Part 7: Cut And Run
"Why call me?" Pierce said.
Savior had to admit, the abrupt switch in tactics was a tad startling. Maybe it would have been more so if he wasn't currently waving Shimmer lines all over the room, trying to see if there was anyone hiding in the corners or using some Speed Force trick to stay out of sight until Pierce lost his mind, or head, or something similarly messy. Scalpel was standing right next to Pierce, his glaive at the ready, as Pierce spoke on the phone with the vigilante that meant to kill him.
Considering how Pierce had treated the police, as well as the Titans, Savior had expected more ranting and raving. But maybe Pierce knew that that wouldn't help him or make him feel better, so he had adapted a different tact.
"Why not?" said Cauterize on the other end. Scalpel could hear him, though Savior couldn't, for various reasons.
"You didn't speak with Tercero and Bialas."
"Why speak with them? They were pawns. You're the chessmaster here Pierce. So why not speak with you?"
"For what reason? To ask me why I did what I supposedly did?"
"Ah Mr. Pierce, ever the spinmaster as well. Even now, with it all dangling by a thread, you refuse to admit why you're hanging there. That Wag The Dog movie should have been about you."
"This is pointless, you know. Nothing will change." Pierce suddenly said. "I never had anything to do with this city's decline. Murdering me won't stop or vary its course."
"Ah no Mr. Pierce. That's just what you think. Men like you have a strange attitude towards change. They seek it out, yet say they don't want it. They see it happen, yet deny it does. They set it in motion, yet claim they are standing still. Do you honestly expect me to believe that this city would be worse off with you still around?"
"If I hadn't been around, this city would have disintegrated. All it knew was tourism. When that stopped, these chickens had their heads cut right off. They didn't have a clue how to survive without it. You claim I'm ruining this city, but the fact remains that this city would have long been ruined if I HADN'T shown up."
"I don't think there's anyone in here." Savior whispered. Not like it mattered: Cauterize could be anywhere, he'd be in that room when he needed to be. He'd already been in it long enough to plant a cell phone on Pierce's person.
"You think this city is better off WITH you?" Cauterize was saying.
"Yes. Think of me what you will, child, but with me around, at least some people are happy."
"Yeah. All the WRONG people."
"That is not unique to this city boy."
"Maybe not. Maybe a lot of modern life is similarly unbalanced. But this isn't about an unevenness Pierce. This is about a NONEXISTENCE. You took life's general hardship and unfairness and made it go from painful to unbearable. You're right, maybe when this city lost its status as a premier tourist resort that was its death knell, but there have been more then a few cases of people surviving what was supposed to be their irreversible end. But you didn't come into that Pierce. What you did was walk into a patient on his sickbed and inject a massive dose of poison into its veins."
"And what are you? The cure?"
"No. I'm the scalpel."
Nigel arched an eyebrow at that.
"Many will make arguments for my methods. But none of them understand. They are taking their reality and projecting it onto me. They cannot understand what it is like to live like this, looking at the slow, insidious rot eating everything you knew and loved away, bit by bit. Rot that could be stopped except the medicines and treatments are being withheld because it is beneficial to a chosen few. Is this unique? Maybe not. But this time, things aren't going to go this way."
"Because of you? You're some miracle cure?"
"No, I'm the last ditch effort to save what's left. The laws that some people hold in so high regard cannot aid this city. Those teenagers who think they can help through their meddling and foolish whimsies on life and living can't help. The foot is caught, the trap is firm, and the hunter is approaching. So fate has seen to it that this city produced me. In a land of false invulnerability, I am someone who is truly untouchable. In a land where morals hold no water, I am the one who shall build the new dam. I will make this a nice town again Pierce. I am not just sacrificing all of the foulness and corruption you and your ilk have brought to Light City on the alter. I am also sacrificing a great deal of myself. But I will survive the sacrifice. You, on the other hand…"
And suddenly Pierce began beeping again. But this wasn't a phone ring. This was something a lot faster…and a lot more menacing.
Pierce's and Savior's eyes went as wide as saucers, Pierce at the realization that Cauterize hadn't just been a messenger when he had zipped into the room and Savior at the realization that yes Virginia, Cauterize could and would change his modus operandi.
"It is truly a sad thing when a city is so dirty the only thing that will wash it clean is blood. It is even a sadder thing when one must become like me to do something like this. But the saddest thing of all, Mr. Pierce, is that it would be far far worse then if I HADN'T done this. So let me leave you with the proper farewell for what you have wrought and for what has had to come for the sake of saving it. 'For the grief we have harvested, for the evil you have sown, jackals will forever call you coward, and vultures refuse your bones.'"
And the line went dead.
Once, an eternity ago, Beast Boy had been looking for a lost companion and inadvertently walked into hell for thirty minutes. That hell had been him triggering a trap his comrade was connected to, a bomb, or so it had seemed. Circumstances had rigged it so that only HE could disarm the bomb: the best his comrades could do was help at a distance. And help they had, but the weight of the world was still mostly on Beast Boy, as he feverishly worked in a subject that he barely comprehended.
In the end, he had failed, and his ally would have been dead now had it not been for two things: a last minute epiphany that had nothing to do with explosives, and the fact that in the end there WERE no explosives. The so-called bomb trap had been a bluff to tie up him and his comrades.
It had been one of the worse experiences in his life.
And life had apparently decided that once wasn't enough.
Except this time there was explosives.
And instead of 30 minutes he had 30 seconds (left).
And the bomb was glued to the woman he had been trying to admit he dearly liked and maybe even loved for years.
And he had no idea how to save her. For the past fifteen seconds he had changed into several animal forms and, without actually touching the bomb so that HE didn't get stuck to it, tried to pry her gloves off, even if it took a layer of skin with them (skin, after all, grew back). But it was no good: the glue Cauterize had chosen was extremely potent stuff, and the gloves just weren't coming off.
"Beast Boy…" Terra said, and a dagger of pure arctic ice stabbed into Beast Boy's heart. He knew from the tone what was coming. The same thing had happened before. Terra was going to tell him to leave so that he wouldn't die too. The last time, he had started to leave, and while doing so that led to his epiphany, it had hurt and shamed him terribly nonetheless.
"I'm not leaving you!" Beast Boy growled from his gorilla form, as he redoubled his efforts. But the effort was futile: the forms that had the dexterity didn't have the strength, and the forms that had the strength didn't have the dexterity. The only way they were going to get the bomb off was if he yanked Terra's hands off, and he couldn't bring himself to do that.
"But…"
"I'M NOT LEAVING YOU!" Beast Boy roared as he TRIPLED his efforts. But it just wasn't working.
And the timer was hitting twenty.
Terra sniffed, her pain and fear starting to give way to a fatalistic attitude. She had, in some part of her, known that this would be her end someday. People like her never died peacefully in bed. They died in the dirt, they died on some god-forsaken rock, they died by the terrible, cruel, foul ways…
Foul…
Something occurred to Terra: humans sniffed when they were sad, but they were still using the nose, which was designed to smell. And she had noticed something…
She sniffed again…
Ugh, something stank…something…familiar…
And it came back to here, where she had smelled this before. The glue. She'd smelled this glue before.
"GAR!" she yelled. "Salt water! We need salt water!"
"For the glue?" he said, turning human again. The timer was at eighteen seconds.
"Yes!"
"The ocean!"
Terra was about to reach out for a rock when Beast Boy suddenly grabbed her arms and slung them over his neck.
"Gar!"
"I'll get you there!" he yelled.
"But…"
"If you go, I GO!" Beast Boy yelled as he turned into a cheetah, Terra slung awkwardly on his back, and took off. He skidded out the door, ran out from the door, turned around, and started sprinting for the back wall. Terra bounced and thrashed on his back, cheetahs not really meant to be ridden, and it hurt him, but Beast Boy ignored the pain, as he shifted his body ever so slightly to another cat species: the leopard. Perhaps someone with less experience in such abilities would have chosen a kangaroo, but Garfield Logan had been Beast Boy for most of his life now, and he knew the animal kingdom inside and out and backwards and forwards.
Including the fact that a leopard could actually jump higher then a kangaroo.
But that was by itself. Leopards didn't carry passengers. That would be up to Beast Boy, as using the momentum he had gathered as a cheetah, he seized every bit of power his leg muscles could produce and launched himself upward.
It seemed to be in slow motion, as Beast Boy flew up, Terra on his back, watching the stones as they went up and up seemingly forever…and then the brief blue glimpse beyond as Beast Boy began to crest, but the wall was too high, he wasn't going to make it…
Before the wall bricks exploded away from him, as Terra reached out with a basic command: GO! And they did, as Beast Boy cleared the wall.
His legs bent under him on the landing, and he felt something twist in a way that shouldn't, but he ignored that, turning back into a cheetah and running, ignoring his pain, ignoring his limitations, ignoring the so called inevitable as he sprinted towards the distant waters…
10…
9…
Stephen Pierce didn't have a timer. He didn't even know where the bomb had been placed on his person. All he knew that he was beeping and that was the death knell he was going to get…
If he didn't have some blessing from some dark god, as Savior leapt at the man, the Shimmer lashing out, as Savior looked back through the day, considering where Cauterize might plant a bomb that wouldn't be noticed immediately, and where on Pierce's person it would be, as Scalpel stepped back, an unseen communication going between the two, as the Shimmer ripped into Pierce's jacket…
And pulled out his special pen case, the one with his "magic pen" that he held in such high esteem for some reason, the pen case that was now frantically beeping, as Scalpel turned and hurled his glaive at the window behind him, the blade smashing the whole glass frame, the shards of crystal falling as Savior leapt through the empty hole, propelled by other Shimmer strands, even as he reared back his arm and hurled the pen case into the sky, even as he landed awkwardly on the ground and rolled, twisting his ankle slightly in a mirror injury of what Beast Boy had suffered, even as the pen case flew up into the sky…
And exploded. Savior felt the heat on his head and the slight wave of force as the pen case blew up in the sky, utterly obliterated in the fireball that plumed into life and vanished almost as quickly.
"Savior? You alright?" Scalpel was calling from the window, and Savior realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out, as a random thought occurred: Nigel must have broken the window just in case the Shimmer got cut breaking it itself, the pain could have seized me up and that could have been bad for us, I should retrieve his glaive for him…
Scalpel was at the broken window, looking down on the lawn where, a few dozen feet away, Cauterize's previous warning had been burned the previous night, and hence he wasn't looking at Stephen Pierce as he turned away, suddenly gasping for air, the suddenness of it all overwhelming any and all preparations and experience, as the calm façade of Stephen Pierce, the lord and master front of the ruler of Light City, and the rage of the subhuman were washed away by the panic and relief of the animal that has just had a brush with death, as that relief mixed with human vices and activated, as Stephen Pierce suddenly wanted a drink more then he had ever wanted anything in his life, as he staggered over to the cabinet…
6…
5…
The ocean was miles away. Even Cauterize could not reach it in time. It was twice the length and breadth of the universe combined, it was beyond all his abilities and desires, it was mocking him, laughing at him, telling him that this was the end, it was…sloshing under his feet, around him…
4…
Beast Boy stopped abruptly, almost flinging Terra face first into the salty water, but she was ready as she somehow avoided getting her head buried in wet sand as she thrust her hands under the liquid, even as she saw the timer and she knew that there was too much glue it would never be in time and 3 she was going to die death had finally caught up to her and she'd never be able to say what had to be said she'd been 2 a fool and a silly girl and now life was going to punish her for it because in the end we all had to atone for our sins…
1.
And Pierce flung open his liquor cabinet.
He didn't find his bottles, or his shot glasses, or anything involving alcohol at all. Instead he found a mess of wires and other parts, sitting on top of several large bricks of what looked like play-doh, and even as his mind comprehended that what he had found wasn't what he had expected a small part of the device flipped over, revealing a black crystal screen that began to flash, not with numbers but with a word.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha Gotcha Gotcha Gotcha GOTCHA…
Pierce made a small noise in his throat, a tiny whimper that didn't benefit the lord and master of all he surveyed, a noise that caught Scalpel's attention as he turned around…
And the bomb exploded, vaporizing Stephen Pierce from the face of the earth as the explosives detonated. Scalpel screamed in surprise as the flames flowed out and consumed his being as well.
All the windows exploded outward in a massive blast of power and heat, throwing Savior backwards from the shockwave even as he made his own scream, even as the three backup bombs that had been planted detonated. Fire exploded down hallways and through doors and into rooms, catching men and women and removing them from existence before they could even begin to understand what had happened as Stephen Pierce's house exploded in a gigantic fireball, lighting up the night like the moon that had long since been blinded.
And the bomb exploded in the sky above the beach.
For a second, there was a pause, the only sound the rushing surf, as Terra looked up, her arms still up and outstretched from the rock she had summoned from under the sands as she had felt the glue giving, the rock she had forced up and under the device, shoving it upward, the glue weakened from the salt water as the rock shoved up, finally exerting enough force to tear the death machine right off Terra's hands and into the air, getting just enough distance so the two Titans in the water escaped getting caught in the area effect.
And then, much like a few pieces of metal and other bits, Terra finally came down from the adrenaline charged state of mind she had been in. Death had passed her by once more.
She heard sudden whooping gasps, and turned her head. Beast Boy was back to his human form and sitting down, drawing in air to replace all the oxygen his body had exhausted in its successful attempt to make the water, as said water slid and sloshed around him…
"Oh man…oh man…never again…please…never again…" Beast Boy said. "Dude…I don't know why you do this to me…but it's clear that…if you want to keep doing it…I deserve a medal…or something…"
Terra leapt into Beast Boy's arms, pushing him down onto the sand as she crushed her mouth against his, celebrating life and celebrating all she had in it, and that was going to be Gar Logan.
"Mpphmmmmmmmpphhh..mmm…" Beast Boy said at the surprise of it, a surprise that quickly became a mirror of Terra's own realization.
The two lay there, water rushing around them, as the gulf finally closed. Maybe if they were lucky, it would be forever.
But for now it was gloriously closed, as the two finally laid to rest years of wondering and questioning and worrying. The ultimate answer was it was even better then they had imagined.
After a while, Terra finally broke it.
"That took a while." Beast Boy said.
"Let's make up for lost time." Terra replied, and kissed him again. Water rushed around the two once more.
Terra broke it again.
"If we didn't have a very pressing mission right about now, I'd tear your clothes off with my teeth." She said. Beast Boy's eyes widened as she took one hand from the side of his head and pressed it on the sand. With a rumble, a large rock worked its way up and under the two, lifting them into the air.
"How about later?" Beast Boy said.
"It's a date."
While Beast Boy and Terra had finally managed to find each other, Savior was having no such joy.
"No………!!!!!!!!!" Savior wailed from where he lay, on his knees, knuckles to the dirt as a few final explosions shook what was left of Stephen Pierce's empire. His plan to assassinate the Semi-Titans had backfired big time: in bringing all his men back to his house for the attempt he had only caused their sudden and violent demises.
But Savior didn't care about Pierce or his men. He had tried and he had failed. But in the process he had lost...
"SCALPEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Savior screamed at the flaming ruin, even as belated chunks of wood and other fiery junk landed on the ground around him. "SCALPEL!!!!!!!!!"
There was no answer save the crackle of the fire and the heat of said.
"DAMMIT!" Savior cursed, pounding the ground. "DAMNIT! FUCK! DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
He lowered his head to the ground, taking the rapid deep breaths that the angry bereaved take, his eyes tightly clenched shut. He had committed the worst sin an impromptu leader could: he had lost a teammate
"No…" he moaned, as if denial could turn back time, like so many before Savior had willed and wished and commanded and raged against when it failed. "No, no, no, no, no…"
And then he was aware of the presence. He knew who it was.
Savior looked up to see Cauterize standing there, arms crossed, head cocked, looking at the flaming devastation. The helmet again concealed his face, but his mouth told enough as he looked on with reserved satisfaction. Then he turned towards Savior, who snorted.
"Well. Are you happy? ARE YOU?" Savior yelled.
"I did what had to be done." Cauterize replied.
"YOU MAY HAVE JUST KILLED ONE OF MY TEAMMATES!"
A loud explosion rocked the sky off in the distance. Savior looked at it in sudden shock: Cauterize just glanced behind him in the way of those who knew what had happened and were just paying lip service to the fact.
"I may have just killed ALL of your teammates." Cauterize said calmly. "Go ahead and hate me if you wish. They, and you, brought this on themselves."
"You twisted psycho fuck…" Savior said, getting up, his knuckles white under his gloves. "You delusional murdering…"
"Are you so angry at what you have lost, or because you recognize what I have done and realize that getting involved carries a heavy price?" Cauterize said.
"Fuck you, you bastard."
"No, fuck YOU, YOU bastard." Cauterize said. "Fuck you for coming in here with your self-righteousness and your so called just causes after ignoring us for years. Fuck you for claiming you stand for peace and justice and then just delving it out to a select few while ignoring the cries of those who dearly needed it. And fuck you for looking upon myself as the bad guy. I was just the catalyst. You, with your inaction, caused this as much as Stephen Pierce."
"WE ARE NOT GODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Savior bellowed. "WE CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH! WE CAN ONLY FIGHT SO HARD WHILE TRYING TO STAVE OFF THE DECAY YOU HAVE SO WILLINGLY EMBRACED! HOW DARE YOU JUDGE US!"
"Quid pro quo." Cauterize said. "Hello kettle, this is pot calling. You're black!"
Savior said nothing, his rage seething from him, coming off him in waves. Cauterize didn't seem affected.
"What's wrong? Run out of judgments? Or are you seeing the truth in that I had no other choice?"
"There's always another choice."
"Oh, how little you know." Cauterize said. "In your city perhaps, there's choice. In cities like these…there's me."
"You're insane."
"How many times have you hid behind that decision? How many times have you taken what was necessary and called it madness?"
"You think you're the first one to hold those kinds of thoughts? I've fought at least half a dozen with the same mindset. None of them were right either."
"Things change." Cauterize said, as if he were stating the weather. His tone offended Savior: so calm and certain, an adult humoring a child, a scientist trying to explain the Earth is round while his peers say it is really built on the backs of various giant animals.
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I am the last survivor of a dying planet! I have come to rob all the women, and rape all the men, and learn to do the Peppermint Twist!" Cauterize yelled, and then he actually began to do a silly little dance for a few seconds. "That is madness. Don't confuse it with what had to be done."
"Sickness comes it all forms."
"There is a fine line between sickness and necessity." Cauterize said, as he withdrew one of his blades. "Razor sharp, in fact."
"I won't let you get away with this."
"I'm sure you won't. You can't. Just like you couldn't save this city. That was my job and my task. It is now done, unless you try and undo it. Haven't you lost enough?"
"FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Savior roared, leaping at Cauterize.
Cauterize's fist planted itself in Savior's stomach, sending all the air shooting out of him like a bullet, and even as his body reacted to the blow Cauterize zipped around him and slammed Savior into the ground with a sledgehammer blow to his back. No sooner had he impacted the ground then Cauterize zipped over a bit more and stomped on the back of Savior's head. Seventeen times. Savior spasmed and then was still.
"Still haven't learned to dance, I see." Cauterize said. "Maybe this will teach you the cost of failure and the price of inexorableness."
And Cauterize walked away, twirling his blade in his right hand…
Until Savior's arms reared up and then thudded back into the ground, his fingers digging deep into the dirt. Cauterize stopped, and then turned around as Savior pushed himself back up, getting to his feet. His face was an absolute mess, and his jaw looked funny.
The reason why became clear as twin Shimmer strands emerged from Savior's shoulders, clamped onto the hinge of bone, and SNAPPED it back into place, fixing the dislocation, even thought it clearly hurt Savior a great deal. The strands then flowed up, seized Savior's broken nose, and snapped that back into place as well, causing a fresh stream of blood to fountain from the nose and run down Savior's face. He moved his jaw around, wincing a tad, to see if it worked, and then his bright white teeth became a bit duller as the Shimmer shields he had snapped over them were reabsorbed into his body. Savior hated going to the dentist, so he had trained his Shimmer to protect his teeth. And it paid off: if he hadn't had them shielded he would now have a mouthful of broken enamel and screaming nerves.
"I know the price of inexorableness. It's why I won't stop until you've paid for your crimes, or until I'm dead." Savior said, as he extended his right arm at a severe angle towards the ground. The Shimmer began flowing out, forming into a sword. Savior focused on the shape, forcing more and more material into the weapon. Though the Shimmer was vulnerable to blades, Savior had trained himself enough that he could form "super-strands" that were able to handle being sliced. The problem is that forming anything large with that kind of protection was impossible…but Savior could easily form a small personal weapon.
Cauterize let out a breath through his nostrils, making the noise of those who partly can't believe what they're seeing and partly can believe and are greatly irritated by it.
"You don't really think you'll win, do you?" he asked, the fire reflecting off his helmet.
"Things change."
Cauterize was in front of him, his blade slashing down, and Savior was bringing up his Shimmer-blade…and blocking it.
His mouth wasn't the greatest indication, but Savior could still draw a vague idea: that surprised him.
Savior shoved Cauterize away and slashed at him, but Cauterize was gone, at Savior's side, swinging for his head, except the Shimmer blade was now extending from Savior's shoulder, blocking the deadly slash (once the "Super-Strand" was formed, Savior didn't need to go through the rigmarole of reforming it elsewhere on his body: he could just MOVE it where it was needed), as Savior twisted and shoved Cauterize away again, the sword vanishing from his shoulder and back in his hand as he stabbed at Cauterize, but Cauterize dodged aside and slashed again. The blades met, and then Cauterize punched Savior on the side of his head. Savior staggered and fell, and Cauterize swooped in for another fatal slash, except Savior was swinging his leg up, the blade extending from his foot now, blocking and knocking Cauterize askew due to the bizarre fighting style.
"What's wrong? Slowing down?" Savior asked. "Getting tired?"
Cauterize smirked.
And then Savior flew backwards, fired by a punch he hadn't seen. He didn't see the blow that came after that as Cauterize zapped past him and punched him again, sending him back the way he came, and then again, and again, and again, as Savior became a ping pong ball. After seven blows Cauterize stopped, letting Savior hit the ground.
"Exhaustion…is something I can live with…" Cauterize said, taking deep breaths. "Oh, and by the way…"
Savior's jacket suddenly tore open at the T patches on his shoulders. Twin slices, done so quickly Savior didn't even see Cauterize move.
"I'm just being fair." He said, and attacked again.
In front of what had once been the domain of Stephen Pierce, a fountain runs quietly, water flowing up from the center and out into a smaller bowl below it, which flowed into the much larger base, which was always immaculately clean. No tossed coins in this fountain.
There was something in it though, as with a gasp Scalpel emerged from the waters, remembering the heat as the fire engulfed him, remembering the slap as he flew out the window and down, landing in the water. He'd escaped death, though he didn't feel like celebrating: fire needed to be on someone for about three seconds before it started doing damage. Due to the "pitch" of his trip into the fountain, Scalpel estimated he'd been aflame for about five.
But he could live with that. It was actually water that his species LOATHED: They were very heavy and couldn't swim. Had Scalpel been a normal Blacktrinian, falling into any water would have made him panic. But Scalpel had been on earth long enough to know that when you hit stone half a second after hitting water, the only way you're going to drown is if you're unconscious or if someone is holding you under. Neither was the case, so Scalpel, after being under for about two seconds, shoved himself up.
His hat was gone, probably consumed by the flame. And as he stood up, the strain of water, combined with the holes burned in his clothes, Scalpel's cape fell off, yanking most of his jacket with it.
"I'm going to feel THAT in the morning…" he muttered as he flexed to make sure all his muscles were working. That act caused his badly burned shirt to rip open even more, to the point where it was hanging on his body. Scalpel snorted in annoyance and yanked the ruined and soaked clothes off his frame, revealing a muscular chest covered with several scars, some from bullets, others from blades, all a reminder of the life he had chosen. Rather disturbing…or at least some people thought so. At least his pants had stayed together enough to stay on. And the only thing he needed was folded up into the metal claws that all Blacktrinians had fused to their hands and lower forearms, and it was waterproof.
Scalpel could hear the sounds of battle, and he turned, his black eyes glimmering as he saw Savior and Cauterize fight in the distance. His eyes flicked down to the fountain base he had landed in, and then he took two steps over, reached down, and yanked his glaive from the liquid. He folded it up to make sure it was still working properly and then he snapped it out again, the fire gleaming on the blades.
"Ok Cauterize. Let's see what you can REALLY do."
Savior probably would have preferred if Cauterize wasn't showing what he could REALLY do, because at the moment that seemed to consist of planting his fist into Savior's gut, again, and this time so hard that it seemed to go all the way through him and bulge out his back, and Savior staggered back, holding his injured stomach.
"That could have had this on its end, you know." Cauterize said as he indicated his small sword to Savior. There was that tone again: like Savior was a small child being chastised by an adult for drawing on the walls. And wasn't this all about punishment in the end, anyway? Cauterize punished all the people responsible for the downfall of his city by killing them, and had punished the Titans by banging up their bodies and grinding their pride into the dust. And after that…?
It was that question that kept Savior from just keeling over right then and there. Instead, he seized the pain, shoved it into a small box, tossed the box on the pile he was accumulating, and charged at Cauterize, swinging his S.S.S.S (Shimmer Super Strand Sword) at the vigilante again.
Cauterize blocked it without effort.
And then his mouth opened slightly in surprise as the Shimmer strand erupted from the ground behind him and seized his shoulder, twin lines springing out and digging deep into the muscle, fired from the bottom of Savior's foot for while Cauterize was oh so fast he didn't have eyes on the back of his head.
And suddenly the Shimmer was tied around Savior, ending in a small bow on his chest, as Cauterize grimaced and touched the torn cloth where the Shimmer had managed to gain a brief hold. His fingers came away with a slight touch of blood.
The Shimmer was reabsorbed back into Savior as he swung the sword up.
"Ohhh, look. Someone's not so untouchable."
The bottle smashed over Savior's head, sending him stumbling back.
"Since you want to bring up Mr. Ness, I figured that would be an appropriate touch." Cauterize said, tossing the broken handle aside. Savior would have gotten the vague idea that Cauterize had actually run off to grab a bottle of beer and then returned to break it over Savior's head before he even realized he was gone…if Cauterize hadn't immediately planted his foot into Savior's throat and sent him tumbling across the lawn again. Savior came to a stop and lay there, gasping for air.
"You're dull. I'm bored." Cauterize said, walking up to Savior at normal speed. He'd save the quickness when he slashed, the final slash. "Ta for good."
The blade slashed down…
And the glaive intercepted it, the larger blade blocking the smaller one with a resounding CLANG!
"Can I cut in?"
Scalpel twisted his hand, whirled his body, and spun the glaive around as he tried to stab at Cauterize's head, but he dodged with a quick dash back. He looked perturbed, and then took a slow deep breath.
"Personally, I didn't think you were dead." Cauterize said.
"Oh really. That's nice." Scalpel replied, as Savior got up beside him. The Blacktrinian cracked his neck twice and then looked at Savior, who didn't respond with words: instead he brought his S4 back up.
Cauterize wiped at his mouth with the edge of his right hand and then tossed the blade clutched in it to his left, drawing the twin with his once again free right.
"Come one, come all." He said.
The two Titans leapt forward, swinging their blades, hoping if they couldn't out-duel Cauterize they could overpower him. It was a good move…if Cauterize hadn't been there only long enough to block the blows for the first half second they occurred before he was gone. Had he stayed, he probably would have been knocked back or down: instead the sudden slash-stop-slash result threw his two foes off balance. Cauterize rammed an elbow into Savior's ribs, sending him tumbling off again, and then zipped back to Scalpel, slashing at his face…
The glaive end was there first, blocking Cauterize's attack. This time, he was definitely surprised.
"Come on." Scalpel said, grinning fiercely.
A fury of sword slashes was blocked by a whirling glaive, and then Scalpel spun away and stabbed the glaive at Cauterize's head. The vigilante dodged aside, grabbed the shaft of Scalpel's weapon, and kicked in his powers as he started running, zapping around Scalpel while holding the glaive. Before Scalpel knew what had happened, he had been screwed into the ground chest deep.
Cauterize didn't immediately attack though: he had stopped, panting. It took him three seconds to catch his breath, and then he turned towards Scalpel…and Savior was leaping in, swinging down his S4. Cauterize blocked it, but the impact sent him staggering backwards and he nearly tripped and fell, which allowed Savior to pull Scalpel out of the ground. The two rushed Cauterize again, and the vigilante found himself on the defensive against Scalpel's masterful technique and Savior's Shimmer-assisted swordplay.
That lasted for about twelve seconds before Savior and Scalpel suddenly found their heads being slammed together. Savior once again reeled off as Cauterize reappeared a few feet away, again taking deep breaths.
"So, I guess constantly being in a Speed Force altered state is hazardous to your health."
Cauterize brought up both his blades to block Scalpel's overhead slash, and the impact nearly drove him to his knees. Scalpel slid his blades off the block and tried to jab Cauterize in the side, but Cauterize dodged back and slammed the glaive between his swords, trying to twist the weapon away from Scalpel. But Scalpel went with the move and "twisted" back, and the two fought for leverage…and Scalpel won, as he managed to get his glaive under Cauterize's right blade and exert enough leverage to shove the sword out of his hand and into the air. Cauterize stumbled back and Scalpel went for the kill spinning and slashing hard. Cauterize blocked, but the impact knocked the other blade from his hand, leaving the vigilante defenseless.
Kind of, as Scalpel went into a slashing frenzy and Cauterize kept reeling back, his arms and body blurring as he dodged all the attacks…
And then Shimmer lines wrapped around him from behind.
"You're becoming forgetful." Savior said, and it was clear Cauterize was tiring, as he couldn't run away before Savior picked him up or vibrate out of the grip before Savior hurled him across the lawn. The vigilante hit in and did awkward looking cartwheels as he landed, even as Savior and Scalpel kept the pressure on.
Cauterize finally stopped, rolled to his feet, and looked up, his teeth clenched.
"THIS MEANS NOTHING!" he roared, as he thrust out his right arm and began to spin it, immediately whipping up a vortex of wind that caught the two Titans, and before they could properly defend they were swept off their feet. Cauterize yanked them up and cut the tornado and the two fell. Savior, seeing that he had no choice, dissolved the S4and fired out lines to catch Scalpel and himself…
And Cauterize's blade came slicing through them. Pain exploded through Savior's being and he forgot everything in it. This allowed Cauterize to catch him as he fell, as poor Scalpel thudded into the ground nearby, and a line of flame erupted across the front yard of the late Stephen Pierce as Cauterize rammed the hero right into the flaming wreckage of the house and dashed back out as it collapsed, burying Savior alive. Having picked his swords up again, he turned as Scalpel got back to his feet.
His glaive was suddenly flying at him, thrown by Cauterize, but this wasn't an attack. It was a toss, and Scalpel caught it and spun, assuming the third Blacktrinian combat position.
"All right. Let's see who's the phony tough and who's the crazy brave." Scalpel said.
"………What?" Cauterized replied.
Scalpel lowered the glaive as he gestured towards Cauterize with his claws.
"Bring it, bitch!"
The blades crashed together as Cauterize blazed forward and Scalpel got the glaive back up, the vigilante trying to overcome Scalpel's position, his crossed swords shoving against the main blade of Scalpel's weapon.
"Is this brought enough?" Cauterize hissed.
"My SISTER could gut you from this." Scalpel shot back, and slid his weapon down, whirled, and stabbed…and then Cauterize's foot slammed into his neck, cutting off his air.
"Why don't you get HER to come fight then?" Cauterize snapped, as he twirled his swords and slashed at Scalpel's head.
Scalpel caught the sword with his hand.
"Please. Why bother her with amateurs?"
Cauterize stabbed his other sword at Scalpel's chest, but the alien twisted away, bringing up his glaive and slashing it at Cauterize's head, but the vigilante was down, kneeling and stabbing at Scalpel's gut, but Scalpel was still one step ahead and already flipping over the lowered vigilante, stabbing his glaive into the ground behind him. As Cauterize whirled for a roundhouse slash, Scalpel shifted up, leapt up in a short vertical leap, and balanced in a handstand on the top of the bladed weapon, Cauterize's sword thunking against it's heavily armored shaft, and then like a stripper from hell, he spun down and out, slashing out his foot and catching Cauterize across his chest, sending him flying backwards with a mewling cry of surprise.
Scalpel landed on his feet and yanked his glaive up, giving it a twirl as Cauterize sat up from his position and put his hand to the cut on his chest. Even with the mask, Scalpel could tell he was shocked.
"You should have spent more time developing actual blade techniques and not so much time developing speed techniques involving blades, child." Scalpel said. "Because it's quite apparent that after pushing yourself as you have been the past several days, with all your running and fighting and other high velocity shenanigans, your body just can't keep it up any more. When we met you were virtually untouchable Cauterize. That falseness becomes more glaring with each passing second. Despite your speed Cauterize, your abilities are subpar, your swordsmanship mediocre. Tricks are for amusing girls. Me, I tend to go for substance. And I'm afraid your veneer is about as thin as your grip on reality."
And then Cauterize's fist exploded across Scalpel's jaw, the blow so fierce it would have knocked a normal man's head off. It cracked the alien's jaw and broke off a tooth, and then Cauterize finally re-appeared before the alien, or more accurately slowed down enough so that Scalpel's eyes could detect him.
"Funny, I'm still kicking your ass."
Cauterize smashed 875 side kicks into the alien's chest and gut within a second, all the impacts combining into a titanic blow that sent the brave doctor bouncing across the lawn, losing his glaive in the process and opening up a never healing wound in his chest. He came to a stop, shuddered, and then dug his claws into the ground as blood spilled from his mouth and landed on the grass, hissing slightly.
"Maybe you didn't hear my earlier turn of phrase on the phone with those huge ears, so I'll repeat myself. Do you know what happens to tough raccoons that get their feet caught in traps? They chew their own foot off." Cauterize said, as he whirled his swords down and inserted them into his gauntlets. "So, do you know what female raccoons look for when they want to mate? They don't look for the biggest raccoon, or the prettiest. They look for the one with a stump, because they know that fucker will give them the toughest babies that will go on to make more raccoons. It's not about skill or style alien. It's about what has to be done to SURVIVE, in battle, in life, in EVERYTHING." Cauterize snarled as his metal lattice snapped out and around his hands. "I gave up a hell of a lot to do this Scalpel. But I have accomplished my job. This is finally going to be a nice town again. And humanity's inability to be totally selfless notwithstanding, NOBODY is going to take that away from me. NOBODY!"
Coughing, Scalpel tried to get up, but his vision blurred and he promptly fell on his face again. Tasting dirt and fresh grass, he staggered up once again, feebly clawing at his wrist.
"And for trying…you can just be the icing on the cake Scalpel. Make whatever peace you want, this is your last five seconds on Earth." Cauterize said. "I'd salute you for being a worthy opponent, except that would just make me a hypocrite. You're an obstacle, and you're being removed. So in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, so long, and thanks for all the fish."
Cauterize blazed forward.
And slammed into the invisible barrier.
The blow was devastating, as Cauterize had had no idea it was coming and had done the equivalent of running into a brick wall. At the 300 mph speed he had managed to get up in the short distance he had run. Only his manipulation of the Speed Force saved him from all his bones being reduced to powder, as he reached within himself and "intercepted" the injury before it could become serious. Still, it was a terrible blow and the speed force vigilante staggered back and fell down.
A long crack split along his helmet glass.
Scalpel grinned in satisfaction, momentarily forgetting his pain and his injuries, even as more of his blood dripped on the grass, the volatile liquid continuing to hiss. Blacktrinian blood was pretty potent stuff…as was Blacktrinian tech. Scalpel knew that all too well: when one of his race's elite warriors, the White Holes, had arrived on Earth to kill Scalpel for betraying the empire, this shield mechanism he now wore had taken an extremely deadly war master and made her almost unstoppable. But she HAD been stopped (though at great, terrible cost, but that is another tale), and Scalpel had salvaged her shield mechanism. It had been broken, but he and Cyborg had managed to jury rig the thing back together with Earth technology.
And Scalpel had finally decided to bring it out. Now to see if it could withstand a trial by fire…or by Cauterization, as the vigilante was getting up, a line of blood running from his mouth.
"You…fuck." He hissed, and spat a glob of bloody saliva.
"Takes one to know one." Scalpel replied.
Thunderous impacts rang into Scalpel's ears as Cauterize blitzed the shield, which was in a small area around Scalpel, with blows. Scalpel felt the device on his arm heat up, and he could almost swear he could feel it spasm, like an animal in pain.
Not good. Even the latest Blacktrinian shield device wouldn't be able to stand up to a barrage like this for long.
And how long Scalpel's spit and bindle wire one would hang on…well, it may yet set its own speed record.
In the flaming wreckage of what had been the lord and master of Light City's domain, a huge pile of flaming wood stirred.
Several white lines poked from gaps and then shot into the ground. A second later the wreckage exploded up and away, revealing a white cocoon floating in the air, carried by more Shimmer lines. The lines acted as legs, carrying the cocoon across the deadly field of heat and death and to the edge, where it unfurled as Savior dropped back to the ground, a little worse for wear but still full of piss and vinegar.
And he could hear the impacts, as Cauterize furiously assaulted Scalpel's shield. And Savior didn't need to know the workings of the apparatus to know it wouldn't hold out long.
Savior looked around, and his eyes fell on the ground. He had a strange idea.
Sparks flew from the device as Cauterize completed his last bombardment of kicks and punches, and Scalpel hissed. Without his glaive and with his injuries, and with Cauterize as mad as he was…
Was this the end? Would he never see his beloved Sophie again? Would he die without his race ever learning what he longed someday to teach them? Would Robin, who had never really liked him, come to his funeral? Would there be enough left of him to have a funeral? Could Starfire remember the proper Blacktrinian honor rites…
And then he yelled as Cauterize zapped to the edge of the property and blasted back, slamming both his fists into the shield. The device made a noise that almost seemed to be a scream and then exploded on his wrist, even as the barrier broke apart like invisible glass and scattered to the wind.
Cauterize smirked, showing bloody teeth.
"Now…let's make this memorable, shall we?"
The uppercut crashed against Scalpel's jaw, but no sooner had he started going up when he went back down, as Cauterize whipped out his blades and slammed them down, ramming them straight through Scalpel's feet and pinning them to the ground like an insect. The alien screamed.
"No running for you." Cauterize said, and then fired off a round of punches into Scalpel's gut. The alien couldn't tell how many there were: to him it felt like three ferocious impacts, as he reared up and then collapsed at Cauterize's feet.
Cauterize started reaching for him again, and then he paused as Scalpel moaned. He withdrew his hand and looked at Scalpel for a few seconds, and then his mouth frowned in intense dislike.
Then he grabbed Scalpel by her hair and pulled him up.
"I changed my mind. Sadism is the route of the unenlightened. But unless you give me a very good reason, I'm hard pressed on why I should let you live."
"To admit that part of you is still human…" Scalpel whispered/blurted.
Cauterize cocked his head.
"I already know I am. Sorry Scalpel. It's nothing personal. But people have to know the costs." Cauterize said, and drew back his fist.
And then the ground under the two exploded. Cauterize reared back in surprise, looking around. It was that earth girl! She lived! She'd returned! She…
Was nowhere in sight.
But Shimmer lines were, lancing all around Cauterize. But they weren't aimed at him: they were aimed at the ground around him, and what Cauterize didn't know was Savior had used the Shimmer to tunnel under the vigilante even as he fired Shimmer lines through the ground around him to loosen it up. Hard packed soil now had the viscosity of quicksand, and Cauterize found out that his inability to see everything even with the Speed Force could be costly as he yelped and then disappeared into the ground as it shifted and erupted.
Scalpel watched, even as he reached down and yanked Cauterize's swords out of his feet (they hurt, but his species had developed a resistance against blades, which made him to handle the pain a lot better then a human could. Now, if Cauterize had SHOT him…but he hadn't). He threw the weapons aside (in a clearer mindset, he might have thought of breaking them, but pain was still clouding his thinking process).
He could hear the fight going on underground, though he had no idea what Savior was trying. Was he striking from afar, using Cauterize's surprise at the terrain change? Was he using the Shimmer or the ground itself? And what of Cauterize? Could he actually do anything when he was surrounded by…
Explosions suddenly erupted from the ground, and Scalpel felt a line of heat zip under him. He grimaced. Whoever Cauterize was, he wasn't a one trick pony: he could learn to do anything at super-speed, including dig.
But even he couldn't adapt to being underground fast enough for it to turn in his favor. So in the end he changed tactics and fled, grass and sod erupting from the lawn thirty feet from Scalpel as Cauterize flew out. Maybe he'd had a boost from Savior, as he only managed a few halfhearted high-speed spins at the end before he came crashing back down, not bleeding off enough momentum to make a soft landing.
Savior exploded from the earth nearby, as Cauterize leaned up on one arm, dirt dripping from his helmet prongs. He coughed and spat out more soil, as Shimmer lines slammed into the earth as Savior prepared another attack…
And then the dirt was floating in mid-air as Cauterize left it behind, exploding at Savior and RUNNING straight UP the Shimmer line, defying gravity and doing it so fast Savior's talent couldn't throw him off as Cauterize laced his hands together and slammed them across Savior's face, throwing him backwards even as Cauterize ran out of Shimmer to run on and continue up into the thin air above Savior. He did a slow flip and then rammed his knees into Savior's chest and rode him all the way back down, slamming the white-haired Titan into the ground with a vicious thud.
"Oh dear." Scalpel said, as Cauterize reached down, grabbed Savior's hair, and lifted his face into a cracking punch that broke Savior's nose again and knocked him stupid.
Panting heavily, Cauterize spat bloody saliva onto the ground again and turned his head towards Scalpel, and even with the helmet the alien could tell he was glaring at him.
Then he was kicking him, as Cauterize zapped across the lawn and rammed the heel of his foot into Scalpel's forehead. Scalpel only managed one backwards spin this time before Cauterize zipped around him and spun, slamming a crude but potent roundhouse into Scalpel's chest while he was upside down and sending him spinning up into the air and then back down into the ground. He coughed violently as more blood spilled from his mouth.
"When you wake up, if you do, please thank your friend for driving every bit of mercy out of me." Cauterize said, as he walked over, seized Scalpel by his hair again, and yanked him up.
Scalpel shuddered and then more blood erupted from his mouth, splashing all over Cauterize's torso and right arm. Cauterize's mouth twisted in disgust.
"For crying out loud!" The vigilante yelled as he threw Scalpel backwards. "At least end it with some dignity."
"Fuck you." Scalpel hissed.
"Well, I guess I'll have to be the one with class." Cauterize said as he raised his right hand. "It'll be quick."
And Cauterize zapped forward.
And Scalpel heard a WHOOSSSHHHH as another quality of Blacktrinian blood kicked it: in liquid form it was semi-nasty, but not enough so that Cauterize noticed the hissing on his outfit. But ignite it, and it was worse then napalm…and running at high speed is a good way to generate heat.
Cauterize stopped and began screaming as he re-appeared, all aflame, the fire burning around him as he thrashed and shrieked. It was the first time Scalpel had actually seen the vigilante lose control of himself, and it was very satisfying as he watched Cauterize dance away from him as the fire ate at him.
And then he was gone, and there was a small explosion and a loud hiss as Cauterize ran into the fountain. Scalpel winced. He's gonna be mad now.
Steam hissing from his body, Cauterize got up, his teeth clenched in pain, looking at the ragged third degree burns that were now on a good part of his right arm. His chest was actually worse: the thicker material had provided some protection but that had resulted in first and second-degree burns, which actually hurt. A lot. Cauterize reared back his head and screamed in rage and pain.
"What the fuck are you things made of!" He bellowed. "Do you drink gasoline? Did you watch Aliens too made times? YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Cauterize roared, clutching his arm and chest. He sucked in air through his teeth and then snapped out his left arm as he stepped out of the hole he made in the side of the fountain where he had phased through it, the small blades snapping from his glove. "I'm going to leave your guts strew about this continent…"
And then, focused entirely on Scalpel, he wasn't aware of the green form behind him as it reared up, going from bug to bear, and by the time it registered to Cauterize Beast Boy had clamped his huge muscular arms around Cauterize, yanking him up.
"How're yeh?" he snarled into Cauterize's ear as the vigilante yelled in surprise and then screamed as Beast Boy's rough fur aggravated his burns. "You're been dishing out a lot of pain nutcase. Time for you to return your pound of flesh!" Beast Boy said, and opened his huge jaws. He wasn't going to bite Cauterize's head off: just clamp on his helmet and squeeze until the vigilante passed out, and hopefully he didn't try any vibrating tricks this time.
He didn't.
"You wanna eat something? EAT THIS!"
Instead he twisted his head around Beast Boy's dripping jaws and rammed the back of his helmet into the side of Beast Boy's elongated snout: specifically, all eight razor sharp points of the prongs he had sticking backwards from his helmet, the twin inch blades sinking deep. Beast Boy roared and instinctively let go, and Cauterize tumbled down and rolled as Beast Boy turned back to normal. He'd been lucky: Cauterize had missed his eye.
And Beast Boy didn't waste precious seconds agonizing: he immediately turned into a gorilla and swiped at Cauterize. The vigilante dashed aside, then stopped with a hissing curse, clutching his chest. The damn alien's fire blood had damaged his costume, and the friction on his burns was agonizing.
"End of the road you psycho!" Beast Boys aid, as he pushed himself and continued swiping at Cauterize, moving faster then any gorilla ever could. And while he didn't manage to land a direct blow, Cauterize's limits on his dodge allowed him to manage a powerful shove that made Cauterize stumbled back and fall on his rear. Beast Boy leapt up, rearing up both fists and slamming them down, but Cauterize had rolled away by then.
"You're finished! Give up!" Beast Boy said, charging. Cauterize tried to get up, stumbled, and then as Beast Boy's hand closed in.
And then Cauterize was gone.
Where he was, strangely, was in the same field that he had been in earlier. He stopped and gasped, leaning over as he clutched his chest and arm.
He could have run then. Hell, he had already run. But he refused to, as he slid up, flexing his fingers. He could already feel his superhuman metabolism going to work on his injuries, but it needed fuel.
Within two seconds, Cauterize had helped himself to ten ears of corn in the field, as well as several foods from nearby kitchen pantries and what remained of a (admittingly tasty) meatloaf on the kitchen table of a dining family. It was like dumping it into the heart of a star: the substance immediately went straight into Cauterize's system instead of taking the several hours it would need to digest and work its way in normally.
It didn't much change anything, but it would make the burns bearable for what he was going to do. The green shape shifter hadn't learned his lesson. Well, if once bitten was twice shy, then twice ignored was four times as nasty, as Cauterize clenched his fist.
"Going up!" he said.
Beast Boy hadn't been sitting around twiddling his thumbs during this: he had been prepared if Cauterize tried another super punch. But when several seconds passed, Beast Boy had thought that the vigilante had fled instead, and he had turned and started to shuffle towards Scalpel.
The sonic boom he heard in the distance made him realized he was wrong, but all he had time to do was turn around.
As Cauterize exploded up to him and fired off another super punch. Instead of doing a straight punch this time, though, this was an upward facing right hook.
Which sent Beast Boy flying into the air like a reverse shooting star, bellowing all the way as he flew up and up, leaving the flaming ruins of Pierce's mansion behind and flying over the various roads and fields beyond as gravity reasserted itself and seized Beast Boy.
He came crashing down in the middle of the abandoned town that Pierce had bought out and cleared out. The impact, even in his gorilla body, should have killed him.
If he'd landed on the concrete. He hadn't.
He'd landed in a big pool of mud in a crater where a street had once been.
The mud flowed up, giving Beast Boy a gentle shove as it deposited him back on solid ground, and then flowed off him, leaving him spotless. Beast Boy returned to normal form and groaned slightly, clutching his chest, and then he turned into a cat and disappeared into a dark alley, even as the mud pool he had landed in suddenly solidified and became as hard as brick.
Cauterize arrived a few seconds later. He'd taken the time to retrieve his swords, as well as going slower then he normally would to avoid aggravating his injuries. They still needed a little time to heal, and it made him very angry. And he was going to take out his anger on the green one.
"Hey, Animal Man! Beast Boy! Changeling! The Zookeeper! Whatever your name is! Come out wherever you are and I'll promise to make it quick!" Cauterize yelled from the street he was standing in. The lack of a moon and of any electricity of the streetlights made the only illumination come from Pierce's still burning house and the habited parts of Light City which were down the hills from this section, which meant it was pretty damn dark.
No one answered Cauterize.
"Don't make me look for you! It will be far worse if I have to search this place!" Cauterize yelled, snapping out his swords again.
Once again, no answer.
"Fine. You brought this on…"
Cauterize stopped.
He could feel it. A tiny tingle beneath him.
This time, he doubted it was the white haired leader. It appeared he'd been correct in his initial assessment: the one called Terra was alive and she was going to attack. But he'd be ready. He'd cut her down before she could even begin an offense. Hell, maybe he'd give her a haircut to REALLY drive the point home that she couldn't surprise him…
Cauterize looked around, in a Speed Force zone that made everything move in slow motion, as he waited for the rocks to start flying or for the ground underneath him to even start developing the slightest crack.
But it didn't.
But he could still feel the rumbling, and it confused him. Maybe that green haired one was gearing up for another attack while the girl distracted him. He looked around, but again saw nothing.
Then it happened.
Steam started shooting from a nearby grate. It was so strange that it broke Cauterize's concentration, and as he dropped out of the Speed Force state a nearby manhole also started emitting steam. Down the road another manhole started doing the same thing.
And the rumbling increased.
The manholes exploded off their indentations, the heavy metal lids thrown into the air like Pogs, as even more intense stream shot from the holes and the rumbling grew to a roar.
And Cauterize knew.
"OH SHIT!"
Lava exploded from the ground in front of him, the street cracking open and vomiting up the red hot molten rock, as Terra emerged from the firestorm, not even a hair out of place as she rose on a black rock of earthen crystal, power crackling on her eyes and hands.
Cauterize turned, and that was all he got to do as the street twenty feet behind (well, in front of now) him exploded upward as more ejecta spewed forth. Nearby buildings erupted into flames and a telephone pole went up like a matchstick nearby as more lava broke forth onto the streets of this abandoned section of Light City. It had taken Terra a long time to seek out a nearby underwater volcano and simultaneously make a tunnel back to this part of town and yank the magma to its destination, but she had done so, and the best part was when she was done the holes would be easy to seal. True, her manipulations might cause problems down the road…but she figured it would take a few thousand years at least for that to happen, and she figured that people by then could handle it.
For now, though, the lava continued to spew forth, and before Cauterize knew it he was surrounded by it, a pool that gave off intense heat and blocked him in.
Cauterize's head darted back and forth, not knowing what to do.
"What's wrong killer? Beginning to realize that you can run up walls, on ceilings, on water, and ignore the effects of Mother Earth because of your precious Speed Force? Well my boy, she has more tricks then even you can overcome…as your inability to flee proves what I theorized: even YOU can't run on molten rock. Now surrender!"
"NEVER!"
"Don't force me to hurt you! This is a hard situation to control: if I lose it you will surely die!" Terra yelled.
"Fuck you bitch!" Cauterize snapped. Terra's mouth turned down in an intense frown.
"Have it your way murderer. The Earth knows me. I am its user and it protects me and aids me. I can hear it. It does not like having so much blood spilled on it. Let me show you its anger." Terra said, raising her arms. She had no idea what she was spouting all this pseudo-hippy one with the planet nonsense, but it sounded good, and in the end, that was all that mattered, as several chunks of red-hot rock lifted up next to her. She willed them to cool down a bit before she fired them: unlike Cauterize, she wouldn't kill unless she had to.
Not like she had to worry: Cauterize dodged them all, zapping around the area that the lava didn't cover. But when he stopped, he leaned over and panted for a few seconds.
Hmmmmm. Did Nigel and Noel wear him down? Is the heat sapping his strength? Is…ok gift horse, I'll stop my teeth examination. Terra thought, as she levitated up more rocks and fired them at Cauterize.
This time he didn't dodge: he planted himself and began spinning his arms to create a giant whirlwind that caught the rocks and stopped them dead. Terra furrowed her brow and redoubled her efforts, but Cauterize matched it, the wind now blowing so hard she would have been blown off her floating rock has she not thought to anchor her feet to it. The rocks stayed locked in the deadlock for twenty seconds…
And then Cauterize won, blowing the boulders back at Terra.
They stopped a foot from her.
"Hmmm. Great plan, throwing the boulders back at the master and commander of all things earth." Terra quipped. She snapped her fingers and the boulders exploded into thousands of pebbles. "Re-return to sender!"
The pebbles rained down at high speed, and Cauterize had to dodge again. Terra followed the vigilante as best she could, and found that she was successful at it: he was moving slower then usual. And he didn't have much room to run with the ever-spreading lava pool…
Which he skirted and then had to stop and leap back, yelping as the molten rock nearly flowed into his path and melted him. Raising one hand, Terra reached out and seized control of that stretch of lava, stopping it as she rained down the rest of the pebbles on Cauterize. He vanished in a cloud of dust.
Terra stayed where she was: on her rock perch fifty feet above the ground. Along with lava, another thing Cauterize couldn't run on was thin air, and if he tried that spinning again he'd just suck up the lava, heavy as it was, and incinerate himself. She had him dead to rights.
The dust cloud cleared…and to her amazement Cauterize was still there, kneeling down with his arms covering his head.
"Care to take that surrender offer now?" Terra asked.
Cauterize didn't reply. Instead he inhaled deeply through his nose. He seemed to be thinking.
And then he turned, and to Terra's surprise he zapped at the pool of lava behind him. He's lost it! He'll die for sure! Even with his speed!
But Cauterize didn't try to run on the lava. Instead he stopped at the very edge and then zapped backwards. He again stopped on a dime at the edge of the other side of the pool that surrounded him and ran back the way he came, zapping back and forth. Smoke began to rise from the concrete, drifting up to Terra as she wondered what in the hell he was trying to do.
She didn't see the maneuver: Cauterize was moving too fast. What he had been doing was carefully manipulating the wind, and once he had it where he wanted it, he snapped out one of his blades, which he had put away when he had begun his dodging, and slashed it out.
A blast of very carefully manipulated and VERY powerful wind slashed out, slamming into the lava flow, and like Moses parting the Red Sea the lava exploded away from the ground. Unlike Moses, the windblast was only able to drive the lava away from the smoking, scorched, fire-hardened earth in a very small area, and only for a very short time…but it was powerful enough to get across the entire lava pool, making a split second passageway out.
And by the time that split second was done, Cauterize was across and free of Terra's trap, zapping around the corner and away from the little section of Hell she had made for him.
"WHAT? NO WAY!" Terra screamed. She'd been so sure…and pride goeth before a fall. Gritting her teeth, she reached down and reversed the lava flow so no more magma would emerge. With the spout plugged, the already cooling lava would block itself.
Now she had to deal with Cauterize, and she would deal with him even if she had to use so much power she lost it again. She didn't need her powers to be happy: she had Gar now. But if one of them died tonight…she wouldn't think of that possibility.
She flew on, and found Cauterize a few streets away. The bastard had stopped, hands on his knees, and even from her perch Terra could clearly see he was taking deep, gasping breaths. Good. Even if he'd escaped, he was weakening, slowing down. Now she'd put the kibosh on him and then she and her friends could go home and she and Gar could live the theme of the Bloodhound Gang's lone hit.
She raised her arms, and the concrete exploded again as a long snaking arm of earth twisted out and lanced at Cauterize. The vigilante turned and slashed at it, but his super speed blows only went through the soft packed ground. Next he tried fazing through it, but no sooner had the section he had disrupted exploded then more emerged and chased after him, and he was forced to run. But unlike Terra, he had to (mostly) go around buildings and objects: Terra simply smashed her way through whatever was in the way of her rock snake. She thought of one of her favorite shows, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and how the main villain of the third season, transformed into a giant snake-like demon, had chased Buffy through her high school in the season finale, crashing through walls and whatever was in his way to get to her. But Buffy had been the heroine there, not the crazy killer, and unlike Sarah Michelle Geller's legacy to the world of TV, Terra doubted Cauterize had a handy room of explosives to blow the snake up…and furthermore…
She blinked. She'd lost focus for a bit, and Cauterize had disappeared. Where did…
She found him a few seconds later.
And he wasn't alone. Terra's blood ran cold.
Cauterize was standing in the middle of the street, his arm locked around Beast Boy's chest and his blade pointed directly at his carotid artery. And Terra knew if that was cut, Beast Boy would bleed out long before she could get him to a hospital…if Cauterize didn't decide to just remove her finally found love's head entirely.
"Come down. Now." Cauterize called.
"Terra no! Stay up there!" Beast Boy yelled.
"I don't want to kill him, but I will not regret doing it." Cauterize said.
"NO! TERRA! STAY THERE! TAKE HIM DOWN! DON'T LET ANYONE ELSE DIE!" Beast Boy yelled.
"Gar…" Terra whispered. Her battle instincts screamed at her: attack now. Cauterize would never expect it. She could take him down and end this right now…
Except she couldn't risk Beast Boy's life.
"Just come down, and I swear I won't kill him or you." Cauterize said.
"What friggin' guarantee does she have of that?" Beast Boy yelled.
"I give you my word. Come down and end this, and you will live to see tomorrow. Don't, he won't. This offer has a shelf life of two seconds. One…"
"Ok, ok…I'm coming. I'm coming." Terra said, floating down.
"NO TERRA! DON'T LISTEN!"
"I have to…" Terra said, as her crystal rock hit the ground lightly.
"Step off the rock." Cauterize said. Terra did so. "Ok, raise both your arms."
"Terra, how could you?" Beast Boy asked.
"I had to Beast Boy. How could I let you die after you wouldn't let me?" Terra replied.
"You can have the touching conversation tomorrow. Hands up! And don't even THINK of transforming green one. There isn't an animal on this planet that can survive a cut throat."
"Actually, a cockroach can survive a while without a head." Beast Boy said.
"…Ok. That's very interesting. But you still won't be able to transform before I can act." Cauterize said.
"All right, all right. Just please don't hurt her. I went through a lot these past few days and I don't want to due without her having yelled at me for my favorite movie being Wild Things…"
And Beast Boy's communicator went off, beeping out its signature tone, as Cauterize jerked at the sudden sound…
And Beast Boy stomped on his foot, and as he yelled Beast Boy went from the holdee to the holder as he transformed into a gorilla and grabbed Cauterize, hurling him over his head and into an abandoned storefront.
"I might not have read the manual on my communicator, but I knew how to do a few things. Including how to make it beep when a key phrase is said. Very useful when you may need a distraction." Beast Boy said as he bounded over to Terra.
"Gar, you're a genius! I love you!" Terra said, hugging Beast Boy fiercely.
Cauterize's bellow came from within the store.
"Save it Tara!" he yelled as he became an eagle and took off as Terra hopped backwards, her rock exploding upward a split second before Cauterize slashed where she had been. Terra's eyes glowed as she raised her hand, and then the ground beneath Cauterize exploded upward, an entire block of the town disintegrating as Terra made the earth beneath it erupt. Cauterize flew through the storm and came crashing down on solid ground nearby, and as he roared and flipped to his feet Terra thrust out her hands and her earth snake returned, joined by a twin brother that flew at Cauterize. Cauterize dodged rapidly away from the attacks and then disappeared, reappearing several blocks away in a cluster of houses.
"He's panting. He can't keep running. Keep doing it Terra!' Beast Boy said as he flew past, and Terra fired off her earth snakes, smashing them through everything in her way on her trek towards Cauterize.
Cauterize looked up as some homes at the end of the street exploded in a mass of rotten wood and musty stone as the snakes flew at him. His swords snapped out, and Cauterize began running back and forth as he slashed them at precise angles and speeds, sending winds blades out, slicing through the snakes, cutting them apart. Eventually even Terra had to stop feeding them ground and the thick, car sized lines of ground collapsed downward.
Cauterize stopped, holding his chest, taking in ragged gasps of air. Terra smirked. The longer this went, the less speed Cauterize could muster. And if he was slowing down…Terra had a grand idea.
"Go go Power Rangers." She hummed, and thrust up her hands as she channeled her power and sent it out.
The ground where the earth snakes had fallen erupted, the grass and concrete of the streets being thrown away as all the soil and rock and other parts of the upper crust flowed up, slowly taking a man-like form, sprouting arms and a head, and eventually stopping and forming legs.
"Whoa." Beast Boy said from where he was, looking at the forty-foot tall earth giant.
Terra floated down and landed on the right shoulder of her creation, reaching out and linking her will to it. Now her movements were its movements, her desires its desires. And she had one desire.
CAUSE PAIN.
"CANDYGRAM FOR MR. MONGO!" Terra yelled as she thrust out her arms, and the earth giant did so, firing high-speed boulders at Cauterize. Cauterize dodged away and ran for the giant, but the construct showed amazing speed of its own as Terra reared up her arm and slammed it down where Cauterize was and the giant did likewise, barely missing him. He ran by its left leg and nearly got squashed again as Terra twisted and stomped, and the leg replied immediately. As Cauterize ran out, Terra turned and thrust out her arms, and the arms of the creatures aimed at Cauterize and flowed out, chasing after him like the snakes as the giant crushing fists rimmed with bedrock began smashing the ground behind him. Cauterize stopped but it was clear his exhaustion was building on itself, as Terra beat him to the punch: she withdrew the arms and got them away from the ground before he could run up, onto and along them to her. Cauterize stopped in mid-run as the arms withdrew and she could hear him yell in frustration as she foiled his plan. She'd give him something to yell about, as she reached deep down inside of her and called upon even more power as she bent her legs. Cauterize's mouth formed a perfect O as the creature knelt and then leapt high into the air, heading for where Cauterize was. He ran, but the gigantic impact of the creation landing caused the earth to shake violently, throwing Cauterize off his feet and sending him into a tumble along the ground.
Terra saw his form go bouncing along and headed her earth creature in that direction.
Cauterize slowly rose, got to one knee, staggered, dropped down…and then collapsed on his face.
Terra let out the breath she had been holding. She'd done it. She had…
Cauterize exploded off the ground, having faked the girl out. And he wasn't playing around.
All Terra heard was a series of whooshes and humming/zapping noises as Cauterize ran up the leg of the creature and phased through it's ankle, and then ran over to the other leg and phased through that, and all within a half second ran around and through the creature and then away from it, stopping.
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
The earth giant exploded, all of Cauterize's matter disrupted sections detonating almost at once, smashing the mighty giant to dust and sending Terra flying through the air with a scream.
"Got you!" Beast Boy said, as he flew in as a griffon and swooped under Terra as Cauterize turned, light gleaming along the cracked face of his helmet.
"No more playing around." He said.
"Quick Gar, he's exhausted, we have to…" Terra began.
A section of concrete exploded as Cauterize phased his hand into the ground, but that wasn't his attack. That came when Cauterize zapped off into the distance, and then, as the explosion blew, knocking a chunk of street up, he blitzed back towards it, as the chunk of road became a ramp that Cauterize ran up and launched himself into the air, as he shot up into the air like a bullet and rammed his shoulder into Beast Boy so hard he sent the giant flying creature he had become into a tumble, Terra nearly falling off his back in the process.
"Say hello to Kansas." Cauterize said, and he launched into a spin, the wind vortex snagging the teen couple. Terra screamed and found the breath being sucked from her lungs as she and Beast Boy, her hands tangled into his fur, were whirled around and around as brain numbing speed.
But unlike last time, where the tornado had just been that, this one had a purpose. Cauterize had carefully manipulated the wind so that he wasn't just spinning Terra and Beast Boy around: he was spinning them much like a discus or hammer thrower would in order to toss his equipment, and you know how that kind of spinning ends, as Cauterize stopped at the exact second and sent Beast Boy and Terra flying off into the distance, screaming all the way as they tumbled helplessly through the air, completely out of control.
As they fell towards the populated part of Light City, Cauterize went back to spinning to slow himself down, and he landed. He took a deep breath and, behind his helmet, his eyes opened, determination and rage in them.
"If the fall doesn't kill them, they'll regret that it didn't." Cauterize said, and left the ruined section of town behind as he zapped after the two.
Beast Boy and Terra came down in the middle of an intersection, though there weren't too many cars. Good thing too: it would have been damn inconvenient for them as the road broke open and a fist made of earth shot out and grabbed the two falling Titans, absorbing the impact and velocity of their trip as good as any padding.
"Ohhhhhh…Beast Boy? Are you all right?"
"I think so…" Beast Boy said. He had turned back to normal to try and get some control over himself during the throw: it hadn't worked but it had allowed Terra to catch both of them safely. "Are you sure he's tiring out?"
"He's probably running on adrenaline and rage, but that's the fuel equivalent of junk food. He has to be his last legs, no man…"
A door slammed into the earth next to Terra's head. A car door. Buried two-thirds of the way of the hard packed earth Terra had converted the landmass to before she prepared to put the two of them back on the ground. Her eyes widened.
Cauterize looked at the terrified young man who was looking at him from his car seat. He would have been looking at Cauterize through the window on the driver's side door…except Cauterize had just zipped up, yanked the (unlocked) door open, and sliced it off at its hinges, before charging the door with kinetic energy and throwing it at the two teenage heroes.
"I hope you're insured." He said.
"Whu-what?" the young man stammered.
"Hope you're insured. If not, it sucks to be you." Cauterize said, as his sword flashed out: four superquick slashes and the whole front window of the car fell forward onto the hood. The man undid his seatbelt and ran away scream as Cauterize picked up the window and punched the glass, shattering it into a group of pellets held together by some gummy concoction. Cauterize grimaced.
"Damn safety glass." He said, but he used the still floating (to him in his Speed Force state anyway) clumps anyway, as he grabbed them and charged them with a massive jolt of kinetic energy so they would go far faster then a normal throw could propel them. In another universe, a superhero with a similar ability would cause things to explode on impact when he did this. Here, however, it just turned anything Cauterize could manage to get his hands on into a deadly weapon. Much like a villain in that other universe who…getting back to THIS universe…
Terra and Beast Boy squawked and dove away as the safety glass pellets were fired at them, hitting the still formed earth hand like bullets. The two slid off it and headed for the ground, where Beast Boy turned into a triceratops, closed his eyes, and charged at Cauterize. Cauterize fired what was left of his "ammo" at Beast Boy, but the dinosaur's ultra thick bone helmet shrugged the impacts off, and Cauterize dove out of the way as Beast Boy rammed into the car and sent it crashing down the road, even as people finally realized a huge fight was starting and ran for it.
Cauterize materialized near another car, and with a snarl he grabbed one of the windshield wipers, yanked it off, charged it up, and hurled it at Beast Boy. The deadly spear thudded into his bony head, and he winced, but he ignored the pain as he charged at Cauterize again. Cauterize fired the other windshield wiper at the triceratops with no effect, so he went larger and sliced the hood off the car before he grabbed it and hurled it at Beast Boy at super-speed, the whirling cover of metal now potent enough to slice through even Beast Boy's giant cranium.
Too bad for Cauterize he missed as Beast Boy turned into a mouse, the deadly projectile whirling over him and running into a stone wall Terra had formed as Beast Boy reformed into a T-Rex and snapped his jaws at Cauterize, who dodged away again, looking at the huge dinosaur.
Then Terra was there, hurling a boulder at Cauterize.
And then she was gone, sent flying down the street by a punch to the face, as Cauterize ran over to her, punched her, and then ran back to her still flying boulder. With a quick slash he sliced a small chunk off and ran a little more so he had an optimum angle.
"The bigger they are…" Cauterize said, and then he hurled the small chunk of stone. Much like David and Goliath (if David could throw a stone at roughly 7400 miles an hour), the small rock slammed into Beast Boy's skull right between his eyes, and even his gigantic frame was knocked backwards from the impact, crashing down on the street in a tremendous racket. Stars dancing in his vision, Beast Boy became human again, clutching his forehead and groaning.
"Now all I need…damn, there's never a car around when you need one…" Cauterize said as he looked around.
"Allow me."
And then the mini-van was hurled at Cauterize, who entered his enhanced state and managed to do a Matrix dodge backwards, just letting the van clear his head. It crashed to the ground behind him as Cauterize snapped up and looked in surprise at Savior, who was lowering himself down to the street.
"I thought you were finished." Cauterize said.
"Not well enough it seems." Savior replied.
Cauterize cocked his head, smirking with one side of his mouth.
Then he snapped up his arm as Scalpel swung down and slashed out with his glaive, stopping the weapon with his own…and then Scalpel open his mouth and spit out liquid…blood. His own blood. Cauterize reeled away as the powerful chemical makeup the alien plasma possessed hit the ground and started to hiss, and Scalpel hit the ground and whirled, spinning his glaive again. Cauterize blocked the blow and backhanded the alien, but then Savior was there, firing dozens of strands at the vigilante, and he waved in and out of them before running away and stopping. He took a few gasping breaths and then charged at Savior, his blade slashing out…
The Shimmer flowed up and snapped over Cauterize's hilt, stopping the blade six inches from Savior's forehead.
"Slowpoke." Savior said.
Cauterize kicked him in the balls.
"Soprano." Cauterize replied, and several dozen punches sent Savior flying through a nearby window.
(Oh, just in case you were wondering, Savior fortunately wears a cup).
Cauterize turned around, breathing heavily. Unlike all the other times though, he didn't stop after a few gasps of air. This was a clear state of hyperventilation.
But it didn't get him any mercy, as Terra flew in, her eyes blazing, and rock spikes erupted from the ground where Cauterize had been standing. Cauterize ran at Terra and leapt, kicking her in the chest and sending her flying, but as soon as he landed he stopped, continuing to hyperventilate.
Roaring, Beast Boy leapt at him as a lion. Cauterize dodged aside, kicked him in the ribs, and punched him in mid-air to sent him crashing into a newspaper box, and then he had to stop to breath again. Pulling himself from the window, Savior watched this with realizing eyes.
"He's on the ropes, SWARM HIM!" Savior yelled.
"NEVER!" Cauterize yelled, and spun around as Scalpel slashed at him with claw and glaive, dancing away from the blows and then flipping over a lashing Shimmer line…only to be caught when the line whipped back and whacked him across the chest. He tumbled along the ground and leapt to his feet, and then rock pillars exploded from underneath him, bringing him up to where Terra was floating above the ground and waiting with another pillar of rock that she hurled at the vigilante. A superfast sword slash sliced it in half…and then Terra slammed the two halves together, disintegrating them and creating a huge cloud of dust. Terra flew into it and a second later Cauterize came flying out, courtesy of a boulder ram. Terra flew out after him and shrieked as Cauterize flipped over and spun his arms, blowing her into a wall. He landed and Shimmer lines lanced from the ground, grabbing his ankles and lifting him up, but Cauterize spun and wrapped the lines around himself like spaghetti and a fork, throwing Savior forward and past Cauterize as he sliced the line with a sword and sent the now screaming hero bouncing down the street, peeling off the twitching white line and taking a few steps back, and then Scalpel was there again, slashing his glaive down…
Cauterize brought up his right arm…
The blade shattered as Scalpel's weapon broke through the sword and slammed into the top of Cauterize's helmet. The vigilante stumbled back as his helmet glass cracked even more, though it didn't break. Scalpel pressed his advantage, stabbing rapidly at Cauterize, who did his best to block with one blade. Scalpel grinned fiercely, even as more blood leaked from within him.
Then Cauterize clotheslined him and punched him in the back in mid-air, sending him flying through a car windshield.
Cauterize stopped. His breath was now going in and out of him so fast it sounded like he would accidentally cough up his lungs.
Terra flew in, firing a rain of pebbles. Cauterize ran back fifteen feet and stopped, needing to breath, standing still for a few seconds…and then Beast Boy was there, wrapping around Cauterize's feet as an anaconda, but not quick enough as Cauterize freed his legs before Beast Boy could tighten his grip and ran up the coiled snake body, leaping and kicking Beast Boy across the face, then spinning and landing on his feet, stumbling a bit as he tried to get air into his lungs, and then Savior swooped in, six lines lancing around Cauterize and trapping him in a rope prison, even as Savior swooped down and kicked Cauterize in the chest, which sent him flying backwards. But in mid-flight Cauterize did a weird motion with his leg and a powerful wind blast slammed into Savior and knocked him backwards, but Terra was coming up throwing more boulders, and Cauterize frantically slashed at them and then fired off another wind blast that knocked Terra from her rock and air he needed air he couldn't breathe…
Scalpel swooped down, and Cauterize, instead of blocking, ran away from his swinging glaive. But he only made it five feet, and Scalpel could see he didn't want to stop, he had to, because he needed air. Scalpel ran it and leapt, forcing Cauterize to dodge his kick. Scalpel had gambled there would be no counter and there wasn't. Cauterize had finally come to the last few fumes in his tank, and could now only use the Speed Force in short bursts before he had to rest.
Scalpel landed and rolled with his momentum, flipping his legs over and curling them up before thrusting out, leaping back the way he came at Cauterize. Cauterize dodged back a few feet and stopped, and Scalpel flipped, landed, and went into a fury of slashes. Cauterize feebly blocked them, barely holding onto his sword…and then he wasn't holding onto his sword as Scalpel slashed out and broke the other blade as well. Scalpel grinned, and you would expect him to try for an offensive move with his glaive, but the alien decided to try a different tact as he faked Cauterize out, planted his glaive into the ground, and thrust out at him with a kick…
But as it turned out, Cauterize had faked SCALPEL out as he used his burst to zip in and deliver several powerful blows to Scalpel's chest. Cauterize ran back, and then Savior landed on the traffic light above Cauterize, ripped it off with the Shimmer, and hurled it at the vigilante. Somehow, he dodged without using the Speed Force, but Terra was coming in and Beast Boy had looped around and was coming the other way, and Scalpel looked up, a demon gleam in his eyes, as he felt more blood well up in his chest from Cauterize's blows and he spat it out, firing the stream of liquid at the vigilante, who zapped backwards to dodge it and stopped…
The sound of the air horn filled Scalpel's ears, and as his eyes widened Cauterize suddenly became illuminated in light. Not just light.
High beams.
And Savior realized that the fight had carried them to an intersection, and with the lack of people Savior had completely forgotten about bystanders. Or people who weren't aware of what was going on the area.
As Cauterize turned his head and looked at the 18-Wheeler as it bore down on him.
"…Huh?" he whimpered.
There were sounds that Savior would remember for all his days.
His mother's laugh, a rare thing.
The strange hissing pop when the Shimmer had first emerged from his palm.
The tinkle of glass as he took his first trip out of a building window (but not the last, oh no, not the last…).
The whirling noise of one of Raw's bladed weapons snapping into place.
And finally…this noise.
As the 18-Wheeler's brakes activated with a screech, but it was far too late as the giant truck struck Cauterize, his body being dragged under the vehicle, and then, worst of all, the crunching, squishing noise that Savior somehow heard under all the other racket of the body being caught in the wheel well…
And then…there was silence.
"HOLY SHIT!" The truck driver yelled as he hopped out, partly at what had happened and partly at the fact that a green bird had just turned into a green teenager in front of him. If that wasn't shocking enough, a blonde woman riding a rock suddenly dropped down next to him. "AHHHHH! What's going on!"
"It's ok! We won't hurt you!" Terra said.
"Shit! You're those Teen Titans! I hoped to see…Jesus, I hit someone! Oh god, oh no!" the truck driver, who had the jowly face and the beer belly that seemed to haunt the profession said as his face paled and his hands went to his mouth in horror. "I didn't mean to! I didn't!"
"We know." Terra said quietly.
"What the hell is going on?"
"You just ended a war I think…in the worst way possible…oh damn…Cauterize…" Terra said.
Beast Boy, though he didn't really want to know, started heading around for the back of the semi-jackknifed truck, preparing himself, as he peaked around…
There was a line of blood, but no body. Beast Boy heard Terra creep up next to him, even as the truck driver continued to mutter to himself.
"….Where is he?" Terra asked.
"Over here." Came a voice. Savior's. He was standing at the other end of the truck, near the opposite door the truck driver had come out of…and there was blood near the wheel. Lots of it.
Savior barely noticed his teammate's approach. His face was very grim, and Scalpel's expression mirrored it. There was a lot of steam and mangled metal in the way, but…
"OH GOD!!!!!!!!!!!" Terra shrieked as she saw what was left of Cauterize, the body twirled and tangled around the wheel, a shredded arm and neck twisted 180 degrees poking from the wreckage of the wheel well…
Savior heard Terra turn and lose her lunch behind him, as Beast Boy both tried to comfort her and not join her in the act of puking. Savior's own stomach was roiling, but he fought it down. Scalpel was a doctor: he had seen worse.
"Oh god…not right…not right…" Savior heard Terra whimpering behind him.
Savior stared at the ruin of truck and vigilante, wondering what to do.
"I doubt they'll worry about scene contamination." Scalpel said, as if reading his mind. Savior didn't reply at first, but after several seconds he gave a grim nod and reached out his hands.
It took forty seconds to pry Cauterize's body from the wheel, and all they got was most of the torso with unidentifiable organs tangling from the ruin where the legs and lower stomach had once been (Savior heard vomiting again, and he assumed Beast Boy had lost his own battle). The left arm, the bone pulped and barely hanging on, dangled downward, and the chest had been ripped open, shattered rips poking through what had once been a heart and lungs. As Savior watched, a bit of bone snapped off and fell on the ground: looked like a chunk of spinal column.
But somehow, the helmet had stayed on, and the glass hadn't broken, though the neck had nearly been twisted off. Savior was worried, as his strands gently grabbed the head, that it was going to fall off the second Savior tried to right it. It didn't, but the wet popping noise almost made Savior lose control of his own gorge as he laid the body down.
He breathed out through his nostrils, as Terra and Beast Boy, holding each other, came up behind him. Savior glanced at Scalpel, and then he reached down and pulled the helmet off.
Silence.
"Oh god." Terra said, bringing her hand to her mouth. "Toby."
Though half of his skull had been caved in, there was no mistaking the face, as the brown eyes of Toby Garigen, now forever frozen in a look of utter horror, stared back up at the Titans.
There was silence again, as the Titans took in the man behind Cauterize's helmet, the man who seemed to have indeed found a great power in his quest to return to his peak, a power he had used to kill and destroy, perhaps so in the end people would pay attention to him.
"I guess sometimes it is the most likely suspect." Scalpel said quietly.
Savior had no answer, as he heard sirens in the distance and saw the endless void peering out from a track runner's ruined visage.
To Be Concluded