A/N: Sorry for the delay. I'm almost done! Thanks for all who've been reviewing! Your responses have been overwhelming!
Firestorm
Teen Titans/Batman: The Animated Series
Amos Whirly
Chapter Twelve: Blackfire vs. the Bats
An explosion of blue light tore through the concrete streets of downtown Gotham City. Cyborg planted his feet solidly on the ground and aimed the laser cannon built into his arm at the large purple tank that was rolling down the street toward him.
"This guy's got no class," he muttered and fired. The blue blast smashed into the tank, igniting the gas chamber underneath it. It exploded in a giant fireball that rained down pieces of singed purple metal.
Robin landed beside him and snickered at the Joker's henchmen who were scurrying around the tank. They wore bright overalls and white face paint.
"No style either," Robin pointed out.
He and Cyborg high-fived.
f s f s f s
Batgirl ducked beneath a brutal punch and swung her right fist into the soft flesh under her assailant's chin. He stumbled backward and fell.
A shot rang out, and she felt a bullet crease her left arm. She jerked quickly and dropped. She heard a man curse, and she spotted him as he threw his pistol away and quickly began ascending a fire escape. With an angry sound, she ran after him.
f s f s f s
Across the street, Batman was surrounded by seven of the henchmen, all wielding various chains and firearms. He took a step backward and snapped out a batarang that whistled in a circle around him and knocked the weapons out of the henchmen's hands. They regarded him in stunned silence before he stepped forward and punched the biggest goon in the midsection and followed through with a right hook to his chin. He fell backward, unconscious, and the other men backed off. Batman jumped and landed in front of them and took down two more with a leg sweep. He knocked another through a shop window, tied two more with another batarang, and ran after the seventh man. He caught him in a few steps, grabbed the back of his shirt, and hauled him off his feet and into the side of a building.
f s f s f s
She scrambled up the fire escape, dodging the occasional items the henchmen threw down at her – trash cans, iron bars, potted plants, and a cat that had been asleep on a window sill (which she caught and replaced). The henchman vaulted onto the roof of the building, and she was right behind her. He swung at her and missed as she ducked and kicked him. He fell onto his back, grabbing her left wrist and yanking her violently over his head.
She was too close to the ledge.
Her right ankle scraped over the edge of the building, but she could not get a foothold. She tumbled bodily over the side of the roof and plummeted toward the street!
f s f s f s
Batman knocked three henchmen through a glass window and looked up in shock at a cry of alarm. Batgirl was falling.
He moved to grab the grappling claw on his utility belt, but another henchman slammed into him with a cry of fury.
Across the street, Cyborg and Robin were struggling with ten henchmen. Robin looked up and saw Batgirl's red hair fluttering in the night wind as she tumbled head-over-heals toward the cement!
f s f s f s
Batgirl struggled with the last batarang in her utility belt. It wouldn't come out! The street was getting closer!
Finally!
She snatched the batarang and high-density cable out of her utility belt and moved to throw it –!
A purple blast of power slammed into her side and knocked the wind out of her lungs! She reeled in the air, and a pair of inhumanly strong hands clamped onto her ankles, jerking her out of her fall and snapping her head backward.
Her fingers let go of the batarang, and it tumbled to the earth as her body began ascending. She forced her throbbing neck to look up, and she gaped at the beautiful woman who was carrying her higher and higher into the skies.
"Blackfire!" Batgirl yelped and tried to kick her way out of the alien's hold.
"Uh-uh-uh, little girl bat," Blackfire halted in midair and released Batgirl's ankles.
No longer supported, Batgirl fell again.
f s f s f s
"Where did she go?" Robin wailed, searching the skies frantically.
Batman threw off the last henchmen who had attacked him only to be sandwiched between five more.
"Blackfire took her," Cyborg said. "It had to be!"
"There! There!" Robin pointed.
Batgirl was cartwheeling through the clouds again, plunging toward the Earth. And Blackfire was right behind her.
f s f s f s
Twenty feet before impact, Blackfire snatched her ankles and yanked her back into the sky. Batgirl thought she was going to throw up. Her head was whirling, her vision swam before her eyes. Batgirl soared back into the clouds with a speed that sent Batgirl's stomach into her throat.
Again, Blackfire released her ankles, but inertia kept Batgirl flying upward. With nothing to hold on to, Batgirl sailed through the clouds and tumbled toward the earth again. But Blackfire grabbed her by her shoulders and held her at arm's length.
"What do you want?" Batgirl demanded.
"You're hardly in a position to be making demands."
"I'm not afraid of you. What do you want?"
"I want you to tell me who you are."
"Buzz off."
"Tell me, or I'll drop you again."
"I said, buzz off. I'm not telling you anything."
Blackfire shrugged and dropped her. As Batgirl plummeted again, Blackfire ticked off the seconds on her fingers, smirked, and chased after the falling vigilante.
f s f s f s
Batman quelled the rage that was building in his chest as he watched Batgirl fall again, only to be caught moments before she hit the ground and dragged back into the clouds.
He scowled and threw the henchmen off of his shoulders.
"Robin!"
The teenage boy looked at him instantly, and his face lit up. "Got you, partner!"
Batman ducked beneath another charging henchman and rapidly ascended a fire escape. "Cyborg," Batman shouted down. "Can you see them?"
Cyborg caught on quickly. "One more building should do it!" he shouted back.
Batman leaped to the next building and ran.
f s f s f s
"You are frustrating," Blackfire complained. "But I think you'll tell me who you are after a few more drops!"
Blackfire let go of her ankles, and Batgirl fell through the clouds. Her eyes watered behind her mask. The earth was swiftly approaching.
She gasped against the cold air, though, as she burst through the clouds.
Batman was running across a building rooftop.
His muscles were gathering.
He jumped.
His muscled body crashed into her as he caught her out of the air, launched his grappling claw, and swung out of the fall. He landed safely on a neighboring building. She clung to him for a moment before sliding down and nodding at his unspoken question.
Then, they leaped down together, followed by a hailstorm of purple energy blasts that dug holes in the concrete and vaporized lampposts.
Batman and Batgirl rejoined Robin and Cyborg and tensed as Blackfire slowly levitated down the street from them.
Her upper lip curled in disgust.
Robin moved to throw a charge at her, but Batman stopped him. "Wait."
"What is it?"
Batman hushed him and strained his ears. "Something isn't right."
Blackfire looked suddenly concerned as she glanced to the right and the left of the street. The lampposts that remained intact had begun to flash with an eerie black light. Bolts of black electricity slithered up and down the streets like snakes. Batgirl's hair crackled with static.
"Batman," Batgirl whispered, "what's happening?"
As if on cue, a small red orb of energy materialized in the middle of the street, flashing with power and sparkling with dark fire. Its surface rippled in time with the pulse of a silent heartbeat.
Then, it exploded.
The force of the blast drove everyone backward ten feet. Blackfire crashed through a brick wall, glass raining down around her from the shattered windows above.
Batman gathered Batgirl and Robin under his protective cape as shrapnel from the destroyed tank and shards of glass engulfed them. Cyborg turned his mechanical back to the onslaught, knowing that his armor plating would protect him.
A red light washed over them like a tidal wave of warmth, and as the debris ceased falling, Batman looked up.
In the center of the street, a woman in a white robe and a white cape floated, spheres of red and black light pulsing in her palms. Her eyes flashed red and white intermittently.
The Joker was picking himself up at her feet.
Nightwing, Starfire, and Beast Boy stood staring at the woman in white.
"Raven?" Cyborg whispered incredulously.