The original thug threw himself at Robin full force, hoping to get the youngster off guard. Robin was more than prepared, however, and leapt up and over him, slamming his boot into the back of the bastard's head and sending him sprawling onto the ground. In mid-leap Robin performed a flawless back flip and lashed out with his bo staff, catching another thug in the gut as he landed. A quick one-two strike with his staff and the fellow was on his knees, clutching his gut and then flat on the ground. A blow to the back of the head like Robin had just given him should've knocked him unconscious but Robin already knew that most of the attackers were hardier than the average crooks he dealt with.
And he was about to find out why.
Two of the remaining thugs threw off their hats and ripped off their trench coats, tearing them clean off their bodies. Underneath they looked... well... almost human... perhaps a little overly dark-skinned with hard, angular bodies. But then they transformed, their bodies shifting, and then they bore only the vaguest resemblance to humans. They were more like giant insects, each about five feet tall with four arms. Each arm ended with three fingers, tipped with wicked razor claws. They peered at the Boy Wonder with multifaceted eyes and gave a low roar from their mandibles.
"Anyone got a king-sized fly swatter?" muttered Robin jokingly, dodging aside as the two insectoid creatures rushed at him. They moved a lot faster in their natural forms, not restricted by the trench coats. And they were certainly very strong. And tough. Their carapaces were likely stronger than human skin, that explained why Robin hadn't been doing much damage to them.
Time to switch tactics.
Retracting his bo staff and placing it into its respective sheath on his back, Robin reached down to his utility belt and grabbed up some explosive disks he usually reserved for blowing down doors. He tossed them at the nearest beast, letting them explode against its thick carapace. Wounded but not dead (damn, they -were- tough) the creature stumbled backwards, and Robin wasted no time in launching a grappling hook into the air and yanking himself to safety as the second creature lunged at him, missing by a whole foot, and instead slammed face-first into an empty crate, shattering the wood and scattering broken shards everywhere.
"Forget the kid!" shouted the leader. "Get the cargo out of here! We're dead meat if we can't deliver!" he roared. Over the confusion, two of the thugs had grabbed up their wounded comrade and were making for the safety of the truck and the outside, away from Robin. Two more had remained behind and were trying to bring him down. One of them was climbing up the wall like a cockroach, heading towards Robin's vantage spot from up in the rafters.
"Roaches check in...," remarked Robin casually, reaching towards his belt...
Moments later he swung down, launching out a quick kick to the two thug-insects and sending them sprawling on the ground. They growled, forming defensive postures (guess they weren't as dumb as they looked) but Robin had already turned on his heel and was running towards the exit. Confused, the two insects glanced at each other in confusion. What had happened?
They likely would've known if they'd had a chance to look above their heads, where Robin had previously been hiding. Attached to the support beams was a small but very powerful explosive birdarang. And...
Boom.
Robin watched from safely outside the building as it collapsed in on itself, the support beams giving out and letting tons of rock collapse downward onto the creatures. They had tried to escape but were unable to. The dust dissipated after a few short moments. Surprisingly, neither was dead, but they were pinned under great masses of granite that even their superior strength couldn't lift.
"... but they don't check out," said Robin triumphantly.
He could leave these two bugs for the cops, they'd know what to do with them. As it was, there was a large truck of explosives heading out into the street, and he needed to stop them before they got away. Quickly making his way towards another warehouse building in the district, he whipped off the tarp covering his Robincycle, which he'd hid their earlier in the evening. Placing on his helmet, he revved the cycle up and zipped off after his quarry.
They won't get away, he vowed.
Koriand'r slept, her body curled up in a fetal position, fast asleep, floating amidst the stars. She was taking a nap during her long voyage, her head resting on her gantrithor satchel containing all of her precious belongings, including her many spare sets of clothing. Kormand'r was not. She was restless, and in her haste, had decided to leave her darling little sister behind. She was traveling on. Not towards the Okaraan star system, but instead to the Centari Moons. A place where a girl could have more fun. Without so much as a backwards glance at her little sister, who Galifore had specifically ordered her to watch over, Kormand'r traveled on towards the Centari system.
Waking up, alone and admittedly lost (Koriand'r wasn't a very good interstellar navigator) Koriand'r first started to panic. Rationally, she drew upon what little she knew to try and guide her. Galifore had pointed out the Okaraan home world as being just a little to the side of Sol… and there it was, she thought with relief. She drifted towards it. Perhaps they would know how to find the place she was seeking. Sister must have flown on ahead, she surmised. She always did things like that, wanting to be first and the strongest and the best. And Koriand'r always had to watch her do so. She just wasn't as good as her black-haired older sibling.
So it was that Koriand'r found herself in the Sol system. Finding many of its planets were uninhabited, she journeyed past the asteroid belt into the core. The fourth planet was barren as well, though she saw signs of an advanced race having one lived there. But no one lived there now, and she moved on. Towards a small green and blue world that glittered enticingly in the yellow sunlight like an sea-sapphire. It's incredibly beautiful, she thought. She drifted into its atmosphere, and her small, tiny alien body didn't even register among the vast array of satellites in orbit. Not even those of the infamous Watchtower. Her arrival went completely unnoticed.
Whoever or whatever the giant-insect-human-look-a-likes were, Robin noticed one thing about them immediately.
They were miserable drivers.
The truck moved back and forth, in and out of lanes, seemingly at complete random, accelerating past cars and down the streets, even driving on the wrong side of the road in an attempt to get more distance between themselves and the Robincycle. It didn't work. He was sticking to them like remoras to a shark.
"Boss! We can't shake him!" shouted the driver, glancing fearfully out the rear-view mirror. His multi-faceted eyes were wide fearfully at the thought of Robin catching up with them.
"Then we'll have to make a distraction," grumbled the leader, grabbing up one of the crates and smashing it open with his bare claws. Reaching in, he grabbed up one of the explosives in question.
Robin was almost on them, one hand lifted from the steering controls down to his belt, reaching for his grapple, but before he did the back of the truck seemed to fly open, and there stood one of the bug monsters, hidden carefully under its coat and hat that whipped about in the breeze. "Catch!" shouted the leader, holding up one of the bombs. Robin braced himself, ready to dodge or leap off his Robincycle the instant he threw. But, to his horror, he saw he wasn't their target.
Their target was a hospital that the truck was just passing.
Their leader threw the bomb, hurling it with all of his strength, and Robin skidded sharply to a stop as the bomb arched threw the air and struck the ground in front of the hospital, going off with a great boom that rocked the area and nearly made him topple clean over his bike. He lost sight of the truck after that, but truthfully he didn't care. People came first, criminals could always be captured later. But if anyone got killed... he wouldn't be able to bring them back.
Jumping off his motorcycle, Robin launched himself into the midst of the panic as people cleared out the lower levels of the hospital. Patients, bystanders, nurses, doctors and technicians, even a janitor. All were trying to make their way clear of the smoke and now rising fire. The building was quickly engulfed by it. Robin bent down to assist an elderly man who'd been knocked over, helping him to his feet. He helped get him to safety, but there were a lot more people in the upper levels of the building who couldn't make it out in time, and the fire department was going to take a while in getting here.
I need help, he thought.
Sound a loud, powerful crunching sound was heard, and Robin glanced up in horror as the building supports started to buckle. A king-sized chunk of granite was heading right for his head, and he and the old man were about to be flattened...
... until a great fist lashed out above them, shattering the stone and scattering the pieces all over the place. Robin peered up in disbelief.
A great mechanical man stood overhead, fist still extended as he'd just punched through the great boulder that had nearly crushed Robin and the old man. The man towered over Robin easily, though he didn't look much older than Robin himself, a boy with dark skin. His body was covered with powerful cybernetic enhancements of blue, white and silver, and he looked strong enough to uproot a redwood tree with his bare hands. One of his eyes, his left, was a bright crimson glass orb.
"Need a hand?" asked the mechanical teen, offering one to Robin.
Robin was about to take it when the building shook again. The explosion had damaged the support structure, and the fire was eating away at the lower levels. They needed to start getting people out, and now.
"Can you keep those supports from failing?" asked Robin, still struggling to get the old man to safety. The mechanical teen nodded.
"You got it!" he shouted out, jogging over to the support beam. Then, extending his arms and legs, his pushed upwards on the ceiling, giving the support column a bit of much needed relief. And he didn't even look winded.
"Well, what're you waiting for?!" grunted the mechanical man. "Go! Go!!"
Robin did just that, helping other people out of the chaotic lower levels. Firefighters had started to arrive and were launching a torrent of water onto the building to smother some of the fires. Ladders were also being extended to help those off of the second and third floors. All in all, it looked like disaster had been averted.
However, a piercing scream told Robin this was not the case.
High above on the top floor of the building... on the seventh floor... the source of the cry became apparent. It was a young woman with blonde hair by the window, clutching an infant in her arms. She had no way down, the ladders wouldn't reach her so high up. And the fire was still spreading.
"Help me!" she screamed.
Robin reached down to his utility belt for his grapple but was surprised to find it wasn't at his side where he'd left it. Then he remembered... he'd left it back at the warehouse after escaping from the insect-thugs! Robin quickly glanced around but there wasn't anyway up that high in so little time. Damn it, he thought, again feeling helpless.
Fortunately, it seemed someone else wasn't.
The woman was still screaming as a boy dropped down onto the window sill beside her, hanging from the side of the wall with the agility of a monkey. The boy was green, skin, hair, eyes, everything was some shade of green, and he was dressed in a bright lavender and black outfit with oversized gloves and boots.
"It's okay I gotcha!" he said, reaching in to grab her and the kid clutched in her arms.
As the green boy reached inside and grabbed up the girl his body shifted, growing, stretching, fur sprouting all over his previously bare skin, until a great green gorilla was hanging from the side of the building, holding the young mother and her kid in his arms. Gracefully, the great beast swung down the remaining floors, holding them in its arm until they reached the street level, placing them on the ground with the utmost delicacy before reverting back into his normal form.
"Oh thank you thank you!" said the young mother, giving the embarrassed (but also vastly pleased) green boy a hug in gratitude for her safe rescue.
"Awww shucks it was nothing," he said, blushing a deep forest green around his cheeks.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," said Robin, making his way over to the green boy. "Good work...?"
"Beastboy," supplied the green-skinned kid, taking Robin's hand in his and giving a friendly handshake. "Big guy over there's Cyborg," said Beastboy, indicating their mechanized comrade, who was making his way out of the rubble of the hospital. The section had collapsed, but he was unhurt and lots of people had made it out safely.
"Thanks you two, I owe you a lot," said Robin. He'd recalled hearing about these two before. Resident heroes of Jump City, Cyborg and Beastboy were known around the town as people who liked to help others. Though Robin had not had the honor of meeting them in person until tonight.
"Anytime guy," said Cyborg, giving Robin a high-five. No need to introduce Robin, he was almost as famous as his mentor way back in Gotham City, and everyone recognize the Boy Wonder on sight. A more thoughtful expression crossed Cyborg's face (well, half of it at least) and he added, "So what was this all about anyway?"
Robin's smile dropped off of his face in an instant, and he was very serious then. "Over the past few weeks, I've been tracking this gang that appeared out of no where. At first they weren't causing any trouble, just running around stealing food and clothes really, but last night they started shipping explosives..."
... he glanced over at the ruined hospital...
"... big ones."
"So we noticed," replied Beastboy, scratching his head in thought. "What would they want with them though?"
"No idea," said Robin. "I was hoping to interrogate their leader, but he got away." Robin didn't mention anything about the bizarre appearance of the criminals. He wasn't sure of Cyborg or Beastboy would believe him. Hell, he wasn't even sure -he- believed it.
"Well you need us dawg we'll be around," said Cyborg, stretching out his cybernetic limbs. It was more a remembered gesture than anything else, since he didn't really have a need to stretch anymore. Beastboy ambled up alongside his larger companion as the two turned to leave.
"Wait. How'll I be able to contact you?" asked Robin.
Cyborg paused, frowning, mulling it over. Then, an idea occurred to him, and he reached to his left arm, clicking open a small secret compartment and ejecting a small device. He tossed it at Robin, who caught it instantly. "Here you go man. Ain't quite a cell phone but it does the trick. Phone's in my arm," he added, tapping the same arm as the hidden compartment slid back out of view. "Give us a call you got trouble."
"Will do," replied Robin, pocketing the device. He had a feeling that he might need it someday. "And thanks again."
"Hey don't worry," called out Beastboy. "All in a day's work for us heroes."
Robin smiled at that, reminded of a time he might've said just the same thing. He turned to depart, his yellow and black cape whipping about his shoulders as the three teens parted ways and headed off to different activities…
… completely unaware they were being watched.
Raven nodded to herself, inwardly pleased, though her face showed no emotion other than satisfaction. Her efforts had gone off exactly as she'd hoped, with none being the wiser. She'd hoped to arrange the test herself, before drawing together the heroes in question, but it seemed that the boy… Robin… had already had his hands full. Had he known it, likely he would've been thanking her for using her telepathy subtly guide Beastboy and Cyborg towards the damaged hospital.
Excellent. Very promising. Even the metamorph shows promise, if he can be convinced to take things seriously for more than five minutes, mused Raven.
She stood on a nearby rooftop, her cloak fluttering in the light evening breeze. Already hours had passed by since the incident had started. Robin was back at the warehouse searching for clues about the Zornians. Cyborg and Beastboy were out patrolling. Well, exploring really. Neither of them took super-hero-ing too seriously, even if they did the right thing when called to. No, they thought it was all fun and games. But they were powerful, and could be useful to Raven. But she would have to approach them when the time was right.
Closing her eyes and focusing her powers, Raven stepped over the edge of the rooftop, murmuring the words "Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos…" and her fall turned into a float, as she drifted down into the alleyway as lightly as a feather. She could've teleported to her next destination but it would require much of her power, and she was loathe to waste it.
Plus, a part of her wanted to do a little more exploring.
Raven was definitely an outsider, however. It was obvious to anyone passing her by in the streets. She kept to the back alleys, her cloak and hood concealing her features, but every so often she could feel people glancing at her oddly. Once, passing by an open-aired restaurant, she even heard someone remark it wasn't Halloween, and was tempted to levitate their meal into their date's lap. But she didn't. Control. It was important not to let her emotions guide her actions.
Raven continued on. There was one last person within range she wanted to check out before she did anything else. Then she would formulate the proper plan to deal with everything. A plan that would, hopefully, mean that her father's threat was ended and she could return home safely.
She hoped.
Author's Notes:
Not many comic things to tribute to her, this is mostly my work coming into play. However, Blackfire's trip the Centari Moons I hope most everyone recognizes from 'Sisters.' And again a little reference to the Justice League (J'onn J'onez is from Mars), even though they won't be otherwise involved in the story. Cyborg's arm-phone was mentioned briefly during 'Divide and Conquer.' Next time: An alien falls to earth, and the plot thickens.
Todd fan: It was, wasn't it? I find magic makes a story so much easier to write. Allows for tons more creativity and less restrictions by the laws of physics.
Koriand'r Star: From what I understand (I could be glaringly wrong) Raven's mother was from Earth, Trigon was from an unnamed (and hellish dimension) but after he did what he did to Raven's mom she was taken into a -third- dimension called Azerath, where she gave birth to Raven. I have no idea what Azerath is like but it can't be half as bad as our dimension. Oh, and thanks for helping me answer Elrohirthewriter's question.
Elrohirthewriter: I agree, Tim or Dick it doesn't matter. I think he's Dick but for the most part of the story, like most of my DC works, I call them by their superhero names. And yeah you and I know how tough Robin is but bad guys have to learn it the hard way. Got a few more chapters before -all- of them meet. But you'll see more of them pop up soon enough.
Spazzfire: That's all? Oh wait, I know, you're waiting for your favorite alien girl to drop in. Well here she is.
Architect04: You broke into Starfire's stash of unhealthy junk foods didn't you?! Well, at least you've got good taste. Enjoy the rest of the story.
Shadowcat: Glad you're enjoying the story.
InuKurama: They do? I hear they had one wedding but it was interrupted by a psychotic Raven, do they have a second and actually get through it? As for me, I'm glad a -lot- of outfits have been changed by the modern shows. Villains in speedos aren't very intimidating.
ViciousAssassin: Glad to hear you're enjoying my secret origins. I know when I read some of them they surprised me too. Particularly Raven's, since she (and her daddy) are so closely linked to the Titans. Oh yeah, and Beastboy's real name surprised me plenty. Though it does explain why he makes such a cute kitten. Car accident makes sense to me too, lots of people can get maimed in those things. I assume you mean the actual Trigon you want Raven to face? Not likely, Trigon was supposed to be so uber-powerful that he could've destroyed Superman with a blink of his eye. But I -do- hear that Trigon will be the prominent villain in season four.