husks of buildings that had once been arcades, salons, and stores. Each one also contained a scene of carnage, blood, and death of human life. Once they were out of earshot, Spawn turned around and faced Cyborg.
"I recognize your comments were made in humor, but am I not allowed to show any?" Cyborg's face remained blank until he realized he was being sarcastic when he stomped off. "Well I have to inform you that I travel in a different way than you do. Michael now doubt informed you that if you desire to go to some place then you merely need to think of your destination and you would arrive there immediately?"
"Oh yeah. He said, well, basically what you just said. Why?" Asked the confused and impressed Cyborg. No one had told them anything about what the angels had done for them and yet he had known every gift given to them by the holy ones.
"When I was granted the suit, it held its own power of instant transportation. My cape is the source of this gift. When I decide to travel great distances, I allow my cape to embrace me and carry me their with no haste or delay."
"Cool, cool. What cape?" Cy asked, looking around trying to find the cape mentioned by the renegade general.
"This one." Spawn replied. Then out of nowhere, a scarlet cloak began to flow out of the base of his neck, and rose up to a stiff high collar on either side of his neck. As it reached he ground, Cyborg watched it flow in the breeze and noticed that it was huge, massive even. It must have been over thirty feet long, and it shimmered in the gray light filtering through the darkened sky. "Grab onto me."
"What?" Cyborg asked with a look of apprehension.
"Grab onto me and hold on tight." Cyborg reluctantly did as he was told. "This may seem, strange, but you will adapt to it." With that the cape wrapped itself around them and squeezed snug against the two forms nestled inside it. Then it began to spin, faster with every second, and then disappeared.
And reappeared. Right in the heart of an old machine shop. The cape unwound itself from the bodies inside it and vanished back into the base of the Hellspawns neck. Cyborg took a few steps, stumbled a bit and fell over. "I told you it was going to be strange." Then he strode forward, grabbed the prone Titan by the shoulder joint and lifted him up high into the air and stood him up.
Cyborg came to and dusted himself off. Then he looked at the ramshackle interior of the dilapidated old building. Broken tools and grime covered everything in sight, and the room stank of benign-ity. But something stood out in the far corner of the room. Cyborg followed Spawn through the maze of broken machines and scattered parts and strode up to the object.
It was roughly man sized, and had a vague resemblance to a pyramid, only it was very thin and coated with odd glyphs and symbols. Pictures of eyes and flames dotted the structure. At its tip was a glowing red stone. It seemed to glow brighter with each step closer Spawn took, and it radiated a faint but shrill scream the closer the two got to the rock.
"Okay Cyborg, here is where you come in. I will need some time to shut off the beacon, so I need to guard me while I am doing it. Are you okay with this and do you understand what will happen if you fail?"
"Yeah man, I gotcha. Watch your back while you flick the switch." He exposed his cannon, ready to do his part.
"Very well. Now we can begin." He turned to the beacon and put his hands against either side of the signal, near the glowing red rock and closed his eyes. The green energy in them began to collect in his hands and then swirled out of them and across the stone. Winding around the anchor, they began to sap the power out of it, leeching it off of the mighty red pebble astride it.
Do yourself a favor and play "Colors" if you listened to me, mortals.
The faint wail emanating from the device suddenly escalated into a massive roar, shaking the foundation of the building around the pair. Cyborg looked on in amazement as Spawns energy fought it out with that of the Nexus. His attention was grabbed , however, by the blaring alarm of his motion sensor, painting contacts at all ranges out of nowhere and all around them. He spun and fired his cannon, holing a pair of encroaching demons sneaking up on the duo. Then all Hell broke loose.
Demons came pouring out from all sides, holes in the ceiling, gaps in the wall, and portals inside the very room. Luckily for Cyborg it was a large room with many obstacles. They forced the creatures to shuffle in one by one and gave Cyborg the time needed to aim and fire blasts that pierced many of his adversaries at once. They came at him and fell just as quickly as they appeared.
But even though he fought well and sent out a stream of fire that was very well aimed and very powerful, they were still outnumbered, at least by five hundred. 'Spawn was right,' he realized, 'this did draw every thing out of hiding. I hope he hurries up back there.' During a brief respite in the fighting, he turned back toward his hellish partner and yelled out between blasts "Yo Spawn! These things just keep coming, I hope you can close this thing and fast, I don't know how long I can hold them!"
With a substantial effort, Spawn replied to his besieged defender "Keep going, draw their attention, I am almost done." Then he proceeded to return his focus entirely to the work at, literally, hand.
Concentrating once again on collapsing the fragile link between Earth and Hell, Spawn focused on replacing the energy brought on by the Hell Fire and replacing it with his own energy, a combination of both the Holy Fire of Heaven and the Sacred Flame of Hell. He was forced to ignore the raging battle behind him and was glad that of the five young fighters Cyborg had come with him. If it had been any other, he would have been forced to go and join the battle, thereby losing the primal link to the unholy artifact.
Too many, there were just far too many. Even with his mechanically boosted reflexes and highly enhanced strength, there were so many opponents. They kept on advancing, no matter how many of their number he eliminated. He was forced to step back as he fired, then full on retreat twenty paces so he could have some room to fire. But they were approaching the corner of the shop, and there were no machines within thirty feet of it, meaning once they crossed the threshold, they would be able to totally charge him.
The sweat poured down his face as he fired until the stepped past the final table saw and rushed him. He needed an option, and fast. The horde would be on him in seconds. He would go hand to hand with them if he needed to but he could only fight one at a time, and that would leave the others free to wail on the defenseless Spawn.
They moved closer each second. Out of despair he brought up his cannon and prepared to make his last stand. "Stay dead this time!" he yelled and fired his blaster. To his surprise, the normally thin and focused blue beam was not the one which shot out. Instead, a massive expanding cone of brilliant azure energy rocketed out, consuming out all of the doomed fiends. The pressure of the beam shoved him back, his iron boots drawing sparks and scratches from the concrete under him. He gritted his teeth under the strain and held his eyes shut as the heavenly light overwhelmed his mortal eyes.
He opened his eyes and saw that he was on the wall. 'Wait a sec,' he realized he had been lying on the floor. The memory of what had transpired caught up with him and he rose to his feet, expecting to find Spawn lying in shreds on the ground. What he did see, however, was nothing at all of what he expected.
The crumbled, shattered remains of the obelisk decorated the ground, and there were smoldering bodies all around. So many in some places that they reached the ceiling, a tangle of sickle, sword, and body.
"I'm glad you're awake," came the voice of the one they were sent to get from behind him. "Nice job on the swarm. You kept them off my back long enough to close the gate. And you killed close to six hundred demons. I'd say that earned you a rest. So," he added sarcastically, "Did you sleep well?"
"Fine." Then it donned on him just what Spawn had just uttered. "You're saying the connection from Hell to Earth has been broken?" Spawn nodded yes to him and he continued. "Doesn't that mean, they cant reinforce their ranks and are now cut off from getting any kind of back up?" Spawn again signaled yes. Cyborg let out a loud cry when he heard the news. "Whoo hoo hoo!!!" then began to dance around the room with glee written all over him.
"If you are quite done, I suggest we get back to the plaza where we left the others. Now we can begin the next phase." he talked to Cyborg as he walked over to where he was.
"Wait, I have a question to ask you. Why is it that you have so much hatred in your heart? What happened to make you so jaded? I mean, Star and the others like you. I like you. Why do you have to be so gruff with us all?"
Spawn studied the metal teen as if he had never seen him before. "I can see why the rest of them like you. You must be the easiest one to talk to. Well if you must know, I will show you why I am this way. You must understand it is nothing personal or by your faults." Then he carefully weighed his options. If he explained his whole story, if he told him everything, if he showed this man what had become of him, then it was possible that he could leak the information.
"I can understand if you don't wanna talk about it, I'm just curious is all." Cyborg dismissed his questions with a wave of his hand.
"No, it is alright. I suppose a question like this would have to have arise at some point. Sit down and I will tell you my tale."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Okay, chapter six is complete. I hope it was enjoyable to all of you readers out there in reader land. Anyway, toss a review my way and I'll write you back. Teaser, you ask? Well here you go: Next chapter all is revealed about Spawn, but only to one Titan. That enough for you? Well it had better be coz it's all your gonna get. So nyah! See you next time.